The orange was there on the table in plain sight and I wanted to eat it. I also wanted it cut in half. I had seen my aunts and uncles do that many times. It was simple. Anybody could do it, right? Sure they could. So, I got a big sharp knife from the drawer. Papa kept all our knives razor sharp.
I placed the orange in the palm of my hand and started stroking the knife in a downward slicing movement. Nothing to it.
“Wait, something is dreadfully wrong. Orange juice is not supposed to be red,” I said to myself as I made one more stroke with the knife. Many times in my life I have heard my grandfather in conversation with his cronies say to them that if you get cut with a sharp knife, it will not hurt. All the men would nod in agreement and mutter quietly, “Yes, that’s so true.” Well, I am here to tell you that night I completely shattered the “getting cut with a sharp knife not hurting theory” beyond any shadow of doubt. Just ask anyone that heard my screams of pain and fear. Really, just ask anybody in town, because they all heard me. The shifts at the phosphate mill and sawmill knocked off early. It was said that cows for twenty miles around did not give milk for a month, but they exaggerated that. No cow alive can hold all that milk in for more than two weeks.
The town constable ran in the front door of our house to help. As he made his way toward the kitchen where I was screaming, he probably thought he was finally going to see a murder. He got there quickly because he was so familiar with the house. He and I were on a first name basis. Of course I always preceded his first name with “Mr.” The “Mr.” was for respect and because he carried a gun.
He figured that my parents were trying to do me in, but when he saw I was still alive, he grudgingly asked if he could be of any help. Meanwhile, a crowd gathered out front so as not to miss out on any possible mayhem.
My mother came running into the kitchen where I was and immediately passed out and fell to the floor when she saw all the blood. “Wow, she is really worried about me,” I thought. Mother fainted for two reasons. One, she could not stand the sight of blood, and two, she knew she would have to clean it up by herself.
My grandmother, Mama, being more realistic and having already raised two boys of her own, exclaimed, “My best knife! Boy, you better hope the tip isn’t broken off that knife or I will really give you something to cry about.” Bless her heart. She cared so much about me.
My Aunt Jackie, being single at the time was out on a date. I guess she heard the screams or the gleeful gossip about someone finally giving the Stevens boy his comeuppance by doing him in with a knife. However she heard the news, she made her date bring her home to see if she could save me.
Now in those days people did not run to the doctor for little bitty cuts and scrapes. Our family, like everybody else, poured coal oil on it and wrapped a rag around it. If the cut was serious, a clean rag was used.
Thank God for my Aunt Jackie, she was the only one in the house at the time who truly loved me. She saw how my serious my injury was, and after she was finished throwing up, insisted that I be taken to a doctor.
Aunt Jackie had her date rush me to the nearest doctor, which was in Columbia. That is one doctor visit I will never forget as long as I live. Aunt Jackie was a really good-looking girl and her dates did pretty much whatever she asked. I don’t remember how much I bled on her date’s car, but I don’t think that guy ever came back around our way.
Old Doc Bennett, as we called him, was the man who brought me into the world. I was taken into the examining room still wailing at the top of my lungs. Aunt Jackie held me on her lap. Since I was bleeding, I had priority among the folks ahead of me. I am sure they were glad to be rid of the wailing. Two strong men took me from Aunt Jackie, carried me in to the doctor’s office, and placed me on the examining table. The men stayed to assist the doctor by holding me down. Each held an arm and a leg. The men wore masks, but it was not germs or bacteria they feared. They did not want me to recognize them. They believed the threats I uttered with every breath. Too bad I did not know how to curse. It would have been a very fitting addition to the situation.
How dare there not be an adult around to cut oranges for me whenever I wanted them! Boy, did I show them. I had bloodied the orange, knife, kitchen, and the car that took me to the doctor. Aunt Jackie’s clothes would never come clean, and the doctor’s office looked like a battlefield hospital. That was a lot of blood and still I did not pass out much to the disappointment of my handlers.
OK, so now I was going to get sewed up. I calmed down a little. I knew about stitches and the wonderful scars they produced like the ones on Frankenstein’s face. I knew could take it or at least thought I could take it. I had seen westerns every Saturday morning. When the cowboys became friends with the Indians, they were made blood brothers. After cutting the palm of their hands like I had done, the Indian and the cowboy clasped them together to mix the blood. They never cried, made a sound, or even a grimace. So, I pretended I was being made a blood brother. There were never any Indians around when you needed them.
This night, however, held something very special for me. I heard the word “clamps” whispered by the doctor. Aunt Jackie nodded, and turned paler. The men tightened their grip on my arms and legs. They darn near cut off the circulation to my hands and feet as they tightened up considerably on my wrists and legs. Was that a jerk I felt from the men holding me at the mention of “clamps?”
Now, I did not know what the word “clamps” meant, but I knew I was not going to like them and boy, was I right. Doc Bennett took out a long pair of what looked like electrician’s pliers with funny curved jaws on the business end. With one hand, he kind of squeezed the skin of my palm together. Then he put the jaws of the pliers onto the sliced part of my hand.
I was about to say something cute like, “Do your worst! You’ll never make me talk!” when he squeezed the handles together and installed the first clamp. I screamed bloody murder. That was the loudest scream anybody had ever heard or ever will again.
All the mill hands rushed back to the mill because they thought somebody blew the emergency steam whistle. Imagine their disappointment when they heard it was only the Stevens boy, and he was still alive. They did have some satisfaction when they heard that I was cut bad. One of the men that knew me asked, “Who cut him, his ma or pa?” Some of the men, grown men they were too, actually winced when they heard the word “clamps.”
I don’t know how long it took to get those six clamps put in, but it seemed like it was hours. I was weak and limp after the ordeal, but not too limp to ask Aunt Jackie weakly, “Since I did not get my orange, maybe some ice cream would make me feel better.”
Bless her heart, she fell for it. She got me a big ole double scoop cone of drugstore chocolate ice cream on the way home. She always did like me best. “Aunt Jackie?” I asked with a weak raspy voice.
“Yes, dear. What is it?”
“Who were the two nice men helping us in the doctor’s office?”
Oh, by the way, later I found out that the tool that Doc Bennett used on me was indeed an electrician’s crimping tool left over from when he used to be an electrician.