THE TRASHMAN (18 page)

I didn’t want to think it could be the plague. Not my children. “Could it be something they ate?”

“Oh Ralph, I wish it was. I’m going back up. Finish here and come to the house.”

I tried to pay attention to the three remaining trout, but my heart wasn’t in it. I buried the carcasses in the sand, cleaned the table and knife, and carried with me the platter of fillets I cut before Becky came with the news about Will. I put the platter into the refrigerator and went down the hall to Will’s room.

“How’re you feeling, champ?” I placed my hand on his forehead. Becky was right about him having a high temp.”

“I don’t feel good,” he said as I bent to examine his flushed face and glazed reddened eyes.

“Do you hurt anywhere?”

“No, but I don’t feel like getting out of bed. I’m hot, too, but if I take the covers off I get cold.”

Becky came into the room with a cold glass of instant orange drink. “Drink all of this,” she told Will.

She took my hand and led me to Jennifer’s room. Jen was sitting at a desk playing with her paper dolls, the kind you can change the clothing from an assortment of cutouts.

“Jen, you need to drink the juice,” Becky told her.

My daughter turned to reply and I saw her eyes were glassy too.

“I’m not thirsty, Mommy. I’ll drink it in a while.” She turned back to her dolls.”

Becky whispered, “I checked her temperature and Will’s when I came back up. Hers is 100 and Will’s is 102.”

We went to the kitchen and prayed and then prayed some more.

Will began coughing after supper. At supper, he didn’t feel like eating. At first, it wasn’t much of a deal, a few occasional hacks. By midnight, it was an almost nonstop cough. At first, he would cough up a small bit of phlegm, but by morning, he was expelling sticky gobs of spit with every episode. Becky had left my side to be with Jennifer. Will finally either fell asleep or passed out from exhaustion. I placed his head on its side and propped it in place with pillows before going to check on the girls.

The sound of Jen’s coughing was louder in the hall. She was awake and saw me enter her room. She stretched out her little arms for me. Becky was sitting in a chair asleep, her head lying on Jen’s mattress.

I lifted my baby girl from the bed and hugged her to me, her head resting on my shoulder. I patted her tiny back in the hope of easing her choking, coughing spasms. I spoke gentle words of love as I paced the floor.

Becky woke and stood. “Oh God, I fell asleep. I’m so sorry.” She reached to take Jennifer. Her eyes were bloodshot and she looked worn out.

“Get some rest darling. I’ll take her in with Will. He’s asleep… exhausted. You are, too.”

She didn’t argue with me, simply turned, and trudged to our bedroom.

I sat in the chair beside Will’s bed, holding my precious girl and watching my boy choking and coughing while he slept. Eventually, Jen fell asleep. I laid her on the bed and arranged her face to the side as I had Will’s and then went to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. I poured a cup that I nearly dropped. I’d heard a deeper cough and knew it wasn’t the children.

Becky was sitting in bed with her back against the wall. She hacked and then pointed at the cup I held.

“I’d like one, too.”

I returned to the kitchen and made her a cup, adding the spoon of creamer and the packet of sweetener. To say I was in shock would be a misstatement. I was terrified. I took the coffee to her and then pulled a chair from the desk to sit near.

She looked at me and began crying. “Sam and his family won’t be coming. We’ve got the plague and they do, too. The J’s were right to run from us. Oh, Ralph. If it was just me, I’d be okay with this, but my babies. Oh God, Ralph! My babies!

“I’m bringing them in here,” I said. “We’ll all be together.”

I carried Will to our bed and placed him beside Becky. I know I woke him because his blood red eyes opened, but he didn’t try to speak. His small chest muscles were too weakened to heave and all he could do was hack. It seemed every third hack expelled a gob of mucus.

I went back for Jennifer and laid her on Becky’s other side. Jen was awake and compared to Will, alert, but she was too busy coughing to speak. Becky set her cup on the nightstand and used both hands to pet and comfort them.

“How are you feeling, Ralph?”

“I’m tired and my side hurts, but I don’t feel sick.”

“Maybe you won’t get it. Maybe you’re immune.”

“I don’t know,” was all I could think to say. “Are you hungry, can I get you anything?”

Her reply was interrupted by a spell of hacking and she just shook her head, wiping at the spit on her lips with her fingers. I went to the kitchen for a roll of paper towels and gave her one.

“Thanks. Listen, I’ve probably got a few hours before it gets worse. Go to the living room and get some rest.”

“I’d rather…”

“Go, Ralph. I’ll need you later. Please get some rest.”

I left the room, went to the living room, and sat in the recliner. I could hear my family coughing and choking. I knew I couldn’t rest there. I grabbed a pillow and blanket from the hall closet, and went outside to lie on the porch.

It was chilly, but not cold. I rolled into the blanket with my head on the pillow. I was drained from the long day and night. I fell asleep.

I woke with no idea how much time had passed. I had a vague recollection the morning sun was just breaching the tops of the trees when I lay down; now the sun was higher, almost vertical.

I wanted to run straight into the house, but my bladder demanded a delay. Again, I found resting caused my side to stiffen and it was a struggle to gain my feet. For the first time, tightening my abdomen to pee caused my side to hurt too. That worry was minor. Pain or not, I forced the piss out and zipped as I hustled to the door.

As soon as I went in, I could hear Becky’s heavy coughing. I entered the bedroom. Becky took a rattling breath, put a finger to her lips and then pointed at Will. I went closer. His face was turned on its side. He wasn’t breathing. I saw the puddle of phlegm mixed with blood by his mouth. Will, my son was dead. I cast my eyes on my wife. Tears had begun to stream down her face. She started to say something, but another round of coughing delayed her.

Finally, laboriously, she drew another breath, “He’s gone, Ralph, and I’m glad. He was in too much pain and too scared. He couldn’t tell me he was, but it was in his eyes.”

I went to the other side of the bed. Jen was still alive but her color was grayish and her little chest barely moved. I could hear sputum gurgling in her throat. Her eyes were closed.

I waited through a round of coughing and then Becky said, “She’ll be gone soon and I won’t be far behind her.”

Every word Becky said sounded as though there was a cough just waiting to come out. I couldn’t imagine the torment she was in, not only from the death of our son and the coming death of Jennifer, but the physical pain as well. The racking coughing spells were so strong it seemed she’d rattle apart. She dabbed her mouth with a paper towel and I could see globules of blood on it.

She didn’t try to speak anymore. I wanted to be closer to her. She waved me away when I began to move William to make room to be beside her.

I sat in the chair and watched, first my daughter and then my wife go to join my son. Not long after sunset, Becky drew her last real breath, pointed a finger at herself, at her heart and then me. She slumped and went comatose. Nothing I did to revive her worked. An hour later, her chest stopped rising.

I stayed in the room the rest of the night, keeping the light on so I could see them during the wakeful moments of my fitful sleep. Dawn came, and I left.

It took me most of the day to dig a wide shallow grave. I carried William and then Jennifer to the site near the edge of the forest in front of the house. I lay them on each edge so I could place their mother between them.

With my side messed up, I knew I couldn’t carry Becky. I lashed her to a set of hand trucks from the garden shed and rolled her to the grave. I undid the bindings, and then realized I had to move Jennifer so I wouldn’t have to roll Becky over her.

That’s when my real crying started. By the time I placed and arranged them and scooped by hand every ounce of dirt to cover their bodies, my tear ducts were empty, but still I cried.

I patted the mound of dirt, shaping it smoothly into three low humps. I sat a few minutes looking at the grave, looking at the mounds of dirt that signified the remains of my family and cried deeper than before. I shed dry tears until even those were gone.

I had to crawl to the house. My side was on fire and I was having a hard time drawing a breath. Even though there was a cold breeze blowing, I felt hot and knew I had a fever.

I don’t remember entering the house, but I awoke lying on the ceramic tile floor of the living room. The door stood wide open and the air inside the room was cold. I tried to rise to close the door. Moving caused a fit of coughing that sent a wave of pain from the wound in my side straight to my brain. It hurt so bad that I was virtually paralyzed.

I tried moving again, fighting the urge to cough. I managed to get to my feet and shut the door. I knew I needed to lie down, but the thought of any of the bedrooms was out of the question.

The blanket and pillow I used previously were on a chair. I gathered those and staggered to the couch. I knew I was coming down with the plague and would soon join my family in heaven. I wrapped myself in the blanket and lowered myself onto the cushions. Lying down took some doing and a lot of pain. As my head touched the pillow, I cried out, “Come take me, Lord. Take me to my family.”

*****

He didn’t take me. I lay on the couch, coughed and hacked. My fever waxed and waned. I lost my blanket to the floor but was in too much pain to recover it. I suffered through the chills knowing the fever would chase them away.

Every time I coughed or hacked, my side would send waves of pain that hurt worse than my worn out lungs and chest muscles. I went through the same symptoms as Becky, Will, and Jen. But I didn’t die. I don’t know for sure how long I lay on the couch because part of the time I was delirious.

I do remember crawling to the refrigerator and getting bottled water, but that’s all I remember until I woke to the sound of men talking. I was still lying on the kitchen tiles, so weak I was unable to roll over to see who was there. I was able to hack though, but it was more a feeble clearing of the throat.

“Ain’t nobody back here,” a man shouted from a bedroom.

“This one must have buried them in the grave out front. He’s in the last stages of the plague,” the man who was in the kitchen with me shouted back. “I doubt he’ll last the day.”

I wanted to speak, but each attempt only instigated another fit of choking and hacking. I heard another set of footsteps on the tiles.

“You wanna search the place?”

“Naw, just be a waste of time for slim pickings. No truck or car. If they came on foot, they didn’t have much with them. I say we burn the place.”

“Can’t. The woods are too dry. You’d have us running from a forest fire. Bradford would have our hides if we started a fire.”

“In the bedroom there was a picture of him with a woman and a coupl’a kids. The woman was a looker. If she wasn’t dead, I’d a hit that pussy. We ought ‘ta shoot this one. Put him out of his misery.”

“Fuck you and wanting to shoot people.”

“Fuck you, too. You’ve shot your share.”

“Shoot the fucker then. The ones I shot weren’t lying on a damn floor good as dead already.”

After a long pause, “Naw, let him choke.”

I heard their footsteps leaving and the door slam. There must have been other people waiting outside because one of the men shouted, “Nothing but a choker inside. He won’t last the day. Let’s get back to the road.” A moment later, an engine cranked and the men drove away.

One afternoon, it could have been the same day or any other, I woke thirsty as hell and realized I wasn’t coughing anymore. I tried to stand. The coughing was over but the pain in my side remained.

I used a chair to assist me to my feet and then stumbled to the sink counter. Damn I was thirsty. I drank three full glasses of water, one after the other. I saw my bottle of pills on the counter, opened it and took a triple dose.

After the water, I was ravenous. With no energy to cook, I put two cans of Vienna sausages, a box of crackers and two bottles of water into a plastic grocery bag, and took careful steps to the door and out onto the porch.

I looked at the chairs and knew I wouldn’t be able to sit because of my side. The plank topping the porch rail served as a table. Processed meat never tasted so good. I gobbled down both cans and ate an entire sleeve of crackers.

While I ate, I stared at the grave in front of the house. The fresh dirt looked like an insult to the earth, felt like an insult to me. I swallowed my last bite, drank water, and then lifted my eyes to the blue sky.

I thought I’d rage and scream, but all I did was ask, “Why, Lord? Why take them and leave me behind?” I waited, but no answer came.

I turned so the graves weren’t in my line of vision, and tried to come to terms with my continued existence. I wondered if my survival was caused by taking such large doses of antibiotics before the plague could gain a good hold. I wondered what I was supposed to do now. What was my purpose without a family to be with?

I spent the rest of that day and the next two crying over my loss. I cried, ate, and slept. The third morning my side hurt so much, I knew I had to do something about it. I peeled the bandage away and what I saw made me think I might be joining my family after all.

There was an infected lump the shape and size of an egg sliced in half lengthwise. The flesh on the sides was red but on the top, under the stitches Becky had put in was a smaller bump with a whitish color. I knew the lump was full of pus. In a kitchen drawer, I found a small paring knife with a sharp point. I used the flame of a range burner to sterilize it.

With my back against a counter, I placed the tip of my improvised lance against the white top of the lump. I moved the knife in and out from the wound, checking my aim. I decided on a three count.