Thunder In Her Body (53 page)

That evening, after dinner, Blaze began to experience a tightness in his chest.  He kept rubbing it as if he had indigestion.  After downing a couple of antacids, with no apparent relief, his face grew flushed and he began to sweat.

Lynette yelled at BC, “Get the truck, get it now!” she demanded.

She slapped two aspirins in her husband’s mouth, got him into the cab of the truck, and drove like a mad woman toward the Village.  On her cell phone, she called the police and asked them to call the hospital.  She didn’t have that number programmed into her phone.

“Tell them my husband is having a heart attack,” she yelled into the phone.

“You did the right thing, Mrs. Snowdown,” the ER doctor told her after they worked on Blaze.  “We’re going to have to put shunts into a couple of his coronary arteries.  One’s about 90% and another is about 70% occluded also.  With care, some dietary restrictions, rest, and some of the new medicines, he should be alright.  He’ll probably out live us all,” the kind doctor tried to console.

“Merrilynn, there wasn’t time to call you on the way to the hospital,” Lynette explained to her step-daughter once she arrived and consulted with the ER doctor.

“I know.  I read the chart.  Thank you for getting those aspirins in him,” she replied.

“Papa’s strong.  He’ll pull through this all right.  I just don’t want to be the one to tell him he’s going to have to cut back on his beef consumption and the sweets,” she smiled, knowing that some major changes were in store for both her dad and Lynette.

BC sat in the waiting room, looking miserable.  He blamed himself for his father’s heart attack.  Lynette had two jobs that night.  Her first was to make sure her husband wouldn’t worry about her.  She would be the strong one this time, a roll with which she was very comfortable.  The second was to talk to BC and help him understand that a clogged artery occurs over a long period of time.  The heart attack was not totally his fault.  She thought about all the rich food Blaze had insisted on eating.  He loved to eat, he loved her cooking and she cooked to please him.

“What are your plans for this girl?” Lynette asked, as they sat in the waiting room.

“I don’t know mom.  I just found out she was pregnant this weekend.  I haven’t had time to think things through yet,” he said sadly.

“You know we will not support her.  That’s your job.  Instead of going off to college after you graduate, at least as I see it right now, you need to work and help her through this.  She didn’t get that baby in her belly by herself.  She shouldn’t have to go through this pregnancy alone,” Lynette told her son.  She reached over and stroked his raven hair. He was such a beautiful boy.

“You must never question whether your father loves you,” she counseled.  “He’d give his life to keep you safe and free from harm.  It’s your job as a man to do the same for yourself,” she whispered, in the way that a mother does.

Once Blaze was out of surgery and in his own room, Lynette sent BC home.  She would stay with her husband and call BC in the morning.  She would not leave his side.  In the meantime, it was his job to call the family members and tell them what had happened and that Blaze would be fine.  Lynette did not leave the hospital until her husband left with her.  Five days, and some changes of clothes brought to the hospital for her, she walked beside his wheelchair to Aaron’s waiting Cadillac – the newest one.  Clare and Aaron helped put the flowers in the trunk and Blaze got into the back seat with his wife.  He looked tired, but he was happy to be going home.  He tried to make light of his hospital stay, but his face, more than his words, reflected the fright this attack had caused him.

“I’ll take care of you,” she said, kissing him on his forehead.

And take care she did.  In no time, he was back up, and working on the ranch.  She made sure he took his medicine on time, even when he forgot it and she had to drive out somewhere to find him and give him his pills.  He lost a little weight at first, and she prepared meals in a way that assured he’d keep it off.  BC learned a little more about healthy eating, and they all benefited in some ways from his heart attack.  Instead of a half pound of sugar on her candied sweet potatoes, she used only a little sugar and the rest
artificial sweeteners.  Instead of real butter, she used Smart Balance Spread or olive oil.  She cooked with less gravy, not sacrificing any taste, however, and they ate more fish, chicken and turkey than beef and pork.  Blaze balked at the “rabbit food” so Lynette took special pains to make the salads fresh, fancy and filling.  He had a terrible sweet tooth and grumbled when there weren’t cookies and Blue Bell Ice Cream in the kitchen.  Lynette spent a considerable amount of time searching the internet for low-calorie, low-fat and low-salt desserts.  She lucked upon a site and tested some of the recipes, never telling him that these were actually healthy treats, and for the most part, he was satisfied.

About two weeks after he was released from the hospital, he laid on his back in their big bed, with nothing on, stroking himself.  Lynette walked out of the bathroom from a hot soaking bath and stopped in her tracks.  It was a nice sight, but she didn’t know if he was ready to resume
his husbandly duties
, as he liked to call what they still did often.  They were down to once a week now, but then he was 78 years old!

“Hey, how about you
save a horse and ride a cowboy
tonight?” he said with a sly smile.

It was a long, slow, lovely ride.

The next week, Blaze, BC and Lynette arranged to visit the parents of the girl pregnant with BC’s baby.  They let BC say the words that a man should.  He promised to take care of her and the baby, and as soon as he graduated from high school, he would get a job.  In the meantime, he would contribute one-half his monthly allowance to providing whatever she needed during the pregnancy and he would go with her to parenting classes.  Two years ahead of her in school, and an “A” student, he offered to help her with her school work.  Blaze assured the girl’s father, who had no health insurance, that he would pay for the baby’s delivery and any medical expenses which the family would incur during the pregnancy.  No one was happy with this situation, but they calmly addressed the practical issues as best they could.  Marriage was not an option.  She was 15, BC was only 17. They were still children themselves, and they weren’t in love.  They had simply succumbed to the power of teenage lust.  The girl’s parents were incredibly poor, poorly educated and disgusted with their daughter’s choice of boyfriend.  He was an Indian, and Indians were just one step above savages in their estimation.  They considered them unclean, unequal and the girl had disgraced her family by sleeping with one.

Neither Blaze nor Lynette ever voiced it, but they were glad that the girl was not Indian.  To even speak the words would have been racist.  But they thought it.  Native-Americans had enough problems to deal with, without the shame and expense of an unplanned child.
  Their grandchild would be part white, part Indian and part black, Scot, German, Jewish and French.  Surely from that gene pool, it would be a beautiful, healthy person.

That did not come to pass, however.  A phone call from the County Medical Center about a month later, relieved BC from the responsibilities of unwanted fatherhood.

The girl had a miscarriage.  She was about three months pregnant when she fortunately, or unfortunately, spontaneously aborted the baby.  Blaze, Lynette and BC went immediately to the hospital to comfort her and talk with her parents.  To tell the truth, everyone was relieved, especially the girl’s father.  She didn’t have to drop out of school; her parents didn’t have to help raise another child, and they had never been happy that the baby was from an Indian boy.  BC could go on to college; and Blaze and Lynette probably wouldn’t have this lesson to teach BC again.  They again assured the girl’s parents that the hospital bill would be taken care of and they sent flowers.  Blaze docked part of BC’s allowance for three months, not that he needed the money, but he needed to make a lasting impression on his son about consequences.  Being broke – strapped for money was a new and uncomfortable condition for BC.

Blaze sat out in their stable one evening talking to BC about what had just about brought and end to his carefree youth.

“How does it feel to be broke?” he asked his son.

“Feels like shit, dad,” if you’ll pardon the French.

“How much money do you think you could make with only a high school education, a girl friend, wife or whatever, and a baby needing all sorts of things?”

BC held his head down and shook it in disgust.

“Can you imagine what it would be like to have to work two jobs, at not much more than minimum wage, and find yourself broke before the next payday? To be hounded by bill collectors wanting their money right now, not next week.  To live in some pitifully cramped apartment, fighting roaches and rats with things breaking down every time you look around?  To want to give your wife or child necessary things, and have no money to do it?  How do you think a man would feel about that?” he queried.

“Like shit,” he replied again.

“Then until you’re able to support a family, and give them a reasonably good life, you either keep that thing in your pants, or make sure you wear a rubber, and make damned sure the rubber is fresh and doesn’t break.  You’re gonna have lots of opportunities for sex and lots of temptations, especially when you go off to college.  What you stick it in is up to you, but if you do it without protection, you not only risk another incident like you just had, but you risk killing yourself.  Cause son, there’s diseases out there that not even Clorox can’t wash off, and worst of all, you could get AIDS, and despite the advances in medical science, that could spell a death warrant for you.  I’m going to be as blunt as your mother was the other night.  There ain’t a pussy in this world good enough to die for.  Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, Dad, I do.  I’ll be careful from now on, you can trust me on that,” BC replied earnestly.  “This has just about scared me off of wanting to ever have sex again,” he admitted.

Blaze laughed.

“You say that now.  You’re still shaken by everything that’s happened.  But you wait.  You’ll find someone else that you want to be with, and trust me, all the urges and the rise will come back.  Just make sure you don’t let yourself get into a situation where you’re about to make love to some girl without protection.”

There was silence for a long time, as the two men sat on the bales of hay.

“A man can’t love a woman more than I love your mother, and a man can’t want a woman more than I’ve wanted her, and still do.  Even at my age, she can walk past me, or slide into bed next to me, and she turns me into a young man again.  So I know the power of want and need and passion.  Enjoy the feelings that the Creator has given you, but be responsible with them, do you hear me son?” Blaze asked, rubbing his son’s shoulders lovingly.

“I do, Dad; I do,” BC replied, trying to smile.

Before they were married, Blaze had asked Lynette to make
him
her work, and for the most part, she had.  Not a day of their lives together went by that she wasn’t grateful for the privilege of being Mrs. Snowdown, Blaze’s wife.  Within the first year of their marriage she had given only a few seminars and after that, gave up her business altogether.  One special night, several months after they married, she took
him
out to dinner.  She insisted on paying for everything and when they returned home, and started to climb into bed, there was an envelope on Blaze’s pillow.  In it was seven thousand five-thousand dollars in $500 dollar bills.

“What the heck is this?” he asked, turning around to her with a puzzled look on his face.

“You supplemented me for my lost earnings.  I don’t require that anymore,” she said, smiling proudly. “You’re my work, and I don’t need to get paid for that job.  I love the job, and I love you,” she said, settling down beside him on the edge of the bed.

Throughout the years she had done volunteer work in the community, taking BC with her as a teaching mechanism.  It was just in her nature to do it.  She worked with the county Battered Women’s Center, giving counsel to women who found themselves in such a situation.  She helped them relocate or set up an apartment on their own, if they chose to stay in the area; or she referred them to other, out-of-town facilities with which she’d become familiar.  Occasionally, she drove the women and their children herself.  As a sponsor for the football team, Lynette rode on the back of those yellow school buses as a chaperone, bouncing along the dusty New Mexico highways.  She’d also found time to help out at the Senior Center and she was always called on for donations and assistance with charity bake sales.  Her peach cobblers had become legendary and she made a wicked rum pound cake.  When needed, she fostered homeless animals.  People around there didn’t seem to grasp the importance of spaying and neutering their pets so there were always more to help.   But now, her work really would be her husband.  She would do everything in her power to make his remaining years, fulfilled and peaceful.