Stiff as a Board

Family drama flash fiction

They wheeled him out of the house restrained to a gurney. He struggled against the weight of the thick leather straps, writhing his body so vigorously that the paramedics had to flank both sides of the stretcher to keep him from tipping it over.  The chief of police came out the front door holding an empty bottle of Jack Daniels in each hand.  He ambled down the steps with a slight limp and slowly made his way over to my uncle who was flopping like a fish on the cutting table. 

“Did you drink both of these today, Johnny?” he asked.

“Let me go, you piece of s**t!” Johnny screamed at no one in particular. 

The chief sighed and looked up at the paramedics.  Their bright white shirts were saturated with sweat in the unseasonably warm March morning.

“Take him to down to the hospital before the stupid son of a b***h hurts himself,” he said, halfheartedly waving his arm at my uncle.  “I’m frankly tired of his bullshit.”  

The head paramedic opened the back door of the ambulance and began prepping the mobile IV unit.  The other white shirts lowered the gurney to the ground and stepped to the other side of the ambulance to grab a quick smoke before they set off.  My uncle’s resistance faltered and his damnations turned to soft sobs as he baked in the punishing sun.

I watched as the chief talked to my grandfather �" a conversation they’d had before and were certain to have again.  Years earlier, when I was fourteen, Johnny held a double-barreled shotgun to his boss’s head because he thought there was something fishy about the way he looked at my aunt.  It took the police chief and my grandfather twenty minutes to talk him down.  For the time being, Harold Brown got to keep his head. 

After he got out of jail, nobody in our family ever spoke a word about it again.  Harold Brown’s daughter rode my school bus.  A few weeks after the incident I heard her tell Sandy Becker that she and her mom have been staying with a friend and her mom cries a lot.  Maybe there was more truth in Johnny’s accusation than we thought.  Two weeks later, on Christmas Eve, Harold Brown sat at his kitchen table, closed his trembling lips around the open end of a pistol, and finished what my uncle started.

I always wondered if Johnny thought about Harold Brown as he laid there, strapped to a board, reeking of booze and sweat. If so, he gave no indication.  He remained frozen in place, sobbing and moaning for about five minutes before he regained his strength.  He began to thrash and scream again, this time making demands.

“I need my hat and sunglasses.  Give me my hat and sunglasses, goddamnit.”

Tears were streaming down his face showing evidence of an immense struggle.  The paramedics stomped on their cigarettes and made their way toward the gurney.  I could see a smirk on the face of the head paramedic as he jumped down from the back of the ambulance and latched open the doors. 

“I need my hat and sunglasses.  Just give me my hat and sunglasses.”

“We’re going to lift you up now, Johnny.  Don’t fight it or you’ll just make things worse,” the head paramedic said.

“I need… give me… my hat,” he whimpered as the paramedics counted to three and lifted in unison. 

My grandfather, who had disappeared into the house, rushed to Johnny’s side holding a pair of aviators and a Fillmore Trucking hat.  He slid the glasses onto Johnny’s face and strapped the hat on his head, taking care to make sure his long unwashed hair was pushed neatly behind his ears.

“Is she coming back, Dad?” Johnny asked in a quiet, half-whisper.

“I don’t know, John.  I don’t know.” My grandfather squeezed his hand as the paramedics slid him into the back of the ambulance and closed the doors.  I put an arm around my grandfather, who stood at the end of the sidewalk, watching as the silent flashing lights of the ambulance sped across the railroad tracks.