Lockjaw
I was five, the youngest of six, and naive.
My older brother, thirteen, thought he knew everything.
He wanted to take me for a ride to the store on his bike.
Being five and naive, I trusted him completely.
It was July, and the noonday sun beat down, unmercifully.
So down the dirt road we went, neither of us with a care.
Halfway there, the bike came to an abrupt stop.
It overturned, and Kenneth was tossed off his perch.
I stayed with the bike but not by choice.
It so happened my foot was lodged in the spokes.
Did I mention that I was barefoot?
The spokes gnawed angrily at my right ankle.
To make things worse a truck came lumbering up the road.
Kenneth commenced yanking at my leg in a panic,
Trying to pull both me and his bicycle from the path
Of the oncoming truck that kept heading toward us.
So happens, it was was Ezra Childers, our neighbor,
And he wouldn’t have hurt a fly if he could help it.
Ezra stopped and helped take my foot out of the spokes.
He was a lot easier on me, but it still hurt a lot.
Then he put me in his truck and took me home.
Once we got there, he even carried me into the house.
It scared Mother when she saw the blood on me.
But Ezra explained exactly what had happened.
Then she filled a wash pan with clean water
And washed all the dirt and blood off my foot and leg.
By the time she’d gently wrapped my foot, I was asleep.
******************
It wuhdn't long 'fore Daddy come home from work,
And Mother, she tol' 'im the kind o' day it'd been.
The vairy minute she'd finished tellin’ ‘im,
He stomped to the kitchen winder and grabbed a-hold o’
The bottle o’ Mathisolate Mother used fer wounds.
(I couldn’t say Merthiolate when I wuz a little boy).
Mother said, “Jack! What’re ye gonna do with that?”
Daddy snarled jist a bit and said, “Pour it on ‘es foot!”
With that, he poured the whole bottle on my ankle.
My scream, hit wuz more like a wildcat than a human bein’.
Mother squalled, “Jack, yer gonna give him lockjaw!”
Daddy said, “Be quiet. I ain’t gonna do no sech a-thang.”
But I screamed louder over gittin’ lockjaw than I did pain.
All my life I’d been warned 'bout the dangers of lockjaw:
“Ye step on a rusty nail, ye might git lockjaw;
Ye go a-wadin’ in the creek, and ye might git lockjaw;
Do this er do that, then ye might git lockjaw;
Iffin ye breathe in a real deep breath . . . Lockjaw!”
Kenneth, he wuz settin’ on the back porch real quiet-like,
His feet and legs wuz danglin’ off the sides, and 'ez laughin’
Cause I’m gonna git lockjaw, and it ain’t nary bit his fault.
Is that what it’s like bein’ thirteen an’ thankin’ ye know it all?
©️ Copyright 2023 By David Lee Thompson
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