Chapter 3: The Turtlehead

She stopped farther away this time, but still in earshot, and listened to a whole new sequence of bitter cursing. After a couple of minutes passed, she heard a loud thump, and Dale was suddenly silent.

She expected to hear him call her name again, but there was only silence.

After two more minutes, she couldn’t stop herself. What had happened?

Lynn poked her head into the room, then covered her mouth with her hand, disbelieving what she saw.

Dale was partially on the floor; his feet were awkwardly twisted in the blankets up in the bed, while the rest of him was down on the rug. She saw he was stuck sideways with his shoulder and arm beneath him in an obviously uncomfortable position. His back was against the side of the mattress and box spring, and one hand was squeezing his dick.

“You need help?”

This was a profoundly stupid question, but he couldn’t object.

“I need the urinal or the pan, right now! Or else I’m going to pee on the rug. Please!”

The bedpan was in front of him but turned the wrong way, so she rotated it and watched as he released his grip and peed noisily into the metal pan. Then she looked at his face.

Dale was crying! She just realized it; he was controlling himself and not making any sounds, just leaking tears. He wasn’t even sniffling.

“I’ll pull your feet loose so you can get flat; I can put the bedpan underneath, and you can go number two.”

“It’s too late for that.”

The smell hit her then, and she looked back at his face. His expression was showing that he felt utterly defeated.

“I’m going to need your help. I have to lay flat on my face here while you clean me. I’m too heavy for you to get me back into the bed. You and the kids will need to work together to lift me back onto the mattress. After that, my clothing is a total loss; it should just go in double trash bags and put in the cans outside.”

“I understand, Dale.”

Her tone was cold, she sounded like the vocational nurses who had the less-pleasant tasks of caring for him in the hospital.

“Lynn, I’m sorry. This is my fault; I will try to cooperate better with you.”

She spent the next hour attending to him, starting with wiping clean his gooey asshole and butt. She spoke only to give him instructions without any warmth in her voice. It was as if she was a health care employee instead of a family member.

By the time she was finished, he wished Lynn had been yelling at him. She went into the kitchen to fetch their children, and the three of them managed to wrangle him up onto the mattress where he could rest. They, too, did not speak to him, nor did they respond when he thanked them as they left.

His wife stood up to leave. He tried once more to apologize.

“I’m sorry, Lynn; please forgive me.”

She turned her back and left without acknowledging him.