Chapter 54

She didn’t just disrupt the skin ... the blood was running down the strings.

“Come with me,” I said.

“Bobby, Tommy? Go home. You’ve been here all night.”

I walked Sally over to the house and into the bathroom.

“I hope you need to pee,” I said. “I found this treatment from a scene from a movie, Cool Hand Luke. Hard labor prisoners on road gangs do it to toughen up the hands and heal blisters from swinging grass whips. I was skeptical but it works. Pee on your hands ... both of them.”

She screeched and sobbed and cried, but she did it.

“I have this salve I buy from a belly-dance drummer I know. He makes it to sell to hand drummers. They use it to help toughen the skin.” After she finished, I had her wash her hands and smooth an application of the salve on her hands.

“This has a beeswax base to give the salve body and seal the skin. The jar of wax is infused with a compound of oils of calendula, comfrey, echinacea, chaparral, myrrh, benzoin, tea tree, lavender, jojoba wax and olive oil.”

I wasn’t sure how it would work on open wounds ... she felt immediate relief and that helped ease her apprehension.

I didn’t let her rub it in ... I put her hands in new cotton gloves and told her to call and see if her mom would come and get her ... of course not. Her mom was still pissed at me for being right about the flood ... Parents! Sometimes they get a hair up the ass and there’s no pleasing ‘em.

I wouldn’t let her haul the coal or dust or mop, make the beds or hang the laundry ... the stuff I was paying her to do ... I’m not that mean. She was saving up for college and I was helping when and as I could.

“Sally? Can you sing?”

“Not like you ... but I can carry a tune and harmonize with my sister and mom.”

I keep an old guitar Hairy bought at a divorce sale ... I think he paid twenty-five dollars for it. He had it restrung with Augustine Silver nylon strings and he used to thump on it. The label on the inside had come unglued and it rattled on certain notes ... When I was Dream Taught to play, it went in its case and I forgot about it. I had better and electric. It wasn’t much but it had a good sound.

“You sit ... let me see if I can find Hairy’s old folk guitar. It’s here somewhere.”

“The Manuel Ramirez? It’s in the bunkhouse,” Sally said.

“Now ... how do you know it’s a Ramirez?” I asked.

“I fished out the label and reglued it.”

“In the bunk?”

“Back room ... with the maple dresser,” she said. She jumped up ... I pushed her back on the couch.

“I’ll get it, you’re on sick leave.”

She pouted.

How about that. I had detuned it. No problem, there was a reed tuner in the little compartment in the case. I gathered it up and went back to the cabin.