Stitches (Cape Town, South Africa)

I had just said my final goodbyes to everybody at the Sunday night church service at Lafayette Heights Baptist Church and had just walked back in my house when someone knocked on our garage screen door. My Bible and Bible notepad had just made a plop on my unmade teenage bed.

I made a quick U-turn returning to the door and saw the wife of Deacon James standing outside in the dark. I took off the hook and opened the screen door while at the same time switching on the florescent light in the garage. We usually kept the light off because it drew moths and mosquitoes.

She held out an envelope “Here is the check for the damages to your car,” she said sheepishly.

I smiled and stepped outside in bare feet. We laughed nervously. She was paying for accidentally backing up into my parents’ car – while I was the driver. It ended up being the only car accident that wasn’t my fault.

“I tried to give this to you before you left church, but you left so fast.”

I motioned in genuinely. “You want to come in?”

“No, no. I just wanted to make sure you got this.”

“Excellent sermon Brother Paul gave tonight, don’t you think?” I asked her.

She nodded. And we stood there quiet. She was usually a shy woman with very few words and she was starting to already blush because of the situation. “Well, I better be going.”

“Yes ma’m. Thank you for coming by,” and with that I turned around. When I got beside the screen door, I saw the look of horror on her face. That’s when I tasted something warm running in my eyes and across the corner of my mouth. I could taste the iron.

“My goodness! You are bleeding!” she said.

That’s when I saw the hook sticking out and a meaty chunk of my skin from my forehead still hanging on it. Then the stinging began.

She pushed inside. “Where is your mother?”

I yelled out, “Mom! Mom!”

My mom came up the stairs from her sewing room in a panic. “What? What?”

That’s when she saw my face covered in blood. “Shit! What happened to you?” That’s when she noticed Deacon James’ wife. And she bit her lip. My mom didn’t go to church and felt it wasn’t necessary to go to a house of worship to talk to God. But she did respect Lafayette Heights Baptist Church and how it kept me out of trouble. So did what she could to keep the cuss words to a minimum. My mom already well versed with my accidents – was already dipping a cloth in the sink. Deacon James’ wife directed me to my mom.

And there in the kitchen – the two worked on my forehead.

“You two are dangerous around each other!” my mom joked.

Deacon James’ wife laughed but was crimson in the face now.

“First the car wreck and now this!”

When the blood had been cleared away – I saw in the mirror in the kitchen the deep, deep gash in my head just below my hairline.

“Looks like you are going to need stitches,” my mom said as she would dab the bubbles of blood that would pool up and out. “Damn!” she said aloud. Then again bit her lip remembering the sensitive ears of Deacon James’ wife.

“What?” I yelled out in fear.

“Your dad has the insurance card. We have to go to the Piggly Wiggly and get it,” and with that my mom started gathering her keys and putting her purse together. “What happened?”

Deacon James’ wife spoke up, “He came out to talk to me in the garage and when he walked up the steps back in the house it looks like the hook for the door caught him in the head.”

“I didn’t feel anything, but now it burns bad.”

My mom started ushering me back to the back garage door where the accident occurred – and she was switching off lights as she went. As we came near the door, Deacon James’ saw the envelope with the check for the car damages on the floor. She picked it up and handed it to my mother. “I brought this.”

My mom took it as if it was a prepared sequence and stuffed it into her purse. Her fingers were jingling the car keys already.

The Alabama summer never felt so humid as I waited for my mom to lock the doors to the house. My mom explained the plan, “I am going to stop by the Piggly Wiggly, get the insurance card, and then head to East Alabama Medical Center.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Deacon James’ wife asked.

My mom smiled and put her hand on her shoulder. “No. Don’t worry. It was not your fault. It just seems that Gary is accident proned around you. Maybe you are bad luck for one another.”

The ladies seemed to laugh.

The trek across Lafayette, Alabama seemed to hit all three stop lights just when they had turned red. And with each abrupt stop, my head seemed to burn fiercer. The white cloth was now completely soiled in my blood.

The Piggly Wiggly store lights were off and the parking lot was empty – except for my dad’s car and another car I didn’t recognize. I looked to my mom who recognized the other car right away. “What’s her car doing here?”

My mom parked right up front in the yellow lined handicap and loading zone. My mom went to the door pulling on me to follow. We went up to the automatic glass doors – which were now locked shut. My mom rapped her keys hard on the glass. I thought she would break the glass.

That’s when I saw my dad emerge from the produce room – in a frazzle. He was genuinely shocked and looked a bit disoriented. His shirt was untucked and his tie undone.

His eyes seemed to get more fearful when he saw my mom and me – especially with me holding a bloody rag to my forehead. My dad came to the door and twisted his big wad of keys in the door.

“What the hell…?” he said.

Then the produce room door swung out one more time. And there was Beatrice. One of the older attractive cash register ladies coming out – rubbing her hands down her blouse. She was also working her fingers in her hair.

I turned and saw my mom. Her face turned white. And then filled with rage.

“We came to get the insurance card! We are going to the emergency room,” my mom nearly yelled – her eyes never coming off of Beatrice – who caught her glance and actually went back in the produce room.

My dad looked guilty. I never asked him if he was. My mom didn’t say anything then or later. And they never brought it up in front of me again.

But I do know that Beatrice quit my dad’s Piggly Wiggly shortly after – if not the very next day. And I do remember that my dad was more romantic in the next couple of weeks toward my mom. Presents. Flowers. Taking us out to dinner to the Red Lobster more than once in two weeks (which was a record) – my mother complaining I was making people at the other tables nauseous when I refused to wear the white bandage over my pink flesh plus nine stitches.

And my dad proudly saving us some insurance cost when he removed my stitches on his own – bragging about how often he had done it during the Vietnam War working for the Army Hospital in Okinawa.

Although my wound healed beautifully, fidelity became a scar.

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