There’d been so many boxes of medical supplies in the U-Haul that they’d left a few bags of stuff out in the Traverse in case they needed it. They’d figured it was worth the risk of it being stolen to have some in the car in case they executed a quick getaway. That bet was paying off now. Out of the massive haul of supplies they’d dragged into the house all they’d run out to the garage with was what they were carrying or had shoved into their backpacks. The other gear in the car was extra stuff they’d thought it’d be nice to have like a box of canned food and some gallon jugs of purified water. The crazy way Yue was driving Drew was thinking they were going to be losing the car pretty soon too. Then they’d really be down to what they could carry.
In one of the bags there was a finger splint kit. It wasn’t meant for pinkies, but it was way better than taping a pencil to his brother’s finger and hoping for the best. Yue had suggested a popsicle stick, but it wasn’t like they had a box of popsicles sitting in the trunk. Drew casually knocked the pencil away from the roll of white tape he’d found and opened the package for the splint. He spent some time trying to decipher the directions then just went with what the little pictures were showing. It wasn’t like the directions were super helpful anyway. Lawyers tend to have more input into the directions on medical packaging than doctors. It’s more about protection from liability than actually healing people.
“What do the directions say?” LeBron said pulling his hand back behind him and away from Drew.
“That we should call 911 or take you to an emergency room.” Drew said scooting across the bench seat closer to LeBron who continued to scoot away from him until he was pressed up against the side of the car.
“Should we wake up dad?” LeBron gasped in obvious physical pain. The finger was starting to swell up already. Waking up Bart was the smart play. As a retired Sherriff who’d spent most of his life as a law enforcement professional in one capacity or another their dad was a trained first responder. If anybody in the car was going to know what to do about LeBron’s dangling pinkie it was him. However, their dad had just slept through them slamming into trees and firing shotguns at monsters hanging off their roof. Drew wasn’t really sure they could wake him up.
“I’ll give it a try but if he doesn’t wake up, we need to try out this splint. We can always fix it once dad wakes up if we do something wrong.” Drew said climbing into the backseat and nudging their dad on the shoulder.
“Yesh.” Bart slurred struggling to open his eyes. Yue had pretty much roofied the poor guy.
“LeBron broke his pinkie. We have a splint. What do we need to do?” Drew asked. He was enunciating each word clearly and loudly like he was trying to explain to someone who didn’t speak English very well and also happened to be slightly deaf. Bart sat up.
“Show me.” He said. His eyes focusing for a minute or two while he poked at LeBron’s finger completely ignoring LeBron’s howls of pain. He nodded and started to lie back down and go back to sleep.
“Well?” Drew asked nudging him some more.
“Put ice on it. Tape it to another finger or splint it the way it should go. Get him to the ER.” Bart said with his eyes already closed. He was back asleep before Drew could come up with any follow-up questions. Seeing how his dad had pretty much echoed the directions under the drawings on the informative paper that came with the splint Drew decided it was go time. Disregarding the rest of the size one font instructions he grabbed LeBron’s wrist and pulled it over so he could take a look at it.
Cringing on the inside he moved the top of the pinkie back to where it should be. The pinkie was flopping around while he tried to put the splint on. It was messed up enough that Drew could feel his stomach getting upset. He’d sprained his fingers and hurt himself plenty of times in wrestling and football but what LeBron had managed to do surpassed anything Drew had ever seen.
“Be careful! It hurts!” LeBron yelled at him. Yue chose that moment to run over some kind of big hump in the road causing Drew to bang LeBron’s broken finger around. That resulted in a lot of cursing and LeBron getting some impressively large tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Sorry!” Yue called from up front. She was busy driving them through the Armageddon that was the small downtown area of the town next to them. Drew looked around and saw that he needed to hurry up with LeBron’s finger because there could very well be more pressing matters popping up any second.
“No time to screw around bro! This is going to hurt.” Drew said grabbing LeBron’s hand again. LeBron took a deep breath and steeled himself for the pain. Once he looked ready enough Drew readjusted the pinkie to where he thought it should go. Hurrying before LeBron could snatch his hand away again, he splinted the pinkie and the finger next to it together. He wrapped it all up with a generous amount of tape and declared it
