To reiterate her point, Tommy came into the room with a Twinkie clamped in a pair of salad tongs. He pushed me over a little to the side so that his Twinkie could get some heat.
“Am I in your way Tommy?” I said with good-humored sarcasm.
“A little bit Mr. T, could you move a skosh?”
I laughed. “Yeah I figured it was time to get some of these clothes off anyway.”
“Great!” Tommy said, never taking his eyes off his cold prize. “You were kind of in the way.”
I stood up and like I expected, my knee let it be known about its condition. I wondered how a Percocet would interact with a Viagra. I couldn’t see the sense of having a hard on I could slam in a door. I involuntarily crossed my legs at the errant thought.
“You alright Mike?” Tracy asked.
“Yeah just my knee.” Although it was obvious from my gesture that wasn’t the cause.
“Maybe you should get that checked out.”
Again obviously she was talking about my knee but when I answered I was thinking completely about something a little closer to my belt line. “Yeah you’re right, I’d definitely like to get that checked out.” My lascivious leer almost gave me away as Tracy looked questioningly at me.
I shuffled out of the room like someone double my age and half hopped, half pulled myself up the stairs to the old room Tracy and I used whenever we came to visit. Which hadn’t actually been in a few years now that I thought about it. Not since Everett had died to be specific. Sure Tracy and Carol talked almost daily but that’s not the same as basic human contact. Again I marveled at how she had survived so well in such an inhospitable place all by herself. In point of fact, it was most likely the reason she had survived was because she was in such a place.
I finally made it to my room, thankful that someone had the presence of mind to bring some of my stuff up here. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot but I had grabbed a crap load of knee braces and ace bandages when we were in the Rite-Aid and I was going to make good use of them now. I was going to have to peel my layers of clothing off like an onion sheds skin before I could do so. My knee was a sorry sight when I finally got down to it. It was black and blue and nearly double the size of its brother. I gingerly wrapped it in two ace bandages. The elastic knee brace I had snagged would not stretch large enough to accommodate the swelling. I knew I needed to put ice on it but after my near death by popsicle-experience today I couldn’t even begin to imagine placing frozen water anywhere on my body.
I took two Tylenol and was immediately thinking about taking something stronger. The pain in my knee was beginning to rage. It was as if the heat from the fire had taken this long to thaw out the half gallon of fluid that surrounded my injured joint. If the pain in my knee was a grizzly bear, the Tylenol was like firing two air soft pellets at it. I dropped onto the bed with the bag of goodies from the pharmacy as pain lanced through my leg. I greedily downed first one and then another pain killer and...then another. I lay like that for at least ten minutes. The pain never truly went away, it just became muted. When I felt I could get up without crying too much, I used the head rail to prop myself up. I was greeted instantly and not so unpleasantly with the fogged over countenance of one under the influence of drugs, which thankfully I was. The pain in my knee was still sharp. On some level I realized that and still I didn’t care.
Unbeknownst to me I had somehow levitated down into the kitchen. Carol looked up from some delicious smelling stew she was preparing.
“Mike you been in my Jack again?”
I’m pretty sure I answered with the ever witty. “The what now?” More likely it came out as. “Duh?”
“You know you’re in your underpants right?” She said pointing her what appeared to be an oversized spoon at me.
“Tightie whities?” I asked hoping that wasn’t the case.
She cocked her head. “Just how much of my booze did you drink Mike?”
“Whitie tighties?” I mumbled, slivers of drool escaping from the corner of my mouth.
“Maybe you should just sit down.” She said as she pulled a chair out from the kitchen table.
I obeyed. Not that standing anymore was becoming much of an option. Drool landed on my blue boxer shorts. “Ah not frightie mighties!”
“Tracy!” Her mom yelled.
“Yeah Mom?” I heard the response from the living room.
“You might want to get in here.” Her mother answered turning back to the crock pot.
Tracy came in, looked quickly over to her mom and then to me, the source of the issue at hand. “Oh Talbot what are you doing?”
“I’m not wearing nightie bities.” I answered gallantly.
“That’s a good thing, I guess.” What the hell else could she say. “Come on let’s get you into the living room.”
“Not so sure I can get back up hon.” I think that came out nearly perfect, though my tongue felt as thick and dry as a plank.
“You don’t smell like booze. What’s the matter?”
I pointed to my knee, just since my short jaunt down into the kitchen my knee had grown nearly half again what I had started with. So much so that the ace bandage was nearly stretched to its capacity.
“Talbot!” Tracy said alarmed. “What the fuck?”
I don’t remember much about the walk out of the kitchen and onto the most comfortable couch I have ever had the pleasure of laying down on, except for a lot of finger pointing and laughing. Most of that coming from BT and he was more drugged up than I was.
CHAPTER 23 
I didn’t have a clue how long I slept. When I finally awoke it wasn’t to the easy, peaceful, content feeling one arises to after a deep and satisfying sleep. There was no exaggerated stretch as I alit from the bed and casually scratched my nuts. Oh come on, that’s the first thing after the body unfolding, that every guy does when they get out of bed. Don’t ask me why, maybe it’s an evolutionary legacy, probably to wipe away prehistoric mites. Anyway back to the story, the distinctive sound of a gunshot prohibits one from the normal routine. I stood up as rapidly as my vertigo-addled brain would allow. Who knew we were in the midst of a 7.0 earthquake. I braced myself against the couch until the worst of the shakes had subsided. I took no small pleasure in the fact that the pain in my knee had subsided to something I could live with, if not entirely like.
I still pushed off with my right leg though. No sense in tempting the fates. BT stirred on his resting place but did not awaken. Had I imagined the whole thing? I heard nothing else. The only thing that gave me pause was that a single gunshot these days was rarer than a virgin Catholic schoolgirl. It was approaching dawn. I could tell by the murky light filtering through the windows but no one was up that I could tell. There was no sense of alarm, no commotion, no damn bacon cooking, ooh that sounded good. I had finally managed to gingerly walk my way up to the hallway that led to the front door, when a fully winter weather bundled Carol came in toting her shotgun.
She didn’t seem particularly startled to see me standing there. “You know you’re still in your underwear right?” She asked me.
Reflexively, I looked down slightly more embarrassed this time than the last.
She laughed. “Don’t worry about it, want some coffee?” She stooped over and placed her shotgun next to the door, in a holder that seemed perfectly tailored to that specific job. She looked up to see me watching her. “Did I wake you? She asked.
I had a sarcastic comment all lined up but then I thankfully remembered she was my mother-in-law and wisely thought better of unloosing my dumb-ass comment on the world.
“No, I was ready to get up anyway.”
“Hadn’t seen one in a couple of days was kind of hoping that was over.”
What she had seen, well let’s just say there isn’t much of a bear problem during the late winter season.
“Speaking of that, Carol. How did you know it was out there? I’d been meaning to ask, got a little side tracked last night.”
“Oh those first few days were tough. I was too scared to sleep. However, even fear will only go so far. More than once I woke up to one of those things at the door or the window. Damn near sent my ticker into overdrive. I can’t tell you how many times I just wanted to shoot through the door or the window. Good thing the practical side of me took over. I don’t have the materials to fix what I would have destroyed.”
