A Walk with Grandma Hemmy

A Walk with Grandma Hemmy

By George B. Singer

Julie Hemmy was still fishing around in the sink, standing on a stack of phone books, when Grandma Hemmy walked into the room and carefully lowered her heft into a wooden rocking chair. It was Julie’s tenth birthday, but she wanted to give Grandma a present.

“What are you doing, honey? It’s too early for you to be up,” Grandma said as she spread talc on her great loaf-of-bread arms.

“I found it!” Julie shouted, jumping off the phone books and over to Grandma. “I found your finger, Grandma! Look!”

Grandma took the whittled, disposal-damaged object from Julie and held it up to the morning light that was beginning to flood in from the eastern windows.

“Goodness, it is my finger. I thought it was gone for sure.”

“Should I get your sewing kit?” Julie was so pleased.

“Yes, dear, thank you.” Grandma held the finger, a modestly plump pinky, up to the stub on her left hand. It fit quite well, despite the damage. It had only been off for a day and a half.

Julie returned with the sewing kit and Grandma set about the business of reattachment. “You see, Julie, the nerves are the hardest things to reattach. I think I can get enough of them back together so I’ll get some use out of it.”

“Then can we go get ice cream with Jenny and Colin?”

“Of course! Now we have two things to celebrate!” Grandma stitched inside the wound first, binding ligament to ligament, muscle to muscle, the tiny needle grasping neurons with impossible precision and meshing them with their former neighbors. Then she did a quick cross-stitch bringing the divorced skin back together.

“Do you think we should practice lip reading before you call your friends over?” Grandma asked.

“I don’t need any practice,” Julie protested.

Grandma said something, moving her mouth, but making no sound. “Now, what did I just say?” she asked aloud.

“You said, ‘I need your help,’” Julie repeated.

“Very good.” Grandma held her hand up to her face and looked at the pinky. She wiggled it and it responded as if it had never left home. “Now, call Jenny and Colin.”

Jenny and Colin had known Grandma all their short lives. They knew she’d buy them ice cream whenever they walked with her on Saturday mornings, but this was Julie’s birthday, too, so they were in for a surprise, no doubt.

When the kids arrived, Grandma put the sewing kit into a huge, leathery purse and stood up to go. She slung the purse over her shoulder, where the strap sunk softly into her fat. “I might need your help today, kids. I’m not feeling too well.”

Colin was used to Grandma Hemmy being a bit strange. Once she had taken a cricket he was holding and ate it whole. She explained that during the Korean War, her husband had gotten lost behind enemy lines and had to live on crickets for a week.

Finally, he was about a hundred yards from a M.A.S.H. unit when he stepped on a land mine and literally lost his legs. Fortunately, a dog sniffed them out a couple of days later: they had fallen down an unused well no less than two-hundred feet from where they had been blown off his torso.

Grandma Hemmy had been a nurse on active duty during the war. She was able to get herself transferred to the hospital where her husband lay in a coma. When the legs were found she insisted that the doctors reattach them right away. If they hurried, they could finish before he awoke and he’d never have to know they had been off. The doctors told her this was an impossible task. They took one look at the rotting legs and threw them away with the biohazard waste. Later that night, Nurse Hemmy retrieved the legs from the garbage and snuck into her husband’s recovery room. She had observed many operations reattaching freshly severed limbs, so she had an idea where to start.

“Dear God,” she whispered, “let him have his legs back and you can have anything from me you want.” Then she started to sew...and sew...and sew. So many nerves! Every last one of them must be reunited so he’ll never know what happened. Six hours later, she was finished and she stole away to rest awhile.

When the doctors came in, they couldn’t believe what they saw. At

first they thought crazy Nurse Hemmy had simply sewn the legs on by the skin, but then they touched the legs. Warmth. Great, blood-induced warmth.

Nurse Hemmy was kept busy night and day after that, reattaching limbs, organs, anything. A rumor started that she had even reattached a head and the patient had lived. She denied this.

Jenny had never heard this story, but she had seen Grandma Hemmy eat a

cricket once. She was too scared to ask why.

“Okay, kids, let’s go.” Grandma said and ushered them out the door.

They started down the sidewalk and Colin ran ahead, laughing. Julie and Jenny ran after him. Grandma felt a strange buzzing inside her body. She looked into her purse for the sewing kit for reassurance. It was gone. Panic struck at her, but she had grown strong with age, so it missed. She was relieved when the kids began to run back toward her.

Colin was out of breath with excitement. “Look, Grandma Hemmy, a baby

squirrel under the tree!” He grabbed her right arm to urge her to follow. He didn’t pull very hard, but Grandma’s arm came right off and he held it in his hand. It looked like a skeleton-hand sticking out of rising bread dough.

Grandma looked at her new wound and was surprised at the lack of pain. Colin’s mind finally processed what had happened and he screamed, dropping the arm on the ground.

“Colin, it’s okay,” Grandma urged, “It’s okay. I can put it back on at

home. Don’t worry.”

Julie was concerned, but detected calmness from her grandmother and followed that example, picking the arm up to carry it for her. Jenny, however, had fainted in the rain gutter and was already beginning to stir by the time Grandma knelt over her. She sat up and wiped the grass from her face. “Are you okay, Grandma Hemmy? Your arm!”

“I’m fine, Jenny. You fainted.”

“My mom says I hyperventilate.” Jenny looked down and noticed a flap of skin on her leg. She picked it up and looked at it. “I think this is your ear, Grandma Hemmy.”

Grandma stood up and felt her head with her left hand. Sure enough, there was a bony, gaping hole where the right ear should be. She took the ear from Jenny and put it in her apron pocket.

“Maybe we should go home,” Julie suggested, “We don’t have to get ice cream.”

“Nonsense,” Grandma said, “It’s your birthday. I can deal with all of

this later. Let’s keep walking. Be careful with my arm, dear.”

“I want to carry the arm,” Colin offered.

“That’s okay, I’ve got it,” Julie said.

“No, I wanna carry it,” Colin whined.

“Fine, be a baby,” Julie said and handed him the arm. He carried it, examining the torn arteries and veins.

They came upon a bench and Grandma decided they should rest for awhile. It was turning out to be a trying day. Grandma attempted to lower herself slowly to the bench, but relied on her missing arm and landed with a jolting thud. She felt something move under her dress, across her stomach. She looked over to the kids, sitting on the sidewalk examining her arm. The thing under her dress was moving lower. She wriggled to get it out. She felt it ooze over her legs, which gave her the willies, so she wriggled even harder, hoping the kids wouldn’t see whatever it was. One more wriggle and out popped one of her breasts, bouncing onto the sidewalk. She reached for it frantically with her one good hand, desperate that the kids shouldn’t see it. She couldn’t get a grip because it kept oozing around and she was worried the gland would separate from the skin. She finally got a grip of the thing, just as Colin looked up at her, so she tossed it over her shoulder. It rolled under a tree, unseen. ’Oh, well, I can

always come back and get it later,′ she reasoned to herself.

“Come on, kids, I think we should go home. I’m not feeling too well.” Grandma stood up and started to walk, but the weight of her purse was too much for her remaining arm making it tear from the socket, leaving it hanging by the skin. Grandma was able to nudge the purse off of her shoulder with her chin, but it was too late. Her skin had lost all

elasticity and the arm tore lose, falling to the cement.

“I’ll get it, Grandma,” Julie said. She and Colin carried the arms reverently. Jenny was a little jealous that she had nothing to carry, but a little glad, too.

As they neared the top of the front steps to the house, Grandma’s other breast tore lose and bounced down to the sidewalk, rolling like a hamster in an exercise ball. Grandma was humiliated. “Just leave it there!” she shouted, sweat collecting on her forehead. “Don’t touch it!”

Julie let them in the house and Colin put the arm on the kitchen table. Grandma realized with sinking fear that she could not reattach anything with both arms off. Maybe Julie would have the skill to sew the first arm back on. Not likely, she thought.

“You kids had better go home now. We’ll have ice cream later.” Jenny and Colin left, but stayed on the sidewalk, poking at the breast. Fortunately, Grandma was unaware of this. “Julie, can you find my sewing kit?”

Julie looked furiously for the sewing kit, but it had vanished like Grandma’s other ear, which must have fallen off God knows where. “I’m sorry, Grandma. What should we do?” Julie looked at her own hand and saw that her right index finger was missing. She looked down and saw it lying on the floor between her feet.

“No! Not her! Don’t do this to her!” Grandma shouted at the ceiling. Her veins were popping out in her neck, but not because she was yelling. Her head was beginning to rip off.

“Be careful, Grandma, your head--”

But with a wet SLOSH!, and a springy THUD! Grandma’s head tore lose and hit the floor. Her torso and legs, having no master, fell also and wriggled uncontrollably.

Julie knelt down to Grandma’s head. Grandma moved her mouth frantically, though no sound came out. Julie read her lips. “Put me in the oven.”

“No, Grandma, I can’t do that!” Julie began to cry. Grandma mouthed more and more, making it difficult for Julie to discern the words.

“What?! Go slowly!” Julie righted the head, which was beginning to

tip. “No, Grandma, I can’t!”

“If you don’t, you will die. Look at your hands.” Julie looked at her hands and noticed the joints softening. Her fingers were mostly holding on by the skin and muscles, which were quite strong due to her youth.

Grandma’s torso was writhing into hundreds of pieces on the floor next to Julie. The bony spine stabbed at her, cutting Julie’s leg. Julie grabbed Grandma’s head and ran with it to the oven. Her hands could hardly bear the weight. The head fit neatly onto the top rack and Julie slammed the door. The head knocked on the glass.

Julie opened the door and read Grandma’s lips one last time:

“The microwave. It’s the only way quick enough.”

Julie grabbed the head with her baggy hands and managed to stuff it into the microwave. She turned it on high. Grandma’s head rotated on the glass tray inside the oven. Julie watched the eyes boil out and pop on one rotation. Veins began to pop, coating the glass door with blood, so nothing could be seen inside anymore. Julie’s hands began to feel stronger. She ran to the other room where the spine and torso were slashing about. The spine had calmed down and was moving very slowly, spilling yellow fluid all over the carpet. There was a deep popping sound from the kitchen, and all torso movement ceased.

Julie looked at her hand again and the missing finger was no longer

missing. ‘Maybe it never had been,’ she thought.

“Someday I’ll have to pay for what happened with your grandfather. Someday God’ll make me pay him back,” Grandma had always said. “He lived and walked and ran for twenty-six years after I sewed his legs back on. That’s worth any price.”

Julie wasn’t sure how she’d explain the ripped-up body to her Mom when she came by to pick her up from Grandma’s later. And the head in the microwave wasn’t going to look too good. Grandma hadn’t thought about that, had she. And the breast on the front sidewalk--well, she could clean that up. Maybe if she was missing a couple of things herself, they’d believe what had happened. This seemed the best solution, so Julie took a butcher’s knife from the drawer by the sink and began hacking the fingers off her left hand.