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My Honda Civic busted a fuel pump near Jackson Hole and died in a muddy rut off Highway 89. I sold the heap to the towing company for $100 and hitched a ride from a grandmotherly woman selling huckleberries along the roadside. I was on a tight timeline--I had to get to a medical school interview in Bozeman at noon. Not only that, but I had to get accepted into medical school and get on with my life. I'd been stuck working as a temporary third grade teacher in Whittle, Arizona for three years. I'm not really a third grade teacher, I only play one in a teacher shortage. My mother insisted I take the job out of college and what else was I to do after being turned down by every medical school I applied to? It's funny how easy it is to get stuck in a temporary job--a trap I was eager to escape.

This huckleberry woman drove a rusted Suburban with a small crack in the windshield. She reminded me of my own grandmother, who was willing to pay tuition for my first year of medical school. My grandmother always wanted me to be a doctor. I always wanted to be a doctor, too. I've just never been that excited about the intermediary steps--the long years of medical school. Three years teaching third grade has given me new reason to get excited about taking those steps--steps away from Desert View Elementary.

While riding with the huckleberry woman, sunlight reflected through the small crack in her windshield and momentarily blinded me. In that moment of blind pain, I saw my life in front of me, stinging like a bad memory--my only medical school interview up to that point was a disaster. I arrived early, but to the wrong building. Lost, I ran around campus until I found the interview room. By then, I was fifteen minutes late. Fifteen minutes closer to that rejection letter. The medical school process can be cruel.

In the Suburban, creeping along at 55 mph, I tried not to think about my current anxiety. Trying to be helpful, I suggested to the huckleberry woman she could probably buy a sealant to keep the crack from spreading. 

Thirty miles from Bozeman, I could see the urban sprawl and the lump in my stomach hardened as we rolled into a Phillips 66 station. I wasn't excited about stopping, but I didn't want the Suburban to run out of gas before dropping me off at the medical school campus, either. I started pumping the gas while the huckleberry woman went inside, apparently more concerned about the windshield crack than I currently was. She came back out with a package of super glue.

"The manager didn't know about any kind of windshield crack sealant, but he suggested using this," she said.

I took it upon myself to do the job. It was my suggestion to seal the crack and she was shuttling me into Bozeman. Plus, the faster I sealed the damn crack, the sooner we'd be back on the road. She gave me the package and went back inside to pay for the gas.

I tore open the package and removed the tiny bottle of super glue. When I punctured the aluminum cap, the liquid spewed all over my hands. Instantaneously, the flowing glue hardened between the cracks of my fingers. I was stuck--the epitome of my life up to that point. It's as if the harder I tried to get somewhere, the more entrapped I became in mundane, but serious impediments. 

My fingers were going nowhere, but I was determined to find a quick remedy and get into Bozeman. I stood between the gas pump and the Suburban looking down at my hands. I envisioned ripping skin, like a blister that pealed itself down to red flesh, like the time Freddy brought a paring knife to school in his lunchbox and sliced his thumb while peeling an apple. Blood was everywhere. He puked in the trash can and then I did the same. I never had any intention of specializing in emergency medicine.

I had no intention of returning to third grade. I just wanted to get to this interview. I pushed the half depleted tube into the trash can. The first three digits of my left hand were melded into one and my thumb was caked with hardened acrylic. Only the middle finger and ring finger on my right hand were fused, but in an awkward position so that I couldn't straighten them. Glue in various states of hardness coated the rest of my fingernails and both hands were joined at the base of the thumbs.

I started pacing around the truck, trying to think of what to do next. Nobody had yet seen the mishap. Then, the huckleberry woman came out to get three jars of preserves from the back of the Suburban to sell to the gas station manager.

"I'm a bit stuck," I said. "I need some sort of solvent."

"Oh my, honey. Don't try to pry those fingers apart," she said.

No kidding! It was getting close to 11:30 and we were still thirty miles from Bozeman. We could still make it if I forced her to drive faster than 55 mph--if I could remedy my stuck fingers and we could get on the road. I asked her for some fingernail polish remover.

"No, but how about peppermint soap?" she asked.

I wasn't in the mood to discuss the definition of a solvent. At least she didn't suggest huckleberry preserves. She squirted the liquid soap on my hands and it dripped all over my pants--the only nice pair of pants I had with me for the interview. My hands remained in the same position. "No," I said. "It's definitely going to take a solvent."

"Well, how about huckleberry preserves?" she asked.

I could feel the dried glue pulling on the hair between my left wrist and my watch. It was like standing in front of thirty eight year olds and trying to get them to respond--pure, agonizing torture. With each tug on my skin, I thought of that interview, my dwindling escape.

"No!" I yelled. "A solvent! Something like... Gas!"

I convinced her to lift a nozzle from a gas pump. A few drops dripped out, but they fell onto the oil stained pavement before I could get my hands under them. I led her to the next pump, motioning with my outstretched hands joined like Siamese twins. I shuttered at the thought of performing an operation to separate joined babies. I never had any intention of specializing in surgery.

I just needed freedom from being stuck. The huckleberry woman lifted another nozzle and shook a few drops onto my hands. I started working my hands back and forth. The fumes began to make me nauseous, but I wanted my fingers back, I wanted my freedom.

By the time we had gone around to all eight pumps and dripped the residual gas on my hands, the manager came out to see what was happening.

"It just exploded!" I told him. 

He walked inside and brought out another tube of super glue as I walked into the bathroom without touching the door. My watch was glazed, but ticking away. I started the water in the sink and slathered Soft Soap all over my hands, like a doctor prepping for a patient. I thought of making that first impression on the interviewer with a handshake and scrubbed at the dried glue. 

The manager gave the new tube of super glue to a fifteen year old attendant. Above the noise of running water, I could hear the manager say to the boy, "Be very careful not to get it on your hands." I had repeated similar directions to my students, only to have Jeremy unscrew the top of an Elmer's glue bottle right before Lisa squeezed it, dumping it all over the handmade Navajo rug Trina brought for show-and-tell.

I kept scrubbing my hands and two minutes later I heard the boy walk inside saying, "I got some on my hands. I got some on my hands."

The manager went back out with the tube to finish the job and started to dab some on the windshield crack. I looked through the open bathroom door and saw him smear it around with his index finger. I went back to my scrubbing, this time with more force.

After ten minutes of soaking beneath the running water and digging at the dried glue with the edges of my fingernails, my hands were wrinkled and pruned. My nerves were on edge and I was ready to be driving--fast!

Outside the bathroom, I saw the gas station manager laying across the hood of the car with his finger covering the crack. He was yelling at the boy to bring out a can of turpentine. I thought of Andy setting off those firecrackers in the school cafeteria during the back-to-school immunizations. Then I thought of the vocal cords on kids being immunized. I never had any intention of specializing in pediatrics.

My legs wanted to run to the Suburban, but my mind made me focus on my appearance. I couldn't show up all disheveled. I attempted to wash the peppermint soap off my pants, but merely drenched them. I pulled the lever on the paper towel dispenser--empty. I pulled some toilet paper from the roll and wadded it up in my hands. The tissue disintegrated beneath the heavy weight of the water, just like my chances at becoming a doctor. 

I ran to the Suburban and couldn't believe what I saw. The gas station manager, the boy attendant, the huckleberry woman, and now the cashier were all huddled around the rusty hood. The cashier had come out to help pour the turpentine, but both of the boy's hands were stuck to the can. So now she was pumping gas onto the windshield to liberate the manager from the crack. I looked at the huckleberry woman and saw the look of my grandmother staring at me with disappointment. I pushed the huckleberry woman into the Suburban as the gas station manager slid off the hood. The smell of fumes filled the air, like the time Eric turned on the gas outlet and stunk up the classroom before we had to evacuate the school.

I told her to floor it and she squealed onto the highway. I looked down at my watch--11:50. That's when I realized I had forgotten to set my watch ahead an hour after leaving Arizona. I yanked the watch off my wrist and each hair in contact with the leather strap went with it. Along with the pain went the realization I was truly stuck, no hope for extrication with a quick fix solvent. I threw the watch out the window as the huckleberry woman made an evasive maneuver to avoid a rut in the road. Just then a semi kicked up a loose rock and cracked the windshield right down the middle. I slid down in my seat and watched the glass crack into a brilliant prism of light.