I woke up again a few hours later, when Marilyn came back in with the girls, sans puppy. “Hey, where’d you get the clean clothes?” I asked them.
“The bus was trashed, but we could get into the luggage compartment. We got all of our suitcases and yours,” explained Molly.
“We left Stormy in the motel. She’ll be okay until we get her home,” added her sister.
“Carl, feeling up for some visitors?” asked Marilyn. She nodded her head towards the door.
“Company coming to call?” I asked. She nodded without saying anything. “Do I look okay?”
“No, you look like a house fell on you.” She went to the door and opened it.
Governor Bush came bouncing in, followed by a few members of his entourage. He had with him a photographer, who took several pictures of the Governor shaking my hand and looking solicitously at me, like the Governor was there and getting prepped to perform surgery on me. We talked briefly and he was curious about why we couldn’t do the press conference today instead of tomorrow.
A black nurse came in as he was asking that question and told everybody to get out, and she answered the Governor by stating, “He can’t have a press conference today because all his stitches will come out and he’ll bleed to death. Now, everybody out! I have to change some bandages!” She was an intimidating woman, and everybody skedaddled, except for Marilyn.
I smiled at the nurse. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. Besides, I’m a Democrat. Maybe I can make it hurt.”
I laughed at that, and that hurt enough. The bandages didn’t take long, but then she and Marilyn gave me a sponge bath. I was going to need something a lot more serious before I could do a press conference. The nurse said she would remove my catheter tonight, and give me a chance to move around some, and if I was reacting well, they’d cover my bandages tomorrow and give me a chance in a sit-down shower and see if I could get a shave. By the time they were done, the Governor and his crew were gone.
By that evening Marilyn was sleeping in the armchair, and she snoozed through my dinner of broth, green salad with no dressing, Jell-O, and decaf green tea. At this rate I was going to ask to be put back into the basement. When my wife woke up, I kissed her good-bye and sent her to the motel to spend the night with the girls. After that, a nurse pulled my catheter and helped me to my feet, to let me walk around a bit and work my muscles. An Oklahoma State Trooper was stationed outside my door, so it would be an enterprising snoop who could disturb my sleep.
I woke up the next morning feeling better, much better! The general achiness was gone, although I had a general throbbing in my left arm and chest, and some sharp pains in my ribs when I moved around. Marilyn and the twins came over while I was eating my Corn Flakes with skim milk and drinking my OJ. I wasn’t sure when I was getting out of here, but the first stop was going to be a McDonalds! After breakfast I returned some calls to my friends and family, assuring them I was still alive, and then Doctor Shooster came in, checked me over, and gave me a clean bill of health. She cleared me for a bath and a shave prior to the press conference. A nurse, Pat Richards, was promised to assist me.
Pat Richards turned out to be a guy. He saw the surprise on my face and grinned. “Not what you had in mind for a shower with a nurse?”
“Not hardly! Do me a favor and don’t tell my wife.”
He gave me an evil grin. “I’ll do worse! I’ll tell a reporter!” That elicited a groan from me and I surrendered. He laughed and scrounged up some plastic wrap and covered my bandages, and then wheeled me to a handicap accessible shower. I sat on a special seat and he helped me as I cleaned up one handed, and afterwards slapped some shaving gel on my face and gave me a disposable razor. I was almost feeling human by the time we got back to the room.
Back in the room I discovered that Charlie had called while I was in the shower. The news and footage of the rescue had been shown on his ship, and it had taken him almost two days to manage a phone call. He promised to try and call again over the weekend, and then told his mother to tell me that I was too old for this kind of behavior and I needed to start behaving myself. I told her he was right! She was laughing pretty good at that.
Richards changed all my bandages when we got back to the room, which fascinated my daughters and grossed out my wife. A fair bit of the swelling had been reduced and the seepage around the stitches was almost ended. They were able to reduce the bandages on the side of my head to a few butterflies. My daughters were sent out to play in traffic while I got dressed. My briefs and slacks were easy enough, but a shirt was very tricky. My left arm was strapped against my chest, keeping movement down, but preventing me from putting on a shirt. It was decided to get the shirt on and then put my arm in a sling tied around me, but we had a hard time getting a shirt on over the bandages. Marilyn came up with the idea of just cutting the left sleeve off, since the sling would hide the missing sleeve. That worked out pretty well.
The press conference was scheduled for noon, and if I behaved myself, I could escape sometime after that. It was an impressive offer, so I decided to behave myself. Unsurprisingly, Governor Bush showed up, but I was surprised when Frank Keating, the Governor of Oklahoma also appeared, along with Don Nickles, one of the two Republican Senators, and half the Oklahoma Congressional Caucus, Steve Largent, J.C. Watts, and Frank Lucas. “Hey, guys, thanks for coming. I really appreciate it. It means a lot,” I told them. I shook hands with all of them. They formed an honor guard of sorts as Marilyn and the girls walked me down to the press conference. I asked Don, who I had worked with on D2A, “If you guys are here, who the hell is running things back in Washington?”
“Nobody. You ought to know that by now, Carl!”
George Bush managed to ‘help’ me into the room where the press conference was being held. The others led the applause as I appeared. Thankfully he allowed my family to sit down next to me. Instead, he and the other dignitaries formed a phalanx behind me. Everybody wanted a piece of the Carl Buckman phenomenon. Of course, if I screwed this up, they would be the first to throw me to the wolves!
I was seated on the right hand side of a dais, really a long conference table covered with a table cloth and a skirt with the hospital’s logo hiding the front, with several microphones on it. One was in front of me. Marilyn was on my left and the girls on my right. Next to Marilyn was Dr. Shooster. Beyond her was another woman in her late 30s or early 40s, and she smiled and waved at the twins as we came in, and they waved back. Most ominously, on the floor next to our chairs was a big cardboard box that was moving on its own. I whispered to my wife, “Is that what I think it is?”
She gave me a big grin. “Oh, you know it!”
“Yeah, well I sure hope somebody has a copy of a newspaper around here!”
Marilyn’s eyes popped open at that, and I noticed one of George Bush’s aides off to the side. I motioned to him and caught his eye, and made the ‘Who? Me?’ face. I nodded and beckoned him over. When he came over and leaned down, I whispered, “We’re going to need a newspaper!”