Cutting the Wood

Over a year later, my four-year-old brother Billy experienced a frightful episode worse than my own burned feet. One day while giving him a bath, my mother discovered that he had developed a little lump in his groin. It was a tiny knot which pained him when he played, and often he would cry after using the outhouse. My mother was horribly worried, and knew that taking him to the doctor was out of the question. We barely had enough money to survive on, and the cost for surgery would leave us homeless. At that time programs like Medicare did not exist, and poor families simply did not receive medical care. The day after discovering Billy’s lump, my father took him and me to his mother’s house, and began to discuss the issue with my cousin Vic. Vic was a tall strong man whose size only hinted at his enormously stubborn ways. Once he got an idea into his head there was no stopping him, and unfortunately, by that time, he was already going a bit crazy. He and my father brought Billy out to the “gharry” (porch), and looked at the little lump located next to the boy’s right leg. Immediately, Vic declared that the tiny knot had to be removed as soon as possible, right then and there. My father did not object, because such dangerous procedures were common place to the poor in Spur. He saw this situation as his responsibility, and trusted Vic’s advice very much. After searching through the house for a razor blade, he pinned Billy down onto the “gharry” floor and began to cut into his flesh around the knot. It was a simple procedure to remove the lump, but was done without any pain medication. The pain must have been terrible for Billy, because his screams drove me to the screen door inside. I was only five, and didn’t know what to do. I could only stand there and watch my crazy relative cut a lump out of my brother’s groin. Billy hollered the whole time, struggling to get away, but Vic’s grip was unbreakable. I expected my father to stop him,  but he simply stood on the opposite side of the porch, with his head turned in the opposite direction. Such gruesome surgeries were more than his own eyes could handle, because my father always hated the sight of blood. Fortunately, Billy survived the incident. When Vic was finished he held a small lump slightly larger than a quarter in his hands; either a cyst or a tumor. The boy was not even given stitches, but had a homemade bandage with peroxide placed over the wound and was driven home. My mother did not find out until that night when she tried to give him a bath. When my father told her of the surgery, she simply accepted it with no arguments. Today such an act would be considered child abuse and Vic would be marked a criminal. But in Spur, such things were very common. Many of my father’s friends had cut melanoma lumps out of their own skin in the same fashion. Because money was so scarce in our family, my parents knew that they had no choice. My mother tended Billy night and day, praying that he would have a fast recovery. By the grace of the Lord, Billy recovered gradually and the wound quickly healed. He was never taken to a doctor, and it was a miracle in itself that he even survived the surgery without developing a deadly infection. A young child’s ability to forget terrible situations is remarkable, and soon Billy was running and laughing outside with my brothers as though nothing had happened at all. Our lives continued on the same road they always had, from one day to the next among Spur’s cotton crops and our childhood games.