The Glass, The Leg, and The Whole Bloody Mess!

(continued from last blog) 
11:42 am
Unable to cope with Markie's D death, Ralph walked in concentric circles talking to himself.
 
Pinky was so big, the Wolf-Pack made fun of him saying things like, he couldn't see his feet and that they didn't know how he tied his shoes. That always brought a big laugh from the mean Viking tribe. "Water retention" and "big bones" was his favorite retort of denial.

Knowing it was hard for him to bend over, Joan snapped at Ralph, instead. Interrupting him in the middle of his Catholic "Mea culpas" she barked, "Ralph get over here. Now!"  Without even knowing what she did to Tom a couple minutes earlier, Ralph stood at attention like a mindless Zombie under her control. "Hold this together" she said, putting Markie's leg back together the best she could and made Ralph hold it in place with firm pressure.

Pinky took Kjersten and Annie and Tommy in the other room. He didn't think it was right for 9-year-olds to see a dead body: the glass, the leg, the blood was already too traumatic.

Joan picked up a fragment of the broken glass the size of a John F. Kennedy silver dollar and held it under Markie's nose. She waited a full 20 seconds (that seemed like a year) and became ecstatic when she saw  fog on the glass.  Barking out more orders like the ranking medic of a mash unit, Joan ordered Pinky to fire up the 57 Chevy as she carried the limp body trailed by Ralph (who was covered in blood), as he continued to obey his senior officer and held the dangling appendage together while mumbling Altar Boy Latin.  

Although there was condensation on the small fragment of glass, Joan knew that time was of the essence.
Pinky had wedged himself behind the steering wheel and had the motor running. Joan knew that letting Pinky drive was a mistake, but couldn't think of any other way to manage the situation. Laying Markie out on the back seat on a beach towel, she told Ralph to walk the younger kids home.

11:50 am
In the passenger side of the front seat, she leaned over the back and kept pressure on Markie's leg while trying to talk Pinky through driving a stick shift. One time she even shifted the car from second to third with the heal of her right foot, when Pinky's hand got caught between the steering wheel and his belly.

It was a sight to be sure. The way the car lurched and bucked and roared down Lincoln Boulevard towards Santa Monica, it looked like a drunken cowboy on a bunking bronco.

12:20 pm  Blood-drenched Ralph, delivered Annie to the front door of the Lennon Sister's house and it was as if sirens had gone off: Questions...Interrogations...but the only thing Ralph could do was mutter and stutter and look at the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in their front window and kept repeating the, "mea maxima Culpa" thing.

By the time Ralph dropped Tommy off at the Blaser house, rumors had begun to spread like a wildfire around Harding avenue that ranged anywhere from death to amputation.


The hippy Wolf-Pack knew they made the right choice in not going with Joan to the rescue.
"Oh my goodness, what a nuisance"
"How inconvenient... that little twerp!"
"Geez, we still have a lot of partying to do."
"Dude...that would have totally harshed my mellow." 

By the time the sixth needle went into Markie's arm, one of his eyes opened to half-mast and he asked the emergency room doctors, if this had anything to do with Flea-Bait's loogie.  Four of them looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders thinking the kid was reacting to the drugs.  Then more shots. A billion in the leg and lot of them deep. Many of the shots still hurt regardless of how much Novocaine they shot into him.

The second eye opened as Markie was trying to find out what all the fuss was about. He wasn't sewn up yet and inadvertently saw the bloody mess attached to his body that was once a leg. A nurse held his head down and he began asking questions as the guy with the broken arm next to him was released... and then the person with stitches in the forehead had come and gone...and the motorcycle guy with the puncture wound had come and also left repaired.  The stitch after stitch in the deep tissue and layers of muscle didn't hurt much, but this was before they got to the outside layers where the 42 shots of Novocaine had begun to wear off and each one of the 97 stitches on the outside of the leg really did hurt like heck. Markie was no stranger to pain and had been through bows and arrows with needles and the Hamper of Death and thrown over a cliff and didn't think that this pain was worth saying anything to the doctors - and suffered in silence.   

As far as Markie D could ever remember, he never saw anyone in his family cry. Mr. D had always said that "Swedes don't cry and pain will make you stronger."    

1:30 am  '0 dark thirty of the wee hours of the morning: "The Sewing party" was finally coming to an end.

 Even though his leg looked worst than Frankenstein's monster, they managed to put it all back together and save it.

Markie had never seen tears nor had he ever heard the "L" in his house. Oh, the "L" word is "love" in case you were wondering, but reckoned what Joan had done to rescue him, as love. That was all he was looking for as a human being. He wanted to know - he wanted to feel that someone cared.

He missed school for weeks and Joan had her sixth grade class write get well cards. He liked the cards and felt this was also another way of his mother showing she cared.

Two weeks later:   

















                                                       Thank you Tom Colajezzi.










Thank you Perry Halachis.













Thank you whoever you are.



Thank you Mom and Pinky!

And Ralph, stop mumbling - it's okay, I forgive you.

And Thank you Lord, I'm still alive...
                                                     
Oh, and thank you "Weltz" for letting mom "borrow" your car.  Sorry about all the blood in the back seat and your sore jaw.  No one knew Tom's last name before...but the black and blue welt on his jaw provided the perfect nickname. 

Good intentions are one thing but real love is often measured in sacrifice. I think that's all we really want. Isn't it?  To feel as though someone cares and to know that you are loved!  
                                                             
                                                                                           Markie D.

Next the Veloci-rooster and the "Chicken Lady"

The ZOO Part 1: The Wolf Pack

I'm just glad this story didn't end up in the gorilla cage because it would have ended quite differently.

I will tell you right up front that I had to add a little spicy license to this epic story. Although each Dahlin will tell it a little differently, this is the way I choose to tell it. I checked in with my dog, Poochie, and based on her recollection of the story - she assures me that I did a fairly good job at capturing the essence. I wouldn't totally trust my memory, but since my beloved beagle has a much better memory than me, you can bet that this is accurate - within a fibbing margin of about + or - 10%.

Again, the story beings with our mom having to "up" her self-esteem stock value, especially when compared to the picture of perfection just across the Street.

The Lennon Girls

 

The Dahlin Boys

From this picture, maybe you can get an idea. We were rambunctious, mischievous, energetic, liked to climb and as proud Swedes (Vikings) wanted to conquer the world.  Could you just imagine taking the10, 11 or 12 of us to the Zoo. A neighbor called us The Wolf Pack.

THIS OUTING WAS DOOMED FOR FAILURE from the start. (Mom didn't know that though).

  

This picture was taken about the time the incident that ended up on the front page of the newspaper. BTW: I am pictured here with my brother Bjorn (name changed to protect the guilty) my dad, and third born Knut (also an alias).



Part 1

The Wolf Pack was not pleased about having to get up early on a Saturday or going to the zoo, but being squeezed into the decrepit old Dodge on top of that only made things ten-times worse. With Four-Eyes and Chewy, there were twelve of us that needed to be packed into the rusted overstuffed station wagon like too many sardines in a small can.  When mom turned the key in the ignition it groaned and moaned and sputtered a couple times. 


As was customary, Gustav got out, crawled under the car and hit the starter motor with a large wrench he found in the “flower-bed.”

Whack! Whack! Went his clunking under the car. “Try it again” he yelled from underneath. 
Whir, Sputter, Grind, Ca-put went the beast as a black cloud of smoke shot from the tail pipe as though it was waving the white flag of surrender.  Three of the older boys angrily join Gustav in pushing the car backwards down the driveway as mom popped the clutch. The tires screeched as the clunker resentfully sputtered to life, nearly catapulting us across the street into our neighbor’s driveway - barely stopping before hitting the bumper of their 63 Cadillac.
  
Half in and half out of the street mom, pumped the gas pedal in an effort to keep it alive as the four older boys climbed back in with the urgency of a Chinese fire-drill. Faces pushed up against windows, fogged by the warm bodies of stinking teenagers, my mom clutched the steering wheel with a death grip and let out a desperate sigh.  I was excited. We were going to the zoo! With all the Dahlin hoopla, noise, and various body parts spilling out of open windows, away we rolled. 

 

We were off to the zoo!

Poor mom forced a smile just in case any of the neighbor ladies happened to be watching.  I saw a faint trace of hope on her face because of the story she would tell the ladies tomorrow after church.  I alone had heard her rehearse the speech and knew it would take a miracle for anything remotely resembling "normal" to happen.


 Like the cigarette commercial "You could take the Dahlins out of Venice but you couldn't take the Venice out of the Dahlins.  


Rooting for mom, I crossed my fingers. I saw her look across the street to shrine of Mary in the Lennon’s front window.  Slowly she drove, hoping that Sis Lennon with her NORMAL FAMILY would see us heading out to do what “normal” families do.

During her unhurried left turn (still clearly within the view of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Mrs. Lennon), Dooh-Dooh Pants “popped the cork” and stunk up the entire car. It smelled like baby diarrhea and I started gagging.  “I’d rather bear the shame than the pain.” He said laughing, until Liver-Lips whacked him - a good one.

Mad Dog knew what was about to happen. He grabbed my head and forced my lips into the small gap of the partially opened window.  He held it there while I blew this morning’s clumpy Malt-O-Meal and part of last night’s fish sticks down the entire side of the car like a snow blower.  Everyone began freaking out, hitting each other, yelling and screaming and doing everything they could not to get hit by the warm vomit confetti. Everyone beat up on poor Dooh-Dooh Pants blaming him as mom stepped on the gas pedal, burning rubber, and now praying instead, that none of the neighbors would see us escaping from Venice.  


Next time, (part 2) Venice invades the LA ZOO - True Story!