The Mexican's Repair

The Cap and crew repair the Mexican, character study of The Cap.

Chapter 2: The Mexican's Repair

  Cap spoke something into his headset mic and turned around to eye his passengers. He looked each one over carefully.  “What’s he gonna do mommy?” one of the little girls asked, “I don’t know, sweetie; probably gonna make us walk the plank”, she said in her best pirate impersonation. The little girl rolled her eyes and tried a droll look but a smile began to leak across her face as she turned back to the window. The woman sent a small prayer heavenward; If God was in control of her life then He was, by extension, in control of the two fools in the cockpit. God had used stranger instruments.

  Hai Ho had stopped the Mex’s blood loss, who had been shot through the shoulder; the bullet had gone in through the front and out the back, fracturing his scapula. Hai wondered how he got it in the front since they had been running AWAY from the bullets.

  “That should plug you up” Hai gave the Mex a sip of beer for his crusted throat. He lay his head back down and smiled, Hai had given him a fat shot of morphine from the aid kit; Hai smiled with satisfaction as the Mex drifted off.

    After some strong debate, the Cap set the course and left the flying to Ansell whose mood had changed somewhat, apparently he’d been overruled on some subject of import.  Cap came back to examine the wound.

  “Gonna need to fix that shoulder blade. We sure can’t take him to a hospital”.

  They had turned him over on his stomach and removed his shirt. Cap examined the exit wound, “We’re gonna have to operate”, he let out a giggle that was nowhere near appropriate for a man of his age or, for that matter, a situation such as this. One thing was clear; it certainly didn’t make anyone feel at ease.  He was getting that same wild-eye look: he turned to Hai, “Get Tonie and the other aid bag; also get that bottle of rum and put it in a bowl”. The captain took a look at the Mex’s uninjured side and sized up the bone, feeling around the edges, “MmmHmm”, he went to the back.  The whirr of a cordless drill could be heard from the rear of the plane and after some time he returned with a jagged piece of stainless steel sheet metal with four holes drilled into it, in the other hand was a wad of small screws. He placed the plate against Mex’s back, took it off, trimmed it with some tin snips then placed it back on. “That’ll do it. Let’s get started”, his mood was almost gleeful, “Tonie, I want you to take some water and heat it in the microwave, get it boiling.  Then I want you to drop these in it.” He handed the little metal plate and screws to the girl. She returned later with oven mitts on, holding a Tupperware bowl that contained the hot water and hardware.

 “Good. Ansell, find us some air that’s a little smoother, Hai, the rum goes in the bowl, not yer mouth.”

“Aye, Cap.”

  The plane was much quieter now with the door closed; really quite comfy.

  The captain removed the plate with some forceps and placed it in the other bowl containing the rum and with it he added a cascade of little screws. “Don’t know what material the screws are. Hopefully they’re non allergenic.”  He had already made an X- incision in the skin above the fractured bone, pulling back the flaps and muscle to expose the raw, white scapula; it had broken into 4 separate pieces. He pushed the pieces back together (a mini-mag flashlight hanging from his mouth like a metal cigar), and had Hai hold them in place by the edges leaving only a good sized hole in the center of the bone.  He picked out some small pieces of bone while Hai held the largest pieces together then wiped the smallest fragments clean from the bone surface, drying it in the process. Taking a small bottle of Super Glue, he applied the glue to the metal plate; getting some of the glue on his blue nitrile gloves, “Dang!” Tonie was ready, also with gloves on, and fresh gloves were on his hands in a matter of seconds.  He pressed the plate firmly against the bone. The Mex let out a dopey groan while the captain held the plate in place for a minute or more, wearing a mischievous grin. They all wore Cap’s wild eyed expression now; the Mex’s life was completely in their hands and they were free to experiment as they wished: a man with no choice and nothing to lose in the hands of people with no apparent moral compass and of arguable mental health. To the crew, situations like this really rocked and they rocked because of Cap.

  The Cap had something about him; his command of language, flying skill (nobody really knew if he was actually licensed, they knew that Ansell wasn’t because he was Cap’s flying protégée),  his mechanical ability and tech savvy way had them all kind of baffled and a little uneasy at times.  He could also sing like an angel when the mood struck him…

  The three aspects of an extremely gifted man; Skill/Talent/Intelligence, could arguably be described in Venn diagram fashion: the area at which the three circles overlap is a location of instability that these men suffer from and they tend to pass through the area on occasion as they shift from aspect to aspect, sometimes becoming looped up in the area of mental danger.  Normal people sense this and treat these men with caution.  The great mathematician Kurt Godel once had a breakdown in this manner. He would later reveal that the area of his mind from which his delusions sprang was the same place he kept his fantastic mathematical ability.  Cap was operating in this danger zone and the rest could only look on and assist with car-wreck curiosity. What a gas.

  …This was a new facet of Cap’s persona surfacing and those who had experienced his previous examples of technological bandwidth were not particularly surprised. It was highly probable that he was just winging it in every situation and tight spot they encountered; nevertheless that possibility made it no less a thing of beauty to watch him work.

  To everyone’s amazement, the piece held tight. “That ought to do it”.  He took screws from the rum bowl and drove one through each of the metal holes into the bone with a hand held Philips screwdriver, wiping  each screw head with a rum soaked paper towel. He was using countersink screws, which he thought was a nice touch: no lumps.  He sutured the skin back over the whole thing, splashing on liberal amounts of rum as he went.  He felt his delicate fingers (his hands were small for a man of his size) over the closed wound, noting with smug satisfaction that the screws had their intended effect, “That’s gonna hurt reeeel bad”, he drawled with a mid-western twang. He then fashioned an expert bandage-sling using pieces from the kit and when he was satisfied with the work he slipped a wool blanket over the Mexican. He took out a blood pressure cuff and took the Mex’s blood pressure, then measured his pulse and temperature, writing it all down on the clipboard from the cockpit. “We need to check him every hour and record his vitals.  Give him a shot of anti-biotic, Hai, he’ll probably need more but this injury has spent most everything in the kit. When he stirs, hit him with more morphine.  That plate shouldn’t come off. How he gets it out of there is his business, if he lives. I’m not even sure if the glue will poison him or not.” He let out another chuckle.

  “Who IS this guy?” Hai wondered. Tonie had busied herself with providing the patient a pillow for his head.

“Don’t know”, Cap said, “but he shoots like a boss. Why he stepped in like that and where he came from will remain a mystery.  How did he get it in the front? If he pulls through, we’ll know more. He’s got no ID, no passport, nothing. He mentioned Mexico in the jungle so I assume he’s Mexican. I can also assume that Mexico is the last place he wants to be. Either way, he’s welcome on my ship. If he lives, he comes with us. If not, we’ll go down low over the Gulf and give him a burial at sea.”

  “He’s just like us” Hai said, the sudden remark caught Cap off guard.

“Yes Hai” Cap said, hand on Hai’s shoulder, “Just like us. One of the lost boys. Welcome to where the wild things are, lost boy.”

“Welcome, lost boy”, Hai whispered.

Author's Note

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