Pickets remedy

"Gimme your foot an I go mek yu wak tomorrow," he said, a smile on his face and an easy way about him.

"Wha you gonna do?" I asked. I did not want to hear the word 'cut' mentioned.

The smile took over his face. "Go an tink abat it, jus gimme your foot when you check me laitaa when it dark. You'll wak on de two o' dem tomorrow again"

I limped away to consider my options, the heel of my foot throbbed with every delicate step.

Dad could take me over to the hospital on the far shore in the dinghy, but I didn't relish the thought of being poked and prodded painfully by a pompous man in white, then the was the 'lancing' word to think about. I already knew what lancing a boil meant, and that was unbearably painful, so I didn't rate this option.

I could carry on hobbling around and not be able to play properly, or swim, or climb, or have any fun.

Or I could surrender my foot to Picket and walk tomorrow. There was never any doubt in my mind that he what he said would be true.

At dusk I returned to the boat. Picket was already there, sitting with Dad in the cockpit with a rum and lime.

“Yeah okay,” I said.

“Come,” he said.

I followed him down below to the saloon, my heart pumping with concern for my well- being. I really didn’t want to believe what my brain was telling me.

He sat on the seat behind the table and got me to sit stretched out with my foot in his lap. He grabbed my foot in a vice like grip, and asked my brother to fetch a bay leaf, some margarine, an egg cup, and a razor blade.

Gulp.

A razor blade? What would that be for? I pondered frantically.

Struggling was pointless. He calmly rubbed the bay leaf on my heel, and coated it in marg.

The razor blade was new.

The vice like grip tightened a few turns.

The razor blade glinted as it moved.

I screamed for my life and felt instant death looming in the tunnel.
Then he was squeezing the agony out of my foot and relief beckoned.

A full egg cup of ‘infectious yuk’ later and it was all over. The throbbing was now just a stinging and the cut was barely a quarter of an inch.

“tis de only way.” He said, “You go wak tomorrow.”

Dad was still sitting where we’d left him, distraught by my pain.

He gave me a hug handed me something.

That was the first and last time I ever smoked a joint with my dad.

No throbbing and a good nights sleep.

I was walking 'on de two o' dem' the next day.