The Hut in the yard part 2 Same Old

I looked at my old grey hut, gave what was becoming a customary sigh at the sight of latest devastation, shrugged my shoulders as I saw yet another, pane of glass smashed by the kids, shards of glass lay on the concrete floor of the yard; neatly positioned by the affect of a rocket propelled brick. I despaired. Removing the padlock from its hasp I opening the door gingerly, and very hesitantly; ever alert to as yet unseen dangers that could lurk behind the door. I had been a victim of child abuse at the hands of my 3 kids. The abuse ranged from flying hammers tethered to a simple trip devise by international terrorists that sought out unguarded shins, dead mice tied to lengths of string that zoomed toward your face when the door was opened and for good measure industrial soap in empty cans that spilt their content over an unsuspecting head. I tip toed carefully until I was sure there were no hidden surprises, I fashioned myself a seat out of an empty bucket and a backrest made from an old plank of wood. I sat back rolling myself a cigarette, as I did planning my course of action. I looked at the broken pane wondered how I was going to fix this latest act of wanton vandalism. I was quite handy on cars I thought, not bad at decoration and good at gardening. But alas my prowess as a handy man was abysmal. I lacked any common sense in doing what other people regarded as simple chores. I had a neighbour who I secretly suspected was actually God in blue overalls. This guy could build walls, extend buildings, tile roofs, make ornate wooden cabinets, between re-wiring a three story building with just a pair of pliers and a piece of string; the cosmos as a project would have been a complete doddle. I on the other hand struggled with what Chris (short for Christ) would no doubt regard as mundane and repetitive. If I put up a bathroom shelf, the tooth paste would be accessible from the floor, if I fitted door handles I would be locked in for days, we had the only door handles in the estate with teeth marks embedded on them. I was absolutely hopeless yet I tried, I tried so hard it hurt, boy did it hurt. Drilling the wall in the kitchen to hang a shelf I felt that something was just not right, and to be fair if Denise had not screamed at me to stop drilling, I would probably have electrocuted myself as I had not appreciated that I was drilling into the buried wall cable that fed the plug I was using? Luckily Denise’s scream was such that I had thrown the drill toward the sink like an unwanted vibrating pound of high explosives, destroying half a tea set and submerged the still rotating drill into the sink, prior to the customary blowing of several fuses.
I was scarred by my efforts to be a domesticated husband. Recalling one vivid occasion I had taken my three boys Andrew, Christopher, and Richard 9, 7, 5 years of age respectively into our front garden to do some weeding and general digging. I explained the tasks they had to do in great detail. I would dig a piece of garden, Andrew being the oldest would attempt to break up the lumps of soil by hitting them with a full sized shovel, followed by Christopher who with a medium garden rake would use it to break the lumps into even smaller parts all; of which would allow Richard, the youngest of the crew to rake the remnants into a neat little pile with his miniature wooden rake. Andrew struggled with the shovel as it was twice his size, but with admirable effort he manage to whack the lumps of soil I was turning over. This haphazard system worked well, so much so that passing neighbours commented on how lucky I was to have such enthusiastic helpers. I was naturally proud and gloated at the being the proud parent of such willing helpers. Until that is Christopher decided that he would buck the trend by not waiting until his allotted slot and raised his metal garden rake at great speed and proceeded to whack me full in the face with his garden implement. For my part I thought there had been a nuclear attack with me being the recipient of a direct hit to the future of mankind. I immediately threw my hands over the impact area and was horrified to see copious amounts of red blood cascading between my outstretched fingers. Staggered forward feeling my knees buckle beneath me I fought to stay in control. Waves of nausea and dizziness engulfed my being as the struggled to remain conscious and alive was underway. I was vaguely aware of Christopher’s crying as I heard Denise running down the garden path and speaking very excitedly. Regaining my feet I started stumbling toward the house like a drunken man. “My fuckin God what have you done” Denise said holding me by my shoulders and staring at my hidden face. Having lost the ability to speak I could only mumble incoherently as saliva and mucus mixing with fresh blood oozed between my now sticky scarlet fingers, I could taste the blood in my mouth. With that she pushed past me toward the now screaming children who had decided to cry in harmony like a pack of howling wolves. I headed toward the door and decided that on this one occasion I would skip the mandatory removal of my garden boots before entering the living room on route to the downstairs toilet. I managed to reach the toilet leaving a trail of dotted blood blotches in my wake. I immediately began running the cold water and was horrified to see it turn a scarlet pink as it collided with my oozing blood. Looking in the mirror above the sink I lent slightly to my left as the mirror was tended to vavour the left, it being one of my earlier projects. What little I saw was pretty bad, however I felt the need to reveal the extent of my injury and proceeded to slowly move my hands away from my face. The wound was actually a gash about an 2 inches long running almost straight down from my brow toward my left eye. It was quite deep and at its centre and was bleeding quite heavily. Scooping handfuls of water I splashed my face with the cold yet refreshing water. Feeling slightly better and somewhat relieved now that I now knew the injury was not as bad as first feared, I thought about raising the injury up high as taught in first aid classes, but couldn't imagine it would be beneficial to stand on the bath just to get the cut elevated. Ashen and sickly I continued treating the wound with cold water, occasionally having a look at the cut in the mirror from slightly different angles to gauge wither any resulting scar would, or could just be advantageous in a manly sort of macho way. However I immediately thought the cut looked like the result of some stupid bastard being walloped on the head by a five year child with a garden rake. Wrapping toilet tissue around my hand to form a pad I was able to apply some pressure to the wound stemming the blood to an extent where it stopped trickling down my face, and instead began to dampen and turn the toilet tissue pad a dull reddish colour. As I dabbed at the wound and changed pads several times, I could hear Denise trying to console the kids who were still crying, although not as much, it was more of a token cry, a sort of ‘I done something wrong but because I’m crying it will be alright’ sort of cry.
“It’s ok it’s just your dad, he’ll be fine”
“Now come on, go and get some sweets from the fridge”.
“Oh and watch you don’t slip on that blood on the floor” she added.
The trio now totally absolved of any blame or responsibility for my current predicament as they made a mad dash for the fridge.
Looking up I could see Denise in the framework of the door.
“Well, I hope you realise”. I waited as her contorted face looked directly into my reddened face.
“I hope you realise that you have frightened the life out of them kids, you stupid stupid man”
I thought about a reply, perhaps mentioning the small fact that I had been the one cracked on the head with a garden rake. That it was also I, who had had a frontal lobotomy performed with the aid of a garden rake, by an untrained Surgeon and Gardener, but in the end, I just shrugged my shoulders and looked at the pad of tissue.
“Well dear, will you tell the hit squad in there”? Gesturing in the direction of the kitchen
“That I will avail myself lying prostrate in the garden should they want to practice mowing the lawn, or sharpen their skills using hammers or throwing garden forks”. I threw the toilet tissue down the toilet bowl, watching it disappear in the swirl of pinkish, reddish water. I gave Denise the look of a desperate hard done by man, at the same time glancing at the mirror just in case the reflection would indeed be that, of a scarred garden warrior, but as it was, it was just the reflection of a stupid looking fucker who had been bludgeoned with a extremely blunt garden rake by a five year old boy; the little shit.
I had two pieces of glass left from the original pile of spare glass panes that had come with the hut. I looked at the last repair I had done on the window. Having no putty or anything remotely resembling window adhesive I had had to improvise, I had secured the glass by knocking in nails on either side of the glass, left, right, top and bottom. This was very similar technique to securing green house glass, although once the small nails were bent over an adhesive or putty was pressed into the frame of the window that eventually dried securing the pane of glass. Locating my claw hammer on the ‘ghost board’ on the back wall of the hut where all the outlines of the tools had been drawn, It was so much easier to identify the tools that were missing; which on this occasion was all but my claw hammer, which in itself was miraculous given that there was usually a hunt for all my tools. I carefully put my head through the centre of the broken pane; I had to bend slightly as the window was just taller that myself. Being very careful not to cut myself the task of removing the broken shards of what remained of the glass began. With delicate little hits and taps with the hammer the glass soon was all gone. Making certain there was no glass I ran my finger down the inside of the window frame, and along the bottom. I had taken the precaution of hitting the bottom nail down to hold the glass instead of up, as this would leave a sharp nail that could catch an unsuspecting hand. I congratulate myself because I had just hit the nail with my hand and was glad that it was not sharp as I could have expected. ‘Well done’ I thought as I realised that I had just avoided a potential accident. ‘Right’ I muttered to myself as a further precaution we’ll get this nail out, and then there would be no threat. I manoeuvred the nail into the claw of the hammer hitting the head of the hammer with the palm of my hand gently. When I was sure the nail was right in the claw I pulled the shaft of the hammer toward myself as the head of the hammer began to level out on the bottom of the window frame. The nail began to lift ever so slightly and then stopped. Leaning slightly away from the window I could see that the bottom of the nail was slightly bent. ‘Ah’ I thought ‘this is going to require a bit of muscle’. I decided that a short sharp attack on the nail was preferential to a slow pressurised steady pull. Using and old trick of placing a small piece of wood under the claw of the hammer, thus increasing the angle to approximately 45° of pull l I steadied myself for task at hand. ‘After 3, get ready’ I heard myself say out loud. Placing both hands on the top of the claw hammer handle I interlinked my fingers. I could feel myself move my body weight forward ever so slightly as the pressure mounted on the handle. 3, I shouted as I pressed backwards jerking the head of the hammer. The head of the nail must have escaped the claw of the hammer as the hammer broke free from its grip on the nail. I went slightly backward and upward with the momentum of the force. I heard a little crunch and felt my head connect with the top of the window frame. A friend of mine had told me that while in the Navy he had fallen asleep on his bunk with his face resting on a half eaten pizza. As a result when he awoke from his drunken slumber he was unable to feel one side of his face, fearing he had had a stroke he had started calling on his shipmates out of the side of his mouth. I was now in the same sort of predicament
A sharp pain followed almost immediately as the claw hammer came into contact with a foot that was relatively unprotected by my slipper as it fell toward the floor. But more alarmingly was the little bolt of pain that was causing my eyes to close slightly and my teeth to mesh as my mouth twisted in pain. I immediately knew that I had a nail lodged somewhere in my head, or rather my head lodged in a nail.