My Broken Arm

Watching Camelot Die

There may be something wrong with me. They tell me something is a very rare disease, then suddenly it’s everywhere.

I have a knee that’s just trash. You’d think it was from Temu. To combat this, I’d make an appointment with JO Manning once or twice a year so he could tell me he’d have to replace it one day, but not yet.

There was once a group of guys who had all been in the Alpha Upsilon chapter of KA together at Ole Miss. They included my dad, Leon Lewis, Brum Day, and Dr. JO “Jimmy” Manning. Through the years, I met the entire chapter. Most turned out for Dad’s funeral, and then again for Brum’s.

Growing up, there were maybe five orthopedists in Jackson. In my dad’s generation, you had to leave Mississippi to get your medical degree and your residency. A lot of guys just never came back.

JO came back because he was a Mississippi promoter. His practice evolved into what is now known as the Mississippi Sports Medicine Clinic. If Mississippi Camelot had a round table, he would have had a seat.

Life began to move very quickly for me, starting at age twelve. Had I known what was coming, I would have sought ways to stay twelve.

Playing touch football while my brother played real football, I broke my arm.

My dad and Mike Barkett consulted. They sprayed my arm with something cold and wrapped it in an ace bandage. “Sprains are common among boys.” Coach Barkett said.

Complaining at supper that my arm still hurt, Daddy said I had to be brave and put on another ace bandage. I know my daddy loved me, but my arm kept hurting, and the swelling never went down.

For a while, the private schools in Jackson got bus service because the mass exodus from public schools continued. Now that public schools are empty of middle-class people, everybody talks about how terrible they are. Gee, I wonder what caused that. First Pres had one with flowers and things painted on it. St Andrews just rented one from Greyhound. On the crowded bus, kids kept bumping me and my bandaged arm, and it hurt so bad.

A week later, my Mom made me an appointment with Dr. Manning, without consulting my dad, who was in Washington.

After a consultation, including examination using a machine that looked like it belonged in “Forbidden Planet.” I sat in the consulting room with my mother, promising that it didn’t hurt so much anymore.

Dr. Manning came in, lit up this machine, and attached a large piece of plastic to it. Through the black plastic, you could see what looked like part of a skeleton. Mine Apparantly.

“You tell Jim Campbell, I won’t sell pencils if he won’t practice medicine. Your son has a broken arm,” he said.

On the X Ray, you could clearly see where one of the two bones in my forearm had a clean separation and didn’t quite line up anymore.

When Daddy came home, he pulled me and my little plaster cast to him and held me so tight. “I’m so sorry, Buddy,” he said. When he switched from calling me “Bird” to calling me “Buddy,” I knew something was up. In our house, nobody called me “Boyd” unless I was in pretty big trouble.

“Look, it’s cool!” I said and showed where all the kids signed my cast, including Jessie, the Janitor.

Because we didn’t set it right away, my arm healed with a very visible hump on one side. It reminds me of my Dad and JO. I love it.

After dad died, I sat in Dr. Manning’s office, waiting for the nurse to call my name. Mississippi Camelot was dying. I could feel it, but I couldn’t stop it. Cracks and signs of decay were everywhere.

One of my Mom’s best friends was Leon Lewis’s wife, Jane. One of Jackson’s best cooks, Mrs. Lewis, made chocolate crepes and a giant sweet roll for us that we always ate on Christmas Day.

She sat in the waiting room with the legendary Mrs. Ford. She was Leon’s top client and gave boatloads of money to education in Mississippi. Mrs Jane helped take care of her because she was also a lonely old lady. Money doesn’t equate to happiness.

When I got out, I went by my Mom’s house. “Is Mrs. Lewis ok? She looked terrible.”

We didn’t know it yet, but in less than two years, both Leon Lewis’s wife and oldest KA friend were diagnosed with ALS.

At the time, I believed Lou Gehrig’s Disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) was pretty rare. There was even a movie about it. Suddenly, it was a quiet epidemic in Jackson.

Frank “Brum” Day didn’t get married until the very last moments of his remarkable life. He knew what he wanted; she wouldn’t agree to it. Girls can be like that. That she loved him was never in question. Strong minds sometimes have strong battles.

When the president of First National Bank died unexpectedly in the United Kingdom, Brum became Bob Hearin’s second choice to replace him. His first choice is a story for another day, and maybe one I shouldn’t tell.

When I was a child, Brum would dress up like Santa and visit his friends’ kids. There’s a photograph of my sister and Lee Lee Kroeze sitting in his lap. Martha had a death grip on a dill pickle. Between that and big spoonfuls of peanut butter, we managed to keep our picky eater alive.

Mrs. Lewis hid her disease better than Brum. Always very thin and polite, she just became thinner and quieter. A lady disguises her discomfort.

Brum was neither thin nor polite. He regularly fought tigers, sometimes in Baton Rouge. Watching his body decay hurt me as much as it did him.

The last time I saw Brum alive, he attended the grand opening of the reservoir Trustmark, where I lived. Wearing a thousand-dollar suit he got from Billy Neville, he didn’t have the strength to keep his mouth closed, and his once square jaw hung limply from his skull.

Shortly after that, he quit taking calls from little boys, now in their thirties. I watched my dad die, almost instantly. The shock helped me process it in a delayed fashion. Watching Brum slowly erode away would have left a scar across my soul. I’m sure Barbara Reed felt the same, but she spent every night in his bed, including the one when his big heart quit beating. Finally, the giant could rest.

Soon after seeing him at Trustmark, he’d spend the rest of his life in bed or pushed in a wheelchair. Very few people were allowed to see him like that. He begged Barbara to marry him. Having loved him all along, in the final moments, she agreed. Now, there are statues to Brum as he made it so Mississippi kids could go to college, even though he never had any of his own.

I’ve written about how certain diseases became my companions in life, even though I never had them. Schizophrenia and Suicidal Major Depressive Disorder are among them. One of them took my first girlfriend. They never told me which one, which took away my Katie, just that she was “sick” and it wasn’t my fault.

You must not know me, baby. Everything is somehow my fault as long as I’m alive to prevent it, but maybe not yet strong enough. I don’t know that I could have saved Katie, but they should have let me try.

Watching Brum die is something I have dreams about. Not good ones. ALS became my companion, too. It might be rare in other places, but not around me.

I keep Brum and Dr. Manning alive in my stories. It’s all I can do now. They were the Knights of Camelot, now dust and moonlight. An old man, there’s still a bump on my arm. I touch it for luck—and love.