Extreme Remedies and Other Stories

By Helen Hudson

Extreme Remedies and Other Stories collects short stories from Helen Hudson's long writing career along with autobiographical pieces that reveal how the concerns in her fiction intertwine with the concerns of her life. The characters in these stories grasp blindly in pursuit of empathy. A retired professor can't find anyone he can speak to of his wife's passing. An architect finds himself confined in a retirement home structured to satisfy his ambition rather than human needs. A compulsive volunteer fails to recognize the plight of one who, in his boorish way, has sought out her care. The struggles of these characters reveal that empathy is as vital to the giver as the receiver, a point brought home in the autobiographical vignettes interspersed throughout.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wessex Collective
• Release date: Jul 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301410446

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Praise for Helen Hudson's previous books:

...a brilliant, witty writer.... her insights, her similes and metaphors gleam like knife blades in the sun. -Newsweek

A superior writer...Miss Hudson has Charlie Chaplin's magic way of provoking derision, sympathy, exasperation and curiosity all with the same gesture. -The New Yorker

Miss Hudson is a gifted writer... her pliant style and warmth for her characters are uncommon virtues. -The New York Times Book Review

Her touch is light, whenever we come close to weeping, she saves us with her laughter. -Look

A fine and sensitive writer. -Publishers Weekly

"Criminal Trespass explores with accuracy, loneliness, racism, ignorance, the will to learn and the ability to love with extraordinary tenderness... enough emotional torque to move any reader." -Los Angeles Times Book Review

Tell the Time to None is a novel admirably wrought and richly satisfying. The luminescent prose moves like a soft but searching light..." -Chicago Tribune

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EXTREME REMEDIES

by

Helen Hunt

Edited by Andrew Heisel

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

The Wessex Collective on Smashwords

EXTREME REMEDIES

copyright 2013 by Helen Hunt

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Smashwords Edition

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDUCATION

BROKEN CIRCUITS

THE ARCHITECT

GOOD DEEDS

SCHOOL

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THE CONSTANT CALLER

SELMA

MRS. MURKETT

VIETNAM

GODFREY DENSH

EMERITUS

BAIL STUDY

EXTREME REMEDIES

A note about the writer

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EDUCATION

(Memoir)

My education began, like that of all other children in the neighborhood, in the first grade at P.S. 86 in the Bronx. But I was the only one to arrive in a car and, even worse, the only one driven by a chauffeur. I sat up front with Fred, a friendly, smiling man who could do anything: fix the car and the garage door and my roller skates and build window boxes for my life-size doll house.

As soon as we stopped in front of the school on my first day, the car was surrounded by a crowd of staring children. Wow! one of the big boys shouted. Getta loada that.

Home James, another squeaked in a high falsetto. And don’t spare the horses.

The other children laughed and shouted, Home James. Home James. And don’t spare the horses.

That night I confronted my parents.

Why do I have to go to school in the car with Fred?

Why not? my father said. Don’t you like Fred?

"Of course I like Fred. He’s practically my best friend. But why does he have to take me to school? Why can’t I walk to school like all the other kids? No one else goes to school in a car." They didn’t even have cars, I realized suddenly—or chauffeurs. I often saw their fathers walking back and forth from the subway with newspapers under their arms. We had two cars and two chauffeurs.

You’re too young to go alone, my mother said.

"But I wouldn’t go alone. I’d go with Gloria and Dorothy and Jeanne and Annette. They all walk to school. I could walk with them."

Fordham Road is too dangerous for young children to cross by themselves, my mother said.

Why not let Frannie walk her to school? my father said. Frannie took care of my younger brother and me. She was a lively young woman from London who taught us all kinds of English ballads and English games and read English stories to us: Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows and The Secret Garden. I loved her, but I didn’t want her to walk to school with me. None of my friends had a Frannie. The children would make fun of me again.

"I need Frannie here, my mother said. When you’re a little older, she went on, brushing back my hair and kissing my cheek, then you may walk to school alone."

The next day, Miss Calmus, the first grade teacher, called me up to the blackboard. I remember her as a slim, smart-dressed woman in suits with a gold pin like a giant bug crawling up her left lapel and a handkerchief up her sleeve. I wonder now what else she had up her sleeve. She also had a rather pinched face with thin lips and a jerky, impatient manner, as if she were always angry at something or somebody. She terrified me.

Write the numbers from one to ten, she snapped as I stood nervously at the blackboard. I picked up the chalk—and promptly dropped it. The class tittered. With my back turned, I began to write slowly and painfully. Soon I heard the classroom door open and close and the voice of Miss Sturdevant from next door. She was a plump, rosy-cheeked, young woman with short, black hair and a rather booming voice, who often came to talk to Miss Calmus. Always, as soon as she appeared, Miss Calmus ordered the class to open your books and write your names, neatly and correctly. She made it sound like a punishment.

The two teachers began to talk in low voices, but I could hear them quite clearly. Is that the one? Miss Sturdevant said.

Mmmm hmmm, Miss Calmus said. Comes to school in a car and chauffeur, if you please. They’re obviously rolling.

I didn’t know what she meant by rolling, but I knew it was something bad.

Why send their children to a shabby, old public school instead of to a new, fancy private school? Miss Sturdevant said.

Too stingy, I suppose. They’re probably Jews. You can’t tell anything by a name anymore.

She’s dark enough. I dropped the chalk again. The class tittered. The talking stopped and I could hear the door open and close.

Well, Miss Calmus said, turning to me. Let’s see how you got on.

I stepped back and looked at the blackboard: I had reached number seven, which I considered rather good—under the circumstances.

But Miss Calmus did not.

What were you doing up there all the time, she said in her sharp voice. Biting your nails? Picking your nose?

The class laughed again—this time with gusto.

I started back to my seat with my face blazing and my eyes full of tears and stumbled against the leg of my desk.

Come back here, Miss Calmus called. Just what is this supposed to be? She placed her pointer on number seven.

It’s a seven, I said.

Seven? Tell me class, did I ever teach you to write a seven that way?

No, Miss Calmus.

She turned to me.

Did I ever teach you to write a seven that way?

I had no idea what was wrong with it.

With a line through its back like that?

I shook my head.

Then who did?

Frannie, Miss Calmus, I managed to say. But I was terrified that she would do something terrible, not only to me but to Frannie too. And it would be all my fault.

And just who is Frannie?

I didn’t know how to answer that. She was just Frannie.

She takes care of us, I said finally. Of my brothers and me.

A nursemaid, Miss Calmus said, and the class laughed again.

Frannie the Nanny, a big boy in the back said.

"A foreign nursemaid, I assume, Miss Calmus went on, from the way she writes her sevens."

I didn’t know what foreign meant but, again, I was sure it was something bad. "She’s not foreign, I said with as much indignation as I could muster, She’s English."

I continued to go to school with Fred. But I no longer sat up front with him. Instead, I crouched on the floor in the back and begged him to let me off a long block away from school.

From then on, I hated and feared not only Miss Calmus but all numbers as well.

Miss Calmus soon disappeared from my life, but my fear and hatred of numbers and my shame at being different from the other kids, at having a car and a chauffeur and even a nursemaid remained.

Later the shame would turn to guilt.

When I was about ten, I lost a library book, which sent me into a panic. How could I have lost that book, a book I adored? It was all about knights and dragons and fair ladies. I carried it with me everywhere and read it whenever I could: in the bathroom while I brushed my hair and my teeth; in the tub while the water grew cold and Frannie called to make sure I hadn’t drowned; and under the blankets at night. Those knights and ladies were never out of my sight. But when it was time to return them to the library, they were gone.

I imagined them in some cold, lonely spot: locked up in the school playground, trapped under the cellar steps, fallen in the trash can and hauled away by the garbage men. I searched everywhere, secretly, frantically, for weeks. I wondered what happened to children who lost library books. Had anyone ever lost a library book before?

When the overdue notice came, I grew more and more frightened and more and more obsessed. I could think of nothing else. On the street I counted trees, telegraph poles, parked cars—yes, no, yes, no. I would, I wouldn’t find the book. I wished on the first star, the new moon, the first day of the month, and chicken bones. I tossed coins and lived with my fingers permanently crossed. I prayed and promised and bargained. If only I could find the book I would give up chocolate ice cream sodas and read nothing but arithmetic exercise books and play nothing but hopscotch, which made me dizzy. I would submit to shampoos twice a week and eat spinach every day.

But nothing worked. I resigned myself to pure terror. Whenever the phone or doorbell rang, I was sure it was the man sent by the library to find children who did not return their library books. A big man, I imagined, in a black suit and a black hat, a long black cloak like Dracula—and a big black suitcase. I was glad when I got the flu, which Frannie said was very catching. I didn’t think he would come while I was very catching. But I kept thinking about him while my fever went up and my nightmares grew more frightening. One morning, Frannie looked at me strangely.

What’s all this about a book? she said You went on and on about it all night.

What book? I never said anything about a book.

You were in no condition to know what you were saying, young lady. You were raving. About some book.

One evening, my father came in. He looked at me strangely too.

What’s all this about a book? he said quietly, sitting down beside my bed and taking my hand.

In the end, of course, I told him. He listened, frowning.

You lost a library book? he said, shaking his head. Public property? That was extremely careless of you. Then he grinned and patted my cheek.

You should have told us about it right away instead of worrying yourself sick over it.

He stood up and kissed my forehead.

As soon as you’re well, he said, Frannie will take you to the library and you can make your confession.

He smiled again. "They’ll tell you what to do to settle the matter. It won’t be anything terrible, I promise you. It does happen you know. I’m sure you’re not the first little, girl, or boy for that matter, who has ever lost a library book. Even grown-ups do it sometimes," he added, and kissed me.

Meanwhile, get well and stop worrying.

But I wasn’t so easily reassured. I imagined myself in prison, in a cold, dark cell with my head shaved and nothing to read.

When the day came, I put on my winter underwear, a thick woolen dress and two sweaters, though it was very warm for September.

A bit over-dressed, aren’t we? Frannie said.

In case I have to stay in jail all winter, I thought, and tucked Water Babies into my waistband. I took it because it was the fattest book I owned, but also the scariest. It gave me nightmares, which was part of my plan to stave off any further punishment.

The day we started for the library was gloomy with heavy clouds, like curtains about to fall down and smother me. The trees looked positively hostile with their long, over-hanging branches reaching out to strangle me.

At the library, Frannie did not give me a chance to confess but marched me up to the circulation desk and announced that we have lost ‘our’ library book. The librarian nodded. She was small and quick and businesslike and wore a pencil on the top of her head. She didn’t seem shocked or angry or even surprised. She just asked for the author and the title of the book, looked up something, and told Frannie how much to pay. Frannie put the money on the counter and the librarian smiled and thanked her.

At last we were safely outside again, back in the old world with the clouds high up in the sky where they belonged and the trees friendly again with their branches discreetly in place. The sun shone steadily as if in apology for its earlier absence.

Is this what they always do? I said. Just make you pay?

Of course she said. "What else could they do?"

Put you in jail, I thought.

Oh, yes, Frannie said again. They always make you pay. That’s the law, I guess. It’s only fair, after all.

We walked on silently for a while.

"But what if you can’t pay? I asked. What if you don’t have enough money to pay? What happens to you then?"

I was thinking of Maudie, a small girl in my class at school who never had any milk money and whose clothes were always too big or too small, as if they were meant for somebody else.

Frannie turned and stared at me.

I don’t know, she said. "Take your library card away, I expect, until