by Linda Byler
His brothers teased him unmercifully on Monday.
“How’d you feel, driving that small brown horse? He looked like a pony, he’s that tiny.”
“You sat forward, hanging on to the reins as if that little thing was going to get away from you.”
“Look out. Here comes Crayon. A brown one.”
Laughter like a sandstorm, blowing grit and dust into John’s eyes. He blinked furiously to rid himself of the onslaught.
None of them could have known the high cost of driving in that dusty lane in front of a hundred pairs of observant eyes, all turned to him in unabashed curiosity. He had often heard the term “loser,” used it himself, but rarely imagined the gut-wrenching fear that sent his heartbeat into a hopping, skipping rhythm, the awareness of being exactly that. A loser.
Why had he even tried?
He sat on the sidelines, his long legs with the newly pressed trousers stretched out in front of him, his weight propped on his hands as he sat on the grass, watching the confusing colors and light of the volleyball game.
He closed his eyes to resist the movement that poked into his weary eyesight. His neck felt as if someone had punched the top of his spine with both fists.
“Nice shirt.”
He started, turned his head too quickly. A wall of blackness moved across his vision, so he waited till it cleared.
Again, “Nice shirt, John.”
Lena. With Ruthie. His brothers’ girlfriends.
“Thanks.”
“You enjoying yourself?”
Ruthie peered around Lena.
“Uh . . . yeah. I guess so.”
He blinked, looking to the players. John longed to be up against the net, his height a huge advantage, his powerful arms spiking the ball. It was game point.
“First weekends are never fun.”
Lena’s blue eyes were like tropical waves of turquoise water. He wanted to swim in them. How could anyone have such beautiful tanned skin with that impossible blond hair color?
He turned away.
“How’s your Lyme disease?”
He got to his feet, quickly. He reached for the back of a folding chair for support, long enough to gain his footing when the ground tilted to a forty-five-degree angle. He removed himself, put all the distance between him and the question that he could.
He couldn’t tell Lena about his sheets soaked in perspiration, the oncoming anxiety that squeezed the breath from his body, the intestines that rumbled with antibiotics and toxins and vitamin C, vitamin D, kelp, aloe vera, a cocktail of vile elixirs.
“Take it, John,” his father commanded, though gently. “It’s good for you. It will give you energy.”
“Nothing will, Dat. This stuff will not give me anything except a stomach roaring with gas and cramps.”
“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad.”
And so he didn’t answer Lena, didn’t even meet her eyes. He stood awkwardly, grasping the back of the chair, until finally she moved away toward a group of giggling girls.
The fall foliage was exquisite that year. Great clouds of white fluff cavorted playfully on a pristine blue canvas, holding court for the swaths of red, orange, and yellow that covered the hills and ridges of Jefferson County like a brilliant patchwork quilt done in the vibrant colors only God could invent. The air turned crisp and frost cradled the valleys in its icy veil, turning the chrysanthemums even brighter. Pumpkins lolled among decaying vines.
Mam had made fried chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner. Dat was feeling expansive, a fat milk check having arrived in the mail. He was thinking of buying a new baler come spring.
“Who’s going to peel neck pumpkins this year?” Mam asked, a twinkle in her eyes.
“John, of course,” Samuel said, grinning good-naturedly.
“Yeah. John. He does a great job.”
“Johnny peel the pumpkin. Johnny peel the pumpkin.”
Marcus laughed along, sending a spray of applesauce and mashed potatoes over Amos’s plate.
“Hey, watch it there. Gross.”
He got up to rinse his utensils, cleaned his plate with soapy dishwater.
Dessert was fresh pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Mam watched with a light of pride as three whole pies disappeared, a fourth started.
“No one makes pumpkin pie the way you do, Mam.”
“Oh, well, now.”
She didn’t know how to take a compliment, but still glistened with appreciation, her world shining bright as long as she could please the boys and Elmer.
John was looking queasy, Mam noticed suddenly. When he got up to rush to the bathroom, the sounds of retching delivered in nauseating crescendo, eye rolling and sounds of impatience ruined the goodwill that had filled the homey kitchen.
Mam followed immediately, hovered around the bathroom door, pacing, fixing a doily on the walnut desk, waiting till John emerged, when she would pounce on him with her arsenal of questions.
So John stayed in the bathroom.
Dat tried to keep the lighthearted vibe, reveling in blessings and good fortune, but it sputtered and died, like an unfueled engine, when Abner gestured with impatience.
“That boy gets too much crap in his system. He needs to be flushed like a commode. It’s no wonder he’s sick as a dog.”
Tap. Tap. Tap. Mam had her ear to the bathroom door.
“John. John.”
No response.
“John, are you all right? John, open the door. John, do you hear me?
Dat growled, a strained version of his previous banter. “Sit down, Mary. Let him alone.”
“Elmer, I’m not going to. What if he passed out? He’s not answering. He didn’t look good at all before he went to the bathroom. John? John?”
“Mary, come here and sit down.” Dat’s voice was terrible now.
Abner turned his face sharply in Dat’s direction. “You don’t have to yell at her.”
“I wasn’t yelling.”
“Sure you were.”
“He probably just wants us to worry. He’s nothing but a big spoiled baby.” Samuel got up, left the table, and slammed the washhouse door on his way out.
Mam obeyed her husband’s orders and returned to the table, her own stomach roiling with greasy chicken and whipped cream.
Marcus spoke for all of them.
“Samuel’s probably right, Mam. He likely overate, that’s all. You watch his face the way ship’s captains watch the weather monitor. It’s becoming an obsession. ‘Ooo, John is pale. He needs calcium. John is weak. Give him something else.’ It’s getting completely out of control.”
Mam lowered her face and began to cry, softly, making no sound, discreetly lifting her apron to produce a wad of Kleenex and holding them to her nose.
“Marcus, look what you’ve done. You made your mother cry. You apologize now,” Dat spoke sternly.
“I will, Dat. But I mean what I just said. Everybody needs to calm down about John’s health.”
He looked over at his mother. “Sorry, Mam.”
Daniel got to his feet. “The whole family is being torn apart, one thread at a time. I hate it.”
John sat on the lid of the commode, his supper having been flushed away, the stench of his own bowels permeating the small bathroom. He was sweating, his throat raw with vomiting, feeling lower and more miserable than he had ever felt. A year and how many months, with the ever-growing conviction that his intestines crawled with parasites, the spirochetes in his cells slowly eating him alive. He was sure death was imminent.
After everyone left the table, Mam stayed behind, washing dishes. He tiptoed upstairs to the shower, then presented his soiled clothing to her with a face ravaged with anxiety and hands that shook like a palsied old man’s.
CHAPTER 10
WHEN ALLEN CAME DOWN WITH A STOMACH BUG, THEN DANIEL, Mam was relieved. That was all it was, then. John had an intestinal virus, that was all.
He lay in his bed, upstairs, and refused to come down.
Ma
m carried trays of drinks, the very air around her sizzling with angst. Orange juice. Maalox. Hot peppermint tea. Vinegar and honey water. John turned his back, pulled pillows over his head to smother the staccato sound of her voice.
“You’ll become dehydrated, John. You must drink. What hurts? Is it your stomach? Answer me, John. Dat and I can’t help you if you refuse to speak to us about it. Tell me, please, John.”
All he wanted was quiet. He wanted dark nothingness, where the world disappeared and left him to exist without effort, without trying to hear and understand, without having to pick sentences apart word by word until he knew what they meant.
His stomach was filled with a hard, black pain, a permanent boulder that would not budge. There was a thick wet fog, like soup, a thickened milk soup, like cream of mushroom, in his brain. His thoughts boiled into this paste.
Afternoon turned into night. He drank water from the sink in the upstairs bathroom. The pain in his stomach reached epic proportions, so he wended his way downstairs, woke up his parents, reeling with discomfort.
His mother picked up the questions where she’d left off. Mercifully, Dat shushed her gently, then made his way to the couch. He spread out the sleeping bag, his stomach a rounded paunch as he bent over.
“There you go.”
He turned away to spread a clean sheet on the couch beside him. The minute John’s head hit the silky smoothness of the clean pillowcase, drowsiness took over and he fell into a deeper, more restful sleep than he’d had for months, secure in the knowledge that nothing would happen to him as long as his father lay beside him.
In the morning, Mam and Dat both agreed it was time to call Doctor Stevenson.
John resisted, but was forced to obey. Reluctantly, he was led into the clinic, accepted the old doctor’s diagnosis. A stomach virus may have started it, but to be safe, he’d send him to the lab at the hospital. Sometimes, the doxycycline wreaked havoc with the tender lining of the intestines, and he certainly did not want that. Infection could be the result.
And death, John thought wildly. This is how I will die.
As Mam told the van driver they were being sent to the hospital in Rohrersville, John envisioned a chain of events, strung together in one long, sad gray thread. His last breath, his brothers crowded around, crying. He felt the sting of tears, the burning in his nostrils, thinking of the grief, the parting, the ensuing sorrow. A great love for his family swelled in his chest.
When the gray walls of the Rohrersville Hospital loomed out of the October drizzle, John felt a fresh wave of nausea. He said nothing. He laid his head on the back of the seat and tried to will it away.
Everything disappeared into waves of sickness. He had only one clear thought, to make this vehicle stop, to push the button on the electronic sliding door, and to be blessedly sick on the tarmac of the parking lot.
Which was exactly what happened.
Mam gasped, began the string of questions, held out napkins for him to use. There was the strong odor of baby wipes.
He shook his head, looked at the contents beside the van.
“Leave it,” Mam said briskly. “Come.”
Unbelievably, the pain lightened, softened to an ache. Then there was an emptiness. By the time the overworked lab technician had drawn blood, gave them instructions, he checked out cafeteria signs with interest.
In the van, he felt decidedly better. Lighthearted. Hungry. His thoughts felt clear, razor sharp. He smiled, to test the elasticity of his lips. They were dry, cracked.
The absence of the painful boulder in his stomach gave him fresh hope. Things could always get better, in spite of new and frightening bouts of whatever it was that Lyme disease did to a person.
His health improved over the course of a few days. He felt well enough to play volleyball at the youths’ Sunday evening gathering, but was afraid no one would want him, or they had all the players they would need, or that his arms would not be strong enough to deliver a good serve, let alone a wondrous spike. So he sat on the grass, wearing the same neat black trousers and black vest, with a charcoal gray shirt with black stripes.
Another net was being readied. Powerful battery lights were hooked up to buggies. Someone stopped in front of him. He looked up to find a pair of inquisitive eyes, like a chipmunk’s, staring down at him, with a smiling pair of lips and very white teeth that were rabbity, like his own.
“You want to play?”
Her chin jutted in the volleyball net’s direction.
“Is there room for me?”
“Sure. If we hurry.”
He got to his feet, followed the tall, muscular girl clad in an alarming shade of red, like a fire hydrant, or a firetruck.
She stopped till he caught up.
“You don’t know me, do you? You’re Elmer Stoltzfus’s John, right? The youngest.”
He nodded.
“I’m Martha. Marty.”
Her grip was as solid as a guy’s. Calloused, he thought.
“I’m the captain.”
“For what?”
“Of the team.”
“Oh.” Duh. Should have known.
“You any good?”
John shrugged his shoulders. Afraid to answer in the affirmative.
“Well, you’re certainly tall enough.”
She smiled. He smiled back. Two rabbit people, he thought. Interesting.
She stuck by him, gave him instructions on the pattern of rotation, the setups, the serving. Before an hour was up, he was enjoying himself immensely, pain and fog and Lyme disease forgotten. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this kind of energy, especially the surges of adrenaline when the ball kept going from one side to the other without being dropped.
Marty was a phenomenal player. She moved at lightning speed, and yelled a lot. In a nice way, though. She encouraged, praised, moved everyone along, her eyes missing nothing, her feet always moving.
As the game progressed, John found himself being drawn to her, in a way he could not explain even to himself. She wasn’t beautiful like some girls, like Lena. But she sparkled and glowed, as if there were inner lights that flared up within her. Her eyes popped with delight and those white glistening teeth with a bit of an overbite were the cutest things John had ever seen.
How could an overbite be attractive when he despised his own teeth?
And she talked. She said a lot, which was often humorous. Words tumbled from her mouth in quick succession, so that John could hardly keep up with the flow of her verbal observations.
And then, he fumbled badly.
Close to the net, his heart in his mouth, knowing this was the ultimate moment . . . he drove the ball into the net.
There were wails of disappointment all around.
Marty looked at him, gave him one of her smiles.
“Don’t worry about it. Shake it off,” she said, quietly.
He nodded, said thanks, but the intense feeling of failure stayed with him.
The following morning, he could barely lift his head from the pillow. His father’s calls at five o’clock seemed to be an assault on his hearing, cries that buzzed around his head. When Dat got no response, he climbed the stairs. Finally, John grunted, which seemed to satisfy Dat, and he clattered back down the stairs, leaving John to sort out his foggy existence from his aching arms and legs. His throat was dry, his head felt as if his ears would pop off from the inner pressure, not to mention the intense ache in his neck. He lifted his head, groaned as pain shot across his shoulders and down his spine.
He tried to slide one leg toward the edge of the bed, which caused fiery snakes of pain to shoot up his thighs and into his buttocks. He followed with the other leg, rolled over, and by sheer force of will, he sat up, lowered his head into his hands, and cried.
Defeated, he rolled back into his bed, drew the quilt up over his head to shut out the world.
When his father returned, calling, asking questions, he merely drew the quilt even tighter, burrowed into the safety of
his pillow until he went away. It took far too much effort to explain his symptoms. The whole world of pain and confusion was pressing in on him, expelling his breath, until there was nothing to do but find darkness and quiet.
Rest. Even that word confused him.
His mother barged in, full steam ahead, wearing her clothespin bag and the odor of laundry detergent and Clorox.
“John, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you getting up? Dat needs you. You were healthy enough to go rumschpringa yesterday, so you can get out of bed. Go help your father. He has too much on his shoulders without you. Come on. Get up now.”
“Can we do without the drama first thing in the morning?” said a gravelly voice from one bedroom away.
No answer from Mam as she scuttled her way down the stairs.
“John, get out. Get going.” Another yell from another bed. Marcus or Daniel.
John did unravel his aching body from the confines of his twisted quilt, made his way to the bathroom where he did the usual clutch of the vanity top, the cold sweat beading his upper lip as his increased heart rate caused his mouth to dry.
Take a deep breath. Another. You’ll be fine. Fine.
Doxycycline with breakfast, vitamins in every shape, size, and color. A probiotic. A detox pill for the colon. Dutifully, he swallowed them all with his breakfast.
Monday brought lowering clouds that scudded across the sky, promising rain and chilly winds, a prelude to shorter days filled with the biting cold.
The fields lay fallow, and torn cornstalks mashed into soiled rows like empty holders, their fruit taken, used up. A gray dust settled over the fields, the garden emptied of its bounty, except for a few scraggly celery stalks and the newly planted tillage radishes.
A great blue heron flapped its oversized wings as it propelled its body through the air, its feet tucked straight back like two broomsticks. The cows milled about in the barnyard, treading the soft dirt into a wet mess with the consistency of glue, their tails swishing the mud and manure around without restraint.
John shoved his hands in his packets and hunched his shoulders against the wind that bit through his black sweatshirt. He had no idea how he would get through the day. The walk to the barn felt like a marathon, the pills wallowing in his stomach. He brought up a few vile tasting belches.
