Unstoppable

by Tim Green

It held back all the evil in Harrison’s life, and Harrison had come to think that life on his new submarine was the natural state of things. It wasn’t. The natural state was for him to drown in a briny soup, to be crushed by it and forced to breathe it in until he was as useless as a floating body.

  “Honey?” His mom wore a worried look.

  Harrison sank his head back into the pillow and rolled his head to the side, away from her.

  His leg was gone from the knee down and his hospital stays had just begun. They told him that over the next few months he would spend a couple of days in the hospital every other week for chemotherapy. Harrison had bone cancer, and it might have spread through his body already, into other bones that might have to be removed. As bad as it was to be a cripple, Harrison knew it was ten times worse to have cancer. Cancer was evil. Cancer ate away at you from the inside out, until you were dead. Over the next several days they brought doctors and counselors and shrinks and even Reverend Lindsey to his bedside. They tried to coax, shame, and urge him to look at the bright side. There was no bright side, only pain and misery.

  Then Major Bauer arrived.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  COACH NEARLY JUMPED OUT of his chair. The major had to brace up when Coach threw himself into the old soldier’s arms. They patted each other’s backs the way a cowboy might thump his horse’s neck.

  His mom stood. “Kirk!”

  The major hugged them both.

  Major Bauer looked older than in his picture. His hair had begun to turn gray, his beard was gone, and his tan face wrinkled at the corners of his dark eyes and mouth. He stood straight and tall, though, and when he finished greeting Harrison’s parents with kisses and hugs, he marched up to the side of Harrison’s bed and held out his hand.

  Even in his miserable state, Harrison couldn’t refuse the iron grip. Despite his serious face, Major Bauer’s deep, dark eyes brimmed with kindness.

  “I heard I’m needed.” The major looked around the room, and his eyes came to rest on the stump that was once Harrison’s leg. “And I see that I am.”

  Harrison shifted in his bed and reached down to itch the missing leg. Suddenly it felt like his leg—from the knee to his foot—was being crushed, stabbed, and burned at the same time. Harrison cried out and reached for the missing limb. The pain ripped a hole in his pride and he wailed for it to go away.

  As the wave passed, Harrison was surprised to realize it was Major Bauer holding him and not his mom. His grip was as gentle as it was strong.

  “It’ll pass.” The major spoke soft as a nurse. “It’ll pass.”

  Finally, Harrison’s heart slowed.

  “There,” the major said, releasing him. “Phantom pains. The nerves will fire like your leg’s still there. Nothing quite like it. Trust me, I know.”

  Harrison tilted his head at the old soldier. Major Bauer smiled, stood, and tugged at his left pant leg. A chrome joint gleamed just above the shoe. Jutting straight up from that was a shiny, thick metal rod. Harrison thought of a magician he’d seen on TV, an illusionist, but the leg really was metal.

  “The latest and greatest.” Major Bauer pulled his pant leg all the way up to the knee, showing off a chrome piston and yet another shiny joint. “Yours will look a lot different. You’re lucky. There’s a lot more you can do when you’ve got an upper leg.”

  The major winked at him and dropped the pant leg. Harrison’s spirits were lifted by the sight of the soldier. He was strong and handsome and he moved through the world as if nothing was missing. Then Harrison thought about what his life had been for a brief couple of months—his life as an athlete, a football player.

  His face fell, and he looked away.

  “Hey,” his mom said. “The major is talking to you.”

  “Won’t be the first young man to look away from me.” The major’s voice was soothing as he spoke to Harrison’s mom. “Harrison? Harrison, will you look at me?”

  Harrison couldn’t resist.

  “You can come back from this,” the major said. “I know you’re pitying yourself right now. Next you’ll get depressed, then angry, but it’ll all pass. It will. I’ve seen it many times, and I’ve lived it myself.”

  “I can’t come back and play.” Harrison glared up at Major Bauer.

  “Play?”

  “I’m a football player. They said I was unstoppable.” Harrison ground his teeth together.

  “Football?” Major Bauer put a hand to his chin. “I don’t know, but let me show you something, okay?”

  Harrison just stared.

  Major Bauer had a shoulder bag Harrison hadn’t even noticed. The old soldier set it down on the windowsill, then removed an iPad and switched it on. He fiddled with the screen for a few moments, then held it out for Harrison to see.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  HARRISON STUDIED THE PICTURE of a man in a ski cap, red jacket, white winter gloves, and dark blue sweatpants running down a desert highway. Beyond him lay low hills spotted with scrub brush beneath a pale and empty sky. Protruding from the cut-off end of his right pant leg was a chrome football-shaped thigh with a mechanical knee and a yellow shock absorber for a shin. The man’s young face looked strong and determined.

  “Who is that?” Harrison asked.

  “Jeff Keith. The first above-the-knee amputee to run across America.”

  “Run?”

  “San Francisco to Providence. Thirty-four hundred miles.”

  “How?” Harrison stared at the picture.

  “He just did it. Here, look at this.” Major Bauer’s fingers scrolled through his iPad before he showed Harrison another picture.

  “Is that him?” Harrison studied the old newspaper photo of a young man playing goalie in a lacrosse game. Across his chest it said BOSTON COLLEGE. His legs were covered in baggy cotton sweatpants, but Harrison could tell the right one was stiff and unnatural.

  “That was with a wooden leg, a division-one college athlete. Lost his leg, like you, only a year younger, when he was twelve. Also bone cancer, like you. Look at this quote. I love this quote.

  “‘Believe in the incredible and you can achieve the impossible.’”

  Harrison huffed impatiently. “It’s not football.”

  Major Bauer took the iPad back. “Yeah . . . look at this.”

  This time he handed Harrison the picture of a football player in an electric blue uniform with one leg in the air, marching in a high-step toward the camera.

  “There’s nothing wrong with him,” Harrison said.

  “Except his lower right leg is missing.”

  Harrison looked closer.

  “His name is Neil Parry. He played for San Jose State.” Major Bauer sat down on the side of the bed and put a hand on Harrison’s shoulder. “I’m not making any promises, Harrison, but I want you to know you’re not alone, and some of the people who are like you have done some amazing things. The technology gets better every year. Maybe you can do what they did, or maybe you can do more.”

  Harrison looked back at the football player. Major Bauer reached over and scrolled through the other pictures too. It was like an escape hatch. Suddenly, in the dark crushing flood inside his submarine, a light appeared. It was like Major Bauer was thrusting a life jacket at him, something that would propel him up, out of the darkness and the dead floating bodies to the surface above, to light and air.

  Harrison grabbed hold.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  MAJOR BAUER TOOK A four-month leave from the army. He moved into the small apartment above the Kellys’ garage and was with Harrison in the hospital for the better part of every day. The nurses, doctors, and therapists treated him with high regard, and that was because they all soon learned that he ran an amputee rehabilitation program for the U.S. Army. The major would sometimes try to let the therapists work on Harrison’s leg, but inevitably he ended up taking over in a way that no one seemed to mind.

  Having someone as important and strong and smart as the major working on his le
g made Harrison proud, and it went a long way toward making him feel better. Several days after the major arrived, it was time for Harrison to be done with the painkillers. His leg still ached, but Advil seemed to be enough, and he liked having the fog clear from his brain. That Saturday, he was scheduled to go home.

  When Coach walked into the hospital room that morning, he wore a brand-new Brookton Junior High Football sweatshirt.

  “What’s that for?” Harrison asked.

  “It’s the mock-up for our football gear next year. We’re getting a whole new look. The uniforms will have the same styling. You like it?”

  Harrison scowled. “You went all the way to the championship and they didn’t give you the varsity job? Did anyone tell them you lost your running back?”

  “Sure. Everyone knew. So even though we got embarrassed 63–7, they offered me the varsity job.”

  Harrison’s mouth hung open. “But that says Brookton Junior High.”

  Coach laughed and pushed a wheelchair over to the side of the bed. “Now’s not the time for me to take the varsity job. I told them maybe in two years.”

  “Coach, you said that was your dream.”

  Coach’s face turned serious. “I’m not just your coach. I’m your dad. If you’re going to make a comeback, that’s the team I want to coach, not varsity.”

  Harrison looked out the window. The bare trees reached for the sky with silver fingers. He nodded his head. “Good.”

  They helped him into the chair, then the car, and finally into the house. Coach parked in the driveway and helped him up onto a pair of crutches while Jennifer fretted at them to be careful of his leg. Harrison set his jaw and crutched his way up the blacktop. Major Bauer greeted him at the mouth of the garage, arms folded across his chest, and dressed in a T-shirt and shorts that showed off his chrome leg before it disappeared into his track sneaker. Harrison moved inside and his eyes adjusted to the cavelike gloom. Spread out around the concrete floor were parallel bars, ramps, rubber tubing, barbells, weight machines, and a massage table.

  “Welcome home,” Major Bauer said. “Now let’s get to work.”

  Chapter Sixty

  THE MAJOR SHOWED HARRISON’S parents into the house before he lifted two dumbbells off the rack and lay down on a bench. He pressed them up and down, exhaling as he counted out the reps, ten in all. Metal clanged as he replaced them and pointed toward the bench.

  “You get on and I’ll hand you the weights.”

  Harrison lay down and took a set of smaller dumbbells from the major. He tried to do what the major had done, but his arms wobbled and the weights swayed all over the place.

  “You’ll get it,” the major said. “It takes time to train your muscles. Just work through it.”

  The major counted the reps out loud. At seven, Harrison began to struggle and strain.

  “Come on!” the major shouted. “Don’t quit!”

  The word quit sent a shiver through Harrison and he groaned with effort, refusing to give up. The major helped him with his last few reps, urging him on with barks of praise.

  “Good! Good! That’s the way to work!

  “Now this,” the major said, pointing to a flat bench with a padded roller at one end connected to a stack of weights by a cable that ran beneath the bench, “is your bread and butter machine, the leg curl. This will make your hamstrings strong—the back of your leg—and you’ll need that now more than ever. First we walk, then we run, then . . . if we’re lucky, you learn to cut.”

  “Cut?”

  “If you’re serious about football, you can’t just run in a straight line. You’ve got to be able to plant your foot and redirect at a new angle—that’s a cut.”

  “I get it. And I can do that?”

  “If you’re strong enough, I think I can teach you.” The major planted a thumb in his own chest.

  Harrison nodded, got on, and curled the roller toward his butt by squeezing his leg. He ground out twelve reps.

  “Good,” Coach said. “Next time, we’ll bump up the weight.”

  They moved from one exercise to another, and just when Harrison thought there wasn’t anything else they could possibly do with the weights or the machines, they ran through the whole thing again.

  They worked until dinnertime. Sweat drenched Harrison’s clothes. Major Bauer finished with a therapy session on Harrison’s leg, massaging it, then tapping the skin and gently rubbing the end of his leg with a cloth before washing it and binding it tight.

  “What we need,” the major said as he worked, “is for this skin to get desensitized. This skin has to be tough and durable—not now, but when you’re fully healed. This skin has to be . . . oh, heck. Here, look at this.”

  The major whipped off his own prosthetic as if it were nothing more than a sock, and he held up his stump for Harrison to see.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  HARRISON WINCED, THEN LOOKED apologetically into the major’s eyes.

  “It’s okay, you’ll get used to it. It’s your life now, Harrison, just like it’s mine. We can run, but we can’t hide. I tell all my men that.”

  Harrison looked back at the stump and the smooth, leathery skin.

  “You ought to just touch it. This is from decades of work, but we’ll get you there. It’s got to be your interface with the prosthetic, so it has to be smooth and strong and durable. It won’t happen overnight, but this is where we’re headed.”

  Harrison reached out and touched the smooth, cool surface. It felt more like wood than skin.

  “You know why humans rule the earth?” The major tugged his prosthetic back into place.

  “Because we’re smart?” Harrison said.

  “Because we’re adaptable.” The major danced a jig on the garage floor, his sneakers scuffing in perfect rhythm. “We can adapt to almost anything. That’s why we survive. That’s why we thrive. You’re going to adapt to this. Just watch.”

  The door leading into the kitchen opened. Jennifer stuck her head into the garage and told them to get washed up because dinner was almost ready. The major went up the stairs to his apartment and Harrison went inside to use the kitchen sink.

  After dinner, Harrison was exhausted. They had moved his furniture and all his things down to the first floor in the room with its own bathroom that had been Coach’s office. He climbed into his own bed, thankful for the fresh cotton smell of the sheets and the hiss of the wind through the big pine trees outside the window.

  “Mom? Can I get a TV in here? Just while I’m getting better?”

  His mom looked around the small room. “Maybe. Actually, I was thinking about all that TV in the hospital. I know you were bored, but it didn’t seem to help.”

  “It kept my mind off all this.” Harrison covered a yawn.

  His mom reached down beneath the bedside table and brought out one of the Louis L’Amour books, The Warrior’s Path. “Just give this a try. I know you liked the first two. If you can get into another one, I think it’ll be ten times better than the TV. Just try.”

  She pointed to the shelf below the tabletop. “Look, I got you the whole set, so when you finish this—”

  Harrison took the book. “I just think it’s going to be hard to concentrate.”

  It wasn’t hard. After the first two pages, Harrison lost himself in the story. When he woke in the middle of the night, the book lay on his chest and the reading lamp warded off the darkness creeping from the corners of his room. He needed Advil. His mom had left him two with a cup of water on the table. He gulped them down and took a big drink, then lay back again.

  In the morning, while his parents went to church, Harrison and Major Bauer began their work. The major attached rubber tubing to Harrison’s injured leg and had him strain against the tubing from every angle.

  “This leg has to be able to work ten times better and harder than it used to, so we want every muscle, ligament, and tendon, every fiber of it, to be stronger.” They worked his good leg as well, for balance. The session ended ag
ain with a rigorous massage.

  They had roast beef and mashed potatoes at midday and then worked again in the afternoon. A lot of the exercise in the afternoon focused on Harrison’s upper body and his core because the major said he needed his whole body to be strong. They did every kind of sit-up Harrison could imagine and then some more. They worked his lower back, lifting weights off the floor, and wedged into what the major called a “Roman chair,” where Harrison’s body hung off the edge of a padded rail and he could raise and lower his torso like a door hinge. Again sweat soaked Harrison’s clothes, and the major ended it all with the massage.

  “I thought a massage was supposed to feel good.” Harrison winced as the major worked his fingers into the healing skin.

  “You know what feels good about rehab?” The major looked up and raised his eyebrows.

  “What?”

  “When you’re done. That’s about it. And now . . .” The major wiped his hands on a towel. “We’re done.”

  Coach went out back in his jacket and cooked burgers on the grill for dinner. After a blessing, Jennifer said she hoped the major wasn’t overdoing it. He and Coach waved her off.

  “This is what he does, honey. Relax.” Coach slipped a hamburger off the big plate he’d brought in from the grill and onto a bun before loading it down with a bit of everything.

  “There’s time,” she said.

  Major Bauer raised his head from the table like a dog who’d detected an intruder. “Not much time. Not if he’s going to play next fall. We’ve got a tight schedule.”

  She frowned and dished some coleslaw onto her plate, tapping the last shreds of cabbage loose with the spoon so that the clacking sound got their attention.

  “I don’t know if it’s about football right now. Oh, Harrison,” his mom said, “please don’t look at me like that. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

  “Hope?” The major made a puzzled face. “Hope is the fuel of recovery. We got to keep his hopes up, Jennifer. Hunger and hope, that’s what drives a man.”