Unstoppable

by Tim Green

  They put an IV in Harrison’s arm. He was too tired and light-headed to really care. Soon they injected something into the line that made the room spin as they wheeled him down the hall. A doctor with a mask leaned over Harrison’s face and asked him how he was doing.

  Before Harrison could answer, he felt himself floating away.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  HIS MOTHER’S VOICE CUT through the fog.

  Harrison kept his eyes shut and listened as he pieced together everything that had happened.

  “Kirk, what you’ve done for him has been so incredible.” His mom’s voice sounded sad but firm. “But you’re not his major and he’s not a Green Beret. I can’t have this insane training anymore. I can’t have you telling him he can play. He can’t play. You know it. I know it. We all know it. I just won’t have it.”

  “He can play.” The major spoke with a passion that lifted Harrison’s spirits.

  “Not like he thinks.” His mother’s voice brought him back down. “He thinks he can be a running back. He thinks he can get to the NFL. We all know that’s impossible, Kirk. Impossible.”

  “Nothing’s impossible.” It was Coach talking now. “Is it?”

  “Isn’t it?” his mom asked. “You tell me, Ron. Can he make those cuts you always talk about with this?”

  Harrison heard her lift his J72 and drop it on a table.

  “Can he carry two or three players into the end zone? Can he? Is that what you’re telling me? Because if you are, then I’ll stop.”

  Harrison silently urged Coach or the major to speak up.

  Neither said a word.

  “That’s what I thought.” His mother’s voice was a whisper. “So we have to stop all this. We have to treat him like any other kid who’s a cancer survivor. Isn’t that enough to deal with? And any other kid who needs a prosthetic; and we have to stop tricking him just so he’ll push himself to get better. He’ll get better. He’ll push himself anyway, but let’s not let him get to the end of all this and realize he pushed himself for a lie.”

  Harrison opened his eyes and stared at them.

  “Oh boy,” Coach said.

  The major frowned.

  “It’s fine.” His mom put a hand on his forehead. “Are you okay? Did you hear us talking again?”

  Harrison nodded.

  “You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be great,” she said.

  Harrison shook his head.

  “Harrison, do you know how many kids go on to play in the NFL?” His mom had tears in her eyes. “It’s like winning the lottery. You can’t hang all the hopes of your life on winning the lottery.”

  Harrison opened his mouth, but it was too dry to speak. She let him sip some juice from a straw.

  “But I had a ticket.” His words were a series of croaks.

  “Is your throat sore?” She patted his head. “They had to put a tube down it.”

  He looked right at her. “‘Winners never quit, and quitters never win.’ You said that.”

  She put a hand on his cheek and stroked it as soft as her voice. “I know that. You go back to sleep, darling. Just rest.”

  He shook his head, but his eyes felt too heavy to keep open. He closed them and slipped off into the darkness.

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  WHEN HE WOKE, THEY were talking again and stopped at the sight of him.

  “What?” Harrison asked. He felt stronger and rested.

  His mom smiled, looked away, and sniffed, wiping her face on the sleeve of her shirt. “The major has something to tell you, Harrison.”

  “Why don’t we wait—” Coach began to say before Harrison’s mom cut him off with a raised hand and the violent shake of her head.

  “Because it’s time,” she said. “We agreed.”

  The major cleared his throat and extended a hand. “I’m pushing off, buddy. Your mom’s right. You’ve come a long way. Besides, the Army will be glad when they hear I’m shortening my leave. You’re right where you need to be, and I guess they got you plugged up pretty good, so you won’t be out of action too long.”

  Harrison shook his head. “No. You can’t.”

  “Believe it or not, there’s some boys in a lot worse shape than you who really need me, buddy.” The major stood straight as an arrow. “They’re probably gonna get sick of hearing me say your name, because I’ve gotta say that I haven’t had anyone as good as you, and I don’t expect I ever will.”

  “You can’t make him go!” Harrison’s shout was hoarse and raspy.

  His mother walked out of the room.

  “Coach?” Harrison pleaded.

  Coach and the major hugged and clapped their hands against each other’s backs. Then the major gave Harrison a weak smile, and a salute, before he disappeared through the door.

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  THE THING ABOUT THE major was that he liked to keep those records of his very exact.

  Harrison let the dust settle. For two weeks, his mom worked from home while his stump healed again. Thin wisps of hair began to sprout on his head, and he loved the soft feel of it so much that he ditched the wig. His mom helped him with the schoolwork Coach brought home every night but wouldn’t allow him to do more than hobble to the bathroom. Becky only came a few times because even though his mom was polite, they both could tell she was still mad. His mom put some of the blame for what she called his “death march” to the lake on Becky. Still, they texted each other all day long, and Harrison thanked God for his Mac and Facebook.

  Finally a nurse came to help reattach the J72 and give him some exercises that were so basic and easy that Harrison had to work hard not to laugh at them.

  “And you’re going to take it easy.” His mom handed him the crutches, which he took with a nod. “Crutches for a week or two, then the cane for at least a month.”

  The next day, his mom went back to work, and he went to school with Coach, on his crutches. At his locker, he caught Leo Howard and Adam Varnett pointing at him from across the hall. They leaned close, snickering to each other, and he heard the word gimp, just like the major warned him.

  He slammed his locker shut and walked away with crutches clicking. He had a plan. Harrison was going to ignore the bullies who sneered at him and instead use their cruelty to fuel his determination to get back out onto the football field.

  When he got home from school, he found the major’s folder on the shelf in the garage. It was all there, everything Harrison had done, everything he needed to do. He copied down his next week’s workout routine on a sheet of paper so if he got caught, it would be in his own handwriting. He stashed the folder away. He looked over his workout for the day, then took two twenty-pound dumbbells off the rack; he lay back on the bench and began to press them.

  Somehow he didn’t hear his mom come home two hours later. She appeared suddenly in the doorway to the kitchen as he slammed home a stack of weights on the leg curl machine.

  “What are you doing?” She hurried out into the middle of the equipment, scowling at him.

  “The nurse said I could exercise.”

  “Light exercise. Look at you. You’re drenched in sweat.”

  Harrison tugged at his soaking-wet T-shirt. “Just out of shape, that’s all.”

  “Enough for today. You need to take it easy, Harrison. Do you want to end up back in the hospital?”

  “No.”

  “You must have homework.”

  “Okay.”

  The next day, Harrison took a detour on his way home. He used his crutches to cross the parking lot of the shopping center where they got their groceries. Behind the center was a long, empty strip of blacktop where the stores took deliveries and unloaded their Dumpsters of trash. Harrison looked around and set his crutches against the cinder-block wall. He took a few uncertain steps, swinging the J72 and feeling the rhythm return.

  “Just like riding a bike,” he said aloud.

  He picked up speed, took a deep breath, and began a slow, loping jog.
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  He went to the end of the center and back. The effort left him huffing and sweating, and his stump throbbed. He settled down on the pavement with his back against the building and rolled up his pant leg.

  Every ounce of him hoped he wouldn’t see blood.

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  A SMILE BLOOMED ACROSS Harrison’s face.

  Besides a little sweat, the sock showed nothing. He reattached the J72 and used his crutches to get home, just in case anyone saw him.

  In two weeks, his mom let him use the cane. It was hard for Harrison to hide how well he was doing, but he played along. After a week with the cane, and a lot of begging, she allowed him to show her and Coach how well he could walk without it.

  “I guess you’re okay,” she said, “but nothing more than school and back. You do that for a month and then we’ll see where we’re at.”

  By the end of March, Harrison’s arms and chest had filled in the muscle they’d lost during chemo. His hair was darker than it had been before, and thick, even though he kept it cut short. And, he was sprinting, not jogging, sprinting ten lengths of the shopping center every day. He kept at it, running in secret after school before he returned to the garage to continue his other training on all the equipment until dinnertime.

  The weather turned warmer and the grass began to grow. Harrison begged for permission to cut lawns with Justin.

  “Absolutely not.” His mother slapped her napkin down on the table as if he’d asked to drive the car. “That’s much too much wear and tear. The nurse said it takes a full year before you can get back to normal activity.”

  “I’m already normal,” Harrison said. “I’m walking all over the place.”

  “For short periods of time. Cutting lawns? You’d be walking for an hour or two straight. Absolutely not.”

  Harrison looked to Coach, but he only shrugged.

  The next day after school, Harrison asked Becky if she could walk home with him.

  “I thought you have to work out and you don’t want any distractions.” She was pouting a bit because she didn’t like the way he’d taken to being alone after school.

  “I’ve got to show you something. It’s why I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want you to say anything.”

  “Why would I say anything?” she asked.

  “I know you felt bad about what happened. You say you’re okay, but I know when my mom said you should have known better and called someone that you took it pretty bad. Anyway, come on.”

  He led her to the shopping center and made sure the coast was clear.

  “Watch.” He crouched into a stance and took off.

  “Harrison!”

  The wind from his speed drowned out her cry. He turned and came back and stopped in front of her, unable to keep from laughing at the look on her face.

  “Are you crazy? How did you do that?”

  “It’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been doing the major’s program. It’s like he never left. I’ve done every workout he planned out. I’m getting ready to play.”

  Becky walked him home in silence. He could tell she was thinking hard about it all. When they arrived, Harrison sat on his bed, putting his leg up. Becky sat on the edge.

  She frowned and finally spoke. “Your mom will never let you.”

  “That’s why I want you to help me.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I don’t know, but you’re smart. Ha. Get it? Smart, Becky Smart. But I’m serious. Maybe if we showed your dad? I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do for you. He’s a doctor, right? So if he saw me and said it was safe, she’d have to listen.”

  Becky shook her head. “No, he wouldn’t put himself between you and your parents, not even if I asked him.”

  “It’s not my parents. It’s my parent. I swear, Coach is afraid of her too. I’ve got to do something. Look, you saw me. There’s no reason I can’t play.”

  “Harrison, you can run straight ahead, but can you get into a stance? And what if someone tackles you? Can you move from side to side? You can’t, can you?”

  He shook his head. “I know, I need the major to show me how to make a cut from side to side. If I can get him to teach me, I could play special teams.”

  “Special teams? Like, another team?”

  Harrison stared at her and saw she was serious. “No, special teams are part of every game, like a kickoff. Every game starts with a kickoff. You’ve got punt teams and field goal teams—those are all special teams. They’re a huge part of every game.”

  “And you can do those?” she asked.

  “If I can get the major to teach me how to cut, I can run down on a kickoff or a punt. All you have to do is run downfield like a crazy man and hit people. I could do that. Sometimes players make it to the NFL just for what they do on special teams. They send guys to the Pro Bowl for that. If I can run fast enough, why can’t I do that? I mean, I know it’s never been done, but so what? Think of how many things have never been done that people do. It happens all the time.”

  “I don’t know that much about football,” she said. “I know about your mother, though.”

  “I can’t just give up.”

  “No, I know you can’t.” She turned away and paced back and forth before facing him and tapping the side of her head with a finger.

  “I think I might have an idea.”

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  “THE MAJOR.” BECKY NODDED her head to reinforce how right she was. “If he saw what you already can do, he could convince your mom that you’re okay and teach you to cut. We need to get him back.”

  “Do you think he’d even come back after the way my mom acted? It’s like she blamed him.”

  “She blamed me, too, and I’m right here.” She patted her chest. “Your mother is tough, but she’s not mean. When I tell the major I’m not scared, I can’t believe he would be.”

  “The major’s not scared of anything.”

  “See? Plus, when he finds out that you’ve been doing his program. . . .”

  “He’ll like that, I know.” Harrison beamed with pride. “He said I was as good as a Green Beret. And when he sees me run?”

  “You look fast.”

  “I am fast.”

  “When he sees you run, he’ll know you’re ready to do that cut, or whatever it is you’re talking about. He’ll want to teach you, and your mom will realize it’s okay because she’ll see how far you’ve come.” Becky’s excitement wavered when she looked at him. “So what’s wrong?”

  Harrison ran his fingers over the metal joint of his knee. “I had a mom, a real mom. I know she loved me, but . . . I don’t know, I guess she was sick. She couldn’t take care of me. She couldn’t even take care of herself. Then I had people take care of me, kind of, but they never loved me.”

  “Now you have both, right?” Becky said.

  “I know, and I feel like an idiot saying this, but it’s like she loves me too much.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s so afraid of me getting hurt that she doesn’t want me to be me.”

  “Maybe you could just tell your mom that.”

  “Maybe I should.” Harrison wrinkled his forehead and looked at the clock. “She’ll be home pretty soon. Hey, want to see some of my workout routine before she gets here?”

  “All of a sudden you’re showing me all your secrets?”

  Harrison shrugged. “I just figured, after the last time I overdid it, that I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, like you’d feel you should say something to my parents. I had to do this. You get it, right?”

  “You know I do.”

  Harrison led her out to the garage. He found his handwritten notes for the week on a shelf, folded in half, behind some bee spray. “See? Today’s a heavy upper body day.”

  Becky moved around the equipment with him. She tried one of the exercises after he did it, using much less weight.

  “You’re strong,” she said.

  “I know.�
� Harrison beamed.

  He lay back on the bench press, lifted the bar off the rack, and began pounding out reps with the steel plates clanking against each other like a factory machine. When he finished, he reracked the bar with a crash of metal. The work made him dizzy, and when he stood, he staggered sideways and started to fall.

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  “ARE YOU OKAY?”

  Harrison grabbed hold of a machine to steady himself. He liked the note of worry in Becky’s voice. “When you work hard, it makes you a little light-headed. It’s supposed to. Here, you can help strap me in. These are my ‘every-days.’”

  “What’s every-days?”

  Harrison lay back on the bed-sized bench and put his thighs up against the padded rollers that through a series of chains and gears raised a stack of weights up by his head. “The things I have to do every day, not just every two or three days. This is one of them because it keeps my hips and butt muscles tuned up.”

  He put the belt around his waist and handed Becky its end. “Pull it tight for me.”

  She did and he began to crank on the machine, blowing air out of his twisted face to get the final few reps.

  “Ahhh!” he shouted, letting the weight stack slam down after the last one.

  “Here.” Becky handed him a towel. “You’re sweating like crazy.”

  Harrison took it and wiped the sweat away with pride. She stayed with him until he finished, then said she had to get home for dinner.

  “Thanks for helping me,” he said. “I think it’s the best workout I’ve had since the major left. It helps to have someone watching.”

  “I’ll come anytime. I think you’re awesome, Harrison.” Her smile warmed him to the core.

  He watched her walk down the driveway just as Coach pulled in. Coach got out and said hello to her before heading into the garage.

  “You’re busy,” Coach said, sitting down on the bench of the leg curl machine.

  “Dad? Can the major come back and visit?”