Stronger

by Jeff Bauman

  He sat down with a smile. He was very unassuming. He was oozing swag; he just had that air, but he was also humble and down to earth. He asked about everyone, really taking an interest, and when he talked about himself… it wasn’t that he believed there was nothing he couldn’t do. It was like he never even doubted it. He talked about his work with children, and about the Challenged Athletes Fund, a charity that promoted community among amputees and donated prosthetics to people in need.

  “There’s a CAF weekend in San Diego next month,” he told me. It was a get-together, he explained, for people missing limbs. No pressure, just support. He wanted Byron and me to come.

  “Maybe,” I said, although I knew another cross-country trip so soon was too much. But I told my newlywed friends, Pat and Jess, about it, and they went. When they came back, they were so excited. They had all these pictures of little kids running around with each other on their artificial legs, having a great time.

  Andre was planning to run the Los Angeles and the Boston marathons to raise money for CAF.

  “You’re going to wheelchair-race two marathons in a month?” Erin asked, impressed.

  No, Andre was hoping to complete the Los Angeles Marathon, then wheelchair across the country with a friend to the Boston Marathon, and complete it, too. The races were forty-four days apart. If they made it, it would be the fastest recorded nonmotorized crossing of the United States.

  I don’t care if he makes it. I really don’t. I don’t care if he even tries. To dream that big—for it to be in the realm of possibility—is inspiring.

  That’s what Andre does: he inspires. He’s strong in mind and body. Ridiculously good-looking. Highly educated. Smart. Both his parents were doctors. His sister is a famous actress. (And talk about good-looking. Wow, the genes in that family.)

  I’m never going to be like Andre. He’s a purebred. Top-of-the-line legit.

  I’m a mutt.

  But that’s okay. The mutts are the ones who surprise you.

  35.

  Back in Boston, I hit the gym hard. I was more tired from the trip to Seattle than I would admit, but I knew there was no time to rest. I was never going to be like Andre, but I had my goals. With Michelle’s help, I walked on a sloped surface, and on the grass outside Spaulding. On August 17, four months after losing my legs, I walked for ten straight minutes on a treadmill.

  “You’re ready to start on stairs,” Michelle said.

  Now this was progress.

  A few days later, I started feeling pain in my right leg. I could tell the fit of my socket wasn’t right. A gap had opened at the bottom, between my leg and the plastic, and no matter how much I cinched the Velcro strap, I couldn’t get it tight. That caused the rest of the socket to move while I was walking, pinching and rubbing different parts of my thigh.

  The fit is important. That’s one of the things I remember Byron and Will telling me when I met them back in June. “If you get a good fit on one of your legs, never change it. A good fit is everything.”

  I talked to Michelle about the problem. She recommended I try an extra sock, which is like putting on an extra pair of underwear if your pants are too big. I mean, really? Erin always carried extra socks in her purse, so I put one on and walked a few steps. It didn’t work. The fit was still loose, and now it was pinching at the hip.

  “This often happens,” Michelle told me. I had sustained massive physical trauma, not just at the point where my legs were ripped off, but throughout my body. My legs were still retaining fluid, and sometimes this fluid moved around.

  “Don’t worry,” Michelle said. “We’ll get the prosthetics people down for your next session.”

  I walked on my crutches between the parallel bars. I stood and made motions like I was swinging an ax over my shoulder, first the right, then the left, focusing on shifting my weight without tipping over. By the time Michelle suggested the stairs, my thighs were barking. I was confident, though, as I walked to the equipment: four wooden stairs that led up to a platform, with four more leading down the other side. It was always in the corner of the gym; I had been watching patients working on it for months.

  I didn’t make it to the first step. I couldn’t raise my foot high enough.

  “It’s a new motion,” Michelle explained. “It’s not just lifting. You have to kick your lower leg backward, then pull up your knee, then bring the lower leg forward. That’s the only way to clear the riser.”

  It sounded like what I had been doing for months. Isn’t that how you walk? But when I tried to kick my lower leg backward, I couldn’t do it.

  “Don’t worry,” Michelle said. “Nobody gets it the first time.”

  With walking, everything went forward. I shifted my weight slightly, lifted one leg, then swung it in front of me. There was only a slight bend in the knee, and the forward movement contributed to my balance. Everything worked together.

  But now I had to lift backward to move forward, throwing everything out of balance.

  “Don’t be discouraged,” Michelle said. “You’ll get used to it.”

  I stared at my foot. I tried to move it backward. Nothing happened. I was prepared for not being able to lift myself up, but I wasn’t prepared for that kind of failure. I looked at Erin. I tried one more time, sweat beading on my forehead, but it wasn’t to be.

  “I can’t do it,” I said grimly.

  Erin put her arm around my waist, while I held on to the railing of the stairs to nowhere.

  “There’s a reason we wait on stairs,” Michelle said.

  I didn’t talk much on the way home. The realization was sinking in that, for all my progress, I still had a long way to go. It’s only been a few months, I thought. Stick with your goals. But doubt was rattling around in my brain: It’s only been a few months, and think about how hard it’s been. Now think about the rest of your life.

  I went home and sat in my room. I took off my legs. My undercarriage and thighs were sweaty and sore. They were always sweaty and sore. I propped my legs by my bed and started playing MLB: The Show. I was playing as a historical All-Star team. I had Pedro on the mound. Nobody could touch Pedro.

  I heard Erin rattling around in the kitchen, trying to get dinner together. Mom came in, and I could hear them talking. Rattling around—walking around—and talking. I just wanted to get away. I called a friend, and Erin drove me over and dropped me off so I could watch the Red Sox, have a few beers, and forget.

  When she came to pick me up, an hour after midnight, Erin was crying.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She had gone out for a few hours, Erin told me, after dropping me off. She felt good. Relaxed. But as soon as she walked in the door, Mom pounced.

  I had found a house I liked online. It was one story, on a hill, with a nice, trimmed front yard. We were scheduled to see it with a real estate agent the next afternoon.

  Mom was furious at Erin about the house. She didn’t think I could handle a house on a hill. Erin tried to tell her there was no harm in looking.

  Mom wouldn’t hear it. She accused Erin of pressuring me. She said Erin was getting my hopes up. That the house wasn’t realistic.

  “He likes it,” Erin said. “It’s the first house he’s actually wanted to see.”

  “What if he wants to buy it?”

  “That’s Jeff’s decision.”

  “But he can’t handle a house on a hill.”

  Mom had been home alone, hitting the Cavit. When she was like that, she couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t let Erin go. “I don’t understand why you need a house right now,” Mom screamed.

  “Jeff’s ready to move on.”

  “He’s not ready.”

  “He’s twenty-seven years old.”

  “He’s twenty-seven, but he has no legs.”

  “So what? He can still do what he wants.”

  “Why are you pressuring?”

  “I’m not pressuring him.”

  “Why this house?”

  “He chose it.�
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  “But it’s wrong for him.”

  “I know that, Patty. I know that. But Jeff has to learn that for himself.”

  Mom started to protest, but Erin cut her off. “He has to make his own decisions,” she said. “I am not going to tell him what to do.”

  Now, a half hour later, Erin was in the car outside my friend’s house, shaking. This didn’t happen in her family, she said. I knew it was probably the worst fight of her life.

  “I can’t do it, Jeff,” she said. “I can’t take this.” She paused. “I’m not even sure she’s going to remember what happened.”

  ”Drive me home,” I said.

  It was almost two in the morning, but Mom was still up, like I knew she’d be. I laid into her. I yelled at her like I never had before. She yelled back, at first, but eventually she backed down. She just… gave in.

  I went to bed an hour later, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed beside Erin, staring at the ceiling. I hadn’t slept for months, but somehow, this was different. This hurt more.

  The next day, Erin and I went to see the house. It wasn’t right for me.

  36.

  In mid-August, Big D drove me to Watertown. Erin had lived only a few blocks away, across the Charles River in Brighton, and we’d often come over to Watertown for shopping or dinner. I liked it in Watertown, a working-class suburb that had been spruced up in the last decade. It was odd to think that here, surrounded by close-packed houses and new shopping centers, the bombers had made their stand.

  I had stayed in touch with the Watertown police since meeting them at the Bruins game. We texted every few days, and I had run into their chief of police, Ed Deveau, at a charity event and then a Harry Connick Jr. concert earlier in the summer. The Charles River Country Club in nearby Newton had offered the department free golf and swimming for the day, in appreciation of their heroism, and Chief Deveau insisted I come. I was part of it, he told me. We wouldn’t have caught them without you.

  My swing was a little rusty, so I passed on the golf. Big D and I met them later on the patio of the clubhouse. The first person I saw was Vincent D’Onofrio. I’m never star-struck—okay, with Pedro, only Pedro—but… Vincent D’Onofrio! I’d watched him on Law & Order: Criminal Intent a hundred thousand times.

  Turned out he was friends with Chief Deveau. I assumed it was a police research kind of friendship, but who knows? Chief Deveau was a lifer. He had been in the trenches for years, but he had the air of a politician, in a good way. He had class.

  The chief invited me right over to his table, and after a bit of conversation, he introduced some of his men. There was a lot of misinformation about the shootout circulating. Even I had questions when the story broke: How did Dzhokhar escape a whole police force? How did he manage to hit his own brother with their car, the official cause of Tamerlan’s death?

  I’ve pieced it together, mostly by listening to the stories of the Watertown cops and the help of a few articles and news programs. This isn’t how they told it to me. This is my smoothed-out version of all the bits and pieces I put together that afternoon and over time. Those guys tell stories about that day—I think they feel compelled to tell stories, to try to sort it out—but they don’t brag. Not at all. They are proud, but they are humble, too. I think they still find it hard to believe what happened: that a typical sighting of a stolen car had turned into four hundred bullets fired and three bombs detonated in five minutes on a quiet residential street.

  Officer Joe Reynolds had spotted the stolen car coming down Dexter Avenue from the direction of Cambridge. He thought it was an ordinary carjacking. “They always have those in Cambridge,” Chief Deveau joked.

  This was three days after the bombing, and maybe six hours after the first surveillance photos of the suspects were released. MIT police officer Sean Collier had been gunned down in Cambridge two hours before. Boston was on high alert; thousands of tips had been called in to hotlines. But Boston is a city, and there is always crime, even that week. A 7-Eleven was robbed near the time and place of the carjacking, for instance, but it was totally unrelated. There was nothing to indicate this was anything other than kids out for a joy ride.

  The driver obviously saw the patrol car coming toward him, though, because he suddenly turned onto Laurel, a small side street, and turned off his engine. Officer Reynolds drove past the intersection, called in the stolen vehicle, then swung around and slowly rolled into position on Laurel Street, a few houses behind the stolen car, to wait for backup.

  Then Tamerlan stepped out of a second car and started shooting. He was walking toward the police cruiser, only two car lengths away, and calmly firing into the windshield. Officer Reynolds ducked, put his cruiser in reverse, and hit the gas pedal hard. A round went through the windshield, shattering the glass in his face.

  His backup, Sergeant John MacLellan, felt something sizzle past his ear as soon as he turned onto Laurel. He was still trying to figure out what was happening when a second bullet hit the headrest an inch from his other ear. He threw open the door to give himself room and ducked behind it for cover.

  The two patrol cars, going in opposite directions, had wound up side by side. The officers were pinned down, only a few feet apart, with only their pistols. Tamerlan was closing, and the brothers were firing so many rounds into the cruisers that they couldn’t even lift their heads to assess the situation. So Sergeant MacLellan reached in, put his cruiser in drive, and let it roll down the street toward Tamerlan. Both brothers turned to fire at it. Then Tamerlan ran for cover, and his brother threw a pipe bomb, blowing out the car windows. By the time the cruiser bumped lightly into a car parked in a driveway five houses down, Officer Reynolds and Sergeant MacLellan had taken cover behind a tree.

  I have never visited the bomb site on Boylston Street, where my legs were turned to applesauce. I’ve planned to three times, but I’ve always found an excuse to back out. One day I’ll go there, before next year’s marathon, for sure, just not quite yet.

  But I visited the site of the shootout. I’ve seen that tree. It’s six inches around at most and pocked with bullet holes. The officers must have crapped their pants when they returned the next day and saw how small it was.

  “I thought it was a sequoia,” Sergeant MacLellan said. “I thought it was big as a house.”

  Four guns were blazing when Sergeant Jeff Pugliese arrived on the scene. He had been leaving the police station in his family minivan when he heard the call. He saw the Tsarnaevs hidden behind their cars, with the two officers pinned down, so he raced around the back of the nearest house to get behind them. He had to climb two fences in the process. Sergeant Pugliese is a thirty-three-year veteran, so he’s no youngster, “but I vaulted those fences,” he said.

  The Tsarnaevs were firing rounds at a ferocious clip. They threw two more pipe bombs. The first blew out car windows and shook Sergeant MacLellan so hard that his eyeballs bounced around in their sockets. The second was a dud. As Tamerlan covered him, Dzhokhar ran out and placed a pressure-cooker bomb, like the one that destroyed my legs, in the middle of the street. That was when the people in the surrounding houses stopped taking pictures, because everybody scattered when they saw that fat bomb. Officer Reynolds managed to get behind the nearest house, but Sergeant MacLellan, still trying to recover from the concussion of the pipe bomb, was trapped in the kill zone behind the tree.

  Something happened. Probably the top slid off the pressure cooker before detonation, but nobody is sure. The bomb exploded, but instead of blasting out, the shrapnel blew straight up. As it rained down, Sergeant Pugliese took up position twenty feet from the brothers and started skip-firing bullets—he was actually bouncing them off the ground so they would go under their car.

  Tamerlan was hit in the leg. He went down. For a moment, it was quiet. Then, without warning, Tamerlan charged from behind the car straight at Sergeant Pugliese, firing as he came. It was like that scene in Pulp Fiction, when the kid charges Vincent and Jules in the apartment. Tamerla
n was ten feet away; he put bullet holes in the wall right where Sergeant Pugliese was crouching, but the sergeant wasn’t hit.

  “Freeze,” Sergeant MacLellan yelled, charging at Tamerlan with his gun drawn. He was out of bullets, but Tamerlan didn’t know that, so Sergeant MacLellan jerked his arm like he was firing. Tamerlan turned, then realized he too was out of bullets, right before Sergeant Pugliese hit him full force from behind and knocked him to the ground. Both officers jumped on top of him. Tamerlan had been shot multiple times by Sergeant Pugliese, but real police bullets don’t have the stopping power of movie bullets. Tamerlan was badly wounded, but he fought like an animal.

  Meanwhile, two other police cruisers had arrived, blocking the intersection of Dexter and Laurel. By then, Dzhokhar had jumped in the stolen car. The other end of Laurel was open, but instead of escaping, he flipped a U-turn and floored it back toward the two officers struggling with Tamerlan. His intention, apparently, was to run them down, but at the last minute the officers rolled out of the way, and he slammed into his brother instead. The car dragged the body half a block, before plowing into a police cruiser and escaping into Watertown.

  And still, when they came with the cuffs, Tamerlan struggled. Despite his fatal wounds, it took three officers to hold him. It was only after he was finally cuffed that they realized Dicky Donohue, a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer who had just arrived on the scene, was down.

  “You’ll find a hundred guys that say they were there,” one of the cops on the patio said. “But we know the truth. There were only eight. And except for Dicky and his partner, they were all Watertown.”

  “Three Watertown cops took the older bastard down,” someone else piped in. “But it took twenty-five hundred to arrest his little brother.” As it turned out, Dzhokhar was only ten blocks away, hiding in a boat.

  I remember shaking Sergeant MacLellan’s hand that day. He was one of the officers I had met at the Bruins game, and we had been texting for weeks, but I had no idea until that golf outing what he had done. Can you imagine a more unlikely handshake? The guy who was standing closest to a bomb, and the guy who hid behind a sapling in a gun fight.