by Rob J. Quinn
“Okay,” his mom said. “It’s fine. So why aren’t you outside playing?”
“They were already playing when I got home,” he said. “And I just don’t feel like it.”
“You’ve hardly done anything since we started with that doctor,” she said. “He told you not to expect miracles. There is still plenty of time for this to work.”
“I know,” he said.
“He even told you to keep doing what you always do,” she said.
“I know,” he said with a little more emphasis.
“‘I know,’ ‘I know,’ is all you keep saying, but you don’t act like it,” his mom scolded him. “We discussed this. We discussed it before we went to him. You can’t expect miracles. These treatments might not do a darn thing for your cerebral palsy. It’s no excuse for you to stop doing the things you’ve always done.”
“I know,” he said emphatically. “I was just hoping it would work. Alright?”
She could see his eyes were about to fill with tears. Her own tears were suddenly rushing to the surface. “There is still plenty of time,” she said.
“Is it so terrible to hope for a miracle?” Red asked, smacking the ball with his hand. Struggling to say the words through the emotion, he heard his own speech the way he knew others did. The only time he heard his speech as anything but clear was when he was having more trouble speaking than usual, though he knew his disability made his speech difficult for others to understand. But he could tell his mom understood him. Besides Scott, she understood his speech better than anyone.
It had been her fear since the moment her husband told her that he had heard from a customer about a specialist in York who was performing experimental treatments on people with disabilities. Red would start looking for a miraculous cure. The same miracle she’d warned him against hoping for a thousand times since that day. The same miracle she and his father hadn’t stopped praying for since that day.
She shook her head. “It’s never wrong to hope for a miracle,” she said, a tear rolling down her cheek. “But you cannot make it everything. It might not happen and you are loved just the way you are by everyone in this family.”
“I know, Mom,” he said, looking away because seeing his mom’s tear made him have to fight off his own. “I really do. And I never really thought about finding a cure or anything. But now, going for these
treatments . . .”
“I understand,” Mary said.
“It would be so nice to be able to just run around without worrying about falling,” Red said. “Not have to use the power wheelchair in school or going out wherever. Not have to borrow notes in school because I can’t write fast enough, or not have to worry about teachers understanding my speech, or whatever.” He didn’t dare add anything about how nice it would be not having to worry about getting picked on in school. He never said much about that to his parents because he was afraid they’d want to call the school and ‘do something’ about it. He hated it but all the kids in the mainstream program dealt with being picked on by a few able-bodied kids in school. It just seemed easier to keep quiet about it, at least to Red. “Sometimes, it would just be nice to not be the disabled kid at a game, or on the playground, or just walking around . . . wherever.”
“I really do understand,” his mom said, her words barely audible as her tears took over. Red didn’t dare try to speak. Seeing his mom cry, he needed all of his strength not to do the same. He merely moved to the edge of the bed, let the ball slip from his hand, and put his arms around her neck.
Mary buried her head in his shoulder for a brief second, knowing hugs from her teenage boys were becoming less and less frequent. She kissed him on the cheek. “Come help me set the table for dinner,” she said.
He nodded, and said, “Okay.” His mom went ahead of him, knowing he would have an easier time getting down the stairs sliding one step at a time on his rear end rather than having her try to help him walk down. Standing to follow her, he noticed the little football on the floor. He bent down, gently holding on to the bed, to pick it up.
Taking a couple steps toward the bedroom door, he reached up to put the ball back in its position on the shelf over his desk. He tried to place it so that the logo for the Eagles would be perfectly centered. Getting it just the way he wanted after several attempts, he carefully took his hand off the ball. Just as he started to look away, he saw the ball roll forward. Frustrated, he glared at the ball and began to reach for it again. Instead, he put his hand on the desk, feeling a wave of light-headedness. Resting against the desk, he blinked his eyes, letting the spots that flashed in front of him clear. Finally, he went to fix the ball, but before he could reach up to adjust it, Red noticed the ball was arranged just as he wanted it.
He stared at the ball for a moment. Suddenly, his mom called from downstairs for him to help set the table, and he headed for the stairs.
Chapter 4
The algebra equations in front of him weren’t holding his attention very well. Red heard Scott in the hall, and before he could say anything his brother was pushing the bedroom door open.
“Hey, tough guy,” Scott said, entering the room spinning the basketball that he kept on a shelf in his room. “Awful quiet at dinner tonight.”
“Said the guy who inhales dinner to avoid Dad’s questions about school,” Red joked.
“Well, I was safe tonight,” Scott said. “I wasn’t the one smacking people around at school today.”
Red tried not to laugh as he looked past Scott from his desk to see if either of their parents were in the hallway. “Would ya shut up and close the door,” he said. Surprised his brother actually did what he said, he playfully slapped Scott on the arm. “Dude, what’re you telling Dad I got into a fight for?”
“Relax,” Scott said. “Like the school wasn’t gonna call?”
“Did they?”
“I dunno. But, Christ, they call if you sneeze.”
Red rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it.”
“I heard you ran Chuck Groslin over with your scooter,” Scott said in a childlike voice, knowing his brother couldn’t stand it when people patronized him with such ridiculous statements.
Playing along for a moment, Red tried his own version of a little kid’s voice, saying, “Yes, ’cause that’s just how wheelchairs work.” In his regular voice, he added, “And don’t call it a scooter. It makes it sound like I’m some old man using it to get around the senior center because I don’t feel like walking.”
“Dude, get over it,” Scott said. “It looks like a scooter.”
“Yeah, I know,” Red said. “’cause it has handlebars, and a bumper, and whatever. I have to hear how cool it would be to have one from idiots at school all the time. I’m just saying, I use it as a wheelchair.”
“Anyway,” Scott moaned, tired of the familiar debate. He took a seat on his brother’s bed. “So, what really happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Everybody’s saying you decked Chuck.”
“He started his usual crap blocking my way, and said something about my speech.”
“That always pisses you off,” his brother said.
Red shrugged. “I just got sick of him. So, I actually did go to push him, but I think he slipped or something.”
Making an exaggerated face showing confusion, Scott said, “‘Or something?’ How do you not know?”
Red had been asking himself the same question most of the afternoon. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I felt a little light-headed after I tried to push him. Almost like I blacked out for a split second when I went at him. I guess it was like when people say they stood up too fast.”
This time the thoughtful look on his brother’s face was genuine. “I doubt it,” Scott said. “You probably didn’t really stand up. I mean, maybe you came off the seat a little. But when we mess around or whatever when you’re in your wheelchair, you don’t really stand up unless you get a hold of me and sort of pull yourself up.”
> Red nodded, having thought the same thing.
“Maybe it was something from those injections you got,” Scott said.
The thought hadn’t even occurred to Red. “I’ve just had the one,” he said. A fact he’d been trying to ignore all afternoon finally punctured his consciousness. He got more than light-headed when he went for Chuck. He just didn’t know what else to call the feeling. It was like a force of air had been pushed out of him. Only it wasn’t air. And it wasn’t pushed out of him. At least not by something else. He pushed it out.
“Hell-oo. So, when do you go back to the guy?” Scott asked, repeating himself.
“Next week, I think,” Red said, realizing he hadn’t heard his brother the first time. He looked at Scott, wanting to tell him about the strange sensation he’d experienced during his confrontation with Chuck. They usually told each other everything. But his gut told him not to. He would just laugh, Red thought. Or blow it off. He wasn’t sure what to tell him anyway.
“What’re you in such deep thought for all of a sudden?” Scott asked.
“I’m not,” Red said, knowing he couldn’t get a lie past Scott but going with it. “I don’t know, it’s not like the shot did anything else for me.”
“It certainly didn’t make you any smarter.”
“Uh-duh, you write that one?”
Scott got up and pretended to throw the ball at him, only to let go of it as he extended his arms and catch it before the ball dropped to the floor. Red’s head snapped back a little and he put his hand up to block the ball.
“Two for flinching,” Scott said, punching his brother in the arm twice as he left the room.
“That’s a real skill to make a person with cerebral palsy flinch, asshole,” Red called after his brother, tossing an eraser at him in the hallway as they both laughed.
Chapter 5
Red rolled over and finally turned the clock on the end table back toward him. The bright red numbers seemed to taunt him with the knowledge that it was 2:37 in the morning. There was no more denying that he couldn’t sleep. He turned the clock to face the wall again, hoping the extra bit of darkness would help.
His mom had taken another turn at interrogating him about what she kept calling “the fight” before he went to bed. Do they all really think I had a fight with a football player? Red thought. Especially one where he ended up on the floor?
Folding his pillow in half, he laid on his back. It was impossible. I didn’t touch Chuck, he thought. He would have kicked the crap out of me.
Now he knew he was lying to himself. Nobody was going to beat up one of the kids with disabilities. Even the “dirts” wouldn’t beat up one of us, he thought. Red had known it on some level his whole life. Wrestling with his brothers when they were younger, he’d catch his father giving the other three a look that they all understood. You can handle him. Smack him around a little if he gets a few in on you. But don’t hurt him.
It wasn’t quite the same in school. All the kids in the mainstreaming program had been picked on. Dirts, who had earned their nickname because they always seemed to wear the same clothes and were constantly getting sent to the office for wising off in class or getting into fights, often made kids with disabilities their targets. They would mumble as they walked past Red to mock his speech, or kick his desk chair in during class if they happened to sit behind him, or make sarcastic comments about the kids with disabilities to their friends loudly enough for Red and the others to hear. Some would give him the finger just to see him give it back, as if he were a monkey in a zoo.
But Red always knew he could come back at them just enough. Tell them to screw off. Compliment the dirts on their streak of wearing a black T-shirt under an open flannel with jeans and boots, which they wore regardless of how hot or cold it was outside. They weren’t really going to do anything. Not to one of the kids with a disability. It was an unwritten rule even among the kids who were sent to the office every other day.
Red suddenly remembered putting a freshman against a locker the previous year. The kid would stick his foot under the wheel of Red’s wheelchair and yell as if Red couldn’t control his chair. The first couple times Red actually apologized. But when it kept happening day after day, he caught on. It was one of the dumbest ways he’d ever had a kid try to pick on him. Apparently, the laughter from the kid’s friends when he would scream that “the crippled kid did it again” was worth what had to be actual pain.
One day both of them happened to be late getting to their next period. Any excuse that the hallway was too crowded for the kid to avoid the wheelchair was gone. Even with no one around to impress, the kid did it again. After feeling the bump of the kid’s foot under his back wheel, Red kept going for a moment only to decide it was time to do something. Turning around, he could see the kid was the only one left in the hall. The freshman had stopped at his locker and clearly hadn’t given Red a second thought. It was the perfect opportunity. Gripping the handlebars of his power chair, Red rammed the kid’s ankle against the wall with the front bumper of his chair, pulled himself up with the handlebars, and grabbed the kid by the back of his shirt. All the while his heart was in his throat.
“You do it every day,” he yelled. “Do it again, I’ll kick your ass.”
Instead of the punches he expected to take, Red only heard the kid mumble to no one in particular, “Is this kid serious?”
A drop of sweat rolling down the side of his face, Red sat back down and drove his power chair toward the lunch room. Halfway down the hall a teacher had come out of her room to see what the commotion was about. Red was surprised to get nothing more than a grin and a nod. He never heard another word about it.
Red suddenly realized his muscles had tensed up as he lay in bed. Taking a deep breath, he pushed his head back into his pillow to feel its softness.
The kid never did do anything, Red remembered. Didn’t even seem to think about it. He didn’t stop the little stunt, but from then on he only had the guts to do it about every other week.
As much as Red would swear that he could hold his own against the kid in a fair fight the way he and Scott would go at it on their knees horsing around, he knew he’d been completely vulnerable that day in the hall. One halfhearted shove would have knocked him to the floor. Maybe the kid feared the punishment he’d get. It occurred to Red that the kid might not even respect him enough to fight him. Whatever the reason, Red knew the unwritten rule applied more than he thought.
But the truth was that he really didn’t touch Chuck.
So why do I keep feeling like I’m lying? he wondered. Each time he’d been asked about it, including after dinner by his mom, he felt a little guilty saying he didn’t touch Chuck. He knew he wanted to push him, but he also knew he hadn’t felt Chuck at all when he reached out to shove him. Not his jacket, his face, his shirt. Nothing.
He rolled onto his side and hugged the sheets closer to him. A yawn escaped from him as he finally began to feel the tension in his muscles subside. Before he could close his eyes he noticed he hadn’t turned the clock far enough away from the bed. He could still see the red glow from the numbers. He tried to close his eyes and forget about it. He was tired. He was warm. The sheets were around him just the way he liked.
And he felt compelled to turn the clock further. He sighed, frustrated that he couldn’t just drift off. Forget the stupid clock, he told himself. But as he lay there, he knew it wasn’t working. Finally, he opened his eyes. He was about to reach for the clock when he heard a noise.
Red froze. As fast as he heard it, the sound was gone. He looked around in the darkness. He couldn’t hear anything more. He lifted his head to listen. Maybe someone else couldn’t sleep and went downstairs, he thought.
Putting his head back down, Red felt exhaustion finally winning. He felt a touch of the light-headedness he had after reaching for Chuck, as if the feeling had already receded. He noticed it enough to think it was strange, but didn’t care enough to focus on it.
