by Rob J. Quinn
As the ball hit the ground about twenty feet from him and rolled toward his brother, they briefly stared at each other. Scott’s gaze moved to the ball in disbelief. Red knew he would have to explain.
“How the hell . . . ?” Scott started to ask.
“Shut up and get over here,” Red said, trying to yell and whisper at the same time.
Scott scooped up the ball and ran over to his brother. “What’s going on?” he asked. “How the hell did you just do that?”
Red pointed toward the broken bricks. “Same way I did that,” he said.
The look on his brother’s face told Red he was confused.
“I threw the ball at it, and it just broke up,” he explained.
Scott still didn’t understand. “You did that with the Nerf?” he asked. “From where?”
“Back where I was playing catch with you,” Red said. “I just wanted to see if I could hit the strike zone.”
“And you put a freakin’ hole in a brick wall?” Scott asked in disbelief.
Red couldn’t help but smile. He looked at his brother and said with a shrug, “Nailed the strike zone.”
“Dude, what is going on with you?” Scott asked. “How are you doing this stuff?”
“I don’t know,” Red said.
“Is it the same thing that happened with Chuck?”
Red hesitated, examining his brother’s face for he-didn’t-know-what. “I think so,” he said. Scott’s expression never changed, and Red turned back to the firehouse. “Dude, I just want to get the ball and get out of here.”
“Why? What are you waiting for anyway? What’s the big deal?”
“For one thing I don’t see it,” Red said. “And I was waiting to see if anyone came out. I don’t think it would be a good thing if I have to explain that I was the one who put a dent in the wall.”
“That’s true,” Scott said, starting to look for the ball.
Red looked back at him and rolled his eyes.
“Holy shit,” Scott said, spotting the ball. “There it is. It’s wedged under a tire.”
Looking in the direction his brother was pointing, Red finally saw the ball. They both walked over to the Camaro that had half of a Nerf football sticking out from under its left back tire, which was already starting to flatten.
“This is that guy Billy’s car,” Scott said. Billy was known for his long blond hair, racing his car down the street even when the volunteers weren’t rushing to the station because of a fire, and chasing after kids who put a ball anywhere near his Camaro.
“Can you get it?” Red asked hopefully, kneeling down next to Scott as he tried to pull the ball out from under the tire.
Scott shook his head. “No chance. I can’t budge it.” He looked past his brother to see if anyone was coming. “Can you . . . do the thing?”
They heard one of the bay doors begin to open in the front of the station, and both looked toward the firehouse in panic. Red quickly turned his focus back to the car. He pushed the wave into the bumper, lifting the back of the car with ease.
Stunned, Scott didn’t move. “What the . . . ?”
“Will ya get the ball?”
Scott grabbed the ball and stood up. Red relaxed and looked at his brother, and the car crashed to the ground.
“Shit!” they said in unison. Realizing they needed to stay quiet, they froze.
Again, they looked back toward the firehouse. They could hear a couple guys working out front, but no one seemed to be coming.
“Can you fix it?” Scott asked in a whisper, motioning toward the tire.
“What the hell d’ya want me to do?” Red asked.
“You know, whatever it is you’re doing.”
Red started to stand up, leaning against Scott, who helped him to his feet. “Yeah, I’ll meld it back together with laser beams that come out of my eyes,” he quipped. “Who am I, Superman?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“Let’s go.”
They started running back to their house, Scott slowing his pace to scoop up the other football they had left behind the trees and stay with Red.
Chapter 9
It didn’t take too much for the boys to get past their mom’s interrogation when they ran into the house so shortly after Scott had rushed back outside with the Duke football. His excuse that it was starting to get cold didn’t convince her of much, but when Red added that his legs were getting tired, she was appeased—if not quite satisfied that nothing suspicious was going on.
“I’m just glad she didn’t notice the Nerf was practically cut in two,” Scott said in response to Red’s questioning whether or not their mom had believed them.
Red looked over at the old plastic trash can that served as the ball container per their mom’s orders. “Did you bury it in there?” he asked, passing the Duke football to his brother with a two-hand shove, the way he would pass a basketball. He sat on the picnic bench, which had been put away until next spring after an unusually early frost one night the previous week.
“It’s under a few other balls in there,” Scott said, distracted by the way his brother caught the return pass in his gut.
Red sent another basketball-like pass his way. “Do we have any other Nerfs?”
“Crappy ones,” Scott said. “Why? And why are you doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Throwing the ball that way. And catching it in your gut.”
“I can’t grip the Duke. You know that.”
“Dude, you just put a hole in a brick wall from about 150 feet away with a Nerf, and it bounced off so hard it wedged under a car tire.”
Again catching the return pass by letting it go into his gut and wrapping his arms around it, Red tried to grip the ball to throw it. If he just let his hand rest on the leather, it looked like he could throw the ball with no problem. But the second he actually tried to hold the ball with one hand, the muscles spasmed and he just couldn’t get a grip on it.
He shrugged at Scott. “Just like always,” he said. “My hands are too small.”
“Too small to make up for the spasm,” Scott said. “I just thought added strength would help.”
Red pushed the ball into his right hand as hard as he could with his left but he just couldn’t grip it. “I should work more with those rubber balls Dad gave me,” he said. “I can squeeze the metal hand grip thing a couple times now, but it’s still hard.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Scott said. He walked over and held the ball in Red’s hand. He put his other hand on the back of Red’s hand. He whispered, “Now just do that thing.”
“What?”
“However you threw the other ball so hard, use it to hold this one.”
Red glanced up at the stairs to make sure his mom wasn’t coming before he explained. “It doesn’t work like that,” he said, almost whispering. “It’s not like my cerebral palsy is getting any better. At least I don’t think it is. I don’t have more control, or better balance. You hear my speech—it’s not any better.”
“So, what is it?” Scott asked, searching for better words. “I mean, how . . . ?” His voice trailed off.
“I really don’t know,” Red said, wishing his brother had found a way to finish his question. “It’s like this force . . . or wave or something that stirs up in my brain. It first happened when Chuck started with me yesterday. I’m just so sick of him, and I knew he was going to start once I saw him standing there. He does it almost every day. By the time I went to push him, it just happened. I really never did touch him. But . . . I’m pretty sure I pushed him with this wave thing.”
“So, it’s just if you’re mad?”
Red shook his head. “I guess it kind of seemed that way at first,” he said. He told Scott about shattering the chalk in Mr. Francis’s class.
“That was you?” Scott asked with a smile.
“The asshole said I was an example of genetics!”
“I heard about that,” Scott said. “So, yo
u shattered the chalk?”
“I wanted to do a lot more to him.”
“But you did it with this wave?” Scott asked.
Red nodded. “You can’t tell people.”
“I won’t. I won’t,” Scott said. “So, when I started to chase you, were you using it?”
Red nodded. “To push you off. And a little bit it felt like I was running faster, but I don’t know if I really was.”
Scott took the ball from him and smiled. “I knew you couldn’t beat me on your own.”
“No, I did beat you.” Red took the ball back and squeezed it with both hands. “It’s already getting easier and easier. If I focus on something . . .”
He held the ball out in front of him and locked his eyes on it, but he couldn’t push it. The wave just wasn’t coming. Without realizing it, Red had relaxed so much from the warmth of the house after playing outside in the cold that the wave had calmed.
“Well?” Scott teased.
His brother’s needling helped Red stir up the wave just enough to push the ball across the basement. It smacked against the wall with the force of a soft toss, but it was enough to make Scott’s eyes widen in amazement. “Holy shit!” he yelled.
Red waved at him to keep his voice down, but it was too late.
“Boys!” their mom yelled.
“Sorry, Mom,” Red replied, still waving at his brother to keep quiet.
After they were sure the moment had passed, Scott said, “What? You’re not going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“Oh, sure,” Red said with an exaggerated shrug. “‘Hey, Mom, I can push things without touching them. And I lifted a car after I put a hole in a brick wall with a Nerf.’ That should go over well.”
Scott thought for a minute. “What else can you do?” he asked.
Red laughed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why?”
“Outside, you were catching the ball really easy. Better than I’ve ever seen you. Were you pulling it in with, you know, the thing?”
He shook his head. “No,” Red said. “I don’t think so, anyway. It was easier though. It was weird. I mean, more weird. It was just sort of happening. Like I could gently push against the ball and slow it down just enough to catch it.”
“How come you weren’t doing it in here?”
“I don’t know,” Red said with a shrug. “I guess from running in and coming down here and everything, I was just kind of tired and not really trying to.”
“Is it hard?” Scott asked. “To do it?”
“I’ve only done it on purpose a couple times, I guess,” he said, thinking about it. He nodded toward the ball. “That was really the first time it took a second. It’s almost like after I do it once, it’s easier to do stuff.”
“So, maybe you can do stuff you don’t even know about yet,” Scott said. He pointed at the ball still lying on the ground. “Try to pull it to you.”
Just as intrigued as his brother, Red focused on the ball. The wave was there. He knew he could dent the basement wall with it if he wanted, but pulling it to him just wasn’t happening.
He could see Scott’s wheels spinning. “Does it hurt?” his brother asked. “Like, when you do it, does it hurt?”
Red barely shook his head, still focused on the ball. He suddenly wanted to be able to pull it to him. He loved the idea of it.
Scott watched as his brother seemed to try to stare a hole through the ball. Red could feel the wave swirling in his head. I can push it, why can’t I pull it? he thought, almost demanding it of himself.
The wave swirled even more, feeling as though it was crashing against the sides of his head. He began to shake just a little, scaring his brother. Red knew he wasn’t shaking from the spasticity caused by CP. It felt like his whole body was shaking, and he grabbed the edge of the bench with both hands.
“C’mon,” Red muttered.
As fast as the thought came to his mind, the ball was hurtling toward him. He ducked as Scott jumped up and tried to catch the ball but only managed to deflect it. The ball slammed against the clothes dryer in the far corner to their left.
Red closed his eyes for a few seconds, still holding the bench as he let the feeling that his head was swirling pass. He looked up at his brother. “You alright?”
“Yeah, it just stings,” Scott said, shaking his hand feverishly. He noticed Red blinking his eyes and gripping the edge of the bench. “Are you?” he asked with a look on his face that suggested he was sure his brother was, in fact, not okay.
“I’m fine,” Red insisted, finally able to blink away the spots in front of his eyes as the wave slowly receded. “It just took a little extra, I guess.”
They both thought to inspect the dryer at the same time. Scott saw the concern on Red’s face as he looked at the dent the ball had left in the front of the machine.
“It’s fine,” he said, opening the dryer. Reaching in, he was able to pop the metal siding back into place. All that was left was a small scratch from where the ball had hit. “Mom won’t even notice. And if she does . . . we were just playing ball.”
Nodding, Red rubbed the scratch. The tip of his finger easily covered it.
“How’d you do it?” Scott finally asked.
Red shook his head a little. “I just kind of thought of the thing, the wave, or the push, whatever you want to call it, curving around the ball and pushing it from behind,” he said. “And it worked.”
“Dude, this is awesome,” Scott said. And then, thinking of the possibilities for his brother’s new abilities, he added, “You could help us finally win a game tomorrow night.”
Red couldn’t help but laugh with his brother, though the thought of affecting the outcome of their high school team’s football game, titillating for sure, was intimidating at the same time.
Chapter 10
The clanging of the power wheelchairs colliding reverberated around the gym as Mr. Shine’s whistle brought play to a stop. Red wiped some sweat from his face, happy to have a break in the game. He looked back at Pete, who leaned against his crutches in his position as goalie.
“At least he won’t score for ten seconds,” Pete quipped.
Gym class was the only time each week that all of the kids with physical disabilities attending Penn Valley High School were in the same class. It had been something the current juniors and seniors looked forward to every week in previous years. They got a chance to just be kids—instead of being the disabled kid in classes that they were mainstreamed into—and it was a fun way to blow off some steam on Friday.
A new group of freshmen had changed all that. Three out of four of them had been mainstreamed since elementary school, and the other had never even attended a special education school. Red thought of them as the beginning of a new generation of students with disabilities. Their parents demanded they be mainstreamed. All four were pretty much the typical age for high school freshmen, while the upperclassmen were generally a year or two older than their classmates. The older kids had all grown up with the idea that they needed to prove they could succeed in regular school prior to being mainstreamed. In fact, mainstreaming wasn’t even an option when they first started school.
