The Birth of Super Crip

by Rob J. Quinn

  “Come on in,” Chuck said. “Don’t want you to miss anything.”

  Red and Alley walked slowly down the hall. Keeping the gun on Scott, Chuck pushed him into the room and moved out of the way to let them pass. Alley patted Red on the back to try to reassure him as they entered the room.

  “Aww, so special I could puke,” Chuck said, then he shoved Alley in the back. She managed to keep her balance by grabbing a cart stocked with large bottles containing chemicals along with equipment for class experiments that stood beside the teacher’s lab station, sending three bottles of chemicals crashing to the floor.

  “Dude, she’s a girl,” Scott said, standing in between a couple of desks in the front row. “Leave her alone.”

  “I didn’t realize both O’Ryan boys were in love with the little bitch,” Chuck said as he closed the door.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “I don’t even know her,” Scott said.

  “Well, Super Crip over here does,” Chuck said, pointing the gun at Red, who stood just feet to his left in front of the last desk in the first row. “Right? Huh? You little prick. I see ya all the time joking around in the hall before class. But she’s got no time for me.”

  Anger mixed with fear as Red stared into the barrel of the gun. Thoughts splashed through his mind along with the wave. What if he pushed the gun and it went off anyway? What if the bullet hit Alley? He could push Chuck through the blackboard and the wall. What if it kills him? Red wondered. Am I supposed to kill the guy?

  “It’s not his fault, Chuck,” Alley said. She took a deep breath, briefly closing her eyes. “If that’s your problem, why don’t you just let them go and we’ll settle this?”

  “Shut up!” Chuck screamed, taking a step toward her and putting the gun inches from her face, in the process nudging the cart and knocking a pair of goggles on the floor. “You’re just a bonus. I could care less about you.”

  Red quickly made eye contact with his brother. Scott widened his eyes and nodded toward Chuck as if to say, Do something. Without a word or even a nod, neither of them could help but feel the strangeness of Scott looking to Red to be the one to act. Yet, Red’s attention quickly turned to a strange smell coming from the back of the room.

  “What the hell are you two doing?” Chuck barked. He waved the gun at Red. “Move. Move over there to the back of the room.” He motioned to Scott. “Both of you. Move!”

  “Alright, relax,” Red said, putting his hands up and slowly walking with his brother to the last row of desks in front of the student lab stations. The acrid odor was now undeniable. Red scrunched up his nose and looked around the back of the room. The lab tables were cluttered with notebooks and pens, goggles, liquid-filled beakers on metal stands, and Bunsen burners. Red noticed that the valve handles on several gas taps were in the open position with the rubber tubes that should have carried the gas to the Bunsen burners detached. Red figured most of the students panicked when Chuck barged in with a gun and either half-heartedly attempted to put out their burners or didn’t even bother trying once he allowed them to leave.

  “See?” Scott said. “He can smell it too. You should at least open the windows or the door. You fire that gun and cause a spark, we all have a big problem.”

  “I already have a big problem,” Chuck yelled, aiming the gun at each person he spoke to. His face started turning red and the occasional spit came out of his mouth. Red was his focus now. “You know how much shit I’ve been taking because of you? Every practice. During the game. ‘Hey, you let a cripple kick your ass.’ ‘You let a cripple knock you on your ass.’ Even my coach is giving me crap.”

  Red stole a glance at Alley. She still stood behind the teacher’s lab station with nothing but the cart between her and Chuck. She bit the edge of her lower lip, the only outward sign that she was nervous.

  “How’d you do it, you little shit?” he demanded.

  “Luck,” Red said, forcing the words past the fear that made talking more difficult. “I just caught you off guard.”

  “I can’t even understand what the hell you say!” Chuck screamed, leaning forward as if getting in Red’s face even though they were thirty feet apart.

  “He said it was just luck,” Alley said calmly.

  Chuck suddenly turned and hit her in the face with the back of his hand. Alley turned toward the blackboard and put her hands up to protect herself from another blow. Instead, Chuck grabbed the cart and jerked it violently out of the way. It bounced and slid on its side the few feet to the door, violently coming to a stop as all but one of the bottles shattered. Chuck put Alley in a chokehold with his right arm and walked toward the two brothers, practically dragging Alley with him. His left arm was shaking as he pointed the gun at Red.

  “Luck, huh?” Chuck said. “I’m gonna eat shit the rest of my life ’cause you got lucky? Fuck you!”

  Blood trickled out of Alley’s mouth and rage swarmed over Red. He focused on Chuck and pushed the wave around his neck. Squeezing the wave around his tormentor’s throat as if he could feel himself doing it with his own hands, Red saw Chuck’s eyes bulge as he searched for air. Chuck’s grip on Alley loosened, and Red pushed him back across the room, crashing through the experiment set up at the teacher’s lab station. As he slammed into the blackboard, the gun went off.

  The bullet hit the last unbroken bottle of chemicals on the teacher’s cart, touching off a small fireball and sending fragments of glass and other debris in every direction. The room momentarily sounded like a shooting gallery as the lights above popped in rapid succession as three or four pieces of the shattered glass found them. The sparks were enough to set off the gas that had accumulated in the back of the room with a mini explosion at the station just behind Red, who was going to the floor in the hopes of finding safety.

  “Stay down!” Scott ordered.

  Red looked up to see his brother and Alley had taken cover under desks. He checked the door to see flames spewing thick, dark smoke. Back-to-back small explosions from the student lab stations forced Red to put his head down again, each explosion causing him to have a full-body spasm. Regaining control, Red focused on the wall of windows overlooking the school courtyard and sent the wave across the room, shattering every window and blowing out most of the wall. He ducked instinctively. Debris and some glass blew back on them. Desks flew through the air. When he looked up again, he couldn’t hear a thing. The explosion seemed to surge through his body just as the wave left him drained. Paper drifted in the air all over the room. The sprinklers in the ceiling sent a weak flow of water down on them and shards of glass littered the floor.

  Red grabbed the back of a chair to stand, glass crunching under his feet. He felt his ears pop. He looked around for Scott, and found him under two desks. Shoving the desks aside, Red grabbed Scott’s shirt to help him up, relieved when he saw his brother’s eyes.

  “Get up!” Red yelled even as Scott stood.

  He could see the fear that he no doubt mirrored for his brother as he examined the scrapes and spots of blood on Scott’s face.

  Finally, they both moved to get Alley. They found her unconscious just feet from the gaping hole that moments ago had been the side of the wall. Red went to her shoulders and started to wedge his arms under her. Scott hesitated before leaning down to help his brother get her to her feet from the front. He was surprised when Red tried to hoist her onto his shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” Scott screamed, reluctantly putting his arms around Alley. Red only managed to get her head up to Scott’s shoulder, but was satisfied with Scott holding her upright against him.

  “Don’t let go!” Red looked over the side of the building, but there weren’t any options for a soft landing. The bushes on the other side of the courtyard were the best thing he could think to use.

  He grabbed his brother by the other shoulder and got him to stand with his back to the opening.

  “Whoa!! No way!” Scott screamed, sensing Red’s plan. “Are you crazy?”
>
  “Crouch! And keep your head down! Hers too if you can.”

  “You’re gonna kill us!”

  Red couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he punched Scott in the shoulder twice. “Two for flinching,” he said. “Now, crouch! And hang on.”

  Scott bent down and put Alley’s head into his neck.

  Red controlled the wave better than ever, wrapping it around his brother and Alley and pushing them gently out of the building. He heard Scott mumble, “Oh my God,” feeling the initial push of the wave lifting them off the floor. Red couldn’t even look at his brother’s face for fear of losing focus. Slowly but steadily he moved them like a piece of china across the courtyard and into the bushes.

  Finally, he pushed the wave into the floor, thrusting himself out of the building, then quickly pushed into the grass below as every muscle in his body tensed up when he found himself passing through the air. After a second he was able to relax, and he lowered himself gradually to the ground. The courtyard looked like it had been dug up by a backhoe.

  “You okay?” Red yelled, reaching his brother. Scott lay face-up in a bush, his arms still wrapped tightly around Alley. Red got his brother to let go, then gently lowered Alley’s limp body to the ground.

  “Yeah,” Scott said as Red took his hand and helped him get out of the bush. He checked Alley for a pulse.

  “Is she?” Red asked.

  His brother nodded. “I think so,” he said.

  Red turned around and took a few steps toward the building, looking up at the burning room. “We should get out of here,” Scott said. “You don’t know what’s gonna happen.”

  “Stay with her,” Red said. He knew he had to get Chuck despite every urge to leave him behind in the flames.

  “Forget him!” Scott screamed. “He tried to kill us!”

  Almost every impulse Red had told him to listen to his brother. He looked back at Scott. “I have to get the little asshole,” he said, feeling as though he was apologizing somehow.

  Once again he thrust the wave into the ground and reached the second floor with ease. Almost able to stay on his feet as he pushed the wave into the floor to soften his landing, he quickly grabbed a desk for balance and got up from his knees. His heart pounding, Red moved away from what was now a ledge with the wall blown out and looked toward the front of the room. He ducked as another student lab station exploded. With flames making it impossible to reach Chuck from the other side, Red was forced to try to get behind the teacher’s lab station from the side closest the ledge. He walked as fast as he could to the teacher’s desk, which sat next to the lab station on the opposite side of the door. He eased himself back down to his knees, afraid he might slip or have a spasm and fall back down to the courtyard if another station exploded.

  Red crawled around the desk with room to spare, and spotted Chuck sprawled out on the floor, flames surrounding him and his lower left leg burning. He quickly pushed the wave around Chuck and pulled him headfirst to the ledge. Another mini explosion in the back of the room had Red’s heart racing even faster. Grabbing him by the shirt, Red pulled Chuck’s head up off the floor and the bully began to come to.

  With a quick look outside, Red saw the baseball practice field off in the distance to his left.

  “You don’t get a soft landing, dickhead,” he said. There was just enough time for confusion to begin to register on Chuck’s face before Red pulled him up even further, wrapped his arms around Chuck’s neck and under his right shoulder, and slammed the wave into the floor, launching the two of them toward the field.

  Red thought his heart might pound all the way through Chuck’s chest as they rocketed over the courtyard. He dropped Chuck over the infield, wrapping the wave around him just enough to break his fall. Rolling through the infield dirt extinguished the flames on his jeans. Red could barely breathe as he hurtled towards the outfield. He desperately pushed the wave into the ground, trying to slow himself down. The twelve-foot gash in center field would later be blamed on flying debris. Red rolled about ten feet after crashing down a little harder than he expected.

  Staring up at blue sky, he was happy to just lie there in the grass. He heard his own breath over the approaching sirens of a fire truck. Voices seemed to be coming closer as well, but he was too exhausted to even turn his head to look.

  A couple clouds peacefully passed overhead. Red closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and knew the quiet wouldn’t last.

  Chapter 18

  Reaching down to pick up the Duke football after dropping another pass, Red gripped it as firmly as he could. It almost slipped out of his hands as he brought it up to his chest, but he used his left hand to try to squeeze it into his right for a better grip. Thinking about his form, he cocked his arm, held the ball with both hands as long as he could, leaned into the throw, aimed high, and was pleased with the solid thwump he heard when Scott caught it.

  “C’mon, Super Crip,” Scott said, “throw it.”

  “I threw it,” Red said. “And knock it off.”

  “You’re stuck with it, dude,” Scott said, tossing the ball back.

  Red tried to catch it with just his hands, but ultimately had to bring it into his body to control the pass. He was able to get a firm grip for the return pass without dropping the ball, and felt like he gave a stronger throw back.

  “You know what I mean,” Scott said. “Use your thing and really throw it. It’s more fun.”

  “You want me to use my thing to throw?” Red joked. “Not sure that would work.”

  As much as he didn’t want to give his little brother credit for a good comeback, Scott laughed. “Asshole,” he said. He leaned into his next pass and threw the ball hard enough that he knew Red couldn’t catch it without using the wave.

  Red laughed, and had to knock the ball down with his hands to avoid getting hit.

  “C’mon, Super Crip,” Scott yelled. “Throw it!”

  Returning the favor, Red pushed the ball back to him with the wave so hard that Scott needed two hands just to knock it away. Then he had to run about twenty feet to retrieve it after the football ricocheted off his hands and rolled a little further away on the ground.

  “Keep calling me that and I’m going to drill it and put you into the firehouse,” Red said.

  “You know you’re stuck with the name,” Scott hollered as he went after the ball.

  What Red hated almost as much as the name was the fact that his brother was probably right. He was stuck with Super Crip as a nickname.

  Reporters seemed to arrive at school almost as fast as the EMTs and the police after getting word that there had been an explosion. They just didn’t go away as fast. When school reopened on Wednesday there were so many reporters trying to get comments from students as they entered the building that the principal had barricades set up by the afternoon. But while the barricades kept news crews off school grounds, they didn’t stop reporters from talking to kids leaving school on foot to walk home after the final bell. For the rest of the week, school buses were fuller than usual and the line of cars to drop off and pick up students stretched for a block-and-a-half.

  When word spread through school that police had found a wheelchair that looked like it had been deliberately destroyed at the top of the middle stairwell in A-wing, rumors started to fly. One of the most popular tales was that Chuck had beaten up Red, destroying the wheelchair in the process. Yet more gossip said that Red had been separated from his wheelchair in a scuffle for Chuck’s gun, and the explosion had sent the wheelchair in the opposite direction. The fact that Red used a power wheelchair in school did little to convince the kids who accepted these stories as gospel that they weren’t true.