My Name Is River Blue (36 page)

I attempted to move
my right arm to find my cell phone in my right side jacket pocket, but my arm
was thoroughly pinned between my body and the passenger door. I thought that I might
be able move my left arm enough to retrieve Ant's phone from his jacket, but as
I tried, I discovered that my arm was broken. The sudden jolt of pain brought a
scream from me, and I had to gather my nerve to try it again. It was my only
option and decided that I could stand the pain for as long as it took. It was
amazingly easy to find Ant's cell and thumb 911, but very difficult to bring my
screaming and cursing under control enough to talk.

I gave the dispatcher
our location and she, along with everyone else in the county, knew exactly
where Angels' Curve was on Henry's Hill. It was the same curve where Marcia
Medlock's husband had his fatal accident. If you were going to use your vehicle
to commit suicide or to kill someone else by running him off the road, it was
the perfect place. The dispatcher wanted me to stay on the phone with her, but
I dropped it. I simply rested my hand on Ant's head and tried to keep my arm
still.

I tried to
encourage Ant in case he could hear me. I told him that help was on the way,
and that he had to hang on for me. I reminded him of our big plans together. We
had to finish college, play pro football, marry good women, have bunches of
kids, and build palatial homes joined by our own football field. For two state
kids, we had big dreams and a fantastic journey ahead of us, but we could only
take that trip together.

For a moment, I
thought Ant said something to me, but when I asked him to repeat it, there was
no response except his harsh breathing. The desperate sounds shifted more to
his throat, and then grew weaker.

The EMTs and sheriff's
deputies arrived quicker than I expected. I could see beams of light shining
from below and to our right, raking across the area where I remained trapped in
the car with Ant. The rescue crew had responded to our location in the past,
and they knew that the old farm road by the Thomas place was the shortest way
to reach us. As if it mattered at that moment, I oddly wondered if anyone had
ever thought of building a safer bypass around Henry's Hill. What were they
waiting for?

The lights were
coming closer. I heard voices. The crew was moving up the trail towards us, and
I had the smallest flicker of hope. Just for a moment, I thought they might be
in time.

Then I heard a
different sound from Ant. A throaty, struggling gasp.

I told Ant that I
was smiling, just the way he always wanted. I promised him that I would work
harder, if he would only stay with me. Then I told him something that I had
never said outright to him before that night. I knew that he already understood,
but I hoped that in saying those words aloud that they would somehow have enough
power for a miracle.

He made another
sound. A long rush of breath. There was nothing more.

The woods around
me grew bright from the lights of the rescue team, and their voices grew louder
as they came closer. I was aware of the urgent activity and intense dialogue of
the team as they began their work to help Ant and me. A strong beam hit me
directly in my eyes, which I quickly closed, but before I did, I caught just a
glimpse of Ant and the wreckage surrounding us inside the car. Everything I saw
was mangled, colored red, and covered with sparkling pieces of glass. I wish
that I had never seen what I did in that brief moment, and I know that no matter
how hard I try to forget, the image of Ant will stay with me as long as I live.

Someone aimed a
light at my face.

"Oh god!"
The man's voice was loud. I knew him.

"What? What
is it?" Another voice asked from farther away.

"It's River
Blue," said the first voice, the one I knew.

"Are you
sure?"

"Positive. My
son and I played catch with him in the park just a week ago."

With my eyes
still closed, I heard the second man passing the word along to the rest of the
crew. Sergeant Cox tried to wake me.

"River,
this is Sergeant Cox. Can you hear me?" His light was still in my face.

"Yes,"
I said. "I'm not asleep. You're blinding me."

"Sorry, River."
The sergeant shifted his beam. "The team is setting up, and we'll have you
out soon. We’ll carry you to a flat clearing about thirty yards from here where
the Medevac chopper will set down and then fly you guys to the hospital. Who is
that with you?"

“Ant, my
brother.”

"Can you
tell me where you're hurt?" Sergeant Cox seemed different. His face was
fuzzy, and his voice distant. It was difficult to focus on his questions with
my brain crawling.

"My left
arm's broken. I think my back and legs are messed up."

"Okay, can
you tell me Ant's condition?”

"He's
dead." Even to me, my voice sounded strangely unemotional. According to
Sergeant Cox, it was the last thing I said before losing consciousness. To the
best of my knowledge, the next time I spoke was three days later in the ICU of
Bergeron County Hospital.

I have never
watched it, but a TV magazine show did a story called
Friday Night Heroes, A
Tragedy in the South.
I refused to give an interview. So did Sergeant Cox.

***

My nightmares don't
come every night anymore, and they're not always the same, but the assault on
my senses is always strong and real to me. In one dream, the car's violent
somersaults are accompanied by the sounds of metallic scraping, bending, and
crunching. After we smash into the tree, strong hands with scarred knuckles reach
through the broken glass, grab me tightly by my throat, and pull me into a dark
tunnel where I hear screams coming from the other end. I'm choking and
struggling to breathe as the hands continue to drag me through the tunnel
towards the voices. I finally come to a light so I can see who is dragging me,
but I can never remember who or what I saw. I wake up gasping. I stink of sweat
and fear.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

Seven
months later

July
2005

The summer
following the accident was the hottest I could remember, and the day I packed
my belongings in early July, the temperature reached ninety-six degrees with
life-sucking humidity. The air conditioning in Tolley House never worked as
well upstairs as it did downstairs, and most of us eight boys, who all shared
bedrooms on the second floor, wore only our boxers or gym shorts in our rooms. Hal
Mackey swore that the state had approved funds needed to upgrade the central
air system and that the work would begin within two weeks. It was great news for
the boys who would enjoy the new system, but after reaching the age of eighteen
and graduating from high school, I had "aged out" and could no longer
live there. The next day, I was moving to Deer Lake Farm.

I had not seen
my girlfriend for three days, our longest separation since the accident, and I
missed her even more than I thought I would. Yeah, Carlee, my girlfriend. It's
funny how things change. She wanted to help me with my move, but I insisted
that she go on vacation with her family. We didn't give Big Bill another reason
to hate me.

We both knew
that her folks, especially Big Bill, would go ballistic when they realized that
Carlee's relationship with me was more serious than they thought. He had tolerated
Carlee spending time with me during my recovery, but I knew that he was near
the end of his patience. My guess was that he was avoiding a fight with Carlee
because he thought that in late August, his problem would be solved when she
left me behind to attend college out of state. Big Bill didn't know yet that
his little girl's college plans included me.

Cleaning out my
half of the room was not difficult, but the combination of heat, physical
activity, and pain caused me to perspire soon after I started. I packed clothes,
toiletries, personal items, and mementos of sentimental value, mostly things
that had belonged to Ant. I told my foster brothers that they could have
anything I left in my room. As I continued to work, rivulets of sweat rolled
from my pits down my sides, soaking my boxers until they were sagging from the
weight.

I had mentioned
to Papa that I intended to toss all of my football trophies and awards, but he
asked me if he could have them. I think he wanted to save them for me in case I
changed my mind, so I had one of my foster brothers load them in his truck one
day when Papa stopped by the house. Since Tolley House was full of wild boys, Hal
and Jenny asked for my crutches, if I didn't want them. I wished that I could
give them my cane, but I used it often, especially on bad pain days, and there
were still more bad days than good ones.

When I was
almost done with packing, I had filled a large, green duffel bag, two gym bags,
and two paper grocery sacks. I would pack the remaining toiletry items after I finished
in the bathroom the next morning, and I would get my pills and written prescriptions
from Jenny before I left. I was eighteen years old, but the state still required
house parents to control and administer all medications in a group home.

I took three
different kinds of pain medicine, and I had other medications for muscle
spasms, inflammation, and depression. I was on time-released morphine and a
nerve pain blocker around the clock every day. In my pocket, I carried a pill
fob, which contained oxycodone to dull breakthrough pain generated from my spine
and left leg. As my pain management doctor suggested, I carried a photocopy of the
current prescriptions in my wallet in case I ever had to explain the contents
of my fob to authorities.

I would have to come
to Harper Springs for my pain management appointments every two months. Since
state law prohibited refills on my narcotics, the appointments were primarily
for my doctor to write new prescriptions for two months worth of my
medications. The doctor had to write a separate prescription for each drug to
be filled thirty days apart. It was inconvenient for patients who would be
taking the drugs indefinitely, but the state, doctors, pharmacists, and insurance
companies followed strict policies concerning narcotics prescriptions.

***

During my first
weeks in the hospital, my injuries confined me to bed, and I needed help with the
most basic tasks. My left arm was in a cast, as was my left leg, the cast
running from hip to foot. I had three broken fingers on my right hand, which
was cut and badly bruised along with my right arm. When I was still in Ant's car,
I didn't realize that I had so many lacerations, but a nurse told me that I
needed more than two hundred twenty stitches, most of them in my arms and legs.
My doctors declared it a miracle that my accident caused no life threatening internal
harm.

The damage to my
spine was my most painful injury, and initially, if I attempted more than the
slightest movement on my own, the ungodly pain would shoot like an electrical
fire from my back through my buttocks and down my legs to my feet. My left side
was the worst. I often thought the toes on my left foot might fly off in small
balls of fire, and I routinely asked the nurses to make sure my morphine was not
an expired batch. The pain taught me to do only what I was physically ready to
do, and if my condition had not gradually improved, I believe I would have begged
for a lethal dose of morphine.

From the night
of the accident, I spent just over two months in the hospital, followed by three
months as an inpatient of the rehab center. I would have been discharged much sooner
from the hospital, but I developed a nasty infection in my left leg. For a
time, I was afraid that I might lose it. As I was healing from the infection,
they found a blood clot in my leg that the doctor had to dissolve before it
became life threatening.

Between my neurosurgeon
and orthopedic surgeon, they used rods, plates, screws, and cadaver discs to
repair the damage to my arm, leg, and spine. When they had done all they could,
they referred me to a pain management doctor to deal with my chronic pain. The
surgeons were not confident enough to predict how much my current level of pain
would decrease with time and continued therapy, but both assured me that the
pain management doctor would help me achieve the "best quality of life
possible."

During my last
appointment with Dr. Atchison, the neurosurgeon, he answered my questions until
I was satisfied that I understood his opinion of how different my new life
would be. He had informed me early on that I would never play sports again, and
he, along with the orthopedic surgeon, were unsure if I would improve enough to
ever hold down more than a part-time office job. If I progressed enough to work
full-time, they believed that it would have to be light work with the freedom
to change physical positions and take frequent rest periods. As hard as I tried,
I couldn't picture a job that fit that description.

On the positive
side, Dr. Atchison assured me that because I was an athlete in top condition at
the time of the accident, I had progressed faster than most patients would have,
and I had a better chance of achieving good results with continued physical
therapy. He warned me that negativity and depression were my enemies.

According to Dr.
Atchison, I had already been blessed with two miracles because I was lucky to
be alive and equally fortunate that the accident did not leave me paralyzed. He
suggested that I take positive energy from those gifts and apply it to my
continued efforts towards a meaningful recovery. He insisted that my new life,
although different from what I had planned, could be just as rewarding.

I could hardly
believe that the doctor fed me such a bullshit line with a straight face. I
wanted to shove my cheap, wooden cane up his ass. I wanted to tell him that
while different from what he had planned, if he swallowed enough pain meds and
kept a positive attitude, it could be just as rewarding to walk bowlegged and
shit splinters for a month. I seriously might have spent the night in jail had
Carlee not been there to calm me with a squeeze of her hand and a pleading look
in her eyes.

Yeah, Carlee
again. My relationship with her was another dramatic change in my life, and
although I initially fought her kindness and selfless devotion to me, she was
relentless in her efforts to help me and impervious to my nasty verbal assaults.
My hateful behavior would have provoked most girls to call me an ungrateful asshole
right before they granted my wish to suffer alone.

There were times
in the hospital that as tough as Papa was, and as much as he cared for me, even
he
would have to leave my room for a calming walk before my remarks made
him lose his temper. Papa, Manny, Miss Martin, Max, Hal, and Jenny all took
turns sitting with me, but I remember them taking frequent breaks from my room.
I'm sure that they were all thankful for the many hours of relief Carlee gave
them by staying with me longer than her fair share. Howie Spearman, who had a
four-hour drive round trip, usually stayed with me a full day each week, and
everyone was always anxious to know which day Howie was coming.

Carlee saw me
every day with few exceptions and stayed as long as she could. On some school
days, she would bring her books, and if I nodded off to sleep, she would do
homework. If I were awake, she took care of anything I needed and updated me on
school happenings. She had a good sense of when to talk and when to be quiet,
and the only times she aggravated me was when she was much nicer than I
deserved, which, in the beginning, was every day.

There was an
afternoon, a few weeks into my hospital stay, when my mind was clear enough
that I suddenly realized Carlee had changed into a young woman that anyone would
admire. I had noticed good changes in her before the holiday break, but in the
hospital, it was even more evident that she was a different person. I no longer
saw her as possessive, self-absorbed, and spoiled. She was good company, and I
missed her when she wasn't there.

The more time I
spent with her, I liked the new Carlee much better than I did the new River. I
acted much like the cynical, angry kid I was when I first arrived at Tolley
House. It was easy to hate everything, including me. I hated that I was stupid
enough to believe that state kids like Ant and I could make our dreams come
true by working hard and honestly for what we wanted. I hated that I allowed
myself to care so much for Ant that his death was the worst pain I had ever
known.

I don't believe
that I will ever completely understand how Carlee could faithfully stand by me
no matter how nasty I was to her. She never lost her temper with me or cut a
visit short because I was a jerk to her. With every instance where I did my
best to crush her feelings and run her off, she responded with understanding
and kindness. She made me crazy.

The only time
that I remember Carlee chewing on me was not for anything that I said to her,
but for my rudeness to Max. He got on my nerves by repeatedly telling me how sorry
he was about the accident. Carlee told me that Max was trying to be a good
friend to me, but he often wondered if he should stop visiting because everything
he said seemed to upset me. She reminded me that Ant was Max's friend too. I
had never even considered how much Ant's death hurt Max, but after talking to
Carlee, I made a point to be nicer to him.

Before I was
well enough to begin catching up with my school work, Carlee would often read
to me at night before she left for home. One night, when Carlee sat next to my
hospital bed and read Howie Spearman's sports column to me, I interrupted and
very bluntly asked her why she was still spending hours with me after the many
times I had been rude to her.

"Why are
you doing this, Carlee?"

"Reading to
you?"

"You know
what I mean. Why are you here so much? What's in it for you?"

"I love you
and I want to help. That's all."

"There's
not going to be any miracles. I'll never be a rich and famous football player. I'll
be lucky to get a minimum wage part-time job. I'll be lucky if I can do
anything."

"River, I
think I have been here enough to have a clear understanding of your medical
condition, and it doesn't affect the way I feel. I love you and that's not
going to change."

"I told you
long before the accident that we weren't going to be a couple."

"I know,
and you had every right to say what you did. I didn't deserve you. I was
terrible to you and honestly, I wouldn't have wanted an immature, possessive, snobbish
bitch, either."

I laughed for
the first time since the accident. I laughed so loudly that I surprised Carlee,
who blushed and giggled over the self-description she had offered. "That's
one hell of a string of adjectives, Carlee."

"I know,
but it's true." Carlee laughed with me until we both had tears running
from our eyes.

When we
recovered, I still had serious questions. "So what are you expecting from
me, Carlee? That I'll be grateful that any girl would want me the way I am
now?"

"I'm not
expecting anything," she said, a stern edge to her voice. "It would
be a lie to say that I don't want you to love me back like a guy loves his
girlfriend, but I'm okay with simple friendship, if that's all I can
have."