The Birth of Super Crip (10 page)

Tim came in through the back door to find his wife
putting the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. He took off his
gloves and began washing his hands.

“What happened to my help with the leaves?” he
asked.

“Upstairs talking to the patient,” Mary said.

“Red’s finally awake?”

“Yep,” Mary said. “I just brought him some
breakfast.”

“Why? He couldn’t come down?” Tim asked,
concerned.

Mary shook her head. “No, he could,” she said. “I
think he’ll be fine. I just want him to take it very easy this
weekend. We’re going to the specialist on Monday for another
treatment, and he’ll check him out.”

Tim dried his hands on the towel hanging over the
oven door handle. “How do you think that’s going?” he asked. “I
can’t really say I’ve noticed any improvement.”

“If the injections help him stay where he is as he
gets older, I’d be happy,” she said in her typical way of taking
every possible positive from anything having to do with her son’s
cerebral palsy.

Not wanting to press the issue, Tim switched gears.
“I just saw Rick out back,” he said, referring to their next-door
neighbor. “He was saying somebody damaged the back of the firehouse
and flattened a tire on one of guys’ cars. You hear anything about
that?”

“No. You mean graffiti?”

“He said it looks like somebody took a sledgehammer
to the wall,” Tim said. “And the tire wasn’t slit. He said it was
smashed in—like they used the same thing on the tire that they used
on the wall. The boys didn’t say anything about it?”

Mary shook her head. “They were too busy trying to
hide a Nerf football they apparently destroyed. I found it when I
accidentally knocked over the trash can full of balls when I was
doing laundry down there.”

Tim shrugged. “Nerfs don’t last forever.”

“Well,” she said, finally closing the dishwasher and
turning it on, “this one wasn’t just tattered. In fact, it looked a
lot newer than some of the others except for the fact that it was
torn almost in half.”

Tim briefly raised his eyebrows. “They didn’t damage
a brick wall or a tire with a Nerf football, but there’s something
they’re not telling us. I didn’t like that whole story with the
fight in school the other day either. Where’s that ball?”

Reading his mind as he started to move across the
room, she gently put her hands on his chest. “It’s right where I
found it,” Mary said. “And that’s where it stays for now. C’mon, I
don’t want Red all upset over some stupid prank somebody else
probably pulled.”

Tim hugged his wife and kissed her. “Fine,” he said,
giving in. He wasn’t sure how the dots connected anyway. But he was
pretty sure they did. He was even more sure Mary knew they did,
too, and even if the boys weren’t directly involved, she probably
already had an idea of just how they connected. “For now.”

Chapter
13

Red nestled back under the covers after using the
bathroom. Cool fall breezes occasionally made the window shade
balloon until relenting after a few moments, allowing the shade to
fall back into place with a gentle tap against the windowsill.
Following orders to take it easy hadn’t been much of a challenge
for him. Laying around in sweats watching college football all day
was intertwined with several naps.

The only problem with the plan was that when he
actually went to bed for the night less than twelve hours after
he’d gotten up, he wasn’t exactly in need of another eight hours of
sleep. His dad had only turned off the TV in his parents’ room a
few minutes before his trip to the bathroom, and Scott still had
almost an hour before his one o’clock curfew.

Thoughts of waiting to see if his brother was up for
a late-night game of
Madden
football on Sega were
interrupted when he heard a girl say, “Stop it,” somewhere in the
back of the houses. There wasn’t any real strain in her voice, but
it had been more than a request. It wasn’t unusual for some of the
underage-but-out-of-high-school crowd to hang in the field behind
Mr. Taylor’s house on Saturday night. As long as they didn’t talk
too loudly, and kept their boom boxes low enough, which was quickly
becoming less of a problem since only a few guys still had them, no
one seemed to care. Mr. Taylor generally didn’t run them off as
long as they stayed back by the woods.

Another, somewhat more annoyed “Stop,” with an extra
syllable in the middle to add emphasis, reached the window.
Curiosity got the better of Red. Keeping his sheets around him, he
got on his knees and slipped under the window shade to see what he
could. Recognizing the girl’s voice, he knew King Street’s Charles
and Di, as his mom called them, were having a spat.

Billy was a little more than five years out of high
school and still spent most of his time around the latest crop of
high school graduates who hadn’t gone away to college. He had
already washed out three times at trying to pass the training to be
a fireman, but still volunteered in the hopes of latching on. Red
had heard that he was working as a janitor at the Springfield
country club, which was just the latest in a string of jobs
everyone knew he’d eventually be fired from.

His blond hair had been almost as long as Jennifer’s
before she cut it a couple summers ago. She was taking classes at
community college, and rumor had it she was doing pretty well,
while waitressing at Carrabba’s in the mall. She was always sweet
to Red whenever the family had dinner there, and even though he
knew it was mostly from a pat-the-disabled-on-the-head mentality,
he liked her well enough because she always took his order without
asking his mom what he wanted. Nonetheless, he couldn’t disagree
with his mom when, like most of the neighborhood women, she ended
conversations about Jennifer with some form of the suggestion that
“she’d be so much better off without that boyfriend.”

Jennifer seemed to be in agreement. Her exchange with
Billy was becoming more animated. Red couldn’t make out every word,
but she was clearly agitated. They were loud enough now that he
could tell they were sitting either against the opposite side of
Mr. Taylor’s boat or behind it.

“I said, knock it off,” he heard Jennifer say loud
and clear.

Red thought he heard Billy mumble something that
sounded like, “C’mon, baby.”

The
smack
of a hand against someone’s skin cut
through the relative quiet. Red’s grip tightened on the sheets he
held around his shoulders. He didn’t know if Jennifer had done the
slapping or if Billy had hit her.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Billy growled, any
thoughts of being discreet suddenly forgotten.

“I’m not in the mood, Billy,” Jennifer yelled back as
she stood up from behind the side of the boat.

Red saw a second figure stand up in the moonlight and
grab her arm. He could feel the wave stir even as he tried to calm
himself with a deep breath. As Billy tried to pull her back to the
boat, she leaned in and cracked him right across the face with her
free hand. Jennifer turned to walk toward the field. Mr. Taylor’s
back patio light came on as Billy grabbed her by the arm again. Red
knew he could help Jennifer. He could push Billy away any time he
wanted. But he hesitated, wondering if his brother was right. Maybe
I really shouldn’t do it anymore, he thought.

Jennifer was able to shake her arm free and take
several steps away from Billy. “I’ll call the cops if you don’t
leave me the hell alone,” she said.

Billy started after her as Mr. Taylor’s screen door
opened with its familiar whine of the springs. “You kids knock it
off,” he hollered, stepping outside in a tank top and boxers with
his mostly gray hair, which was usually greased back, seemingly
swaying in every direction with each movement.

“Uhmff,” Red groaned even in the rising heat of the
moment. Didn’t need to see that, he thought.

“Yeah, I got it. Everything’s under control,” Billy
said in a dismissive tone. Jennifer had stopped in her tracks.

“You kids get the hell away from my boat,” Mr. Taylor
said in the screechy voice the neighborhood kids heard on rare
occasions when he chewed out one of them for doing something in his
yard that he didn’t like. “And you leave that girl alone. She don’t
want no part of you right now.”

“Don’t worry about it, old man,” Billy barked.

Jennifer took a few steps toward him. “Billy, let’s
go,” she said, her tone softening toward him.

“Don’t worry about it, eh?” Mr. Taylor said.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Billy said sharply. “Nobody’s
messing with your damn boat.”

“I’m gonna make sure of that,” Mr. Taylor said,
walking back into his house.

Red looked back at his bedroom door, half hoping,
half expecting to see the hallway light leaking in from the bottom.
He found only darkness. Not even a sound to suggest his parents
were stirring.

Jennifer let out a quick scream. Red’s head snapped
back to see her fighting off Billy. He had to do something. He
tried pushing the wave at Billy, but found himself ducking away
from the window when it rattled so much he feared for a second it
was going to shatter.

“Damn,” Red whispered, looking up at the window after
it stopped shaking. Relieved not to see any damage, he pushed the
window further up out of his line of sight. Well, Mom, here’s what
happened . . ., he imagined himself saying, while thanking God he
wasn’t actually going to have to explain how his window got blown
out. It also occurred to him that he didn’t feel light-headed after
pushing the wave.

Billy had a firm grip on Jennifer’s arm when Red
looked out the window again. This time Red tried to push the wave
just enough to knock Billy down, as if he were blowing out candles
on a cake with one quick burst, half afraid the window screen might
be pushed out. The screen didn’t shake at all. No dizziness either,
he thought. Red had managed to knock Billy to the ground, but he’d
pulled Jennifer down with him. Red searched for something to push
at Billy to hold him down. Mr. Taylor’s patio chairs. A small
table. Neither would work. Jennifer kicked at Billy as she tried to
get back to her feet to run. Red looked back at his bedroom door,
his heart racing. Still no sign of his parents. He considered
yelling for them, but something told him it was already too late
for them to do anything. Looking outside again he saw the couple
had only moved a few more feet beyond the boat. He knew he could
push Billy through the woods if he wanted, but something was still
making him hold back. What if I pushed too hard? He remembered the
falling tree from the night before. He had pushed so hard he
shattered the tree and the broadcast booth. I might kill him, Red
thought.

It finally hit him. The boat! It seemed extreme but
he knew Mr. Taylor could reemerge any second, and if rumors were
true that the old man kept a shotgun just inside his basement
doorway, Red would be doing Billy a favor as much as anyone.

Without hesitation he tried to push the boat, causing
it to wobble, but he instinctively backed off as the wave was
ripping through the hedges his father constantly trimmed. He heard
Jennifer scream, “Get off!” She was still kicking at Billy as they
struggled on the ground.

Red tried again to move the boat, which was anchored
by the trailer that attached to Mr. Taylor’s truck. He pushed the
wave over the hedges. But the boat simply began to tip over as Red
could only hit the far side of it with the wave. Stopping to let it
settle back on its resting place, he noticed the ropes tying the
cover down over the boat. One more mental check assured him he
wasn’t feeling any light-headedness from pushing the wave.

“Let go of me,” Jennifer screamed. Billy was
stretched out, still grabbing her ankle as she kicked at him with
the other foot.

Tipping the boat again, Red ripped the cover off,
pushing the wave under it until the ropes on each side gave way.
Free from its ties, the cover hung in the air for a second until
Red slammed it into Billy with the wave.

Startled, Billy wrestled with what he initially
assumed was Mr. Taylor. His flailing arms made it easier for Red to
keep pushing the cover around him, giving Jennifer the chance to
escape. This time she didn’t look back, but Red knew the cover
wouldn’t hold Billy very long.

He looked back at the boat and pushed against its far
edge again. Without the cover it was easy to push the boat just
enough to make it flip, trailer and all. Once it was far enough
away from the fence, Red pushed it in the air to where Billy was
just getting free of the cover. Red drove the nose of the boat into
the ground before he eased the rest of the craft down over Billy
like a slowly shutting trapdoor.

The screen door flew open again and Mr. Taylor came
out pointing the barrel of his shotgun ahead of him. He saw his
boat flipped over in the middle of the yard and thought he noticed
someone running in the field toward the firehouse.

“You little bastard!” he hollered. “I told you not to
touch my goddamn boat!” He took aim.

“Shit,” Red said in an exasperated whisper, realizing
Mr. Taylor thought Billy was the one running away.