Unstoppable (16 page)
Authors: Tim Green
MAJOR BAUER TOOK A
four-month leave from the army. He moved into the small apartment above the Kellys' garage and was with Harrison in the hospital for the better part of every day. The nurses, doctors, and therapists treated him with high regard, and that was because they all soon learned that he ran an amputee rehabilitation program for the U.S. Army. The major would sometimes try to let the therapists work on Harrison's leg, but inevitably he ended up taking over in a way that no one seemed to mind.
Having someone as important and strong and smart as the major working on his leg made Harrison proud, and it went a long way toward making him feel better. Several days after the major arrived, it was time for Harrison to be done with the painkillers. His leg still ached, but Advil seemed to be enough, and he liked having the fog clear from his brain. That Saturday, he was scheduled to go home.
When Coach walked into the hospital room that morning, he wore a brand-new Brookton Junior High Football sweatshirt.
“What's that for?” Harrison asked.
“It's the mock-up for our football gear next year. We're getting a whole new look. The uniforms will have the same styling. You like it?”
Harrison scowled. “You went all the way to the championship and they didn't give you the varsity job? Did anyone tell them you lost your running back?”
“Sure. Everyone knew. So even though we got embarrassed 63â7, they offered me the varsity job.”
Harrison's mouth hung open. “But that says Brookton
Junior
High.”
Coach laughed and pushed a wheelchair over to the side of the bed. “Now's not the time for me to take the varsity job. I told them maybe in two years.”
“Coach, you said that was your dream.”
Coach's face turned serious. “I'm not just your coach. I'm your dad. If you're going to make a comeback, that's the team I want to coach, not varsity.”
Harrison looked out the window. The bare trees reached for the sky with silver fingers. He nodded his head. “Good.”
They helped him into the chair, then the car, and finally into the house. Coach parked in the driveway and helped him up onto a pair of crutches while Jennifer fretted at them to be careful of his leg. Harrison set his jaw and crutched his way up the blacktop. Major Bauer greeted him at the mouth of the garage, arms folded across his chest, and dressed in a T-shirt and shorts that showed off his chrome leg before it disappeared into his track sneaker. Harrison moved inside and his eyes adjusted to the cavelike gloom. Spread out around the concrete floor were parallel bars, ramps, rubber tubing, barbells, weight machines, and a massage table.
“Welcome home,” Major Bauer said. “Now let's get to work.”
THE MAJOR SHOWED HARRISON'S
parents into the house before he lifted two dumbbells off the rack and lay down on a bench. He pressed them up and down, exhaling as he counted out the reps, ten in all. Metal clanged as he replaced them and pointed toward the bench.
“You get on and I'll hand you the weights.”
Harrison lay down and took a set of smaller dumbbells from the major. He tried to do what the major had done, but his arms wobbled and the weights swayed all over the place.
“You'll get it,” the major said. “It takes time to train your muscles. Just work through it.”
The major counted the reps out loud. At seven, Harrison began to struggle and strain.
“Come on!” the major shouted. “Don't quit!”
The word
quit
sent a shiver through Harrison and he groaned with effort, refusing to give up. The major helped him with his last few reps, urging him on with barks of praise.
“Good! Good! That's the way to work!
“Now this,” the major said, pointing to a flat bench with a padded roller at one end connected to a stack of weights by a cable that ran beneath the bench, “is your bread and butter machine, the leg curl. This will make your hamstrings strongâthe back of your legâand you'll need that now more than ever. First we walk, then we run, then . . . if we're lucky, you learn to cut.”
“Cut?”
“If you're serious about football, you can't just run in a straight line. You've got to be able to plant your foot and redirect at a new angleâthat's a cut.”
“I get it. And I can do that?”
“If you're strong enough, I think I can teach you.” The major planted a thumb in his own chest.
Harrison nodded, got on, and curled the roller toward his butt by squeezing his leg. He ground out twelve reps.
“Good,” Coach said. “Next time, we'll bump up the weight.”
They moved from one exercise to another, and just when Harrison thought there wasn't anything else they could possibly do with the weights or the machines, they ran through the whole thing again.
They worked until dinnertime. Sweat drenched Harrison's clothes. Major Bauer finished with a therapy session on Harrison's leg, massaging it, then tapping the skin and gently rubbing the end of his leg with a cloth before washing it and binding it tight.
“What we need,” the major said as he worked, “is for this skin to get desensitized. This skin has to be tough and durableânot now, but when you're fully healed. This skin has to be . . . oh, heck. Here, look at this.”
The major whipped off his own prosthetic as if it were nothing more than a sock, and he held up his stump for Harrison to see.
HARRISON WINCED, THEN LOOKED
apologetically into the major's eyes.
“It's okay, you'll get used to it. It's your life now, Harrison, just like it's mine. We can run, but we can't hide. I tell all my men that.”
Harrison looked back at the stump and the smooth, leathery skin.
“You ought to just touch it. This is from decades of work, but we'll get you there. It's got to be your interface with the prosthetic, so it has to be smooth and strong and durable. It won't happen overnight, but this is where we're headed.”
Harrison reached out and touched the smooth, cool surface. It felt more like wood than skin.
“You know why humans rule the earth?” The major tugged his prosthetic back into place.
“Because we're smart?” Harrison said.
“Because we're
adaptable
.” The major danced a jig on the garage floor, his sneakers scuffing in perfect rhythm. “We can adapt to almost anything. That's why we survive. That's why we
thrive.
You're going to adapt to this. Just watch.”
The door leading into the kitchen opened. Jennifer stuck her head into the garage and told them to get washed up because dinner was almost ready. The major went up the stairs to his apartment and Harrison went inside to use the kitchen sink.
After dinner, Harrison was exhausted. They had moved his furniture and all his things down to the first floor in the room with its own bathroom that had been Coach's office. He climbed into his own bed, thankful for the fresh cotton smell of the sheets and the hiss of the wind through the big pine trees outside the window.
“Mom? Can I get a TV in here? Just while I'm getting better?”
His mom looked around the small room. “Maybe. Actually, I was thinking about all that TV in the hospital. I know you were bored, but it didn't seem to help.”
“It kept my mind off all this.” Harrison covered a yawn.
His mom reached down beneath the bedside table and brought out one of the Louis L'Amour books,
The Warrior's Path.
“Just give this a try. I know you liked the first two. If you can get into another one, I think it'll be ten times better than the TV. Just try.”
She pointed to the shelf below the tabletop. “Look, I got you the whole set, so when you finish thisâ”
Harrison took the book. “I just think it's going to be hard to concentrate.”
It wasn't hard. After the first two pages, Harrison lost himself in the story. When he woke in the middle of the night, the book lay on his chest and the reading lamp warded off the darkness creeping from the corners of his room. He needed Advil. His mom had left him two with a cup of water on the table. He gulped them down and took a big drink, then lay back again.
In the morning, while his parents went to church, Harrison and Major Bauer began their work. The major attached rubber tubing to Harrison's injured leg and had him strain against the tubing from every angle.
“This leg has to be able to work ten times better and harder than it used to, so we want every muscle, ligament, and tendon, every fiber of it, to be stronger.” They worked his good leg as well, for balance. The session ended again with a rigorous massage.
They had roast beef and mashed potatoes at midday and then worked again in the afternoon. A lot of the exercise in the afternoon focused on Harrison's upper body and his core because the major said he needed his whole body to be strong. They did every kind of sit-up Harrison could imagine and then some more. They worked his lower back, lifting weights off the floor, and wedged into what the major called a “Roman chair,” where Harrison's body hung off the edge of a padded rail and he could raise and lower his torso like a door hinge. Again sweat soaked Harrison's clothes, and the major ended it all with the massage.
“I thought a massage was supposed to feel good.” Harrison winced as the major worked his fingers into the healing skin.
“You know what feels good about rehab?” The major looked up and raised his eyebrows.
“What?”
“When you're done. That's about it. And now . . .” The major wiped his hands on a towel. “We're done.”
Coach went out back in his jacket and cooked burgers on the grill for dinner. After a blessing, Jennifer said she hoped the major wasn't overdoing it. He and Coach waved her off.
“This is what he does, honey. Relax.” Coach slipped a hamburger off the big plate he'd brought in from the grill and onto a bun before loading it down with a bit of everything.
“There's time,” she said.
Major Bauer raised his head from the table like a dog who'd detected an intruder. “Not much time. Not if he's going to play next fall. We've got a tight schedule.”
She frowned and dished some coleslaw onto her plate, tapping the last shreds of cabbage loose with the spoon so that the clacking sound got their attention.
“I don't know if it's about football right now. Oh, Harrison,” his mom said, “please don't look at me like that. I just don't want you to get your hopes up.”
“Hope?” The major made a puzzled face. “Hope is the fuel of recovery. We got to keep his hopes up, Jennifer. Hunger and hope, that's what drives a man.”
“Kirk, I can't tell you how much it means to all of us that you're here and willing to help,” Jennifer said, “but he's
not
a soldier. He's a thirteen-year-old boy.”
Harrison didn't know what to say, and by the quiet sound of ketchup being squirted onto buns and silverware clinking against their plates, no one else knew what to say either. After dinner, Harrison hobbled to his bedroom on the crutches and flopped down on his bed. He didn't want to think about the friction between his mom and Major Bauer, so he picked up his book. He only had four chapters left.
Two pages into the book, there was a knock at the door. It opened a crack and his mom peeked in. “Harrison? Someone's here to see you.”
As the door swung slowly open, Harrison launched himself off the bed. He flew across the room with one hop and fell against the door, slamming it shut as he fell to the floor.
“No!” His voice was so loud it shocked even him. His leg thumped with pain. “Get out of here! Leave me alone!”
“HARRISON? IT'S ME.” JUSTIN'S
voice sounded sad and weak through the door.
“It's okay, Justin.” Jennifer's voice was soothing. “I'm sorry. I didn't know he wasn't ready to see anyone.”
“It's just me, though. I tried to text him. His phone is off.”
“I think he knows. Come on.”
Harrison listened to their footsteps and then the sound of the front door before his mom said good-bye. Harrison clambered to his feet, locked the door, and hopped over to the bed. He took up his crutches and hurried to the front window, where he pulled aside the curtain. Justin had his hands in his pockets. His chin sagged to his chest. As he shuffled down the sidewalk, he kicked a stick and looked back through the evening light at the house.
Harrison dropped the curtain.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
Harrison returned to the bed and lay down.
“Harrison?”
He said nothing.
“I'm sorry. I didn't know you didn't want to see anyone.” His mom's voice barely made it through the door.
“I don't want anyone to see me.” Harrison stared at the ceiling. “Not now, not ever. I'm a freak.”
After a time, his mom said, “I love you, Harrison. Call me if you need me.”
The floor creaked beneath her feet as she walked away. Harrison reached over and turned out the light. He lay quietly, thinking. He'd forgotten about his phone. It lay on the bedside table. He thought about Justin's words and wondered if Becky had tried to text him too.
He rolled away from the phone. He didn't care. He didn't want to see her, either. He was a cripple now, and soon he'd be bald and a perfect freak show. Harrison squeezed his eyes shut tight and the tears spilled out of them onto his pillow. His leg began to throbânot the stump, but his leg, his missing leg. His whole body began to tremble and the sobs clawed their way out of his chest, wave after wave, until he finally fell asleep.
