He stops as if slapped into consciousness. “Okay, okay. I’m okay. Is he breathing? Tell me if he’s breathing.”
Jenny looks up between breaths. “Get the boat,” she says and puts her mouth back over Willie’s.
Still stunned, Big Will swims to the boat, pulls himself in and cranks the engine. Above the roar, he hears Jenny scream, “He’s breathing! He’s breathing! It works! Oh, God, it works! He’s alive!”
The boat is left in the water; the Bronco speeding for Lambert, the nearest town with a hospital. A shivering Jenny sits in the backseat with Willie’s head on her lap, running her fingers through his wet hair. Willie’s mother is in shock beside them, but she moves the blanket up around Willie’s shoulders, the way she tucked him in when he was three. Johnny can’t stop shaking in the front seat, his eyes glued to the road, as the sun drops like a rock, leaving the eastern Montana landscape shrouded in a dank grayish brown.
Willie hasn’t regained consciousness.
CHAPTER 6
Willie pulls on two pairs of sweats in the early-morning darkness of his room, then feels his way to the closet and down under the pile of dirty clothes for his Nikes. The temperature outside is well below zero, and he digs out extra socks, his gloves and a pullover ski mask. The digital clock over his bed says five-thirty. He feels his way downstairs and through the kitchen, already sweating under the load of clothing, then out the back door to the alley. He bends down to stretch out his legs, leaning curiously to his right. Three months out of balance. The first three months of the rest of his life. “Use it,” Dr. Swanson had said when Willie asked him how he could get his body to work right again. “I have no idea how much you can get back because we’re not sure what the damage is, or where it is. These things are unpredictable. The only way you’ll ever know is to work it and work it and work it. The human brain has an amazing ability to compensate. When one part shuts down, often another part covers for it. But you have to work it constantly to let that other part know what it’s compensating for.”
So finally Willie is running. Two months it took him to muster the courage to leave the house. He faked terrible headaches to stay home from school so the other kids wouldn’t see him this way, but one day Big Will came into his room and said that, headaches or no headaches, Willie was by God going to get back with it. Enough was enough.
He went to school late that first day; walked through the doors after the bell so he could negotiate the hall and the lockers and the stairs in relative obscurity; forgo explanations.
They clapped when he pushed the door open with his cane and limped to his desk in first-period English. Johnny and Petey ran up and slapped him on the back as if he’d just pitched the final out in the Crazy Horse Electric game; and Jenny put her hand on his arm and cried. She was the only one who had actually heard how he talked now; or how he didn’t talk. She had watched him work so hard for his words, felt the pain of wanting to help, to talk for him in those long silences when he struggled to get what was in his head out through his mouth; watched the beads of sweat break on his, forehead as his stomach tightened, his throat constricted, pushing, forcing the words out. But that day, his first back, Willie just said “Hi” to everyone and sat at his desk like it was a cocoon. His classmates were so careful; Willie felt pitied.
This morning Willie decides to go for a mile and a half. His gait is uneven; right side jogging, left side following—dragging. There is no rhythm, no way to breathe evenly. He has a purpose in running this early in the day: It’s dark; no one will see. As he gets in better shape, able to run farther, and as the days get longer, he’ll run earlier. He envisions the neighbors looking out their windows at the Weaver cripple stumbling by; shaking their heads, telling each other what a shame, he had so much potential. No way. Willie will run in the dark.
The so-called “run” takes him nearly half an hour. Nothing about it feels athletic, nothing pleasing. Used to be Willie ran and his whole being fell into a cadence; a rhythm in which he dreamed his dreams of glory for miles. Now he only wants to get it over with, get into the safety of his bathroom; turn out all the lights and let the hot water wash over him. He lives his days from sanctuary to sanctuary: his dark shower, the back room in the school library, even the toilet stalls in the rest room. Sometimes between classes he goes there to sit, pretending to be constipated so he can just have that time. Within a week of the day his dad shoved him back into the world, Willie had scouted out all the caves.
“I was wondering if you’d be interested in taking over the team-manager position for girls’ basketball.” Mr. Walker has called Willie into his office during study hall. “Allen Silver has to quit because his dad wants him to work after school. Coach and I thought you might like to get around sports again.”
Willie pauses before speaking. He’s learning he has to hear himself inside his head first; sometimes even see the words. “I don’t…know. I’ll…have to…think…about it.” It’s embarrassing, especially around adults, to be so slow. He thinks fast enough…
“Well, Willie, it’s certainly up to you, but consider you’ve been around athletics all your life. It might be just what you need.”
Up to now, Willie thinks, athletics was a friend. He doesn’t try to say it; just nods his head. “Thanks,” he says, and limps back through the outer office, banging his leg against the paper cutter on the counter; feeling his blood flush to his face as Mr. Walker’s secretary smiles. God, if people would just quit smiling at me all the time, he thinks. What the hell do they think I want to see anyone smiling for? He pictures himself wiping the smile off the secretary’s face with his fist, and gives a little satisfied snort. In these three months, anger has built to rage inside him and there’s no release.
Johnny catches up to him in the hall, slows his pace to match Willie’s. “Up for a party?” he says.
Willie looks at him as if Johnny were cat poop in the middle of his bedspread.
“C’mon,” Johnny says. “What’re you gonna do, never go to another party?”
Willie’s eyes get big and he nods vigorously. “That’s…right,” he says, and thinks: You turd. That’s exactly right. I’m never going to another party. What the hell is the matter with you? But he only nods faster.
“Bullcrap,” Johnny says. “I’m having a party at my place on Friday night. Parents will be in Helena. All people you know; ball players and stuff. Jenny’s going to pick you up.”
Willie breathes a big sigh and sets his jaw.
Tears well in Johnny’s eyes. “Weaver, you’re still the guy that put it to Sal Whitworth. Every guy on the team knows why he has a championship ring. It’s not your fault you got hurt.” He wipes his eyes furiously. “I’m your friend, man. I wanna stay your friend, but I don’t know what to do. Really. Just tell me what to do. I been running around being careful and trying to make it so you don’t have to talk and backing off just like everyone else. But if I were you and everybody treated me like that, I’d hate it, and I’m supposed to be your friend and I don’t want to be like that. So just tell me what to do, God damn it.”
Willie looks at Johnny and leans against the wall, shaking his head; takes a deep breath and lets it out. His anger drains out through his feet, and he just feels sorry. “I…don’t…know,” he says carefully. “I…want you…friend. I…don’t know.” He glances at the hall clock. The bell will ring in less than a minute and pack the halls with kids changing classes. He wants to get away.
“Will you come to the party?” Johnny asks.
Willie flashes on how awful he’s been to his friends since the accident. He closes his eyes and nods. “Yeah.”
His next class is speech therapy, which isn’t actually in a classroom, but in one of the counselors’ offices. The school district provides a traveling speech therapist and Willie was plugged into an hour a week of her time the day he got back. He likes her and he’s relieved to have one period where there are no other kids, though he doesn’t feel it’s really doing any good. He can?
??t talk all that much better right now than he could the day he came out of the coma. So far, she’s only worked on trying to relax him.
“Did you work on those exercises I gave you last time?” she asks, noticing he hasn’t brought any books or papers.
He starts to nod, but then shakes his head.
“Answer me in words, Willie.”
Willie says, “No.”
“Why not?”
“I…just…didn’t…get around…to it.”
“You didn’t get around to it. You have a full social schedule to keep or something? Have to go to the horse races? What do you mean you didn’t get around to it?”
Willie looks off to the side, at the floor, and sighs. “I…just didn’t…do…it.”
Ms. Jackson puts her hand on his hand; the bad one. “Willie, don’t you want to get better? Do you want to feel like this forever? Because you’re going to if you don’t do something about your speech.”
He looks at the floor again and shakes his head. “I don’t…care.”
Ms. Jackson gets up and quickly puts her materials into her briefcase. “Well then,” she says softly, “you’re wasting your time and mine, too. I have a whole bunch of kids on my roster who do care, and they’re the ones I can do something about. You let your counselor know if you change your mind.” She walks out, closing the door quietly behind her.
Willie stands up to stop her, tell her he’s sorry, that he’ll try harder, but he catches his good leg on the corner of the table and a searing pain shoots through his thigh. He kicks the table and falls, lies there a moment and lets the rage come up through his throat; a guttural roar that is the only thing he has to release his pain. The sounds of his agony die in the soundproofed walls and cushion-tiled ceiling. No one comes to his rescue. He pulls himself up and into his chair, where he sits until the period is over.
Friday, Jenny pulls her father’s car up in front of the Weaver house, hits the horn and hops out to go to the door. Sandy greets her there. “He’s not quite ready yet, Jenny. Come on in.” Jenny comes in and sits on the couch, across from the chair where Big Will is alternately reading the evening paper and watching “People’s Court” on television. She can’t understand why Mr. Weaver seems so distant since the day of the accident.
“Do you think that’s real?” she asks, looking at the fat woman on the screen whose million-dollar AKA Shih Tzu has been violated by the plaintiff’s junkyard mongrel, thereby adding sludge to its royal gene pool until the end of time. A classic case of breeding above one’s station; a Class A felony.
“What’s that?”
“‘People’s Court.’ Do you think it’s real?”
Big Will gives a half-smile. “I like to hope not. I’m not really watching it, I just didn’t turn the set off after the news.”
“I hope this party helps,” Sandy says, sitting at the dining-room table with a cup of coffee. Big Will goes back to the paper; Jenny feels the tension she’s felt every time over here since the accident—maybe not tension really, but at least pressure. Like a headache that doesn’t quite work its way into your consciousness; always just below the surface, but definitely there if you stop to notice. Life in the Weaver house has a sense of unraveling; frayed edges that could go any time. Someone should pay attention.
“Hi,” Willie says from the top of the stairs, then moves slowly down. “You…ready?”
Jenny rises and nods. “Sure am,” she says, and moves over to meet him, kissing him on the cheek. “You look real nice.”
Willie nods. “Too bad…it…isn’t…a costume…party.”
She punches him lightly. “Don’t start,” she says. “You do look real nice.”
Johnny answers the door and within seconds all Willie’s old buddies are gathered around him, wanting him to feel comfortable, trying too hard, and Willie feels the added burden of trying to make them comfortable with his condition. Jenny’s radar picks it up and she pushes him through the kitchen into the living room, where MTV blasts from the twenty-five-inch stereo console TV. A few people dance, but most stand around drinking soda and talking. Johnny pops Willie a Coke and moves the chips and dip within his reach. In a short while Willie is surprised to find that it’s not so bad; that things get close to normal once the initial discomfort has passed, and he feels himself enjoying watching, though he can’t participate really, not like he used to. He realizes how he’s isolated himself over the past months, and for a quick second vows to contact Ms. Jackson first thing on Monday and promise he’ll work. That vow will come and go a thousand times in the next weeks.
At ten-thirty Petey shows, complaining vehemently about having to attend his sister’s piano recital before his parents would turn him loose. “That’s what’s wrong with music people,” he says. “It isn’t that they want you to practice all the time and never go out and have any fun, it’s that they want your whole family to suffer right along with you. I wouldn’t mind if my sister ate her meals at the piano; in fact, I’d rather she ate her meals at the piano; I just don’t think I should have to pay because she wants to be the first female Van Clayberg or whatever his name is. I don’t make her play baseball. Hey, Willie! You came. That’s neat. How you doin’?”
Willie smiles and nods. “Okay.”
Petey gets a Coke from the kitchen and comes to sit beside Willie and Jenny on the couch. He looks at Jenny, then right into Willie’s eyes, and a huge sadness crosses his face. He says, “Are you going to get better, Willie?” Petey is nothing if not direct.
There’s a silence as Willie stares into his lap. He doesn’t know the answer. He doesn’t know if he’ll get better. Finally, without looking up, he says, “Yeah. I…have to. I…can’t…get worse.”
Willie finds a comfort zone as the evening wears on. His friends relive the Crazy Horse Electric game with him and he mostly just listens.
“When Whitworth started hammering on my head after I trashed his sister,” Johnny says, “all I thought was ‘I hope they won’t let a convicted murderer have his turn at bat.’” They laugh and Willie remembers his decision to throw the next pitch at Sal’s head; a decision which luckily had no consequence, but still one he regrets.
The dining-room rug is rolled back and more people begin dancing. Johnny gets up to dance with his date and the others break up either to get more refreshments or to dance, leaving Jenny and Willie alone. Jenny’s fingernails trace lightly over the back of Willie’s neck, and goosebumps pop up all over his body; he leans into her touch.
“Dance?” A hand is in front of them. Willie looks up to see Charles Boots, an offensive lineman on the varsity.
Jenny starts to shake her head, but Willie looks at her and nods. “If…you don’t…you…might…never…get to.” He pauses and breathes out, “It’s…okay.”
Jenny stands up and glides out onto the floor without taking Charles’ hand. Charles holds back, checking it out with Willie. “I just thought she might want to…”
Willie nods and raises his hand. “It’s…okay. Thanks.”
All Willie’s fears loom over him as he watches Jenny move. She dances like she does everything else physical—with barely controlled abandon. He’s not worried about Charles Boots. He just knows if she stays with Willie she won’t get to do much. Pretty soon she’ll drift away. Just as soon as she stops feeling sorry for him. A sweeping, sinking feeling washes over him. If they had remained just friends, it wouldn’t matter. Jenny could be nice to him and do some things with him, whatever he could do, and still not have to give up everything for him.
There’s a loud knock, and before anyone can answer it, the kitchen door swings open, revealing Martin Cross and a few of his friends. Martin has a case of beer, and one of his buddies cradles a paper sack under one arm, obviously full of hard liquor. “Johnny!” Martin yells. “You’re havin’ a party. You didn’t invite me. I’m hurt.”
Johnny stops dancing and walks toward the kitchen. “How you guys doin’?” he asks. “Actually, I didn’t think you’d wa
nt to come. Almost everyone here is in training. No goodies.” Johnny is sort of the link between the jocks and the stoneys at Coho. He likes to party in the off season and he has a lot of friends that most of the athletes steer clear of.
“Heard your parents are out of town,” Martin says. “Thought it might be all right if we came over. We won’t corrupt anyone, honest. Promise. No jocks get no booze.”
If there’s a word missing from Johnny Rivers’ vocabulary, it’s “no.” He thinks a minute, knows it’s a mistake, but hopes not a very big one. “Okay,” he says finally, “but I’m tellin’ you, Cross—things get screwed up, I get my butt in a sling, and you’re a dead man.”
Marty crosses his heart. “Hey, man, no sweat.” He and his buddies break out some beers, stash the rest in the refrigerator and take over a corner of the kitchen, away from the rest of the party.
Jenny plops down beside Willie at the dying strains of a hot Bob Seger rock-and-roll tune, beads of sweat standing out on her forehead, and kisses him, stroking his fingers. He smiles, but in his head he sees her going away; sees them on the dance floor together, Jenny moving with the grace of the natural athlete she is, Willie bucking and lurching, aided by his cane; a complete ass.
Johnny sits down and Jenny corners him. “What are Cross and his buddies doing here?”
“They’re okay,” Johnny says defensively. “They’re gonna stay out of the way. They’re just looking for a place to hang out for a while.”
Jenny shakes her head. “They’ve got booze, Johnny. You know what would happen if this party got busted right now. Every kid here would be in deep, muddy water. You know the rules, man.”
Johnny’s eyes roll. “Geez, Jen. We’re not gonna get busted. Why would anybody bust us? Cops don’t even know my parents are gone. Neither does anyone at school. Who’s gonna look for trouble here? We’re not the bad guys. They’re not hurting anything.”