Beast(2)

I tried to block out hating my new chemo head, but that only lasted until I got home, took my hat off, and saw my reflection in the hallway mirror. If anyone asks, yeah, the busted glass and dribbled bloody trail leading up to the roof was me. Big deal. I needed some fresh air. I picked up the long-lost football, took a deep breath, slipped, and we both came tumbling down. Perfect end to a perfect day.

And then it just got better! My neighbors the Swanpoles heard me dent the earth and my hollering that went with it and called an ambulance. Now I’m in the hospital, waking up from surgery with two spiral fractures in my right leg, and all the beeping from the monitors is driving me crazy. Does it have to do this with every heartbeat? I wish someone would turn it off. The beeping, I mean. Every time it repeats, I hear Madison’s voice on a loop. “Oh my god, now we’re going to have to see the Beast’s face every day. Oh my god, now we’re going to have to see the Beast’s face every day….”

My eyes close to block out all the white-white-white of my hospital room, and I’m feeling vaguely disappointed. Didn’t think I’d end up here. Not what I had in mind. My right leg is attached to the metal skeleton of the bed, with spikes and pins and wires all jutting out of it, and in my morphine-drip haze, it’s like my very own trippy puppet show. I settle into my hospital bed and inhale the room’s chemical sterility as though it’s Fern Chapman’s perfume. Or deodorant; whatever it is that always makes her smell unbelievable. I can’t lie: I’ve had dreams where I’m invisible and all I do is walk behind her and inhale.

I guess in my dreams I’ll have to hobble now. Crutches are perfect. Now I will be known as the Guy on Crutches. “Hey, look at that guy on crutches,” I’ll hear people say as I go by. I like the thought of that. It feels so amazingly ordinary.

The silence is short-lived.

Mom comes flying into the room. “Dylan!” There’s no chai-tea-for-the-ride-home in her hand. She must’ve raced all the way here from Beaverton, where she works long hours and gets us shoes at the employee store. A wave of guilt crashes over me. There’s not enough chai tea to wash away her kid being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance and having emergency surgery while she got the call at work. She might need to switch to kombucha.

“Sweetheart!” she cries out, and zooms across the room, smothering me in a massive hug. “I got here as soon as I could. Your doctor brought me up to speed while you were knocked out—he says you’ll be okay. Are you okay?”

I could use some more morphine. Not because I’m in pain but because it’s morphine. “Never been better.”

“Can I get you anything?”

A genetic do-over. “No.”

Mom pulls away and takes in the hospital tomb. I mean room. A shudder slips down her back. “You look so much like your father,” she murmurs. No doubt. Looking at me attached to tubes, bald, and more pasty than glue must be like being thrown back in time to when my enormous father sprawled across a hospital bed.

A fresh smile blooms on her cheeks, the one that crinkles up too high when she’s trying not to be too gushy. Mom lets go of the metal bar on the side of the bed. “But I like your new haircut—I get to see your face again. Looks so much better than hiding behind all that hanging scruff.” She lightly cups my cheek like she did when I was small. “You’re just like him in every way.”

I say nothing because okay, I’ve seen the pictures and it’s true. You can swap out a photo of my dad and think it’s me. Same massive picture-clogging bodies and camera-breaking faces. But lucky me, I’m the hairier one.

“Oh, Dylan.” My mother sighs as she fluffs my pillow. “The doctor told me you were trying to get a football? We could’ve found a better way to get it down, you know.”

“Mmmm…”

“I thought you hated football.”

Ignoring that, I reach for the pain pump instead. Pump-pump-pump.

“Stop,” she says, taking it out of my hand. “The last thing I need is to drop you off at the methadone clinic before school every morning. We are not getting addicted to morphine today, thank you very much.”

“S’good schtuff.”

“I bet,” she says. “Well, while we were waiting for you to wake up, I called the school and let them know you’re going to kick off the school year with only one leg.”

I roll my eyes underneath my lids, getting a rush from the painkillers as I do. “Whatever. Who else did you tell?” Fern Chapman?

I swear if Fern comes gliding in through that door, I will die.

“The school, the family,” she says.

“My friends?” I’m afraid to ask. “Please tell me I’ll be the first to tell JP.”

“Don’t be mad, honey….” She bites her lip.

“But you already texted him,” I finish for her.

“No, no—he texted me! He heard something happened and wanted to make sure you were okay. Isn’t that what friends do?”

“I guess so.”

“Don’t shoot the messenger. You two were the ones who decided you were brothers when you were little kids, not me. He was watching out for you.” Mom tries to chuckle. “Well, JP might not have seen you in full flight, but I bet Dad enjoyed his front-row seat.”