The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(29)

When my mother saw me, it was as if time momentarily stopped. She seemed paralyzed at the sight of me. I recall her looking at me, brow furrowed as if she did not recognize me. I remember her eyes shutting for what seemed like seconds but was likely only a fraction of a moment. Then the car door flung open, and she was running between the parked cars, hand covering her mouth, tears streaming down her face. I recall her lips moving, her hands touching me. “What happened? My God, what happened?”

I could have told her, but I sensed, somehow, that was not the intent of her questions. My mother could see what had happened. She wasn’t even really directing her questions to me; she was crying out to the God in whom she put so much trust and faith. In her grief and pain, my mother simply wanted to know why. “Dear God, why?”

But that was a question for which I did not have an answer.





11

I don’t know who loaded my bike into the trunk of the Falcon. I assume it was Mrs. Cantwell, because my mother did not let go of me until she got me to the car and put me in the back seat. Ernie had slid to the opposite side, pressed against the armrest. He kept his chin down, but I recall tears streaking his cheeks. I found out later that he did not have permission to ride his bike alone to Village Park. I’d suspected as much when he suggested and proffered the lie, but I didn’t question it, swept up in the adventure and thrilled with the idea I was a normal kid doing normal things with my friend.

At some point during the car ride, I felt his fingertips on my shoulder, a tentative touch I ignored. His fingers retreated. I was not mad at Ernie for leaving me. Nor did I consider him responsible for what had happened. My refusal to look at Ernie came from my abject embarrassment, my humiliation to have a friend, my only friend, see me so weak and helpless.

My mother drove straight to the emergency room at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital. She did not park or turn off the engine. She jumped from the car and pulled her seat forward. “Come on, Sam,” she whispered, lifting me into her arms and carrying me through the sliding glass doors as she called out, “My son’s been hurt. He’s hurt.”

A nurse helped my mother place me on a gurney, and together they wheeled me down a fluorescent-lit hall into a curtained room. “Can you tell me what happened?” the nurse asked.

“I don’t know,” my mother said. “I think he fell off his bike. Maybe a car hit him. He was at a friend’s house. He hasn’t said anything. My baby. Look at my baby.”

“What’s his name?” the nurse asked, helping me onto the bed behind the curtain.

“Sam. Samuel.”

When the nurse looked down at me, I saw the familiar squint before she quickly looked away. “How old are you, Samuel?”

“Six,” I said, my lip numb and the word difficult to pronounce.

“Where do you go to school?”

“OLM,” I slurred.

“Where does it hurt, Sam? Can you tell me where it hurts?”

Where didn’t it hurt would have been an easier question to answer, but I dutifully pointed out each area as the nurse enunciated them. “Your eye. And your lip. Your stomach. Your elbow. And your knee. Both knees? How did you get hurt, Sam?”

I did not answer.

“Sam?” the nurse asked, voice gentle. “How did you get hurt?”

My mother stared, face scrunched in worry. I wish I could say that my response was a heroic act to spare her more pain, but that would be a lie. My answer came from my cowardice, born from a desire for self-preservation that in turn was the product of another cold, harsh realization that came to me at the hands of David Bateman. My mother and father could not always be there to protect me. No matter the depth of my mother’s love or how fierce her embrace, she could not protect me from the evil in the world, nor, it seemed, could all her novenas. Even then I began to question my faith and my mother’s belief in God’s will. What kind of God would allow this to happen to a child?

“I fell off my bike,” I said.





12

The nurse cut away what remained of my shirt and shorts and washed and disinfected the cuts and scrapes, which stung, but not nearly to the degree of the blows administered by Bateman’s fists. When the doctor, a man with silver-framed glasses and matching hair, arrived, he placed his chilled stethoscope against my skin.

“Take a deep breath,” he repeated as he moved the metal sphere across my chest and over my back. Then he manipulated my arms and legs and asked me to wiggle my fingers and toes. He prodded around my abdomen, which remained sore, and pressed against my rib cage.

“Does that hurt?” he asked. “Is it a sharp pain?”

“Just kind of sore,” I said.

He pressed a Popsicle stick against my tongue, flashed a light in my eyes, and asked me to follow his finger as he moved it about. “Well,” he said, “I don’t think anything’s broken. We’ll get a couple of X-rays, but I think it’s mostly scrapes and bruises. Does your head hurt? Do you have a headache?”

“Sort of,” I said.

He turned to my mother. “I don’t think he has a concussion, but if he has any nausea, vomiting, bring him back in. Wake him during the night and ask him a few questions.” Then he looked back at me. “You’re a tough kid, Sam. That must have been a nasty spill.”