Chapter 20: Mad Dreams and Visions

We were at the hospital for a long time. Sometime after midnight, my parents showed up, with both my brothers in tow. Eric had called them from a pay phone in the vestibule, and a few minutes later the admitting staff also called them. My mother was hysterical, and my dad was furious. By that point I had been wheeled into surgery, but I heard about it from my friends later. Almost everybody I knew showed up in the waiting room that night, including Coach Neville and Coach Simonson, all waiting to hear how my surgery went.

Shortly after Eric had brought me into the emergency room, Joey and Vinnie brought Jilly Del Toro in. Coach Neville and Coach Simonson had to walk next to them as they wheeled Del Toro through the double doors in a wheelchair. If they hadn't, the three of them would have been jumped and beaten on by the dozens of kids who had heard about the fight, and had showed up at the hospital.

After the surgery, my parents and my brothers were allowed to come in to the recovery room and see me. My arm was bandaged up until it was twice its normal size, and I had a bandage on my mouth covering the four stitches they put in my lip. Barely noticed among the cuts and scrapes was the tight wrap around my chest, protecting my bruised ribs. I was tired, uncomfortable, and in pain, and in no mood for company. But, considering it was my family, I accepted it, and even tried not to complain too much about it.

My mom was crying as she bent over me, examining my face closely, trying to determine the extent of my injuries by looking into my eyes. I was sure all she could see was the painkiller-induced dilated pupils, but she was not to be deterred. Even through the drugs, my eyes felt like they were dried out and resting somewhere on my cheeks. My dad kept on asking me what happened, and I thought I kept answering him, but maybe I only thought I did, because he would come back a few minutes later, after pacing the length of the small room, and repeat his questions. Michael looked bored, and Stephen looked excited. He kept on asking me if I would end up with any neat scars, a question that would invariably send my mother off into new freshets of tears.

The doctors conferred with my parents about my injuries, my prognosis, and my immediate care, and the police came in to interview me. The hospital had called them to report a knife injury, and they were investigating reports of a fight in the school parking lot. They were able to fit the two events together, and, since nearly everybody was at the hospital anyway, they sent over a detail to conduct interviews. Finally, around three in the morning, I was released. I was helped into a wheelchair, and a nurse rolled me out, through the swinging doors, and into the packed waiting room, where I was nearly overrun by the crowds of kids. The only ones I really wanted to see were the O'Toole twins, and Jake, and Kayla, and Andrea, and Eric, and, most importantly, Tiny, the man-mountain who saved my bacon. I was too groggy and doped up to pick them out of the crowd of faces and voices, though, and my mother was not about to let anything or anybody stop her from getting me home and into her care, as she parted the sea of bodies so that the nurse could wheel me out into the parking lot.

Michael and my dad carefully put me in the front seat and buckled me in, taking care not to jostle my ribs and my arm as they wound the seatbelt around me and snapped it in place. I laid my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes, exhausted down to my toenails. I wanted nothing more than to just crawl between the cool sheets of my own comfy bed.

As tired as I was, and as drugged as I was, it was still surprisingly difficult to fall asleep. Part of the problem was that I kept on replaying the scene in the parking lot over and over, like a video loop in my head, seeing again and again Jilly's open hand whizzing toward me, making contact with my ear; feeling the creak of my ribcage as his foot made contact with my side; watching the knife blade flash as it streaked across space toward Molly's face and my arm; and looking through a reddish haze of pain and shock as Jilly's body was lifted up off the ground by the force of Tiny's kick. I also couldn't get very comfortable, throwing around the extra weight and bulk of the bandages all over my body. Finally, though, I fell into a fitful, exhausted sleep, full of mad dreams and visions. I didn't feel rested at all when I awoke at last on Sunday afternoon, even though the clock indicated that I had been sleeping for over ten hours.

I dragged my sorry ass out of bed and limped to the bathroom. The reflection looking back at me out of the mirror, bleary-eyed and sleep-swollen, was not a pretty sight. I ran my good hand through my hair in a haphazard attempt at establishing order among the follicles. It didn't do much. I finally gave up, and proceeded to gingerly brush the cobwebs off my teeth, moving the toothbrush carefully around the bandage on my lower lip.

My mom heard me stumbling around upstairs, and came up from the family room to offer some assistance. She insisted on helping me in getting a flannel shirt on, the left sleeve unbuttoned to accommodate the bandage, and she knelt down on the floor of my bedroom to help me get a pair of sweatpants on my feet so I didn't have to struggle one- handed.

As she was pulling the sweats on over my feet, she said, "The telephone's been ringing off the hook, Sean. You have about a hundred messages downstairs."

I just grunted. There wasn't anybody in this world that I wanted to see, especially now, with my mother on her knees, helping me get dressed. For a sixteen-year-old jock, I didn't think anything could be more embarrassing.

I have since learned differently, of course.

A few minutes later, Michael came up to help get me down the stairs.

I gave my mother a baleful stare. "I can walk on my own, you know," I grumbled.

"Yes, I know, dear," she replied, unperturbed and relentless. "But there's no sense in taking chances, now, is there?"

Mom logic. There was no argument, and no cure. I could rail and protest, but it would be like complaining that the sun was making the world too bright. I accepted, with very little good grace, and they helped me slowly walk down the stairs.

Later that afternoon, I was sprawled in my dad's easy chair, watching a boring football game on television with my family. Dad had volunteered the chair, thinking that it would be more comfortable for me than the couch. I didn't want to uproot him from his favorite spot, but he insisted, so I lounged in it, squirming around until I found the least irritating position.

The back doorbell rang, and before anybody could get up to see who was there, the door opened. We heard two sets of feet on the linoleum in the kitchen.

"Hey, Porter, where are you?" I heard Jake yell.

"Hello, Jake, we're in the family room," called out my mother.

Jake and his sister Kayla appeared in the doorway. "How you feeling, Seanster?" asked Jake.

"Like I've been run over by a tank," I grumpily replied.

"Yeah, well, just think how Jilly feels today," he said unthinkingly. He suddenly looked abashed, glancing at my parents, but they did their best to ignore his comment.

Me, I had to laugh, which hurt my swollen mouth and my battered ribs. It felt good, nonetheless. Yeah, I thought to myself, I'll bet he's in some pain today, too.

"How does your arm feel, Sean?" asked Kayla softly.

"Not too bad," I said, "considering there's about thirty stitches holding the whole thing together."

Kayla's blue eyes got big and round. "Thirty?" she said, a little breathlessly.

"Something like that," I said, as if it was no big deal.

"Yeah," piped up my little brother Stephen, "he's gonna have an awesome scar, I'll bet."

"Stephen!" cried my mother. "That's a terrible thing to say."

"Oh, that's just boys talking," admonished my dad. "He didn't mean anything by it, I'm sure."

"What about your mouth?" asked Kayla, moving a little closer to look at the various bandages. Her hand came out, as if she wanted to touch the bandage on my mouth with her fingertips.

"Oh, I might be stuck with a permanent Elvis Presley sneer," I said jokingly, "but I'll get used to it."

"Hey, I might like one of those, myself," said Jake. "Be a good chick magnet. What do you say, Kayla? Would I look good with an Elvis Presley sneer?"

"Not as good as Sean," she said. She started blushing, and turned away, embarrassed. My mother gave her an appraising look, as if suddenly seeing Kayla as something other than the little kid she had known, practically since she was born.

"So, Porter, I suppose you're going to ditch school tomorrow, aren't you?" asked Jake.

Mom jumped in before I could answer. "Sean has a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning," she said. "He has to have his bandages changed, and the doctor wants another x-ray of his ribs."

"In other words," I said, "you're right. I'm ditching school tomorrow."

"Ah, you're just a lazy slob," said Jake laughingly. "Just because you got slapped upside the head, got your ribs stove in, and got your arm skewered, you're going to take it easy for a couple of days? You're a slacker, Porter."

"He is not!" Kayla turned on her brother and slapped his arm. She turned back to me, stepping a little closer to my chair so she could lightly touch my good arm. "You don't listen to this big dummy, Sean. You should take the week off."

"Take the week off? I'd go stir-crazy, sitting around here by myself," I said.

"I'll come over after school to keep you company," she said softly. "In fact, if you want, I can go to each of your classes after school, and pick up your homework assignments, if you'd like."

"No, Kay, you don't have to..."

"That's not a bad idea," interjected my mom. "You are going to have to keep up with your schoolwork, Sean, even if you are only out of school for a couple of days."

"Too bad, Sean," said Stephen scornfully. "For a minute there, I was envying you, not being able to go to school. But it sounds like school's going to come to you, instead." He laughed out loud at his own jest.

"I'll call in to the school office in the morning," said Mom. "I'll try to get them to collect Sean's work together. Then, if you could, Kayla, perhaps you might stop by the office after school and bring his work home with you."

"Of course," agreed Kayla.

"Either Michael or I will stop by your house to pick up Sean's work," Mom continued.

"No, you don't need to do that," said Kayla. "I'll bring it over in the afternoon."