He turned one more time and waved at me, then deepened his voice. “I will keep walking! I will not look down! I will do this for America, for America! I’ve done it! I’ve crossed the Grand Canyon on a rope despite the distraction of the flashing boobies with an apple on my head!”
His friends cheered his announcement, wrestling, pushing each other as boys do.
“Oh no, I’ve reached the other side and the women are all over me!” Tate screamed. “They’re clutching me, grabbing, trying to kiss me and draw me to their bodies! No one’s experienced anything like this ever, the women are in a frenzy, they’re going crazy! Someone hold them back, they’re all over me, hands going places they shouldn’t go, touching things they shouldn’t touch!”
His friends bent over cackling.
“Oh no, they’re stripping me of my clothes!” Tate shrieked. “I’m totally naked now, but the apple is still balanced on my head, and the women are stripping off their own clothes, too! It’s chaos, folks, total chaos! All the women are naked, and me, poor Tate, has women lining up in front of him! Here comes the helicopter boobie flasher again, AHHHHH!”
His friends howled.
“Help me, help me! All these women, what shall I dooooo?”
I blinked real hard. The tightrope walker was a funny, fearless, amazing person.
I sure loved that kid.
The hit came from TJ Hooks.
At the end of the game, Kendrick took the three foul shots for Tate, but it didn’t matter anymore.
The university gym was rocking as only a high school basketball tournament can rock. The bands blared, the fans yelled at full throttle, the cheerleaders jumped about.
On the court both teams were running drills, practicing their shots, and trying to shut out the blasting noise of the gym and concentrate before the game officially started.
“Ah, I see we’re playing Sunrise with Martin Hooks, he of diarrhea fame,” my mother announced, quite loudly, from our seats on the bleachers about ten rows up from our team.
“Yes, we are.” I had wished and hoped that the Sunrise team would be eliminated. No such luck. I felt ill and nervous even seeing TJ.
“Ew,” Brooke said. “Martin’s more repulsive than ever. His face resembles mashed potatoes.”
“Did you have to say that, Brooke?” I asked, pinching her elbow. “Now I’ll never be able to eat mashed potatoes.”
“Me, either,” Caden said, wrestling with the triplets on his lap, who were making up a song about hot dogs. “What are we going to do for Thanksgiving now? You ruined it, Brooke.”
“I think I feel a loosening-of-the-bowels spell coming on again,” my mother said, batting her eyelashes. Today she was wearing an orange wrap dress and black tights, our team colors, in couture. “A release of the gut. A time of reflection and contemplation done while one’s bottom is hanging over the toilet, the same spell as last time.”
“Toilet!” Hazel shouted. She was dressed as a slice of pizza.
“Poop goes in the toilet, not out!” Heloise said. She was a dolphin.
“I poop, too!” Harvey said. “Poop!” He was a robot.
“Will you teach me that spell, Nana?” Damini asked, bopping up and down, her orange and black ribbons wrapped around her ponytail.
“It will be my pleasure, darling. Tonight.”
Martin Hooks, protruding stomach sticking straight out like he’d swallowed the moon, was already on the floor of the gym, telling his hapless son what was what. I saw the opposing coach angrily stalk over to him. Clearly the coach was trying to get him off the floor.
They started to argue and Martin crossed his arms. Two more coaches, both assistants, also came up to Martin, followed by a security officer. They finally managed to get him to lumber up to his seat, three rows from the bench.
“Poor TJ.” My mother clucked. “I do have some pity for that obnoxious soul. He didn’t have a chance. I am now going to launch a preemptive strike against Martin, the toilet hugger.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I think you should, Nana!” Damini said. “Beep him! Spell him!”
“There is no such thing as spells, Damini.” I grabbed my mother’s manicured hands as she wiggled them. She wriggled free. I caught them again. We were having a hand-wrestling contest yet again. She laughed, so did I. “I don’t believe in your spells anyhow.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I do,” Brooke said. “Spell him.”
I held her hands tight, as Martin heaved himself up and started harassing his son again. I loosened my grip. “Gall, Mom. Go for it. If it works, his son will thank you for it.”
My mother, with sneaky stealth, tapped her fingers together, then touched the charms on her necklace. Damini did the same thing, touching her charms, too.
I was gobsmacked, that’d be the word,
gobsmacked,
as I watched Martin grab his stomach in the middle of another harangue. He could hardly stand back up and wobbled his loaded body down the aisle, presumably to the toilet.
Honestly, it’s not my mother. It’s by chance and luck. The man was the size of an upright rhino. He was screaming. He was stressed because he has only a semi-grip on reality. My mother raised her eyebrows at me, proudly self-satisfied.
“Give me a break, Mother,” I said.
“Ha. I gave
him
a break. A gut break. A bowel break.”
“Ah. Your witchly skills rise again, Mom,” Brooke said. “Nothing surpasses a chant and a spell to get things going.”
Caden was soon in front leading cheers, Damini and the pizza, dolphin, and robot beside him. In the midst of the cacophony, Ethan came in. My mother stood up, waved, and yelled, “Over here, handsome!”
Ethan smiled, shook hands with Caden, and hugged the pizza, dolphin, robot, and Damini. He climbed the bleachers and hugged my mother, who said to him, “Aren’t you a sight for lusty eyes?” He greeted Brooke, then kissed me, winked, and I felt sexy and protected. Yum.
The whistles blew, the lights dimmed for dramatic effect, the bands played their fight songs, and each player on both teams was introduced to semi-hysterical cheering. The loudest, however, was reserved for Tate.
The ball tipped off, and seconds later Tate shot a three-pointer, first of the game, and made it. Brooke flew out of her seat, arms up in the air. Our side went crazy. We did not sit down the whole game. Brooke’s voice was soon raw.
By the half, we were two points ahead. Tate had made four three-pointers, layups, and free throws, and he’d been fouled by TJ Hooks three times, his defender. Martin Hooks wobbled back up the bleachers, his face red and blotchy, and blew out more criticisms at his son and Tate.
I could see TJ’s stress. At one point, after Tate had made another three-pointer, I thought TJ was crying. At another point, TJ swore and was called on a technical. I swear he cried then, too, his face crumpling as his father threw a full litany of rage at him. Martin actually thundered down the aisle and had to be restrained by two security guards and taken out at one point when Tate made another shot over TJ.
At the end of the fourth quarter, we were tied. We went into two overtimes. Milt, Anthony, and Baron fouled out. Sunrise lost three players, too. When we had ten seconds left, down by one, Kendrick blasted a pass to Tate from the end of the court and Tate shot outside the three-point line.
That’s when it happened.
TJ Hooks, with his father back in the gym and out of control, charged Tate, full speed, almost like a tackle, when Tate was still a foot in the air from the last shot.
I saw it in slow motion, as if the scene was transferred into a speed that I could hold on to.
TJ slammed into Tate. Tate’s feet flew out from under him. He sailed up and over, in an arc, as if he’d been sent over an imaginary high jump pole, landing on his head and neck. His head bounced once, twice, three times, hard, on the floor.
I heard my mother scream. I heard Caden yell, “Tate! Oh my God!” I heard Damini say, “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
Ethan was pounding down the bleachers and sprinting across the gym immediately. I followed him, pushing myself into the aisle and shoving people out of the way as I ran to Tate. I pushed his teammates aside, his coach aside, my blood running cold, my body shaking.
I knew. I knew right then.
Tate was not moving, blood pooling beneath his head, a river of blood, streaking here, streaking there. Ethan shouted for an ambulance, then put his hands on Tate’s head, holding it tight, the blood spreading through his fingers.
I watched horrified, the noise gone, as I saw my Tate,
my son,
as if I was in a nightmare, the blood flowing out of him, hot and red and sticky . . . all that
blood,
blood that shouldn’t be there. This was a basketball game, we were on a court, he shouldn’t be bleeding, he shouldn’t be still, his eyes shouldn’t be closed, he shouldn’t be pale and getting more pale by the second. He shouldn’t be twitching. The paramedics shouldn’t be shouting and putting tubes in and an oxygen mask on as Ethan directed them to do.
Beside me, my mother was making raw screeching noises, Brooke holding her, Caden shouting, “Tate, Tate, my boy, Tate!”
I was too petrified to scream, I could only clutch Tate’s cold hand, getting colder and colder it seemed, while I keened, rocking back and forth. “Tate, oh Tate. I love you, honey. It’ll all be fine. Oh God. Please. Make everything fine.”
I heard my mother praying. I heard Caden swearing, I heard Brooke and Damini crying.
I was in a nightmare of blood, the life draining out of my unconscious, ashen boy.
I thought of the herbs and spices, and a hard chill balled up in my constricted throat, my whole body trembling. I had been smelling death for months.
It was him.
It was for Tate.
I wanted to die, too.
“I don’t have comforting news.” Ethan sat across the conference room table from me. He was pale white.
My mother made a high-pitched, gasping sound. Caden groaned and pulled me closer.
“No, Ethan, no.” I shook my head at him. “No.”
Ethan clenched his jaw, his eyes darting to a corner, as if he couldn’t bear to meet my eyes until he brought himself under control. There were other doctors and nurses in the room, a number of whom had been with Tate from the second the ambulance rushed to the hospital, siren blaring, and whisked him into the trauma unit.
I had collapsed as soon as I climbed out of the ambulance. Caden picked me up and hauled me to a private waiting room, my mother limping behind, crying, propped up by Brooke, her makeup smeared all over her face. The triplets and Damini had been taken by friends of ours to their home.
“Jaden.” Those brown eyes with a touch of cinnamon found mine again. “Tate is not doing well. When he hit the floor the shunt shifted.”
“And how is he now? How is he?”
“Hon—” He stopped himself from calling me honey. “I am sorry, I am sorry to tell you this, but he’s . . . he’s in a coma.”
A coma!
A coma! No, he’s a boy. A seventeen-year-old boy. He’s not in a coma!
“Can’t you, Ethan”—I could hardly speak—“can’t you get him out of the coma?”
“Yes. But we have to operate. There are complications, there’s been bleeding, his vitals are . . . they’re struggling. He’s struggling.”
“Then do something! Do something! Fix it!”
Ethan’s eyes filled with tears.
I stood up and pounded the table, the crystals in my hair from Tate swinging forward. “Help him! Help him!”
“Jaden, sit down, let me explain.”
“I will not sit down.” My voice cracked like broken glass, and I hit the table again, both palms down. “You’re going to operate on him. You’re going to fix this, Ethan.”
He didn’t say anything for a few long, hanging seconds. “I don’t know if it’s fixable.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know if it’s fixable? You’ll fix it. You love him.” My voice broke as I batted down hysteria. “You love Tate. You know you do.”
Ethan leaned back in his chair, his face tight, flushed.
“You love him, you can help him, you can do this, Ethan!”
“Loving Tate has nothing to do with it, Jaden. He’s in a critical place, I’m sorry.”
I am not stupid. I saw the expression in Ethan’s eyes. “He’s not going to die.”
Ethan would not confirm that. He would not confirm that my son wasn’t going to die. I thought I was going to faint. “He’s not going to die, he won’t. Operate on him!”
“I can’t operate on him.”
“You can!” I shrieked. “You will.”
He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Dr. Raminsky will operate. I will assist.”
Dr. Raminsky was sitting next to him. The only thing that registered was that he had black hair. “No, you’ll do it. I want you! Tate would want you!”