The Birth of Super Crip (12 page)

Again, he shrugged, but he was happy his mom had
asked. “Not really,” he said. “But it’s kind of like I know
something is going on.” The words were out of his mouth before he
thought about what he was saying. He quickly tried to backtrack. “I
mean, I don’t know. Maybe I just want to think that.”

“No, no,” his mom said, not trying to hide her
surprise, “that’s great. If you think it’s helping, that’s great. I
was worried it wasn’t really helping.”

He felt he’d already said too much, but he couldn’t
let her think the treatments might be improving his cerebral palsy.
“Mom, I don’t think it’s helping the way we thought it would. I
mean, I don’t feel like I’m more stable or like I have better
control. It’s just . . . it’s like I have more strength or
something.”

The look on her face told him she was about to ask
more, but they heard the doorknob turn.

Dr. Scheinberg entered the room, looking down at a
clipboard through half glasses perched on the edge of his nose. He
flipped through a couple pages after closing the door behind him.
Sitting on the examination table, Red could look down on the fading
tan of his bald crown, which was surrounded by a surprising amount
of curly, mostly gray hair. He shared a quick smile with his mom,
the silence extending to an awkward length as it had on previous
visits when Scheinberg first entered the room.

“So,” the doctor said, emphasizing the
s
and
practically cutting off the
oh,
“how’s my best patient?”
Only after he finished the greeting did he look up at Red. His
smile, buried in wrinkles, seemed genuine enough.

“Pretty good,” Red offered nervously.

“Yah?” Scheinberg said, his best effort to emulate
the casual version of “yes.”

After the initial evaluation, Red’s mom had suggested
the doctor’s accent was German, though they’d never asked.

“Tests look good, everything good, from what I see,”
Scheinberg said. “But you must tell me, yah? How do you feel?”

“Okay,” Red said. “I can’t say I feel any changes
with my cerebral palsy or anything, but, you know, okay.”

The doctor nodded as he shined a little light that he
retrieved from his pocket into Red’s eyes. “Yah? Good. Patience,
huh? We get there. We get there.”

“You said you were feeling more strength though,”
Mary interjected. “You mentioned it just before Dr. Scheinberg came
in.”

A wry smile came across the doctor’s face as he
noticed his patient’s eyes dart over at his mom. “Mother’s always a
good source of information, yah?” he said. “Don’t be dismayed.
Teenage boys might not like it when their moms share, but this is
important to know.”

Ignoring her son’s glare, Mary asked, “Doctor, would
the strength be coming from the steroids? Couldn’t that cause some
serious side effects?”

Red spoke up. “It’s not really that type of
strength,” he said. “I’m not lifting weights or anything. It’s just
a general feeling.”

“Red, let the doctor speak,” his mom admonished.

“It’s okay,” Scheinberg said, looking at Red. “Good
to know. My guess, Red is right. Other patients have reported the
same. I don’t think strength is coming from muscle tone, but we
will check it out.” He knew he may have been imagining it, but Red
felt the doctor stared more intently at him as he continued. “My
guess, strength is from a little bit more control. Maybe control is
coming in ways you might not have expected or even perceive
yet.”

The doctor went back to the folder he was reading
when he came into the room. “When I saw her earlier, Mom also said
you have some excitement this weekend, yah? Not to worry, though, I
was going to ask anyway.”

Scheinberg held up the article from the
Philadelphia Times,
complete with the picture of Scott
pulling Red over the railing. Red froze for a second, feeling the
wave swirl just a bit. He nodded, trying to seem nonchalant. “Yeah,
it was a little crazy.”

Raising his eyebrows briefly, the doctor turned the
article back to himself. “Yah, I can only imagine,” he said. “They
say a tornado destroyed the booth before it crashes, yah?” He
paused, continuing to read. “Tornadoes pretty rare for the area.
You guys are lucky, yah?”

“I heard no one got hurt,” Red said.

“Mom said you fainted, yah?”

“Yes,” Red said. “I supposedly woke up enough to say
something to a doctor or EMT, but, yes, I was out ’til about noon
the next day. Or slept, I guess.”

The doctor nodded.

After a brief silence, Mary said, “Like I said, I
didn’t take him to the doctor because he seemed okay, and we were
hoping you could sort of check him out.”

“Oh, yah,” Scheinberg said. “We do that now, and
check the muscle tone.” He put the article on top of the file,
which he placed down on the table next to Red, and turned to get
his stethoscope off a hook on the opposite wall. “Take off shirt,
Red. And, uh, maybe you want some privacy? Mom wait outside?”

At first not understanding, his mom stood up as if
jolted from her seat. “Oh,” she said, “yes, yes, of course.” She
looked at her son. “I’ll just be right outside.”

Tempted to tell his mom she didn’t have to leave, Red
simply smiled and nodded.

Chapter
15

Pulling his shirt off over his head, Red realized it
was the first time he’d actually been alone with the doctor. He
reflexively sized up the old man despite knowing he didn’t have
anything to worry about with so many people in the office. The wave
splashed with a little force for the first time in a while,
offering some extra comfort. Red didn’t remember when he had
developed the habit, but his cerebral palsy had taught him to be
extra cautious of situations in which he could be vulnerable.

He caught his own reflection in the mirror that hung
on the back of the closed door and sat up a little straighter.
Despite his best efforts to hold still, he noticed a slight bob of
his head and the telling look of cerebral palsy in his face, which
he always spotted in people with a level of the disability similar
to his own. A little too tight. Thin. Seemingly never quite
completely still. A smile that when offered for a photo or forced
when meeting someone for the first time came out as anything but a
pleasant expression—lips thinned, if not pouting, eyes squinting.
Flexing his arms just a little, without moving them from his side,
he almost laughed at his mom’s concern over the steroids. If they
didn’t shrink your balls it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the
world if they gave me some muscles, he thought.

Looking up he saw Scheinberg glance away with a smirk
on his face. Red offered his best like-you’re-much-bigger face
after he was sure the doctor wasn’t looking. Then he noticed the
article with his picture had been tacked up in the center of the
bulletin board.

“Why’d you put that up there?” he asked.

Scheinberg shrugged. “Always thought I keep anything
notable that happens to subjects up there,” he said. “The article
mentions your team is not so good, but they gave the best team run
for their money, yah?”

The doctor studied Red, who remained silent.
“Besides, I like the picture on that one,” Scheinberg continued,
sitting on a rolling stool and taking a piece of paper out of the
same folder that had held the first article. He handed it to Red,
patiently waiting for him to grip it. “This one is kind of small.
No picture.”

Resting his arm against his leg to look at the paper,
Red saw a small clip from a newspaper photocopied onto it. A short
paragraph gave details of “a disturbance on King Street,” and noted
a “man had been discovered under the overturned boat of the
homeowner, which appeared to be put on top of him. Police had no
explanation for how the man became trapped, but said it may have
saved him from getting shot when the homeowner brandished a
shotgun.”

“That is your street, yah?” the doctor asked.

When he finished reading, Red simply nodded and put
the paper down beside him on the table. Scheinberg finally put the
stethoscope in his ears and began listening to Red’s pulse in
various places. Several requests for deep breaths followed. Then he
checked Red’s balance with numerous light but firm pushes on each
shoulder, the back, and the torso.

“Yah, good,” Scheinberg muttered, stopping to make
some notes. “How did you feel taking the tests today?”

Red shrugged. “Not really much different,” he said.
“If at all.”

“How about in school or home? Taking notes, or tests,
or moving around. Any difference? Easier? Harder?”

Red thought about Scott running after him the last
time they were throwing the football around outside. For a brief
moment he had wondered if he was running better. “Maybe a little
easier moving when I was messing around in the backyard with my
brother,” he said. “I was able to avoid being tackled once. But it
felt more like I could push him off better, not really like I was
moving better.”

“You like football, yah?” Scheinberg said. “Good. Not
being tackled something, yah?”

Red smiled and laughed politely, wondering if the
doctor picked up anything from his saying he could push his brother
off better.

“How about exercise?” Scheinberg asked.

“Like therapy?” Red asked with a guilty look. “I
don’t really stretch as much as I’m supposed to. But they don’t
even give me physical therapy at school since I was
mainstreamed.”

“Yah, Red, got to get back to stretching,” the doctor
said. “Trust me. This old man learned the hard way—start stretching
young, easier later. But you, ah, work out? Push-ups? Sit-ups? I
know you say you are not lifting weights, but, ah, you are doing
other stuff?”

Red shook his head even as he wondered what the
doctor meant by saying he learned the hard way. “Our dad made us
work out lifting weights for a while the summer before my freshman
year,” Red said, deciding the doctor just meant that stretching was
good for anyone. “I saw some gains, but nothing like my brothers.
Plus, someone told me lifting could make my spasticity worse.”

“That is the old way of thinking,” Scheinberg said,
writing some more notes as he sat on the stool again. He looked at
Red. “You like it? Lifting?”

“I liked when I could bench-press ten more pounds or
arm-curl another five pounds,” he said. “But it would get
frustrating seeing my brothers getting more results than I got. I
never really got any bigger or anything.”

“Yah,” Scheinberg said, making some final notes
before closing the file and putting it on top of the piece of paper
with the newspaper clip. “Spastic muscles take more time to
respond. Patience, Red. Besides, other benefits to working
out.”

Despite his best efforts, Red couldn’t hide his look
of disgust.

“Yah, I know,” Scheinberg said. “Don’t want to hear
it when you can’t have the benefits you want.”

Impressed the doctor understood that idea, Red
nodded.

“But it is true, yah? Exercise makes you feel better
mentally. Releases endorphins. Gets heart moving. Keeps you busy.
Maybe you join gym, get out a little more.”

“I guess so.”

“Yah,” the doctor said, his voice becoming slightly
quieter. He paused for a moment. “You are a smart boy, Red. Man,
soon. Smartest patient in the testing.”

Another pause. Scheinberg seemed happy that Red met
his eyes.

“Injections will only give you so much,” the doctor
explained. “You already report more strength. You know it is not
from bigger muscles. No need to worry about steroids that way.
Others have mentioned it too, but you . . . you are starting to
understand. How you use that strength will be the true test.” He
reached up and tapped Red on the temple. “Strength here,” he said,
then tapping Red’s arms and chest and legs, “gives you better
strength here, here, here. Ultimate strength always comes from the
mind. CP gets in the way of the signals from the mind to the rest
of the body. You understand that long ago, yah?”

Red nodded.

“Now, you must learn to use the strength from
injections,” Scheinberg said. “Can never change the damage that was
done, I’m afraid. Cerebral palsy happened as you were born. It will
be with you when you die.”

Red offered a faint grunt of disgust.

Scheinberg smiled briefly. “Don’t worry, that will
not be for a long time,” he assured Red.

“That wasn’t what I was worried about,” Red said.
“Seventeen years of CP is plenty. I was hoping to avoid
eighty.”

“Yah,” Scheinberg whispered, almost to himself.

Caught off guard by the doctor’s reaction, Red looked
away. The doctor’s sadness at what was meant to be a flip response
coaxed his own to peek out.

“Use your strength, Red. You are just scratching the
surface.”

The doctor waited for him to meet his eyes again.
Scheinberg moved his eyes to the picture on the bulletin board and
back to Red. “Have your fun. Practice with it.” He paused. “Lifting
weights may be a better way than football games, yah?”