Kaboom, p.7
Kaboom, page 7
There was a box inside the bag, small but heavy. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Open it,” Mom said with a smile.
When he followed her instruction, he discovered it was a smartphone. In fact, it was the latest, greatest, most expensive smartphone he knew of. He’d had a phone, an older model ready for an upgrade, before he’d left for basic training, but he’d sold that too and put what little he’d gotten for it into the Ring Fund.
“Thank you, Mom,” he said, touched. This expensive phone was way more than he’d expected. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Mom ignored his protest. “We’ve already entered all our numbers into the contacts and the home phone too.”
While Clay’s parents were pretty current with modern technology, they still maintained a landline phone in the house, but there wasn’t an extension for it in Clay’s room. Which was probably why they’d gotten him this phone, so he’d have some contact with the outside world rather than hiding here forever like a leper. Little did they know, that was exactly his plan.
“Brooke says you can sync it so that you have access to your music.”
His music. God. His music.
Musically, Clay had been born in the wrong generation. His friends all thought he was demented, to be as obsessed as he was about classic rock. He’d never let anyone’s opinion sway him. They told him it was stupid to prefer music that had mostly been created before he was born. He ignored them. As far as Clay was concerned, no decent music had been written since 1990. Except for Adele, of course. He’d always had a continual soundtrack running in his head, with songs from Bon Jovi, Hall and Oates, Journey and others constantly popping into his brain. But the music had been silenced since Kaboom.
His friends had made fun of him for his musical passion, but when they went to the karaoke bar, he ruled. They stopped teasing and they listened, because he could sing. He was the karaoke king.
He had neither sung nor listed to a note since Kaboom.
“For goodness sake, Clay, it’s like a vampire cave in here,” his mom complained. She crossed to the window, pushed open the curtains, and let in copious amounts of bright, cruel sunshine. She even opened the window, and he could hear sounds coming in. Birds chirping, a car driving by, the swish of breeze in the trees. All the normal sounds of suburban living.
He hated those sounds.
Mom walked out of the room, and he thought she’d left him to his misery, but she was back in two minutes with a laundry basket, and to his horror, reached down and unzipped the duffel bag that Brooke had carried upstairs and set next to the wall.
“I should have just told Brooke to leave this in the laundry room,” she said.
“Wait!” he yelped. “I’ll do that. You don’t need to unpack for me.”
“It’s OK, Clay,” Mom soothed. “I’m sure you want your stuff washed before it gets stinky. I don’t mind throwing it in.”
“No,” he pleaded. Jeez, the way he was trying to prevent his mom from unpacking for him, she probably thought he had porn in his bag. But he hated the thought of her going through his stuff, asking questions. “I’ll unpack it.” He couldn’t help but let a childish wheedling tone creep into his voice.
“OK, sweetie,” his mom finally relented. “I’ll leave the laundry basket and come back for it later when you’ve unpacked.”
She left the laundry basket on the floor, came over and sat next to him on the bed. He tried to discreetly scoot away so that she wouldn’t accidentally brush against his stump, even though it was hidden beneath the blanket. It wasn’t because it might cause him pain to have it bumped, but because he was certain it would gross his mother out to have contact with it.
She put her arms around his shoulders and gave him a tight hug, like she had yesterday at the airport.
“Oh, Clay, my poor little boy. I’m so sorry about all of this. I’m so sorry about what has happened to you. I wish I could make it all go away.”
He sat stiffly, refusing to return her hug, even though he really wanted to. There was a time when a hug from his mother could fix anything that was wrong in his life. Too bad it didn’t work that way anymore. He just sat there like a rock, not responding, using all his strength to keep from crying.
When she released him, she looked at the tray of breakfast she’d brought him.
“Clay, you’ve hardly eaten anything.”
Of course he hadn’t eaten. A nibble of toast and a sip of coffee had been the limit of his tolerance. “Sorry, Mom,” he mumbled. “It was nice of you to make this, but I’m just not hungry.”
She picked up the tray and looked sadly at the wasted breakfast. “You need to keep up your strength,” she admonished.
Why, he wondered. For what purpose did he need to keep up his strength?
When he didn’t answer, she mercifully left and took the tray with her, but with a quizzical look that wondered what normal young man would object so strenuously to having someone else take care of his dirty laundry for him.
When she was gone, he used his cane to hook the handle of his duffel bag and pull it towards him. The first thing on top that he pulled out was the hefty envelope stuffed with his discharge papers and medical records. Its solid weight just confirmed that all that he was now was a discharged former soldier and a medical case, and those two sad conditions generated a lot of paperwork. He tossed the package on the floor and it slid across the carpet to stop in front of his dresser. When he got out of bed – if he got out of bed – he’d bury it in a drawer. It wasn’t his fear of revolting his mother with any stinky, dirty laundry that made him refuse to allow her to unpack for him. It was the fear of her wanting to look at those files he’d been sent home with, of having her read the pitiful documents that separated him from the Army. Fear of having to see her pain and disgust if she were to read the details of his amputation, his surgery, his prognosis, his pitiful mental state.
It took some painful leaning and stretching, but he was able to retrieve his bottle of pain pills from his backpack and take another one. The one from last night had long since worn off. Hopefully it would be safe to leave them in the drawer of the nightstand next to his bed. He briefly considered giving the bottle to his mother and asking her to dispense them for him. But that would only reinforce her belief that he had to be supervised, taken care of, prevented him from hurting himself, and then he would never, ever have another moment's privacy in his entire life. It would be worse than basic training where they literally had to go to the bathroom in a public men’s room with no private stalls even for the most personal needs. He could regulate his medication himself.
With his mother gone, he scooted across the bed to reach the window she’d opened, and closed the curtains with a firm swish, symbolically defeating that normal happy sun.
He hated the sunshine. It was way too normal and happy. He preferred the vampire cave analogy his mother had used. Dark and depressing. That suited him way more than sunshiny and bright. He lay back and wondered what he was going to do for the rest of the day. Or the rest of his life. If he wasn’t even qualified to be a Walmart door greeter, what else was left?
He hoped and prayed that his mother would leave him alone while he pulled the dirty clothes out of the duffel and tossed them in the direction of the laundry basket she’d left on the floor. He dragged himself out of his bed with the hated crutches only long enough to shove the partially unpacked duffel bag into his closet, and to bury the package of paperwork in his dresser drawer under some clean clothes, where hopefully it would stay hidden forever so that he could forget it existed.
He was safely back in the security of his bed when he heard his mother’s footsteps outside the door, and he quickly laid down and pretended to be asleep. It had worked at deflecting the girls sitting in his row on the airplane. She came in and he could sense her looking at him, but he still lay there trying to fool her into thinking he didn’t know she was there. Finally he heard her sigh and heard the plastic creak of the laundry basket as she took it out of the room. He ought to thank her for doing his laundry, when he’d done it himself for years, but then she’d know he was awake and she might want to talk to him. So he kept up his pretense of being comatose, which he was sure didn’t fool her for a second.
Don’t push him if he’s not ready. The doctors and his LNCO had talked to his family on the phone before he returned home, and he was aware of what they’d been told. Don’t push him to tell you about what happened. Don’t push him about his plans for the future, or even for tomorrow. Give him time to process, to grieve, to heal. Wait for him to be ready to talk.
His parents were in for an infinitely long wait.
It was amazing how exhausting it was to lay around doing nothing. By midafternoon the morning sunshine had been replaced with clouds, dark clouds called reality, and it started to rain.
He scooted over to the edge of the bed to close the window and for a few minutes sat watching the rainfall. It was like his soul – dripping, chilly and wet. He used to like running in the rain. Some of his track teammates had whined about the rain is if they would melt if they got wet. Not Clay. He’d enjoyed the feel of cool raindrops on his skin, the splashing sound of his shoes when he crossed a puddle, the screeches of the guys he shook water on. Now all he’d be able to do in the rain would be to sit in one of those puddles and splash around until he was a filthy mess, as he’d done when he was six years old. His mother had scolded him then for getting his clothes all dirty and making more laundry for her. He doubted she’d complain now.
The lack of structure paralyzed him. After four years of being told when to wake up, when to eat, when to work and how to train, he now found the alleged “freedom” from those restraints impossible to process. He’d been part of a squad, part of a platoon, part of a company, battalion, brigade and division. Now he was alone. Now he was just a civilian.
He missed the structure, the sense of purpose, the satisfaction of being part of something bigger than himself. He missed his cammies. He missed his army comrades, despite having dissed them since Kaboom.
The inactivity gave him way too much time to think.
He lay in his bed all day, barely squeezing up the energy to hobble across the hall to the bathroom. He was just settling in for nap number three when he heard his mother’s voice floating up from the bottom of the stairs.
“Clay! Time for dinner.”
As soon as the words entered his consciousness, he could smell pork chops. His mouth watered and he almost got up to jump down the stairs to the dining room, until his ambulatory-challenged status crashed upon him.
“Not hungry, Mom,” he yelled back, not even certain if his words, which were a lie, carried all the way down.
After a minute of silence, Mom’s voice sounded again.
“Clay! Dinner!”
He didn’t respond. Hadn’t she heard him the first time? He was trying to ignore his belly, which was reminding him, food, when Mom opened his door with a determined crack.
“Clayton John Maslowski!”
He barely had a chance to yank the blanket over his pathetic remains.
“Did I ask you if you wanted to join us for dinner? I did not. I’m telling you, get dressed and come eat!”
There were two people in the world he didn’t dare disobey. A drill sergeant who barked the order to drop and give him twenty, and his mother when she used his full name.
“Fine!” he grunted. “Just give me a sec, OK?”
“All right,” she agreed. “But don’t make me come back here and drag you down.”
It took him so long to attach the prosthesis, pull on a tee shirt and some sweat pants, which slid easier over the prosthesis than slacks or jeans, and hobble carefully down the stairs, that he was afraid she would resort to coming back and dragging him down, but he managed to present himself at the dining room table before Mom’s patience wore out.
They were all seated at the table waiting for him. His mother had rearranged the dining room chairs, because the one left for him to use had arms. He reached behind himself to grasp it for stability as he sat, stepping back with his fake leg to unlock the titanium knee. His parents and sister stared at him. His dad took hold of his arm to help, but Clay didn’t say thank you.
Mom made them say grace holding hands, as she always had. In addition to thanking God for the food they were about to eat, she also thanked Him for Clay’s safe return. Clay himself wasn’t so grateful.
It was so normal, so homey, so familiar. His mother saying grace, then giving his father the stink eye when he tried to put too much gravy on his potatoes. Dad twitched a bit but obediently surrendered the gravy ladle and passed the dish to Brooke. Brooke, in turn, took the minimum amount of green beans she could get away with. Sitting there in their dining room, seeing his family only from the waist up, almost made him forget, just for a second, about the stump lurking beneath the table. But that feeling of normalcy was quickly dissipated whenever he moved.
He could tell they were curious, wanted to know everything, but were afraid to ask, and he was afraid to tell them. Instead they just talked about trivial things. Or more accurately, his parents and Brooke talked. Clay just pushed food around on his plate and hoped they were fooled into thinking he was eating. The meal that had smelled so good a few minutes ago had lost its appeal now that it sat in front of him.
It was almost possible, here with his family, to forget about his pain and anxiety, to feel almost normal, listening to Brooke talk about school, his mom and dad talking about work. But he still picked at his food without enthusiasm, until his mother admonished him for not eating when she’d made what she’d always thought was his favorite. He hoped she wouldn’t give him a direct order to eat the way they’d done in the hospital. While Clay’s mom was the sweetest, most loving person he could think of, there were times when she could put a basic training drill instructor to shame.
She wasn’t wrong. The food she had prepared was one of his favorite meals, but he had gotten into the habit of disinterest in food since Kaboom, and it was a hard habit to break.
He heard a sound – it wasn’t supposed to be there. His mother and Brooke were talking, making it hard for him to identify the noise. Something inane, Brooke mentioning something that had happened at school. But that sound…
“Shush!” he snapped, holding up one fist in a “stop” gesture. If only he’d thought to employ the “stop and shut up” gesture a few minutes, or seconds, before Kaboom. The three of them stared at him.
“What is it, Clay?” his mother asked.
“What’s that?” He turned an ear towards the window. What was that sound? It wasn’t supposed to be there.
“That is Dean O’Reilly’s muffler,” his dad said. “It’s been roaring for a week. If he doesn’t get that fixed, he’s going to wake up every baby in the neighborhood.”
“No, it’s – shh, let me listen!” Clay insisted, feeling panic sweep through him. But his dad was right. It was just the neighbor’s loud car. It wasn’t an incoming RPG or gunfire or even the engine of a Humvee. Just a car on an ordinary suburban street, and he had made his family stop their dinner and stare at him as if he were insane. Smart one, Clay.
He was pale and sweaty. “It's just a loud car,” Brooke said. “Jeez, Clay, get a grip.”
“May I be excused,” he mumbled in his mother’s direction, as if he were a pouty twelve-year-old.
“But Clay, you’ve hardly eaten anything.” His food rearranging hadn’t fooled her this evening any more than it did when she’d brought him breakfast. He looked down at that meal, something he’d wolfed down a few months ago. Now it made him feel sick.
Mom made no further protest as he leaned forward in his chair, pressing his fake toes against the floor and using his butt muscles to press back, making sure his fake knee was locked and his legs were together, as he got up and limped out of the dining room.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught the movement of his dad starting to get up also. Mom put a hand on Dad’s arm, shook her head slightly, and said, “Give him time, Lloyd.”
No. Don’t give him time. Or consideration or sympathy or help or love. He didn’t deserve them.
In the living room, out of his family’s view, he had to stop and, as Brooke put it, get a grip. He hurt all over, both inside and out. He wanted to be numbed into a protective cocoon that would shelter him from the world. Numbness was what he craved. He hated feeling. Feeling hurt. He wanted to not feel, to not care, to stay numb.
But numbness eluded him. He still felt, both physically and emotionally. Right now he felt weak, and sat down on the nearest seat, the bench of the piano upon which he and Brooke had both taken lessons in their childhood. If he opened the lid of the bench, would he find the Greatest Hits of the 80’s for Piano still there? There were photos on top of the piano, familiar family pictures that had been there for years. Brooke’s First Communion, his high school graduation. The photo the Army had taken of him on his first day of basic training, standing stiff and proud in his first uniform.
He reached up and picked up one of those photos, staring at it as if he’d never seen it before, though it had sat in this spot for almost five years. It was a photo his mother had taken and had printed, of him and Julie the evening of their senior prom, him wearing a rented tux, white with a blue cummerbund to match Julie’s dress. His jaw had dropped and his mouth gone dry when he’d first seen her in it, with its low neckline and thigh-high side slit. He'd been almost afraid to take her to the dance, for fear that every other guy there would try to steal her away from him.
In the photo, the two of them were smiling in a way they hadn’t since that night. He looked so happy in that photo; he almost didn’t recognize himself.
Suddenly, he wanted to sweep all those photos off the piano top, knock them to the floor. Smash that glass in the frames under his feet until the shards made him bleed. Those weren’t photos of him, the person he was now. They depicted a man who didn’t exist anymore.
