JELLY LEGS
“You need to get some fresh air,” Grandma said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “You’ve been moping around and fidgeting and driving me and Pablo nuts. Why don’t you go outside and wind your spring down.”
“Do you want to play golf?” I asked her.
“No. Last time I almost yanked my nose off. Since then I’ve decided I’m of the age where I just smoke cigarettes and watch TV.”
“Can I push you around in your buggy?”
“Why don’t you go pester Carter?” she said. “Maybe you two can go to town again.”
“Forget town,” Carter called out from the hallway. “I been thinking about something better—a place I been wanting to go.”
“What about work?” I asked.
“To heck with work,” he said as he entered the living
room. “How long can you change lightbulbs and mop floors before you go bonkers? That job would drive a normal man insane.”
“Then you must be abnormal,” Grandma cracked. “It only drives you to drink.”
Dad flashed her an angry look. “How about we all go bungee jumping?”
“If I dove off a bridge it’d take the last of my breath away,” Grandma said, sucking on her mouthpiece.
“Just what I had in mind,” Dad mumbled with his voice trailing off toward the door.
I hopped up onto the couch, and kept hopping until I hopped on the cushion where Pablo had burrowed and he growled. “I’ve always wanted to go bungee jumping,” I said.
“Come on,” Dad said. “Let’s crank it up.”
On the way over in the car he said, “Now don’t tell your mom we did this. Bungee jumping is one of those guy things she might not understand.”
“Okay,” I replied, and thought, I won’t be able to tell Mom anything that I did with Dad. She’ll pick me up and ask, “How’d it go?” and I’ll say, “Fine,” and she’ll say, “What all’d you do?” and I’ll say, “Stuff,” and she’ll ask, “Did you do anything special?” and I’ll say, “No,” and she’ll keep asking until finally she’ll give up talking to a wall.
We drove outside the city and passed through farm country. I had my face pressed to the glass so I could
see everything. There were cows and tractors and barns and people working. Rows of corn and beans and fields of melons were planted. Dad pointed out everything. He knew it all because his dad had been a farmer. “I should have been a farmer too,” he said. “But plants just grew too slow for me and when I was old enough I went into the city to chase after the fast life.”
I had a hard time imagining Dad, or Grandma, living on a farm. “What happened then?” I asked.
“I burned out,” he said. “All my energy went into bad habits and drinking and running around and it seems I was always on the go, but I didn’t get anything done but mess up my life.”
“Where did you meet Mom?” I asked.
“In a restaurant,” he replied. “I was learning how to be a bartender and she was a waitress and it just went from there.”
Finally we pulled up to an old railroad bridge that spanned a wide gorge. Dad parked and we got out. In the middle of the bridge was a tall crane and a group of people all leaning over the rail. As Dad and I walked toward them I looked over the edge of the bridge. Down below was a creek filled with round, dark boulders. One of them had a skull and crossbones painted on the top. The crane operator lowered a kid whose jump was over and as he reached the ground a man in an orange vest and hard hat grabbed
him and began to unstrap him from the harness. Then the crane brought the harness back up.
“See the skull?” Dad said, pointing. “Do you suppose that’s where some loser flattened his head?”
“Are you trying to scare me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, and smiled. “I’m trying to pull you out from thinking that you need your medicine again. You got to let that idea go. You are fine. Sometimes, when you stop taking medicine, it just takes a while to adjust and you get worse before you get better.”
“Is that why you’re smoking more now?” I asked.
He peered down at me. “Yeah,” he said. “Any day I expect I’ll wake up and kick the habit.”
“Is that true?” I asked.
“Sure it is,” he said. “If I didn’t think so I’d jump off this bridge without the cord.”
There were a few people in line and we joined them and watched. Everyone was a little nervous, which helped me feel more comfortable. A teenager was being placed in the harness and then the bungee cord was snapped to a metal ring on his back. He climbed a set of wooden steps and stood on the railing of the bridge.
“Count to three and dive for the skull,” the instructor said.
The kid counted and screamed from the moment he dove until he stopped bouncing.
“I don’t think they have this ride at Disney World,”
Dad said, grinning, and his usual little smile was wide open.
Each time someone jumped I felt the bottom drop out of my belly like a trapdoor. I watched them all bounce up and down with their arms and legs in a panic, and when they stopped and were unhooked they fell over to the side and only after a few minutes did they manage to stand like newborn horses and stagger up the hill.
“Jelly legs,” Dad said. “You get it from being scared. Once, I joined the army to get away from the booze and in basic training they used to fire live rounds over our heads, and that spooked me so bad I couldn’t even use my legs to crawl. This should be good.”
I thought so too. My legs were already shaking and I hadn’t done anything but watch.
“How long were you in the army?” I asked.
“About eight weeks,” he said, and shrugged. “That too was not a marriage made in heaven.”
Someone let out an awful scream and we all lunged for the rail and looked over the side expecting the worst. But it was nothing unusual. Just another bouncing person begging to get down. When we looked back it was our turn.
“You go first,” I said to Dad.
“Monkey see, monkey do,” he replied, and stepped forward. He bought two tickets and we both had to
sign a piece of paper that said it wasn’t their fault if we died. They fitted Dad with the harness and snapped the hook onto the ring. He climbed up the steps and stood on the rail. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,” he recited. “Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put that ol’ egg back together again.” When he finished he reached into his back pocket and slipped out a small brown bottle. He unscrewed the cap and drank it all down. Then he tossed the bottle to the man. “Can you put this in the trash?”
“You need a bigger bottle,” the man said, and tossed it into a bucket. “Especially if you’re trying to work up some courage.”
“Just a little medicine,” Dad replied, and winked at me as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. Then he dove backward. I looked over the edge and watched him plunge to the bottom with his arms crossed over his chest like he was already dead, but when he bounced up he wiggled his arms and legs and began to sing, “The itsy-bitsy spider went up the waterspout, down came the rain and washed the spider out.” And that’s what he sang, bouncing up and down, until finally he came to a stop. The crane lowered him toward the ground and the man below hauled him in and unhooked him.
Dad took one step, then plopped down on his rear
end. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Jelly legs!” he yelled.
By then I was strapped into the harness and the long bungee cord was hauled up by the crane and snapped onto my ring. “What happens if this breaks?” I asked.
“We all run for the hills,” the man said with a straight face. Then he laughed. “I don’t know. It’s never happened before.”
“There’s always a first time,” I said right back.
“That can be arranged,” he replied, “but it will cost you extra.”
I climbed up the steps and stood on the rail. I looked straight out at the curved horizon and felt like a pirate walking the plank. I wished Pablo was with me.
“Dive forward on the count of three,” he ordered. “One, two—”
“Two and a half,” I cut in. I was totally hyper and I couldn’t tell if I needed a patch or if I needed to come to my senses. You didn’t need to be wired to feel hyper.
“Three,” the man said, and clapped his hands. “Jump!”
I closed my eyes and because my legs had already turned to jelly I couldn’t spring forward, so I just stepped off. I screamed all the way down and I screamed with each bounce. And I was still a nervous
wreck when the man below unclipped me and handed me to Dad.
“You okay, buddy?” he asked. “You look like Casper the Ghost.” He had to hold me upright by the back of my shirt because my legs were liquid.
“Let’s do it again,” I said, panting. “This is just what I need.”
“You sure?” Dad asked.
“Totally,” I said, with my voice quivering. “This is the best I’ve felt all day.”
“Okay, but don’t mess up your arm for tonight,” he warned me. “Or I’ll throw you off without the cord. And then Leezy will throw me off.”
So we each jumped five more times and all the fear and falling and screaming wiped out every hyper feeling I had and when we got home I was exhausted and went directly to my room and threw myself onto my bed and it was as if I had fallen one more time, only straight down an endless black hole.
The next thing I knew Dad was waking me. “Jump up,” he said, and tugged on my ear. “Time to get ready for the game. The big game.” He whistled. “The semifinals. How’s your arm?”
“Fine,” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
“Legs?”
I stood up and squatted down then sprang forward like a frog. “Good,” I said. “The jelly’s all gone.”
“Great,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Well, get dressed and let’s go kick some butt.”
“Yeah,” I said, and felt all foggy inside. “Yeah. Who are we playing?”
“This is the semifinals, bud,” he said. “Snap to it. We’re playing a team that kicked us around before you got here. And now we’re going to return the favor. Now let’s get a move on.”
He left and I opened my closet and pulled my uniform off the hanger. I hadn’t let Grandma wash it yet, but it didn’t smell too bad. I unballed the dirty white sweat socks out of my high-top baseball cleats and put them on. I double knotted the laces, then stood up.
I looked into the mirror and flicked my hair over my little bald spot. But it wouldn’t cover it right. So I flicked it over again, then again and again. And before long that pink spot started to itch so I began to scratch it until I could begin to feel the skin heat up and get shiny like something being polished. And it kept itching even more, so I turned my finger just a bit and caught the edge of my nail on the skin and that felt good until I couldn’t stop and finally the skin split open but it wasn’t so much blood that leaked out as it was fluid like what comes out of a blister. Even then I couldn’t stop and I rubbed it a little more until the spot burned like when you put a match out with your fingertips and I stood up on my tiptoes and rubbed harder until the itch was on fire and I could think of
nothing else, and feel nothing else and imagine nothing else but that burning spot which was just getting hotter and hotter until I finally yanked my hand away and jammed it into my pocket and stood there twisting my hips around like pipe cleaners and hating myself just like old times and suddenly I knew for certain the other Joey had started to catch up to me and I wondered what to do about it. I spun around as if my old self was walking through the door. But he wasn’t. He was already inside me. I reached for my book and took the used patch I had saved and rubbed it up and down on the inside of my arm. I kept rubbing until the skin underneath hurt, and I kept hoping that there was a little medicine left in it. But it didn’t feel that way and suddenly Dad yelled out, “Hey, bud, you ready or what?”
“One sec,” I yelled back. I opened my dresser drawer and pulled a couple Band-Aids out of my bag of bathroom supplies. I unbuttoned my shirt and taped the patch to my belly. Here we go again, I said to myself. I knew it was going to be bad. How bad, I didn’t know just yet. But I never forgot how I had been, so I didn’t have to guess too much at what I’d become. My only hope was that Dad was right and I was just getting a little worse before I turned the corner and got better.
“What are you doing in there?” Dad asked. “Come on, we got a date with destiny.”
My hands were shaking as I buttoned my shirt. I screwed my baseball cap on and opened the door. “I’m ready,” I announced, and smiled my big smile, the one that always makes people think I’m okay when inside I’m ready to pop.
“That’s my caveman,” Dad said. He put down his beer bottle and curled his arm around my shoulder as we marched for the car.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, as soon as the car door closed. “Once you win this game I want to get my skull tattoo reworked, and if you want you can get your ear pierced.”
“I want to,” I said, fiddling with my earlobe, “but Mom doesn’t want me to.”
“What are you? A mama’s boy? Get it pierced.”
“I shouldn’t,” I said. “I told Mom I wouldn’t.”
“Look, your dog’s ear is pierced, so why not yours?”
“That was an accident—”
“Some accidents are good,” he said. “Like you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. But instantly I knew what he meant because I knew what it meant when parents called their kids “accidents.” It meant they didn’t plan for them, and probably didn’t want them, that they were mistakes. And when Dad said “accident” it made me think I was less than wanted when I arrived—and suddenly I remembered when we were at Storybook Land he laughed at the Old Lady Who Lived
in a Shoe and said she had a “few too many accidents.”
“Joey,” Dad said, “just chill. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I want to call Mom,” I said. “I want to ask her if I was an accident.”
“She’ll tell you the same thing I have,” he insisted. “You were a happy accident.”
“If it was so happy how come you took off?”
“Because I wasn’t happy,” he said. “I was messed up.”
“And what are you now?” I asked.
“Better,” he said. “I think you’re rubbing off on me in a good way.”
He reached out to rub my head but I scooted across the seat to my door. I didn’t talk to him anymore and instead flicked the automatic door lock up and down about a million times because it was better to listen to that click, click, clicking sound than to him saying over and over that I wasn’t an accident.
As soon as the car stopped in the parking lot I grabbed my gym bag and jumped out. “Come back,” he called. “It was an accident that I called you an accident.” But by then I was headed for the bathroom where there was a pay phone.
“Think about this, Joey,” he hollered behind me. “Would I want you here now if it wasn’t my plan to keep you for good?”
That’s all I heard because after that I was only listening to my cleats crunching the gravel and the sound of my breath sucking in and pushing out. I wanted to call Mom and ask her if I was an accident but I didn’t have any phone money on me so I turned around. I lowered my head and kept walking. I passed Dad. I passed the players. I walked all the way out to the mound and marched around and around the edge and stomped the dirt down flat and nobody bothered me until the catcher threw me the ball and I threw a few warm-up pitches then said, “I’m ready.”
The other team batted first.
“Come on, caveman,” Dad hollered. “Bury this kid.”
I lobbed an easy one in there and the batter knocked it out of the park.
“Time-out,” Dad yelled to the umpire, and trotted out to the mound. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“It was an accident,” I said, and smiled. “A mistake.”
“Joey, we can talk about that later,” he said. “But for now, just pitch the ball.” He turned and trotted to the coach’s box.
I walked the next batter. And the next one.
“Time-out,” Dad called. He trotted out to the mound again. “What’s the problem?”
“Get me Leezy’s telephone,” I said. “I want to call Mom.”
“Not now, Joey,” Dad said impatiently.
“Either I call Mom now, or I’ll walk the whole team,” I replied.
“what’s gotten into you?” he asked angrily. “Huh?”
“You,” I said.
He sighed. Then he held up a finger to the ump. “Family emergency!” he yelled as he ran over to Leezy, pulled the phone out of her purse, and returned.
“Stand outside my circle,” I said to him as I took the phone, then dialed the number. He backed away.
“Hi, Mom,” I said when she picked up, and before she could say anything I blurted out, “Was I an accident?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“You know, was I a baby accident you didn’t want?”
“No,” she said right back. “No. Not at all. Who told you that?”
I could tell she was getting mad. Really mad. “Dad told me,” I said. “Do you want to speak to him?”
“Yes,” she said harshly. “Put him on.”
I held out the phone like it was a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse. Dad reached for it. He turned away from me and they had a few sharp words and finally he growled, “We don’t have all night to discuss this. We’re standing on the mound in the middle of a playoff game.” In a moment he handed me the phone.
“Joey,” Mom said, changing the subject, “are you taking your medication?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I have a patch on right now.”
“Then listen to your father, Joey. I’m sure he can’t be happy with you talking on the phone during a game. And I’m not either. Now give your father back the phone and play ball. We’ll talk later. Okay? Call me after the game.”
“Okay,” I said. “I just want to know that I’m more than an accident.”
“You’re my reason for living, breathing, and grinding my teeth,” she said with a laugh. “Now mow those players down and bring that trophy home for me.”
“Okay,” I said. I handed Dad the phone. “I feel better.”
“No more tricks,” he warned me. “Or else.”
He walked off as the umpire was walking toward the mound and the other coach was yelling and the players were shouting at us from the dugout and even some parents were booing and calling for us to forfeit the game.
But after Dad left I settled down and struck out the side and that made everyone quiet. I went back to the dugout and sat with my hat down over my face. Then I remembered I had my tape player in my bag so I got it out and ran the wires up the back of my shirt and put the speakers in my ears and turned it on really loud. I started rocking back and forth and scratching at my head again.
“Hey,” Leezy said, surprising me as she tugged a speaker out of my ear. “What’s wrong with your noggin?
You’re scratching like you got a family of fleas up there.”
“Yeah,” I said, and lifted the hat off my face. “I have fleas. Pablo gave them to me,”
“Well, we’ll get a flea collar for you,” she said. “And a matching one for Pablo too.”
I smiled.
“Your dad said you’re nervous,” she ventured. “Anything I can do to help?”
According to Dad I was supposed to help myself. I knew she was trying to be nice to me and I wanted to be nice back, but there wasn’t anything in me that wanted to talk. My mouth was dry and I just felt itchy all over and the only thing that made me feel better was the music. So I covered my face with my hat, jammed the little speakers even deeper inside my ears, and nodded along, and that was good until she tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the mound.
“You’re on,” she mouthed.
I stood up and lifted my hat. I shoved the tape player into my back pocket and ran out to the mound and with the Brass playing “Tangerine” it seemed that I wasn’t nervous at all and I calmed down and just pitched and kept getting batters out and rolling along. Our team scored a few runs and I kept their team from doing any damage. But by the fifth inning my tape player batteries started to wear down and the songs got all loopy and I started to feel loopy too. I
had two strikes on a batter when I looked over to Dad.
“Time-out!” I hollered, and popped the speakers out of my ears.
Dad trotted up to the mound. “What is it this time?” he asked.
“I need new batteries,” I said.
“For your arm?” he asked.
“My tape player.” I turned around and showed him the player in my back pocket and the wires running up my shirt and out my neck. “It helps me concentrate,” I said.
“You just don’t want to hear me hollering at you,” he replied.
“I don’t like it when you yell,” I said, agreeing. “I’m just trying to do my best.”
“Then just pitch,” he said. “And I won’t yell. This isn’t a dance. It’s a baseball game.”
“No batteries,” I said, “no pitching.” I held out the ball for him.
“Come on,” the ump called out. “Let’s keep the game moving.”
“Give me an inning to get them, Joey,” Dad said. “Be reasonable. I don’t have batteries in my pocket.”
“Okay,” I replied. “One inning.” Dad ran back to the coach’s box and I struck the batter out.
By the time I returned to the bench and scratched my itchy spot some more, Leezy ran up with four batteries.
“Joey,” she asked, and pointed to my head, “are you telling me the truth about you being okay?”
I loaded the batteries in my tape player. “Giant fleas,” I said.
“Your head’s bleeding,” she replied, and tried to touch me, but I hopped up and put my hat on.
After I struck out and our team scored a few more runs I went back out to the mound. We had a four-run lead when I looked over to Dad and smiled. He smiled back and looked very happy. I waved to him. He waved back.
“Time-out!” I yelled, and turned my tape player off.
Dad ran straight at me like a bull.
“What is it this time?” he asked.
“I want to have a conversation,” I said. “It’s been bothering me that I came all this way to see you but you never told me why you never came to see me.”
“You want to talk about this now?” he snarled, spitting out his words and jabbing at me with his finger. “You spend the entire day with me and you don’t say boo and now you want to talk?”
“That’s because you do all the talking,” I said.
“Well, I’m not talking now,” he replied. “No way. Pitch!”
“Come on, son,” the ump hollered. “This is your final warning. We can’t do this all night. Either you play or you pack it up.”
“Bring me Pablo,” I said. “I want Pablo with me.”
“Let’s go,” the ump said.
“Pablo,” I repeated. “Get him.”
“Next inning,” Dad said with his face as tight as a fist. “And you can throw him for strikes for all I care.”
The ump started toward the mound. “One more time-out,” he threatened, “and the kid is ejected.”
“Don’t blow this for me,” Dad said under his breath. “Or else.”
I turned the music back on as he pranced away with his arms and legs slapping together like a set of wind chimes. Once he was back in the coach’s box and the umpire took his place, I went into my windup then rolled the ball all the way to the plate.
“Strike!” I yelled, and threw my arms up into the air like a champion.
“This isn’t bowling!” Dad hollered.
“I’m throwing strikes,” I yelled back, and I knew I had got him just about as mad as I wanted him to be, so then I pitched real strikes the rest of the inning. And a few innings later, when I finished the game, I had my tape player blaring and Pablo inside my shirt curled up like a beer belly hanging over my belt. We won six to three but Dad looked like he had fallen off the bungee bridge without the cord and I felt the same way.
The first thing he said to me when I came to the dugout was, “You are going to drive me to drink.”
“Don’t be mad at me,” I said. “I need some medicine.”
“You’re taking this hyper thing too far,” he said angrily. “You don’t need medicine. You need to get a grip on yourself.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll get a grip.” I wrapped my arms around myself and spun around in circles. Dad grabbed me by the shoulders and I squirmed away and did a jagged little dance while he tried to settle me down.
“Okay, boys,” Leezy ordered, and got her arms between us. “Let’s walk it off.” She turned him around and shoved him toward the scoreboard.
“Dad,” I yelled, and stuck out my hand. “Give me five and let’s make up.”
“Don’t push your luck, Joey,” he said, looking back over his shoulder. “I’ve had enough of your tricks for one night.”
Leezy reached out and took my hand. “Time to go home,” she said calmly. “You’ve had a long day.”
It had been long. And Grandma and Pablo and me got into Leezy’s car and she dropped us off. I don’t know where Dad went. I forgot about calling Mom and ran to my room and untied one shoe but I got a knot in my other shoe and I tried picking at it but I had chewed my fingernails down so low I couldn’t pick the laces apart and after a while I couldn’t even try and
my hands were shaking so hard I lost patience. I started pulling on the laces and I knew the knot was getting smaller and tighter but I couldn’t stop myself from just wanting to rip it open. Finally I just let out a yowl, then took my shirt off and whipped it across the room. I went to bed with my one shoe and pants on and even though I was sleepy I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and figured I shouldn’t ever fall asleep again. Because instead of waking up like a zombie as they did in the movie, I’d wake up wired.