American Outlaw - Jesse James [41]
I repeated my movements, over and over, the muscles of my neck and back clenching awfully, sweat pouring down my brow, the fabric of my flimsy hospital gown flapping behind me. After a hellish, painful eternity, I arrived at the landing.
My shirt was soaked. Panting, I looked up at the doctor.
“So?” I gasped, my heart pounding. “Can I go?”
He looked at me with some sympathy. “Yes, son,” he said quietly, after a moment. “I’ll sign the release document.”
——
I went to my dad’s place. It was two weeks before I could get up and move around the house comfortably. Each day was a struggle with pain, a test of my will to even make it through the day. But it was worth it to be home. The hospital had frightened me badly, though I did not at the time fully understand why.
Slowly, things got a little easier. Over the next two months, I worked diligently to rehabilitate my shattered knee. The surgeon had done his job well. If I brought everything I had to the table, there was a good chance I would play again.
“Hey, look at this, you’re alive!”
“Josh,” I said, grinning. “What are you doing here?”
“My moms made you some cookies.” The mammoth man held up a dinner plate in his hands. It was covered in aluminum foil. “I told her I had a friend who was a weak little bitch, he needed nourishment before he passed away completely.”
“Gee, that’s nice of you.” I laughed, taking the plate from him. “Tell your mom I’d like to thank her in person, okay?”
Josh walked slowly around my homemade gym, taking in the weights and straps I’d scattered around my backyard. “Nice little setup you got here.”
“I want to get back on the field,” I told him.
“Rhonda’s been asking about you,” Josh said.
I waved him off. “That’s way over, man.”
Josh shrugged. “Good for you,” he said. He lowered himself to the ground and opened up the foil that covered the dinner plate to seize a chocolate chip cookie. He popped the entire cookie into his mouth, crumbs falling down the front of his shirt.
“I thought those were for me.”
“I need something to cheer me up as I watch your sad little comeback workout, don’t I?”
“Make yourself useful, dude,” I said. “Throw on some tunes.”
He reached around in his pocket, and with some effort, managed to pull out a cassette tape. “Time for some Joey Shithead!”
Music blasting, we sweated in my backyard.
“YOU CAN’T DO IT!” Josh screamed, as I lifted up a thirty-pound weight with my left ankle. My knee shook with the effort. “Too weak!!”
“QUIET, BLACK PUNK-ROCK MAN!” I shouted, trembling with the effort. “No one can crush me!”
It took immense effort, but finally, I was ready to head back to school. My rehabilitation had been so thorough that my hurt knee had actually become stronger than the good one. My crutches were a thing of the past. I walked almost completely without a limp.
I got my bag ready excitedly. It was like summer vacation in reverse: I was returning to the one place I felt at home.
“Heading back today?” my dad asked.
“Yep,” I said. I checked myself out in the mirror. I’d probably lost some weight, looked a little gaunt around the face, but overall I was still looking all right. I cracked a grin at the old man. “Hope you won’t miss me too badly around here.”
“Nope,” he said.
I didn’t let his shitty mood deflate me. Nothing could touch me, today.
“Can’t wait to get back to that team, huh?” he asked.
I looked at him. “I’m excited, yes.”
“You just remember something, Jesse.” He nodded his head at me, seriously. “You’re nothing but another body to those people. Much as you think you’re using them, they are using you.”
We stared at each other for a second.
“You know,” I said slowly. “You’re just an old, pissed-off man who hates the world. You always have been.”
He snorted. “But am I wrong?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You are wrong, okay? The whole way you see the world is totally skewed.”
My dad waved me off. “Go on. Time to get back to your fantasy world. I’ll be here when they use you up