Crunch

by Rick Bundschuh

  Please, please don’t let it be something bad, Bethany prayed earnestly.

  “Gracias, gracias,” Eddie said to the neighbor, and then he turned to Bethany. “There’s been an accident. Their neighbor said that Eduardo was run over by a trash truck this morning. They have taken him to the hospital. She says it is very bad, but other than that, she knows nothing.”

  Bethany felt herself begin to shake. This wasn’t bad—it was horrible!

  “Where? What hospital?” she cried.

  “I don’t know,” Eddie replied gently. “Apparently the dump truck driver took them. I will find out, but first we need to go back to the dorm.”

  “Eddie, promise me that you will help me go see him in the hospital,” Bethany pleaded.

  Normally, Eddie would have politely dodged this request, but as he looked in Bethany’s eyes, he saw them well up in tears, and something inside of him told him to agree.

  “Yeah, okay, I promise.”

  “You won’t change your mind?”

  “Bethany, one thing you should know about me is that my yes is yes, and my no is no. If I make you a promise, I will keep it,” Eddie replied carefully.

  Bethany exhaled and nodded. “All right. Thank you.”

  The pair walked slowly back to the van. Bethany slipped the still unused soccer ball under her sweatshirt so that she could free her hand and dab the tears away from her eyes.

  Back at the dorm, the teams formed an impromptu prayer meeting to pray for Eduardo. The atmosphere was solemn and quiet as they waited for Eddie to come back from his office where he was calling all of the hospitals in town, trying to get information about a boy who he only knew by his first name.

  At the end of the prayer time, Eddie was back in the room.

  “I found him,” he said. “He’s alive, but in bad shape. They say he might loose his leg. The family has no money, but I told them that if money was the issue, we would find it.”

  Suddenly the teenagers began digging in their pockets for money. Bethany fished out almost all she had and placed it in Eddie’s hands.

  The unexpected show of love and generosity caused Eddie to tear up.

  “I guess we better head over to the hospital,” Eddie said, glancing at Bethany.

  “Just let me get something from my room,” Bethany said. She was taking the stairs two at a time before anyone had the chance to reply.

  seven

  Anne Nicholson could rip. The young California surfer had jumped into the water in fourth grade, and by seventh grade she was blowing minds at her home break in Ventura, California.

  Several years older than Bethany, Anne was at the end of her amateur career and about to step into the grueling world of professional women’s surfing.

  Already her pictures had appeared in surfing magazines, and she had an impressive array of sponsors. And it helped that her spunky, Californiasurfer-girl good looks made her great media material in ads and interviews.

  She had surfed against Bethany before and admired her competitor’s grit, determination, and skill.

  When the waves were pumping, the two were neck in neck. But Anne knew that she had a slight advantage in places where the waves were small and mushy. And the last time Bethany and Anne had met in competition, the conditions favored Anne, not Bethany.

  In Bethany’s final regional contest, the two-foot, soft, crumbly waves had put Bethany slightly behind Anne in the running for the nationals. That is why Anne was at Trestles preparing for the nationals, and Bethany was in Tijuana.

  Anne studied the swell before her with a grin. She was excited about the contest the following day. She entered the water at a break called the Rivermouth. Her first three waves were short close-outs, but she milked the most out of them, pulling into unmakable barrels or floaters over the collapsing white water.

  The fourth wave looked similar to the previous three, but then Anne thought that there might be a possibility for an even deeper tube ride, and she stalled for a moment at the top of the wave.

  It was a crucial error; before she could get the board to slip back down the face of the wave, the whole curl sucked over.

  Anne found herself air-dropping out of control over the lip.

  It happened in an instant.

  The nose of her board dug into the base of the wave and flipped over as she followed it. Her body crashed onto the deck, as the weight of the wave collapsed onto her back. She felt the board sliding under her and instinctively covered her head with her arms to protect herself.

  A sharp pain sliced through her leg as she impacted with the fins of her board. The whole wipeout was short in duration. As Anne put her feet on the sandy bottom and lifted her head out of the water, she could see her surfboard in two pieces and feel a growing pain coming from her thigh.

  She limped onto the beach and noticed that her wet suit had a knife slice opening above her right knee, and blood was already starting to ooze.

  The weakness in her leg told Anne that she had messed something up good, so without taking off her wet suit, she hobbled to her car and painfully drove herself to the emergency room.

  It was early evening in Hawaii when the phone in the Hamilton home began to ring, but no one was there to answer it.

  Several hours later, Noah rolled in from a surf session and noticed that a message light was blinking on the phone.

  It was Bethany’s sponsor with some exciting news: Bethany was in the finals!

  Anne’s accident, while not career threatening, had sidelined her for the next few weeks. She would not be surfing tomorrow; the slot was open to the next highest contender, who happened to be Bethany.

  Noah was excited for his sister. He knew her disappointment at not making it into the final contest of the year. He also knew she would drop anything and race to Orange County for the showdown.

  But where in Mexico was Bethany and how could he get in contact with her? He would have to wait until his parents returned home to find that out.

  Eddie roared through the thick Tijuana traffic, trying to get them to the hospital—to Eduardo as quickly as he could. Before tonight, Bethany had never paid much attention to the driving skills it took to maneuver around the massive roundabouts and crazy drivers for whom a stop sign was merely a suggestion. She glanced at Eddie. He seemed calm enough, but she noticed he drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on the horn.

  The hospital was tucked away in an industrial area, and, unlike the hospitals Bethany had seen before, it was small and unimpressive.

  Before leaving the car, Bethany grabbed the soccer ball she had bought for Eduardo.

  The pair entered the foyer, and Eddie conversed with the nurse on duty who directed them to a waiting room.

  Eddie paced around for a while and then stopped in his tracks. “Bethany, stay here. I want to talk to the administrators for a minute.”

  “Okay,” she said, her eyes following Eddie until he faded out of sight.

  Bethany turned and scanned the waiting room.

  Other than an elderly woman, she was alone. She sighed and sat down on a hard plastic chair. She looked around. The walls were blank. No pictures, no murals, and no signs in any language.

  A small side table held dog-eared magazines that were obviously about celebrities but were written in Spanish.

  Bored and anxious, Bethany stood and paced around the blank room, while random and disconnected thoughts and short prayers mingled and raced through her mind.

  It was nearly twenty minutes later when Eddie returned.

  “They are going to let us see him,” he said. “I told the hospital people that we could get the money to pay for his surgery. They said his mother is with him. I don’t know if there is a father in the picture or not. From what they say, it sounds pretty serious.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “I don’t really know. An accident of some kind. It’s pretty dangerous in the dump with all those big rigs going back and forth and kids darting in and out of the trash. My guess
is that the driver didn’t see Eduardo.”

  “Won’t the city take care of the medical costs? After all, it was one of their trucks that ran him over!”

  Eddie smiled softly. “Those families are not supposed to be working or living at the landfill, Bethany. The officials just look the other way because there are no other real opportunities for them.”

  “What would happen to him if you didn’t offer to pay the bill?”

  “They would patch him up a little and send him home. If the wound was badly infected, he might die. Or he might live and be crippled for life. You would see him begging on the street corner in a few years.”

  “That’s terrible!”

  “That’s reality,” Eddie countered.

  The idea that a little boy could be allowed to suffer because of a lack of money was just sinking into Bethany’s head when a nurse came into the waiting room and spoke to Eddie.

  “We can see Eduardo now,” Eddie told her.

  Bethany picked up the soccer ball and followed him down a narrow corridor to a small room where several beds lay.

  Eduardo looked painfully tiny on the white-sheeted bed. His eyes were closed, and his leg was swathed in bandages. Next to him on a small vinyl chair was the same woman Bethany had met the day before. Lines of worry creased her face, but she stood as Eddie and Bethany came into the room. She rushed over to Eddie, taking his hands in hers as she sobbed out the story, occasionally gesturing toward her son.

  Bethany inched closer to the bed, staring down at Eduardo as she tried to think of something she could say to him.

  The boy stirred and opened his eyes.

  “I have a gift for you,” Bethany said softly, trying not to cry as she held up the soccer ball for him to see.

  A smile beamed across the boy’s face, and Bethany placed the ball in his arms. He shut his eyes again but kept a firm grip on the ball. A female doctor entered the room then and signaled to Eduardo’s mother. Eddie politely asked if he could come along, and the doctor nodded yes.

  Bethany took the empty seat next to Eduardo and prayed for the little boy.

  A few moments later Eduardo’s mother and Eddie returned. The woman’s eyes were wet with tears.

  Bethany quickly surrendered the chair, and Eddie pulled her off to one side.

  “They are going to take his foot,” Eddie whispered.

  “What?” Bethany said, incredulous.

  “Apparently, it is too crushed to save.”

  Bethany shook her head, unwilling to accept that kind of fate for Eduardo. He was only five years old! “We could take him to America. I bet they could save his foot there. We have experts for that kind of thing!” Bethany said loudly.

  “Settle down,” Eddie urged quietly. “You need to understand that there are limits to what we, and even you, are able to do. If the boy had connections or lots of money there’d be a chance that we could get him in front of doctors who could save his foot. But he doesn’t. Even so, these doctors are going to do the best they can.”

  Bethany understood—even though she didn’t want to. She felt drained of every ounce of energy she had ever had as she leaned against the wall.

  “When?”

  “First thing in the morning,” Eddie answered grimly.

  “Does he know?”

  “No, they have him pretty sedated. They won’t be telling him.”

  “I want to be here when he wakes up,” Bethany said, suddenly determined not to take no for an answer. “Can you bring me back here tomorrow so I can be here when he wakes up?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” Eddie said, caught off guard by her tone.

  “No, I need you to promise me that you will bring me here. It’s important that somebody who has been through…it’s important that I be here when he wakes up,” she said. Bethany saw understanding fill Eddie’s eyes.

  “You have my word on it.”

  Bethany turned and walked back to Eduardo’s bedside. She knelt next to the boy and lightly touched his thick black hair.

  “I will be here tomorrow when you wake up,” she said softly. Then she turned back to Eddie. “Please tell him that I will be here tomorrow when he wakes up from his operation. Tell him it’s a promise.”

  “I’ll tell him. I’m not sure that he will remember. They have him pretty drugged up right now.”

  Eddie whispered to Eduardo, and Bethany heard her name mentioned.

  The boy squeezed his soccer ball at the message.

  “He understands,” Bethany said, no longer able to stop the flow of tears from running down her cheeks. “He understands.”

  Cheri Hamilton came through the door with an armload of groceries and was almost mowed over by Noah as he grabbed the bags from her. “Where have you been? I have been trying to call your cell phone for over an hour!”

  “I was grocery shopping. I forgot to charge my cell phone, so the thing died. Why? What’s up?”

  “Bethany is in the finals. One of the girls had to drop out, so Bethany is seeded into the contest tomorrow. But she doesn’t know about it. Can you get ahold of her? Her sponsors have offered to pick her up in Tijuana and drive her to the contest. It’s only an hour or so away.”

  “This is wonderful!” Cheri exclaimed. “She is going to be so excited! It was really hard on her to miss being in the finals by one slot.”

  “Not only that, but I’ve been on the computer checking the wave predictions for California, and it looks like they’re going to have terrific conditions tomorrow.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a great way to end the year—to win in the finals! Okay, we’ve got to find her,” Cheri said as she began to shuffle through a pile of papers by the phone. “I have a list of contact numbers somewhere around here…”

  Bethany and Eddie pulled into the dorm parking lot. The night air was cold. It cut through Bethany’s sweatshirt when she got out of the car. For the first time that evening she remembered that she hadn’t eaten.

  “I’m gonna go fix myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Do you want me to make you one too Eddie?”

  “Sure,” Eddie smiled. “In all the excitement I guess we forgot about dinner. If you don’t mind, wrap it in a paper towel and I’ll eat it on my way home.”

  “You bet!” Bethany said and headed straight for the kitchen.

  As Eddie entered the dorm, he could hear the phone ringing in his office. No sooner than he began fumbling for the right key to unlock the door, the ringing stopped.

  Eddie frowned.

  Suddenly the phone started ringing again, and Eddie, who was prepared with key in hand, picked it up by the third ring.

  “Bethany! You have a call from Hawaii,” Eddie shouted down the hall.

  Bethany stuck her head around the corner and said, “For me?”

  “Yep!” said Eddie. “And time is ticking away ’cause it is long, long distance.”

  Bethany barreled down the hall, her lips sticky with peanut butter and jelly. She quickly dropped two sandwiches wrapped in a paper towel into Eddie’s hand and grabbed the phone.

  “Hi, Mom! What? The finals…you’re kidding? How? Is she okay? When? Tomorrow morning…Trestles…hold on.”

  Bethany cupped her hand over the phone. “I got in the finals, Eddie! A girl had to drop out, and I was next in line! They want to come and pick me up early in the morning at the race track. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yep,” Eddie said and then cleared his throat. “It’s over where we were tonight—over by the hospital.”

  At those words, Bethany’s face registered shock. How could she have forgotten Eduardo so soon?

  “Mom, can I call you back in a little while?…Okay.…Thanks, Mom.”

  Bethany sank into Eddie’s office chair.

  “I think I’m gonna stay a while and eat these sandwiches in the kitchen,” Eddie said. “You’re welcome to hang out in my office if you think you might need to use the phone again.”

  “Thanks,” Bethany said weakly.

  What am I
gonna do?

  There was no response—not even a whisper of help. Bethany felt as if her brain had turned to mush.

  The long day and the crisis with Eduardo sapped her energy and emotions. Now with the news that she was suddenly to be seeded into the final—which should have been a moment of sheer joy—she was completely confused.

  She dragged herself upstairs to the dorm room and was surprised to see the dorm lights blazing.

  “We had a prayer time for Eduardo, and we’ve been sitting around talking,” Malia said. “How is he?”

  “It’s bad. They are probably going to have to amputate his foot.”

  “Oh, no!” Holly said amid the others’ audible gasps. “How did that happen?”

  “He got run over by a trash truck while he was collecting trash,” Bethany said sadly. “I guess his foot was almost severed or something. I couldn’t understand exactly.”

  “Maybe they can get him to a specialist!” Monica offered.

  “Yeah, I suggested that, but I guess it’s not that easy when you’re a dump kid from Tijuana.”

  The group fell silent for a moment, weighing the gulf between their lives and Eduardo’s.

  “And, I just found out that Anne Nicholson had to pull out of the contest tomorrow, so now I can surf in the finals. My mom called from home.”

  “Wow! That’s terrific!” Jenna said.

  “What happened to Anne?” Holly asked.

  “She banged herself up at Rivermouth. Not too serious, but she will be out of the water for a couple of weeks.”

  “When is the contest?”

  “Heats start tomorrow,” said Bethany.

  “How would you get there?” asked Holly.

  “My Rip Curl rep said he would drive down here and pick me up in the morning. We could make it for the girls’ division heat since it’s at Trestles.”

  “Bethany, you are sooooo lucky,” Holly exclaimed. “You have a good shot at winning the title if the waves are pumping.”

  “And a swell is on the rise that’s supposed to be overhead by tomorrow,” Bethany added.

  “Then you have it cinched!” said Monica.

  “Except, I am not sure I should go,” Bethany countered.