by Jeff Bauman
Usually it was the younger generation: Sully, Big D, and Chris. Sometimes Erin and Gail. That night, it was Big D and my older brother, Tim. I say “brother,” but Tim is technically my half brother. He came from a previous relationship, before Mom met my dad, and I didn’t know him until I was twenty-one years old, when he called Mom out of the blue. Say what you will about Mom, but she’s bighearted. When she knew Tim needed her, she took him in. And from that moment on, Tim and I have been close. We’ve been watching baseball and drinking beer together ever since.
Normal life—that’s what it felt like with those guys. Put beers in our hands, and it would have been just like a hundred other nights we’d spent together. The Sox had gone into the crapper the last two years, collapsing in 2011 and missing the playoffs on the last day of the season, then firing their manager, dumping salary, and proceeding to finish dead last in 2012, with the worst record for a Boston baseball team since 1965.
They had a new manager, again, and a few new players, but nobody high profile. They’d gotten off to a hot start, sure, but nobody was expecting much. Baseball is a slow, spread-out, and rambling game, played almost every night for six months, 162 games in 182 days. Early-season baseball is full of promise and false hope. It’s the perfect way to kill off a couple hours.
And that was what I wanted, especially with the bombers plastered all over the news. I just wanted to forget the nurses, who were always poking and prodding me; the sudden throbbing in my legs that made me want to scream; the unsettling sound of walking in the hallway; and the odor of the bomb, a mixture of fireworks and burning flesh, that never seemed to go away. I went to sleep that night the only way possible: to the sound of Jenny Dell working the sideline, and Tim and Big D arguing about something that happened in 2009. The Sox were leading… “Salty” Saltalamacchia homered… Uehara was out… Bailey was coming in…
I woke up like I often did, jerking upright with my heart pounding. It was dark, but a light was flickering. Big D and Tim were crowded around the television with the volume low, watching the news. There had been a shooting, a carjacking, an attempted robbery.
“It’s them,” I said.
“No,” Big D said. “They’re saying it’s not related.”
“It’s just punks,” Tim added.
But I knew it was the bombers. I knew it. I had never considered how they would be caught, but as soon as I heard that people were shooting at cops, I knew there was no other way for them to go.
Later that night, I had my first nightmare. I can’t remember what it was about, but I woke up shouting for Big D.
“I’m here, Jeff. I’m here,” Tim said. He was slumped in a chair by the door. “Nothing to worry about, buddy. We’re here.”
9.
I texted Kevin at 6:00 the next morning: U up?
He was up. Everybody was up. Social media had exploded when word of the shootout in Watertown, a suburb only a few miles from downtown, started to trickle out after midnight. Kevin had been up since 4:00 a.m., glued to his television and his e-mail account, as had most of Boston. A police officer was dead. Another was in critical condition. One suspect had died in a gun battle with police, but the second had escaped. It was believed he was hiding somewhere in Watertown, although Cambridge was also on lockdown. The suspect had driven to Watertown from Cambridge in a stolen car.
“We believe this to be a terrorist,” Police Commissioner Ed Davis told reporters about 4:30 a.m. Friday. “We believe this to be a man who came here to kill people.”
Pop-Tart? I texted Kevin.
Kevin showed up within half an hour with several boxes of treats for everyone. Flour wasn’t opening that day, given the situation in the city, but the bakery had already finished the morning pastries. The assistant manager had given Kevin as much as he could carry.
Kevin stayed that morning and chatted, while we kept one eye on the news. I think he was trying to keep my mind off the manhunt. We talked about music, I remember, something we’d often discussed at the store. I told him I loved Bob Dylan and Radiohead. He knew I played guitar, so he asked about James Taylor. James Taylor lived in Massachusetts.
“Erin loves James Taylor,” I said. “The original JT.”
When Uncle Bob and his kids arrived, Kevin went home.
Thank you, sir, I texted him.
Not long after, the FBI released a photograph of the second suspect: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Suddenly, after five days of waiting, Boston was looking at the face of evil, the person who had stuffed ball bearings into pressure cookers with the intention of ripping people apart. I don’t know what the rest of Boston thought. After five days, it was stunning to see him so clearly, right in front of us. For a while, nobody spoke.
“Shit,” Big D said finally. “He’s a kid.”
It wasn’t too long before the media got hold of a photo of the other suspect: his older brother, Tamerlan.
“That’s him,” I said as soon as I saw it.
There wasn’t much more to say. Tamerlan Tsarnaev had blown my legs off. He was the one. Now he was dead, and his brother was cornered. I thought I’d feel happy, but I just felt numb.
“Turn the channel,” I said. “Let’s watch something else.”
Then Erin called Tim. She was with Gail and her friend Ashley in her apartment in Brighton, just across the Charles River from Watertown.
“They’re saying Jeff identified the bombers,” she said. “That he was the only one who saw them. What if the brother comes after Jeff? He’s desperate. He knows I’m Jeff’s girlfriend. It’s been on the news. What if he comes after me?”
Erin admits now that she was paranoid. That it didn’t make sense for Dzhokhar to come after her. But in those first hours, with one police officer dead and another critically wounded, anything seemed possible. It didn’t seem crazy for Erin to feel like a target, because as much as I tried to deny my fear, I felt like a target, too, and I was in a secure hospital with two security guards outside my door.
Nobody was supposed to know I had helped the FBI. My family had all agreed that was information we would never reveal. Without legs, I felt vulnerable. And who knew how deep this plot went? The press was reporting two suspects, but what if they were part of a larger group? What if they had friends?
They were stupid kids. Who put them up to this? Tamerlan was a psychopath, sure, but who taught him how to kill?
I’m still not convinced, even today, that they acted alone. Betty Crocker Bomb Making, that’s what they call this kind of attack. Get a recipe off the Internet, make a bomb. It happened that way in London and Madrid. It happens that way in Iraq and Afghanistan all the time.
But it wasn’t quite that simple. The bomb that blew off my legs was detonated by the control panel of a remote control car. The part from the car was in the bomb; Dzhokhar had the control. It was the only piece, the FBI told me, that the bombers couldn’t have manufactured themselves. They found the person who modified the controller. He was somewhere on the West Coast. He said he didn’t know what the remote would be used for, and I guess that’s possible.
But it still makes me uncomfortable, like maybe this was bigger than we know.
And if it wasn’t, if any idiot can make a bomb, is that any better? That only means it’s easier for imitators.
So I wish, I really wish, that Chris hadn’t leaked the news of my involvement.
I don’t blame Chris. I love the kid. He says he didn’t know the two women he was talking with were reporters, that he just met them outside the hospital and started talking. Chris is my younger brother; he looked up to me. He was strong. He was one of my boys.
He had never experienced tragedy before. I knew he was exhausted and upset. I remember trying to make him laugh. I’d pull on my oxygen mask, breathe deeply, and say in my best Darth Vader voice: “Chris, I am your father. Now get your daddy a cheeseburger and fries.” Chris was supposed to be with me at the marathon, but I had invited him too late. He couldn’t get the day off from his job at McDonald
’s. He had this idea that he could have changed things if he’d been there. That’s how you think when you’re twenty-two.
So he slipped up, and an article claiming I had identified the suspects (really only partly accurate) appeared on Bloomberg News that morning. This was the middle of the manhunt, and everyone—everyone—picked up and repeated the news. We turned to a news channel after Erin called, and my face was in continuous rotation. Bauman. No legs. Jeff Bauman. Identified the bombers. Tsarnaev. Bauman. Tsarnaev. They kept showing the photo of Erin and me that had been pulled off Facebook. Bauman the hero. Bauman and his girlfriend. Did we mention he lost his legs?
Erin called back half an hour later, while Tim was on hold with the Brighton police. She had talked with an FBI agent who told her not to worry—the bomber was on the run, and she was in no danger. She called her father, who told her to stay put, he was on his way. She sounded better, although she later admitted that she was hiding under the covers of her bed.
Stay strong, I texted her.
And then, slowly, the tension eased, and everything settled down. The hours passed, and nothing happened. Thursday had been a shit-storm at BMC. Reporters, family members, and celebrities were everywhere. Word went around that Oprah was going to be in the building the next day, that she wanted to meet with survivors. Mom came out of her shell at that one. Mom loves Oprah.
But even Oprah couldn’t defy the lockdown, and on Friday the hospital was quiet. Without Mom, my aunts, and my dad, the atmosphere was peaceful, and I found myself drifting in and out of sleep. I still hated being alone, but maybe the nurses had been right all along; maybe I did need more time to rest.
Or maybe the way Tamerlan Tsarnaev died eased my mind.
My biggest fear had never been that we wouldn’t catch the bombers. I had complete faith in the police. That’s why I don’t think my information was that important. Those guys were never going to get away with this. You don’t bomb a marathon and walk away. Not in this city. The best I can say is that my information may have sped up the process.
My biggest fear was that the bombers would deny it. If Tamerlan Tsarnaev surrendered peacefully and proclaimed his innocence, it would have been a circus. I’d be in the news. I’d have to spend a year, at least, meeting with the FBI and being grilled by defense attorneys. I’d have to testify at his trial. Did I see this man at the site of the bombing? Yes. Did I see him with the backpack? Yes. Did I see the backpack explode? No, I didn’t.
I know the FBI had pieces of the backpack that proved it contained the bomb. I know the bomb was remote-detonated by the control panel of a remote control car, so it would have been impossible to see both the bomb and the detonation device. But that small piece bothered me. How could I know for sure this guy was the killer, and not someone lucky enough to walk away at exactly the right time?
Tamerlan had settled that problem for me. When he executed MIT police officer Sean Collier, he revealed himself as a killer. A cold-blooded bastard. A man who was all business. He was willing to die for whatever he thought he was doing, whatever purpose he thought he was serving, and he did.
I slept easier on Friday, but not because Tamerlan Tsarnaev got what he deserved. I don’t believe in retribution. I slept easier because he proved who he was.
I was still sleeping, off and on, when Kevin called around 3:00. The shelter-in-place order had been extended to the whole city, and nobody had been out of the hospital all day. So Kevin smuggled my relatives down an alley to a sushi restaurant that had agreed to open just for them and treated them to a gorgeous meal.
On the way back, the five of them stopped in the middle of Washington Street, one of the busiest roads in Boston, and took a photo. It was 4:00 on a Friday afternoon. There wasn’t a single person around.
Thank you Kevin, I texted him, after Uncle Bob’s kids told me what he had done.
You’re welcome, he replied. And thank you for calling me Kevin.
Erin arrived around 4:30. She had left her apartment before the lifting of the curfew, with the permission of the FBI. It was a five-mile drive, and she hadn’t seen more than four or five people on the roads.
Like me, she seemed energized by the day—not to mention her first good shower in a week. She had pulled herself together and, despite the tension of the manhunt, used the forced break to organize my affairs.
She had asked her friend Kat, who worked in public relations, to handle our media requests. We weren’t paying her, and she had never even met me, but Kat agreed immediately.
Aunt Jenn was designated my liaison to the “Jeff Bauman” Facebook page started by the couple I didn’t know in Colorado. The page had a hundred thousand friends, so it had become the main source for updates and donations. So many people had been following my story, in fact, that other strangers were now posting links and photographs. Aunt Jenn wanted to help me, and she wanted to make sure I wasn’t taken advantage of, so monitoring the page was a perfect task for her.
Uncle Bob talked to his lawyer friends about setting up an official charity and handling the money. When I was well enough, the lawyers would establish a trust in my name. Until then, the money would be held in a monitored bank account.
Now Erin had only one final thing to worry about: me. The second suspect hadn’t been caught yet, but there were rumors on social media of shots fired (later proved untrue). We sat on my bed and watched the coverage together until, just before 10:00, it was announced that the second suspect had been captured alive.
You could hear the cheer, even in my fifth-floor hospital room. As soon as the news broke, people started pouring out of their houses toward public places, overjoyed to have their city back. Erin and I watched it live on television: a quiet vigil on Boylston Street, raucous Northeastern University students waving flags and hugging police officers. Boston Common filled up with people cheering and clapping. In Dorchester, where Martin Richard had lived, they were setting off fireworks.
“It’s over,” Erin said. She paused. “At least this part.”
I put my arm around her. My upper body had healed enough by then, just barely, for us to lean on each other.
“Don’t worry, E,” I told her, as they showed the church bells ringing in Watertown. “Our kids will have legs.”
10.
The next day, the Red Sox returned to Boston for the first time since the bombing. It was an afternoon game, on a perfect sunny Saturday. The crowds arrived early for a pregame ceremony in honor of victims and first responders. The phrase Boston Strong, seen throughout the city, had a new variation. You could see it on shirts and signs throughout Fenway: We Are Boston Strong. But it wasn’t until they handed the microphone to David “Big Papi” Ortiz, the Red Sox’s biggest star for the last ten years, that the meaning of that phrase was hammered home. It’s known as The Speech, but it was only a few lines, made up on the spot:
This jersey that we wear today, it doesn’t say “Red Sox.” It says “Boston.” We want to thank you, Mayor Menino, Governor Patrick, the whole police department, for the great job that they did this past week. This is our fucking city! And nobody’s going to dictate our freedom. Stay strong.
Our city. Our freedom. We are Boston, together, and we are strong. It was the perfect end to a terrible week, people said, but I didn’t see The Speech, at least not live. I’ve seen it numerous times on the Internet since, but when David Ortiz actually spoke those words, I was with a physical therapist, learning how to put on my underpants.
Roll to one side, she taught me. Then back to the other. Then back again.
Life skills. That’s what they called it. I was transferring to the secondary ICU, so I needed life skills. As the Red Sox fell behind the Kansas City Royals, I was practicing pulling myself up with the help of my bed rack and sliding my underwear the last few inches up to my waist.
As they rallied with a home run in the eighth, I was working on getting out of bed. This involved a special tool: a wooden board. And not a special board, either, but a sanded and
finished plank. I’d place it between the edge of the bed and the arm of a chair, then scoot into position and press down on it with my arms. This created enough force to lift my body and “transfer” it into the chair.
It was tough, trusting my arms like that. If I fell, there was nothing to catch me. I’d go straight to the floor, hips first if I was lucky, face-first if I wasn’t. It happened. Of course, it happened. When you push yourself, sometimes you fall. And the pain was excruciating. Hitting my legs on the ground was like hitting open nerves with a sledgehammer.
“It feels great,” I said, when I transferred into the chair for the first time. “I’m ready for more.”
Ten minutes later, I was flat on my back in bed. The pain was so intense, I didn’t feel like I ever wanted to get up again.
“That’s normal,” the specialist told me. “Your legs are so damaged, it will hurt to sit for a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“Maybe a month.”
No way. I wasn’t waiting a month. I practiced my transfers, and I practiced, until the board chipped, and I got a splinter in my ass. (Nope, I wasn’t wearing my underpants.) Talk about the difficulties of new technology! Fortunately, the hospital had another board.
By Sunday, I was already thinking of the next step: going to the bathroom. I was tired of crapping in a bedpan and peeing in a tube. So they brought a little portable toilet for beside the bed.
I used it once.
If I can do that, I thought, I can sit on a real toilet.
If I can sit on a toilet, I thought, after my first successful visit, I can get into a wheelchair.
That evening, my dad and stepmom brought me a gift: baggy workout shorts and a workout shirt. Easy clothes to put on for a guy with no legs.
“We thought this might help,” Big Csilla said.
“Oh yeah,” I said, almost snatching them out of her hand. Why hadn’t I thought of this before?