by Jeff Bauman
Sergeant Pugliese was also there, looking nothing like a guy who could vault a fence. Only when the adrenaline was pumping, I guess.
Dicky Donohue was there with his wife and two young children. He had been in critical condition for a long time, and he was still walking with a cane. He didn’t remember anything about that night, but he knew who had saved him.
“These guys are heroes,” he said.
“We were doing our jobs,” John MacLellan said.
“It’s amazing more people weren’t hurt,” the chief said. Everyone nodded in agreement. Hundreds of bullets had been fired, bombs had been thrown, and only Tamerlan had died.
We were all quiet for a second, thinking about that. Despite what the movies suggest, shootouts like that never happen. “We had almost seventy-two years of experience on that street,” the chief said, “and nobody had fired their gun in the line of duty. Not even once.”
“It’s over now,” someone said, raising a beer. “To Jeff.”
“To Sean Collier.”
“To Dicky.”
“To the Watertown PD,” I said. “Thank you.”
37.
That same weekend, I went to my nephew Cole’s birthday party in Aunt Jenn’s backyard. It was the middle of August, and it was hot. The Dog Days, they call them in the baseball season, a hundred degrees, one hundred twenty games down, and forty-two to go. The Yankees had collapsed, and the Sox were battling for the best record in the league. Koji Uehara was killing it in the bullpen, and Big Papi was ripping, but I couldn’t get excited about a possible World Series. Playoffs, sure, but no team goes from worst to first in a year, not even a team like this one built on grit, togetherness, and bat-shit crazy. They ground out small victories, day after day. They grew beards in some sick show of solidarity. And I don’t mean nice, trimmed beards. I mean face muffins.
I don’t like the Sox, a friend from New York texted me. But those Amish guys are pretty good.
Hard to believe that only a year ago, I’d introduced Erin to my family after Cole’s party. Now she was practically a member of the family, and no one could imagine a celebration without Carlos and Kevin. I watched them chatting with each other, two of the many people who had come through for me. I watched Cole, Big D, and Sully jumping in the bounce house. It seemed impossible: not just jumping, which was of course impossible for me, but being on the sidelines like that, doing my own thing and having fun, without anybody watching.
A few days before the party, Cole had set up a lemonade stand for me. “I’m going to give Uncle Jeff all the money,” he told Aunt Jenn. Aunt Jenn lived on a main road between the highway and downtown North Chelmsford. It was two lanes, but there was a lot of traffic. Cole put up the banner that had been across the highway on the day I left Spaulding:
Welcome Home, Jeff. Bauman Strong.
I was sick of that banner, but Cole was so happy to be helping his uncle, just like everyone else. He raised $120 selling lemonade. A few of the neighbors gave him $20 and told him to keep the change.
He gave me the money at the party: $60. He had decided, since he did all the work, and it was his ninth birthday and all, that splitting the money was fair.
“Thank you, Forehead,” I said.
I could tell how much stronger I was because it was so easy to wrestle him, even from my wheelchair. Cole is so hyperactive, he can get past most defenses. But now when I held him at arm’s length, he couldn’t get close.
“Go get yourself a Snickers, Forehead,” Uncle Bob joked. “We’re talking here.” Did I mention that Cole has a peanut allergy? Uncle Bob was shameless.
Cole wandered off, although not for a Snickers. Uncle Bob and I stuck to our hot dogs and beer. Around my family, it was mostly like the old days. They were used to me, and they treated me like they always had. But even at Cole’s party, there were people who hadn’t met me before. Who cried when they saw me and wanted to shake my hand.
I thought about the Watertown party. One of the detectives had come up to me later in the evening. “I texted my wife you were here,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “She wanted me to tell you she loves you. That she thinks about you every day.”
Are you kidding me? Look over there, that’s Sergeant John MacLellan. That guy refused to move from behind a tree so he could get a better shot at the bombers. He charged a guy with a gun without knowing the guy was out of bullets. After the shootout, they found bits of shrapnel in his bulletproof vest.
John MacLellan is a hero. John MacLellan deserves to be on a postage stamp.
Me? I can’t even climb a set of stairs.
I looked at Aunt Jenn’s aboveground pool, with its five steps. I had been working for four months, killing myself with leg lifts and walking practice. I had been working on stairs for two solid weeks, and still those steps were insurmountable. I couldn’t have gone into the pool unless I’d been willing to use my arms to crawl, and I wasn’t in the mood to sit on the ground and haul myself up like a gimp.
Besides, I’d gone to Mrs. Corcoran’s sister’s house the week before. It was the first time we’d seen each other since Spaulding. Mrs. Corcoran was adjusting to her new legs. Sydney had gone to her senior prom, where she was voted Prom Queen. It was a beautiful day. Erin and I were in her sister’s pool, having a great time, laughing and wrestling, when suddenly I went under. Somehow, I got pushed toward the bottom. I couldn’t get up. My arms were pinned, and I had no way to kick to the surface.
In a second, I went from happy to helpless. From hope to just… pathetic.
Even worse, the dunk screwed up my hearing. My ears had been improving all summer, but the water pressure screwed up something inside. A week later, in Aunt Jenn’s backyard, the party sounded like a wall of sound.
I took a sip of my beer.
I eyed the stairs to the aboveground pool.
I thought about the back kick, the first step in climbing stairs. Michelle had introduced a new piece of equipment: a piece of paper. She slid it under the foot I was trying to kick back. It was supposed to eliminate friction. I focused on putting my weight on the paper, then kicking it backward. If I could make the paper fly, Michelle said, I would have the correct motion.
How hard was it to make a piece of typing paper fly?
Two weeks, and the paper never flew.
38.
Jules from United Prosthetics met me at Spaulding. She had checked my legs many times before, so I knew her well. “How was your wedding?” I asked.
“Oh, you know,” she said. “Perfect.”
She went to help another patient. By the time she came back, I was in the middle of my session with Michelle. I had walked back and forth using the parallel bars four times, turning around at the end each time.
“I’m tired,” I told Jules. “More tired than I used to be.”
“It’s the loose fit,” she said. “Even a little slippage makes it harder to do the same work. You’re probably using four or five times more effort than before. Do you have any pain?”
“Lots.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere,” I said. “It moves around.”
“Have you tried an extra sock?”
Michelle had already suggested the extra sock. “It pinches my hip.”
“We can cut it down,” Jules said. She explained again that my leg was changing shape. Some areas were bigger than when the socket was created. Others were smaller. Because of the trauma, and the long process of healing, my thighs would probably keep changing shape for the next year. “We can cut the sock to fill in the smaller parts. We can also stuff pieces down in the bottom of the socket, to fill in the gaps at the end of your leg. That’s where you’re really losing energy.”
Erin handed Jules a couple extra socks, and she cut them into shape. I was pissed. These were $100,000 legs, and the best way to correct the fit was to cut some socks and jam cloth into the end of them?
“Can’t I get a new socket?”
“It will take a few weeks,�
�� Jules said, handing me the second sock to roll onto my left leg. “And your leg is changing shape fast. If we can make this work, it’s a better option.”
I fit the socket on my leg, then tightened it with the Velcro strap.
“What about the suction cup?”
I hated the Velcro straps. I had a one-hundred-adjustments-per-second microchip in my artificial knee, and I secured it to my leg with the stuff little kids used to hold on their shoes. I wanted to move up to the suction version, which adhered through compression between my leg and the bottom of my socket. Even that seemed like something a middle school kid would come up with for a science fair, but everyone said it was far more effective.
“That’s not a good idea,” Michelle said.
“We prefer to wait for your leg to settle into shape,” Jules confirmed, feeling my socket like a shoe salesman might feel the foot inside a new shoe. “If the fit isn’t perfect, the suction won’t work. Take a few steps.”
I stood up and walked. The leg felt like deadweight. It was lift, clunk. Lift, clunk. All the technology, and all I really had was a door with a hinge attached to my leg.
“Does it hurt now?” she asked.
“It hurts a lot.”
Jules stared at the leg. “Let me think about it,” she said finally. “I’m going to ask for second opinions at the office. We’ll get you sorted.”
I stood still while she adjusted my legs with electronic readings and small screwdrivers. Jules had a whole case full of tiny tools.
“He’s having trouble with the back kick,” Michelle told her.
“Have you tried a piece of paper?”
Geez, I thought, could this get any more high-tech? Freaking typing paper.
Jules made more adjustments, loosening (or possibly tightening) something to make the kick easier. Each person was different. It took hundreds of adjustments, over several months, to find the right balance.
After the adjustments, I walked to the stairs and pulled myself to the top. Michelle stood behind and held me, so I wouldn’t tip backward. I couldn’t kick and bend my knee enough to keep my weight forward.
At the top, I turned to face down the stairs. Michelle showed me how to place my foot halfway over the edge, then lean forward and bend my other leg, then drop it down. It was scary. I couldn’t feel the stair, because artificial legs are basically stilts, and I could see the drop. It felt like I was falling. Instead, the leg kept locking. I couldn’t get my foot down to the next step.
“That’s the safety mechanism,” Jules said.
We tried again and again, working on adjustments. Jules tightened and loosened. I tried to keep my weight and positioning just right. But if the angle of my standing foot changed too much or too quickly, the leg locked. Or if my weight went too far forward… or if I didn’t bend the standing leg correctly… or my feet were on different planes. I don’t know. There were a hundred different problems to solve.
Just give me the pirate leg, I thought. Just give me the wooden peg, like those old-timers on the wall back at the office.
Two weeks before, Erin and I had finally found a house. It was a one-story ranch on a flat lot. The floors were wooden, easier for me than carpet, and the doorways were wide enough for a wheelchair. Uncle Bob lived a few blocks away, and it was ten minutes to Mom’s. It was ideal, except for three small steps outside the front door.
“I’m going to walk up those steps,” I told Erin, when our offer was accepted. “You won’t even need to help me. I’m going to walk up those steps and into our new life on my own.”
The marathon was eight months away, and walking without crutches, especially in front of thousands of people, still seemed like a step too far. I needed a more manageable goal. Something to focus my mind.
The stairs at the house were perfect. Two weeks ago, I hadn’t even wondered if it would happen. I had known I would walk up those stairs.
Now I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t made progress in weeks. I had stopped wearing my legs, except to Spaulding. If the next month went like the last one, Erin would have to carry me up those stairs. And looking failure in the face like that, setting a goal I might not achieve… it was something I’d been trying to avoid for a long time.
“You’ll get it, Jeff, don’t worry,” Michelle said, putting her arm around my sweaty back and helping me down. “It just takes practice, like riding a bike. Once you’ve mastered it, you’ll be able to do it in your sleep.”
I didn’t say anything. I just grabbed my crutches and walked toward the door with Erin. It was time to go home.
39.
We went to Manchester, New Hampshire, to meet my dad, Big Csilla, my brother Chris, and my stepsister Erika. Dad had been pressuring me to come to Concord and see him, but his house wasn’t wheelchair accessible, and even though Erin did the driving (another issue), sitting that long in one position bothered my legs.
“Just a quick trip, son,” he said, every time we talked on the phone. “You used to come up all the time.”
People from his church were donating their time and supplies to make his house better for me: a wheelchair ramp and porch, the new first-floor bedroom. He wanted those people to meet me. “It’s so easy,” my dad kept saying. “Why aren’t you coming to see me?” He didn’t understand that things that used to be easy, and that I used to do all the time, were the worst for me now. They reminded me how different my life had become.
So we met halfway, in Manchester, New Hampshire, at a comedy club. Erika knew the comedian performing that night. He was funny. We laughed and had a good time. Afterward, he came over and bought us drinks. I’d been pretty tight with my drinking since my injuries. I always had a few at charity events, to help with my social anxiety. But I didn’t drink casually anymore, and I never drank more than a beer or three (or maybe four). When I was drunk, emotions came up that I couldn’t control.
At the club, though, things got a little tipped. The manager kept offering us free shots of tequila, a form of kindness that had become common since my injuries, but this time I kept drinking them. I can’t tell you why. I don’t know if it was because I was having a good time (I was), or because I was frustrated and in pain (I was that, too), or both. After a while, it didn’t matter. If you have enough drinks, you have the next one just because it’s there. By the time Erin and I left, I was drunk.
Erin usually didn’t drink, but she’d put down a few shots. She didn’t feel comfortable driving back to Chelmsford, so she suggested sobering up at Lindsay’s house. Lindsay was a friend of hers who lived in Manchester.
“I want to go home,” I said.
“It will be fun, Jeff,” she said. “You know how much Lindsay loves you.”
I knew how tough Erin’s social life had been since her move to Chelmsford. She hadn’t even seen Remy and Michele in a month. Remy had no permanent damage from the bombing. Michele would have permanent scars on her legs and, because of her Achilles tendon damage, she would never be able to jump off her left leg. Michele didn’t seem too concerned about that.
“No,” I said, “I want to go home.”
“I don’t feel comfortable driving, Jeff.”
“Just take me home.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have drank so much.”
“Call me a cab,” I said. “I’ll take a cab to Chelmsford.”
“Jeff…”
“Call me a helicopter.”
“Jeff…”
“I want a damn helicopter ride home. I can afford it. You know that, right? I can afford a goddamn helicopter ride.”
By then, Erin had pulled up in front of Lindsay’s house. When I saw it, I lost my shit. It was a hundred-year-old, two-story Victorian, the kind you see all over New England. You had to climb five or six steps just to get to the front door, and I could tell from the street, even in the dark, that those stairs were warped and full of splinters.
“No.”
“Please, Jeff.”
“No. I am not doing this.”
“This is my friend—”
“No,” I screamed.
“I need—”
“No,” I screamed again, punching my fist into the dashboard. I hit the radio, and the faceplate shattered. I could see the lights in the console flash and go out, but I couldn’t feel any pain.
Erin got out of the car and went inside. I knew she was crying. I almost didn’t care. I just wanted to be home. But I was stuck in a car I couldn’t drive, in the dark, in New Hampshire. Somehow, I managed to haul myself up the stairs and into the house. I remember drinking more. Lindsay made me a cup of coffee, and I remember angrily punching it out of her hand. At one point, I tried to climb the stairs to the second floor. Erin was up there. Each stair had a hard lip that stuck out, battering me as I hauled myself up with my arms. There was a turn in the middle. I didn’t make it to the top. I remember lying on the steps, exhausted and ashamed. I knew this would happen. I knew, as soon as I saw the house, that I’d be crawling on the floor.
I hated, right then, but I’m not sure exactly what.
In the end, we slept over. But I couldn’t sleep. I had bad nightmares about applesauce and missing legs and the pool of blood. I heard the explosion. I smelled it, like I always did at my worst moments. I tossed on the floor. I lay awake, watching the ceiling spin. At 4:00 in the morning, I pulled myself to the refrigerator for a bottle of water. It was one of those fridges with the freezer on the bottom. Even sitting up, I couldn’t reach the shelves.
I grabbed the refrigerator handle and pulled myself onto my legs. I was standing now, without my prosthetics. My weight was driving down on the ends of my femurs. It was like jamming your elbows into the ground and lifting your body with them. I wanted to scream, and maybe I should have. Maybe that was what I needed.
Everything hurt that night. Everything. But the water saved me, because the next morning, it was just my legs that were killing me, and not my head.