The Birth of Super Crip

by Rob J. Quinn

  Red shook his hand and smiled. “Five bucks.”

  The 14-14 score deep into the third quarter had the crowd getting increasingly boisterous with each play. A strengthening wind only seemed to fuel them more. Penn Valley seniors had taken to joining the cheerleaders’ chants from the bleachers, calling for “D-fense” with rhythmic stomping of their feet, which the rest of the students gradually joined.

  Once again the Raiders had made it beyond midfield only to find themselves in a third-and-long situation. Red had his hands jammed into his jacket pockets. The hood of the sweatshirt he wore under his jacket framed his face, with the strings pulled as tight as possible. It was providing little warmth against the now constant wind as the temperature continued to drop. He was already shivering at times, but resisted the urge to get in his wheelchair to go down the ramp and seek out protection from the wind until his brother was ready to drive them home.

  Instead, Red focused on the Folsom quarterback as he took the snap and looked to throw. Bringing his arm back and stepping into the throw to launch a 15-yard pass to his tallest receiver, he exposed the ball for all to see. For what felt like the thirtieth time of the night, Red locked his eyes on the ball as the quarterback let it fly and pushed it at least ten yards over the receiver’s outstretched hands. The wideout looked back at his quarterback with his palms up as if to say, “What’re you doing?” Red watched the quarterback make the same motion and shrug, and felt a twinge of guilt.

  The sound system squealed to life, and the announcer yelled, “Fourth down!” in such a partisan way that his communications instructor wouldn’t have approved. The crowd loved it, however, and didn’t seem to notice the sound of a crack in the background. Red instantly looked back at the booth, then looked at Pete.

  “What?” Pete asked, mirroring Red’s efforts to stay warm.

  “Nothing,” Red said. “Thought I heard something snap.”

  Pete glanced back, but was clearly unconcerned or too cold to care. Taking a look around, Red noticed that the tops of the trees standing just outside the stadium had begun to sway when the first raindrops found his face. He checked the scoreboard towering over the field about ten yards behind the end zone to their right to see how much time was left in the third quarter. Instead, he thought he noticed the scoreboard move ever so slightly in the wind. As fast as he dismissed that idea and told himself to stop being paranoid, he heard the rain begin a steady tapping on the parts of the bleachers that were empty.

  “Great,” he heard Pete mutter.

  Red tried to turn his attention back to the game. Taking possession on their own 20-yard line after the punt had been ruled a touchback, the Lions didn’t move the ball at all on first down. While the wave was coming with ease, Red barely feeling it recede when there was a break in the game, getting the results he wanted was proving to be much more difficult than he expected. Helping Penn Valley on defense wasn’t too hard, especially with pass plays on a windy night. Running plays were a bit more challenging. He figured pushing running backs to the ground without a defensive player making at least some contact would raise questions. The same was true on offense. There were only so many times a defender could inexplicably fall down. And more than a few plays had proven that he could only do so much on a pass play.

  Finally, the quarterback dropped back on second-and-long. He had a receiver wide open for a first down. The pass rush closed in, and he was hit as he threw. Red pushed what would have been a wobbler into the ground right into the receiver’s chest only to watch him drop it.

  “What the hell!” he screamed. “Do I have to catch it for you?”

  Pete looked over at him with a blank stare.

  Realizing what he’d just said, Red tried to cover his tracks. “What?” he said. “I’m just sayin’ catch the damn thing.”

  Pete struggled to hear him over the wind. Red leaned closer and repeated himself in a shout.

  “Yeah, and you could do better,” Pete shouted back before turning to watch the game.

  Happy his friend seemed satisfied with the response, Red didn’t risk a comeback.

  Instead, Red started to think a fluke play on the punt might be the best way to get the home team into scoring range. Nothing else was working, and he didn’t know how many opportunities were left.

  His eyes shifted to Pete, then quickly away. Does he know? he wondered. Red looked at the clock again. With just seconds left, there wouldn’t be another snap in the third quarter, and there was no guarantee Penn Valley would even have a reason to punt again. Besides, they would be going into the wind in the fourth quarter. It made his plan for a long punt that he hoped to make sure was mishandled by Folsom and recovered by the Lions all the more implausible.

  At the snap of the ball, Red instantly knew there was nothing he could do short of pushing down the entire defensive line as three Raiders converged on the running back in the backfield. Instead, he stole another opportunity to help the left end pancake Chuck, pushing him to the ground with the wave as the defender went around him.

  “C’mon!” Pete yelled after the third-down draw play went nowhere. “How many times is Chuck just gonna fall to the ground?”

  “I know,” Red said, continuing to look straight ahead for fear of laughing. “He sucks!” Watching Chuck pound the ground and then walk to the sideline as the coach laid into him, Red felt just a little guilty. He decided Chuck had taken enough for one game.

  Penn Valley called time-out with a second left in the quarter to be able to punt with the wind.

  Scott came running up the bleachers moments after the whistle sounded for the time-out. He motioned for Red to meet him at the railing. Moving carefully, Red kept his head down as the wind had suddenly picked up and was sending a now-steady rain almost sideways. Each drop that found his face felt like a little pellet bouncing off him. The sound of the crowd’s latest song selection, “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” barely reached them. Red looked over Scott’s shoulder to see what seemed like every student on the Penn Valley side standing and chanting as much as singing the final line of the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic.

  “You want to take off?” Scott screamed louder than necessary to be heard over the wind.

  Red reluctantly nodded. “Yeah, this is brutal. Let’s go.”

  “What?” Scott snapped. “I was just saying that loud enough to give us an excuse to talk.”

  Red rolled his eyes.

  “So, what gives?” Scott asked.

  “Huh?” Red muttered, genuinely confused.

  “Tie score, man. Thought you were gonna help us out.”

  “How do you think it’s tie, genius?” Red said. “Dude, I’ve stuck it in their gut about twenty times and they still drop the damn ball.”

  “You could stop messing with our right tackle.”

  “Yeah, but what fun would that be,” Red said. He could see his brother was less than amused. “Relax. He’s off the hook for the rest of the night.”

  Scott shrugged. “How ’bout shutting out the Folsom Rats?”

  “You come up with that one by yourself?”

  “Whatever. C’mon, man.”

  Red looked at him with raised eyebrows. “I’m trying. You really think the wind caused . . .” A gust of wind was so strong he had to turn his head.

  “I guess it is worse up here,” Scott said.

  “. . . all those passes to sail out of bounds. I can’t just push down every running back when nobody’s near them.”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  Red looked around. The people nearby seemed too busy trying to stay warm to worry about them, even if they could hear the conversation.

  “I was thinking about doing something on the punt,” he said, now having to scream into Scott’s ear just to be heard. “But it would take a lot. If it’s too crazy, I don’t know, I don’t want to make it obvious.” He didn’t bother trying to explain his slip-up around Pete.

  Scott leaned into his ear. “You really think one crazy play is goi
ng to make anyone think some kid is using his newfound superpower to help the Lions?”

  Superpower? Red thought. Is that what this is? he wondered for the first time.

  “Besides, what are they really going to do?” Scott continued. “Tell someone? Everyone would think they were nuts.”

  Red barely heard the last couple words his brother spoke. He leaned against the railing to steady himself against the wind.

  A loud crack pierced through the wind and the students’ chants. The brothers both looked up as a massive tree came crashing down on the broadcast booth. Red saw the kid who was calling the game already halfway down the steps with a guy on his heels. The tree’s path was only momentarily halted, its weight beginning what many had always thought was the inevitable toppling of the booth.

  The sound of splintering wood from both the tree and the booth elicited a loud gasp from the crowd, along with a few screams of teenage terror. Red’s muscles tensed up. He watched in horror as the booth gave way, crashing slowly but undeniably toward them.

  Grabbing his brother from behind, Scott started to pull Red over the railing. Finding the lower rung of the railing with his foot to push himself up as Scott pulled, Red suddenly grabbed the top rung with his hand.

  “Pete!”

  He was never going to make it. He was on his feet, leaning on just one crutch while reaching down for the other.

  The wave came like never before, Red unleashing a tsunami at the booth, pushing it back against the falling tree as if it had been hit by a cannonball. The explosion of the booth and the tree shattered windows half a block from the school.

  Finally, yanking Red over the railing, Scott forced his brother to the walkway and laid on top of him, waiting for debris to fall on them. Thunderous footsteps seemed to surround them as the crowd scrambled for the exits.

  Scott eventually got to his knees and looked down at his brother. Red’s eyes were closed and he lay motionless.

  “Red,” Scott said, “c’mon, we gotta get out of here.”

  Red didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch. “Red!” Scott screamed, shaking him. “Red!”

  Chapter 12

  Midday sunlight soaked the room despite the drawn shades. He could hear himself breathing as he lay still, having no desire to get out of bed. Red rubbed his face. A long, lung-clearing yawn escaped from him. Every muscle in his body yearned to go back to sleep. Before pulling the covers back up over his shoulders, he reached for the clock to turn it around so he could see the time, but it was already facing him.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the daylight-dulled digits read 12:09. Sliding his legs to the edge of the bed, he sat up.

  How is it afternoon already? he thought.

  Red suddenly realized he didn’t remember going to bed the previous night. What did I do? Running his hand through his hair, he noticed his clothes in a pile on the floor and his sweatshirt slung over the desk chair. It triggered a memory of pulling the hood string as far as he could to try to stay warm against the wind.

  A strange knock, more like a light thud, came at the door, and his mom gently pushed it open with a tray holding his breakfast.

  “Well, it’s about time,” she said softly. “I was getting worried. You never sleep this long.”

  “Hi,” he said, in a low early morning voice. “What’s going on?”

  His mom put the tray down on the desk and cleared away a couple books. “I just thought I’d bring your breakfast up,” she said, and took him by the arm to help him to the desk chair. “I want you to take it very easy for a couple days. Besides, you’re a bit of a celebrity.”

  Too tired to resist and not really wanting to, Red sat at his desk and took a long drink of orange juice through the straw. A disjointed memory of talking to Scott at the game the previous night raced through his mind. “Celebrity? Why? How’d I get to bed last night?”

  Beginning to straighten up the room, his mom pulled the shades up. “Your father carried you,” she said. “Scott called from the game after you passed out. A doctor was there and gave you a quick once-over, and said you just needed some rest. You woke up a couple times, even talked to him, but you were pretty out of it.”

  He didn’t remember talking to a doctor at all.

  “Since we’re going out to York for the specialist on Monday, I figured he can just check you out,” she said. “And a photographer for the Folsom school paper caught a picture of Scott hauling you over the railing. It made the front page of the Philadelphia Times.”

  It all rushed back to him now. The cold wind. The rain. Freezing most of the game. Pushing passes with the wave. The tree. The booth.

  “Pete!”

  He had a mouthful of waffles and even his mom couldn’t understand him at first. Swallowing, he repeated, “Pete, is he okay?”

  “He’s fine,” Scott said, coming in and slapping the front section of the paper on his desk. “Pretty cool picture, eh?”

  The two of them, seen from behind, were in the foreground of a photo showing the broadcast booth about to topple under the weight of the tree. Red was still looking back at the booth as his brother pulled him over the railing. Pete could be seen attempting to reach his feet, serious injury at the very least appearing inevitable. The picture covered a quarter of the front page above the fold, the headline asking a one-word question: “MIRACLE?”

  Red looked up and Scott answered the question that was on his face. “Some people swear a mini tornado formed at just the right time,” Scott said with a subtle shake of his head that told Red no one knew that he had done it. “I think they’re full of shit.”

  Their mother stopped making the bed just long enough to lightly smack him in the back of the head. “You know I don’t like that language,” she said, returning to making the bed without missing a beat. “Besides, how else do you explain that booth—and the tree—being pushed backwards all of a sudden? Pete didn’t have a scratch on him. No one did.”

  “It was a miracle,” Scott whispered with as much drama as he could deliver.

  “Funny boy,” Mary monotoned, and began picking up the clothes scattered around the room.

  Red stopped eating long enough to ask, “Where’s Dad, Mom?”

  “I sent both your father—and brother—outside so you could rest,” she said, giving Scott a look.

  “I came in to get a drink and heard you two talking. I figured I’d come check on my brother,” Scott said. “Besides, Dad’s working on the hedges. And we all know . . .”

  “Don’t touch the hedges,” the boys said in unison.

  Mary couldn’t help but laugh, knowing her husband was obsessed with having the hedges perfectly sculpted. He didn’t allow anyone else to trim them. “Anyway,” she said, changing her tone and the subject, “your brother was very worried about you. And both of your older brothers have called from college.”

  “How’d they hear anything?”

  “Well, Timmy’s at Penn,” she said. “I’m sure there’s plenty of Times floating around. And he must have called Tom at Notre Dame.”

  “We’re all just so worried about you,” Scott teased, reaching out to caress his brother’s face.

  Red quickly swatted his hands away. “Get off.”

  “Do not rile up your brother,” their mom said sharply. Despite the clothes in her arms, she managed to point at Red. “I mean it. You’re resting this weekend. No horsing around. No football.”

  “Alright,” he said, feeling so exhausted he didn’t need the warning.