by Joan Bauer
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Coach Glummer had always felt that Eleanor Roosevelt, a tall person, had untapped basketball potential.
“There is hidden talent on this team, and we’re going to find it.” He stood in front of Tree and gazed up.
“There’s gold in you, kid.”
“There’s not, Coach. Really.”
“You’re a Pit Bull for a reason.”
The reason, thought Tree, is that I need six sports credits to graduate from middle school.
Coach Glummer put the ball in Tree’s huge hands. “I know talent when I see it.”
And Tree so wanted to tell him that being big didn’t mean being talented. Being big didn’t mean extra special or super-human or athletically gifted.
It just meant large.
Every coach Tree had ever known believed that somewhere he had athletic ability.
“Keep your eye on the ball,” coaches had shouted to him over the years.
Tree tried. He focused on basketballs, footballs, baseballs, golf balls, soccer balls, tennis balls, Ping-Pong balls, but they rarely went where they were supposed to go.
“Trust your instincts,” they told him.
Tree tried. But his basic instinct was to avoid sports altogether.
“Use your strength,” they’d advise.
Tree knew he was strong, but he couldn’t figure out how to use it. He could lift a couch by himself, but that didn’t come in handy except when his mother was rearranging the furniture.
“Keep practicing,” they’d shout.
Tree kept practicing and stayed mediocre.
“I’m not real athletic,” he told coach after coach.
But they weren’t listening. They were remembering the trophy years when Tree’s brothers, Curtis and Larry, carried their teams to victory.
Tree’s father came back from those games a proud man. Curtis and Larry got college sports scholarships.
Tree’s dad came back from Tree’s games saying, “It’s not about winning, it’s about playing your best.”
That’s what winning athletes always say to losers.
Tree hoped there were college scholarships for height.
He wished Coach Glummer could see him help his grandfather. He could steady a one-hundred-and-eighty-pound man by himself, fold up and carry a wheelchair one-handed, but that didn’t count on the basketball court or in grammar or much of anywhere.
He bounced the basketball in his hands.
Bounced it again.
Mr. Cosgrove was fixing the scoreboard.
Someone had taken some letters off again. Instead of PIT BULLS it read PITS.
Last week it read BULL PITS.
Mr. Cosgrove stood on a tall ladder, added the BULL, moved the S, epoxied them in place. Held them down till the glue set. Those letters weren’t going anywhere.
Nothing like epoxy to make a thing right.
Tree bounced the ball, kept his eye on the net. Shot.
Missed.
He tried five times.
Coach Glummer shouted, “You’re so close to the net, kid, how can you keep missing?”
Because, Tree thought, I’m not good at this.
Mr. Cosgrove walked off, carrying his ladder; smiled so kindly at Tree. Just last week, he’d fixed the door in the library—rescued Mrs. Asher, the librarian, who’d been stuck in the media center for two hours.
Jeremy Liggins made an easy basket, smirked at Tree.
Tree wanted to make baskets, too, but even more than that, he wanted to go home.
“There are big things in store for you, boy.” Tree’s uncle Roger always told him this. “Big things.”
What are they?
That’s what Tree wanted to know.
VA Rehab Center. Six P.M.
Grandpa was tired, but he wasn’t going to admit it. He stood at the parallel bars. There were mirrors all around. Tree put a riser in front of him. Dad was supposed to be here tonight, but there’d been a problem at the store again.
Mona Arnold, the physical therapist, wore a white jacket and white pants. She’d been born in Ethiopia in eastern Africa, came here as a girl.
She stood alongside Grandpa. “Learning to move without that leg is going to feel different than when you were walking with an injured one, Leo. Our brains are wired to have all our limbs working. I want you to take it slow and not be a hotshot.”
“Check.”
Grandpa didn’t like going slow. He grabbed the bars, slid forward, up on the riser and down again. Over and over. Tree watched.
“That’s good, Leo. How does that feel?”
“Like the leg’s still there and hurting.”
He’d have sworn last night it had never gotten amputated at all.
Mona nodded. “That’s called phantom pain. It’s very normal.”
Grandpa muttered that it might be normal, but it sure felt weird having a ghost for a leg.
“The big goal,” she said to Tree, “is to get your grandpa strong so he can get his new leg. I need to teach him how to do things with half a leg that lots of people take for granted. Getting on the toilet. Taking a bath. Getting dressed. Getting in and out of a car, maneuvering around the kitchen, carrying food from one room to the next. The more you understand how this works, Tree, the more you can help.”
Tree nodded, brought the walker over. Grandpa wheeled himself to an exercise pad, hopping on his good leg. Tree helped him lie down, strapped a leg weight to his stump.
Other men were exercising, too.
“Lift, Leo,” Mona said. “Hold it for eight.”
Grandpa struggled with this.
Luger, a huge vet who’d lost a hand, was practicing holding a cup with a prosthetic hand. He kept dropping the cup. Over and over he tried to pick it up.
“You almost got it, Luger,” a soldier in a back brace shouted.
“How’s that leg feel, Leo?” Mona asked.
“Like I’ve got a lead weight attached to a sore stump. You’re a cruel woman.”
She smiled. “I get meaner. Three reps on that. Then switch to your good leg. Five reps. We’ve got to strengthen the good leg because it’s going to be taking more of the weight. All through this process we’re going to strengthen the best you’ve got. So, what have you got, Leo?”
Grandpa looked at his half leg. It was easy to see the loss of it. He was a one-legged man; disabled.
But he wasn’t going to concentrate on that.
“I’ve got every part of my body working except below my right knee. I’ve got a decent mind, a big-time stubborn streak, and a world-class grandson.”
Tree smiled bright.
“That’s a lot, Leo.”
A few more reps, Grandpa switched the weight to his good leg. This was hard work.
Luger dropped the cup again, frustrated. He’d been a drummer. He sure couldn’t do that now.
He shouted out like a drill sergeant, “Men, are we having fun yet?”
“No, sir!” the vets cried out.
“Men, are we going to fight this like soldiers or fools?”
The vets looked at one another, grinned.
“Like fools, sir!”
Everyone laughed.
Luger dropped his cup again, but this time he kicked it hard across the room.
“I can still kick!”
And everyone in rehab worked a little harder.
Tree took it in, thinking about his oral report he had to give tomorrow on the Vietnam War.
Tree hated oral reports.
Jeremy Liggins smirked at him, made him forget things. Once Jeremy held up a sign when Tree was giving a report on wolves.
BEHEMOTH BOY, it read.
Tree forgot a whole section of his report that day.
“Gargantuan Gargoyle”—that was Jeremy’s latest name for Tree.
Tree took the names apart. Decided Jeremy had his species confused—he could be either a boy or a gargoyle, not both.
Tree
wasn’t going to look at Jeremy tomorrow.
He’d look at Sully, who would seem interested even if he was bored stiff. Sully wore a hearing aid and never turned it off when Tree was giving a report.
That’s the kind of friend he was.
Tree had never worked so hard on a report in his life.
He hoped he could change Mr. Pender’s C-minus opinion of him as a public speaker. He always got a C minus from Mr. Pender.
“More energy, Tree.” Mr. Pender always said this. “Make eye contact. Make that delivery snappy. Show us you care. Make us care.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“What is the purpose of war?”
Tree said this loud to the class; tried to make eye contact, nervous as anything.
“Sometimes the answer is clear. In the Revolutionary War, the United States wanted freedom from taxation from England. In the Civil War, the country fought over slavery. In World War Two, countries came together to stop Hitler’s invasion across Europe. But the Vietnam War was different. To many people, the purpose of that war is still unclear.”
Tree felt his mouth get chalky; he looked at Mr. Pender, who actually looked interested. Sully leaned forward in his seat.
Tree turned to the first poster he’d made—showing antiwar demonstrations and soldiers fighting in the jungle.
“Our country was divided about Vietnam. Some people believed the war should go on and some people felt it was wrong. It was a new kind of war, too, because people could see it on their TV screens and watch people die in battle. It was a different kind of war because of the military weapons that were used.”
Another poster. This one of unusual words.
“The Vietnam War had its own language. A ‘Bird’ was a plane. A ‘Big Boy’ was a tank. ‘Bug Juice’ was insect repellent.”
The class laughed. Tree felt strong, way above C minus.
“‘Greased,’” Tree said solemnly, “meant killed.”
He talked about the U.S. presidents who oversaw the war—Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford. He talked about President Jimmy Carter, who gave amnesty to the draft dodgers, men who left the country instead of fighting in a war that they didn’t think was right.
He talked about how so many vets felt like unwelcome strangers when they came home because the country had changed while they were gone.
He showed them pictures of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., which had every name of every soldier who had died carved into a wall.
He talked about putting a wreath by his grandfather’s good friend’s name.
“When you go there, you can see your reflection in the black stone of the wall,” Tree explained. “It makes us all part of the experience.”
Tree held up a photo of Leo looking sharp in his uniform. “My grandfather served in Vietnam. He was wounded in battle. I asked him what he thought kids should know about the war.”
Tree pressed PLAY on the tape recorder. Grandpa’s voice boomed through the classroom.
“The people who went to fight that war, for the most part, did their best to fight an enemy that was harder to figure out and more dangerous than any of us knew. Most of us were kids—nineteen, twenty—I was twenty-five. We thought we’d kick butt and everything would be over fast. We’d win. We didn’t win. I think we stayed too long and made some really bad mistakes. But we did things right, too. I think important things are worth fighting for, but there’s nothing glorious about battle, nothing cool about holding a gun. It’s scary and lonely, and too many people die young. Never be a person who wants war—hate it with everything you’ve got. But if you’ve got to fight to protect people, try to do your job the best you know how. Protecting people is the only reason to ever fight.”
Everyone was quiet after hearing that, even Lucy Pulaski, who had the biggest mouth in the whole seventh grade.
Tree forgot the quote he was going to use at the end. So he just said, “That’s my report.”
Mr. Pender led the applause.
Sully whistled loud and Mr. Pender glared at him, but he kept clapping.
Jeremy Liggins yawned and stretched.
Tree sat back in his seat, shaking from the stress.
Glad it was over, proud he’d stood the test.
A
Fat and red. It sat there on Mr. Pender’s evaluation sheet of Tree’s report.
Tree felt like shouting.
Then the VA said Grandpa could come home on Friday.
What a great week.
Tree was going to make this the best homecoming ever for a Vietnam vet. Grandpa said he hadn’t felt too welcome when he got back from the war.
“I was at the train station in my wheelchair, wearing my uniform,” Grandpa had told him. “A woman stormed up to me and said, ‘Was it worth it?’ I didn’t know what to say. She kept shouting that Vietnam was an unjust war; we had no business being there. She walked away like I smelled bad. I had plenty of friends who served and some who went to Canada to avoid the draft. But I’ve just learned to throw the circuit breaker on all that. Let the whole mess go dark.”
Tree tucked his right knee back and hopped through Dad’s kitchen as Bradley followed, confused. He was remembering what Mona Arnold had told him.
“Think about everything you do each day, and then think about doing it with a disability.”
It was hard to hop in the house without falling.
Sully was at the dining room table, researching sedimentary rocks on the computer for their earth science report. Sully looked up. “What are you doing?”
Tree made it to a chair, eased himself down like Mona Arnold was teaching Grandpa to do.
“Butt down and slide,” she instructed.
Butt sliding was a big part of rehab.
“That’s what my grandpa’s got to do when he gets home, Sully.”
Sully nodded. He didn’t know what it was like to have half a leg, but he knew what it was like to have bad hearing. You have to try harder to understand what people are saying; watch what they do, not just what they say. Sully adjusted his hearing aid.
Tree looked around the room, thinking.
Homecomings should be fun.
He saw it in his mind. The best ideas are simple.
He grabbed a piece of paper, drew a clothesline on a pulley hung from the kitchen to the living room. A big basket suspended from the line, delivering food to wherever his grandpa was sitting.
Sully glared at the computer screen. “Who cares if sediment is mechanical, chemical, or organic? Knowing this will not help us later in life.”
“Unless we drill for oil. I’ll be right back.”
Tree raced through the kitchen, into the garage, past the bikes and the lawn mower, past the old Chinese gong that used to hang on the back porch. His mother would ram it with a mallet to call him and his brothers in for dinner.
That sound shook the neighborhood.
It was out of commission now, like a warship in dry dock.
On a shelf he found a pulley, an old clothesline.
He grabbed his tool kit, too, ran back inside. Lugged forty feet of line past Sully, who shouted, “What are you doing?”
Tree was on a step stool, pulling rope through the pulley, when Dad came home with Chinese food.
“I can explain,” Tree said. He and Sully tugged on the rope to make sure it was tight.
“Good.” Dad stared at the clothesline stretched from kitchen to dining room.
“Dad, do we need the hanging lamp in the living room?”
“I’m kind of fond of it.” Dad speared a dumpling with a chopstick.
“Can I just try something?”
“You should let him, Mr. Benton. This is more educational than homework.”
Dad raised an eyebrow.
Tree took the hanging lamp off the hook, handed it down.
He fastened the pulley to the hook. Checked the weight, balance. “Grandpa won’t be able to reach it here. It’s got to be lower. Untie the rope, Dad.”
&nbs
p; Dad walked over, chewing, untied it.
“If I bolt it on the beam, Dad, it will be steady. Okay?”
Dad laughed. “I’m a sport.”
“This is going to be so cool, Mr. Benton.”
Bolt screwed in, pulley and rope adjusted.
Dad watched, smiling.
Tree ran to the kitchen, stuck a package of Mallomars in a basket, clamped the basket on the rope.
“This is how we can deliver food to Grandpa when he gets home, Dad.”
Swoosh.
Tree pulled the rope through the pulley. The basket made a low loop in the dining room—he’d have to fix that—Bradley tucked his tail low and slinked away. The basket stopped right over the couch.
Bradley barked.
Tree beamed.
Dad grabbed it, laughing. “Terrific!”
Sully gazed respectfully at the invention. “My mother would croak if we tried that at my house.”
Tree and Dad nodded.
Occasionally something awful, like divorce, can have a good side.
It was late. Dad was asleep.
Tree stood in the driveway in front of the basketball hoop. The air was cold; his breath rose like steam.
He bounced the ball.
Tried to rise up on his toes like Curtis taught him.
Took a shot.
Missed.
Another.
Almost.
He dribbled the ball up and down the driveway.
The neighbors couldn’t see how bad he was at night.
He wasn’t graceful like Curtis, who could dribble a ball past anyone to make the basket.
He wasn’t easy with himself like Larry, who could pick up a bat and hit a home run on the first pitch.
He wondered why he was not like his brothers.
Curtis and Larry were coming home on Friday, too.
Curtis took time to do things with Tree. They’d play basketball together. And unlike his coaches, who always told Tree what he was doing wrong, Curtis shouted out what he was doing right.
“Good move on the hands.”
“Good bounce on the ball.”
“Good focus, you almost had that basket.”
Larry was a pain. “Giant tree sloth,” that’s what he called Tree.