HEIL & WAG

The Enemy presented himself to Cullen and company after the first day of middle school. Not with an exchange of names, but by colliding with them at top speed. The group tumbled to the sidewalk like scattered bowling pins. The Enemy seemed as surprised by the collision as his victims. Shaking off the cobwebs, the younger boys were horrified to see a significantly larger teenager looming. The Enemy gaped at his prey. He peered down with fury swirling in his milky, aquamarine eyes. His pupils danced on the heavy water of his disturbed eyes. Then, an even stranger thing happened:

 

The Enemy’s attention was diverted by his right arm, which suddenly gained a life of its own. His arm shot skyward at an angle eerily reminiscent of the Nazi seig heil salute. He made a fist, extended his index finger skyward, and began rapidly wagging it. Like an irate grandmother shaming her grandchildren for stealing from the cookie jar. The wagging speed increased exponentially. The Enemy’s arm wiggled while extended at that profligate angle, his hand an ethereal blur. This blur, cloud, ethereal mist - whatever he saw within appropriated his attention utterly. He peered inside like the mysteries of the universe were contained within and he was moments from making discoveries greater than Da Vinci ever dreamed. Then he vanished. Quickly as a he had come.

 

After Cullen’s first week back at school, his dad packed their fly gear for a celebratory fishing trip. No sooner had Cullen cast his line above the river, than he suffered his first attack. Like an industrial power drill boring through his stomach, shredding his intestines, leaving his innards unrecognizable. Cullen’s face turned fever red, and he blew breakfast chunks into the river, just missing his waders. After breakfast was out, he dry heaved so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. Eventually, he snatched life-giving oxygen from the troposphere and filled his lungs. He managed two more breaths before the pain ebbed. He felt hollowed out inside. His father stared at him bug-eyed, not sure what to do. He put his hand on Cullen’s shoulder to comfort him, but that made the dry heaves even worse, and he yanked his hand away as if it had been on fire. Cullen could tell his dad wasn’t processing the situation and started walking the six blocks home, where mom would have the answer.

 

Diagnosis: junk food.

_____

 

The Tiger’s game was at the bottom of the fifth when Cullen’s pain returned with a vengeance unlike anything Bruce Willis could summon from John McLain, his notorious Die Hard character. Cullen’s family was glued to the TV. That’s when the industrial drill spun up again, preparing to gore a massive hole through him. He stumbled into the bathroom, dropped to the tile before the toilet, and puked up more blood than even his parents could ignore. Cullen’s on-call pediatrician suggested taking him to the Children’s Hospital Emergency Room. They would know what to do about the blood. Cullen knew he’d prefer watching the game than endure a Sunday office visit for a kid’s stomachache.

 

The world turned on an axis of blood. Cullen couldn’t remember whether it debuted in his puke, piss, or poo but its appearance in his vomit before the physicians at Children’s Hospital was the final straw. Cullen was assigned a doctor named Honeycutt to lead a diagnostic team that wouldn’t rest until they knew what was hinky with him. Dr. Honeycutt lead the charge against the mystery disease assailing Cullen. What could his 6-person, genius-level, top scientific minds offer that Dr. Honeycutt couldn’t? More perspective. Fresh perspectives were constantly in short supply.

 

While sequestered downtown, Cullen’s friends brought his schoolbooks, and their class notes to keep him up to date on all school business. They also brought scuttlebutt on the Enemy. First, his real name was Robbie something. Despite his size and eighth grade status, Robbie was actually sixteen. He was in the yearbook five years running. He should be learning to drive, not how to read. He wasn’t held back because of his evident disability, but at his mother’s insistence. She wanted him in a “normal school.”  But he was nothing like those kids. They had completed each grade and matriculated to the next. Eighth grade was Robbie’s Everest.

 

Cullen couldn’t wait to return to his life. Dr. Honeycutt promised him he’d make it to class on Monday. He’d been tested every which way and that, in between watching television non-stop. He was giggling at Bart Simpson when he caught a flash of the Enemy through his open door. Robbie was skipping down the hallway. Finger wagging. No. Freaking. Way. Cullen peered around his doorway to confirm his suspicion. Alas, there he was. The Enemy, sporting a loose hospital gown, untied in the back with bum hanging out, skipping merrily down the hall after his finger like carefree toddler after a butterfly. Cullen closed the door to his room and rigged a chair for an alarm. He shuddered to think of what horrors the Enemy might bring in the night. When the week finally ended, he noted that Robbie had vanished from his floor.

_____

 

Thanksgiving arrived with pies of many flavors, cookies galore, a savory meal and, of course, the real reason behind the season, the annual Detroit Lion’s game. For this quasi-religious family, the game was the most revered part of the holiday. They watched with the regularity that zealous sorts reserved for an odd breakfast Sunday morning at the Lord’s house. Except the Lions were God and the current quarterback was quasi-crucified by mid-season. The defense failed early. Cullen’s dad groaned and polished off his beer. He liked to joke that his first beer of Thanksgiving was his version of the holy communion. May the 7.8% alcohol by volume blood of Christ be with you. Amen.

 

When Cullen woke, he was already at Children’s hospital with a puke bin clutched between his hands. The time was well past midnight. The Lions had stomped the Bears. The medical team created a dietary plan to minimize Cullen’s flare-ups. Until they discovered the source of his pain, he was to either stay hospital-bound or come on weekends for abbreviated testing. Cullen elected to rip off the band aid quickly. He got to spend the weekend at home to gather some personal items to make the hospital homier. If such a thing was possible. Then it was back to his cell.

 

Given that Cullen’s parents were entrepreneurs who worked long hours and couldn’t spare the time to drive downtown, the thoughtful people at the Children’s Hospital arranged a one-sided carpool arrangement with someone from Cullen’s neighborhood. He didn’t recognize the name. He went home for the weekend to pack and warily counted down the hours until his carpool arrived, when he would turn himself over to medicine for the foreseeable future.

 

Imagine his shock when his carpool arrived and the Enemy was strapped into the back seat, his index finger wagging out the window, shaming the world and the fools treading its odious circumference. Cullen reticently slid into the backseat of the Explorer, buckled up, and gave Robbie as much personal space possible.

 

From the front seat, “Hi-ee, I’m Mrs. Raskin. Robbie’s mom!” Her saccharine voice cut through the panic brewing in Cullen’s brain. He couldn’t help but wonder why the front passenger seat was empty. Robbie was pushing six feet tall. Easily the tallest dude in eighth grade. Why was he in back? Something was amiss. Or had been. Cullen wondered what would happen if Robbie was allowed a life without child locks.

           

“Cullen,” He introduced himself to Mrs. Raskin perfunctorily. There might as well have been a giant green space monster between them.

 

Mrs. Raskin didn’t do silence. “How are you feeling?” She greeted Cullen like she’d been driving him for months rather than for the first time. Cullen stayed silent, got in, and spent the drive downtown side-eyeing Robbie, trying to catch him before his arm heiled and his finger wagged. His mother cheerfully peppered Cullen with basic mom questions while mostly ignoring her own son. “Think the doctors will have any news for you?” She finally tossed in a question for Cullen.

 

“They’re still doing tests,” Cullen explained.

 

“Whenever we came here, I’d say a little prayer for either good news or that the doctor wouldn’t have the time to see us. I know that no news isn’t really good news, but it’s so important to stay positive. I wake up every morning and pray to God that ‘today is going to be a great day! And one way or another, I’ll be damned if something positive doesn’t happen to stoke my attitude,” She took a pregnant pause. “I thank God for this place. Do you know why Robbie comes here?”

“I assumed it had something to do with the finger thing,” Cullen uttered, more callously than intended.

Robbie peered into Cullen like he was the source of the mysterious blur. As if he were incomprehensibly looking down and shaking his head in judgement, noting everything he was about to expose. “I have brain cancer,” He put it bluntly, wielding his diagnosis like a shield.

Later, Dr. Honeycutt explained things in a way that Cullen understood. “You and Robbie have about six months left to play that Defender game.” He paused to see if Cullen was picking up what he was laying down. Cullen opened the window for fresh air, catching only the following words and phrases, “undiagnosed pineal blastoma tumor,” “spreading,” “complications,” and “every day could be his last.”

 

_____

 

 

Upon arrival, Mrs. Raskin directed Cullen to ask the security guard for directions to Gastro. He obliged and Cullen accelerated in the opposite direction, leaving Mrs. Raskin and Robbie in the fictitious hospital dust. Cullen wasn’t feeling poorly now, so there wasn’t much for his diagnostic team to observe, besides his off-the-hook Defender skills. The nurse promised they would get his metrics when he was functioning properly. Seemed like medicine was waiting on Cullen now. After a dinner of unseasoned chicken breast, flavorless white rice, fruit minus sugar (somehow) - patients were left to their own devices to socialize. Mostly. Many simply returned to their room. The majority migrated toward the rec room. There was a chapel for faithers. Comfortable chairs for reading. Others looking listless. Feeling like the healthiest person in the room, Cullen decided to check out the rec room post repast.

 

Call it an eye opener and an ass-clencher. The inhabitants were long term patients too ill to do much. But even sick kids needed to play, a poster reminded me. Play and joy were symbiotic with the other therapies because they diverted patients from what everyone else wanted to discuss – just how sick are you, little dude? Who needs a shot of pity? Maybe half the kids wore N95 surgical masks to ward off infections. All of them wore a plastic braid of tubing, tied together by more tubing draped from their arms, beneath their gowns, and finally from an IV pole on wheels. None of these, I came to understand, meant all their wheels functioning. So, dragging around an IV pole was like pushing around a janky-wheeled grocery cart. The kids were mostly Cullen’s age or younger. Most watched movies sitting on the immense L-shaped, leather couch with built-in cup holders and butt-warmers. Farthest from the door, as if reaching the game was some sort of quest itself. This wasn’t just any arcade game, mind you, but the one-and-only, destined-for-video-game-legend, Defender.  Robbie went on a wagging jag when Cullen arrived.

 

Cullen gave Robbie thirty seconds to get his shit together. He was standing in front of the television, blocking the kids’ view. Soon, the wagging began again. The hell with him, Cullen thought as he stepped up to the abandoned game. The seconds ticked down to the end of the game. Three, two...Cullen grabbed the joystick like it was an extension of himself. Blowing up one alien spacecraft at a time, he slowly scoped ahead for kidnappers. He hit the smart bomb button. Then, he pounded the thrust button for an extra burst of speed through the junk yard of ships into a neutral zone but wound up colliding with an enemy ship. Destroying himself and the enemy in the process. The joystick froze and Cullen’s ship was pulverized faster than you could say Pearl Harbor.

 

“That my game you just kamikazed?” Robbie re-appeared to observe Cullen’s game. He was bracing his right wrist against his leg with his left to stop another involuntary heil and wagged again. Cullen noted with admiration that Robbie was still focused on fixing his heil disability than what would finally scoop him up off this planet. 

 

Cullen gulped and stepped forward; worried Robbie had forgotten about him so quickly.

 

Robbie seemed appeased by his fright - almost honored by his personal share - and, in a completely normal tone of voice - asked Cullen if he wanted to watch him play and learn a few tricks. Perhaps Robbie wasn’t what he seemed, Cullen thought. He pulled up a tall chair so he could watch over Robbie’s shoulder as he decimated the hordes of aliens and saved humanoids from certain probing. “Next time, watch the scanner.” Robbie pointed to a box above the primary dashboard camera showing miniature landscape versions of enemy ships and kidnapped humanoids. “You see the ships ahead of you, use the joystick and thruster to get around them or kill them. Killing an alien ship and rescuing their hijacked passengers gets you the most points. And satisfaction. Or jump to wherever the most ships were clustered and use a smart bomb.” Neither spoke for the next hour, both engaged in the rhythm of their mission. That Robbie was turning Cullen into an unwilling prodigy was a source of pride for both. They easily won a level every few minutes. The freshly minted frenemies took turns playing until nine pm, when patients were expected in bed. They departed without a word.

 

 

_____

 

 

Cullen’s symptoms peaked at dawn in the form of bloody puke. Not a pretty picture. He was instantly the center of attention. Once he had his hospital gown untied, it was all hands-on Cullen. The nurses in Sesame Street scrubs and doctors in golf gear under their lab coats fell on him like a pack of hungry wolves salivating over a carcass.

 

Fasting since midnight, Cullen understood that his schedule was brimming with tests, many of which he’d suffered through more than once already. The doctors never seemed satisfied with their initial tests. They’d need a colonoscopy. At least he’d get K.O.-ed before the main event. He steeled himself to becoming a human experiment for the foreseeable future, but still thought he would have a big problem if his pain got worse.

 

The next morning, Cullen had his barium cherry popped. A stomach-curdling, chalky potion that tasted like decaying cardboard with hints of rotten bananas and spoiled pad Thai. He ingested the foul liquid via his mouth and enema for multiple scans of his lower GI with and without contrast. Cullen cracked up the nurses when he complained that the barium, “could be fit to go up my ass and down my throat. That’s some seriously sick shit.” Bringing a smile to a nurse’s face, no matter the age difference, brought a warming glow to Cullen’s entire body that tamped down his pain. He made a mental note: girls and comedy were the best painkillers money could buy.

 

When he exited his colonoscopy fugue, Cullen was an overcharged battery, impossibly radiating more energy than he contained. He felt zero pain. He felt like he could lift a two-ton truck over his head and throw it across town. But his body and fate had far different plans. Cullen immediately fell into bed. Perhaps they’d given too much anesthesia. Sleep found him again fast.

 

At once wanting to ride solo and have company, Cullen took a proper shower to remove the tacky goop still on him from the procedure. Like anyone would know. Despite the weight of his new knowledge, a clean Cullen was a happier Cullen. He dressed for the street, even if he did have to lug around an IV pole. Somehow, this made him feel more human, less like a patient. Between his room and the rec room, he transformed himself into a man you’d never guess spent twenty minutes with a scope up their ass hours earlier. Despite the odds against him, Cullen looked like a man who came to play. Stepping into the rec room, he spied Robbie sitting on the couch with other older kids, the non-verbal’s, intensely watching a static television screen. Robbie was hypnotized by the blur of his own wagging finger, vainly attempting to discern what they found so riveting within the blur. Eyeballing Cullen, Robbie abandoned the couch, and the pair walked side-by-side to the Defender game.

 

Employing Robbie’s lessons from their last match, Cullen’s game improved significantly. He played two levels with Robbie, watching for all the tricks he could steal. When Cullen finally crapped out, Robbie took the helm, and Cullen watched his former playground enemy demolish aliens and rescue humanoids. He was up five levels in four minutes. Instead of the screen, Cullen watched Robbie’s hand expertly maneuver the spacecraft via sticky joystick, destroying alien ships, deploying smart bombs only when swarmed.

 

No question, Robbie could teach a master’s class in Defender. All 80 spots on the leader board listed “RTM.” It took Cullen weeks to type his initials in at spot #80. When Robbie was played Defender, they said he looked angelic. That is, his disability was rendered invisible and harmless. He didn’t want people knowing about the cancer but seemed carefree running around their floor following his wagging finger down the yellow brick road. He eventually exposed Cullen to the trick of a long-suffering occupational therapist. He played Defender so much because the joystick distracted his right hand from doing the heil and wag. Robbie naturally used his right hand on the joystick, which prevented him from wandering away in pursuit of his wagging finger. Cullen was startled by the unexpected depth just then exposed in Robbie’s eyes.

 

Dr. Honeycutt explained everything in a way Cullen would understand, “You and Robbie only have about six more months on that Defender game.” He paused to see if Cullen was comprehending. Cullen had rolled down the window for fresh air and heard the following: “undiagnosed pineal blastoma tumor,” “spreading,” and “complications.”

 

“What?” Cullen hollered, rocked out of his fugue. In so many words, his mother intimated than Robbie would, sooner than later, be as dead as a box of rocks. The Enemy had an enemy parasite that was feeding off its viscera, spreading its vile self well beyond his pineal gland to take up residence in several other key glands adjacent. Robbie’s life had a countdown. He only had so many breaths before cancer gobbled him up. Then, he’d be no more. Just a memory beside the Defender game, showing Cullin the best tricks - using only his left hand and sentence fragments.

_____

 

That next morning Cullen regurgitated pancakes with what looked like thick boysenberry syrup. The thing is: the sadist doctors made him eat pancakes without the courtesy of toppings. No butter. No blue berries. Not even chocolate chips. Just bone-dry pancakes. Was this jail? Dr. Honeycutt scheduled exploratory surgery for the next day. Something was causing this malady, and it was getting worse. There must be evidence to diagnose and to cure it. As Cullen was wheeled into the operating room, his mom squeezed his hand tightly with both of hers. Post-surgery, Cullen’s memory was glitchy. He felt like there was something going mental with his mind. Focusing his eyes was difficult and, even if he could, he was unlikely to remember what he was supposed to focus on. The metronome of reality ticked pointlessly on.

 

_____

 

 

As spring finally uncloaked its sunny measure, Cullen witnessed Robbie collide with a full bike rack after school. Robbie was full wag to the wind when he walked straight into the bike rack, flipped over the middle bar, and landed flat on his ass between two muddy mountain bikes. He got right back up, like nothing happened, and became an instant target. The kids cackled cruelly. They pointed and called Robbie a retard, a handicapper, and a space cadet. Steven van Sant - that guy from Springsteen’s band. Because Robbie was now sporting a purple bandana wrapped around his obviously shaven head. Cullen could only imagine how that stung his secret friend. He tried to be cool, but found he didn’t care. He needed to stop this scene. Robbie was on the ground, curled into a fetal position. Neither speaking nor moving. He stared through Cullen dumbly; hurt, abandoned, betrayed on a level he’d never understood existed before - making him feel unequivocally betrayed. Cullen’s stomach bottomed out. He said, “fuck it” out loud and went to help Robbie.

 

Much more assistance was required than Cullen could provide. Robbie’s eyes had rolled back in their sockets. Then they spun like a compass on a keychain. His limbs were stiff yet shaky, twitching like he had his finger in the electrical socket. A group of rando bystanders had encircled the pair watching to see what happened next. For a show. All accumulated coolness cast aside, Cullen parted the bystanders and stuck a pencil between Robbie’s teeth, who beavered it down to a stub in no time. He lifted his head from the concrete where it could get (presumably) more damaged and hollered for someone around him to call the hospital. Or at least ring the school nurse. Everyone had their phones out, filming the momentum for stringer money. They wanted this meltdown to go viral. Would there be blood?

 

_____

 

 

Between our time at the hospital and around the neighborhood, Cullen felt more in touch with Robbie than friends he’d known since kindergarten. With weighty thoughts burdening his conscience and the unfairness of her son’s life on his mind, Cullin’s mom dropped him off at Children’s Hospital for a weekend-long study that turned into an unanticipated two-week inpatient stay. Or for however long as his gastrointestinal system withheld its congenital secrets. By the time he was finally discharged - looking qualmish and weighing ten pounds less - little league sign-ups for summer had ended hours ago. Not that he really felt up to playing this year. Dehydration had turned his skin into pumice. His eyes bled exhaustion beyond measure. His eyelids lowered and darkened. He looked worse coming out than he did going into the hospital. Dr. Honeycutt had given him a list of exercises to get his body in shape. Cullen reminded him, “I’m eleven. My life is a game.” He paused until the doctor grinned and laughed along.

 

Fortunately, two weeks after discharge, Cullen’s classes ended for the year with a clanging alarm bell. Cullen couldn’t be happier to breathe the outside air. Even in the rain with skinny lightening forking off in the distant troposphere, it still beat sanitized hospital air, reeking of stale vomit and feces. His first week off school, Cullen did nothing but watch television and shoot solo hoops in the driveway.

 

His friends had long ago abandoned him for the level of difficulty it took to be his friend. But he was confident he could make new, better friends who might wonder about why their friend missed most of sixth grade. That didn’t seem like a big ask, his father agreed. A big ask was the doing homework from now until eighth grade. To Cullen, that seemed like a pretty shitty thing to do to a sick kid. He expected abbreviated lessons or a few videos. What he got was a video library of his teachers (they thoughtfully filmed every class) and all assigned textbooks on an easy-to-carry iPad. Their objective, his mom explained, was to put the whole year on one device and allow him to learn at his own pace. If he managed to complete the assignments on the iPad by mid-August, he would pass.

 

Cullen maintained the diet prescribed by Dr. Honeycutt but also consumed all the verboten carcinogenetic frosted delights with a best-by date long since passed at most local gas stations. While feeling his blood coursing through him at twice its normal speed, his pulse was metronomic. He was a uniform 98.6 degrees. His blood pressure was normal for his age, 97 over 112. Nevertheless, in two weeks in Children’s Hospital undergoing more tests than he would in four years of high school. He had robbed Cullen of his color and musculature, but at least he’d maintained his sense of humor. Otherwise, he was a just bleached white stick child who couldn’t hit a curve ball. The most important news that would change everything in an instant was that his blood panel had improved. On the newly recommended diet, Cullen was tremendously relieved to say that the blood managed to stay inside of Cullen. Dr. Honeycutt never did sort out why. But his new diet worked wonders on Cullen, not to mention the lives of thousands of chickens and cows and fish he would have eaten otherwise.

 

_____

 

That summer, Cullen did not miss his time at Children’s Hospital as much as he did the mostly silent friendship he had with Robbie. His days, nights, and weekends were free to do with as he pleased. Cullen called this his “make up summer,” which implied it would be twice as much fun as last summer. That shouldn’t be too difficult, considering. He spent days at the park, swimming in the pool, trying to meet girls, and fishing in the river. Nights, he and his friends prowled the neighborhood for anything interesting to do. Usually, there was nothing and they wound up watching television. Cullen’s stomach might as well have been cast in iron after weeks on Dr. Honeycutt’s diet. He’d cheated on the diet several times with no errant consequences.

 

_____

 

 

Toward the end of August, Mrs. Raskin showed at Cullen’s house bearing gifts and, gutted and bawling in a tortured grief. Only Cullen and his mom were home, so he went for tissues and his mom made with the tea. Soon, Mrs. Raskin pulled an envelope from her black purse and revealed the purpose of her visit. “Robbie wanted you to know that you were his best and only friend and that you were the only person to make all that time in the hospital tolerable.” She seized up at this line, presumably because she inferred that her own presence wasn’t the pure, calming balm she had believed. “When Robert died three weeks ago, he asked not to have a funeral service. Instead, he used what was left of his remaining birthday Monday a present for his friend. The Defender game in your driveway. The workmen are unloading right now.”

Tongue-tied. Speechless. Aghast. Dumbstruck. These are four of the many words Cullen might have used to describe his feelings when she finished speaking. He collected his thoughts but found they didn’t amount to much more than, “Thank you.” That was the best his pre-adolescent mind could muster.

 

“He really shouldn’t have a video game in the house,” Cullen’s mom started, but was quickly silenced by Mrs. Raskin.

 

“My son went the last five years of his life without speaking.” She sobbed, “But he changed so much playing that stupid fucking game with Cullen. Even if you don’t keep it, for my sake, please donate it to another Children’s Hospitals so more kids can make connections like you and Robbie did.” Without another word, the screen door clanged behind her.

 

To win the game of Defender, you must destroy the alien spaceships before they kidnap and probe/kill humanoids. That’s how you get most points. You can just shoot at the ships, but then you score fewer points. Of course, with every reward, an inevitable risk. Should you find yourself rescuing a humanoid and come under fire, it’s possible to drop the humanoid and lose your points, dispatching your humanoid in the process but staying alive in the same level. Long after Robbie’s mom had gone, Cullen imagined that in the arcade game, he was the rescuing pilot, and Robbie was the humanoid. And, with all the horrible middle school social nonsense they both endured, the two had managed to find common ground in the hospital, to win a cultural war, one humanoid at a time.

 

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