Ollie Come Free

Part One

Gone in a Flash

Chapter 1

Mom, I can’t find my jockstrap.

Cathy looked across the yard and saw Ollie standing on the patio, his skinny eleven-year-old body dressed only in a pair of baggy baseball pants. And she almost fell for the prank, but then she caught a glimpse of the face that looked just a little too blank. She said nothing and continued setting up tables and chairs. It didn’t matter. He got his laugh when a chicken wearing a jockstrap strolled onto the patio.

Ollie laughed so hard he almost fell over. And so did Mariah, his friend who had been helping Cathy set up. The bird slipped free of the garment, and Cathy told Ollie to finish getting dressed. He staggered back into the house.

Please tell me he doesn’t act like that at school, said Cathy.

All the time, said Mariah.

And what do the teachers say?

They try not to laugh, but it usually doesn’t work. Everybody likes Ollie.

Maybe they should try living with him for a week, said Cathy.

A few minutes later everyone loaded up and drove into town for the baseball game. Ollie and Mariah sat in the back row laughing and talking. Cody, eighteen months older than Ollie, sat alone in the middle row. Cathy sat up front with her husband, Bob, who drove the minivan and gave Cody the pregame pep talk.

Now remember what we talked about, Cody. When the ball moves, you have somewhere to go. You’re always thinking and moving.

Yes sir, said Cody.

And on the cutoffs, set up for the throw before you catch the ball.

Yes sir, but if Ollie doesn’t hit the cutoff, what good does it do? Can you tell him to at least try?

Cathy saw Bob look at Ollie in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t say anything. The boy liked being on the team with his brother but the finer points of baseball didn’t interest him, and Bob knew there wasn’t much he could do about it.

Mariah, do you have a ride home from the park? asked Cathy.

Yes, Mrs. Buckmeyer.

And you’ll be back at the ranch tomorrow at ten?

Yes.

Thank you. We’re going to be busy.

The ranch had started hosting special events such as weddings and birthday parties, and Mariah had become the right-hand wunderkind. Ollie also worked…sporadically…when he came down from the clouds. And Cathy, who didn’t need more things to juggle, ran the weekend events because the ranch needed the money. She and Bob had been married for twenty-two years and now they found themselves scrambling like newlyweds to pay the bills. But she didn’t complain. She lived on one of the last cattle ranches in Southern California, had a hardworking cowboy for a husband, and had two sons that she adored. That added up to a pretty good life.

After they got to the park, Mariah ran off with some friends, and Cathy and Bob found their seats in the bleachers. And then the game unfolded just like any other. Cathy socialized. Bob watched the game and didn’t talk. Ollie goofed off in right field—the least important position on the team, and the place where he did the least amount of damage—and Cody played with his usual intensity.

In the eighth inning the manager brought in a relief pitcher and Ollie, already past his boredom quotient, threw down his glove and marched to the corner of the outfield. He leaned against the foul pole, kicked at the dirt, and waited for the new pitcher to throw his warmup pitches.

And then it happened, but Cathy didn’t see the flash of light, and the thing didn’t completely register. She screamed, like everyone else, because the crackling explosion had snuck up on her, not because she perceived any specific danger. And no one seemed to be hurt. A nearby man said something about a blown transformer. Cathy scanned the baseball field and saw Cody standing safely near second base. She looked into right field but didn’t see Ollie. She touched Bob’s arm. When he turned, and she saw the alarm on his face, she knew that something had happened.

He said, Get Cody and call an ambulance…try the phone in the snack bar.

What’s wrong, Bob? Please tell me!

He didn’t answer. Instead, he stood up, turned to the other parents, and said, Get your kids and find shelter.

Just then the rain began to pour and a flash of lightning exploded from the sky. Now everyone understood, and the little stand of bleachers erupted into a frenzy that quickly expanded as hysterical parents ran all over the diamond gathering up their bewildered children and herding them to safety—some to their cars, some into the snack bar, some into the wooden equipment sheds that littered the grounds.

Cathy ran toward Cody but continued to search for Ollie. She didn’t understand how he had just disappeared. Another bolt of lightning pierced the sky, followed by the angry peal of thunder. She kept running and searching. The rain and the panic made it difficult. She still didn’t see him. She also didn’t see the smoking cleats that lay neatly on the ground next to the foul pole.

Seconds later, Cathy, with Cody by her side, stood inside the snack bar and stared helplessly out through the serving window. She saw a solitary girl run onto the field that had just been evacuated. It was Mariah, and she led Cathy’s eyes to her son, who lay face down in a heap, some thirty feet from where he had been leaning against the foul pole. Mariah knelt next to Ollie and shook him. His body looked limp and lifeless in her hands. Mariah pleaded with him, her desperate cries comingled with the sound of the pounding rain and howling wind that echoed across the field. Cathy felt the panic rise, but then Bob got to the scene, and she steadied herself. Bob nudged Mariah to the side. She rose to her feet and paced back and forth while Bob tended to Ollie.

First, he rolled him onto his back and felt for a pulse. He then tore off the soaked baseball jersey, formed a hardened fist, and pounded it one time onto the bare chest. He checked again for a pulse. He pinched the nose closed and blew into his mouth. The chest heaved. Bob sat back and watched. The chest heaved again. And then again. Ollie tried to move. Bob took off his jacket and sheltered Ollie from the rain.

Cathy began shaking uncontrollably. Cody put his arm around her. Another mother held her hand. There in that snack bar, surrounded by hanging corn dogs, draping licorice ropes, and an unclaimed belly buster, Cathy had just witnessed the death and resuscitation of her son. She, along with all the others who had crowded into the little shack, stood in silence and listened to the distant siren as it pushed against the din of pouring rain, steady, insistent, eventually breaking through and filling the ballpark with an echoing wail and flashing red lights that bounced off a thousand puddles.

Within twenty-four hours Ollie Buckmeyer became a nightly news sensation as the Little Leaguer who survived a bolt of lightning. The story had rock-solid made-for-TV credentials: tragedy, death, and resurrection of an all-American kid who is left for dead and then marches out of the hospital two days later, as normal as normal could be.

Unfortunately, this portrayal mischaracterized the aftermath of that spring baseball game in 1991 because life would prove to be anything but normal for the boy. Three hundred thousand volts can do that to you. As Ollie grew up, his name and the word normal would rarely be spoken so freely in the same breath. Other words attached themselves to Ollie, words that sounded like they described two different people, words like slow and fast, cursed and blessed, idiot and genius, awkward and amazing. And artist. That word more than any other.

Chapter 2

When Cathy left her son’s bedside and rejoined the crowd in the waiting room, she felt like a pretender. She felt like the doubter who must be found out and thrown overboard to appease the god of the tempest. Word had spread that her son had survived with barely a scratch and these well-wishers—mostly longtime friends, and a few of Ollie’s schoolmates—had descended upon the hospital to celebrate with the family. So, Cathy smiled and hugged and shared tears with them. She threw around the M word like confetti at a parade because her little boy had survived and that definitely counted as a first class miracle. But she still felt like an imposter because the mere use of the word miracle implies a renewed life that will be lived happily ever after. That’s how it works. Throw us in a pit, save us against all odds, and then wrap it all up with a beautiful sunset. We believe in a miracle and a happy ending. We don’t believe in a miracle and brain damage.

She participated in the parade mostly for the benefit of her distraught husband, which Cathy didn’t really understand because Bob didn’t usually act like that. He endured and fought and steeled his resolve. He didn’t despair. But there he was, pacing in his ever-present wrangler jeans and plaid cowboy shirt, with red swollen eyes and close-cropped brown hair that had been matted from all the times he had worriedly run his hands across his head. Under normal circumstances this sight would have stopped Cathy dead in her tracks. But she had a son in the ER so she chalked it up to another part of Bob’s personality, the black and white part. In that world, if Ollie got hurt while playing baseball, then the blame logically belonged to Bob, because he had forced the boy to play in the first place. Bob, for all his good qualities, had no room for nuances. They only confused a world that was already hopelessly confused. He had only one hope: full recovery.

Cathy also knew that Bob didn’t make a habit of hiding from the truth, and that she didn’t have the right to hide it from him now. But at this point she had to tackle one problem at a time.

And, of course, Ollie’s condition might have improved. Maybe the truth might have bent back upon itself so that the miracle and the happy ending ended up being the same thing. That’s what she told herself.

The truth, as it stood that first day in the hospital, revealed itself to Cathy within minutes of her arrival at her son’s bedside. As the doctor cleaned the skin and applied antibiotic ointment, Cathy marveled at her son’s appearance. He had a cut on the left side of his head that took six stiches and some superficial fern shaped burns on his back and legs, but, honestly, the whole thing looked better than the usual ER visit for a family with roughhousing brothers. Then she tried to hold Ollie’s hand and he pulled away. His reaction had been automatic, subconscious, like the response of someone who doesn’t like to be touched. She also noticed that since the time she had come into the room, he hadn’t looked at her or the doctor. And he hadn’t cracked any jokes. And he answered the questions with clipped sentences or just repeated the question like a parrot. The goofball Ollie she knew didn’t act like that. This rigid, unconnected being didn’t resemble her boy in the slightest. The mother knew. She didn’t know precisely, but she knew.

The next day, just prior to Ollie’s discharge, the television cameras and microphones converged upon the hospital waiting room for an impromptu press conference. Cathy didn’t see that coming but maybe it kind of made sense. Those were the turbulent days of Iran-Contra and black Monday stock market crashes. She and Bob had felt the pain themselves when, for the first time in the hundred years the ranch had been in his family, they had been unable to pay off the balance on their cattle loan. The bank rolled it over into a new loan but that just meant the new year looked even more difficult than the previous one. So she understood. People need feel good stories and this time around, her family had been designated to provide it.

Bob looked uncomfortable but, still sufficiently buoyed by the miracle, he stared at the microphones and stiffly answered questions with one- and two-word answers: cattle rancher; happy; very happy; precordial thump; Marine Corps. Realizing that they hadn’t exactly stumbled upon a fountain of information, the hungry swarm pointed their microphones at Cathy. One of them said, What activities does Ollie like best, besides baseball?

Ollie likes all the animals on the ranch…and playing with his friends…and teasing his older brother, said Cathy. Thankfully, just then, Ollie emerged from behind the giant swinging doors, surrounded by a cadre of smiling white lab coats. He sat in a wheelchair and looked absent. After some effort, one of the nurses managed to coax something that almost looked like a smile out of him. The cameras clicked and whirred and the people cheered.

At that moment Cathy saw for the first time a sight that she would see ten thousand times in the future: her son rocking in place. It wasn’t a relaxed, musical kind of rock that might signify wellbeing. It was the mechanical glitch of a broken robot. The reporters didn’t notice or didn’t care to notice.

After the hospital administrator and ER doctor made statements and answered questions, all of which affirmed a completely rosy outlook for her son, someone yelled Ollie’s name. Cathy zeroed in on the reporter, a young thing who’d obviously been swept up in the emotion of the story. She looked like she had just graduated from the University of Sunshine with a degree in rainbows. She blurted, Ollie, you are so cute. Do you have a girlfriend?

Cathy wanted to jump in and say, "Listen lady: He’s eleven years old and has an E.T. poster in his bedroom. But, in truth, Ollie had Mariah, a kinda sorta girlfriend. Cathy evaded the question and said, Oliver has many wonderful things to look forward to, but right now the most important thing is rest and recuperation. And, as you all know, in these matters, mother has the final word, and she says it’s time for a comfortable bed and some chicken soup." This elicited some polite laughter and Bob squeezed Cathy’s hand in gratitude.

The meeting ended, the crowd dispersed, and one of the orderlies pushed the requisite wheelchair out to the circular drive where Ollie easily climbed into the middle seat of the family’s minivan. This sight offered Cathy a sliver of hope because it indicated that at least physically her son had escaped harm. She fastened his seatbelt and accidently touched his arm. He pulled it away and started rocking. She said, Cody’s waiting for you at home. He continued rocking and didn’t say a word. Cathy looked up and saw Bob’s eyes in the rearview mirror. And then he looked away.

Just as they started to pull out, Cathy saw the ER doctor running toward them. He still had the energetic glow of the press conference on his face and a small paper in his hand. She lowered the window. The doctor handed her a business card and said, I’m sure there’s nothing to be concerned about, but there were some anomalies on the CT scan, and I’ve referred Oliver’s case to our staff neurologist. His name is Dr. Lee and he’s expecting your call.

Ollie had been discharged. That’s all Cathy had been told. Now suddenly he’d become a case? And what on earth was a CT scan? Before she had time to ask either of these questions, the doctor left. And she immediately wondered if this new information had been deliberately held back to protect the feel-good story and the hospital’s fifteen minutes of fame. Then she took a deep breath, reclaimed her frazzled nerves, and rebuked her warped cynicism.

When the van left the hospital complex and headed onto the open road, Ollie stopped rocking and stared out the window. He stared intensely. And his head didn’t move, even minutely, even when something interesting passed by. He just locked his head in place and didn’t move a muscle until the van pulled into their driveway twenty minutes later.

Cody met his little brother at the front door with a sly smile and funny insult. Cathy suddenly realized that she’d left him unprepared for this homecoming; he’d gotten plenty of information but it all had come from friends and local news, and it certainly didn’t match the disturbing picture that now stood before him. She shot him the standard motherly wide-eyed SOS look, and he got the message, stepping aside to let Cathy escort Ollie to a seat at the kitchen table. Ollie immediately began rocking. The whole family stood and stared.

~~~

The odds of getting hit by lightning in any given year are one in six hundred thousand. Bob looked it up. The odds of getting struck on exactly the same day of the year on two different years had to be at least one in ten million. Even though lightning hadn’t been part of the first tragedy, for the purposes of figuring probability it came close enough. And this kind of ten-million to one coincidence didn’t cut it for Bob. But what alternative did he have? A curse? Punishment for his sins? These possibilities also sounded ridiculous…but maybe not so much.

On a good day fatherhood spooked Bob. Their trust and admiration made him want to run. But he didn’t because Cathy had always been there blocking the path. Now, as he stared at his broken son, he wondered if that would be enough.

An undulating humming groan radiated from the boy’s body as he sat at the table. It started when he lurched forward and ended when his back banged against the back of the chair. Lurch, groan, bang. Lurch, groan, bang. The image reminded Bob of the hijacked bodies and broken brains he had seen at the military hospital in Hong Kong, but he tried to keep his mind from going to such places. As a man of discipline, he understood that the difference between action and paralysis, between healthy fear and debilitating panic, is usually nothing more than a deep breath and a step in the right direction. If anything, this terrible sight represented an unmistakable call to take that step, any step. But there he stood, motionless, thinking about psych wards and little paper cups dotted with lithium pills. And coincidence.

Cathy, always the logical one, started trying to find some favorite little thing of Ollie’s that might help him to reconnect with his life. And the boy seemed to respond because he answered some of Cathy’s questions. But others he merely repeated or ignored altogether.

Are you hungry, dear?

No.

I can make you grilled cheese and chocolate milk.

No response.

There’s Max, Ollie. He’s coming to say hi to you. Say hi to Max.

Say hi to Max, said Ollie, without looking at the cat and without interrupting the rocking.

Cathy sent Bob to fetch one of Ollie’s toys. Thankful for the chance to at least move his feet, Bob dug into the toy chest and came back with an action figure that looked like a gorilla. It wore a bandolier and carried a gun.

Yes, said Cathy, that’s his favorite. She sat down next to Ollie, placed the toy on the table, and said, Ollie, someone needs your help.

Ollie, someone needs your help, repeated Ollie, but that’s as far as it went. No matter how much animation Cathy added, or how many funny voices she invented, Ollie ignored it.

For the next half hour Bob rummaged for toys: superheroes, military heroes, animal heroes; cap guns, ray guns, cowboy guns; talking phones, talking bears, talking gizmos; cars, trains, airplanes. Ollie didn’t look at any of them. At the bottom of the toy box Bob found some old coloring books and a half empty box of broken crayons. He shoved them aside to look for something better but found nothing, so he grabbed them.

The instant those tattered and broken castoffs hit the table, Ollie stopped rocking—just for a second—and snatched up the box of crayons. He ignored the coloring books but clutched the crayons close to his body and resumed the rocking and groaning. Bob looked at Cathy. She jumped out of the chair, ran down the hall, and came back with a stack of blank paper, which she placed on the table. Ollie stopped rocking. He carefully took a crayon from the box, placed the rest on the table, and lined up a sheet of paper. And then he started scribbling. He scribbled furiously, deliberately, one page after another in quick succession, like he had a huge backlog that had to be put onto paper without a second’s delay.

Bob sat down next to Cathy and they reviewed each drawing as it flew off the assembly line. Each page seemed to portray some sort of landscape with very little variation between one drawing and the next. With the exception of a few simplistic buildings sprinkled through the first half dozen drawings, all the rest depicted line sketches of hills, mountains, trees, and clouds—over and over again. Bob pushed the drawings away and looked at his son, who continued spitting out pages like a haywire copy machine. Despite the initial rush of hope, Bob now wondered if they’d made any breakthrough at all. He honestly didn’t see any difference between a damaged brain that forces a body to compulsively rock back and forth and a damaged brain that forces a body to scribble meaningless doodles. He rose from the kitchen table and, without saying a word, left the house through the back door.

~~~

Now, for the second time in as many days, Cathy saw something different in her husband. He didn’t usually withdraw like this. He struggled sometimes, but he didn’t retreat.