Meanwhile, Ben had returned to the nurse’s office with the jock jacket with Max’s names and patches that Mrs. Warner had sewn on it.
“Coach was all out of shirts, but I got this jacket instead,” Ben announced to the room as he entered the nurse’s office.
“That’ll work just fine,” the nurse replied approvingly. She was attending to another student’s injured ankle, gently manipulating the foot at different angles while two other students awaited medical attention of their own. “It just figures this place would turn into Grand Central Station just when I was about to leave for my vacation. Would you mind helping him put it on? The substitute Nurse isn’t here yet and I’ve got my hands full at the moment, and it’s awfully chilly in here… He’s awake so he should be able to get it on himself for the most part, but he’s still kind of loopy so you may need to help keep him on task.”
“Sure thing!” Ben exclaimed with excitement. He’d always been interested in medicine and dreamed of being a doctor one day, so he felt really honored to be involved in any level of treatment, even meaningless grunt work.
Lyle was a short scrawny boy not much over five feet tall. He had dark stringy hair that was so fine it almost looked like it was thinning, giving him a slightly aged, sickly appearance that he hated. He was reclined on the recovery bed with his back resting against the cold cinderblock wall, staring blankly into space.
“Hey man, I brought something to warm you up.” Ben said, presenting the jock jacket for Lyle to take.
“It’s cold...” Lyle said blankly. “On the moon….”
“It sure is,” Ben agreed, suppressing a chuckle, “Better put on your jacket...”
Lyle suddenly seemed to snap awake for a brief moment before melting back into his foggy stupor.
“I’ve got it, Ben...” Lyle said slowly in a daze. “You can measure the moon... Write this down... You can measure the moon, but not Its volume and velocity at the same time… But what if you had four dimensional calipers?! Why didn’t I think of it before? Write it down, quick! I’ve been having all kinds of great ideas, but I keep forgetting… Write it down, ok?”
“You bet,” Ben said, as he tried to conduct Lyle’s arms into the offered jacket. “You just get your jacket on, and I’ll write down all your ideas.”
“Thanks Norbert... You’re a fantastic………….” Lyle trailed off oddly as the jacket settled onto his shoulders. “...Pickles...”
“Do you think you can zip that up yourself?” Ben inquired doubtfully.
Lyle just looked at him, with a surprised expression on his face, so Ben gently reached down and mated the zipper and pulled the fastener up toward his neck, sealing him in, nice and cozy. He gave Lyle a friendly pat on the shoulder and leaned him back against the wall.
“He’s all set,” Ben said as he walked back to the Nurse. “Was I acting all goofy like that earlier?”
“Well, you weren’t as chatty as Lyle, but you had your moments,” the nurse replied. “Do you remember when you complained about your ‘tummy ache’ and I gave you a packet of saltine crackers?”
“Nope.”
“That was a pretty good one…” she said, looking off wistfully. “You didn’t eat them, you just sat there trying to saw through one with the other. It got crumbs all over the floor.”
“Sorry,” Ben said through a grin. “I guess we give you quite a bit to deal with, don’t we?”
“You certainly do. That’s why I need this cruise to the Camans, but I don’t mind, really. You kids give me plenty of interesting stories to keep my friends entertained with too.”
“Am I alright to go back to class now?” Ben asked, eager to return to learning.
“Just one more test to make sure you’re feeling alright…” She replied thoughtfully, “Do you remember the instructions I gave you before you left to get the shirt?”
Ben thought for a moment, trying his best to recall everything she had said.
“You said to drink plenty of fluids and not to drive myself home, and that I should come back if I start feeling dizzy or unsteady.”
“And??” She coaxed expectantly.
“...And… My lucky numbers are 6 and 21?” Ben replied with a little laugh.
“There it is.” She said approvingly. “Go on back to class. You’re going to be fine.”
Ben gave a grateful nod and thanked the nurse for all her help before leaving. He waved goodbye to Lyle who had curled up into a ball on the recovery couch and was absentmindedly rubbing his arms around inside the billowing jacket sleeves which were crammed between his thighs, looking sort of like an oversized straight jacket on a crazy person.
----------------------------------------
Lyle suddenly found himself dreaming about a professional soccer game. He wasn’t very familiar with the sport, but his dream was incredibly detailed. It was about some sort of European tournament match being played between England and Germany… He could even see the score in the upper left-hand corner… Suddenly his dream seemed to fall out of the sky in slow motion and physically clocked him in the head.
“OW!” Lyle shouted in pain. He looked around and found himself reclined comfortably on a firm padded slab behind a curtain in the Nurse's office with a cold metallic item resting obliquely in the crook of his neck. He fished the item away from his neck with his left hand and brought it to his face, realizing with surprise that it was his cell phone displaying a continuation of the soccer game from his dream.
“I almost forgot you were in here,” came a voice from the other side of the curtain.
A woman’s hand grabbed the edge of the curtain and drew it back, revealing the rest of the empty office.
“I think you’ve milked this little head injury of yours long enough,” she said with a smile. “Time to move along back to class… Who do you have for seventh period?”
“Wah?” Lyle said in confusion. “I have early release.”
“A freshman with early release?” She said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “What do you take me for? Mrs. Draper told me all about your antics before she left for her cruise; I know you’ll say just about anything to get out of going back to class.”
Lyle sat there confused by his surroundings and more than a little upset at being mistaken for a freshman. He’d always been small for his age, but he didn’t look particularly young.
“What happened?” Lyle asked, reaching up to inspect a sore spot on his forehead and discovering a thick bandage wrapping.
The strange woman gave him a weary look before rolling her eyes and explaining:
“From what I understand, you were so eager to play that new lacrosse game in gym class that you snuck out onto the field and just started playing with the other kids, even though you were SUPPOSED to be sitting out of all physical activity... And of course, you got a little over-enthusiastic and wound up giving your head a nice hard klunk with this little guy.” She added some physical illustration to her explanation by grabbing Lyle’s right arm, pulling it gently to his forehead, and making a comedic *pop* noise with her tongue.
Lyle pulled his arm away from the woman’s grasp and inspected it. He immediately noticed that he was wearing an unfamiliar letterman jacket, but that wasn’t all. He couldn’t bend his wrist, and the sleeve was bulging slightly in spite of his tiny twig of an arm. He pulled the sleeve back to reveal a neon blue cast covered in signatures and messy marker drawings. It had a long cut down its entire length revealing waterproof bubble-wrap padding inside.
“I can’t tell you how many injured kids I've seen today thanks to that silly sport. You’d think, of all people, a boy with a broken wrist would have enough sense to sit on the sidelines,” She continued on, half mumbling to herself as she went about her duties.
“Why shouldn’t I get to play?!” Lyle shouted indignantly. “The other kids didn’t even know the first thing about the game!”
Lyle grew quiet when he realized what he had just said. For some reason it made perfect sense to say in the moment, but now it just seemed absurd.
“Anyway, my wrist isn’t broken; somebody must have put this on my arm as a joke. I’ve never had a broken bone in my life,” Lyle continued. “Look. This cast is old and used; it’s cut down the side... Someone must have stretched it open and clamped it down around my arm... or something...”
Lyle struggled to get his fingers between the cut edges in order to pry the cast apart and pull his arm free, but the nurse swatted his hand away.
“Leave that alone. You’ll need to wait for the doctor to take it off when the break is fully healed, and that isn’t going to happen as long as you keep playing sports before you’re medically cleared to do so.”
“But the cut on the side…” Lyle repeated pleadingly.
“That cut is a form of release ventilation to give your arm extra room to expand as it swells. It may be a pretty old cast by this point, but it’s definitely YOUR old cast. I know they’re uncomfortable, and itchy, and smelly, and you hate not getting to play with the other kids, but you can’t just pull it off when you get sick of wearing it… Your arm needs to heel.... Now, like I said, I think you’ve milked this whole head injury thing long enough. You didn’t need any stitches, and we’ve been observing you for the last few hours and you’ve been completely fine the entire time. I give you full points for getting me distracted by talking about your cast, and you have been a lot of fun to have around, but the bell is about to ring, and I think Mr. Stupanic is expecting you for his 7th period geography class… That’s right, I looked up your schedule.”
Lyle could tell he’d been messed with somehow. There was no way the cast belonged to him and the jacket he was wearing was definitely someone else’s. Still, it was clear that he was just wasting his time trying to set this substitute nurse straight about his situation, so he got up to leave. As he did, he figured he could at least take the jacket off, so he unzipped it halfway down before being startled by his naked torso.
“Where’s my shirt?!” He demanded.
“You had that off when you got here. I guess you were holding it to your head to contain the bleeding… I’d like to give it back, but we had to throw it away; it’s a biohazard. Sorry,” she said with a shrug. “Next time consider maybe using a paper towel.”
Lyle grumbled as he entered the hallway along with a rush of students flooding the halls to the tone of the bell. The substitute nurse was saying something behind him about reporting to class, but he had already gotten to the point of ignoring her outright. She was clearly confused about his situation, she seemed to think he was a freshman after all, and he was eager to bolt for the exit and head home right away, but before he got far he was inundated by a crowd of underclassmen calling out to him and patting him on the back and shaking his shoulders enthusiastically from behind.
“Hey, Warner!” “Dude, are you OK?” “Sick dive, Warner.” “I’ve never seen so much blood, Warner.” “Yo, I heard your team won!” “Warner! Glad you’re back on your feet, man!”
Lyle did his best to pull away from the crowd of over-friendly teens. He didn’t understand why everyone was calling him Warner at first, until it dawned on him whose jacket he must be wearing.
“Max!” He thought to himself, suddenly remembering what had transpired that morning. Max had obviously done this to him as payback for calling him a fag. He got someone to stick this jacket on him and now all the students are playing along with the prank by calling him Warner…
“Typical…” He thought to himself with disgust… “I bet that explains the Nurse’s confusion too, she probably thought I was Max because of the jacket… He probably has some remedial geography course with Mr. Stupanic this period or something...”
Lyle rolled his eyes with annoyance over the entire situation. He didn’t intend to spend another second in that disgusting jock’s clothes, so he set aside all thoughts of flying out the front door and headed for the locker room to get back into his street clothes instead. Unfortunately, when he arrived at the entrance, he found it blocked by a janitorial cleaning cart, and he could hear Spanish music playing from deep inside the room. At first, he tried pushing the cart out of the way, but its brakes were engaged, and he’d have to be inside to unlock them...
“Hola?” He called hopefully into the echoing room. “Uh… Socorro?”
Eventually the janitor appeared around the corner looking confused and shrugging.
“Que?” was all he said.
“Uh… Mi ropa, esta...” Lyle said, pointing exaggeratedly into the locker room.
The janitor responded with a torrent of unintelligible Spanish and pointed at the other boy’s locker room right next door.
“No, aqui, por favor.” Lyle replied pleadingly, shaking his head and pointing past the janitor again.
The janitor unlocked his cart's brake and mumbled more Spanish to himself as he drew the cart inside the locker room, clearing the doorway, but the door closed completely before Lyle could get inside, and he heard the padlock snap into place.
“HEY!” He shouted, pounding on the door, but there was no response.
*Terrific* he thought to himself sarcastically. He may not be able to get his own clothes, but he definitely wasn’t going to go out to the parking lot wearing Max’s idiotic jacket. There were probably other upperclassmen with early release just waiting to mock him childishly for wearing it… He decided he’d have to get some other clothes from the lost-and-found so he headed over to the entrance of the teacher’s lounge where the lost clothes were kept and started to root around in the canvas hamper for anything he could reasonably use, leaving a disordered pile of items draped carelessly next to the hamper in his wake. He came away from the plunder with a small orange v-neck t-shirt that had a small moose over the left breast, and some soccer shorts that were not dissimilar to the gym shorts he was already wearing but that would at least make him look more put-together.
He would have taken the time to find some better clothes, but one of the teacher’s he didn’t quite recognize came out of the lounge and eyed him suspiciously. He gave a nervous laugh and slinked into a nearby bathroom before the teacher had a chance to give him the third degree.
Inside the bathroom, he moved swiftly from stall to stall evaluating each one for cleanliness, but they were each harboring an equally festering example of teenage sewage. Each crapper was a unique cauldron of unspeakable sludge, so he settled on occupying the large, handicapped stall at the far end of the room. After giving the toilet a few much needed flushes and wipes around the rim, he placed his new clothes precariously atop the toilet paper dispenser and began to shuck the embarrassing jacket from off his shoulders. He had to struggle a bit when it came time to navigate the arm cast out of the right sleeve, as it became stuck in the bunched-up elastic of the wrist cuff. He thought he should be able to slip his entire arm out of the cast at that point, but unfortunately that proved impossible. His arm was stuck tight inside, and he ultimately had to gently wriggle the cast free of the sleeve instead.
Once the jacket was finally off of him, he allowed it to fall unceremoniously onto the disgusting epoxy floor, not caring even a little about how dirty it might get. At that point he realized he was a slightly out of breath from the effort it took to get his arm free. He used his left hand to wipe away the beads of sweat that had accumulated on his forehead and basked contently in the cool air that seemed to swirl around his shirtless body as he radiated with excess heat.
Once he’d caught his breath a little, he returned his attention to the odd cast on his arm. He was immediately struck by how form fitting it was. Whose could it have actually been? There were signatures all over the cast, but he didn’t recognize any of the names. Deciding it wasn’t really important whose it was, he tried again to insinuate the fingers of his left hand into the crack along the side of the cast, but he was finding it extremely difficult to get the leverage he needed to apply any significant pulling force no matter how he approached the problem. Eventually he tried bracing his face up against the top side of the cast and pushing with his cheek as he pulled with his fingers but all he got was a nose full of horrible, cheesy, cast funk.
“Jesus Christ!” He yelled unintentionally at the overwhelming odor.
His mind was spinning with frustration and overwhelming desperation to get that disgusting thing off his arm. He couldn’t stand the thought that his entire arm was being bathed in that ungodly marinade of cheesy arm batter, and he couldn’t do anything to get it free!
With a sudden jolt of reckless abandon, he braced his arm against the toilet paper dispenser and pulled with renewed determination using all the might he could possibly concentrate into his fingertips to spread apart the cut ends of the cast, but even with that final burst of reckless effort, they barely separated at all.
“Lyle?!” Came an unfamiliar girl’s voice from the winding doorless entrance of the bathroom.
“Uh, Yeah?” He replied with irritation, before it even registered in his mind that he had no idea who he was talking to.
“I THOUGHT I heard you in there…” The voice responded with an air of smugness. “Mr. Stupanic is expecting you in class. The nurse called to let him know that you left her office before the first bell, and when you didn’t show up, he sent me to come look for you.”
“And you are?” Lyle questioned acerbically.
“Mandy, jackass… Now let's get going. I don’t wanna miss any more class, I don’t give half a fart about your little head scab, or whatever,” Mandy said, rolling her eyes and punctuating her equally sour reply with a little derisive huff from her nostrils.
*Wuh?... Mandy? Mr.Stupanic?* Lyle thought to himself trying to piece together any kind of explanation for why he’d be expected to report to some geography course after his school day had already ended… Could this be that student mentoring thing he’d signed up to participate in for the National Honor Society? He’d forgotten about that, and it WAS supposed to start soon, but without his schedule he didn’t have any way to check… *That must be it,* he decided… and even if it might not be the explanation, he couldn’t take the risk of blowing it off… If word ever got back to Mrs.Briggs that he had been anything but supportive and helpful in his assignment, it could really ruin his good standing…
“Uh, I’ll be right along, Mandy. You go ahead...” Lyle said, hoping to gloss over his earlier gruffness.
“Oh no.” She replied definitively. “I’m bringing you in personally, pal. Let’s go!”
“I guess I’ve got a real bounty hunter on my hands, don’t I?” Lyle thought to himself as he cinched the shorts up around his waist and wrestled the orange shirt on clumsily, reminded again of the frustratingly ever-present cast on his arm. He slipped his shoes back on his feet, stowed the gym shorts under his arm and popped the latch of the stall door, then he snagged the inverted sleeve of the discarded jacket with his good hand and dragged it along behind him as he made his way to the bathroom entrance.
“Aren’t you going to wash your hands?” Mandy asked, scrunching her face in disgust as Lyle rounded the corner.
“Uh, sure... Will you help me get this off?” Lyle asked, shyly presenting his immobilized wrist.
“No; Gross!” She exclaimed.
Lyle rolled his eyes and retreated into the bathroom, making a halfhearted attempt to clean his left hand and just the exposed fingertips of his right hand. He didn’t want to feed whatever bacteria were festering around his bubble-wrapped arm with a dose of fresh moisture…
Feeling he’d made enough effort to satisfy his escort, he tiredly exited the bathroom with the jacket dragging behind him. He walked past Mandy and returned to the lost and found hamper listlessly flinging the jacket into the bin.
“What a mess!” Mandy exclaimed in shock. “Did you throw all those clothes around like that? Clean this up. You can’t just leave clothes all over the floor, this isn’t your bedroom, Lyle. Were you raised in a barn? You’re such a pig.”
Lyle bit his tongue and compacted the jacket deep down into the hamper and piled the other clothing items on top. He was getting pretty annoyed with Mandy, but he felt like he had to be a good ambassador for the honor society, plus he was pleased how hard it was going to be for Max to find his stupid jacket now that it was covered in all those clothes… “That’s what he gets for pranking me.” Lyle thought to himself, as he gave an absent minded, ineffectual scratch at his itchy cast.
“LETS GO!” Mandy barked.