On Friday I trundled our Lawn-Boy up the street and went to work on the half-tamed yard. I figured I could have it looking relatively spiff by the weekend. The following week was spring vacation, and I planned to spend a lot of it at Number 1 Sycamore. I’d clean the windows, then go to work on the picket fence—get it standing up straight again. I thought seeing those things would cheer Mr. Bowditch up.
I was mowing along the Pine Street side of the house （Radar was inside, wanting nothing to do with the roaring Lawn-Boy） when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I killed the mower and saw ARCADIA HOSPITAL on the screen. I took the call with a sinking in my gut, sure someone was going to tell me Mr. Bowditch had taken a turn for the worse. Or worse still, passed away.
It was about him, all right, but it wasn’t anything bad. A lady named Mrs. Ravensburger asked if I could come in tomorrow morning at nine to talk about Mr. Bowditch’s “recovery and aftercare.” I said I could, and she then asked if I could bring along a parent or guardian. I said probably.
“I saw your picture in the paper. With that wonderful dog of his. Mr. Bowditch owes you both a debt of gratitude.”
I assumed she was talking about the Sun, and I guess she could have been, but Radar and I turned up elsewhere, too. Or maybe I should say everywhere.
Dad came in late, as he usually did on Fridays, and he had a copy of the Chicago Tribune, opened to page two, where the Trib ran a little sidebar called “In Other News.” It collated bite-sized items of a more cheerful nature than the stuff on the front page. The one featuring Radar and me was headlined HERO DOG, HERO TEEN. I wasn’t exactly shocked to see myself in the Trib, but I was surprised. This is a pretty good world, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, and there are thousands of people doing thousands of good deeds every day （maybe millions）。 A kid helping out an old guy who fell off a ladder and broke his leg was nothing special, but the picture sold it. Radar was caught in mid-lick, me with my arm around her neck and my head thrown back in laughter. And looking, dare I say, rather handsome. Which made me wonder if Gina Pascarelli, my daydream girl, had come across it.
“See that?” Dad asked, tapping the caption. “AP. Associated Press. That picture’s probably in five or six hundred newspapers today, coast-to-coast. Not to mention all over the Internet. Andy Warhol said eventually everyone in America would be famous for fifteen minutes, and I guess you’re having your quarter-hour. Want to go out to Bingo’s to celebrate?”
I certainly did, and while I was eating my beef ribs （the double rack）， I asked Dad if he’d come with me to the hospital tomorrow, to talk to a lady named Mrs. Ravensburger. He said it would be his pleasure.
9
We met in Ravensburger’s office. With her was a young woman named Melissa Wilcox—tall and toned, her blond hair worn in a stubby, no-nonsense ponytail. She was going to be Mr. Bowditch’s physical therapist. She did most of the talking, checking a little notebook from time to time so as not to forget anything. She said that after “some discussion,” Mr. Bowditch had agreed to allow her into his home twice a week to work on his range of motion and get him on his feet again, first with Canadian crutches—the kind with metal circlets for arm support—then with a walker. She would also take his vitals to make sure he was “progressing nicely” and check on something called pin care. “Which you will have to do, Charlie.”
I asked her what that meant, and she explained that the rods going into his leg had to be swabbed regularly with disinfectant. She said it was a painful procedure, but not as painful as an infection that could lead to gangrene.
“I wanted to come four days a week, but he wouldn’t have it,” Melissa said. “He’s very clear on what he will and won’t have.”
Tell me about it, I thought.
“He’ll need a lot of help at first, Charlie, and he says you’ll give it.”
“According to him,” Mrs. Ravensburger put in, “you’re his recovery plan.” She was talking to me but looking at my dad, as if inviting him to object.
He didn’t.
Melissa flipped to a new page on her little notebook, which was bright purple with a snarling tiger on the front. “He says there’s a bathroom on the first floor?”
“Yes.” I didn’t bother telling her it was really small. She’d find that out on her first home visit.
She nodded. “That’s a big deal, because he won’t be capable of climbing stairs for some time.”