And that might have been the reason Bateman stopped. Maybe even then, just a boy, Bateman had already developed a criminal’s instinct to avoid incriminating evidence.
I slumped to the ground, unable to raise my head, and listened to the sound of their shoes in the gravel as they ran to their bikes and made their escape. Hidden in the shade behind the cinder-block bathroom, I felt my left eye swelling shut. The metallic taste of warm blood filled my mouth, and my lower lip was going numb. When I ran my tongue over it, I felt a small cut and a sharp, stinging pain. At some point, I managed to get to my feet and hobble to my stricken bike. I don’t recall how I lifted it or got it to roll. What I do remember, very clearly, were the mothers in the nearby playground pushing their children on swings and sitting on benches. I remember a man and a woman who had been sunbathing on towels sitting up and watching me make my way back to the fence. I remember a man walking his dog on a leash continuing past me.
My mother and father could call my red eyes a “condition,” but I realized it was more than that. I was different. I could not hide my eyes.
My bike and I wobbled down the sidewalk together, and though it was only two blocks to my home, I remember thinking the trek to be an arduous journey I would never survive. Leaving the park and halfway down the block, I saw the blue Falcon inching toward me. My mother looked to be standing behind the wheel, her head hovering just above the windshield, swiveling left and right. Mrs. Cantwell knelt on the passenger seat, eyes also searching. I could see the top of Ernie’s head in the back seat.
When my mother saw me, it was as if time momentarily stopped. She seemed paralyzed at the sight of me. I recall her looking at me, brow furrowed as if she did not recognize me. I remember her eyes shutting for what seemed like seconds but was likely only a fraction of a moment. Then the car door flung open, and she was running between the parked cars, hand covering her mouth, tears streaming down her face. I recall her lips moving, her hands touching me. “What happened? My God, what happened?”
I could have told her, but I sensed, somehow, that was not the intent of her questions. My mother could see what had happened. She wasn’t even really directing her questions to me; she was crying out to the God in whom she put so much trust and faith. In her grief and pain, my mother simply wanted to know why. “Dear God, why?”
But that was a question for which I did not have an answer.
11
I don’t know who loaded my bike into the trunk of the Falcon. I assume it was Mrs. Cantwell, because my mother did not let go of me until she got me to the car and put me in the back seat. Ernie had slid to the opposite side, pressed against the armrest. He kept his chin down, but I recall tears streaking his cheeks. I found out later that he did not have permission to ride his bike alone to Village Park. I’d suspected as much when he suggested and proffered the lie, but I didn’t question it, swept up in the adventure and thrilled with the idea I was a normal kid doing normal things with my friend.
At some point during the car ride, I felt his fingertips on my shoulder, a tentative touch I ignored. His fingers retreated. I was not mad at Ernie for leaving me. Nor did I consider him responsible for what had happened. My refusal to look at Ernie came from my abject embarrassment, my humiliation to have a friend, my only friend, see me so weak and helpless.
My mother drove straight to the emergency room at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital. She did not park or turn off the engine. She jumped from the car and pulled her seat forward. “Come on, Sam,” she whispered, lifting me into her arms and carrying me through the sliding glass doors as she called out, “My son’s been hurt. He’s hurt.”
A nurse helped my mother place me on a gurney, and together they wheeled me down a fluorescent-lit hall into a curtained room. “Can you tell me what happened?” the nurse asked.
“I don’t know,” my mother said. “I think he fell off his bike. Maybe a car hit him. He was at a friend’s house. He hasn’t said anything. My baby. Look at my baby.”
“What’s his name?” the nurse asked, helping me onto the bed behind the curtain.