#4
I had just turned fourteen, and through what felt like a long and deep tunnel, I could hear my mother yelling at me. "For the last time, Joe," she was snarling through gritted teeth, "get out of that bed! We're not going to have your birthday party tonight if you don't go to school today!"
"Murhhnnnnhhh."
"Oh, knock it off!" she snapped, halting her exit from my room and spinning on her heel to face the lump of me lying on the bed. "You're lucky your father and I let you get away with this charade for this long. You're going to school today!"
"Gnnnnnhurrrrrrrr . . ." I muttered through my pillow, adding for emphasis a strong "Blgnnnfunf."
She placed her hands on her hips in a well-rehearsed motion. With a sigh, she said, "This is useless. I know that report cards for the midterm came out this week, and I know that you're probably failing, as usual. And I know that you will pull your grades up by the end of the semester, as always, and I know that you think this is all one big game. But you're still going to have to face your father over this report card at some point, so you might as well get up and get it over with as quickly as possib—"
I interrupted her with an incredibly powerful bout of deep chest coughing.
My poor mother stood there, torn. The noises she'd just heard rumble and flop out of her son sounded quite legitimate, indicating that perhaps this time he wasn't faking being sick to lay out of school. Still, there had been many previous occasions when this trick had been pulled, and in all occurrences, the sounds that I'd produced to convince my mother I was sick had become more and more authentic through constant practice. She probably thought at this point that it wasn't beneath me to go inhale chalk dust simply to produce an authentic cough. But there was one sure way to find out.
"Okay, fine!" she said, throwing up her hands. "You asked for it. We are going to the doctor today! There, how do you like that?"
"Phlaagggggmmmmurrrrr . . ."
She shook her head and closed her eyes. Was I calling her bluff, trying to get her to back down by pretending I was okay with the idea, thus proving I was sick and making a trip to the doctor futile? Or was I sick and unable to put up any sort of fight? I was an awfully good bluffer, but I also hated the doctor.
"Get dressed," she said, letting her hands flop downward with resignation. "We're going to see Dr. Clopton."
I didn't move.
"Joe," she said sharply, "I told you to get dressed! That means get your butt up out of that bed and . . ."
I shifted slightly.
"I'm not kidding! Get out of that bed, or so help me . . . I'm calling your father! He wanted me to handle this, but he told me to call him if you wouldn't play ball."
I shifted again.
"RIGHT NOW, YOUNG MAN!" she snapped.
I wriggled a bit, then lifted the covers and began to roll out of bed. Literally. With a resounding thud, I hit the floor.
My poor mother. What must have been going through her head at that moment? If I was really sick, she now had to lift my 220-pound frame off that floor all by herself. But if I was faking, she'd be falling for yet more of my bluff.
She bit her bottom lip. "Okay, wise guy! You want to play it that way? FINE! I'm calling 911!" She marched out of the room, certain this would do it. I'm sure she believed I'd come jogging into the dining room midcall and put a stop to the charade. When I didn't do that, she was absolutely convinced that I'd beg her to call the 911 operator and say it was all a mistake and they should call the cavalry back. When the paramedics and police arrived, she was willing to bet the house and both of the mortgages that I would sit up, smile, and turn beet red, embarrassed beyond belief that my mother had gotten up the gall to teach me a lesson. When the ambulance came and I put up no resistance whatsoever as they carried me on a backboard out of the house, her fury grew to near-infinite proportions. Surely I couldn't be this committed to faking my illness. But after all of the bluff-calling and check-raising and going all-in, it took only two words for her to lose all her chips.
"I said ‘double pneumonia,' " the doctor repeated.
My mother stood there, flabbergasted. "What?" she said again.
The doctor sighed. "Mrs. Peacock, your son is very ill," he said, repeating his previous three sentences in yet another slightly different way. "He's got double pneumonia, bronchitis, infections in both ears, a sinus infection, he's severely dehydrated, and—"
"He's . . . he's really . . ." she stammered. She narrowed her eyes, placed her hands on her hips with that practiced motion, and stared the doctor down. "Are you certain that he's really sick?"
"Ma'am," the doctor said with a shocked chuckle, "I can hear all sorts of buildup in his lungs when he breathes, he's running a temperature of a hundred and two, and he's barely able to open his eyes. If he's not sick, then I need to stop practicing medicine."
My mother's face resembled a film transition as it wiped from angry to extremely sad and concerned. She began to cry. "Oh my God. He's really sick!"
The doctor looked at her for a moment. "Yes, ma'am, that's what I've been— Wait, you mean you didn't know he was sick?"
"No! Well, wait. I knew he said he was sick," she responded. "I mean . . . It's report card week, and he's going to lose his Nintendo, and . . ." She adopted a pleading tone. "Oh, Doctor . . . You have no idea! I mean, I know it sounds so bad, but . . . But you just don't know him!"
"You thought he was faking?"
"Well, I'M not a doctor!" she said defensively. "I don't know what real bronchitis sounds or looks like! He can fake sick really well. I mean, you just don't know my son!"
"Did it ever occur to you to take his temperature?" the doctor asked.
"It's useless!" she said. "He knows every trick in the book! He'll hold the thermometer to a lightbulb if you're not in the room, and if you are, he'll pretend he can't hold it in his mouth . . . He'll hold hot coffee in his mouth to throw it off. Doctor, seriously! You just don't know him!"
The doctor regarded this poor woman who had the son with the penchant for dodging school. "And the cough?"
"I'd just thought he'd finally perfected the sound."
"Didn't you notice he wasn't eating?"
"He has a fridge in his room," she said in monotone, staring off into space as her mind danced around how it could be that she could miss all these signs.
"I see. Makes a habit of hibernating, does he?" he asked as he stood and went over to a small intercom.
"Yeah. He'll draw in his room for days, or read comics, or . . . OH MY GOD . . ." She began sobbing.
He finished paging a nurse to the room, then turned to comfort my poor distraught mother. "It's all right, Mrs. Peacock," he said. "He's going to be okay."
"I'm a terrible mother!" she wailed.
"You're probably a fine mother," he said as the guilt overcame her. "I'm sure he is quite a handful, if he's as much of a devil as you say."
She kept sobbing as the nurse arrived. The doctor ordered an IV and began rattling off all sorts of multisyllabic words. My mother interrupted his orders to ask, "He needs an IV?"
"Yes," the doctor replied. "He's going to have to stay here overnight, maybe even a few days. We're going to have to get some fluids—"
My poor, poor mother just stood there and cried.
"It's . . . It's going to be all right, Mrs. Peacock . . ."
She got up and walked over to the bed. "I am so sorry," she said, taking my hand. I'm sure the sight of me in a hospital on my birthday brought back any number of bad memories.
I spent that night and much of the next day in the closest thing to a coma one can be without being in a coma. I'm not sure there's a medical term for it outside of saying that I was really, really tired from being really, really sick. But that's what I was, and that's how it went.
When I was released, I came home to a fairly nice party with a few family members in attendance (my eighth-grade year hadn't produced any real friends I'd associate with outside of school). I got a yellow Sports Walkman and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for Nintendo, as well as some comic books I'd been asking for. And I had it all taken away, along with the Nintendo, my television privileges, my stereo, and my bike when my report card came back with five F's and an A in physical education.
Not to worry, though. I got straight B's at the end of the semester, just like I always did.
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