Mickey - 4. Chapter 4

“At least I was prepared this morning,” Mickey said as he opened the door. “I didn’t want you waiting outside again.”

“Well, I thought that I should warn you before I left last night. If for nothing else to make sure that Jill didn’t get cold coffee again.”

Mickey laughed. “She told me it was really good stuff, at least at one time in its life, but if she doesn’t wake up soon she’ll never know,” he replied, smiling. “So come on in!”

Drew knew his way around by now so Mickey didn’t need to guide him to the kitchen. Not that it was exactly labyrinthine. With only two bedrooms, a living room, bathroom, kitchen and dining nook, there was never very far to go wrong in any direction.

“Same stuff as yesterday is still OK, right?”

“Like I said, anything is good, Drew. It’s all appreciated.”

His return was no surprise. Mickey initially told him that while it was a thoughtful gesture, he didn’t need to spend all that time and effort. Drew had classes to attend, while Jill picked up notes for him. But the sense he got from Drew was that this was really important for him to do this. He couldn’t not do it.

And, if he was honest with himself, he realized that he couldn’t be as discouraging as his personal pride might have demanded. It was nice to have this guy around.

The sandwich assembly started almost the moment that the bag landed on the table. “I’ll try to put this together quickly, while the bagel is still warm. By the way, I got some cheese, too. No need to skimp on the cholesterol. You’ll need it for your recovery.”

“What the heck. What have I got to lose?” he replied, anticipation on his face.

                                 ***

“Still no Jill?” Drew asked after they had finished eating and he started to pick up the plates.

“I guess not. Sometimes she sleeps in on weekends if she’s not slammed,” Mickey said as he got up to help with the cleanup.

"My roommate never sleeps in. She’s always up when I am,” Drew replied.

For some reason, Mickey felt a chill. Not that he had any right to expect anything different. In fact, he had no right to expect anything at all from him. But if Drew had a girlfriend. ‘Well…good for him.’

But he still felt himself tripping over his words. “Um…you probably make a lot of noise when you wake up, huh? It’s, uh…hard to wake up quietly.”

Drew looked back as he was moving into the kitchen. “Well, I think that’s true. But in her case, she just wants to eat and is always looking for food. Dogs are like that. All they want is food.”

‘Dog?’ Mickey thought to himself. ‘He just said ‘dog’?

“Wow, that’s great that you have a dog. What’s her name?” He said it with an enthusiasm that almost embarrassed him, but it didn’t look like Drew noticed.

“’Daisy,’ but I sometimes call her ‘Daze.’ My mom gave her to me on my 10th birthday. She was just a pup.”

“So you raised her?”

“Oh yeah, or she raised me, one of the two,” he responded as he carefully put their glasses into the sink.

Mickey followed behind with a few utensils that he put next to the glasses. They both tried to keep the noise down but with glass hitting the tinny metal surface of the sink it was a nearly impossible task.

“By the way,” Drew continued, “the bagel and crème cheese don’t need to be eaten right away, so Jill can dive in whenever she wants.” He carefully folded back the top of the bag and placed it on the tiny area of countertop that wasn’t already covered with a toaster, rice cooker and other small appliances.

"No worries about her. She’ll eat it and be grateful. I’ll make sure of that.”

Drew smiled as he wiped down the counter around the sink. “Anyway, you were asking me about Daisy. Yes, I did raise her. It was one of the conditions of my getting a pet. I got to do the fun stuff, of course, puppies are great. But I had the ‘business end,’ too, as it were,” he joked.

“Cleaning up the poop?” Mickey asked.

“And the pee. And the barf when she got sick. Everything. That was the deal. I couldn’t ask the maid to do it - the job was all mine. But Mom gave me a pretty good little book on how to house train a dog. It was meant for kids, but even when I look back it was a pretty good primer for adults, too.”

“I’ll bet that’s a good bonding experience. Go through the hard times with them and you both remember,” Mickey commented as they both went back to the dining area to do final clean up on the table.

Drew paused for a moment, putting both arms on the back of a chair and rocking it back and forth on its back legs for a moment. “Yeah, it was. I really feel close to her. Probably more than to almost any person, even in my family. She’s just been there for a lot of my life.” He gave a slight sigh, then continued.

“She’s getting older now, slowing down a lot, jumping up on the furniture a lot less. She has all sorts of lumps on her which, fortunately, aren’t cancerous, at least not so far. But she’s a good girl and I take care of her as best I can.

“What does she do when you’re at classes?”

Drew laughed. “That was my one splurge for college. After leaving the dorms after freshman year, I got a ground level apartment in a house, really a condo, and brought her here for my sophomore year and we’ve lived together since then. I put in a fence and doggie door so that she can go in and out as she pleases. I also take her to doggie day care a couple times a week for socializing.”

“I never had a dog, but I really like them,” Mickey replied. “For the dog owners I know, they are like kids, but I guess without the sass,” he said as he retook his seat back at the table.

“I don’t know that. She will bark when things aren’t to her liking,” Drew replied, laughing.

“Hey Mickey, now that you’re sitting down again, I wanted to ask about the arm. It looks like you’re doing better, but you still had a bit of trouble with that last bite of food. How does it feel now?”

In order to avoid the struggles of the day before, Mickey had eaten the entire sandwich open-face style with a knife and fork, thinking that he could camouflage from Drew any awkwardness. Even though it was not as bad as the day before, it still wasn’t easy to get the slices into his mouth. ‘But how did he even notice?’ Mickey thought to himself.

“I’ve got a bit more motion in it today. Still not one hundred percent but maybe fifty percent back to normal.”

“Let’s see. Can you show me how far you can move it?” Drew asked as he took the chair that was closer to Mickey.

Mickey slid back in the seat and positioned himself with his feet straight ahead. Sitting up ramrod straight, he attempted to raise his arms. Slowly, like when he did bicep curls in the gym, he was able to completely raise the fists up to shoulder level. “See, not too bad,” he proclaimed.

“That’s good, but you’re only bending at the elbow, you’re not moving the shoulder very much. Try to raise your hands over your head, like when you’re doing a shoulder press,” Drew directed. By now he had pushed over the table and moved his new seat even closer to ‘the patient.’

“Oh, Ok. “I’ll try that.” Mickey got his elbows about as high as his shoulders then stopped. He bit his lip and tried to raise them higher, but couldn’t push even a fraction of an inch more.

“Good! Good! But I’ll bet you can do better,” he said as he further adjusted his chair while pushing the table over even more so that he was now directly in front of Mickey. “I had a ton of physical therapy when I was playing football. Not that I’m a professional physical therapist, but I do know that in all this stuff you try to make incremental progress if you want to get back in shape. So I’ve got an idea. Do you mind if I help you?”

“Heck no! Especially if you can save me the physical therapist time,” Mickey replied as he lowered his hands back down to his sides.

“Good. I’ll try not to hurt you, so let me know if this is ever painful, ok?”

Mickey nodded in consent but was still anxious. He wanted to get better, and, even more, didn’t want to be a bad patient.

“I’m going to give you just a bit of push on the bottoms of your elbow to help raise up your arms. There won’t be much pressure, just a touch. But it might just be all you need,” he said.

“I guess that sometimes our self-preservation instincts kick in and we can’t push ourselves as hard as we can actually tolerate, at least that’s my theory,” Drew continued, his eyes very focused and serious. “But go ahead, see if you can put your hands above your head.

Trying to be the good patient gave Mickey even more anxiety, but he could at least be prepared for Drew’s ‘electric’ touch. With his arms taut and stretched, a sudden jump could really hurt.

As he began to raise them he watched Drew’s hands follow without yet making contact. But we he got stuck at the same place as before, Drew gave just a very gently push at the elbow.

There wasn’t that same jolt as the earlier times that Drew had surprised him with his touch, but he seemed to feel a weird tingling where the connection was made. Luckily, he had a long-sleeve shirt on. He wasn’t sure what would have happened if he had made real skin contact.

Inch by inch, his arms slowly elevated, until Drew pulled back and just let his fingers hover under the trembling arms.

“Feel the stretch?” Drew asked.

“Uh huh,” Mickey, his eyes tightly closed, straining to keep his arms in the air.

“Good!” Hold it there for a bit.

Mickey winced, but kept his arms up.

“Keep them up…Keep them up…” he said, then paused for a good ten seconds, allowing Mickey to get a feel for the position

“Ok…we’re going to come down now. Are you ready?

“Yup.” Mickey drew a breath as he opened his eyes and saw Drew’s hands supporting his own as he slowly moved them down.

“Are you OK?

“Um… yeah, I think so. It hurts, but kind of in a good way, like I’m stretching something that needs stretching,” Mickey replied. “Should we try to go higher?”

“Well, we’ll just take it in steps, a bit at a time. Your breathing is getting kind of heavy. Are you sure this isn’t too much?”

He hadn’t realized it, but he was almost panting and had no idea why. “Oh, wow, sorry. It hurts a bit, but like I said, in a good way,” he replied. “We should do it again.”

“We will. But let’s just rest for bit longer,” Drew responded.

The exercise went on for the next ten minutes, each time Mickey getting his hands a fraction of an inch higher, until he could, with effort and a bit of an assist, get about 80% of his reach back.

“You look like a real expert at this. Is it one of those things that you’ve had more experience at this than you ever thought you wanted?” he said as he finished the last set and let his arms hang at his sides.

“That’s for sure,” Drew replied, letting out a deep breath of air. There was weariness in his voice as he pushed his chair back and started to return the table to its original place.

“Didn’t you play football, too?” Mickey asked. He regretted the question after it came out of his mouth. It seemed kind of prying. But he remembered that Drew’s father was a rather famous football star before he made his fortune in business and suspected that Drew might have been too. He sure had the build for it.

“Oh, yeah, I did. I really like it. But I just got too many injuries, which quarterbacks tend to do. Most weren’t so bad, but after the second concussion, that was the end of it for me. Even in the Ivy League, where it’s not exactly playoff level quality, people can play rough.

“Do you miss it?”

Drew thought for a moment. “Yeah, I do. I really liked going in the huddle, making plays happen, controlling a team. It was great fun. I would probably have just continued to play through the injuries if it wasn’t for my dad. I guess I wanted to make him proud, didn’t want him to think I was a wuss. But he was pretty adamant that I should stop playing. It kind of surprised me.”

“Why was that surprising? He was just looking out for you.”

“I know, and that does seem like a natural parent-type thing for him. But he’s just so hard-nosed about success in business and sports, I guess it was just surprising that he didn’t just tell me to gut it out.”

“Concussions are dangerous. That was the best thing he could have done for you.”

“I think you’re right, and he was right. It was just unexpected to hear it from him, that’s all. Maybe my sister worked on him.”

“You have a sister?” Mickey asked. Most people would have known that fact about the Patterson family, but if Drew was surprised he didn’t show it.

“Yeah, I do, just one. Her name is Casey, she’s three years older than me. She and I are pretty close, and she’s actually closer to my Dad than just about anyone. So she goes to bat for me sometimes.”

“Well, she picked the right time. You know better than me what a concussion can do.”

“You weren’t too far away from one yourself the other day,” Drew responded, looking directly at him.

“I guess he was the size of a linebacker, wasn’t he? But a 16th round pick, if his agility said anything,” Mickey commented, trying to play down the confrontation.

Drew smiled, but it was one of those weak ‘I heard you, but I don’t necessarily agree’ reactions as he put his head down.

“By the way,” Mickey said, slowly lifting his arms on his own just to keep limber. “What about this basketball league of yours that you mentioned?”

Drew’s head suddenly popped up. “Glad you mentioned it, I’ve been thinking about that,” he replied, then spoke rapidly, the excitement unmistakable.

“There’s about 10 of us right now, but in winter, when the football guys are available, we’re like around 15 guys, so we can fill two teams in the league. It’s just intramurals, but we all take it pretty seriously. I don’t think being a graduate student is a problem. In fact, I know of at least one other law student and another guy from the business school. Oh yeah, and another from the architecture school, too. So you’d be perfect. Our own ringer.”

“Whoa!” Mickey replied, dropping his hands and laughing. “Don’t sell me as your ringer! I’m an OK player, mostly because I’m kind of tall and can jump fairly high. But I’m not exactly a great shot. Plus, if you’ve got some football guys out there that are as big as you I might get pushed around a lot.”

“I’ll bet that you’re tenacious.” Drew said, as motioned for Mickey to try to get his arm up again one more time. “Look at those elbows. I’ll bet they seen their share of opponent’s ribs.”

“Don’t set the bar too high, that’s all I’ve got to say,” he replied as he again started raising his arms. “I did play in high school, and it was a lot of fun. But we barely had a .500 record and got knocked out of the tournament in the first round.”

“Look, you’re at least two years older than everyone else. That’s great experience. And you’ve got the height. And like you said, you can jump. Maybe you can be center?”

“Ha! First of all, I’m like 6’-2”, not 6’-8”, so I’m not really a center, even in intramurals. I can jump, yes, but not THAT high,” he claimed with emphasis,” and lastly, I’m probably not two years older than everyone else, either.”

“What do you mean not two years older?” Drew asked, incredulous.

He gulped at first. He rarely mentioned this to people, but the conversation just took a course that he couldn’t control.

“Um…I skipped third grade and did undergraduate in three years. I’m not sure that my grade school was the best in the world, and for college I just wanted to save time and money. And I was kind of young when I started kindergarten, too. So I’m probably not older than any of the seniors,” Mickey responded, continuing to slowly raise his arms.

“When were you born?” Drew asked, then he said when he himself was born. Mickey was reaching his earlier peak, so Drew again gave him just a light push on the elbows, just what he needed to set a new record for height.

“I guess that makes you about a month older than me, then. I was born in August, and you were born in July,” Mickey responded.

“So, you’re just a young punk?!” Drew said, a playful edge in his voice.

“‘Punk’ is… not exactly… the word I’d use,” Mickey responded, straining to hold up his arms at the new height.

“‘newbie,’ ‘tadpole,’ ‘neophyte,’ ….”

“‘Methuselah,’ ‘Geezer,’ …” Mickey shot back, his arms shaking, clearly on the edge of collapse both from the taught stretch and incipient giggling.

“Since you’re so young, maybe playing these games really would be too much to ask. We usually start at seven in the evening. That would only give you an hour before bedtime.”

Mickey’s arms suddenly dropped to his sides as he broke out in laughter despite the pain from the sudden movement.

“Are you trying to bait me?” Mickey asked.

“That’s not in my nature,” Drew answered, keeping a deadpan look on his face. But the look suddenly changed as he saw Mickey wince.

“Hey, does that hurt. Jeez, sorry! I shouldn’t have distracted you,” he responded, both arms out to steady Mickey in case he tried to move again.

“No…I’m OK, and you’ve just given me good reason to get back into shape as soon as possible. It will be youth vs. experience. May the best man win!”

“You’re on!” Drew responded.

                            ***

“So tonight, I thought I’d do something really unhealthy and pick up a bucket of fried chicken. How would that be?” Drew said as he was preparing to head out.

“Drew, are you sure? You could just come by, not have to hassle to run out and get something.”

“We’ve already discussed this, Mickey. You’ll get me some goodies when you’re back in shape, which you really don’t need to do anyway. In the meantime, you just need to rest and recover,” he replied as he threw his backpack on and pulled the straps. He pulled on them several times, and it almost seemed to Mickey like some kind of nervous reaction as much as simply getting the pack secured.

“By the way, he continued, “Tomorrow I’ve got classes and some other stuff to do so I can’t stay long in the morning. But I’ll still bring breakfast, and I’ll stop by after class and bring dinner again, too.”

Mickey sighed, but in a positive way. It was kind of nice that he couldn’t discourage him.

“So what class do you have early tomorrow?” he asked.

Drew hesitated for a moment. “We’ll, I actually don’t have a class first thing - my finance lecture isn’t until 11:00. But I volunteer at a day care center a couple days week and tomorrow I’m on duty”

“Wow, that’s great that you can get involved in something like that. What do you do?”

“I play with kids,” Drew responded, in a deadpan way, which made it sound like the most interesting thing that one could do. “It’s a great job. We play a kind of kiddie football, all sorts of other miniature adult games. But we also do crafts and dancing, singing, things that kids can understand and enjoy.”

“And adults, too, sometimes.” Mickey responded.

“Yeah, and they should do it more often” Drew added.

“How did you get involved?”

“I got recruited last year through the football team, it was the idea of one of the assistant coaches for the team to contribute kind of community service. A bunch of guys got involved, but I think I’m about the only one who stuck with it after that quarter was over.”

“Why did you stay?” Mickey asked.

Drew stopped pulling on the backpack straps. “You know, I just like the kids, I do. It kind of surprised me. I went into it with the same attitude as most of the guys, you know, kind of an obligation to the coach, be a good guy, that kind of stuff.

“But I found that it’s really fun being with them. They’re so nice, and so fun. They aren’t from affluent families, and some of them…” he paused to correct himself. “Well, most of them, have family problems. But they’re kids and they don’t seem to think too much about that stuff, at least when they are at the center. They just want to play and have fun.”

He glanced down at his watch. “Oh, wow, Mickey I need to run. But you’ll see me tonight, he said, as he started moving toward the door. “Try to take care of yourself, OK? “

“Will do. I promise.”

“And I believe you. I think.” Drew said with a wink as he pulled the door behind him.

Then, only a second later, the door cracked just an inch and a sunbeam came through.

“Fried is OK? You’re sure?” came the voice from the thin void.

“Good for me.”

“Got it.” Then the sunbeam disappeared.

After Drew had left, Mickey slumped against the wall, his head hanging down.

Thinking.

“How was breakfast?” Jill said. Unusual for her, she said it with a very quiet voice, but Mickey was still startled when he heard it.

“Oh...It was good. He made me a sandwich again,” he answered. “He left stuff for you, too. It’s on the cupboard, if you’re hungry.” He looked around, almost like he was coming out of sleep.

“Did you guys enjoy yourselves?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest as she leaned against the wall opposite Mickey.

“Yeah, of course. We talked a lot, just like last night. He even put me through some physical therapy, trying to get some flexibility back in my arms. I still feel kind of sore, but I think it will help me to get back to normal quicker.”

“That’s good.” She responded, then didn’t say anything as Mickey seemed to wander again. It was so quiet that they both could hear all the late morning sounds outside, from a couple of school kids walking by the house to neighbors pulling their cars out of the driveway on the way to start work.

It was almost a minute before she broke the silence.

"You know that you need to be careful here, right?”

“What do you mean?” Mickey asked, a shaky challenge in his voice.

“You know what I mean.”

He paused before answering. “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry, it’s just a friendship. I do like him and all, but it’s not like that.”

“Hmmm….” She responded, almost letting him think about his own words before she spoke. “Not that I was trying to eavesdrop, but...”

Mickey cut in, “But...” and raised his eyebrows as he looked at her.

“Well, it’s none of my business, of course. But all I can tell you is that you’d better be careful. One can’t always control who one falls for, no matter how rational and sensible one tries to be.”

“I know, but I think that…”

“You’re a smart guy, Mickey. So you’re even more vulnerable to your own rationalizations, which will undoubtedly be clever and convincing. Just be careful, that’s all I’ll say. Look at what you might be getting yourself into.”

He didn’t answer her immediately, and looked straight ahead again, with that look he had when she first interrupted him in the foyer. “He’s straight, I know, there’s no way he could be gay, not where he’s from,” he said, resignation in his voice as he sighed at even saying the words. “But I’d at least like him as a friend. I think I can do that.”

She turned and started walking back to the kitchen. “We’ll see,” she mused as she disappeared around the corner.