Yeah, it’s pretty much official: the only story I’ve ever written in which there is no character death is Prime. And that’s because the characters were numbers.
In searching for an old poem this evening, I came across this little short story. I remember writing this back in eighth grade during a soccer match I had to attend because I was in a sports medicine class. Yeah, yeah, I know, don’t ask me why I took sports med. I think I just wanted to learn the names of the bones and didn’t realize that the “sports” aspect of the class would involve six hours devoted to sitting on the sidelines at [insert random sport] and waiting for someone to sprain an ankle or break a toe or get heat stroke.
Party on, Moscow Junior High.
Anyway.
* * * * *
His name was Lars Robertson, but we never called him that. He was born with a hearing problem, and by the time he was six and I was seven, he was totally deaf. When he was seven and I was eight, he was in a bad car accident and lost both his arms: the left one just above the elbow and the right one in the middle of the upper arm. He didn’t seem to care. He just smiled from the hospital bed, pumping his bandaged stumps up and down as if he were trying to fly, and asked his mom to give him a candy bar. From then on, we called him Stumps. It’s not like he cared, he just smiled.
His parents didn’t understand why he was so happy. Sometimes at dinner they just stared at him in wonder.
“Why Lars?” his father asked.
His mother asked, “Why both his arms?”
And Stumps asked, “Could someone please pass the peas?”
I am surprised that Stumps can talk as well as he can. It’s always in the same tone, and sometimes he forgets a word and just mumbles incoherently as a substitute, but he’s pretty good for a deaf kid. He can’t use sign language, that’s for sure, and his parents can’t afford prosthetics right now, but Stumps has seemed to have adapted well to having no arms.
For instance, he’s a natural at soccer. He has socks put on his stubs to keep them warm, goes out on the field, and wins. He doesn’t just play, he wins. Our boys’ soccer team hasn’t lost a game since Stumps joined. Last season, we played for the championship. The other team made two goals. We made four. Stumps made three of them. After we won we lined up to shake hands with the losing team. The team captain went to congratulate Stumps; he stuck out his hand to shake. When he realized that Stumps had no hands, he took a step back, looked around nervously, and mumbled a hurried, “Good job.” Stumps smiled and flapped his empty jersey sleeves. He was a good lip reader.
Once, when I went to McDonald’s with Stumps and his parents, Stumps told them that he wanted to play soccer at the Olympics.
“You mean the Paralympics, dear,” his mother said.
“No,” Stumps said. “The Olympics.” His mother looked at his father. They looked so sad, like they didn’t want Stumps to be in the Olympics, but they didn’t say anything else.
Stumps looked at me. “The Olympics. Right, Louie?”
“Right,” I told him, and fed him his french-fries.
Stumps is really nice to me. Every time I make a goal he calls me Louie Kablooey and dances around. And I’m pretty much the only one who talks to him. There are these two bullies at school this year: Zack and Ricky. They’re both in the third grade, and they both pick on Stumps a lot. I try to help Stumps, but Ricky always corners me and if I try to get away he kicks me or throws rocks at me. One time Zack tripped Stumps and he fell flat on his face. Then Zack picked him up by the shirt and shook him. Then he brought Stumps over to me and held him right up close to me.
“Say ‘Stumps is an armless monkey-butt,” he told me.
“No,” I said.
Ricky was standing right beside me, and he told me to say it or else he’d beat my brains out. I wanted to be nice to Stumps, but I also wanted to keep my brains, so I said it quietly.
“Louder!” Zack commanded.
I yelled, “STUMPS IS AN ARMLESS MONKEY-BUTT!” and everyone turned and laughed and looked at Stumps. Zack dropped Stumps, Ricky threw me in the dirt, and they ran off, laughing. I got up and went over to Stumps. He had rolled onto his back and his nose was bleeding. He had tears on his cheeks, but he smiled when he saw me and flapped his arms, trying to sit up. I lifted him and carried him like a baby to the boys’ bathroom.
“I am sorry, Stumps,” I told him. “I don’t think you’re an armless monkey-butt.” Stumps smiled and said that it was okay as I turned on the sink water for him to wash the blood off his face.
On Stumps’ eighth birthday, I went over to his house to watch him open his presents and to have cake. Stumps was all dressed up. He had a black suit on, which had no sleeves to it, and fancy shoes. Everybody, even Stump’s older brother Michael, was wearing a party hat. It was weird to see Michael opening the presents even though it was Stump’s birthday, but Stumps just smiled. I gave him a new soccer ball.
“It’s got little blue circles in every white place,” I said. Stumps told me it was the best present he’d ever gotten. While Stumps fooled around with the soccer ball, Michael tore open another present and produced a pair of blue socks.
“I can use these,” Stumps stated, “for my stubs when I play soccer, now. They match my ball.”
“Those are for your feet, Lars,” his mother told him. “You use all of your socks for your stubs, but these are special socks. They’re for your feet only.”
Stumps’ smile disintegrated. “But all my other socks have holes in them,” he said. “They make my stubs cold.”
“Then maybe you should try something else for your stubs, son,” his father said. “Or not play so hard when it gets cold outside.” Stumps looked at his father as if he didn’t understand a word he was saying, while his mother removed Stumps’ shoes and old dirty socks and replaced them with the blue ones.
“These fit your feet so nicely,” his mother said to Stumps. “And look—no holes for your toes to poke out! Isn’t that nice?” Stumps examined his feet, and all he said was, “They match my ball.”
About a week later, I thought of the perfect present for Stumps, and brought it to school the next day.
“Hey Stumps,” I said. “I’ve got a present for you.” I pulled the lid off the shoebox and took out the toe socks. I had gotten them a few years ago from my grandma, but I never wore them because they itched my feet. I put one sock on each of Stumps’ stubs. “See?” I told him. “Now it’s like you have fingers.” Stumps smiled and told me it was the best present he’d ever gotten.
Stumps went around for the next three days wearing the toe socks. He showed them off to everybody and told them all that I had given them to him. He was just getting used to them when one day, he came to class without them.
“Stumps,” I asked him. “Where are your fingers?”
He scrunched up his face real tightly trying to remember the words to say, but came up with “mmmmm…” so I left him alone for awhile. If he was left alone, he could sometimes think of the words. This time, he didn’t.
It wasn’t until after school that day that I found out what happened to his fingers. I was walking out of the building when someone grabbed my backpack and swung me around. It startled me so much that it took me about 10 seconds to realize that it was Stumps’ mother. She demanded I tell her if I had really given Stumps the toe socks.
I stood there, shocked, then squeaked out, “Yes.” Then she got a real mean look on her face. Stumps’ mother had always been very relaxed and kind, even though she worried about Stumps a lot. But then, she gripped my shoulders really tight—I thought I would scream—and said, “Don’t you ever disrespect my son that way again. Just because Lars has no arms doesn’t mean you’re better than he is in any way, Louie. Do you understand?” I nodded. “You don’t make fun of people’s disabilities.” She looked hard into my eyes, then let go of me.
Slowly, I started walking home. I was crying. I didn’t understand Stumps’ mother. I wasn’t trying to make fun of Stumps, I just figured he’d want to have fingers. I told him this the next day, and he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “You weren’t making fun of me. I liked having fingers, anyway.”
It was November and the soccer season was over, but it didn’t matter to Stumps. Even after it started to snow in December, Stumps would wait for the snowplow to clear their street, and then dribble the soccer ball I had given him for his birthday up and down the street for hours a day. He continued this until three days before Christmas when he got a bad case of pneumonia and his mother took away his soccer ball.
“No more soccer,” she told him “until the spring.”
I had tried to avoid Stumps’ mother since the day she yelled at me, so Michael called me that night and held the phone up so that Stumps could talk to me. “Louie, now what am I supposed to do?”
I was about to tell Michael to tell Stumps to try something like drawing or yo-yoing, but then I remembered that Stumps couldn’t do any of those. “Dance, Stumps,” I told Michael finally. “You can dance. You like to dance.”
I heard Michael repeat this to Stumps. “There’s no dancing in the Olympics,” he told me.
I thought he wouldn’t try it, but when we got back to school in January, we started square dancing in gym, and Stumps was better than all of us. The girls were afraid to dance with him, but Stumps didn’t care. He just stood alone in the corner, spinning in circles and pumping his stubs like a wild man and laughing the whole time. It didn’t seem to matter to him that he couldn’t hear the music. It also didn’t matter that he wasn’t square dancing—he was still better than all the rest of us.
The gym teacher held a competition for the whole school, and Stumps won. He even beat the sixth graders. He got applause and five dollars. His mother and father were very proud. I think they wanted him to quit soccer, but Stumps wouldn’t.
“But you’re such a good dancer,” his mother protested. “You could join a dance club after-school and perform for many people.”
“I like soccer better,” Stumps replied.
In March, Stumps began kicking the soccer ball around again, and his mother gave up all hope of ever getting Stumps to dance. I didn’t see Stumps at all that summer because we went to Maine to spend the summer with my grandma. Stumps’ brother wrote a letter for Stumps to send to me:
Dear Louie Kablooey,
Mom told me the Olympics wouldn’t take me without arms. I didn’t believe her, but she kept saying it. She told me there had
never been a person without arms in any Olympic sport, and I said that I would be the first. Michael told me about this
Jamaican Bobsled team. If Jamaicans learned to bobsled without snow, can’t I play soccer without arms? What do you
think?
Your friend,
Stumps.
I answered him by saying that he should try for the Olympics no matter what his mother told him, but I also said he’d look good with arms. I even drew him a picture. I think he liked it, because he wrote back saying that he was looking for arms. I showed this letter to my mom.
She laughed. “I don’t think that little boy has any idea of how prosthetics cost. I’d like to see their family afford two arms.”
When we got back at the beginning of the school year, Stumps had already saved up $50. “I got twenty of it from dancing competitions,” he told me. “I didn’t think that you could get that much money for just dancing. My partner’s name is Brittany. She’s not afraid to dance with me. She says I’m a really good dancer.” It turned out that Brittany had to teach Stumps every single step and every single rhythm because Stumps could not hear the music. The other $30 Stumps had earned had been from his birthday money and donations from his mother’s friends.
“I hear Lars wants prosthetics,” one would say to her. “Give him these $5 and wish him good luck.”
She would try to tell them that there would be no way that Stumps could save up the $30,000 it would cost for both arms, but they gave it to her anyway. He didn’t collect candy on Halloween night; instead, he wore a sign on his shirt that asked for donations for prosthetic arms. He went around the town without socks on his stubs so he could show them to curious donators. Before Halloween, he had about $80. After Halloween, he had over $120.
His mother got curious about where Stumps was keeping all the money and asked me about it. This was the first time she’d spoken to me since she yelled at me about making fun of Stumps. I told her I had no idea where Stumps was keeping his money, but she kept pestering me for the answer.
“You started this madness,” she said to me “with those toe socks. You think this is going to make his life easier?”
“If he gets the arms it will,” I replied.
“Do you have any idea how much prosthetic arms cost?”
I guessed at around $500 for each arm. She just shook her head and walked away.
Stumps continued practicing soccer and dancing after school in his dance club with Brittany as well. When Stumps told her about his raising money for new arms, she was ecstatic.
“Then you can really twirl me!” she said.
Stumps got really sick in February—sick enough to have to stop going to both school and the dance club for awhile. We were in 4th grade, and Stumps missed all this important testing stuff, as well as the concert for the dance club. Brittany was upset because she had to dance with another partner, but because she was used to leading and he could twirl her for real, they won the $10 prize.
Brittany gave half of it to Stumps. “So you can dance with arms next year and be my partner!” she told him. By now, Stumps had over $200. But he was still very sick. His mother took him to the hospital to see what was wrong with him and why he wasn’t getting any better, and the doctors did a lot of tests. And when they did find out what it was, it wasn’t good. Stumps had stomach cancer.
The doctors thought that this cancer had been growing for about five years and had just started causing problems. I asked my mom if the cancer didn’t do anything bad to Stumps until it got big enough, kind of like a splinter in your foot wouldn’t hurt unless you stepped on it wrong, and she told me that cancer was a lot worse than any splinter. Also, we found out that Stumps’ cancer was inoperable, which meant that they couldn’t take it out. He had to stay in the hospital.
I asked if Stumps was going to die, and mom said, “Most likely, dear.”
From that point on, I tried to spend as much time with Stumps as I could. But his hospital room was scary—it was very white and there wasn’t even a window in it. He had a needle in his shoulder and a lot of monitors around his bed. But every time I came into the room, he’d smile and ask me to tell him stories or to play a simple game with him.
One day in early April, Stumps’ mom caught me outside of Stumps’ room and said she needed to talk to me. “The doctors say he’s only got about a month left to live,” she told me while we walked slowly down the hall.
“Does he know he’s going to die?” I asked her.
She sighed and put her arm around my shoulder. “Oh, he’s known that from day one,” she said. “Lars is a fighter. He’s strong—but not stronger than cancer.” Then we stopped walking and she put her hands on my shoulders, only this time she didn’t yell at me.
“What does he want?” she asked me. “What does he want more than anything else in the world?”
I thought. “He wants arms,” I told her. “But that’s not the thing he wants most.”
“What does he want most?” I paused. “He wants you to want him to be in the Olympics.” I paused again. I felt like Stumps, trying to think of the right words. “He wants your…approval,” I said at last.
She took her hands off my shoulders. “My approval. Out of all the things he could want in the world—even more than a pair of arms—he wants my approval. How could I be so stupid?” I started to tell her that she wasn’t stupid, but she interrupted me by saying that I could go see Stumps. I could tell she was crying, so I left her.
I wasn’t there when Stumps’ mother told him that she approved of him trying out for the Olympics, but Stumps later told me that it was the best day of his life. Then his mother did another good thing—she got Stumps his arms. The $400 Stumps had saved up, as well as another $1,000 was enough to persuade a prosthetic expert to give a dying boy his last wish.
It was May when Stumps was no longer Stumps. Even though he was in extreme pain, he was able to sit up and have the two prosthetic arms fitted onto his stubs. Everyone in the room clapped for him, and Stumps, for the first time in three years, was able to raise his arms up into the air. He made the ‘touchdown’ sign, and everyone laughed. It was like a birthday party—there were cards and teddy bears and balloons.
I said goodbye to him the next morning.
“Thank you,” he said to me “for being my friend. And for teaching me how to dance. I would have never met Brittany or raised enough money for my arms.” He used what little strength he had in his left stub to raise the plastic arm. I grabbed the cold, fake fingers, and shook hands with Stumps.
“Goodbye, Louie,” he said, smiling.
“Goodbye…Lars.”
Stumps passed away on the morning of May 5th, 2003. They were going to have an open casket service for him, and his mother asked me if he should be buried with the prosthetics attached.
“No,” I said. “He wouldn’t be Stumps without his stubs.”
“Stumps?” His mother had never known about his nickname.
“It’s what we all called him,” I said. I expected her to get mad at the thought of a nickname like ‘Stumps,’ but instead she just smiled.
“It’s cute,” she told me.
At the service, I was afraid. A lifeless Stumps was in the room with everybody looking at him and crying over him. I didn’t want to go at first, but my mom said it would be disrespectful to Stumps if I didn’t at least see him in his casket. I walked to the front of the church. Stumps looked like he was asleep; I felt as if I could reach out and shake his shoulder and he’d wake up and smile at me. But I didn’t; I knew it wouldn’t happen.
He was wearing the same suit that he had worn on his eighth birthday, but instead of the fancy dress shoes, he was wearing the shoes he always danced in. He had the blue socks on his stubs, and the prosthetics lying beside him. The soccer ball I had given him was down by his feet. Brittany was there and we said ‘hi’ to each other and stood looking at Stumps before we walked out of the church. But before we left his side, I turned back to look at him, and I could swear he was smiling.
I still visit Stumps’ grave every once and awhile. I put a soccer ball on his plot a few years ago, but some kids stole it, so ever since then, I’d put flowers or a poem there for him. But the best part is what’s written on his tombstone:
Lars ‘Stumps’ Robertson
1993-2003
Great Dancer
Future Olympian
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