Collateral Damage Read online

  “Dad, I told you, she had to go to work.”

  “I just don’t have the memory I used to . . . I got hit in the head . . . pretty bad.”

  The bathroom was less of a challenge. Once past the door, Ty’s father said he could handle it from there, so Ty shut the door and went downstairs.

  The basement—now his bedroom—was a mess with clothes, books, and furniture stacked and piled everywhere. Ty took a deep sigh and started to arrange things before he heard his father call him. Ty rushed upstairs.

  “There you are. I thought . . . I thought . . . you’d gone off to school.”

  “School’s been over for hours.”

  Ty’s father dropped his head. “Ha. Time flies.”

  Ty wheeled his father into the living room, next to the couch.

  “Can you fix dinner tonight, son? I’m just a little . . . off,” said his father, laughing.

  This wasn’t a good development. “Dad, I’m no cook, you know that.” Just then, he remembered. “But Mom said there are leftovers from the party.” The party he’d missed.

  As he took a quick inventory of the tubs and bowls in the refrigerator, his father shouted from the living room. “What would Bruce Lee have for dinner? What was that movie?” Ty tried to remember the name of the film where the martial arts actor had ordered four large bowls of soup. “I can’t remember the movie, Dad.”

  “Welcome to the club,” Ty’s dad laughed. Ty never even cracked a smile.

  ***

  A half hour later, Ty and his father were seated at the kitchen table, scraping their dinner plates clean of beans, salad, and fried chicken.

  Ty’s phone rang. It was his mother.

  “Did you remember the medication he’s supposed to have before dinner?” she asked.

  Ty shot up from his chair, “Crap!”

  He rushed to the pill bottles.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Ty went to the door and opened it, his phone in hand.

  “The ramp’s finished,” said one of the workers. “Give your dad our best.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  Ty went back to the pill bottles, his mother still on the phone.

  “I told you, he has to have that medication before dinner or it will upset his stomach.”

  “Upset? What does that mean?”

  “He’ll vomit, that’s what it means.”

  There was another knock at the door.

  “We waited for the old guys to leave.” It was Benj and Demonte, kids from the bus, each with a skateboard in hand. “Can we skate your ramp, man?”

  Before he could answer, Ty heard his father make an odd noise, just before he heard the ugly sound of vomit hitting the floor.

  Ty’s shoulders dropped. There were dishes to put away, homework to do, and his bedroom lay in piles on the basement floor. And now there was a mess to clean.

  5

  JANUARY 7 / WEDNESDAY, AFTER SCHOOL

  WARREN HIGH SCHOOL GYM

  Ty’s white Jordans smacked hard against the brown bleacher stairs Coach Carlson made him run after practice. He’d seen his teammates, Arquavis in particular, run those stairs as punishment for being late for practice. But for him, it was a first. His mind raced to the first dinner he’d made the night before and that he’d been up way too late, cleaning up after his father’s upset stomach—another first. His mom had been tied up at work all night—not a first.

  “Tyshawn, see me when you’re done,” Coach Carlson shouted. He’d shouted at Ty most of the way through practice. The more Coach shouted, the more Ty pressed. The more he pressed, the more Ty made the wrong pass, the wide shot, or set a bad screen.

  “Yes, sir,” Ty shouted back, not wanting to show he felt winded.

  “And don’t be late again, Tyshawn!”

  One more “yes sir,” one more flight of stairs, one more obstacle. As he sweated under the hot lights of the gym, Ty knew his friends were showering off, getting dressed, and getting on with their lives. He wasn’t on point, he was left behind. But it had been like that all day, what with missing so much sleep the night before.

  As he descended the bleachers for the tenth and final time, Ty felt nothing but guilt. What am I complaining about? he thought. He knew this was nothing compared to what his dad went through—or what he was going through now. Man up, Ty, man up.

  “Done, Coach,” Ty said. Coach Carlson motioned for Ty to sit next to him. Coach Carlson was shorter than Ty, but somehow he seemed larger. Like some guys in school or at playground pick-up games—and Ty’s dad—Coach owned the space he occupied.

  “Why were you late?” Coach asked.

  Ty studied the hard wood under his feet at the same time he fought back a yawn. “It won’t happen again.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Ty didn’t know what to say. No way Coach could understand what was happening at home. He knew Ty’s dad had been injured; what he didn’t know was that his injuries made his dad a different person. After other deployments, Ty’s dad mostly left the war behind. Maybe he was a little different in ways that were hard to describe. But this time, he’d brought the war home like an unwanted gift.

  “Whatever’s going on, Tyshawn, you know the rule,” Coach said. “Two more tardies and you’re off the team. Got it?”

  Ty tugged on the frayed end of his practice uniform. He knew that without basketball, he could just as easily have been wearing another set of colors, like so many of the guys he’d gone to school with over the years. He had the hard wood, they had the harder streets.

  “It won’t happen again,” Ty assured his coach.

  “Don’t let your teammates down,” Coach said. “Now, go get dressed.”

  Ty sprinted to the locker room. Before hitting the showers, he pulled out his phone. Four missed calls: Shania, Shania, Shania, and Shania. No messages. That was a message itself. Ty put a towel over his head and the phone to his ear.

  Shania picked up on the fifth try. “Where are you?”

  “I’m sorry. I had to stay after practice.” On Wednesdays, cheerleading practice ended the same time as basketball. Last season, and so far this season, Ty and Shania drove home together, usually in Shania’s ride. It was as ingrained a habit as getting to practice on time.

  “I’ve been waiting for hours.”

  Ty didn’t correct her as he looked at the time on his phone. He was twenty minutes late, although he knew how time slowed down while waiting on someone. “I’m sorry.”

  “Tyshawn, are you coming or not?” Shania snapped.

  “Let me get showered and dressed. I’ll be right there.”

  Shania didn’t answer. Her silence felt like a shot block.

  “Come on. It’s only the first time I’ve been late.”

  More silence before Shania answered. “Then get yourself out here,” she said, sounding less sour. “It’s cold, Boo.”

  “Sure enough,” Ty said as he hung up. Before he put his phone back in the locker, he stared at the pic of Shania and him at Homecoming, all dressed up, all smiles. Like the photos of his dad in the basement, the photo captured a moment in time when everything was a promise of tomorrow. Ty worried if he didn’t hold it together, Shania—like the father in the photos—would be nothing more than a memory.

  6

  JANUARY 9 / FRIDAY MORNING

  WARREN HIGH SCHOOL

  Ty looked at the red D scrawled on his math test.

  “See me after class,” Mr. Murry whispered, his coffee breath wafting over Ty.

  “Sure enough, Mr. M.,” Ty answered with a yawn. No wonder he was making D’s on tests when he couldn’t get any Z’s at night.

  As Mr. Murry handed out the other papers, Ty sent a quick text to Shania, who was sitting in the front row of the class.

  Ty’s text read, simply, “D.”

  He waited for her response, then looked up to see her whispering something to Arquavis who sat in the seat next to her. Ty felt like sending Arquavis a message
with his phone by throwing it against his thick skull and knocking the smirk off his face. The bell rang to end class before he got his chance, or before Shania replied.

  “Yes, Mr. M.?” Ty said, waiting until everyone had cleared the classroom.

  Mr. Murry sat behind his desk in front of the room. Ty stayed in his seat, way too small for his big frame. Twenty feet and thousands of experiences separated them.

  “You’re better than this, Tyshawn,” said Mr. Murry.

  “I know,” Ty agreed. His dad had taught him well: respect authority. Arguing with teachers and coaches never gets you where you wanna be.

  “You want to talk about anything?”

  “No.”

  “You want to talk to your counselor?” Mr. Murry asked. He stole a quick glance at his computer. “It’s Mrs. Howard, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I could send her a message and you could—”

  “No.”

  Ty wondered why everything couldn’t be so simple: yes and no answers, X’s and O’s on Coach’s wipe board. “There’s a tutoring group after school that—”

  “I have basketball.”

  “Not if you don’t keep your grades up,” Mr. Murry said in a slap-in-the-face tone. Unlike teachers who didn’t push Ty and other players, Mr. Murry seemed to delight in failing athletes. Ty hadn’t even wanted to take Mr. Murry’s class, but he’d gotten Coach to change his schedule since Shania was in the class. He regretted the change since he’d been shooting bricks on every test and quiz so far.

  “Tyshawn, I want you to do well in my class, in all your classes,” Mr. Murry said, as if he could sense Ty’s resentment. “You need to work hard in order to succeed.”

  Tyshawn wanted to shout, Work? You don’t know how hard I work at home!

  “Everybody knows what happened to your father, but I know you don’t want to let him down, either—or Coach Carlson or the team,” Mr. Murry added as Ty’s resentment grew hotter, deeper. “You’d better get to your next class,” Mr. Murry said.

  Just days ago, people had chanted his name and cheered for him like a hero. Now, yet another D on yet another quiz. Ty got up, tossed the quiz into the trash, and left the room feeling like a loser.

  7

  JANUARY 13 / TUESDAY, LATE AFTERNOON

  TYSHAWN’S HOUSE

  Not again, thought Ty as he stood on the porch.

  Beyond the door, he heard shouting. His mother’s voice loud and firm. “You can, but you don’t even try!”

  Then came his father’s voice, the exact opposite—low, small. “I did try.”

  “Then try harder! There’s too much going on at work for me to take care of everything—EVERYTHING!”

  Ty heard a crash.

  “Look what you made me do!” his mother’s voice came across loud and clear.

  Ty took a deep breath and opened the door.

  The scene was just like the past two nights when he’d come home in the middle of his parents arguing. His father sat in his wheelchair at the dinner table, facing the door, his face blank.

  What was different today was his mother, who was on her knees on the kitchen floor, picking up pieces of broken glass. She looked up.

  “Just where have you been?!” she shouted.

  Ty swallowed. “Basketball practice, like every night after school.”

  His mom stopped long enough to rest her forehead against the palm of one hand. “That’s right. I knew that,” she said in a softer tone. Ty didn’t mention playing lip one-on-one with Shania after practice.

  “Hi, Dad, Mom.”

  “Hello, Ty,” said his dad, but his mother wasn’t through with the argument.

  She leaned against her heels as she spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “You tell me you can’t take care of yourself. Well, I can’t either. I have to work and do a hundred things around this house. And frankly, Denver, I’m tired.”

  It was Ty’s dad’s turn to grow angry. “You think I want to be this way?!”

  Ty had had enough. He carried his books downstairs and flipped the basement light on to be greeted by Fatheads of Ty Lawson and LeBron James on the opposite wall. “Hey, guys,” he whispered as he set his books down. “Have they been at this long?” He waited a moment. “That so?” he replied to an imaginary answer. “Any bets how long this will last? They argued past midnight last night.”

  Just then, Ty’s father called to him from the kitchen. Ty headed upstairs.

  He reached the kitchen to find his mother with her arm outstretched in warning. “Do not do what he asks, Ty. Do not!”

  “So, your mother here says you’re on kitchen duty. What are you fixin’ for dinner?”

  “Do not do this, Ty. He’ll never get stronger if we baby him.” The way his mom said baby made it sound worse than any swear word. Ty looked at his father.

  “Please?” his dad said.

  His mom leaned against the counter. She raised her gaze in his father’s direction and spoke slowly. “You keep this up, Denver, and I swear I—will—leave.”

  ***

  As Ty cleaned up after dinner, his father spoke, his words not nearly as slow as when he was hooked up to machines during his holiday tournament videochat or in his first days home. “I feel better. Thank you, Ty. I was ready to eat my wheelchair.”

  “No problem, Dad.”

  “Your mom’s right, I’ve got to do more. But these pills I’m on, they make me feel so loopy.”

  Ty loaded the dishwasher in silence.

  “Your mom’s just got so much on her mind. I’m glad she’s sleeping now. She’ll be okay.”

  Ty noticed a yellow note on the fridge: Remind Ty. Vet Center group.

  “What’s this, Dad?”

  “Oh, glad I wrote it down. A Vet Center counselor called today. Said he wants to talk to you.”

  “A counselor?”

  “He heads up a support group for teens whose folks are in combat. Said he wanted to see you at the next meeting, this Saturday.”

  Ty held the note in his hand. “Did he say what they do at these meetings?” Sitting around talking about things wasn’t Ty’s way; he was about action.

  “He didn’t. But there’s one way to find out.” He studied Ty’s face. “Remember what Bruce Lee said about water?”

  Ty remembered. Water takes whatever direction or form it’s given. With basketball, grades, and his home life disrupted, Ty knew direction and form was exactly what he needed.

  Ty looked into his father’s face. At exactly the same moment, the two spoke—“Be water, my friend.”

  8

  JANUARY 17 / SATURDAY, EARLY AFTERNOON

  VETERANS CENTER, DETROIT, MI

  “So, you going in, or are you going to lean against the wall all day, holding it up?”

  Ty had watched this girl walk the long hallway of the Vet Center. With her short, cropped hair, big smile, and an orange dress with a green scarf, she stood out in the hallway full of men and women going about their business.

  Now, here she was, talking to him as he stood outside a doorway marked “Teen ACHIEVE.”

  “What?” asked Ty.

  She placed a hand on her hip. “This room is the teen support group. I’m guessing that’s why you’re here. Or maybe your job is to just lean against this wall, hoping it won’t fall.” She paused. “Or maybe the wall’s holding you up so you won’t fall, and if that’s the case, then you need this support group more than you know.”

  “I’m late. I didn’t want to interrupt the group.”

  “You won’t be.” She reached for his hand. “Here, I’m Malayeka.”

  She opened the door, but Ty let her go in first.

  The room held a circle of maybe thirty chairs, most of them filled with teens. A Hispanic-looking guy with one of the biggest smiles Ty had ever seen jumped from his chair and rushed over when he saw Malayeka.

  “Malayeka,” he said. “So glad you could make it.” The man turned to Ty. “And you brought a guest.”

  Ty
spoke softly. “My name’s Tyshawn.”

  “Great! Your father gave you my message,” he said, still smiling. “I’m Mr. Gomez. Welcome to Teen ACHIEVE. Have a seat.”

  Ty and Malayeka took chairs next to each other as Mr. Gomez spoke.

  “Welcome, Tyshawn. I’ll give a quick introduction to the group. Everyone here has a parent in the military or who is a vet. Some have a parent wounded in combat. That can be a big change in our lives, so Teen ACHIEVE is a safe place to share what’s going on and learn ways to adjust.”

  “You forgot about me, Mr. Gomez,” one of the teens spoke up. The teen looked at Ty. “My dad died in combat. He didn’t even get a chance to get wounded.”

  Mr. Gomez spoke. “That’s right. I’m sorry, Tori. To help with the tremendous change in your life—as a teenager—that’s why I started Teen ACHIEVE. Glad you’re here.”

  At Mr. Gomez’s request, everyone in the circle introduced themselves and why they were there. More than a handful had a parent with a head injury, like Ty’s dad. Some teens shared the details—bomb blasts, mostly. Ty figured when it was time, his dad would share the details of his injury too.

  It was Ty’s turn. “I’m Ty. Um, my dad’s having a hard time.”

  “With what?” Tori asked.

  Ty tried not to stare at Malayeka. It was a challenge. “With everything,” Ty answered. “He still can’t do much for himself.”

  Malayeka spoke. “Your mom’s having a tough time, too, isn’t she?”

  Ty looked at her, surprised, but didn’t speak.

  “It’s the same with all of us, Ty. The adjustment—it’s hard on everyone. And I bet your coach sees it, too.”

  “You know Coach Carlson?”

  “No, but I recognize the guy that made the three-pointer in the last seconds of the Holiday Tournament.” Malayeka smiled. “I go to Cass Tech. I was in the stands.”

  9

  JANUARY 17 / SATURDAY, MID-AFTERNOON

  VETERANS CENTER, DETROIT, MI

  “There’s so much to keep track of,” Ty told the group, settled in after a half hour of listening to others.

  Mr. Gomez leaned forward and nodded. “That’s true, Ty. So tell us about one or two things that cause a problem for you. Maybe someone in the group has a solution.”