The Crazy Horse Electric Game by Chris Crutcher Page B

drains out through his feet, and he just feels sorry. “I…don’t…know,” he says carefully. “I…want you…friend. I…don’t know.” He glances at the hall clock. The bell will ring in less than a minute and pack the halls with kids changing classes. He wants to get away.
    â€œWill you come to the party?” Johnny asks.
    Willie flashes on how awful he’s been to his friends since the accident. He closes his eyes and nods. “Yeah.”
    His next class is speech therapy, which isn’t actually in a classroom, but in one of the counselors’ offices. The school district provides a traveling speech therapist andWillie was plugged into an hour a week of her time the day he got back. He likes her and he’s relieved to have one period where there are no other kids, though he doesn’t feel it’s really doing any good. He can’t talk all that much better right now than he could the day he came out of the coma. So far, she’s only worked on trying to relax him.
    â€œDid you work on those exercises I gave you last time?” she asks, noticing he hasn’t brought any books or papers.
    He starts to nod, but then shakes his head.
    â€œAnswer me in words, Willie.”
    Willie says, “No.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI…just…didn’t…get around…to it.”
    â€œYou didn’t get around to it. You have a full social schedule to keep or something? Have to go to the horse races? What do you mean you didn’t get around to it?”
    Willie looks off to the side, at the floor, and sighs. “I…just didn’t…do…it.”
    Ms. Jackson puts her hand on his hand; the bad one. “Willie, don’t you want to get better? Do you want to feel like this forever? Because you’re going to if you don’t do something about your speech.”
    He looks at the floor again and shakes hishead. “I don’t…care.”
    Ms. Jackson gets up and quickly puts her materials into her briefcase. “Well then,” she says softly, “you’re wasting your time and mine, too. I have a whole bunch of kids on my roster who do care, and they’re the ones I can do something about. You let your counselor know if you change your mind.” She walks out, closing the door quietly behind her.
    Willie stands up to stop her, tell her he’s sorry, that he’ll try harder, but he catches his good leg on the corner of the table and a searing pain shoots through his thigh. He kicks the table and falls, lies there a moment and lets the rage come up through his throat; a guttural roar that is the only thing he has to release his pain. The sounds of his agony die in the soundproofed walls and cushion-tiled ceiling. No one comes to his rescue. He pulls himself up and into his chair, where he sits until the period is over.
    Â 
    Friday, Jenny pulls her father’s car up in front of the Weaver house, hits the horn and hops out to go to the door. Sandy greets her there. “He’s not quite ready yet, Jenny. Come on in.” Jenny comes in and sits on the couch, across from the chair where Big Will is alternately reading the evening paper and watching“People’s Court” on television. She can’t understand why Mr. Weaver seems so distant since the day of the accident.
    â€œDo you think that’s real?” she asks, looking at the fat woman on the screen whose million-dollar AKA Shih Tzu has been violated by the plaintiff’s junkyard mongrel, thereby adding sludge to its royal gene pool until the end of time. A classic case of breeding above one’s station; a Class A felony.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œâ€˜People’s Court.’ Do you think it’s real?”
    Big Will gives a half-smile. “I like to hope not. I’m not really watching it, I just didn’t turn the set off after the news.”
    â€œI hope this party