different flip. My body was already accustomed to the achievement of the backflip, and it needed a new move to feed that feeling.
I stayed up until two o’clock in the morning waiting for my parents to come home from work to show them my backflip on the dog-eaten cushions. I pulled them downstairs, even though they were upset that I was awake at that hour of the night. I did it for them, and they were surprised at what I had learned on my own. The perfect execution of my self-taught skill marked the point of no return. I would never look back.
THE LUNGS, PART OF THE PULMONARY SYSTEM, ARE THE ESSENTIAL RESPIRATION ORGANS IN ALL AIR-BREATHING ANIMALS. THE TWO LUNGS ARE LOCATED IN THE CHEST ON EITHER SIDE OF THE HEART. THEIR PRINCIPAL FUNCTION IS TO TRANSPORT OXYGEN FROM THE ATMOSPHERE INTO THE BLOODSTREAM, AND TO RELEASE CARBON DIOXIDE FROM THE BLOODSTREAM INTO THE ATMOSPHERE.
My brother and I shared a bedroom across the hall from my parents. It was small, crammed with toys, and covered in off-white wallpaper with soldiers on it. The wallpaper was peeling, and when we were bored we peeled off even more, exposing the bare wall beneath.
We slept on large, wooden bunk beds—solid temples ascending from the Earth of a crumb-filled, matted-down brown rug. Black-and-white-striped cotton blankets covered us at night, making me feel like I was tucked inside a giant ice cream sandwich. Michael slept on top because I was afraid of falling. When it was time for bed he would lean over and make faces at me, trying to make me laugh. I always did.
Nighttime was troublesome for me because my parents often came home late. As part owners of the family’s Italian restaurant, they worked all night and had to close up the building. I was a momma’s boy and needed to know where she was at all times. When I laid my head on the pillow, I had horrible images that something bad was happening to her. I just knew she was somewhere out there, lost in the darkness, and I would never see her again. These thoughts were unbearable, and left me with a deep sense of loneliness, confusion, and dread.
As a child I feared death, and that fear soon became an obsession. I was terrified that the people I loved would die all at once, their bodies stolen by the darkness that bent through the light of the room, and I would be left alone. Most nights I would cry myself to sleep before my parents came home, and the exhaustion of weeping lulled me into a warm, seraphic state. The scent of my mom’s perfume as she kissed me goodnight always made me feel safe. When my parents came home from the restaurant, their breath smelled of a powerful medicine, but my mother’s breath was stronger, more potent, and more commanding, as if she was the medicine she breathed. I loved her smell—a mixture of Marlboro cigarettes and gin—which I’m convinced to this day must be the divine smell of angels. I knew I would be all right no matter what, once she was home.
It was a Friday night and my parents had to work later than usual to close the restaurant. My sister Trish, who is nine years older than me, babysat us since she was the oldest and most responsible. I had a psychic connection with her and often knew what she was thinking without her saying a word. Trish was short and carefree, and had dark brown hair with fire-red highlights. She was stronger than she realized, and always tried to do the right thing.
Trish had friends over when my parents weren’t home. I never tattled on her because I liked her friends. They seemed lighthearted, lifted by the wind. Their smiles burst through their faces and their pale skin took on a reddened hue. My parents, on the other hand, would curb that feeling, always trying to trap their laughter before it rose to the surface so as not to expose who they really were.
Trish’s friends were covered head-to-toe in denim, with buttons of my sister’s favorite rock bands all over their jean jackets: Judas Priest, Mötley Crüe, the Cars, and Ozzy Osbourne. I thought they were badges of association with the Devil. There was a lot of hair, sprayed straight up and teased like giant cobwebs extending from their foreheads. Her boyfriends’ faces were covered in greasy bangs that hid their eyes. They all looked like they had been drenched in a dark rain.
On that particular night, something strange happened to my body. The more I ran around the house and played, the harder it became to breathe. It wasn’t like being out of breath, but felt more like there was no air at all. With my newfound control over flipping my body, I felt superior to sickness, and I became confused and irritated by what was happening. I played harder to break through this problem, but my breath wasn’t returning.
My heart raced in fear, and I was embarrassed to tell anyone what was happening. I followed the blue-painted cigarette smoke down the hall and went into my room to hide. I lay on top of my bed knowing that if I could just physically figure out breath the same way I understood movement, then I would be all right. I sat in the darkness and commanded my body to breathe and rip the oxygen from the air . . . except I couldn’t. I used all my chest muscles to pull the air inside me, but my body refused it in a giant choke. Again I tried, and physically imagined my lungs expanding, but they weren’t responding. A hot stream of salty tears burnt along my cheeks—suddenly I knew I was going to die. Yet I refused to accept that thought. I looked out the window through the thick, pale glass that separated me from the outside. Between the window and screen lay a dead fly nestled under the spark of the moon’s glow, lifeless, still, and decayed. I wondered if that was what we ended up looking like after we died.
My ghostly fingers pressed against the windowpane, tracing the shape of a birch tree bending in the wind. From where I lay, all that was on the other side of the glass suddenly felt forever unreachable. I didn’t know if I believed in a God at that moment, but I prayed to him, watching the tree sway and seeing a glimmer of my reflection in the glass. My reflection couldn’t feel a thing; it just watched as I gasped for air, sipping the tiny bits of oxygen that circled my body as I looked at the colored tulips around the tree.
In my childish thinking, I believed I could hide from what was happening to me. I went beneath the covers where I felt safe and could hide from that breath-stealing beast, but it had already found me, snarling in the shadows. We now shared the same space, and I accepted its agenda. For the first time in my life I felt mortality in the presence of a sinister and invisible force. It was conquering me, and I could do nothing about it.
I was defeated with each painful breath I tried to take. My small hands balled into fists as I physically fought to get the air inside me. Dread filled my mind, and the shadows in the room seemed to be silently waiting. I was now completely powerless, and it happened so fast. The air was no longer available for me to take. My heart raced faster and faster, like a drummer gone mad. I thought I was dying, and I was embarrassed that I no longer had the strength or ability to fight. Deep inside my skeleton, I imagined my air sacs relaxing and breathing rhythmically. But that meditation wasn’t working, and I was losing the battle.
The air that I could get into my lungs felt painful and sharp, like shards of glass cutting me open on the way down through my breathing tubes. The seconds between each breath were getting longer and longer, and I was fighting every step of the way. I don’t know if I made peace with death at that moment, but luckily my sister came in to check on me. She saw me in my bed choking, crying, and very sick. I don’t remember what happened next because I drifted off into an abyss of unconsciousness.
I woke up in the hospital on top of an uncomfortable, crib-like bed that was wrapped entirely in a plastic bubble. The bed and walls were covered with thick moisture. A machine pushed air and medicine into the space, and it felt soothing. Slowly my breath returned, and I knew the medicine-filled air was killing the beast that had taken residence in my lungs. I lay there, exhausted from my fight, but once again feeling immortal and strong. I was still sick, but the storm was over. I watched my mother on the other side of the tent looking in at me with concern. She looked beautiful through
