Mom has Lucas’s left arm and the paterfamilias has his right. Hey, look! They’re doing something as a family again! Lucas’s stomach is bloated and sloshing with orange juice. His brain feels bloated and sloshing, too. It appears that whoever Mom spoke to told her that to prevent brain damage, Lucas should drink lots of orange juice and stay awake and moving. (There’s something ironic about the prescribing of orange juice, but it’s difficult to get a handle on at the moment.)

Flanked by his parents, Lucas slowly trudges, his arms and legs having turned to lead. The route takes them from the living room past the dining room and through the den, where the rows of little golden tennis trophy men glower from the shelves. A Roman tribunal giving Lucas the thumbs-down.

Feed him to the lions!

(Considering what Lucas has ingested today, if they do, there’ll be some seriously blitzed kings of the jungle.)

His parents start the loop again. It’s a path they’ve all taken before. As an infant, Alan never crawled. Instead, he skimmed across the floor on his butt. Later, in their search for answers and cures, the Bakers found a doctor who postulated that by not crawling Alan might have missed a critical stage of development. The next day, four sets of red rubber knee pads appeared. That evening the family strapped on the pads and crawled along this very same route.

They crawled each evening for a week. Just another one of those fun Baker family activities! Then Mom and Dad started alternating evenings. Then they both stopped. Did they have unrealistic hopes for quick results? Maybe they got tired of being on their hands and knees. Like so many other household chores, the nightly crawl with Alan was left to Lucas. To keep his brother interested, Lucas made up games. Carrying toy guns, he and Alan crept around furniture, shooting at bad guys. They crawled into the kitchen and barked until Mom put bowls of water on the floor to lap from. Alan eventually lost interest. After that, no amount of cajoling or bribery with candy or comic books worked. He went back to staring at the television.

Now it’s Lucas’s turn. As they escort him through the pharmaceutical haze, his chin keeps dipping and he keeps jerking it up. The frustrated look on Mom’s face reminds him of when he’d bring home those elementary-school report cards peppered with Ns (Needs Improvement) and the occasional U (Unsatisfactory).

Lucas’s feet drag. He’s so weary. His field of vision narrows. Is it getting late? Or are the effects of the drugs he ingested still intensifying? Can’t they just let him lie down and sleep?

What difference will a few million less brain cells make?

Wednesday, August 13

“We have to go tonight. Tell Tinsley.”