The Cody Incident

trigger warning: depictions of gruesome injury

Penny screamed a blood-curdling scream when she saw that Cody broke both of his legs. Well, it was the combination of the sound of Cody’s legs snapping like planks followed by the sight of Cody collapsing on the ground, both legs from the shin down dangling from the rest of him, that set her over the edge.

During their fourth grade P.E. kickball game, she watched Cody step up to the plate, eager to kick the ball over the playground fence. Penny played shortstop, engrossed in the exciting and competitive game in which her and Cody were on opposing teams. Cody gave the ball a good whack with the swing of his foot. It zipped over her head as she reached but failed to catch it. That’s when she heard the sounds: *POP* *POP*! The sight of him was even more scarring. He writhed on the hot ground, his red shirt and white shorts discolored from the dirt. His legs looked like two broken twigs, but they were broken in that way where the snapped halves were still attached but just dangling. And that wailing; oh gosh, that wailing, like a badly wounded deer or something…

The event played in Penny’s head on repeat, even at home, during dinner with her parents.

“Oh, Penny, you look so pale,” said her mother. “What’s wrong?”

“A kid at school broke his legs today,” said Penny.

“What? That’s awful!”

“Damn, even kids are doing it,” contemplated Penny’s father out loud. “’Where’s the lunch money you owe me?’ ‘I don’t have it yet, but I promise I’ll pay you on Friday.’ ‘Not good enough, buck-o.’ BAM! The poor sap gets a thick science book to the knees. I swear, this mob mentality is poisoning our country.” Penny’s father was obsessed with mafia dramas.

There was a brief silence.

“Mom,” Penny began in a low voice, “why do bad things happen for no reason?”

Penny’s mother’s fork clinked with her dinner plate as she set it down. She glanced at Penny’s father, then took a breath. “W-well, sweety, bad things may seem like they happen at random, but they really don’t. Bad things happen when you do something bad without thinking of the consequences. Like driving past the speed limit, or shoplifting—”

“Or making deals with the Don,” Penny’s father chimed in.

“O-o-or that,” said Penny’s mother. The mentioning of the word Don made a vein pop on her forehead, but she played it cool.

Penny contemplated her mother’s words. Is it possible that Cody didn’t understand the consequences of running? But she and her classmates did plenty of running and nothing happened to them. She understood that sometimes one could get away with doing bad things, like how she and her BFF, Priscilla, sometimes pick on their fellow classmate, Christy, for being short and round, without repercussion. 

Was running inherently bad, and was Cody the only unfortunate one to pay the price for doing so? No, that didn’t make sense. The event played in her mind again. The memory of those broken twig legs held onto his body by stretched flesh that sprawled his feet and halved shins like discarded string made her lose her appetite. She regretted bringing the matter up to her parents.

---

Seven stood mesmerized by the sight of Cody’s legs. It was the gnarliest thing he’d ever seen, even trumping that naughty website his older brother showed him a month earlier. Both of Cody’s shin bones broke clean in the middle. 

Seven and Cody were on the same kickball team, and Seven would have been next to kick after Cody settled on first or second base—he knew Cody would not have gotten out when he saw the ball went flying. He and the rest of the team cheered Cody’s sprint to first base when Cody’s right leg cracked upon connecting with the ground. But, curiously, his left leg, while lifted behind him, cracked at the same time.

Seven watched Cody roll to his butt to sit up and touch the stubs where the bones snapped. The stubs elevated, but the feet and broken halves of the shins hung like wet noodles. 

The rest of the class yelped and screamed and fluttered toward Cody in his time of need. But Seven stayed frozen in a quiet debate with himself. The sight of Cody’s legs were so stomach churning that they actually looked cool. Sure, loads of gross stuff can be found on the internet, but to witness something like that in person was on another level. At the same time, all sounds were drowned out by Cody’s crying—an ugly, screeching expression of total agony. Cody didn’t deserve that. He was a cool guy.

Seven noticed all the other classmates who surrounded Cody in concern make way for Ms. Hodgson, the P.E. teacher, who rushed to Cody’s aid. But there was one other student who was not among them: Wiola the Witch. Everyone called Wiola a witch because she dressed in all black and liked to hex people. Wiola was one of the outfielders in the kickball game, but she seemingly unaware of anything going on outside of her own wicked thoughts, for she could be seen picking dandelions near the playground fence. 

Seven remembered spotting Wiola and Cody walking together as everyone made their way to class at the start of the morning. It was odd because no one interacted with Wiola too much because she was a witch.

The fourth graders were buzzing over the incident as they settled back into Mrs. Allison’s classroom. Everyone expressed their disbelief, their shock, there disgust. 

“That was so sick, huh, Seven?” said Chazz, wide eyed. He, Seven, and some of the other kids who usually got into trouble liked to sit at the back of the class. They beamed over the horror of Cody’s tragedy. But not Seven. He said nothing, and his face stayed stoic. He stared at Wiola, who occupied the leftmost corner desk. She buried her pasty face in her notebook, scribbling something with a number-two pencil. 

“Okay, okay, settle down everyone. Settle down,” announced Mrs. Allison. “It is very unfortunate what has happened to Cody. Needless to say, we won’t be seeing him for a while. But the ambulance picked him up in no time, and he will be in good hands going forward. So don’t you worry, Cody will be okay. Now, despite our worries, we are still on learning time, so let’s move on with our day and work on our timetables.”

Wiola raised her hand. “May I be excused to go to the restroom?” she asked.

“You may, but hurry back,” said Mrs. Allison. Wiola took the lanyard hall pass hanging on a wall hook by the door and exited the room.

Seven flashed his hand up. “Can I also use the bathroom, Mrs. Allison?”

“Wait till Wiola gets back, Seven. Then you can go.”

Seven didn’t wait. While Mrs. Allison’s back was turned, writing multiplication equations on the board, he tiptoed past the other desks, turned to his fellow students with an index finger over his puckered lips so they’d stay quiet, and snuck out of the classroom. A couple of classmates struggled to stifle their giggles. Of course, with the click of the door opening and closing, Seven couldn’t remain undetected, yet he hurried away before Mrs. Allison had a chance to catch him. 

Seven didn’t have to use the restroom. Instead, he waited outside the girl’s restroom for Wiola. His heart raced, his hands shook, sweat trickled down his temple. 

When Wiola emerged from the restroom, she nearly bumped into Seven, who stood so close to the door. She remained stone-faced, while he obviously breathed heavy. He knew that what she did to Cody was cruel and evil. Whether Cody deserved it or not was a different matter, but the fact remained: Wiola the Witch was hardcore, a wicked monster in a most wonderful disguise.

“I-I-I-I like you,” he said to her. His face was flushed, while hers stayed pale. She remained expressionless. Then she waved her hands in his face in some weird pattern.

“You’re cursed for the next twenty-four hours,” she said, then walked back to class.

Seven really was cursed: he was then sentenced to detention once he wallowed back to the classroom. Plus, that evening, as a money-saving measure, his dad decided to cook scrambled eggs for dinner instead of ordering takeout. The eggs were overly seasoned and slightly burnt.

---

It was the top of the third inning. No outs. No one on bases. The score was two-one in favor of his team, and Luther planned to keep it that way. Luthor played pitcher. He had a strong ball-rolling arm on the count of the youth wresting his father made him do after school. 

He had three strikeouts today, and Cody, unassuming in build, looked to be strikeout number four. 

Cody took his stance at home plate, coiled to strike. Luthor narrowed his eyes. They stared each other down, like two cowboys at dusk with their hands hovering over their guns. Luthor rolled the ball. The kickball seemed more like a fireball the way it sped towards Cody.

But Cody was ready. He swung his leg at the right time and that ball went sailing past Penny’s head. Cody started to run, the cheers from the other kids on his team fueling his dash. 

Halfway to first base, Cody tripped, crashed to the ground, and broke both his legs in the process.

Luthor was as shocked and stunned as everyone else—how Cody’s bones broke like pieces of an action figure, yet the stretched flesh kept the broken bones from falling away. Luthor also took in Cody’s tortured expression, his stream of tears, his agonizing screaming. 

The rest of Luthor’s day was thrown off. He made unnecessary mistakes during wresting class, which upset his coach. He sat transfixed in front of the living room TV instead of cleaning dishes after dinner, which got him in trouble with his father. Instead of completing his homework at the end of the night, he lied in bed until it was lights out time, doing little more than stare at the ceiling fan spinning and spinning. 

His father always preached to him to do the right thing, do the right thing. Up till now, he wasn’t sure what that meant. But as he stared at his ceiling fan, he contemplated his father’s words, to figure out how to put them to action.

The next day, during recess, everything went back to normal. Cody’s absence loomed over the entire fourth grade class, as if he died and his ghost haunted the playground. But the need for play in a bunch of nine- and ten-year-old had to be satisfied. So, they moved on. The girls played tag. The boys played football with a stick found on the ground. The cliquey kids hung out by the monkey bars, literally and figuratively.

Luthor would normally join his fellow classmates in the abundance of activity, but not today. Today, he collected rocks. He walked around the playground, finding every stone he could that was big enough to get tripped on, and dropped it in his shirt, which was outstretched away from him by the bottom with one hand to act as a tray of sorts.

While squatting to retrieve another rock, he was approached by Johnny, Seven, and Chazz.

“Wassup, Luth,” said Johnny. “Wutcha doing there?”

“Collecting rocks so that nobody else will trip on one and break their legs,” said Luthor calming without looking up at Johnny or the others.

“Whys ya doing dat? E’ryone knows Wiola da Witch did it.”

“Yeah, she put a curse on Cody yesterday morning,” chimed in Chazz. 

“Unlikely,” said Luthor. “Magic isn’t real. All these rocks are big enough for us to trip on and break something, and they’re everywhere. I even found this where Cody tripped.” 

He handed Johnny the right he found at the kickball diamond. It was a rather large rock. Larger than the other ones Luthor collected, by the looks of it. Johnny lightly tossed the rock up and caught it with the same hand, assessing its weight. He took a few paces forward, staring at the rock the entire time. He turned as quick as he could and threw the right at Seven with a laugh, bruising Seven’s shoulder.

“Hey!” Seven cried. Johnny and Chazz laughed. Seven ran over to Luthor, seized a handful of other rocks, and started chucking them at his two friends. Because of this, Luthor dropped his shirt, and all the rocks fell to the ground and tumbled forward (about 20 in total). Johnny, Chazz, and Seven began grabbing rocks off the ground and throwing them at each other.

Luthor watched helplessly as all his hard work searching for these dangerous stones meant nothing in the end. However, he saw how his three classmates had the time of their lives picking rocks off the ground and throwing them at each other. 

Despite Luthor’s good intentions, he, too, possessed the undeniable desire to play. So he joined his fellow classmates in the reckless stoning, laughing with them, collecting bruised he’d struggled to explain to his father later.

---

When Cody broke his legs during the kickball game, Ms. Hodgson shook her head. Sure, the nature of Cody’s injury appeared horrific, but the kid got injured at least once a month. Last month, he tripped in the cafeteria and fractured his wrist. The time before that he twisted his ankle during the regular mad dash to exit the classroom at the end of the day. There’s only so much sympathy one can have for the kid, and while Mrs. Allison had sympathy in abundance for her students, Ms. Hodgson held none for anyone at Riley Elementary.  

The kid was fragile, Ms. Hodgson concluded. Everyone was fragile either mentally, emotionally, psychologically, or physically. Cody was an extreme case. His body was made of straw, and not enough of it to hold him together.

Ms. Hodgson was the kickball game’s umpire, calling the strikes and the outs and the safes, etc. Standing behind home plate, she was close enough to witness every detail of Cody’s tragedy. What she saw were both of Cody’s legs simultaneously snapping mid-run. Then she noticed the tears and the screaming and the kids huddling over Cody’s damaged body, ogling like when drivers on the freeway slow down to examine the scene of a car crash. The little vultures would have picked on the carcass if she wasn’t around.

She shoved her way past Johnny and Chazz, marched through Samantha and Priscilla, and rolled Christy’s bowling ball body out the way. Upon closer examination, the sight of Cody made her shake her head again. The bones haven’t even broken through the skin. What’s the big deal here?

If she were in Cody’s position, her father, Papa Hodgson, would not have spared tears for her. “Get up, child. You’re no baby,” he would have said. “This table will not set itself. This vacuum will not push itself. This barbell will not bench itself. You must be iron strong.”

If she were in Cody’s position, she would have reconnected the broken bones together and told them to stay. And they would have, dammit. And she would have reveled in the stunned faces of all the cute gym bros from college who wouldn’t be able to do the same. 

Ms. Hodgson called 911, then she called one of the other teachers to tend to the other children. Mrs. Murphy, the sixth-grade teacher, emerged to escort everyone back to Mrs. Allison’s classroom. Word quickly spread to Mrs. Allison herself, who immediately called Cody’s parents. Ms. Hodgson stayed with Cody until the ambulance arrived. The kid couldn’t even speak coherently, he was in so much pain. 

“It’s okay,” she said in the softest tone she could mimic. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?” 

Her own words rang in her head, and the though crept in her that such callousness is why she’s still single.

---

“I want my baby homeschooled!” demanded Cody’s mother. 

“He deserves a normal life,” retorted Cody’s father.

“How can he have a normal life if he keeps ending up back here?”

“Oh, so you want him to become some weirdo on the street who can’t get a job because he doesn’t know how to interact with people?”

“I want him to stop getting hurt. Is that too much for a mother to ask? He’s literally having emergency surgery right now.”

“If he’s cooped up at home spending the rest of his childhood only talking to his mom and dad, he’ll be more miserable than if he broke all of his bones at once.”

“Yeah, because apparently you don’t care if he breaks his bones and can’t walk again. As long as he’s Mr. Popular just like his old man was back in the day.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Beth, and you know it!”

Cody’s suffered from idiopathic juvenile osteoporosis for the better part of a year, which caused him to continuously get injured at school. It took him sporadically breaking both of his shins for doctors to detect this, and for his parents to put him on a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D as well as appropriate medications. He also received a doctor’s note preventing him from participating in recess and other physical activities at school.

Somehow, Cody interpreted his diagnosis as being double jointed.

“Is there anything I can do for you, young man?” asked Cody’s curvy nurse during his recovery at the hospital.

“Yeah,” said Cody. “Peep this, toots.”

He grasped his left index finger with his right hand and bent it to the side. He thought he could dislocate it and bend it back in place to impress the nurse, but he quickly realized he just snapped a bone.