Chapter 10 – The Boy

It was a usual every-other Wednesday. The boy was in the padded chair in the corner of our front room. His mother sat on the sofa a few feet away, and I was playing doctor. I placed a strip of tape across the infusion line, checked to make sure the line was full of saline, and then looked at my patient. "Ready?"

Here in our front room there was a modicum of privacy from Pauline as well as patients in reception. The infusion needle was in the back of his arm just above the wrist. It was a good vein; one we'd used often.

Frank Marrack, ten-years-old, looked back at me with old eyes, "Sure," he said around a mouthful of chewing gum.

"We have done this many times, but I will remind you that if you feel nauseated, too warm, or dizzy, then tell me at once." I thought back over his chart in my head. This was his tenth bi-weekly infusion. I had started his treatment in mid-December, eight weeks after Louisa had left the village. A very bitterly cold and dark month was that December. I shut off that path of thinking. "Do you understand?" I asked the boy.

"Yeah," he said, nodding. He held a book in his lap to while away the time. "Like always."

I opened the stopping clip on the enzyme bag, switched the T-valve to drip the fluid into the infusion pump, and then started the pump. I watched as the pale-yellow enzyme suspension started its way into my patient.

Frank looked at all this with a bored expression and then he yawned.

"Have you been sleeping well?" I asked him.

He glanced over at his mum, who was feigning interest in a magazine, but I could tell she was all ears.

"Oh," the boy sighed, "not all that great. Middle of the night I'm wide awake."

"For how long? That is, how long has this been happening, and how long do you stay awake?"

"Couple a weeks, I guess," he replied. "And maybe I stay awake for an hour, maybe." He hefted the book. "I read."

His mother threw out, "Some nights I hear him rattling around in his room."

He looked at her. "Sorry, mum. I try to be quiet. I know you need your rest."

I asked Frank, "Have you been having bad dreams or nightmares?"

He screwed up his face. "Warm; my arm is getting warm."

I lowered the pump flow by 20%. "That's the enzyme." I pumped up the blood pressure cuff on his far arm, put my stethoscope above the crook of his elbow, then released the air, letting it hiss out slowly. I took his pulse at the same time. "One oh five over seventy."

"Is that bad?" Mrs. Marrack asked.

I pulled my stethoscope from my ears. "No, considering. Infusions typically raise the blood pressure."

The woman dabbed at her eyes. "Oh Frank…"

"Mum! If you're gonna get all teary go for a walk!" Frank burst out. Then he moderated his tone. "Sorry, mum. I'm fine and I've got Dr. Ellingham to watch over me. You go and get some air or have a coffee."

Mrs. Marrack stood slowly holding her handbag. She stepped to her son's side, put her hand on his head and smoothed his hair which looked windblown. Despite her attentions, the hair sprang back upright. "You have your dad's hair, Frank." She kissed his check and then walked to the door. "Back in an hour?"

"Right," I murmured.

Frank watched his mother walk to the door, then he blurted out, "Mummy, I love you."

She stopped and her slumped head came up. "I love you too, my darling boy.' She turned and gave him a huge smile.

Frank smiled back at her until she had left.

I could not remember my mother ever offering me a smile such as that.

"Damn," Frank muttered.

I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Sorry, Doc. It's just…" he raised both arms as if to say, "What do you expect?"

I patted his free hand. "Yes." I sat quietly for two minutes until the infusion was well established, and then I asked Frank, "Dreams?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "Crazy stuff."

"Such as?"

"Oh, walking alone in a dark place and feeling lost. Being lost, right? And I can't find my way." He shrugged. "Out on the moor, I guess. Or down an old mine shaft."

"Not uncommon. Anxiety and worries cause these sorts of dreams. They are the mind's way of sorting out the rubbish of the day. Putting those things in the bin, as it were."

The boy nodded. "So, you have dreams like that as well," he stated.

"Erm, yes. I do. Everyone does."

"And what about dreaming you are at school and forgot to put your trousers on? That normal?"

"Classic anxiety dream, Frank."

He mulled that over. "Oh."

I decided to take a more direct approach. "Is there something specifically that is bothering you? Say about school?'

He rolled his eyes. "Stuff."

"Stuff?"

He licked his lips. "Some of the kids been sayin' things… about me."

"Mean things," I stated.

"Too right."

"Frank, people can attack things and people that they don't understand."

He coughed. "Attack is a brilliant word."

"As in physically?"

"No."

"They pick on you? Tease you?"

He looked away. "I guess."

The pump was doing its job sending the enzyme into this boy which would allow him to properly process certain sugars. The treatment was allowing his body to thrive but could not help his intellect deal with the reality of being tied to a machine every two weeks forever.

And people will pick on the outsider, the loner, the one who was different. Those who were too smart, too weak, too tall, or short. Those who looked different or were different in a thousand ways.

I sighed through my nose. "I understand."

His head whipped around to stare at me. "You do?"

"Yes." I made it a point to check the pump settings, so he would not see my face.

He tapped the book on his lap. "This book I'm reading is about a kid, well it's just a story, but this kid can see through walls. He doesn't mean to, it just happens. Not all the time. Kind of a superpower."

I didn't say anything, so he went on with his tale.

"Anyway, people can tell he's different because… well he sees things… knows things. Things behind closed doors. Right?" He stared at the book in his lap. "Some other kids beat him up because he tells 'em about it."

I checked my watch, afraid to let the boy see my face. I know of these things happening.

Frank added, "And it's not just seeing. As he gets older, he can walk through things; houses, cars, trees. That would be awesome."

"Uhm, what happens in the end?" I asked if only to distract myself from my memories of being chased or pummeled, or all the other non-physical ways of torture at school and at home.

"Oh, he starts to explore in some old tunnel, just to be alone for a while, but he can hear the bad kids chasing him; coming after him. So he goes deep into the rock. Walks right through the stone to get away from 'em."

"What?" I wasn't much for reading fiction, let alone fanciful tales such as this.

"But then," Frank's face lit up, "he finds a sort of a tunnel way down deep and when he comes out the other end he's in a place where there are other people like him. I mean nobody bothers him or picks on him anymore. Cause they're all like him."

I kept my face blank as I replied, "A fairy tale."

"Kinda like magic," Frank told me. "But he can be happy there. No one is mean to him any more."

If only it was that easy to go to another place. "Perhaps we have to live in the world we are in – make the best of things. We must deal with things as they are, and not wish for a fairy tale ending."

He stared at me for long seconds. "I told you it's a story. I'd not stupid, you know!" He grunted, "I guess I been dreaming about that, uhm, that other place."

"These children, the bad ones in the story, does anyone try to make them stop treating this child badly?"

Frank sighed. "Yeah. But it doesn't help."

I watched this child struggle with his fears and his reality. Someday my child might be like Frank, or like me, and have to suffer like this. "You know Frank, people will pick on those they do not understand. If given enough knowledge they can see that we all one under the skin."

Frank gave me a hard stare. "Are we?"

"We all bleed red. We have hearts that pump, and lungs that push air in and out."

"Yeah, Doc, but some people have bad brains, and they use 'em to do bad things."

"That's why we have policemen and laws. Plus teachers to keep order in schools."

Frank grinned. "And doctors to help sick little kids like me," he declared.

I cleared my throat. "There has been some exciting research in new treatments for your condition, ones which in time may eliminate these infusions."

Frank gave me a sad smile. "Sure you're not just telling me a fairy tale, Doc?"

"Medical research can take a very long time, Frank. Years even. But in time, who knows? You have to have hope that science can effect a cure."

He looked down at his book, as his hand rubbed the cover. "Doc, maybe that's the real end of the story. To have hope?"

Pauline peeked in from the hall to the kitchen. "Doc? Sorry. There's a call for you. Said it's important."

I stood up and said to the boy, "I'll be away just a minute."

He gave me a level look. "Sure. See you soon."