Andrew and Steven

by Kenneth Wise

  Chapter 10

  The boys laid side by side in a near coma state as the doctors tried to get their systems going. Their bodies had begun to shut down as their blood gushed onto the dirty, cold concrete floor they had chosen as their deathbed. Were it not for Mrs. Ferguson’s concern for “her kids”, two of them would have died before they ever had a chance to live.

  The Doctors’ hard work had paid off and the boys were both going to live. For now they were very weak and their bodies needed rest. The doctor had decided that the boys should be kept in a near coma state until the fourth day at least. By that time they should be strong enough to wake up. In the meantime, a vigil of sorts was maintained by the people who cared most for them, their family from The Center. The families of both Andrew and Steven had been notified but not a single member of their biological families had come to the hospital, or even called. Mr. Philips called each family every day with an update on their sons’ conditions. He was having serious concerns about the family lives of these kids. "Damn", he thought to himself, "there must be thousands of kids, in this state alone, that are trying to survive family circumstances just like this; or worse."

  There was no shortage of caring people checking in at the hospital. None of the hospital staff could remember another event like this one. Mrs. Ferguson was at the hospital for half an hour in the morning and evening. Mr. Philips was in and out several times during the day. Dr. Landon, Andrew’s psychologist, spent about two hours a day with Andrew. Miss Clutter and even Mr. Jablonski visited at least once a day. Most of the other staff members visited when they could. Even the Director stopped in for a few minutes each day. The hospital staff was having a problem enforcing hospital visitation rules and finally gave up. They could see that their rules, and their efforts to enforce them, were a waste of time. No one paid attention when they tried to explain the rules. “Those two kids must be the most loved kids on earth,” one nurse said to another one afternoon. The other nurse looked at the group of people waiting to get into the room and said, “They must be. Why do you think they did such a terrible thing to themselves?”

  Dr. Ledderman had found a large chair in the hospital entry and moved it into the room and only left the hospital for an hour or two a day, time to shower and change clothes. He slept sitting in his big chair. He read to the boys, sure that they could hear despite their unconscious state. He caressed Steven’s forehead, the only place that was both bandage and tube free. Periodically, he would do the same with Andrew. He was committed to making sure that when these two woke up, someone would be there, someone who cared about them and who loved them. When they woke up, he wanted them to know that their lives had value.

  The hospital medical staff invited The Center’s two Psychologists and the Social Worker to join them in planning when and how they would proceed with waking the boys up and their treatment after that. It was decided that the best plan would be to wake both boys up at the same time, one doctor at each bed, and that the best time would be on the morning of the fifth day at the hospital. The hospital doctors shared the entire set of medical charts as well as X-ray pictures with the three men from The Center.

  An ironic twist that no one would ever tell the two young men lying so serenely in their hospital beds was that the pressure of the boys pressing their slashed arms together had caused the blood loss to be slower than what would be expected and probably saved their lives.

  The time came to wake the boys up. The process was spread over a few minutes to avoid shock. Neither uttered a word as they slowly regained consciousness. When they were both fully awake and realized that they had failed to accomplish their goal, they both seemed like they were in a daze, wondering what came next. Since the boys’ medical and emotional condition seemed stable, the staff stepped into the hall so that they could have a few minutes alone.

  After a minute or two, Steven began softly sobbing, “I’m sorry Bird Brain. I am so sorry.” Andrew, not knowing what the future held, whispered, “Me too Brainy Boy. I’m not sorry we failed, it must not have been our time, but I’m sorry I hurt you.” “No, Andrew," Steven said with as much strength he had, "it was me that has caused all this pain, and the humiliation we are stuck with. I dragged you down.” There was not enough energy left for more words.

  Dr. Chandler, the attending physician, had decided to keep the boys for two more days, to make sure their physical wounds were healing and that they showed no signs of infection. He thought it would be prudent to have them here so that they could be observed around the clock without it seeming obvious.

  The Director decided that the books, other than those from the library, the notebooks, binders, loose papers, and anything else generated by the boys were their personal property. He also decided that, due to the circumstances, the professional staff had a legal responsibility to search those items as part of the investigation into what was, for the time being, called an incident.

  The two Psychologists and the Social Worker were assigned the task of conducting the investigation. During the course of that investigation, they had permission to speak with any employee or contractor of The Center. Employees and contractors had already been reminded of the confidentiality agreement they had signed in conjunction with their employment. Everyone wanted to help. No one worried about getting into trouble. This investigation was undertaken to determine how two of their kids had been so depressed, and how they hid it so well. Every staff employee and contract worker took it personally that they did not protect two of their kids and nearly lost them.

  As the investigators sifted through the dozens of pages of written material the boys had produced, three things became evident; the boys had an insatiable thirst for knowledge; they had become very proficient writers, and they had a relationship that had yet to be unraveled and understood.

  The pages had been read, sorted and reorganized during the first day and on the second day the panel asked Miss Clutter to join them, since she was the teacher that seemed to be closest to the boys. They asked her if she had known of any inappropriate relationship between Andrew and Steven.

  Miss Clutter was honest, and somewhat remorseful, telling them about her feelings when she had read some of their assignments. She mentioned that she had made changes to her lesson plan to avoid assignments that would have her students writing about one another. She also told about the scene she had observed on the little rise just outside the old administration building and how moved she had been by it. “I can’t help thinking that if I would have said something when I first had a feeling about them, none of this would have happened.”

  “Nonsense”, said Dr. Landon. “None of this is in any way your fault.” Dr. Ledderman added, “These are two deeply troubled boys who finally found someone who shared the same sad feelings of loneliness, feelings of inferiority and worthlessness. When they were together, those feelings disappeared and they were learning what it meant to have another person, just like themselves, in their lives, and it scared them.”

  Dr. Landon added, “In you, these boys found someone who trusted them, someone who had confidence in them, someone who encouraged them. You are one of a select few in whom they put their unconditional trust. Don’t ever think you had anything to do with these boys hurting themselves; instead you opened doors for them, doors of learning and imagining what the world could be.”

  Dr. Ledderman passed her a small stack of papers, essays the boys had written and that had been found in their little hide-away. She began reading:

  “I have only met one person in my life that made me feel loved, only one person who I loved.

  “If the world should end tomorrow, I would enter into extinction, along with everyone and everything else, knowing I had loved and been loved in return, and that throughout eternity that fact will live on, no matter what becomes of me; or you.

  “Alexander the Great, according to legend, when asked by the gods which attribute he would prefer, greatness or long life; he chose greatness. History bears out that he got his
wish.

  “When God asked me what I wished from life, I replied that, if even for one day, I could know and feel what it means, to love and to be loved, then I will have lived a life of satisfaction, and of greatness. Like Alexander the Great, my wish was granted.”

  She picked up the next.

  “I fear for you. When other people look at you, they see danger, they see hardness, and they see a cold heart. They are blind.

  “When I look into your eyes, I see into your soul. I see beauty, kindness, and I see gentleness, but all the things that make you wonderful remain hidden behind a solid wall that refuses to let the light of your goodness show through.

  “I wish I could protect you. This world is hard and I fear it will hurt you and smash you into dust. I feel the pain and sadness that comes with every dart and barb, slung at you by those not fit to breathe the same air as you. My heart cries out as I am compelled, restrained by the ropes and vines of the jungle, to watch the wild animals tear chunks of flesh from you, never killing you, just causing pain that can never be eased, and which I am helpless to bring to a stop. Surely I have described hell."

  “You are too beautiful for this world. The world will never understand you and they will never have the honor of knowing you; that is sad.

  “That I have known you makes my life complete. In a million years I will never know the joy and the love I feel from sharing just one precious second with you.”

  She noticed that there are no names on the papers and no names ever mentioned in the prose. Had she not recognized the handwriting, she would never have known who had written which essay.

  She chose another page and continued reading.

  “Sometimes I lie awake at night and imagine what I wished the world to be. I try to determine what is important to me. I wonder what is important to others. I see the richness of the earth to be soil and water to nurture and sustain us. I envision the great purpose in life to be the pursuit of knowledge. Others, I think, imagine the richness of the earth to be the natural resources, oil, water, gold, copper, and the land itself, and the grand purpose to be the pursuit of those riches.

  “While most people seek the wealth of the earth and spend the energy of their life for personal gain, I wish for freedom and knowledge and wisdom. My heart cries out for only two things, to love and be loved and to know God. In truth they are the same. I believe God equals love and love equals God. In my perfect world, I would have no need or desire to chase material wealth. My wealth would come from music, poetry and books, learning and sharing, and beauty and of working the earth so as to encourage her to give a portion of her bounty. I dream of and wish for a world where each of us is free to be what we may be.

  “But alas, I know this world, the one we have been born to, has no use for those of us that dream of peace and of love and of brotherhood. The world, I fear, will extinguish the dreams and crush the dreamers”.

  She thumbed through the pages and randomly chose another and began reading.

  “I read again the three beautiful words that provide proof that we exist; Cogito Ergo Sum, I think therefore I am. How simple and how perfect the concept. I wonder how Descartes came to that conclusion. I have read about his quest, about how he searched for something that would prove beyond question that he existed. But what process, what path led to such a profound verdict?

  “Would we have come to another conclusion, or is this the only conclusion? Remember when we used to wonder if we were just characters in a drama, played out in some other being’s mind. We once wondered if we, and the entire universe we live in, were just one atom of a giant tree leaf found in an even larger universe than our own. I’m not sure that Cogito ergo sum answers those questions.

  “I wish we could live in a world we created in our own minds. We could dream it into existence then occupy it. Of course, if we did that, it would surely settle the question of our sanity.

  “I don’t believe the world we live in was the one intended by The Creator. Something must have gone wrong and perhaps He has given up on us and started over somewhere else. Surely He has the power to create worlds that would then function the way He had planned. If that is true, and I believe it is, how could we have gone wrong and why would He abandon us rather than fix us?

  “I think He created our universe with an idea of what it should and could be, and then left us alone, with His ideas planted somehow into our brains, to fend for ourselves. Probably He will come back later to see how we have done, and maybe fix things then.

  “Like Plato’s story about the cave, I think we are not able to see everything and are left to interpret things based on what we can see. Someday, I hope, we will be led out of the cave and shown everything as it is.”

  She laid the paper down and looked around the room at the men watching her. She said, “First of all, in the twelve years I have been teaching, I have never observed this level of maturity and depth of emotion in students this young. The other thing I wonder about is how and when they developed such a keen understanding of Ancient and Modern Philosophy and of the principles of argument. My fellow students and I were not this far along until we were sophomores or even juniors in college,”

  Mr. Philips responded, “Miss Clutter, we think these are two remarkable, albeit troubled, boys who have spent most of their young lives on their own, lost in their own musings and reading anything that led to an understanding of the thoughts and ideas they had at that moment. It is possible that the boys were poor students because the schools were so far behind them and they didn’t want to wait for them to catch up.”

  Dr. Ledderman added, “We think that something you did, or the way you did something, flipped a switch and sent their minds into overdrive. It is certain, they felt you were a person who had earned their respect and whom they wanted to please.”

  “And don’t think for a moment” Dr. Landon added, “that it was a bad thing. You must, as a teacher, wish you could supercharge every student to work as hard as these two.”

  “I wish” she replied in a voice just above a whisper, “I had been able to sense the magnitude of the hurt these two were hiding and been able to direct them to the help they needed.’

  “You did.” replied Dr. Ledderman in closing the meeting.

  The group had decided to talk with Mr. Jablonski next. He may have a great deal of insight into the boys since he spent so much time with them while picking up the trash.

  No introductions were needed, as everyone at The Center knew everyone else. There was no hierarchy like one would find in most organizations.

  Dr. Ledderman began by explaining that they were searching for answers as to why the boys did this to themselves. He made sure that Jablonski understood that nothing he said would cause trouble for the boys, or for him.

  Jablonski started, “These boys are good boys; always call me Mister. They always work hard; try to make my job easier. Many times tell me, ‘stay in truck Mr. Jablonski, we can get it all’. They always have respect to everybody, no smart mouth like some. I wish I could know about that room, and then maybe this not happen.”

  Dr. Landon explained, as he would have to do with everyone they talked with, that they were not to blame for what happened. Jablonski did not have much to add to the search for understanding of what was going on in the boys’ minds, except to note that some of the other kids would ask them if they were going to the garbage dump for lunch or called them maggot eaters. He reported that one day a group of kids were harassing them and Steven walked to the biggest boy there. He could not hear what was said but the bigger boy put his hands in front of him gesturing surrender and “backed away with his face looking like he had no blood.”

  The second day of discussions began with Mr. Boggle, the Science Teacher.

  After some initial small talk, they asked Boggle some of the same basic questions that got each interview rolling.

  Since he could not answer any of the questions directly, he said, “Let me just tell you, in my own words and in my own orde
r, my observations about Andrew and Steven.” There were nods around the table so he began, “Neither of the boys seemed engaged in class, which is the norm with kids in an institutional setting, no matter how good the institution is. I was surprised when I graded the first test and found two students with perfect scores, and even more surprised to see that Steven Cross and Andrew Chambers were those two students.

  “I should make it clear that I am sometimes as detached as the students. I know that sometimes I am just going through the motions of teaching, sadly not so much different than a large section of teachers, no matter where they teach. After my surprise at the first test scores, I began to observe the boys to make sure they had not somehow cheated. I began calling on them more in class and began having weekly pop quizzes; in every case I was amazed at their performance. I found myself teaching just to the two of them and hoping the others could pick up part of the information.

  “As you all know, I have been called ‘eccentric’ and ‘the epitome of an absentminded professor’. Both are true. I have become, since the death of my wife, rather distant and try to avoid developing relationships. So, when one evening, I saw two figures standing, holding hands on the rise out by the old admin building, it did not register as something that should mean anything to me. It wasn’t until the next week when I watched Andrew and Steven walking out of class that I realized that those were the two figures I had observed. I did not report it nor did I see the need for the harmless incident to be reported. Now I am less sure of my decision than I was at the time. Now I just feel emptiness and failure. I am not just a science teacher; I am someone who has the responsibility to look after the well being of the children who have been entrusted to me; to all of us. It is, perhaps, even more important in institutional settings like this, to be more engaged with our pupils than in a more traditional environment, to be the kind of teacher they probably never had, the kind of teacher that teaches to students; not to a lesson plan."

  In all, the panel talked with over twenty people from The Center’s staff. Not much new information was obtained. A few of the students were interviewed and none thought that there was anything inappropriate between Andrew and Steven. They did know, however, that there could never be two friends that would be closer than the two of them. They also agreed that Steven was a really nice guy, but you just knew never to cross him. You can tell that he could rip your head off your body and use it for a bowling ball if you pushed the wrong button. They agreed that he had the coldest stare they had ever seen. They also agreed that he would protect a friend to the death; he was the kind of friend everyone wanted.