Imaginary Friend

by Stephen Chbosky

  Ms. Lasko turned back to the kids marching into the old folks home. She clapped her hands together to get their attention.

  “Okay, kids,” she said. “Let’s go into the parlor.”

  Christopher’s mother watched the kids trudge up the porch. She finally found Christopher and his friends in the sea of snow hats. The boys were acting like soldiers. Special Ed flanked Christopher, looking around to make sure the coast was clear. Mike stayed a few feet behind them to make sure no one snuck up. Matt walked out front like a scout.

  The boys were playing army.

  And Christopher was their king.

  Christopher’s mother saw Matt enter the parlor first to make sure that everything was safe. Then, he nodded to Special Ed, who escorted Christopher into the old folks home. Mike turned around and scoped the entire scene. She had seen the sheriff do the same thing on their first date. She had witnessed that instinctive need to make sure the coast was clear.

  But never in a seven-year-old.

  Mike’s gaze finally found their enemy. Brady Collins and Jenny Hertzog looked at Christopher, then whispered to their friends. Christopher’s mother would have smiled at the antics except both sides were taking their roles so seriously, it unnerved her. This didn’t feel like a game.

  It felt like a war.

  Back in the parlor, Ms. Lasko sat down at the old upright piano and started warming up her hands by playing scales. Every now and then, she would stop and scratch her arm. At first, Christopher’s mother thought it was just another itch of withdrawal.

  Until she saw Special Ed scratching his arm.

  And Matt. And Mike.

  Everyone but Christopher.

  Christopher’s mother noticed that Brady and Jenny were scratching their arms, too. As were some of their friends. And a couple of teachers. She had seen illness and rashes travel around a school before. But this was ridiculous.

  “Hey, boys…how are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Good, Mrs. Reese. Fine.” Mike spoke first.

  “Are you sure? You keep scratching your arm,” she said.

  “Yeah. I guess Matt and I got poison ivy or something.” He shrugged.

  In December? she thought but did not say. She touched his forehead instead.

  “But you’re burning up. Do you want me to call your moms?”

  “No. They’re really sick. It’s better if we’re here.”

  “My mom, too,” Special Ed said.

  Normally, Christopher’s mother would think there must be a flu going around. The same flu that made her son burn up with fever only a few days before. But nothing about this felt normal. She could tell that all of the boys seemed a little under the weather. Christopher especially.

  “Christopher, are you okay?” she asked, concerned.

  “Yeah, I’m fine, Mom,” he said.

  She instinctively put her hand to his forehead. What she felt shocked her. When she had checked his forehead that morning, he seemed fine. His forehead was even a little cool. And now he was burning up. She didn’t want to make a scene in front of his whole school, so she kept quiet. But in that moment, she decided there would be no movie. There would be bed and rest and visits to every doctor in the tristate area until someone could tell her what the hell was making her son so sick.

  “Okay, honey. Go join your friends,” she said.

  Christopher and his gang moved over to the piano as Ms. Lasko started playing the first song. It was a long musical introduction with her opening remarks about the proud tradition of the “Winter” (wink wink Christmas and Hanukkah) Pageant.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we are so pleased to be here at Shady Pines. I am your musical director, Ms. Lasko. We will be handing out the prizes for the Balloon Derby winners soon, but first…let’s go… Up on the Housetop!”

  Upon the house, no delay, no pause

  Clatter the steeds of Santa Claus;

  Down thro’ the chimney with loads of toys

  Ho for the little ones, Christmas joys.

  The start of the children singing brought the rest of the old folks into the parlor. All except Ambrose Olson. He had barely left his room since they returned from visiting his family’s old house right after David’s funeral. The night nurse said Ambrose stayed up all night, reading, then fell into a deep sleep. He had specifically requested that he be woken up for the Christmas Pageant. He said he didn’t want to miss the children under any circumstances. But for some reason, when they went into the room, none of the nurses could wake him. They figured he was just exhausted from being up all night.

  Or maybe he had the flu.

  Leave her a dolly that laughs and cries,

  One that can open and shut its eyes.

  As laughter and song spread through the room, Christopher’s mother saw Mary Katherine push Mrs. Keizer in her wheelchair. The old woman seemed a lot more agitated than usual.

  “There’s something wrong with you,” she said to Mary Katherine.

  “Please, Mrs. Keizer,” Mary Katherine begged.

  “You smell wrong. You’re different,” she said.

  “Your grandson Brady is standing right over there. Let’s find you a nice seat, so you can watch him sing,” Mary Katherine offered.

  “She’s dirty. This girl is dirty!” the old woman screamed.

  Christopher’s mother quickly got the wheelchair out of Mary Katherine’s hands and parked it down the hallway.

  “Mrs. Keizer, I don’t care if your daughter owns this place. You do not speak to anyone that way. Least of all our teenage volunteers. Do you understand me?”

  The old woman was quiet for a moment, then she smiled at Christopher’s mother.

  “Everything is wrong. You feel it, too,” she said calmly.

  Christopher’s mother looked at the old woman sick with Alzheimer’s. Gooseflesh rose on her arms.

  O! O! O! Who wouldn’t go.

  O! O! O! Who wouldn’t go,

  Upon the housetop, click! click! click!

  Down thro’ the chimney with good St. Nick.

  Christopher’s mother shook off the creeps. She locked off the old woman’s wheelchair, then she went over to Mary Katherine, standing at the table with the punch and cookies.

  “She’s a sick woman, Mary Katherine. She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” she whispered.

  “Yes, she does,” Mary Katherine said.

  “What’s wrong, honey? You can talk to me.”

  Mary Katherine was silent. Christopher’s mother knew that the girl was suffering with some terrible secret. She had grown up with enough of her own. So, she was about to ask Mary Katherine to step into the kitchen to have a real heart-to-heart.

  Then it happened.

  Christopher’s mother had no idea how it started, but Special Ed and Brady Collins were standing nose-to-nose in the middle of the parlor.

  “Get away from him, Brady!”

  “Fuck you, fat boy!”

  Out of nowhere, Brady Collins wound up and hit Special Ed in the face. Special Ed fell hard to the ground. Mike and Matt rushed to his side as Jenny Hertzog jumped on top of him. Special Ed threw her back and charged at Brady.

  “If you touch Christopher again, I’ll fucking kill you!”

  Christopher’s mother rushed to the boys.

  “BOYS! STOP IT RIGHT NOW!” Christopher’s mother screamed.

  But they wouldn’t stop. They kept hitting and biting and tackling each other to the ground. All except Christopher, who sat down, paralyzed with a headache.

  “MS. LASKO…HELP ME!” Christopher’s mother screamed.

  Christopher’s mother tried to pull her son’s friends off Brady and Jenny, but they kept fighting and biting like dogs. She looked over at Ms. Lasko, who just sat there, holding her head like she had a hangover after a dry drunk.

  “Stop making so much noise! My head is killing me!” she screamed.

  The scene was so chaotic that nobody noticed the old woman.

  Except Chr
istopher.

  *

  Christopher was frozen on the ground. The itch was beyond anything he had ever felt before. The thoughts were flying through his mind at such a dizzying speed that he didn’t have a hope of keeping up with them. He heard no voices. Except one.

  Hello, little boy.

  Christopher looked down the hallway. He saw Mrs. Keizer staring at him from her wheelchair. She pulled out her false teeth and stood up on her spindly legs. She took a step and urinated on the floor. He wanted to scream, but the voice kept coming.

  There is no such thing as a crazy person.

  The old woman limped toward Christopher. She smiled, but it looked wrong. No teeth. Like a little baby. Christopher wanted to stand, but he was pinned to the ground by the voice.

  It’s just a person who is watching you.

  For her.

  The old woman hobbled toward him. “Chrissstopher…” she hissed. She put her teeth back in the wrong place. Her tops on the bottom. Her bottoms on the top.

  She is very angry.

  Christopher wanted to scream, but he couldn’t find his own voice. There was just the whisper and the scratch and the old lady coming at him. Her legs got weak, so she knelt down and started crawling on all fours. Like a dog.

  You took the nice man from her.

  The woman scratched the floor, crawling at him. Christopher looked over as Jenny Hertzog dug her nails into Matt’s face, trying to get to his eyes. Brady Collins and his friends were kicking Special Ed in the stomach. Mike threw Brady down.

  She wants him back.

  The old woman’s eyes were insane with dementia.

  Tell us where he is.

  Christopher couldn’t move. He was stuck to the floor. The itch took him until he wasn’t there anymore. He was all of the old people in the room. Their aches. Their pains. Their cancer. Disease. Alzheimer’s. Madness. The old woman crawled at him, slobbering like a dog with no teeth.

  “Tell us where he is!” she screamed out loud.

  The old woman grabbed his hands in her brittle fingers. Christopher stared into her eyes. He saw an old woman screaming gibberish. But it wasn’t gibberish. Like a newborn. It knows what it means even if no one else understands.

  “Death is coming! Death is here! We’ll die on Christmas Day!”

  Christopher pushed the itch through his hands into her skin. He saw her sitting in her room, looking out of the window, seeing the clouds. For years. He took her back in time. Before her mind was covered in a fog. They went back to the very last day when she had all of her faculties. She looked so relieved. Like an ice pack on a swollen joint. But this was her mind. The fog lifted. She looked at Christopher.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in an old folks home.”

  “Is my name Mrs. Keizer?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is that my grandson Brady over there?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How long have I been sick?”

  “Eight years.”

  “I’m sorry I’m so frightening,” she said.

  “You’re not frightening to me,” he replied.

  With that, Christopher pushed the itch deep into the woman’s mind. His nose began to gush blood. The children stopped fighting when they saw the old woman lying on Christopher. The silence spread through the room. Christopher’s mother rushed toward them.

  “Mrs. Keizer! Let go of my son!”

  “Of course,” she said. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Reese.”

  With that, the old woman let go of Christopher. The entire staff stared at her. The woman had been ravaged for eight years by Alzheimer’s. And now, she was lucid, bright, and happy.

  It was a miracle.

  Christopher looked up at his mother. His face was covered in blood. From his nose to his neck. He locked eyes with her.

  “Mommy,” he said. “I think I’m dying.”

  Chapter 57

  Christopher’s mother was so panicked when she entered the emergency room that at first, she didn’t notice. All she saw was the step right in front of her.

  She had blown through every red light and stop sign on the way to the ER. She saw the deer on either side of the road, but she didn’t slow. Her son was gushing blood from his nose. His skin was so feverish that it gave her hands little blisters.

  And he was talking to himself.

  They weren’t sentences. Just little phrases. Words strung together like ants at a picnic. Christopher’s mother prayed it was a fever dream and nothing worse. She had one when she was younger. She was on a hike with her one good uncle and she reached under a rock. She was bitten by a snake and spent two days not knowing what was real and what was make-believe.

  “Hang in there, honey,” she said.

  But her son kept muttering. Delirious. The only phrase that made any sense was…

  “No dreams.”

  Christopher’s mother pulled into the loading zone of the hospital and ran into the ER, holding her son like a laundry bundle. She went straight to the admissions desk. Nurse Tammy listened dutifully, asked for her insurance card, and told her to take a seat in the waiting room.

  “Fine. Fine. How long until he can see a doctor?”

  “About ten hours.”

  “What the hell do you mean, ten hours?”

  Nurse Tammy pointed into the waiting room. Christopher’s mother quickly turned. And that’s when she finally saw it.

  There was not a single chair left in the ER.

  She was used to waiting rooms being desperate places. The times when she didn’t have health insurance, the ER was where she was forced to go. She had seen strung-out couples moaning. Poor people crying and screaming to be seen immediately. But now she had health insurance. She wasn’t in a city. She was in a small town.

  And she had never seen anything like this.

  The entire room was packed. Fathers stood against the walls so their wives and children could sit. Old people sat on the floor.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Reese,” Nurse Tammy said. “So many of our doctors and nurses called in sick today. I’m even working the desk. We’ll see him as soon as we can.”

  “Where’s the next nearest hospital?” she asked.

  “It’s the same everywhere, ma’am. Christmas is flu season. Please have a seat.”

  Christopher’s mother wanted to scream at her, but all she saw was a tired woman who looked sick herself. She wasn’t about to yell at one of the few nurses who actually came in that day. So, she swallowed her rage and nodded.

  “Thank you, Nurse,” she said.

  “You’re welcome, ma’am,” Nurse Tammy replied, then went back to the phone. “Sorry, Dad. I can’t leave. We’re short-staffed. I’ll buy the merLOT for the party tomorrow.”

  Christopher’s mother walked up and down the rows. She expected at least one person to give up their seat for a sick child. The fact that no one did was very unsettling to her. The people were too busy loosening their clothes to cool down their own fevers. Too busy scratching their arms. Christopher’s mother saw one man holding a bandage to his face.

  “God damn deer ran right in front of my truck,” he said to the guy next to him.

  She passed a stabbing victim. A housewife who inexplicably fell asleep in her backyard and woke up with frostbite. A couple of guys who got into a bar fight over “some Indian woman,” who said she could drink anyone under the table. She got them both drunk. As a joke, she thought it would be funny if they fought to the death for the right to sleep with her. And for some reason neither of them could explain, they broke beer bottles and tried it.

  When the glass hit their skin, they woke up from their madness.

  “You will see my mother NOW!”

  Mrs. Collins stood next to Brady and her mother at the admission desk. Mrs. Keizer was passed out in a wheelchair. Mrs. Collins looked deathly ill herself. Her forehead glistened with sweat, but she refused to take off her fur coat or jewelry. She scratched her neck under her necklace
as she continued to berate Nurse Tammy.

  “Look up there,” Mrs. Collins hissed. “You see what that sign above the door says? It says COLLINS EMERGENCY CARE WING. I’m Collins. So, if you don’t get my mother a bed right now, guess what that sign will read tomorrow? LEASE AVAILABLE.”

  Christopher’s mother didn’t think Mrs. Collins understood what was happening around her. Her mind wandered to Marie Antoinette right after her “cake diet” failed to poll well. A couple of bigger guys stood up. They walked toward Mrs. Collins. Some of the older people quickly took their chairs.

  “Why don’t you wait your turn, lady?” one of the men said to Mrs. Collins.

  Mrs. Collins turned her head and glared at the men fearlessly.

  “Why don’t you build your own fucking hospital?” she said.

  A murmur shot through the room. No one knew what would happen next.

  Christopher’s mother saw their anger spread like an echo. For a moment, she wondered if echoes ever really died out, or if they just became impossible to hear. Like a dog whistle. Always there. Always around us. Forever.

  “Bitches like you make me sick—” the man said.

  Mrs. Collins’ son Brady walked right up to the men. He was a third of their size, but he was fearless in his rage.

  “Leave my mother alone!” he said.

  Brady’s presence quieted the room down enough for the security guards to get the Collins family away from the angry mob and into a nice, clean hospital room. With no Collins family to focus on, the group turned their anger back on each other. The angry men returned to their seats and ordered the old people out of them. Including the women. The old women found space on the floor and stared at the young women with their sick children. Openly judging them. Saying how they should have taken better care of their kids. The young women shot back.

  “Don’t tell me how to raise my kids.”

  “Don’t talk to my wife that way.”

  “You better sit down, or I’ll make you sit down.”

  “Turn that TV up.”

  “No, turn it down. I’m tired of that shit about the Middle East.”

  “Watch your mouth in front of the children.”