Silent Boy

by Torey Hayden

  That was too much responsibility for any person. Playing God was a good name for it because God we were being, doing this sort of work, and playing at it was all we were capable of. Yet I knew someone had to do it. I just wished it had never had to be me.

  Among the papers in my lap was a little poem written by one of my children years before.

  A parrot is a funny bird,

  I wonder, when it talks,

  If it knows it speaks in human words

  But still has parrot thoughts.

  That was me, the Parrot of God.

  Chapter Twelve

  We barreled on full tilt through December. I became more and more vigilant, more and more absorbed in Kevin’s drama, as I tried to maintain some semblance of control. It eventually grew to be like riding a runaway horse. On one hand, one is terrified of falling off; yet on the other one develops sort of a nervous, challenged giddiness after a while, which feeds upon the terror, and sooner or later, one develops a taste for it. My adrenaline mounted. My weight dropped. My sleep was poor. Yet there was something addictive about it. I kept coming back, day after day, to see the thing I had let loose.

  January arrived with a deep snowfall and sub-zero temperatures. When I came in the office one morning after my sessions with Kevin, I found Jeff sitting in his desk chair with his head hanging down between his knees. I had to shed a couple of layers before I was able to speak.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘I have a headache. I’m letting all the blood rush to my brain so that it’ll go away.’

  ‘And you’re a doctor? Heaven help us. Why don’t you just take an aspirin? I have some in my desk.’ Still wearing my jacket and trailing a muffler, I went over to rummage through a drawer for the bottle. It had been in there quite a long time and smelled like vinegar when I uncapped it. ‘Here.’

  He kept his head on the floor. ‘I don’t want to pollute my body,’ he replied.

  Jeff never failed to amaze me. What a hypocrite. He regularly drank beer, which he and his roommate brewed up in their bathtub. ‘Take the stupid aspirin, Jeff.’

  ‘I’m just tired, that’s all,’ he said and sat up. He took the pills from me. ‘I was up almost all last night at the hospital.’

  ‘Here, I’ll fetch you a glass of water,’ I said. When I returned, Jeff had smashed the aspirin into powder in his palm with the eraser end of a pencil. He was the only doctor I knew who couldn’t swallow pills.

  ‘So what was going on down at the hospital?’ I asked.

  ‘Cheri Bennett. Once again.’ And he rolled his eyes.

  Returning from taking Charity home that evening, I heard the phone ring as I was putting the car in the garage. Madly, I fumbled with the keys to get the door open, but by the time I reached the telephone, it was too late.

  Although it was just a little after nine, the long weeks were beginning to tell on me and I decided to run a hot bath and go to bed early. Just as I lowered myself below the surface of the water, the phone rang again.

  It was Jeff. He’d had more than a headache that morning; he had strep throat. Now at home with a 103-degree fever, he wondered if I could take over any emergencies for him. Standing shivering and dripping wet at the phone, I was willing to agree to anything. Then I returned to a less-than-hot tub.

  Jeff must have known what was coming. Less than an hour later when I was warm in bed, reading, the psychiatric unit of the hospital rang up. Could I come down? Cheri Bennett had gone on a rampage through the unit and was now holding the nurses at bay with a broken light bulb.

  Wearily I rolled out of bed. It was almost ten-thirty.

  I knew all about Cheri Bennett. She was fifteen and had, I think, a mad crush on Jeff. She was also a very seriously disturbed girl who made persistent and dangerous suicide bids. Nothing Jeff did seemed to affect her perilous course toward self-destruction. When she had been committed to the unit the previous Monday after leaping from the Seventeenth Street flyover, Jeff was almost tearful with frustration.

  Although I had never seen Cheri Bennett, she wasn’t too hard to recognize. She was the one up on the windowsill, her back to the glass, bravely thrusting at the air with her light bulb, like a fencer.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ she hollered at me.

  ‘Dr Tomlinson’s sick,’ I yelled back over the ruckus of the aides and nurses.

  ‘But who the hell are you?’

  ‘I’m Torey Hayden. I’m one of Dr Tomlinson’s colleagues.’

  ‘Are you a doctor?’

  ‘No. I work with Dr Tomlinson. I’m here in his place. He’s sick. I’m here to help you.’

  ‘Who said I wanted your help? Who the fuck cares who you are anyway. You aren’t even a doctor. How do you expect to help?’

  It was not an easy night. Cheri was one of those kids who instantly endeared herself to me by her wild, anguished bravado. But unfortunately, the same was not true in reverse. It took me more than an hour just to get her to come down off her perch on the windowsill and sit on the bed.

  I stayed all night. It took several hours to calm her down enough to get rid of the light bulb and the nail file and the bathrobe tie and all the other weapons she had managed to devise. After all that, I didn’t have the heart to turn her over to the hospital staff to be drugged out of her misery and left in the dark, waiting for sleep or whatever else comes in the night. So once I had her calmed down and more relaxed, we talked.

  The night shift changed. The morning crew came around, all full of laughter and good cheer. I didn’t leave until breakfast arrived, and when I did, Cheri did nothing more than shrug her shoulders after me and turn away to eat.

  At 8:20 in the morning I returned home again. It was just in time for Jeff to call again. He sounded horrible as he croaked a few directions to me regarding stuff at the office. A few things, he said, that he’d left undone at work. When I got there, I found he had left more undone than done. I couldn’t face any of it. I rang Dana at Garson Gayer and explained what had happened. Then I stopped in the office and told Shirley that as far as I was concerned, Hayden, Tomlinson & Co. were closed. Then I went home and slept the rest of the morning away.

  When I arrived the next morning, Kevin was subdued. He was there ahead of me as usual, perched on the radiator by the window, one knee up, his cheek resting against it. He was staring out the window and did not turn as I entered. He said nothing.

  I put my things down on the table.

  ‘Where were you yesterday?’

  ‘Dana told you, didn’t she?’ I said. ‘I had to be at the hospital the night before. Did she tell you?’

  He nodded and slowly turned his head to look at me. ‘But that was in the night. Why weren’t you here yestereday morning?’

  ‘Because I was so tired. I had been up all night, so I went home to sleep.’

  ‘But you could have come here first.’

  ‘I was too tired. I wouldn’t have been any fun at all.’

  ‘But you could have. It was only for an hour. Not like it was all day or something. Or all night like that kid took.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kevin. But it just didn’t make me feel good to have been awake that long. I needed to sleep.’

  Kevin turned away and looked out the window. He said no more.

  I couldn’t get him to talk to me again. He sat in moody silence and refused to turn or get down from the radiator or speak. So I put my things on the table, opened the box, and took out a crossword puzzle book. For twenty-five minutes I sat at the table and did a crossword. When next I looked up, Kevin was watching me.

  ‘You ready to join me?’ I asked.

  He turned away.

  I went back to the crossword.

  ‘I made something for you yesterday,’ he said.

  I raised my head. He was regarding me but immediately turned back to the window. It was like a ballet, this head bobbing and turning we were doing.

  ‘I made something for you and you weren’t even here.’

/>   ‘Do you want to show it to me now? Do you have it with you?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘You’re pouting, Kevin. You’re angry because I didn’t come. I’m sorry, Kev, because I spoiled things for you, but it couldn’t be helped.’

  No answer. I returned to the crossword.

  ‘It’s almost time to go,’ he said.

  ‘Mmm-hmm.’

  ‘Can I stay longer today? To make up for yesterday?’

  I shook my head. ‘That’d make you late for Mr Gardner’s class, wouldn’t it? We can’t do that.’

  The aide’s key rattled in the lock and Kevin stood up. He studied me a minute. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I really don’t like you very much.’

  I had expected the whole thing to have blown over by the following day; however, Kevin was again sulky and sullen. I had arrived in the room early and positioned myself against the radiator so that he could not easily seek refuge in the window. This upset him slightly and he paced the room. In the far corner he stopped and watched me. Rummaging through my box, I pulled out one of the sketchpads and skimmed it across the floor. A pencil followed.

  ‘Here, draw.’

  Kevin regarded me. Then slowly, he knelt and picked up the pad. The temptation proved too much and he sat down on the carpet. Opening the sketchpad, he thumbed through earlier drawings until he finally located a blank page. The pencil poised, he stared at it. Then he looked up at me.

  ‘What do you want me to draw?’ he asked.

  ‘I dunno.’ I shrugged slightly. ‘Anything. Make a world for yourself.’

  He continued to watch me.

  ‘I used to do that. When I was your age. I didn’t draw. I wrote instead. And I could make a whole world for myself, just the way I liked it. I wrote stories about it. Stories and stories and stories. But you can draw. I think that’s better. Because then people can see what your world looks like. I always wished I could have illustrated my world so that other people could see the things the way I saw them.’

  Kevin’s gaze never wandered from my face. ‘Did you really do that? Make yourself a world?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes. And it had people in it and everything. And it was just the way I decided it to be.’

  ‘Do you still do that?’

  ‘Sometimes. I still write myself little stories and they’re always my best ones. Because they’re for me.’

  There was a pause. Kevin fiddled with the weave of the carpet. ‘Well, you know something?’ He paused again. ‘Something I never told anybody else? Never anybody?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I sort of got one of them worlds too. I guess I always had it. I never drew pictures of it or anything. It was just inside me.’ He smiled and pulled at the carpet again. ‘Well, see, there’s sort of inside me this other guy. I call him Bryan. Bryan’s a strong name, I think. The sort of name a strong guy would have. And well, here inside just stupid old Kevin, there’s this real neat Bryan. And sometimes I think how I’m really Bryan. Not on the ouside maybe, but on the inside I am. But nobody knows it but me. Nobody knows I’m really special inside but me. It’s my own private world sort of, like yours was. It’s always been a secret about Bryan because I don’t want anyone to know. They wouldn’t believe it, and I don’t want them to take Bryan away from me. I don’t want to share with anybody.’ He glanced over at me. ‘Was your world like that too?’

  ‘Yes, pretty much.’

  ‘I’ve never told anyone this before.’

  I smiled.

  ‘But you knew, didn’t you? You know everything, don’t you?’

  Again I smiled and shook my head. ‘No, hardly. It’s just that everybody has a private world inside him. Everybody does.’

  ‘You wouldn’t tell anybody else, would you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not write it in the charts or anything? It’d just be between us, wouldn’t it? Our secret?’

  ‘Yes, just our secret.’

  He smiled warmly at me. ‘You know, I don’t really mind you knowing. Maybe you could even call me Bryan, sometimes. Kind of like when we’re in private. Like now. You could call me Bryan, like I really was. Like I wasn’t Kevin at all.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Do you think you could?’

  Again I nodded.

  He smiled. ‘Then do it, okay? Call me Bryan right now. Let me hear you say I’m Bryan. All right? Okay?’

  ‘Okay, Bryan, I will.’

  I felt good. I glowed in an idiot’s paradise, as we sat there chatting while Kevin doodled on the pad. Then, glancing up at the clock, I noticed we had only five minutes left before the aide returned.

  ‘Time’s almost up,’ I said. Kevin looked up from his drawing. There was a small, edgy pause, and I half expected him to ask for more time. That would have spoiled my momentary belief that we had accomplished something worthwhile, because it would have reopened the issue of my absence. But he didn’t ask. After one last, long look at his work, he closed the sketchbook and rose to put it in the box.

  ‘You know what?’ he asked, smiling at me, ‘I’m glad I get to come here.’

  ‘Good. I’m pleased you enjoy it.’

  ‘It’s better here than all the rest of my day put together.’ He went to dump some bits of paper in the wastebasket on the other side of the room. Halfway over something slipped from the pocket of his pants. It was a long object, wrapped in brown paper.

  Kevin halted abruptly when he saw he’d dropped it. He bent and retrieved it.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing special.’

  ‘What is it?’ I rose from my place and came over.

  Kevin had taken it from his pocket again and was palming it. I could tell he was unwilling to show it to me, but at the same time he was still caught up in the warmth of our earlier camaraderie. The half smile of pleasure over a shared secret creased his lips.

  ‘It’s something I made,’ he said and there was pride in his voice. ‘Do you want to see it?’

  I nodded.

  Carefully, he unwrapped it. With tender deftness his fingers moved the paper. His love for the object was obvious, even in the way he removed its wrappings.

  I didn’t know exactly what it was. It was about eight inches long, a piece of blue-painted metal. One end was pointed, the other rounded. My lack of comprehension must have been clear.

  ‘It’s a knife,’ Kevin said gently, as if explaining to a child. ‘I made it from a piece of metal I took off my bed. See. I’ve been rubbing it against the wall in the TV room where there’s bricks.’

  When I did not say anything, he smiled, still with that gentle patience. Then he reached over and took hold of my arm, turning it underside upward.

  ‘See, I made it sharp, so it can cut.’ And he ran the point sharply along the skin of my inner arm. A scratch appeared and little points of blood welled up.

  ‘Yes, I see,’ I said and pulled my arm against my body.

  He was still smiling, an odd sort of smile with just one side of his mouth curled up. There was nothing especially sinister about it, or there wouldn’t have been if this all hadn’t followed so shortly on the heels of our earlier fellowship. But now I felt violated. All I saw was someone who could turn my arm over and cut me and keep smiling.

  Kevin raised the knife and studied its edge. ‘I’m going to get him. What you got to do now is teach me how to go outside again. And then when I do, I’m going to split his guts all over the ground.’

  He must have sensed that I was going to object, because he jerked back to me and brought the knife up under my chin. He smiled again. ‘Remember us talking about secrets earlier?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you got another one you better keep. You wouldn’t tell anyone I made this, would you?’ It wasn’t a question. It was a threat.

  ‘Why should I tell?’

  Again he grinned.

  The knife came down. He fondled it, examined the edge, sighted against the point. ‘It’s a good knife. I
t’s sharp. It’d kill real easy.’

  ‘Kev?’ I said. ‘Give me the knife. To keep for you. You can’t keep it here. They’ll find it.’

  ‘I’ve been keeping it. I got a good hiding place. They’ll never find it.’

  ‘Oh, they would, Kev. Sooner or later. And they’d take it away. Let me keep it for you. Like I did the picture, remember?’

  He looked at me. ‘You wouldn’t bring it back.’

  ‘Sure I would. Why shouldn’t I? You can trust me. I keep my word. And they’d never take it away from me, not if I had it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yeah, let me. I’ll bring it every session. I promise I will, Kevin. Let me keep it.’

  He turned the piece of blue metal over and over in his palm, caressed it, felt the point, the sharpened edges. He was right about one thing. It would kill. It was a crude but effective little weapon, perhaps all the more effective for not being immediately recognizable as a knife.

  Cold sweat had begun to trickle down my back; it felt awful, all damp and tickly. I was worried that the click of the aide’s key would come any moment now and startle Kevin before I had the knife.

  He raised it, put it under his own chin and flicked it outward. Again he put it under my chin. He smiled. ‘I really do think I could kill someone, you know. I think I might even enjoy it.’

  ‘That’s a good knife, Kevin. I like it. But let me keep it for you so they don’t take it away. We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?’

  Still he stood, contemplating. I said no more. I feared sounding overenthusiastic. Or overanxious. Beyond us the sun shone through the window with a springtime brightness. We could have been on the brink of May by the looks of it, not sliding into the cadaverous shadows of winter.