Missing Chldren

by Gerald Lynch

  He caught his breath. With teeth gritted he leaned over the table, halted. He licked his lips. With head slightly shaking he brushed nonexistent salt off the table with the sweeping edge of his right hand. Thought to speak. Didn’t. Then: “You are going to learn a hard fucking lesson one of these days, Lorne Thorpe. And I may be just the man to teach you.”

  “Dr. Foster, cher collègue,” sang I. “This anger? That even sounded like a…why, like a threat!”

  “One hard, fucking, lesson.”

  He clamped his jaws, shoved back his chair, stomped off.

  Victory.

  Disturbing rumours began circulating about Foster’s friend of a friend of a friend and the arsenic-poisoned girl. Out of professional responsibility I accompanied him to observe his non-credentialed therapist working with the depressed child in our care. We would watch through the two-way mirror on which both legal teams had insisted and which the juju man had resisted.

  At first sight of the “holistic pediatric grief counsellor” — high-top red running shoes, billowing clothes, some huge amulet necklace, orange hair, near-midget height — I sputtered uncontrollably. He cocked his wild head with its considerable tonsure like he’d heard me. I looked around for the camera spying on me, suspecting I was the butt of some practical joke, that this was Foster’s threatened revenge.

  “Who, or what rather, is that, Art? Rumpelstiltskin?”

  Foster continued smiling vaguely through the window: “Bob Browne.”

  Marie LeBlanc still wasn’t talking and this Bob Browne was doing nothing. He just sat by her bed and twanged away on one of those ridiculous Jew’s harps (the necklace). He never once glanced at the two-way mirror.

  Was I in a state-of-the-art medical facility or Bizarro World behind this looking glass? What script were we following here? I thought the scene all too much like one of those bad TV stories about some eccentric traveller: the wandering charmer of lonely townsfolk, the converter of grumpy old folks, pal to daddy-damaged children, intimate of put-upon women, goat whisperer — the itinerant miracle-worker, whose original was probably Jesus Christ himself.

  When the girl did talk — right out of the blue the next day, as though she and Bob Browne had been having a running conversation — I was the only witness present. Bob Browne let her speak in French at first, then led her to English. They chatted about mere nothings. He showed her how to get sound from the Jew’s harp, without first using the available disinfectant wipes. She jumped off the bed and did a little jig with him, all the while twanging the thing (some instrument; there was no difference between her playing and his). Another time she sat in a chair while he lay on the bed. He may even have dozed, as I thought I heard snoring.

  A TV was brought in and they began talking only about the kids’ TV show Wy Knots. It could well have been from Wy that Bob Browne had learned the passive-aggressive style of echo, platitude, and challenge. Of course Wy himself was just another TV version of the wandering wizard.

  The girl’s spirits had become more buoyant between visits and were elated at each new visit, if you could go by her bouncing on the bed and clapping and squealing “Play, play, play!”

  And I guess you could go by that.

  My colleague Foster, strutting again after his potentially fatal, currently actionable malpractice, held me in the hall one day while Bob Browne was finishing up with the improving Marie. The three of us went for coffee together. Or I’d thought for coffee only. Bob Browne heaped his cafeteria tray, adding a second order of poutine. He wound his way to a table, scuttling more than walking on those un-legs of his.

  Nodding at his tray as I approached the table, the first thing I said to him was, “Maybe we should ship you directly to the Heart Institute.”

  He stood glaring across the tray, beady green eyes unblinking from a ruff of orange hair. His first words to me were precise: “Just what the fuck is your problem, Dr. Thorpe?”

  “Problem? Moi?”

  Foster had been grinning absently at the wall of windows beyond Browne, and now he turned a rueful smile on me. “Oh, come on now, Lorne, lighten up. No need for professional jealousy!”

  I could have cracked him over the head with Browne’s tray. “And just what profession are we talking about here, Dr. Foster?”

  Bob Browne slightly hefted his heaped tray and stared across it. “Look, I’ve not eaten since yesterday morning, okay? And I’ve just finished a lengthy session with poor little Marie…who, by the way, is fit to return home.”

  He sat and bowed over a plate mounded with poutine. “I don’t buy all your medical crap about fat being bad for everybody. There are more serious threats to a person’s well-being, which guys like you completely ignore. So, if you will please cram the sarcasm into a medicine ball and shove it up your ass, Dok-tor.” He attacked the poutine without benefit of knife and fork.

  Foster, too obviously enjoying his revenge, knocked the table once with his knuckles and stood.

  Bob Browne stopped his slippery chops and, ignoring Foster, again trained those green eyes on me. “No real offence intended, Dr. Thorpe. It’s just that I think you guys did as much harm as good to that kid when you completely ignored her spiritual needs.” Back to his meal, fingers scooping.

  Ah, so here was the mysterious source of Art’s recent mystical bent.

  “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to put you off your soul food.”

  He stopped and snorted a laugh, then said, with mouth masticating like a garburator: “I did say as much harm as good. I’m not denying that your quick action saved Marie’s life, Dr. Thorpe. I’m not crazy. Medical science is its own form of miracle.”

  “We’re flattered, I’m sure, all of us, from Hippocrates to Jonas Salk.”

  He hiccupped a laugh and blew a cheese-and-gravy bubble from his nostril; far from embarrassed, he pointed wide-eyed at the brownish balloon and tried to maintain it — till it popped. Nonchalantly he returned to his feed. Is it any wonder the child patient could “relate” to this man-child?

  I was still shaking my head slightly when Foster slapped my back. “Well, I think I’ll leave you two philosophers to get better acquainted.” And walked away from the beginnings of my plea to remain.

  Indicating his tray, Bob Browne called, “Art, I think the French lady at the cash register is waiting for you to sign for this! Mercy buckets!”

  I swung back to the table. “Why haven’t you eaten since yesterday morning?”

  He didn’t look up: “No dosh.”

  “What, OHIP put a cap on voodoo? It ain’t fair.”

  He laughed, choked, but waved off my offer of Foster’s half-empty cup of coffee. He thumped his sternum and was fine.

  “Look, Dr. Thorpe —”

  “Lorne will do fine, Bob, when we’re alone. Catch your breath… Yes? I’m looking.”

  He smirked. “Look” — his voice was still pitched higher from the choking, and he seemed to enjoy the sound — “I’m not going to waste time explaining to you what I do.” He was back in an adult register: “You’re right, though, it doesn’t pay, and it’s not fair, but I continue to do it, as a favour to a dear old friend.”

  “Ah, yes, Foster’s friend of a friend. Supposedly I know him or her, though my confidential colleague won’t tell me who it is, which gives me no little cause for concern, let me tell you. Will you tell me?”

  He pinched his lips and puffed out his cheeks for a thoughtful while. “Just an old friend of mine. We’ve been through a lot together, if that matters.”

  “It matters to me if you’re treating our patients. Why all the mystery?” No response. I indicated the Jew’s harp, which had been dipping into his messy fries: “If you need money, why not give music lessons?”

  He ignored the joke, took the harp and licked it clean. Then posed with it reflectively:

  “You know, Mesmer himself used one of the
se in his work.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  He laughed lightly. “And Jew’s harps were used as trade items to steal this land from the Indians. Bad from good, or good from bad, depending on your point of view.” He looked straight at me: “It’s no threat to anyone, what I do.”

  I let fire: “Just what do you do, Dr. Juju?”

  He showed no offence. “You know, Lorne, I think you just might understand. Better than Dr. Foster anyway. But now’s not the time.”

  “I thought you were Art Foster’s friend?”

  “I hardly know the man and don’t want to. I’ve been here a few times before though at his behest, or my friend’s, all on the q.t. I’ll tell you this though — watch that guy. Very bad karma there, and between you two guys. Foster could be a crime looking for its victim. Maybe you. But what about you, Lorne Thorpe?”

  I leisurely filled my lungs. Smiled to myself. What the hell. And he didn’t like Foster.

  “Happily married, two kids, seventeen and ten, boy and a girl.”

  He spoke without looking up from his feed: “I like a man who defines himself as a family, even in that wing-clipped way you have. That’s a long time between children, the decision to again express your love that way. Who does Owen listen to? What’s Shawn’s favourite animal? TV show?”

  I controlled myself. “Rap. Cats, I guess. Wy Knots, of course. You’ve been talking to Foster about me. Why?”

  He glanced at me and I detected disappointment at my failure to be impressed. “Why? Wy Knots, eh? Marie’s favourite TV show too. I asked who does Owen listen to, not what. Okay, smart guy — where does Wy ride off to on his donkey at the end of every show?”

  “Is this a quiz show, Bob? Are rap and kids’ TV that important to parent-child spiritual relations? My son, Owen, is obsessed with this psycho-fuck murderer the Market Slasher. That’s real, and that worries me very much. My own father didn’t know that I graduated at the top of my class at Johns Hopkins, the only Canadian ever to do so. So what?”

  He smiled at me and turned down the voltage in those beady green eyes. “Thanks, Lorne. But I could have guessed something like that without you telling me. You’re a good father. Your father should have known of your achievement. You believe your mother’s love saved your life, right? Or your sanity anyway. Explain that medically or scientifically.”

  Now I was dumbstruck, and for too long. I’d certainly never said anything like that to Foster. Then hardly in control of what I said: “They both died last year, only months apart, him first. I think I hated him. I couldn’t believe she’d loved him that much. I mean, to die for want of him. Yet I miss him more than her. I don’t want to. She knew the nitty-gritty of me, every sin.” I snickered like a fool. “Life and death, what’s it all about, Bob Browne?”

  He dropped his head. “Oh, this and that.” And returned to eating, allowing me time to recover.

  “And you, Bob? Are you a philosopher, like Foster said? A mind reader? Or just a clever simplifier?”

  With his forefinger he marked the air three times: “Guilty, not guilty, and guilty. But it’s really just paying attention, that and simple human compassion, a little imagination. And I know you were being sarcastic again, Lorne. You need to work on that. Why not just say what you mean, at least sometimes, eh?”

  “Wy doesn’t ride an ass. Wy’s against exploiting our fellow creatures. His only companion is a goat. At the end of each show he walks the goat along the Noble Eightfold Path to a vanishing point, from which they emerge at the start of each show. For my prize, Mr. Trebek, I’ll take the two-bit mystic’s boxed set of Khalil Gibberish.”

  He startled me by rearing up and back, placing his hands on the small paunch that had popped out to accommodate his feed, throwing back his head and hooting so loudly that people — the colourfully smocked and weary, the coffee-guzzling and nicotine gum-chewing — looked over. A few acquaintances raised eyebrows at me, nodding in acknowledgement of Bob Browne, whose “work” with a few of our sick kids must already have inspired gossip.

  He settled, wiping his eyes and mouth with a shirt sleeve that was as good as a big linen napkin.

  “Wei,” he said.

  “Way?”

  “Wy’s goat, his name is Wei, must be a pun, eh? As in, the fourfold way. But too much —”

  “I believe in Buddhism it’s the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.”

  “You know that?” He didn’t like being corrected, but the cringe passed quickly. “You know what’s gold in this life, Lorne? I’m thinking you do. A good joke. Many of your fellow medical wizards now acknowledge it, that there’s health benefit in laughter. You should try it in your practice, a little Robin Williams?”

  I smiled without irony, it was a relief. “Tell me, Bob, how do you keep body and soul together, if your work doesn’t pay? That’s no joke.”

  “I knew I’d like you, Lorne. I knew it these past two days when you were standing behind the mirror all by your lonesome. Funny how quickly people lose interest, eh? The sound is two-way, you know. Or you don’t. I know your way of coming in and shutting the door like you own the place. You sigh a lot. What idiot engineer forgot to soundproof the observation booth? And why’s it called a two-way mirror anyway if you can see through only one way?”

  “It wouldn’t be a mirror otherwise.”

  “Man, that big brain!” He placed his right hand on top of his frizzled head and commenced flapping it at me à la Curly the Stooge.

  “What did you fail at, Bob?”

  The flapping hand came off his head and swung in a fist that struck his chest like an arrow to the heart — “Schoop” — and this time he mock-cringed: “Ouch. The notorious Clinical Director Thorpe’s notorious clinical directness.”

  “Well, I need to be getting back —”

  “You’re right, of course. I did fail. I had my own business, a small landscaping company. I was good at it too. When I worked for other contractors, clients loved my stuff. When I struck out on my own, with a reputation and references glowing enough to secure big bank loans, no one would sign a contract with me. I was willing to ditch the contracts and still no one would deal. You know, I think it was something as simple as heightism. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m quite short.”

  “I noticed. It’s really just paying attention, that and simple human compassion, imagination.”

  He startled me again the way he widened his eyes and pursed his mouth, this time clapping two hands to head as if to contain its orange jungle. He sputtered for a bit, as if afraid to unleash again the full force of his laughter. He wasn’t play-acting.

  There’s nothing for beginning friendship like appreciation of one’s wit. “But I wouldn’t have thought height mattered in the gardening business.”

  He settled, continued eating and talked with his mouth full. “Landscaping. Anyhoo, I went belly up for good last spring. If you hear that the repo people are after me, it’s because I’ve had to hide my combination backhoe-front-end-loader from creditors. It’s all I have left. My friend and I are both getting pretty desperate for money. You don’t happen to know anyone who wants landscaping done, do you?”

  “I’ll keep my ears open.”

  He reached for Foster’s half-full coffee, downed it in one gulp and was looking inquisitively towards the stainless steel cafeteria kitchen.

  “I’ve told you so much about myself, Lorne. How about telling me a little about Dr. Thorpe’s rise to fame? You’re a little god in this place.”

  “You’ve told me next to nothing about yourself, Bob, and there’s no table service here. Where are you from? And this mysterious friend of a friend, a woman? Are you two romantically involved?”

  “Here and there and nowhere. Yes and no…or not anymore, maybe never, I dunno.”

  “Well, that definitely answers those questions. Okay, how did you end up in
Ottawa? You seem to speak sometimes with a German accent. Is that part of the act or are you Austrian or something? Other times I detect traces of a Southern twang.”

  “Good ear, Doc. I’ve been around ever since I was, uh, a boy… Really, Lorne, there’s nothing to tell. I’d rather hear about you.”

  There was plenty to tell. But I did a singsong whisper: “Well, Dr. Phil, I was born at a very young age and nobody loves me enough.”

  He smiled into his empty cup. “Phil. It means love, you know. My one and only philosophy.”

  So I gave him the thumbnail biography. I don’t really know why. Only child. Father a diplomat. Family travelled the world a good deal. Parents always maintained a pied-à-terre in Ottawa. Decent cross-country runner, every year on a different school team. Just missed a Rhodes scholarship while doing a B.A. in history at Carleton U. Never looked to the humanities again. Pre-med at U Ottawa. Medical school at Johns Hopkins, specialized at Harvard. Could have stayed in U.S. for big bucks. Wanted to come home. CHEO’s youngest ever director of clinical services. Met Veronica when she was doing a lab internship as part of a B.Sc. chemistry. Married right after her graduation.

  He’d slowly pursed his lips and screwed up his face during that recital, bobbing more than nodding his head. His eyes seemed watery, sparkling aquamarine.

  “That’s it? What about your childhood? What about that wanted to come home? Elaborate, please.”

  I was perplexed. “Do you suffer from allergies, Bob? It is ragweed season, you know. You should let me …”

  He shook his head and pushed off from the table. If the expression “stared daggers” has any real reference, my head was being haloed by Bob Browne’s thrown knives. Yet he spoke with composure: “Your Market Slasher was a baby once, maybe a hated baby. Somebody sure hated him, and a lot, before you ever got to him, Dr. Thorpe. Do you think that baby wanted to be a serial killer of girls when he grew up? Talk to Owen.”

  “What?”

  But without another word he walked away, suddenly a sad little clown shuffling offstage at the end of an unsatisfying performance. I’d been feeling buoyed and was suddenly let down. He could well be unstable, bipolar or something. And he was “treating” one of our patients, I reminded myself. And sympathy for the Market Slasher! Mixed with understanding for Owen! Bob Browne would bear close watching.