He stopped, frowning thoughtfully, a single tear forming in his left eye. Sarah struggled to put her confused feelings into words of comfort for this boy she somehow knew to be very special, in ways she couldn’t even guess at. But her tongue failed her, and she could only watch helplessly as the tear forced its way from his eye and dropped onto the tray.
“Everybody thinks I’m crazy, don’t they?” Bradley Wallace said, more as a statement than a question, his voice quiet and resigned.
But the pain in his heart reflected out through his shimmering green eyes, and anger welled up in Sarah. They just don’t understand him, she knew with a sudden insight she herself couldn’t comprehend.
“I don’t,” she declared firmly, wiping the tears from his soft, lightly fuzzy cheek.
“That doctor does, Rosenbomb. And so do my parents.” His feelings of betrayal were obvious, and Sarah moved to sit beside him on the bed, hoping to comfort him somehow.
“They just don’t understand you is all,” she articulated her earlier insight. “I think they’re just afraid because they don’t understand.”
“Do you understand?” he asked, his beautiful eyes wide with childlike hope.
“No,” she replied honestly, hanging her head momentarily in shame. She wished she did understand. “But I’m not afraid,” she assured him, gazing firmly into his eyes. That much she did know. “And I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“Why not?” the boy asked, more suspiciously than he’d intended.
“Just a feeling I have about you,” she answered uncertainly. She really wasn’t sure. “I can sort of tell things about people, if they’re real or phony, good or bad, you know. It’s just a gut thing. I knew the first time I saw you in the emergency room - weak, bloody, fighting desperately for life and yet muttering repeatedly for us to help Whilly first - that you were special. Not just a nice kid, but special, unique. And I did something in that operating room I don’t think I’ve ever done before - I prayed. I prayed with all my heart that you wouldn’t die.”
“I wish I had,” the despairing child mumbled sadly.
She gripped him roughly by the shoulders, her face contorting into a mask of anger. “Don’t even think like that! And don’t let that egomaniac Rosenbloom convince you you’re crazy. I happen to know that the volcano and the Golden Gate Bridge business have not been satisfactorily explained by scientists.”
Her words shot through him like a charge of electricity, and his self-pity succumbed to a wave of hopeful curiosity. His head jerked up, emerald eyes flickering with questions. “How do you know that?”
“I subscribe to a magazine called ‘Science News,” she quickly explained, taking her hands from his shoulders. “And even though scientists have been investigating those phenomenon for months, they don’t have a clue as to how they happened. I’m sure Rosenbloom never even made those calls he told you about.”
“You were eavesdropping?” Bradley Wallace blurted out, flushing slightly with embarrassment over his rudeness.
She smiled wryly. “Let’s just say I was passing your door this morning and happened to overhear Rosenbloom’s pompous explanations.”
“Then you really do believe me?” the boy asked eagerly, feeling more hope than he had in days.
But her face clouded over, and he knew she still had doubts. She hesitated before answering. “I believe that you believe,” she replied carefully, “Which is almost the same as believing, I guess.”
His hope sank with his face. “Not really.”
Now she truly felt ashamed, rising quickly to her feet and turning her back so the boy wouldn’t see her guilt-ridden expression. Why did she feel he was telling the truth, and yet was unable to really believe him?
She turned to face him again, struggling to coalesce her divergent feelings of fear and hope into coherent sentences.
“I’ve always been a romantic, Brad,” she began, choosing her words with care, “And I’d really like to believe that things like dragons and magic can still exist in this technological, antiseptic world. But I’m just not sure. I’m not sure they can like you are. I have doubts. I guess I just don’t have the courage to really believe.”
He wanted to say something to help her, but could think of nothing. He knew it took a great deal of courage just to confess all this, but he wasn’t sure what she was leading up to.
“But you do, Brad,” she continued, stepping closer and sitting on the bed again. “You have that kind of courage. And you can’t let them change you. You have to keep believing in those things, not just for yourself, but for all of us who can’t. You still have that ability to see wonder and newness in everything, and you’ve got to hang on to that. Maybe it’ll spread to the rest of us, you know? I think there’s a lot of good in the world, Brad. We just need people like you to remind us.”
She faltered a moment, struggling to clarify her thoughts. His mystified expression told her she wasn’t getting through. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, if Whilly is real to you and you believe in him, then nothing anyone else says matters. Not me, not your parents, not Rosenbloom. All that matters is what you believe. Do you understand?”
Sarah didn’t know why she’d suddenly said all those things, or where such insights even came from. But she felt an intense flood of relief as the light of comprehension dawned in Bradley Wallace’s beautiful eyes, which were moist with tears. He nodded, too overcome with emotion to speak.
Bradley Wallace realized that he’d done something even worse than doubting himself - he’d doubted his truest friend. No matter what his parents, or Cooke, or Rosenbloom, or the kids at school, or anybody said, Whilly was real. He could feel it in his heart, and Mr. O’Conner always told him to trust his heart. It suddenly occurred to him that the old man hadn’t been to see him since the day his fever broke. But it didn’t really matter, because he now realized that he could trust himself. He didn’t really need anyone else, except Whilly. And he did have an ally, at least, in Sarah. He suddenly realized how close she was sitting, and that proximity made him strangely uncomfortable.
“I wish I could help you, Brad,” she apologized, looking pained and very guilty. “But if I make too much trouble I’ll lose my job. Rosenbloom carries a lot of weight around here. I just can’t afford to get fired.”
He felt he should put a comforting hand on her shoulder or something, but he was uncertain how she would react, or even exactly what to do. And he was a little afraid of what his own reaction to touching her might be.
So he just smiled as beautifully as he knew how. “It doesn’t matter. You’re getting fired wouldn’t help me anyway. I’d just lose the only friend I have in this pit.”
She burst into a radiant smile and grabbed him in a tight hug. His whole body tingled strangely, but not unpleasantly, and he returned the embrace gratefully. It felt good to experience the touch of someone who
accepted him just as he was, and at least partially believed in him. He wished the embrace could last forever.
But Sarah pulled away, a trifle awkwardly, and Bradley Wallace could see that she was embarrassed by her emotionalism. Whilly always told him never to be ashamed of his feelings, but he didn’t voice this sentiment now. She spotted the uneaten portions of hamburger on his plate and flashed an expression of mock sternness. “You, young man, eat your lunch before it gets cold.”
Bradley Wallace laughed. “It was cold when it got here.”
She laughed, too, a lovely musical laughter that brought a strange joy to the boy’s heart. She sure was pretty.
“I’ll be back for the tray later,” she added, ruffling his unkempt mop of hair.
He really did need a shower, he realized with embarrassment. He was getting pretty crusty. But she didn’t seem to notice, or care, rising lightly and moving to the door.
As she opened it to leave, he called hesitantly, “Sarah?”
She turned to note his uncertain expression with a frown. “Yes, Brad?”
He felt very foolis
h, but had to ask, “Can I have another hamburger?”
She laughed again, and he smiled sheepishly. “I’ll see what I can do,” she told him with a wink. And then she was gone.
Bradley Wallace lay back against the pillow smiling a silly smile as he thought of Sarah, and feeling more serene and relaxed than he had since the shooting. She was his friend. He knew that, but more importantly, he felt that. And it eased his mind tremendously.
Within ten minutes he’d drifted into a light, easy sleep. But his breathing sounded unnaturally coarse. Almost raspy.
As Sarah left Bradley Wallace’s room and started down the corridor for her rounds, she considered the mysterious kinship she inexplicably felt toward this unusual boy, who was a total stranger to her. And yet, she felt as though they were somehow intended to come together,
that they were destined to be friends. But that didn’t make much sense, did it? And what about that speech she’d given back there? The feelings had been hers, she believed that, but it seemed as though the words had been someone else’s. But that wasn’t possible either. It was all so terribly confusing, almost supernatural. Almost like a storyline from “Dark Shadows.”
“Oh, nurse!” came a harsh, strident call from the open door she’d just passed, and all such speculations vanished as she entered the room to tend her other patients.
When Jack and Marge dropped in to visit Bradley Wallace that afternoon, they found the boy sullen and uncommunicative.
The very moment they entered his room, Bradley Wallace’s anger at their mistrust returned in full force. At first he responded perfunctorily to their inconsequential questions, keeping his answers tight and snippy. But when his father asked off-handedly how he’d liked Dr. Rosenbloom, the boy exploded like a volcano.
“How could you do that to me?” he demanded, practically shouting, “Sending that damned head shrinker in here? You’re my parents!”
“We’re just trying to help you, Bradey,” his mother attempted, taken aback by her son’s vehemence.
“And don’t call me that anymore!” Bradley Wallace snapped. “My name is Bradley Wallace, or Brad. It’s not Bradey! That’s a stupid name and I hate it! Makes me sound like a goddam girl’s pigtail!”
He was shaking with rage, fighting for control. But for some reason all the resentment he’d built toward his parents over the years came to a boiling point with the introduction of Rosenbloom and the implications therein, and now he had to release it.
Neither Jack nor Marge knew quite how to handle the situation, but then, they never really had known quite how to handle their son. “I’m sorry, Brade-I mean, Bradley Wallace,” Marge tried, shaking her head at her stupid slip, “We never knew you felt that way about your nickname.”
“That’s because you never asked,” he told them straight out,
finally getting everything out into the open. “You never asked anything. You told a lot, yeah, but you didn’t ask. What I thought was never important, just stupid or annoying or weird. And then you expected me to go to you if I had a problem? Just so I could be made fun of?”
The bitterness in his voice stung Marge acutely, but merely aroused anger in Jack. He’d done his best for his son, and this was the thanks he got? In Marge grew the dawning realization, as the boy’s childhood played back before her eyes, that Bradley Wallace spoke the truth. He’d probably tried many times before. Why hadn’t she listened?
“I’m sorry,” she stammered fitfully, close to tears.
“I think we should come back when he’s calmed down,” Jack said bluntly, but for some reason unable to look his son in the eye.
“I don’t want you to come back,” Bradley Wallace shouted, tears bursting from his eyes and streaming off his face to splatter on the sheets. “You’re my parents. You’re supposed to be on my side. You’re supposed to trust me and believe in me, just like you expect me to trust and believe in you. But how can I trust people who think I’m crazy?”
He was sobbing now, and Marge moved instinctively to embrace him, to comfort him. But he pushed her away, not roughly, but firmly enough to get his message across - he didn’t want her comfort. She stared in abject helplessness, first at her son, and then at her husband, both of whom refused to meet her eyes. What had happened to her happy family, she wondered painfully? Had it ever really been as happy as she’d thought, or had she merely been deluding herself all these years? She saw her world crumbling down around her, and felt powerless to stop it.
“You know,” Bradley Wallace broke the pervasive silence, sniffling as he spoke, “Whilly is more real to me right now than you ever were, and he’s not even here.”
Marge flinched. “Bradley Wallace . . . “ she began, but didn’t know what to say. She used to always say the right things when he was younger, knew just how to make him feel better. Or at least thought she did. But now, now everything was different.
He was different. Or maybe she was just seeing him for the first time. Either way, she didn’t know what to say.
“Please go away,” Bradley Wallace said quietly, almost politely, and turned his face away.
Without another word, Marge turned and slowly left the room. Jack considered threatening the boy, but recognized the futility of such an action. This was a stranger before him, and he just didn’t know what to do. And he always liked to know what to do. He hurried stiffly after his wife. Bradley Wallace heard the door click shut with a note of finality, and knew that from this day forward nothing would be the same ever again. He cried himself to sleep.
During the night, the nurse on duty noticed a heavy, raspy breathing sound emanating from Bradley Wallace’s room, but when she checked in on him, the boy was sleeping peacefully. She shrugged. Strangest snoring she’d ever heard, and she’d heard a lot.
Rosenbloom returned the following morning, rather like a persistent mosquito that just won’t go away, the boy thought. The doctor still possessed that arrogant smugness Bradley Wallace detested, and as he pulled over the chair to sit, pointedly informed the boy that he had greatly upset his parents the day before and should consider apologizing.
Bradley Wallace almost jumped on that initial affront, but clamped his mouth shut tightly before any words could emerge. He’d decided the night before that perhaps the best way to frustrate Rosenbloom and thus maybe get rid of him would be to maintain a sullen, steadfast silence. But the bearded doctor was familiar with this tactic in patients, especially children Bradley Wallace’s age. He determined to bait the boy until he induced some kind of response.
He began by accusing Bradley Wallace of unfairness toward his parents, asserting, “they’ve done the best they could for the people they are,” and that he should accept them as such, just as he wanted their acceptance in return. He continued in this vein for several minutes, until finally Bradley Wallace could stand it no longer.
“If my parents really trusted me,” he stated coldly, “You wouldn’t be here.”
“I almost wasn’t after what you did yesterday,” Rosenbloom informed him. “Your mother was so upset she wanted me to stop seeing
you. But your father is a sensible man. He agreed with me that you need my help.”
“Good old Dad,” the boy muttered in amazement, shaking his head in anger.
“Won’t you let me help you?” the doctor persisted, and Bradley Wallace almost believed the man wanted to. But he wasn’t crazy, and he didn’t like Rosenbloom’s high and mighty attitude.
“I don’t need your help,” he insisted, wishing with all his might that everyone would just leave him alone. It had been six days since Whilly’s disappearance, and he had to get out of this damned hospital or he’d never find his friend.
“Do you know what the word ‘obsession’ means?” Rosenbloom continued, apparently undeterred by the boy’s hostility.
Almost as a reflex action, Bradley Wallace answered, “A persistent, single-minded fixation on one idea.”
The doctor’s bushy eyebrows shot up in surprise. “That’
s very good. Where did you learn that, from a dictionary?”
“No,” Bradley Wallace replied with his own attempt at smugness, “From Mr. Spock on ‘Star Trek.”’
Rosenbloom frowned and sighed heavily, leaning all the way back in his chair and gazing sternly at the smiling boy.
“That won’t help you, son, quoting TV shows like that. It merely confirms my diagnosis that you are lost in a fantasy world of your own and television’s making, and that reality slips further away from you every day. Why can’t I make you understand that you’re obsessed with this dragon and that I’m trying to help you overcome that obsession?”
“You can do anything you want to me,” Bradley Wallace declared with defiance, “Give me shock treatment or a lobotomy or whatever else you head shrinkers do to people you don’t understand and can’t break. But you’ll never make me forget my friend. I won’t deny him.” He paused a moment to glare coldly into Rosenbloom’s eyes. “And don’t you ever call me son again!” The doctor quickly averted his eyes and shifted his position on the chair.
Bradley Wallace folded his arms tightly across his chest, without any pain this time, and lay back against his pillow, completely ignoring Rosenbloom’s presence.
Try as he might, the psychiatrist could elicit not the slightest response from the boy. Finally, his outward facade of supreme confidence battered by the frustrating futility of his efforts, Rosenbloom rose angrily and stalked from the room. Bradley Wallace watched the door close with a triumphant smile plastered across his face. Obviously, he thought with a deep sense of accomplishment, the good doctor doesn’t like to lose. But then, neither did Bradley Wallace.
Sarah poked her head into the room several times during the day, in addition to bringing him his meals. She’d joked about his voracious appetite (for lunch alone he ate four large hamburgers) and worried over his insistence that the meat be hardly cooked at all. He told her he just liked it better that way, and smiled so angelically that her fears subsided. She felt so oddly connected to him, almost as though they were related somehow.
A Boy and His Dragon Page 54