Fantastic Fables of Foster Flat

by Orrin Jason Bradford

  "Boy, am I ever glad to see you. I've got a new friend I want you to meet. He's right inside."

  “Okay. Let's go in and you can introduce us."

  "We didn't expect you until tomorrow." Matt said as he bent over and gave his sister a peck on the cheek. "Nice looking dress."

  "Thanks. I didn't think I could get off work, but . . . is this your friend, Dodger?"

  "Yes, ma'am. His name is Elliot. He doesn't talk much. He's real quiet and well behaved. He's my very best friend in the whole world," Dodger said, beaming from ear to ear.

  "That's nice. It's a pleasure to meet you, Elliot," Dodger's mom said, then turned to Matt. "Why are you taking him to the hospital?"

  "It's a long story. Why don't you sit down. I'll fix us some coffee and tell you what's been happening."

  ". . . .AND THAT'S ABOUT the size of it," Matt said, as he set his coffee cup down.

  "Please, Mom. Don't take him to the hospital," Dodger said, jumping up from the table and winning a dark scowl from his uncle. "They'll just stick him away somewhere. He deserves better. He needs a real home and people who will love him and take care of him."

  "Why, of course, he does, Dodger," his mom replied, "but what did you have in mind?"

  "He could come live with us. We could be his family. You've always said you wished you had had a second child to keep me company. Well, here he is."

  "Boy, I think it's well past your bedtime," Matt said, standing up and placing his cup and saucer in the sink.

  "Wait a minute, Matt, the boy's got a point."

  "He does?" Matt asked, turning and looking at his sister, a shocked look on his face. "Are you daft?"

  "No, I'm not daft. I just think it's worth considering. Let me sleep on the idea, Dodger, and we'll discuss it tomorrow. But one thing I can promise you, we're not taking Elliot to the hospital in the morning. Now, let's get the two of you to bed. It's late."

  "All right!" Dodger shouted. "Come on, Elliot. I'll show you my room."

  Dodger took Elliot by the hand and the two of them walked down the hall. As they reached the door to the spare bedroom, Dodger turned to Elliot and whispered, "I hope you have a plan for tomorrow when my real mom gets here."

  The Diagnostician

  THE JACOBSON FAMILY lived just three houses down from my parent’s home on the outskirts of Foster Flat. Like the Rawlins, they were one of the few founding families that still remained in the area, even though, also like the Rawlins, they had their share of family members who managed to escape the clutches of Foster Flat. I didn’t know Clarressa that well, her being a few years older than me, but occasionally we’d walk to school together. She seemed friendly enough, and truth be told, I was awe-struck that someone in high school would condescend to walk with a lowly undergrad like myself.

  It wasn’t until years later that I received a letter from Clarressa relating the following story. I tried writing back, but the letters came back weeks later as undeliverable. I even tried tracking her down, but it appears she’s disappeared into thin air. Not really surprising, given the bad stroke of luck she was handed. Here’s her story as best I can recall.

  Mimi Rawlins

  NO matter how many times Clarressa walked down the halls of the asylum, with its gray institutionalized walls and black and white checkerboard floor, she always felt like she was stepping into an alien world filled with strange creatures kept under the watchful eye of Big Brother. How strange that within these confines lived her last remaining relative—dear, sweet grandmama who, as far as Clarressa could tell, was one of the sanest and most together people she’d ever met. Eccentric for sure, but with plenty of common sense. Wasn’t it her grandmama who’d said many times how uncommon common sense was in the world? That sure had proven to be true in Clarressa’s twenty-one years of life.

  But why had grandmama Clare, whom Clarressa was named after, insisted her granddaughter make a special trip only a month before her regular quarterly visit? This troubled Clarressa. Could something be wrong with grandmama? There’d been no indication during Clarressa’s last visit. Grandmama had seemed as healthy as could be, especially considering the terrible food she’d been forced to eat for much of her life. But, truth be told, she was aging and, at over seventy, Clarressa knew her grandmama had only a few good years left. Besides, she didn’t mind the early visit. It would give her the opportunity to share her good news without having to wait another month.

  These thoughts scurried around in her head as she entered the visitors room where there was the customary line of straight back chairs in front of the wire mesh wall that kept the visitors separated from the ‘patients’ they were visiting. Clarressa didn’t care whether people called this place an asylum, sanitarium or hospital for the mentally ill. She knew what it really was — a prison, a place to lock up those who no one had use for any longer.

  She stopped just inside the door and endured the third ridiculous pat down, like she’d dare try to sneak in a weapon, but she’d learned through the years not to buck the system, or as Grandmama often said, “Pick your battles. Don’t waste your energy on the trivial or mundane.”

  After it was once again confirmed that she wasn’t carrying a firearm or any explosives, she walked to the end of the row to the special station reserved for visitors of her grandmama, not that anyone else ever visited her anymore. Since the auto accident that had tragically taken both of Clarressa’s parents’ lives, she and her grandmama were all that was left of the Jacobson family. Clarressa sat down in the chair and waited as the attendant turned on the closed circuit television. As it warmed up, the picture came into focus and there before her in black and white sat the most dangerous resident of the asylum—her grandmama.

  “Oh, child, it’s so kind of you to have come on such short notice.” Her grandmother’s warm smile radiated even through the cold image of the television set. Even though it had only been two months since her last visit, Clarressa felt the tears flow down her cheeks. It always happened. Seeing such a sweet, dear old lady confined to such primitive living conditions. Yet, grandmama’s attitude never changed. Somehow she maintained a light and positive outlook on life. “It’s not what happens to you in your life,” she’d said more than once. “It’s what you make it mean that will determine your destiny.” A strange commentary considering the life she’d been dealt.

  “Are you okay, Grandmama?” Clarressa asked.

  “Why, yes, of course. Oh my, you must have thought all sorts of horrible things when I asked you to return before your scheduled time. I’m so sorry.”

  Clarressa shook her head, intending to deny the worry, then stopped and nodded slightly. “Well, yes, I’m afraid my mind did take over a bit.”

  Her grandmother chuckled. “I know how that can happen. Not the best use of our creative abilities, is it?”

  Clarressa nodded. “No, not at all...but on the other hand, I realized it would give me the opportunity to share my good news without having to wait another month.”

  “Well, see, if you look hard enough, you can always find something good about a situation. Tell me, what’s the good news?”

  “I’ve been accepted to med school!” Clarressa beamed with pride. “But that’s not even the best part. Joseph and I are engaged.”

  “Oh my, that’s...” the words stuck in the old woman’s mouth as it twisted into a frown.

  “Please be happy for me. I know Joseph and I have had our ups and downs, but I know he loves me, and I love him.”

  “No, no...that’s not it,” her grandmother paused, struggling to find the right words. “It’s just...well, let’s back up for a minute. I need to tell you why I’ve asked you here.”

  “Yes?”

  “You know how you’ve often asked about how I came to be here, and I’ve always put you off.”

  “Yes, you’ve always said when I’m older you’d tell me.”

  “That’s right. And that all made sense at first, but in truth it was my justification for putting off an unplea
santry for as long as possible. I wanted to wait until the time when you’d be old enough to understand, but that time came years ago and I still kept putting it off. I was afraid once you heard the truth about me, you’d abandon me and never come back to visit. I couldn’t stand the thought of being so utterly alone.”

  “Oh, Grandmama, I’d never do such a thing.”

  “Well, whether that’s true or not, it’s time I told you the truth. I just fear I may have waited too long.”

  IT all started innocently enough. As far as I knew, I was simply following in my parents’ footsteps that just happened to be along the same path as my bliss. My father had been a prominent physician, having married his first nurse assistant not long after he opened his private practice. They lived in a quiet community where two such educated and dedicated people could make a real difference, especially in a career that spanned over four decades.

  So, when I grew up, it didn’t take a real leap to want to enter the medical profession myself. It was sort of bred into me. Like I said, it started so innocently. One day I awoke and the world was different, or at least, how I perceived the people in it was. I was on my own by then. As you know, I’d already had my ‘fling’ with marriage, resulting in your mother being born and my husband abandoning us shortly after her birth. My folks, who’d retired from practice a year or so earlier, had finally taken that trip to Europe they’d talked about for so many years. I’d made up my mind to apply for med school. You know how big a decision that can be, don’t you? Well, in my day, women dreaming of being a doctor still weren’t well received. Men were to be doctors and women were to be nurses, and that’s just the way it was, not to mention that I didn’t know how I was going to balance being a mother with my desire to help and heal people.

  The problem was I didn’t want to be a nurse. I wanted more than anything to be like my father, who I knew was one of the greatest diagnosticians in the nation, if not the world. He just seemed to have a sixth sense about people and their health. Of course, he supplemented that gift with the tools of his craft, but those were still pretty basic, especially compared to today’s medical technology.

  Anyway, I digress. I still remember the morning as though it were yesterday, even though it’s now been over half a century since it happened. I awoke at dawn, which in itself was unusual, and the day just seemed to glisten with possibilities. I couldn’t sleep even though I’d slept poorly the night before, trying to decide if I had the nerve to step outside of the day’s conventionality.

  On that momentous morning, I was feeling lonely. Your mom had begged to go to a summer camp her friends raved about, and I had finally relinquished. She was away having a blast, and I was missing her. I decided to stroll down the block to our local cafe and treat myself to breakfast. It was there in that greasy spoon where it happened the first time. I looked up from the menu as the middle-aged waitress asked for my order, and there she stood in a radiant brilliance. I guess today they’d call it her aura that I was seeing, but I didn’t have a clue what that was back then. All I knew was that my eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Not just the aura, but how clearly I could see and discern the inner workings of her body. I didn’t say anything at first because I didn’t know what was happening. I figured I was having some delusional break with reality or a very bad hangover from lack of sleep. But then we struck up a conversation, and I learned that this was the woman’s second job that she’d taken in an attempt to raise her three kids on her own. I mean, the more I learned about her plight, the clearer it became I had to let her know what I’d seen.

  So, when she came back with the check, I reached into my purse for a business card of my father’s associate who’d taken over his practice. “Wendy,” I said in as soft and compassionate a voice as I could muster, “Please take the time next week to see Dr. Atkinson. I’ll let him know you’re coming to see him and your situation. He’s a very gentle and caring man. He’ll treat you well.”

  Wendy glanced at the card and back to me, a confused look on her face. “But, why...?” she began to ask.

  “Just trust me. It’s important for us to take good care of ourselves. What if you were to come down sick? What would your children do?”

  She nodded slowly and placed the card in her pocket. Turns out it took her three weeks before she made it to Dr. Atkinson’s office, where he confirmed what I already knew. Wendy had an early onset of diabetes. Luckily, it was caught early enough to minimize the trouble.

  It didn’t stop with Wendy. In fact, it wasn’t long before I had to consciously train myself not to look within people. I mean, at first it was fun looking at strangers as I strolled down the sidewalk, but soon it became too much. I think the term you kids use today is TMI. Well, I was definitely suffering from too much information.

  But Wendy was so thankful for what I’d done that when one of her girlfriends started complaining of feeling tired and worn out all the time, she sent her to me. Ellen became my second case. She had low thyroid function. I could see it so clearly right there in her neck area. It took several tests for it to be confirmed, but it eventually was. Of course, now being two for two, it didn’t take long for my reputation to spread. Unfortunately, not all the cases turned out so well. People started coming to me with increasingly difficult health issues. Some of them couldn’t be helped, although I suppose knowing what you had, even if it’s bad news, is better than simply dying without knowing the cause.

  Anyway, about four months after I first diagnosed Wendy, I received word from Dr. Atkinson. “I can’t give you specifics due to doctor-patient confidentiality, but you might want to check in with your friend, Wendy. She could use your support right now.”

  So, even though Wendy and I hadn’t kept in touch, I hunted her down through the cafe where she’d been working. She’d taken a leave of absence, the cook told me as he slipped me her address on the back of a used up order pad. “Tell her we’re all keeping her and her kids in our prayers,” is all he’d say. Turns out Wendy was dying from pancreatic cancer. She died three weeks after I met with her.

  CLARRESSA SAT IN STUNNED silence staring at her grandmama through the closed circuit monitor. “But surely that wasn’t your fault. I mean...you detected the diabetes. Surely they couldn’t blame you for missing the cancer.”

  Her grandmother shook her head slowly, a pained look on her face. “I didn’t miss the cancer. I caused it.” She waited for a moment for the words to sink in before continuing her story.

  WENDY WAS JUST THE first of many. Over the coming weeks, dozens of people...people I’d seen and diagnosed, started...may I use a crass but accurate phrase?...dropping like flies. It didn’t take long for the police to figure out the common denominator—me. In the space of a few days, I went from being considered a living saint to, as one Christian paper wrote, “a woman who walks in the shadow of Satan”.

  They came in the middle of the night to my apartment. I awoke with four police officers standing around my bed. Before I could shout for help, one of them threw a black sack over my head to keep me from using my ‘evil eye’ on them and hauled me to jail, where they kept me in isolation.

  My father and mother had enough clout in the community to keep me from being executed. Father did the best he could for me, donating the money to have this wing added to the existing sanitarium on the condition that there’d be special accommodations for his daughter.

  At my trial, it was determined that the deaths were unintentional, but that I couldn’t be allowed out in society, even though I promised never to use my special ability again. I was deemed too dangerous, so I was put here where I couldn’t do anyone any more harm. My folks took over raising my daughter—your mother.

  CLARRESSA could feel a pair of tears running down her cheeks. She brushed them away before reaching in her purse for a tissue. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes again.

  “There’s one more thing I need to talk to you about,” her grandmother said, after Clarressa had composed herself. “My par
ents and the authorities watched your mother for many years to see if she’d develop any signs of having inherited the sight, but nothing ever materialized. Of course, she never showed any interest in entering the medical profession either. My folks made sure of that.”

  Clarressa nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think Mom ever wanted anything more than to be a good wife and mother.” Clarressa paused. Why had her grandmother brought this up? “What aren’t you saying, Grandmama?”

  After another long moment, Clare replied, “You have a strong calling to medicine and healing. I see so much of me in you that it’s scary.”

  “What are you saying? You don’t think...” She couldn’t complete the thought.

  Her grandmother slowly nodded. “It’s not uncommon for certain traits to skip a generation before reappearing, and it’s just possible that having a passion for helping people might be all that’s needed to awaken an otherwise inactive gene.”

  The words sent a chill down Clarressa’s spine. What if she had this special ability to see within another human being just sleeping within her, waiting for just the right time to awaken. The whole idea seemed too outrageous to be possible, but at the same time, what would it be like to be able to look within another human being and know what ailed them? What if somehow she could learn to control it—diagnose the problem without it causing any harmful side effects?

  But then another thought occurred to her, one that had been edging in around her consciousness even as she’d listened to the story. Her grandmama had spent most of her life in a sanitarium—in a facility for the mentally ill, the unbalanced, the crazies. What if this whole story was a simple fabrication of an unbalanced mind? After all, she’d had decades to come up with such an unlikely, truly unbelievable story. But was it true? How could it possibly have actually happened? For the first time, she began to wonder if her grandmother truly was off her rocker.