The Sixth Sense

by Peter Lerangis

  "Who have you been s-speaking to?"

  There it was. The stutter. It was coming back. See, Stanley wasn't so perfect. He got ner­vous, too. He hated when people made him feel bad.

  "STUTTERING STANLEY! STUTTERING STANLEY!" Cole cried.

  "Who-?"

  "STUTTERING STANLEY!"

  "S-sss-stop it!"

  He was right near Cole's desk now. Why wasn't he going away?

  "STUTTERING -"

  Mr. Cunningham slammed his fist on Cole's desk. Cole lurched back and dropped his hands from his eyes.

  The teacher's face was inches away. He was bent over, the veins in his neck bulging and his eyes red as he blurted out, "SHHHH-SHHHUT UP, YOU F-F-FFFFFREAK!"

  Malcolm poked his head in the door of the St. Anthony's library. It was dark, stuffy, and brown - brown-stained wood, brown-leather chairs, brown-patterned Oriental rugs. It smelled of old leather and the dust accumulated on books mat appeared to have been untouched for decades. It was the kind of place that made you feel very, very stupid.

  Cole was nowhere to be seen.

  As Malcolm turned to leave, he spotted a tiny movement - a hand flopping impatiently on the arm of a wide, high-backed chair.

  The chair's back was to him. It faced a large mahogany librarian's desk.

  Directly across it, the librarian's chair was empty.

  They'd left Cole here all alone. Clearly the school had given up on him. Even the expensive private schools didn't have the resources to deal with a kid like Cole.

  Nervous breakdown, Tourette's syndrome, attention deficit disorder - many diagnoses were on Cole's health report, but none of them seemed to hit the nail on the head.

  If Cole was to stay at St. Anthony's, he would have to change. And his graduation was a big priority to Lynn Sear.

  Graduation wasn't Malcolm's immediate concern, however. Cole's mental health came before everything. Understand the child, and the rest will follow.

  "Hey, big guy," Malcolm said, sauntering around the desk.

  Cole's eyes were flinty and red. He stared straight ahead, his lips tight and his shoulders stiff. He practically spat out his words. "I don't want to talk about anything."

  Outside the windows, recess was in full swing. Malcolm sat in the librarian's chair, gaz­ing at a game of tag mat seemed to involve mandatory leaping into a pile of leaves. He smiled. The kids were squealing with laughter, oblivious to the condition of their nice school uniforms. Malcolm imagined Cole didn't join in many playground games. Which was a shame. The kid desperately needed an outlet, a social life. The bizarre, paranoid outbursts in class were serious. Malcolm had seen the signs be­fore.

  Time to bring down the heat a bit.

  "Do you like magic?" Malcolm asked.

  Cole clearly didn't care.

  But Malcolm went on anyway. He pulled a penny from his pocket and held it out in his right hand. "Observe the penny closely."

  He made a fist around the penny and a fist with his left hand, too. Then he shook both hands above his head, rotating his arms in a cir­cle. "I do the magic shake... and suddenly the penny has magically traveled to my left hand."

  Malcolm held up his left hand, his fingers still clenched. "But that's not the end of the trick. With another magic shake, the penny travels to my shirt pocket."

  He thrust his arms outward and punched himself lightly in the chest, never opening his hands. "But that's still not the end. I do a final magic shake, and suddenly - the penny returns to the hand where it started from."

  Holding out his right hand, he unfolded his fingers and revealing the penny that had been there the whole time.

  "That isn't magic," Cole snapped.

  Malcolm feigned surprise. "What?"

  "You just kept the penny in that hand the whole time."

  "Who, me?"

  Cole glared at him. His voice was sharp and sarcastic. "I didn't know you were funny."

  Malcolm's head pounded with every step toward home. For any other kid, he'd be closing in a diagnosis: acute anxiety disorder, most likely. He'd assure the parents it was a treatable condition and they certainly wouldn't have to pay Malcolm's high fees - he had personally trained many of the therapists at the local clinic, and he'd recommend the best. Meanwhile the child would be monitored for signs of possible paranoid schizophrenia (always remote) and sent to a psychiatrist for medication if need be. Another successful case for Dr. Malcolm Crowe, Philadelphia's son, the man with all the answers.

  The books indicated this treatment. Com­mon sense indicated it. By all rights, he should follow the precedent here.

  And he knew that if he did, Cole would be off on a similar path to the one that had eventu­ally led Vincent to Forty-seven Locust Street.

  Training and logic were out the window in this case. For the first time in his career, Malcolm was at a loss.

  He slumped up his stoop and into the house. The pile of mail on the table had grown. He reached down toward it, but stopped when a voice cried out from the living room, "Malcolm, sit your cute butt down here and listen up!"

  Janice Robertson. Anna's best friend. What on earth was she doing here? She lived in San Francisco now.

  Malcolm peeked into the room. Janice stared back at him - from a TV set, in a bridesmaid's gown. Anna was watching their wedding video. The image was grainier and jumpier and more badly composed than he'd remembered. But it didn't matter. The memories all rushed back in vivid detail.

  Anna's blanket lay on the back of the sofa, and the remote rested on the arm. But the sofa itself was empty.

  On the screen, Janice stood nervously before the reception tent, fumbling with a micro­phone - just as it was those years ago. In her pastel gown she looked a bit younger, a bit thin­ner, but it was hard to see her features for the streaks of black eyeshadow left by her tears.

  Guests whirled on the dance floor behind her as she composed herself and spoke, in a voice choked with emotion: "No doubt about it, Anna's like my sister. She's got so much love for you, Malcolm. Don't tell her I told you, but she said she loved you from the first time she met you on the street. She'd do anything for you....I love you guys" She began sobbing, snif­fling back more tears and turning from the cam­era with embarrassment. "My nose is running. Why isn't someone getting me a tissue?"

  Malcolm smiled.

  The camera circled around Janice, zooming in on the dance floor, and suddenly the screen was filled with Malcolm and Anna, swaying in each other's arms, oblivious to everything else.

  Oh, did he remember this. The air had a taste that day - cool and intoxicating, as if each breath both filled and expanded his deepest dreams. The band could have been playing in three different keys, but he and Anna wouldn't have noticed. They were reading each other's minds, communicating in smiles and move­ments, in secret shaded glances.

  She'd do anything for you. Janice was right. In the years since the wedding, Anna had proven it a thousand times.

  What had gone wrong?

  Maybe she'd done one too many things without receiving what she needed. Maybe Mal­colm simply didn't have the same capacity to love. He had it inside him, Lord knows. But clearly he hadn't shown it - or even told her. For all his work unlocking the complicated emo­tions of other people, Malcolm had always played his own cards close to the vest. Instead of saying "I love you," he joked.

  And now he wanted so badly to tell her how he felt, to soothe her anger. But a line had been crossed. Somehow he'd blown it. His office was in the basement and maybe the time for a sec­ond chance had passed.

  Why had Anna been playing this video - and why had she left in the middle of it? Maybe, he hoped, she was searching for a way to reignite her love for him.

  Maybe she was just reminding herself of what she'd lost.

  Malcolm headed into the bedroom. He heard the hiss of the shower and walked to the bathroom.

  Anna was showering. She didn't see him; she was in her own world. The medicine cabinet hung ajar, and Malcolm spotted an unfamiliar bott
le open on a shelf.

  anti-depressant, the label read, to be taken

  TWICE DAILY.

  Malcolm's heart sank. Anna never took med­ication. She didn't even like aspirin.

  This was serious. And she hadn't told him - a psychologist, for pete's sake. Why?

  It was all unraveling, wasn't it - his work, his marriage, his life.

  The man with all the answers didn't under­stand a thing.

  "Then you do the magic shake ..."

  Cole whirled his fists in the air, clutching a penny in his right hand. Bobby O'Donnell stared at him dully.

  They were the only two kids in Darren Win-throp's dining room. The rest had run into the liv­ing room to play with Darren's birthday presents. Wrapping paper, balsa-wood airplanes, a Nerf football, and several Lego pieces flew through the air, as the kids ran around their chatting parents who pretended not to mind the chaos.

  "And now," Cole continued with a smile, "the penny moves from my pocket... all the way to the hand it started in!"

  He dropped his hands to the table and un­clenched his fists, revealing the penny.

  "That's stupid," Bobby said.

  Cole's smile disappeared. "It's supposed to be funny."

  "It's stupid. I want my penny back."

  Dejected, Cole shoved the penny across the table. Bobby took it and slid off his seat, headed for the kitchen.

  Cole wandered toward the Winthrops' car­peted spiral stairway. Like everything in their house, it was enormous and plush and spot­lessly clean. The Winthrops were new rich, as opposed to old rich - at least that was what Tommy said. Cole didn't know the difference, but it sure seemed to mean something to Tommy.

  Mama was happy Darren had invited Cole to the party. She thought that meant Darren liked him. Cole hoped so. Darren wasn't too bad. He did admit that his dad had made him invite Cole - but Mama said to ignore that; he was probably lying, just showing off in front of the other kids.

  Mama was talking with Mrs. Winthrop now. Their conversation drifted in from the living room.

  "He doesn't get invited places," Mama was saying.

  "It's our pleasure," Mrs. Winthrop replied.

  "The last time was a Chuck E. Cheese party a few years ago. He hid in one of those purple tunnels and didn't come out."

  "Chuckie who?"

  "Cheese. It's... a kid's place."

  Cole wondered what it was like to be rich. You probably had to do things that were pretty boring and gross. Darren's family probably went to restaurants with French names and ate snails and frogs, like in the movies. He'd have to ask Darren about that.

  A red balloon floated past Cole and into the hallway, curling around him on a stream of air, then rising in a lazy arc up the center of the stairwell. Cole smiled. He wished he could do that, just float away.

  The stairway rose three floors, and at the top was a crystal chandelier that threw pretty pat­terns of light on the walls. Cole walked up, en­tranced by the way the balloon danced in the re­flections.

  He could hear Darren and Tommy at the bottom of the stairs now. Tommy, as usual, was bragging about his TV commercial job. "I even got a trailer," he said.

  "For what?" Darren asked. "You only had one line."

  "You're slow, you know that?" Tommy shot back. "The star of the commercial always has his own trailer. You need to think about your char­acter, alone."

  But Cole wasn't paying them much atten­tion. At the top of the first landing, a filigreed wrought-iron gate stood open. Behind it was a small, dark closet door.

  Suddenly Cole felt very, very cold.

  And he knew he wasn't alone.

  "Open this door, please!" a muffled voice called from inside.

  No, Cole thought. No. Not here.

  Thump thump thump thump. "I can't breathe! Open this door, I didn't steal the mas­ter's horse. OPEN THIS DOOR OR I'LL BREAK THROUGH AND GRAB YOU!"

  Cole jumped away. The door was on the verge of buckling outward.

  "Hey, what's up?"

  Cole spun around with a start. Darren and Tommy were climbing up the stairs.

  "Happy birthday, Darren," Cole squeaked.

  Tommy gestured to the closet door. "Some­thing you want to see in there?"

  "No!" Cole blurted out.

  "We're going to put on a pretend play," Tommy said evenly. "You want to be in it?"

  "Okay ..." Cole answered tentatively.

  "It's called, 'Locked in the Dungeon,'" Tommy explained.

  "Yeah, Cole," Darren said, quickly adding, "you get to be the one locked in the dungeon!"

  Cole didn't have time to react. The boys grabbed him by the arms and shoved him back­ward. Darren grabbed the closet doorknob and pulled the door open.

  "Do-o-o-on't!" Cole screamed.

  He kicked and flailed, but the boys threw him into the pitch-black closet and slammed the door shut.

  Lynn heard it first. A scream audible, it seemed, only to her. The other mothers at the party chattered and went about their business. But Lynn knew. Despite the loud music she knew something was very wrong.

  She was up the stairs in a nanosecond. Dar­ren and Tommy were standing on a step, motionless like a couple of rag dolls. She swept past them and grabbed the closet door. "Cole! COLE?"

  "STOP IT!" he was yelling. "LEAVE ME ALONE! NO! NO-O-O-O-O!"

  It was locked tight. She yanked on the knob, twisted as hard as she could. She could feel the pounding through the door - savage, brutal. "CO-O-O-O-OLE!"

  Lynn let go, paralyzed with panic. A few steps below, everyone stood and watched her. No one was climbing up to help. No one. They were killing him, she couldn't get in, and not one of them was lifting a finger-

  A loud, sickening thud came from the closet, and Cole stopped screaming.

  Lynn lunged at the door once again and pulled with all her strength.

  This time it opened easily. Cole tumbled into her arms. He was limp, motionless, his neck and arms covered with scratches. She turned and carried him down the stairs, through the group of gaping, useless people.

  Behind her, in the open closet, were two old storage chests.

  Nothing else.

  Malcolm sat tensely in the reception area of the pediatric hospital. The seats were shorter than normal here, the table strewn with action figures, dolls, odd geometric games, and many dog-eared magazines.

  Across the table, Lynn looked compressed and hopeless in her little seat. Malcolm felt for her. A house full of guests, and not one had of­fered to accompany her here. If he hadn't come to join her, she'd be all alone.

  Dr. Hill, the young, sharp-eyed resident in charge of Cole, emerged from the hospital corri­dor. He sat opposite them and began opening a manila folder.

  "What's wrong with Cole?" Lynn asked anx­iously.

  "The tests indicate he did not have a seizure," Dr. Hill replied. "In fact, he's doing fine. After some rest, he could go home tonight."

  Lynn closed her eyes and exhaled a lungful of tension.

  But Dr. Hill's words had been measured and flat, his expression far from encouraging. He was looking at Lynn with cool, appraising eyes.

  Malcolm spotted a young woman with a clipboard and a professional smile standing in the doorway. "There's something else going on, Lynn," he said softly.

  Lynn's eyes opened. She caught Dr. Hill's glance and sat up straight. He wanted to tell her something. "What is it?"

  "There are some scratches and bruises on your son that concern me," the doctor said.

  "Oh, man ..." Malcolm groaned. Not this.

  "Those are from sports, from playing," Lynn explained. "He's not the most coordinated kid, but I don't want him to stop trying - you know what I mean?"

  "Mrs. Sloan over there is our social worker at the hospital," Dr. Hill said. "She's going to ask you some procedural questions."

  Lynn's face darkened. She rose slowly from her chair. "You think I hurt my child? You think I'm a bad mother?"

  "At this point it's just procedure," Dr. Hill
said evenly. "And you should probably calm down."

  Malcolm stood up. The young ones were the most heartless, the ones fresh out of school. They could rip out your soul and expect you to say thanks. "How do you expect her to react?" he asked.

  "You want me to answer your questions?" Lynn said through clenched teeth.

  "I'm sorry if I was being vague," Dr. Hill replied. "Yes, I do."

  "Well, who's going to answer mine?" Lynn demanded. "What happened to my child today? Something was happening to him-physically happening. Something was very wrong!"

  Dr. Hill snapped his folder shut, gestured toward Mrs. Sloan, and left the room.

  Cole didn't look up as Malcolm entered the hospital room. The boy was curled up tight, his head resting on two hospital pillows, his hands clutching a light-purple blanket to his chin, as if to protect himself. He gazed listlessly out the window of his room, across an airshaft into the next wing of the building.

  He had never seemed so small and vulnera­ble. Malcolm sat at the foot of the bed, wanting desperately to make everything all better.

  Cole's foot stuck out from beneath the blan­ket. On it was a man's dress sock, hanging in folds like a sack.

  Malcolm realized the father hadn't been con­tacted about this incident. There hadn't been enough time, with Lynn answering the social worker's questions and Malcolm helping out and planning his own strategies. But the father was an important factor in this case. Malcolm wondered how he had reacted to Cole's behav­ior as the boy was growing up. The report hadn't said much about Ken Sear. Only that the boy missed him and the mother didn't.

  "Did your father ever tell you bedtime sto­ries?" Malcolm asked.

  Cole's voice sounded flat and distant. "Yes."

  Maybe that would calm him down, make the hospital seem homier. Malcolm quickly impro­vised the beginning of a simple story and began reciting: "Once upon a time there was a prince, who was being driven around. They drove around for a long, long time. Driving... driving ... driving a lot. They drove some more, and then he fell asleep. Then he woke up and saw they were still driving. It was a very long trip -"

  "Dr. Crowe?" Cole interrupted.