The Boy Who Would Rule the World

by Brian Toal

  "Can I get you anything, honey?" Beth asked tenderly.

  "Huh?" Todd grunted as he turned towards his mother's voice.

  Beth stood up and expertly pushed the pillows firmly under Todd's reclining frame. She had been adjusting patients' beds for over fifteen years and such adjustments were second nature. "Can I get you anything?" She repeated.

  "Dad?" Todd said, staring at his mother.

  "Yes, your father will visit you when we get home. We’re going home tomorrow." Beth referred to his move to Saint John's hospital in Detroit.

  "Ho...ome?" Todd slurred, still staring vacantly at his mother.

  "Yes, Todd, we are going home." She turned away from her son and lifted the new purse she had bought in one of the shops close to the hotel where she and Sharon had stayed. "Your mother is going down to the cafeteria to get some breakfast, but she will be right back, okay?" She turned, tucking in the covers firmly around his feet. "I'll be right back - alright?"

  "Alright." His eyes closed as she left.

  She felt the tears build as she strode out of the doorway. The doctors expressed satisfaction with Todd's progress. The constant repetitive motions and his concentration on movement were linked with the brain's relearning activities. They had explained to her, as simply as possible, that certain areas of Todd's brain had been irreparably damaged and that some tasks would have to be relearned. The extent of the damage was difficult to determine. He could walk, therefore his Cerebral Cortex was undamaged, however, he had suffered some damage to the Cortical zones of his speech center resulting in some aphasia. His disinterest in reading was probably only temporary as was his apparent memory loss. Memory is stored throughout the brain, they had reassured her, and is accessed through many different pathways. Todd would likely be much better within a few months to a year, and possibly he would eventually recover entirely, without any signs of trauma. To assist with his recovery, they had strongly recommended that she enroll Todd in an intensive therapy program, which was available at another Detroit hospital. The important thing, they had said, was he was alive. If the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls breathing and heart rate as well as numerous other autonomous functions, had been damaged, there would not have been time for the brain to reconstruct its functions. Todd would have died.

  Beth felt reassured by the doctors' positive prognosis, however she knew what Todd had been and, when he responded to her questions with simple monosyllabic answers, she had trouble controlling her own emotions.

  "This is great, Mom! I haven't had one of these in more than a month." Chris said, chewing on his second bite of a Big Mac, while awkwardly pulling the seat belt across his chest with his left hand. They had stopped an hour and a half out of Toronto at a Service Center, both because Chris wanted to use the rest room and it had a McDonald's Restaurant.

  "You sound like they starved you at the hospital." Sharon said, biting into her own hamburger. She was looking forward to getting back to her health club. Four days of sitting around a hospital as well as the cafeteria and restaurant meals would play havoc with her figure if she didn't get back to exercising soon.

  "Naw, the hospital food wasn't too bad, especially after they stopped grinding everything up, but nothing is like McDonald's."

  "That's because they put drugs in them, so you become addicted to their food." Sharon said, a smile on her face.

  Chris turned to his mother, with a look of concern and then laughed. "No, they don't. You can’t fool me anymore."

  “Oh yeah. And why is that?”

  “Because.” Chris shrugged. “I’m older now.”

  “Older?” Sharon laughed, “Older than you were at the beginning of the summer? Wiser than you were last week? Is that what you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I just know that Macdonald’s doesn’t put drugs in their food.”

  “Well, you’re right there, kiddo. But they’ll make you fat and sloppy if you eat too many of them.”

  “I know, I just like them. Hey, Mom...” Chris continued. “Why don't we take the back roads to Detroit? It's faster."

  Sharon placed the wrapper from her hamburger in the wastebasket under the dash and replied, "Honey, I don't have a map of Ontario, so I don't want to leave the expressway."

  "It's not called an expressway," Chris responded, "it’s called the MacDonald Cartier Freeway. Macdonald was the first Prime Minister of Canada and Cartier was an explorer. It’s also known as the 401. If we go to exit 238 and get on highway 2 it will take us to exit 63. Then we can get back on the 401 and take it directly to the tunnel to Detroit, although it changes to Highway 3 as we go through Windsor."

  Sharon stared at her son, her coffee cup halfway to her lips. "How do you know all that?"

  "There was a map on the wall, outside the rest room." Chris answered proudly.

  "And you remembered all that, just by looking at a map?"

  "Well, I studied it real good." Chris answered, his words slightly muffled by Big Mac.

  "Still, that's quite a memory for a boy, who complains for days on end about memorizing two verses of poetry for school."

  "I wouldn't have any trouble with that now." Chris answered innocently, "I memorized some books at the hospital. I can remember stuff real good now."

  "Yes, so I see."

  "And, Mom, I added up the numbers. We would save thirty-nine miles by taking highway two."

  Sharon looked critically at her son. She wasn't sure if she liked this sudden interest in memorizing things. It wasn't like her Chris. But she continued, "Miles or kilometers? They use kilometers in Canada."

  "Oh, right, I forgot. Thirty-nine kilometers."

  Sharon felt herself relax. That sounded more like Chris. "Let's stick to 401. Okay, kiddo? I don't feel like getting lost today."

  "Awe, Mom..." Chris began as Sharon circled out of the parking lot and back onto the expressway.

  TWO - FIVE

  Beth sat in the back of the ambulance, a magazine clutched in one hand, although she had only read a couple pages as the soft sprung vehicle made it difficult to keep her hand steady. Todd lay beside her, strapped to the narrow gurney.

  Up front, the two attendants were happily listening to a Detroit Tigers’ game just entering its ninth inning. Todd's condition wasn't about to change and they knew Beth was a registered nurse, so both of the men were able to sit up front cackling and whooping as the game progressed.

  Beth smiled as, during a close play, the ambulance swerved, causing one attendant to swear as he poured some hot coffee onto his white pants.

  Her smile died quickly as she looked down at her son, gawking blankly at the ceiling over his head. She would be glad to get him safely ensconced at Saint John's and return to her own home. She needed to relax and to smile a bit - if she was still able. The last week had been far too grueling and she could feel the tension within herself as a solid thing. It interfered with her meals, her sleep and her entire outlook on life.

  She looked down at her watch; twenty-four hours from now Charlie and the rest of the workers and their wives would be leaving the camp. An eight-hour train ride into North Bay. A flight to Toronto and then Charlie would catch a connector to Detroit. He should be calling from the airport sometime early Thursday morning.

  She had been somewhat disappointed that Charlie had not come to Toronto to be with her and Todd, but she hadn't pushed the issue. If she had, she knew Charlie would have ordered up a helicopter and flown out. But, by the time she had got in touch with Charlie, Todd had already passed the life-and-death point and she had known it would be some days before the doctors would reduce his medication. It hadn't seemed right to demand he come down to Toronto. She just wished he had volunteered.

  "We’re coming up to the border now, Mrs. Rutherford." The attendant said, leaning back through the curtains. "Where are we going to do the switch - Canadian side or American side?"

  "The American side," she answered, "the other ambulance will be waiting at customs."

 
"Okay." He turned away, dropping the curtains into place, as Beth in preparation to switch vehicles, replaced the magazine in her purse.

  Charlie Rutherford wasn't thinking of his wife, or of returning home. Neither of them concerned him anymore.

  He stood, naked, in the small bathroom of his trailer, the steam from the shower billowing out into the hallway and clouding the mirror, except for the area he had wiped with a towel. At the top of his forehead, just below the hairline was a small, round cut, slightly smaller than the diameter of a pencil, the skin around it bruised and indented where it ran under the scab, covering the deep puncture wound.

  He had little recollection of the drive back to his trailer. He had no recollection of the night before. Only that he had found himself laying, cold and stiff, his flashlight dead beside him on the metal top of the machine. Surprisingly - and in a detached sort of way, he indeed thought it surprising - he didn’t seem to care how he got there. In fact, he didn’t seem to care about much. Today was to be a busy day, with many tasks to be accomplished, but instead he had decided to stay inside. At least for a while, until he felt better. Although he didn’t feel unwell - just uncertain. Uncertain about many things. Uncertain even, about what he was going to do in the next second or minute. So he stood, in the bathroom as the steam slowly dissipated into the hall and the spot that he had wiped clean on the mirror grew in diameter. He stood there looking at himself. Noticing as if for the first time, how his hair was receding slightly at the temples, and the heavy lines that ran across his forehead and the others that collected around his eyes. Very deliberately, he raised his right hand in the air and brought his forefinger forward to touch the end of his nose. For some reason he felt very proud of this accomplishment and tried it with the other hand as well - and was equally successful. “Good.” He said to himself and carefully turned from the mirror and with hesitant steps, moved down the narrow hallway into the bedroom beyond. There he sat on the edge of the double bed, his feet side by side on the carpet below and waited. Waited for what - he had no idea. Vaguely he was aware that he had things to do. Important tasks to be completed on this last day. But as if heavily tranquillized, he felt no urgency to begin. He simply sat on the edge of the bed that in some distant memory he knew he had shared with his wife, and let the sensations roll over him. His tastebuds were suddenly deluged in a sickly-thick taste of peppermint, followed by an explosion of raw lemon. Saliva filled his mouth and drool dripped from his mouth onto his bare legs. Twice he stood up, did a deep knee-bend with his hands raised above his head and then sat down on the edge of the bed once again. Someone pounded on the front door of the trailer and Charlie’s head turned to listen. After a couple of minutes, they went away and he carefully stood up, pulled back the covers of the bed and lay down. He would rest for a couple hours. In a couple hours he knew that he would feel better. Yawning, suddenly desperately tired, he pulled the covers up and over his body.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ONE

  Mrs. Hepburn had worked in the Detroit library system for forty of her sixty-three years and she knew how a library should be run. Muriel wasn't exactly the stereotype an elderly lady librarian was suppose be. She was not a spinster - her husband, William, was a retired accountant. They owned a pleasant home in Dearborn and had a well-appointed cottage on the shores of Lake Michigan, where they spent most of their weekends as well as two of her four-week vacation. And she was tolerant of users of the library's resources. She accepted that the university and college students doing research in her section would talk but, as long as they kept their conversations quiet and did not disturb the other patrons, she left them alone.

  However, she was not tolerant of young children using the library's resources to damage and warp their minds. The young boy, with a large bandage strapped around his right hand, had entered her section of the library and had moved directly towards the medical section without hesitation. Few children used her section of the library. Psychoanalysis, psychology, sociology, medicine, medical studies; the subject matter was much too advanced for students less than Senior High level. Besides...she reminded herself, students were still on their summer vacation.

  She continued sitting at her desk, scanning the synopses of new or updated versions of reference books she might like to recommend for purchase, suspiciously watching as the young boy made several trips into the stacks, returning each time with a large bound volume in his good hand.

  He must have hurt his hand quite badly, she thought, as she watched him return with another, exceptionally large book, from the oversized section. He is probably a ruffian, from the projects, and hurt it during a fight with some other undesirables. She pulled her desk Rolex towards herself and pretended to look for a file as she continued to watch him over the top of her glasses.

  The boy sat at one of the long wooden tables and arranged the stack of books to his left. Then, centering the oversized book in front of him, he opened it to its front page. She watched him quickly scan the first page and flip to the second, then to the third and then on to the fourth. He can't be reading, she thought, he is going much too fast.

  The phone on her desk purred softy and she picked up the receiver, watching the boy's continued march through the book. It was the head librarian asking for her opinion on a new set of volumes concerning the work of the late Doctor Carl Jung. She reached into her desk to retrieve the notes she had made on the synopsis and as the discussion continued, developing into a heated debate with the head librarian, she forgot all about the small boy perusing her cherished medical volumes.

  Finally, she agreed to deliver her notes and the accompanying overview to the head librarian's office. She was kept away from her desk a further forty-five minutes by an unrelated discussion with the front desk clerk, regarding a number of overdue books missing from her section. When she returned, she was not in a good mood at all, believing that she was not about to get the revised editions of Carl Jung, nor was the collection department going to follow up on the delinquent borrowers.

  As she swept through the double doorway leading into her section of the library, her attention was again focused on the small boy sitting alone at the table. A pile of books remained to his left but there was a bigger pile accumulating to his right and now, she decided, he was not even making an attempt to pretend that he was reading. He would turn a page, nod his head twice, up and down, and then turn another page. If she had not just participated in two distinctly unpleasant as well as unproductive discussions, she probably would have returned to her desk and tried to determine the boy's actual interests from afar. In her present frame of mind, however, Muriel Hepburn was not prepared to accept any further abuse of the library's resources.

  He is looking for dirty pictures, she decided. It had happened before. Little boys entering her section of the library to take down the books on reproductive systems, or nursing practices, or medical pictorial guides to the human body. Then not only content to look at the pictures within the confines of the library, but they would also sneak off into a back corner, or huddle between the stacks and rip the pages out.

  Nothing. Nothing in the whole world annoyed Muriel more than to have the library's resources despoiled and abused in such a malicious way. Libraries were created for educational purposes, to expand and improve the mind. Libraries were not built and staffed by caring, knowledgeable, professional people, like herself, to have their resources plundered by dirty, sex-starved, delinquent little boys.

  Muriel strode purposefully over to his table, her sensible, crepe-soled shoes noiseless on the tiles.

  "That will be enough, young man!" She spoke in a forceful whisper, from just behind his shoulder, gratified to see his young body jump guiltily at her voice. "This is an adult section and you will have to leave." She reached forward and pulled the book he was reading away. "Oww!." The boy cried, louder than she would have wished, clutching his bandaged right hand in his left.

  "These are adult books. They are not for children." She repeate
d, ignoring his exclamation and reading the front cover of the book she had removed from his grasp. 'Body Works - A Total Guide to Physiological Health'. It was just as she had suspected. He had been looking for dirty pictures!

  "But I want to know how the body works!" The boy exclaimed, his blue eyes staring up at her.

  "And why do you need to find out how the human body functions?" She asked, reaching over his head to scoop the remaining pile of books within her reach.

  "I just want to know." His good hand reaching out to grab at the books she was pulling away.

  "I don't think you are researching anything. You were just looking for nude pictures. Weren't you?"

  "No I wasn't! I was just reading!" He was still fighting her for the books, the neatly stacked pile threatening to overbalance and tumble onto the floor. She bent further forward to scoop the pile into the crook of her arm, knocking the boy's hand away with her elbow and shoulder.

  "I wanted to read those books!" The boy protested much too loudly as the other four library patrons in her section turned in their seats to gawk at the unaccustomed noise. "I wasn't looking for dirty pictures. I didn't even know there were any."

  Muriel clutched the books protectively in her arms, noticing as she did so, one of the elderly uniformed security guards walking between the tables towards her, a frown on his face. "Yes, you were. We get little boys coming in here all the time, looking for dirty pictures. Then they rip the pages out, ruining them for the proper users."

  "I wasn't looking for dirty pictures," the boy answered, his face reddening with embarrassment. "I was just reading them."

  "I’m sure!" She replied, the sarcasm heavy in her voice. "At about fifty pages a minute!"