John shook his head. “That I’m not.”
Bradley Wallace covered the distance between them in two massive strides, eyes blazing like a rabid wolf’s. “Now you listen here, Wagner, and you listen good. You’ve bullied me, humiliated me, made me lie and look like a fool in front of everyone. But now you are going to help me save my friend, or so help me I’ll pound the shit outta you like I shouldda done ages ago!”
He had Wagner pinned up against the far wall, a big, tight fist poised level with the other boy’s face. At one time, the fear reflected in Wagner’s eyes would have warmed Bradley Wallace’s heart. But now he took no pleasure in it. All he wanted was to get to Whilly, and though he
hated to admit it, he needed Wagner’s support and innate strength of will. Because he was afraid, too. His rush of anger ebbed.
“Please, John. I really need you,” he finally spoke the words, blushing with embarrassment and lowering his upraised fist.
For John, those words brought him closer than he’d ever been to another human being. No one had ever needed him before. Not his mom. Sure as hell not his dad, though deep down he believed his father had left because of him, because even as a baby he must’ve done something wrong. He’d just never figured out what. Still, his overriding fear blocked immediate acquiescence. “We don’t even have any way of getting there,” he protested lamely.
But just then the solution to that dilemma entered Bradley Wallace’s mind, and he smiled in amazement. He could do it. And so could John. “Yes we do,” he answered with a nod. “C’mon.”
He grabbed John by the arm and led him toward the door, but John stopped him short. “You don’t even have any clothes.”
Bradley Wallace looked down at his striped hospital gown, which he knew was just barely tied together in back. But it didn’t matter. “I don’t care. We have to hurry!”
He turned and cracked the door open so he could peek out into the corridor unobserved. Damn. That cop was still there. He silently cursed the skuzzy police lieutenant as he carefully eased the door shut. “That cop is still there, but I think I know how we can get past without him getting suspicious. If Sarah will help me.”
John flashed a questioning look, but Bradley Wallace pressed a finger to his lips in a signal for silence. Then, affecting an air of casualness, he pulled open the door and stepped out into the corridor. John followed.
The policeman immediately demanded to know where the two boys were going. Bradley Wallace acted real cool, John thought with admiration, and told the cop that they were going over to the nurses’ station to talk to Sarah. He pointed to the pretty young nurse conversing with an older nurse at the station just up ahead. The policeman seemed satisfied the boys would be in plain view all the time, and allowed them to
proceed. Bradley Wallace gestured to John and they strolled casually toward Sarah. But deep down, they were terrified. As they neared the nurses’ station, the other woman departed, leaving Sarah alone to file some charts in their proper slots.
“Brad!” she exclaimed in surprise, her brows furrowing with concern. “What are you doing out of bed?” She moved quickly around the circular counter to confront the boy, flashing John a smile of greeting. “And who’s your handsome friend?”
John felt himself blush, which was definitely not cool.
“He’s John,” Bradley Wallace told her hurriedly, anxious to appear as normal as possible while signaling carefully for her to lower her voice. “That cop back there is watching me and I don’t have much time. I need to talk to you real bad, Sarah, but someplace private, away from that guy. Can you make up some excuse, some test maybe I have to have, something so you can get me away from him? Anything.”
Her face clouded with questions. “Brad, I don’t understand.”
“It’s super important, Sarah,” he pleaded, glancing back over his shoulder at the keenly watching policeman. “Please.”
There was so much to this unusual boy Sarah didn’t understand, but he sounded so desperate that she couldn’t refuse him. And she knew it must be important or he wouldn’t have asked. “Okay,” she stammered, considering possible excuses, “I’ll, uh, I’ll tell him you have to start physical therapy today. Wait here.”
The two tense boys watched carefully as Sarah gingerly approached the policeman and began speaking to him.
Unfortunately they were too far away to be distinguishable, and Bradley Wallace held his breath.
“How do you know she won’t just tell the guy what you said?” John whispered in his ear.
“Because she’s a friend,” Bradley Wallace whispered back without taking his eyes off the talking couple, biting back the impulse to add, “I hope.”
After a few more tension-filled moments, Sarah and the cop laughed, and the pretty young nurse moved back toward the anxious boys.
“Okay, Brad, let’s get you to therapy before we’re late,” she announced loud enough for the cop to hear. She winked and gestured for them to follow.
John flashed a final look at the watching policeman as they rounded the nurses’ station and turned a corner, passing quickly from the man’s view. As soon as they moved beyond sight of the cop, Sarah turned to Bradley Wallace to demand an explanation.
But he cut her off first. “Where’s the stairway to the roof?”
John jerked his head around sharply to stare quizzically at Bradley Wallace, and Sarah merely shook her head in frustrated confusion.
“What are you --?” she began, but he cut her off again.
“This is important, Sarah. Where is it?”
“No one’s supposed to go up there,” she protested, beginning to feel deep in the pit of her stomach that she wasn’t going to like whatever it was he wanted to do on the roof.
He looked straight into her eyes. “I thought you trusted me, Sarah,” he said quietly.
She hesitated, searching his pleading face for any visible explanation for such a bizarre request. But all she saw was earnestness, and a self-assurance that had never been there before. She sighed. “Follow me.”
They passed through a minor maze of stark white corridors before arriving at a heavy metal door marked “Stairwell to Roof.” Bradley Wallace practically jumped for the handle. But Sarah grabbed his wrist, her grip surprisingly strong for a lady.
“Okay, I’ve brought you here. Now what are you doing?” Her pretty blue eyes revealed the fear in her heart, and Bradley Wallace hesitated. She might still give us away, he realized with a start. She might just get so scared that she’d call an orderly or something if he didn’t level with her. He decided to tell the truth.
“I know where Whilly is now, and John and I are going to save him.”
Sarah’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. John, too, stared at Bradley Wallace in fear. How could they save Whilly from the roof?
“How?” Sarah posed the question, her throat suddenly dry as chalk. “How will you save him? How will you even get to him?”
Bradley Wallace looked down at the floor silently. Sarah looked from the boy to the stairwell door, her fear increasing with every beat of her palpitating heart.
“Why do you want to go up on the roof?” she asked, her voice quavering. “Tell me, Bradley Wallace!”
He looked up at her now, steady and determined. “He’s dying, Sarah. That mean I will, too. You have to let me go to him.”
She glanced at the closed door again, and then shook her head violently. “No. I can’t.”
This time he gripped her shoulders, and his eyes were beseeching. “You’re the one who told me to keep believing, remember?” he reminded the frightened nurse. “Well I’m doing that now, and I need your help. Can’t you trust me, either?”
John watched this exchange with increasing fear. He’d begun to suspect why Bradley Wallace wanted to gain the roof, and the implications terrified him. He even began to entertain the possibility that he’d been wrong, that Murphy really was crazy after all – that both of them were.
Sarah hesitated, tre
mbling with fear, knowing that her decision could cost this boy his life. Because she, too, began to surmise his intentions, and questioned her own belief in his mental stability. But if he spoke the truth, as she so desperately hoped he did, then delaying him would kill him anyway, because Whilly would die. She searched his beautiful emerald eyes desperately for her answer, finding reflections of hope and love and most of all, truth. She decided to believe in him, because she needed to, and nodded silently.
Overcome with gratitude for her courage and trust, Bradley Wallace embraced her tightly. “Thank you, Sarah,” adding as he pulled away and the thought occurred to him, “And don’t worry about losing your job or anything. I’ll just tell everyone I gave you the slip.”
She nodded again, unable to force any words from between her quivering lips. His smile of reassurance was small comfort.
Sarah stared numbly as Bradley Wallace pushed open the heavy door as though it were made of cardboard and shoved the hesitant John through ahead of him.
Then he followed without looking back, and the door clicked shut with a frightening note of finality.
“Good luck, Bradley Wallace Murphy,” she whispered weakly before turning to force her way back along the empty corridor and away from whatever fate awaited him.
On the top level of the stairwell, Bradley Wallace flung open the roof door so hard it struck the metal casing with a violent clang. John tried to hang back, but Bradley Wallace pressed him firmly out into the gravel-covered roof. There were still a few stagnant puddles tucked into the deeper pockets and corners of the rooftop, scattered remnants of Northern California’s violently wet weather.
Bradley Wallace basked momentarily in the warmth of the morning sun, which felt wonderfully invigorating after a week in that dim, stuffy hospital room. A brisk breeze snapped the flag smartly on its pole out in the parking lot, and Bradley Wallace gazed out toward the hills in the direction he thought San Francisco to be. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a very good sense of direction, and couldn’t be certain of his bearings.
“Which way is San Francisco from here?” he turned to John inquiringly.
“I think it’s that way,” John answered hesitantly, pointing to the rolling set of hills to his left. “On the other side of those hills.”
Bradley Wallace nodded silently, deep in concentration, staring intently in the indicated direction.
Finally John could contain his suspicions no longer, and asked the question he really didn’t want to know the answer to. “How are you going to get to the zoo?”
Bradley Wallace turned to him with a steady, but calm gaze, and, smiled. “Fly, of course.”
He padded across the length of the roof to the far parapet, a four-foot high barrier extending along the periphery of the building. The coarse, sharp gravel dug into his bare feet, but he didn’t even notice. John ran to him, his worst fears confirmed, his eyes wild with terror.
“You can’t do that, man!” he protested, grabbing Bradley Wallace’s arm to stop him. The look in those emerald eyes startled John, and he faltered. “I mean, well, you’re not . . . him!” Those eyes suddenly appeared scarlet in color, or was it just a trick of the sunlight?
“But I am him, John,” Bradley Wallace disagreed calmly, “I can feel it. I don’t really understand it, but I know it’s true. And just as Whilly could fly, so can I.”
John quickly pulled him back from the edge. “Even if you could,” he glanced fearfully down at the parking lot below, “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Bradley Wallace insisted, “if you just trust me. You have to believe I can make it happen.” How he himself knew he could make it happen wasn’t exactly clear. But somehow he could extend his power to John, if the other boy would let him. It was like they were part of each other. He suddenly understood that they’d been part of each other since the beginning.
John stared in amazement at Bradley Wallace’s eyes, which blazed with coruscating energy and a secret strength he couldn’t begin to understand. He was too afraid to try, and shook his head vehemently. “No. I’m not going to let you kill me. Or yourself either.”
With catlike speed, John took Bradley Wallace down with a flying tackle, and the two struggled wildly, kicking up gravel and dust as they fought rolling across the rocky rooftop. Though he might have had a chance at victory some other time, John couldn’t possibly win against the combined strength of both Bradley Wallace and Whilly. Bradley Wallace easily overcame his opponent, sitting atop Wagner and pinning the other boy’s arms firmly to the roof surface.
“I thought you were starting to believe,” he accused the struggling John. “I thought Whilly had finally convinced you to trust yourself. But you’re just a chicken-shit, that’s all! Well I’m not, Wagner, and I’m gonna save my friend, with or without you!”
John ceased his squirming and stared silently up at the angry Bradley Wallace. His wide, fearful eyes told all. He was afraid.
Bradley Wallace shook his head in disgust and leapt to his feet, his loose-fitting hospital gown flapping almost illegally in the breeze.
“I don’t need you anyway,” he shouted as he turned and ran full tilt toward the looming parapet. John scrambled wildly to his feet, wiping madly at the dirt on his face as he screamed, “No!” But he was too late. Bradley Wallace jumped high into the air, and disappeared over the ledge.
Frantic, his heart paralyzed with fear, John pelted to the parapet, kicking up loose gravel in his mad dash, sickeningly certain he’d see Bradley Wallace’s bloody body splattered all over the parking lot below. But as he stretched his head out over the edge and looked down, a sudden upward sweeping motion whizzed past his face, causing him to leap back in surprise. Circling above him like a majestic bald eagle, arms outstretched as the wings of a plane, hospital gown flapping crazily in the wind, was Bradley Wallace.
John’s head began to swim wildly, and he came the closest he’d ever been to fainting. But the excited boy above him shouted for his attention. “I told you I’m not crazy!” he laughed delightedly, as though realizing that fact for himself, too. “Now do you believe?”
John nearly burst into tears of exuberant joy. It was true. It was all true. He nodded slowly, fighting back the embarrassing tears. Bradley Wallace circled around the far side of the building and returned to hover ten feet above John’s head.
“Well?” he shouted down as he flew a holding pattern, manipulating the wind currents with an ease he’d never thought possible, “Are you coming or not?”
“How?” John shouted back, tiny tendrils of fear still clutching at his madly pumping heart. “I mean, you’ve got him on your side.”
“So do you! He’s been with you all along. I don’t know how or why, but he has. And you know it’s true. Just trust your heart.”
Still John hesitated, unable to completely eliminate his doubts. It was so hard to fully trust someone, especially when he hadn’t trusted
anyone at all for most of his life.
“Please, John,” Bradley Wallace insisted, desperately needing the other boy’s human presence. “I really need you.”
John nearly broke down then. He’d always so wanted to hear those words, from anyone, that he could scarcely believe they were real. Whatever happened now, at least he’d gotten that much. “What do I do?” he shouted upward, his decision made.
Bradley Wallace broke into a wide grin. “Just do what I did.”
John glanced nervously over at the parapet and knew if he didn’t go for it now, he never would. Taking a deep breath, he dashed headlong toward the fast approaching ledge just as Sarah burst through the roof door. She raised a hand to her mouth and nearly screamed as John dropped headfirst over the edge of the building. She stepped forward in terror, and then stopped dead as John instantly reappeared, arms outstretched like a bird, sailing lightly on the morning breeze to join Bradley Wallace high above the hospital grounds. Sarah broke down and sobbed uncontrollably at the sight, her happiness almost overwhelming. It was all true aft
er all. Everything he’d told her. There was still hope in the world.
John gazed down at the rapidly shrinking buildings below and shouted his amazement for the entire world to hear. “I’m doing it, I’m flying!” The sensation was like riding a tremendous rollercoaster without the car.
“I told you you could,” Bradley Wallace shouted from beside him, the whipping wind taking his words almost the moment they left his mouth.
Hair blowing crazily in their faces, and Bradley Wallace’s open-backed gown causing him to moon the sun, the two boys glided up and over the hills away from Marin General, soaring higher and higher until John felt he could touch the clouds. He’d never been so ecstatic or free in his life, and he owed it all to someone whose guts he’d hated for years, or at least pretended he had.
“This is just like in ‘Peter Pan!”’ John shouted, his excitement boundless as they continued forward on a cushiony current of air, his jacket flapping noisily like the wings of a massive bird.
“You read that book?” Bradley Wallace called back in surprise.
John flushed with embarrassment. “Well, when I was a kid,” he answered abashedly.
They were zooming high above Highway 101, and Bradley Wallace eyed the Waldo Grade area with a certain wistfulness as they passed over and headed toward the Golden Gate Bridge, which was nearly lost under the thick blanket of fog that almost completely obscured the shimmering city beyond. Bradley Wallace thrilled to wonderful sensations coursing through his invigorated veins - the power and raw energy, the wonder of flying unassisted, even by dragon wings. Then frightening images of Whilly, alone and near death, prompted him to cease such selfish musings and increase his speed. There wasn’t much time left.
“Hey, wait up!” John shouted from somewhere behind him, and Bradley Wallace realized he’d almost forgotten the other boy in his silent considerations and had allowed him to drop back. He glanced over his shoulder and saw John buffeting about in the ever-increasing wind like a baby bird testing its wings for the first time.
A Boy and His Dragon Page 56
