Andrew Bradshaw Conquers the Fountain of Youth (Part 4)

Richard Morris sat at the head of a cherry wood dining room table, sucking at the end of a jet black smoking pipe. The pipe was empty, but it contained the faint, husky residue of tobacco that reminded him longingly of his days as a smoker. He was thumbing through the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, letting out a slight chuckle at the end of every sentence he read.

He looked up from his magazine to notice a tiny, blond-haired child sitting across the table from him, staring. The child had a plate of toast, spread thick in grape jam.

Richard took the pipe out of his mouth and winked.

"Well aren't you lucky, Julian," he said. "Not every little boy gets to have toast and jam before dinner."

The boy suddenly grabbed the toast and stood up on the seat of his chair.

"My name is not Julian!" he hollered. "My name is Fangar!"

He let out a mighty roar and hurled the toast onto the gray-white carpet below. Grape jam was splattered gruesomely everywhere. Then, he beat his chest with his fists like a tom tom drum and howled.

Richard cocked his head and gazed at Julian with tired eyes. He let his pipe sag from his grip and raised his eyebrows to look up at the ceiling as if doing so would allow him to see through the wall behind him.

"Honey!" Richard yelled. He was referring to his wife Lillian who was cooking away in the kitchen, madly stirring at a violently boiling cauldron of chicken noodle soup.

"I'm kind of busy right now! What is it?" she replied over the roars of steam and bubbles.

"Do you have any idea what Julian--excuse me, Fangar--just did? He got grape jam on our brand new carpet."

"Oh that's OK," she yelled back, reassuringly. "If it's just a dribble..."

Richard frowned and took a heavy breath. "Honey, the boy threw an entire piece of toast and grape jam onto our brand new carpet! There's grape jam everywhere."

"What?" Lillian cried. She stormed out of the kitchen wielding a wooden spoon. Her large eyes were wide open and looked like billiard balls. Richard stared back at her, bottom lip trembling slightly. But then his eyes became fantastic crescents of enthusiasm.

"Do you know what this means?" he said with a high-pitched voice that was somewhere between a whisper and a shout.

"That you're going to discipline the boy?" Lillian replied, hopefully.

"No!" Richard cried. He laughed like a child, and clasped his hands together, rubbing them. "This means I get to test this brand new stain remover I picked up from the supermarket last week!" He continued to talk as he gingerly whisked himself to the utility closet. "The man from the TV said the stuff works like gangbusters for the deepest, stickiest stains! And what could be more deep and sticky than grape jam for Pete's sake?"

Lillian sighed. As usual, disciplining would be her duty.

"Now Julian...," she said to the child severely.

"My name is Fangar! Fangar! Fangar!" insisted the child, hands thrusted triumphantly over his head, incessantly jumping up and down on the chair.

"Julian!" she repeated, much more firmly. She pursed her lips and bulged out her eyes, which had become so large and round that they looked like they were about to pop out. (She called this her child whisperer look; children were never really sure what to make of it.)

Julian immediately stopped and returned a gaze of quiet bewilderment, enchantment.

She pointed her wooden spoon at Julian's nose and spoke to him, flicking the instrument choppily whenever a harsh consonant escaped her lips.

"We do -not -get -jam on our -brand -new -carpet."

A broth-coated piece of egg noodle escaped from the spoon and splattered onto Julian's lips. He licked it off and made a disgusted, sour look. He did that to be unnecessarily cruel, though; he knew as well as anyone who tried Lillian's soup that it was delicious.

She cocked her head and stood akimbo. 

"Just because we're legally obligated to feed you doesn't mean we have to feed you what you want to eat," she said.

Then came a bang from the utility closet.

"Gotcha!" cried Richard, emerging clad in oversized, yellow rubber gloves and gripping a blue squirt bottle and a handful of rags.

"Now feast your eyes on this, Fangar," Richard continued, picking up the spoiled toast and putting it on Julian's plate. Then with agile hands, he sprayed the contents of the bottle onto the remaining stain in short, raging bursts. Richard repeated the slogan printed on the blue bottle. "Watch the stains lift like magic unfolding before your eyes." He beamed and scrubbed violently. He smiled widely to reveal a perfect row of bleached white teeth. The stain was appearing to lift from the carpet instantaneously.

However, Julian quickly lost interest and trotted into the living room where another boy, Eagan, was lying on his stomach on the floor, furiously mashing the buttons on a video game controller. The otherwise dark room was flooded with the luminous glow of the television set, flickering color that reflected brilliantly off Eagan's face and black hair. Also in the room was Andrew Bradshaw, dreary, motionless--now clad in second-hand Sponge Bob Square Pants pajamas. He was resting his head on the arm of a couch, still numb from the tranquilizer.

"Yes!" cried Eagan victoriously over a flourish of twinkly, buzzy cartoon sound effects.

"Yes!" Julian mimicked as he ran up behind Eagan and slapped him on the back of his head.

"Hey!" Eagan protested. He paused the video game and turned around to face his aggressor. However, Julian had already run past him and into a bedroom, slamming the door behind him, which created a mighty bang and shock wave that reverberated throughout the entire house.

Eagan rubbed the back of his head and directed his attention to the idle, disinterested Andrew.

"Oh don't mind him," he said. "That kid is just plain nuts. You'll learn."

Andrew groaned quietly, still dazed, only half paying attention.

Then Eagan furrowed his brow.

"Are you sure you don't wanna play?" Eagan said, insisting. He held out a second controller to him. "This is a two-person game, you know."

Andrew groaned again, annoyed that someone was persistently asking him tedious questions. His only desire was to sit there and remain undisturbed with only himself and his thoughts.

"Come on, man," Eagan continued, outstretching his arm farther.

With a vengeful sneer, Andrew finally managed to eke a sentence out of his aching, sandpaper throat. "I don't have time for your games, little boy."

But Eagan only shrugged indifferently. He dropped the second controller on the floor.

"If you change your mind..." He unpaused the game.

Andrew directed his thoughts inward again, specifically at the dreaded realization that he would have to go back to grade school with all those kids who run around like idiots and those horrible teachers who don't know anything about anything. But then these thoughts were quickly interrupted by the sound of jingle bells. It was a calico cat, with black ears and yellow eyes. It jumped up on the couch and rested its chin on its paws, gazing deeply into Andrew's slitted eyes.

Andrew growled at it.

"Return whence you came, filthy mongrel."

The cat's eyes danced.

"That's no mongrel, that's a pedigree," interjected Eagan who continued to intensely mash buttons. "Mommy calls him Bobby."

Then Lillian suddenly sprung into the room, waving around her wooden stirring spoon like a baton, to announce dinnertime.

"Now, Eagan, I thought I told you to stop referring to me as mommy," she said. "What did I say you can call me?"

"Miss Lillian," Eagan sighed, still keeping his eyes glued to the television screen.

Of course, Lillian knew she had to insist on this for the benefit of the child. She mustn't let him become too attached, as he was only a few weeks away from moving into his new adoptive parents' home--only waiting for final paperwork to be processed. However, it was also equally for the benefit of herself, as she could feel it melt her heart whenever the children expressed any kind of affection towards her. She wished dearly she could keep all of them.

~*~

Each seat at the cherry wood table was supplied with a large, blue, porcelain bowl of hot chicken noodle soup that was steaming ribbons. Richard sat at the head of it, having resumed sucking on that pipe.

Andrew had every desire to refuse joining, except for one nagging thing: He was starving. He hadn't eaten since, well, he was an adult. He sat in the seat next to Eagan, hunched over his bowl and letting the steam from the broth permeate up through his nostrils. He could taste the soup. It made his hunger so severe that he found it unbearable. He picked up the stainless steel spoon beside the bowl, and gripped it weakly as he scooped out a spoonful of the stuff. He'd only captured yellow broth, but that didn't matter. He brought it slowly to his lips and slurped at it carefully. Already, it seemed to make him stronger.

"I must say, Andrew," said Lillian, interrupting him mid-slurp, "it was such a pleasant surprise when I learned you were coming to stay with us."

Andrew said nothing and took out another spoonful. There was a curly egg noodle in it that time.

"I said, we're so happy to have you, Andrew," Lillian continued, eyeing him hopefully for a response. 

Again, he said nothing. He dipped his spoon in the soup once more. There was a bit of celery.

"Well..." Lillian said, defeatedly shrugging her shoulders. "You don't have to talk to us, I guess..."

Julian, sitting across the table, was playing with his toy dinosaur. He tilted the fanged creature's mouth into the bowl as though to allow it to take a drink. He then made a slurping noise--a sound so unexpectedly loud that it startled Andrew into dropping his spoon inside the bowl of soup. It landed with a plop, completely immersed. 

"That's OK, Andrew, let me get you another," said Lillian, about ready to get up.

However, Andrew returned a glare at Lillian that was so intense it stopped her in her tracks. He refused to break eye contact as he immersed his hand completely inside the hot bowl of soup to recover the spoon. His hand emerged slimy, but his grip on the spoon had become far tighter than it was before.

Lillian said nothing, eyeing him confusedly.

Richard quickly thought of something to break the awkward silence.

"Say Eagan. It sounded like you were having an awful lot of fun in there. What was that you were doing?"

Eagan's eyes lit up.

"I was playing a video game!" he said enthusiastically.

"Is that right?" said Richard, beaming. "And what is the objective of this video game?"

"Well," Eagan said, pausing a moment to consider the question carefully before his eyes brightened up again. "It's to bonk monsters on the head!" As he said that, he used his spoon to smack the liquid surface of his soup and sent a galaxy of broth droplets onto the side of Andrew's face where they quickly coagulated and ran down his neck, underneath his shirt collar.

"Oh, sorry, Andrew," Eagan squeaked, timidly.

Andrew then shot a vile glare into Eagan's hazy, milquetoast gaze and snorted through flared nostrils. This feeble apology would not be accepted. Andrew slammed his spoon on the table, which rang metallic, and his face red with rage. Andrew got out of his chair, gripping his half eaten bowl of steamy soup and dumped its contents over Eagan's head. The soup was hot--hot as the hottest bathtub water fresh out of the faucet. Chunks of noodle and celery oozed down Eagan's burning face as he looked on with shock and horror.

Eagan let out a scream so shrieking and horrifying that it would have made a banshee envious. When his powerful lungs finally ran out of strength, he began to cry with long wails. Lillian rushed to his side, armed with a kitchen towel to wipe the liquid off his face, which had become an ambiguous mixture of chicken broth and tears.

Richard glared back and forth between Eagan and Andrew, blankly flickering his bottom lip with his index finger. His eyes then suddenly perked up, and he snapped his fingers.

"Skippy's Grease Getter," he said, scooting himself out of his chair. He recited the printing on its label from memory as he made his way back to the utility closet. "Skippy's will get grease out of your carpet in a skip!"

Eagan's intense balling showed little sign of subsiding, even as Lillian spooned his drenched, gooey head into the crook of her neck. She then looked upon Andrew, reprimandingly.

"This is not what we do in this house," she said in a guttural hush. "I think you'd better head to your room right now, young mister, and think about what you've done."

When she said the words your room, it reverberated in Andrew's mind like a gong striking in a cold, dark cave. Andrew started to breath heavily. The baby fat in his red cheeks began to tremble fiercely.

"My room?" he screamed. "You call that closet of yours a room? Don't be ridiculous! And it isn't even mine! I have to share it with these two middling invalids!"

Lillian's globular eyes shot wide open, and she furrowed her brow. Her clutch upon the trembling Eagan became so tight that it looked as though she'd just rescued him from a burning building.

"Where did you learn to speak like that?" Lillian cried. "That is no way for a child of your age to talk."

"A child of my age?" Andrew countered. "How would you even know my age, you sorry excuse for a human being?"

Lillian's eyes about fell out of their sockets. They started to water, as she let her mouth hang open in a wide, horriffic frown.

Andrew continued.

"And why exactly do you keep transient children around your house, anyway? My guess is either you're sterile or your natural-born children grew up and got out of this disgusting rats' nest as fast as they could!"

"I have never heard anyone speak to me in such a way!" Lillian screamed.

"I'm not even supposed to be here," Andrew said. "I already had a life before this one, and I worked damn hard to get there! ...Can't you see that I don't belong here? This has all been a mistake. A stupid, horrible mistake!"

At that point, Lillian sensed some vulerability in Andrew. Her hurt, shocked expression began to subside, and she replaced it with a look of gentle empathy.

"Listen, we are not always in control of every aspect of our lives," she told him. "We can't go blaming ourselves for not being born in Buckingham Palace..."

Andrew was hyperventilating.

"But this was my choice!" he shouted. Then he looked at his feet. "...You don't understand."

The left side of Lillian's mouth curled up.

"You should have seen where I lived before this. Atop a magnificent highrise in downtown Seattle. That is where I belong."

Lillian then reached out and gripped Andrew's shoulder. She looked him dead in the eyes.

"Listen," she said. "I don't care what you've got or what you think you've got, but this is what you've got now. You think you belong in a high rise? That's wonderful for you. It's rare children of your age have ambitions like that, especially that specific. Whatever happened that caused you to end up where you are today, it's already done. So now that you are here, what are you going to do? Are you going to enjoy yourself, or are you going to proceed to make the lives of yourself and those around you miserable?"

Andrew bowled over and started to sob. Lillian shook her head sympathically and pulled Andrew into her embrace with Eagan.

"There, there, sweetie, I know you're going through a difficult time," she said rubbing Andrew's back. "I don't know how long you're going to be here, but while you are here, I'll make sure you are cared for. You have my word."

Andrew wiped away his own tears and then looked at Eagan, whose head was still drenched in goo, eyes still gushing waterfalls, lungs still trembling, crying reduced to a raspy coo. 

Andrew then thought back to his own childhood--his original childhood--when video games were nothing more than flickering squares that flew across a television screen. He didn't think much of video games back then.

"Listen, Eagan," Andrew said solemnly. "If I still can, would you mind if I played that game with you later? It looks like lots of fun."

Eagan turned to look at Andrew. With eyes considerably brightened, he smiled and nodded.