And none of them rejected me.
I stayed until dinner, walked to the orphanage, ate amid conversation that never included me, then retired to my bunk—or the hammock on the porch if it was available, and continued right where I left off. I joined the conversation and never had to open my mouth. I imagined my own fantastical stories cut from the same cloth as those I read daily.
Because of this, I never felt alone.
The orphanage sat blocks from the water. At night, when the breeze moved in off the ocean we could smell the salt and hear the bells of the shrimp boats going and coming. When I got old enough, I walked down to the docks and tried to make myself useful. I did anything. The fishing guides always needed help washing down their boats, spooling reels, catching baitfish. I was too young to get hired on officially so I worked for tips. I didn’t care because tips meant books. Soon, the guides grew to trust me. That meant they talked to and with me. Sharing their secrets—which could come in handy later.
Every quarter the library would have a sidewalk sale, so for pennies on the dollar, I began collecting the stories that had fed me as a kid. Many first editions. Finding these stories was like discovering Incan gold. My stack of books grew, taking up one shelf, then another, and another. With every new book, the house mother would look at me and laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding?”
No, I wasn’t.
Naturally, reading led to writing. The opposite side of the same coin. I created worlds with my pen where people didn’t giggle and point when I spoke. Where my parents tucked me in. Where I didn’t stutter. Where I had chores assigned by a chart on the wall with my name on it. Where the seat at the table was mine and I was missed if the bell rang and I didn’t fill it. Where I was always the prince who rescued the princess, the Hobbit who destroyed the ring, the boy who saved Narnia. Where I was Pip.
Sometimes I wrote all night. Filling pad after pad. True or make believe mattered little. Life was in the telling. In the exhale. Writing became the outlet for the one-sided conversation inside my head. The only place I knew complete expression. A thought encapsulated. A breath deep enough to fill me. Punctuation with certainty. Writing was how I worked out the goings on inside. The act of making story made sense of what I couldn’t make sense of. Like being an orphan and never being adopted.
People with parents who claim them have a tough time with this, but it’s simple: Being an orphan is illogical. The brain never makes sense of it. Ever. It shelves it in the “miscellaneous” file. It’s like a book with no place on the shelf, forever relegated to the cart that circles the library, never stopping to slide between two worn covers.
Writing became my therapy and allowed me a revolutionary thought: Maybe I’m not crazy. It also allowed me to ask myself a universe-rocking question: What if I’m of value? Or better yet, What if I matter? It was rather simple: The people in the stories I read mattered. If they didn’t, then why were they on the shelf? And if they mattered, and they included me in their worlds, then why didn’t I?
At eighteen, I became my own. I checked myself out with a suitcase and sixteen boxes of books. I graduated high school in Jacksonville, took an un-air-conditioned room above a garage next to the docks for twenty-five dollars a week, and since college was out of the question, I began putting in some serious time at the docks. Where guys who worked hard could make good money. The guides would come in, their clients and lines in tow, and I’d offer to wash down their boats or clean their fish. Most of them knew me, ’cause I’d been hanging around for years. Cleaning led to building rods, repairing reels, working on boats, whatever the guides got tired of doing and would let me do. I worked daylight to long after dark, keeping my head down and building more shelves in my apartment. Before too long, I lived in a library I’d built myself. My greatest fear was not death or sickness, but fire.
Eventually, I bought a used skiff off a guy, rebuilt an old two-stroke, and began learning the backwaters. Because I’d hung out around so many fishermen for so long, I knew some of what and how to fish long before I could actually get out there and do it. Once I hit the water, I put my head knowledge to work and acquired local knowledge. A year or two passed, word spread about “the quiet guide,” and before too long, my schedule was full and booked six months in advance. Fortunately for me, clients don’t care if their guide can talk, only if he can put them on the fish. And I could. Rain, heat, storm, or calm, I learned where and how to catch snook, tarpon, reds, and more trout than folks could eat. I figured my career was set.
I hadn’t even scratched the surface.
It was a Saturday. Late afternoon. Conditions perfect. My client was an attorney. Jason Patrick. Good guy. He’d hooked into a large red drum. Nearly forty inches. Got it to the boat. I’d dropped the power pole in the ground to hold our position and knelt to lift the fish. When I did, the red decided he wasn’t finished fighting. With a snap of his head, he spat out the Top Dog and my client, still applying pressure to the rod, sunk that treble hook deep in the meat of my palm.
Ordinarily, I’d push the hook through the skin, snip it beyond the barb, and keep going. Clients pay for a full day and they expect to get it. But this one was a little different. Down in the nerve. Sooner or later, this would need a doctor. And, given that we were nearly sixty miles in the backwater, it was going to be later. Two hours later, I got Jason back to the dock, paid a kid to clean his fish, and made my way to the River City Hospital—Jacksonville’s riverbank hospital. It was nearly nine o’clock and my hand was good and stiff and swollen and getting toward purple by the time the doctor saw me.
The doctor cut out the hook, stitched me up, gave me a shot for the infection, and asked for my card. Said he wanted to catch a tarpon. I said I knew a few spots.
Walking out of the hospital, I took a wrong turn, got lost, and ended up in what I soon learned was the children’s wing. It was nearly midnight, I was tired, and needed to be back at the docks at five to meet Sunday’s client but there’s something about a place just for kids.
I turned a corner and saw a slippered kid standing in the middle of the corridor wrapped in a blue blanket. He looked like he belonged there. His pajamas were covered in tigers and airplanes and hung loosely. A stainless-steel pole on wheels stood next to him. A bag of clear liquids hung from it. A plastic tube ran out the bottom of his shirt sleeve and tethered him to the bag. I said, “Hey, p-pal, which way out of h-here?”
He turned and began pushing that pole so I followed him. We walked the length of the corridor. When we reached the end, he turned and pointed at an exit sign at the far end. I said, “Th-thank you.”
He nodded and stepped into a brightly lit room just off the hall.
I can’t quite remember why I walked into that room. Curiosity, I guess. The walls were covered in scenes and posters from kids’ movies we’ve all seen. Star Wars. Indiana Jones. Robin Hood. The furniture was plush, comfy, and made for lounging. Shelves of books with tattered bindings lined one wall. The opposite wall was filled with Lego, puzzles, wooden train sets, and every imaginable toy that might occupy a child’s time and take their mind off the pain ravaging their bodies. Two large widescreen TVs lined the far wall. Each was hooked up to a different gaming system.
I’d never seen anything like it.
The kid walked to one of the gaming systems, punched a few buttons, and the TV screen lit. Within seconds, he was controlling the BMX rider on the screen. Didn’t take me long to realize that he was pretty good at that game.
I inched forward, wondering, where were this kid’s parents? His nurses? Doctors? Who in the world was watching over this kid? Eight security cameras on the walls told me that somebody in some booth was watching our every move, but “watching” and “caring for” are two very different things.
I know.
The kid turned to me and offered me an identical remote control. I shook my head, “I… I’ve n-never.”
He offered it again and said, “It’s easy. I’ll show you.” To my left hung a fram
ed life-size poster of the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland.
Over the next two hours, he beat me eighteen races in a row.
His bag empty, he stood to leave. He turned to me, extended his hand. “Randy.”
I smiled and offered him the hand that was not wrapped in gauze and tape—my left. “P-Peter.”
He stared up at me. “You coming back tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “No, I j-just—”
He turned and walked away.
Sunday arrived, my client caught a fair amount of fish, and I kept thinking about Randy. Throughout the day, I caught myself looking at the plastic hospital bracelet hanging on my wrist.
Sunday night found me in my den, staring at a blank TV screen trying to chum up the courage. Talking to myself—What kind of weirdo goes up to play video games with kids he doesn’t even know…? They’ll put you in jail. Pervert.
Monday was my self-imposed day off. When I repair and respool my reels, clean the boat, and generally fix what’s broken. Spend enough time on the water and most everything will break. Even the good stuff—although it has a tendency to break less.
At seven p.m., I arrived at the hospital carrying a stuffed tiger, and a model airplane in a box, and looking stupid. Think “fish out of water.” I wound my way back to the kids’ wing, and walked down to the game room trying to look like I knew what I was doing and that I belonged. The room was empty. I stood scratching my head. A nosy nurse asked me, “Can I help you?”
“I’m l-looking for Randy.”
Both eyelids lifted in sympathy. “Simmons?”
“To be honest, ma’am, I d-don’t know. I was here Saturday night, he taught me to p-play a game, and invited me b-back. He had on tiger and airplane p-pajamas and had a b-bag of stuff dripping into his arm.”
She nodded. “The funeral is this weekend.”
I stood staring around the room. Life’s impermanence struck me.
She pointed at the items in my arms. “If you have no use for those, we have about fifteen more Randys here—all shapes and sizes. We’ll put them to good use.”
I handed them to her and began walking down the hall.
I’d almost made it to the exit when she spoke from behind me. “The kids usually start showing up about eight. Sometimes nine. After rounds.”
I nodded, walked outside, and threw up in the bushes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Two months passed. My hand healed up, the tarpon arrived en masse, and my schedule got busy. I fished seven days a week for seven weeks straight. I used to do what I call “work” but we all know better than that. It could be with the wrong clients but I weeded those guys out long ago. I was selective, didn’t have a large overhead, and wasn’t interested in making a million dollars. That allowed me to fish with who I wanted. Made for a better life. On more than one occasion, I’ve idled out of the docks only to return and unload my client thirty minutes later because he was of the idea that his money buys me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind serving people. It comes with the job. I bait hooks, serve sodas, clean up spills, you name it. The difference comes when someone expects it rather than appreciates it for what it is. It’s an attitude. A looking-down-upon. And I didn’t let you step foot in my boat so you could assume an air of indignation around me. If you were better than me, you wouldn’t hire me to take you fishing. It’s not arrogance. It goes back to value.
August rolled around. My client and I were headed back in. The sun going down. My client, a radiologist, looked at my wrist. “What happened?” The plastic had yellowed.
“Treble hook attached to a forty-inch red.” I showed him the scar.
He nodded. “You know, you don’t have to keep wearing that thing. You can take it off.”
I smiled, and nodded.
At nine p.m. that night, I stood next to the nurses’ station looking for the woman that I’d met months ago. To my surprise, she turned the corner. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am, I… um, I w-was here—”
She nodded. “I remember. Tiger. Airplane. You were looking for Randy.”
I smiled. “That’s r-right.” I set the box I was carrying at my feet. “I was w-wondering if maybe I could get h-hospital approval to h-hang out with the k-kids.” I tapped the box at my feet with my toe. “Maybe p-play a few video games… just whatever they wanted to d-do.”
She raised a single eyebrow. Her lips tightened. “Can you pass a background check?”
I nodded. “Yeah… And I w-wouldn’t b-blame you for doing one. Just don’t ask me about my p-parents or my real name. I’ve never kn-known, either.”
Her head tilted sideways.
“I was orphaned.”
“Oh, you were adopted.”
“Nope. J-just orphaned.”
She nodded. “If you leave me your information, let me make a copy of your ID, I’ll run it by admin and they’ll be in touch.”
Something had been bugging me since I’d walked onto this floor. I waved my hand down the hall. “What’s the story with this place?”
She pointed to a picture of a genteel lady on the wall. “See her?”
“Yes.”
“On August eighteenth, 1972, her daughter gave birth to twins who were a couple months premature. Both girls weighed about a pound. They would fit in the palm of your hand. Neither one’s lungs were developed and the hospital wasn’t prepared for preemies. We only had one incubator so the girls took turns.” She pointed to another picture on the wall. “He worked on them both for eight days. When one of the girls started failing, the other went into cardiac arrest. He was only able to save one.” Her finger waved at the first picture again. “That made her rather angry. Hence, River City Children’s Hospital.”
“Where are these k-kids’ parents?”
She tilted her head. “I thought you knew.” She weighed her head side to side. “They don’t have any.” A shrug. “Least not any that claim them. Most of them come from facilities around the Southeast. Most all of them are past the age of two so their chances of getting adopted are slim. Add in sickness or disease and… well, those chances don’t get any better. Through some private grants, we’re able to care for them. Give them a chance they might not have otherwise.”
I knew there was a reason I liked this place.
“Thanks.” I handed her my ID. She made a copy, handed it back, and said, “Somebody’ll be in touch.” Her voice softened as she glanced at the game room. “They’re always looking for somebody to hang out with. If you come up clear, then I’m sure someone will be calling.”
I handed her the video game console in the box. “H-hold it ’til I get back.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “And if you don’t get back?”
I shrugged. “En-enjoy.”
She laughed and accepted the gaming system. “Thanks. We’ve been needing another. They’re pretty rough on these things. Seems like they wear one out about every six months.”
Two weeks passed and I’d almost written it off when my cell phone rang. It was a male voice I did not know. “Peter Wyett?”
“Sp-speaking.”
“This is Ward Stevenson. I’m the administrator at River City Hospital. I was given your name by some folks who coordinate activities with our kids.”
“That’s correct. I was j-just hoping to maybe… come up and sp-spend some time… whenever it was okay with… with you all.”
He paused. “Do you know someone up here?”
“No. Do I n-need to?”
“No. It’s just that your request is the first I’ve received in fifteen years in this hospital.”
I smiled. “Well, if it makes you f-feel any better, it’s the first time I’ve requested it in twenty-five years of l-life.”
“We can’t afford to pay you.”
“N-no bother. Long as the fish keep b-biting, I’ll be all right.”
He laughed. “Your background check came up clear. Says here you run a guide business.”
> “That’s… correct.”
“You any good?”
“I’ve been known to c-catch fish when others don’t.”
He laughed again. “If you could get to the hospital any weekday afternoon between four and seven, ask for Judy Stanton. She’s in charge of kids’ activities. She’ll get you an ID, and show you around. Get you started.”
“I’d like that.”
“Peter?”
“Yes, s-sir.”
“In my experience, people who do what you’re asking to do don’t last very long. It can be… rough.”
I paused. “I understand your con-concern.”
“Good luck to you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Two days later, I parked in the garage and began climbing the stairs to the kids’ wing.
Judy Stanton was not the nurse I’d originally met. She’d transferred. I was not told why although I can imagine. Judy was late fifties and spunky. Colorful, too. She looked like a walking color wheel. Today was primary-color day.
She met me at the door, hung a temporary ID around my neck, and then led me on a power-walk around the hospital, her shoes squeaking on the clean floors, ending at the kids’ game room. She turned to me. “Well…” She stared at her watch. “Kids don’t arrive ’til after eight but you can come and go as you like. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Thank you.”
The gaming system I’d left had been plugged in and was looking well used. As was the James Bond 007 and BMX disks I’d bought to go with it. Cords snaked out of the front of the TV, ending in two controllers that sat upright on the floor. With the room empty, I walked down to the cafeteria, ate a turkey dinner, and made it back to the room by eight.
When I was a kid, our favorite Christmas movie was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer but not for the reasons you might suspect. Yes, we loved Rudolph and his red nose but we wore out the tape because of the Island of Misfit Toys. And because they were not forgotten.