Which should be self-explanatory.
At eight thirty, they began shuffling in. And when they did, I thought about that island.
They came in all shapes and sizes. Tall, short, boy, girl, freckles, glasses. By nine p.m., twelve kids were sitting in the room, in various stages of game, puzzle, toy, and book. Several were dropped off by their nurses, who didn’t stay. The kids were quiet, not too rambunctious. Even the Ping-Pong table was muted.
I stood, looking for an entry, but realized that Randy had helped me more than I knew. I scratched my chin and something poked me in the ribcage. I looked down. She was short. Maybe four feet. Coke-bottle glasses. Braces. Light brown hair. And she wore a robe that covered up most of her. The rubber bands on her braces made her speech sound thick and garbled. She poked me again with the book. “Read me a story?”
I looked around. No one seemed to mind. “S-sure.” She turned and began walking toward a large chair, exposing the fact that the braces weren’t just in her mouth. Strips of metal hugged the outside of her legs. The waddle reminded me of a penguin. The only thing missing was Morgan Freeman’s voice telling me how bad things were about to get.
Her legs came out of her hips at twisted angles. The shiny silver braces sought to help with that. They were clumsy, heavy, and noticeable. The Tin Man walked with more grace. She couldn’t climb into the chair so she plopped down on the floor and patted the chair for me. Her legs clanked, and flopped straight on the floor. Raggedy Ann stared up, waiting.
I sat. She stuck out her hand. “I’m Jody.”
That hand cracked a fissure in the universe. I held her hand. “P-Peter.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“It’s n-nice to m-meet… you.”
Her head tilted sideways. “What’s wrong with your mouth?”
“I have a s-stutter.”
“Does it hurt?”
I laughed. “No. It’s j-just that sometimes when I try to s-speak, the thought leaves my brain but gets h-hung up in my mouth. Not sure wh-why.”
She nodded. Scooted closer to me. One side of her lip curled up. “Do you take medicine for it?”
“No.”
“Can they operate?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
She turned her attention to the book. I turned the first page. I couldn’t speak in clear sentences to save my life. Sounded like a broken-mouthed fool, but give me a story, something I could read, something where the words weren’t mine, and… all bets were off. The same was true of Mel Tillis. Only difference was he sang. I read. “One fish. Two fish. Red fish. Blue fish.”
She stared up at me. Listening. Halfway through the book, she poked me in the shoulder. “Hey, your mouth.” She pointed at my face. “It’s fixed. You’re all better.”
“Well, wh-when I r-read stories, it sort of f-fixes itself.”
She nodded. “Then… you should read stories.”
Some things were just so simple. “Okay.”
As I read, more kids appeared. The hospital library was pitiful and sorely lacking, but by our fourth book, there were five kids sitting cross-legged in front of me. Every time I finished, Jody climbed off the floor, walked to the shelf, pulled another, and I read. An hour in, I looked down at the six faces looking back at me. Mall pet shops make me feel the same way.
At eleven o’clock, a nurse walked in, gathered the kids, and mother-henned them off to bed. The kids filtered out. The last to leave, Jody pulled herself up on the couch, muttering to herself, “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.” I stood, not sure what to do. I put my hands in my pockets. Took them out. Put them back in.
She smiled, stuck out her hand. “Hold my hand?”
I took it.
She leaned to one side and sort of threw the opposite leg in front of her. Willing it up and onward. She looked up. “Sometimes…” Another step. “I fall down.”
I walked her to her room. She stood in her doorway. “You coming back?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“When?”
“T-tomorrow.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
She turned, walked into her bathroom, and shut the door. I stared through the glass, on the far end of the room, and decided right then and there that I would read her ten thousand stories if she would but ask.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
In six weeks, we read every book in that library and many from my own to fill in the gaps. The kids were voracious listeners. Once we made it through their limited library, we moved into chapter books. And chapter books are an entirely different ball game than a book you can read in one sitting. Chapter books require you to dog-ear the page. Which is a marker. It’s not just holding your place in the book. Not simply a crease in a piece of paper. It is a promise. An oath. One they need kept. It says, “I will be back, and we will continue this later.”
Reading became an event. At first, I started on the couch. The kids before me. But, wanting to be near me, they pulled me down with them. Knee to knee. When the room was full, which was most of the time, it looked like God had played a game of pick-up sticks with kids. They were piled alongside, over, and across one another. Logjams on rivers have more order. And our knees always touched. Everybody’s knees. It was the connection between us.
We read a lot of my favorites. I often read for four hours at a sitting and the kids never blinked. We’d started other books but if they didn’t like it—which their body language communicated better than their mouth—by the end of the second chapter, we’d pitch it and start another. That taught me something. You live and die by the hook so hook them early. If you don’t, you won’t reel them in. Funny how life mirrors fishing.
Kids came and went—as varied as the illnesses that had brought them there. Some hung around a week. Two. Maybe three. A few were long-timers. Jody was one of those. She’d been in a car wreck as an infant. No car seat. The wreck had broken both legs, her pelvis, and several other bones, which was made more complicated by poor medical treatment following the accident. Bones had grown back incorrectly. The work to correct her legs would take several surgeries over several months and the hospital had committed to it. However long it took.
Critics say the medical system is broken. I’m not convinced.
Being around the hospital, I got to know the staff, the administration, even some of the doctors. Each welcomed me and what I was doing, which really wasn’t that much. A C-average high school graduate with a pretty mean stutter reading to the kids. It wasn’t rocket science. Since I couldn’t be there full time, and the kids were, I asked if I could donate some of my books. They asked, “How many do you have?” At the time, my library numbered about ten thousand.
They were more than happy to accept them.
Every night, I’d appear with the book I was reading and then several more for the kids to take back to their rooms. To keep, if they liked. Most passed them around. Shared them. Or put them back up on the shelf in the hospital’s growing library. Giving away books served another purpose—one I selfishly admit. Living near the docks meant constant humidity and the ever-present possibility of fire. Besides, most sat unread as I could only read one at a time. Giving them to the hospital meant they sat 24/7 in a temperature-controlled environment, and they were available for far more people to read them. And while that may sound like a lot of books, and it was, I often had several copies of the same book. At one time, I owned forty-two copies of Great Expectations. Twenty-seven of Robinson Crusoe. Thirty of The Hobbit. Seven of Winnie-the-Pooh. Seventeen of Huckleberry Finn. Some people can’t turn away stray cats. I couldn’t turn away stray books.
The transfer of my library took months, but before long I began arriving with boxes. The library dedicated an entire room off the kids’ game room. They lined it with shelves, installed plush carpet on the floor, beanbags big enough to curl up inside, and large reading chairs that were two and three kids wide. Soon, the game system was dusty and not the books. Jody became the self-nominated librarian an
d, together, we developed a system to catalog and shelve the books.
If Jody’s hand had forced a crack in the universe that surrounded me, the kids alongside her hammered in a wedge. Widening it with every broken smile. Every quiet request. As a kid, I’d turned to stories—helping me fight the pain that was my life. The characters I met had become my closest friends. Now, as I sat on the floor, knee to knee, kids piled around me, I introduced my new friends to my old friends.
I’d found my place in the world.
While all were orphans, Jody actually had a chance. A young couple, Rod and Monica Blue, was actively working to adopt her. Due to a high fever when he was a kid, Rod could not have children. That brought them roundabout to Jody. After the third surgery, while she was confined to a wheelchair, I was invited to the courthouse to watch Rod and Monica become her parents. The judge uttered the words “irrevocable right” and tears dripped off my chin. It was a good day. The island lost one of its own—which was good.
Jody said she wanted to go fishing so I took them. I retrofitted the boat so her wheelchair could be locked down and not bang her around in the chop. We caught reds, trout, a few sheephead, and Rod caught a small but nice tarpon. Monica hung back and shot pictures and video. I baited hooks, tied knots, and served sodas and sandwiches. It was one of the best days I’d ever known on the water.
As the months passed, and one successful surgery was followed by one more, and Jody’s steps quickened and her smile spread, we all forgot about what might happen. What could happen. Being together, hanging out, we leaned on each other and our hope was built.
Didn’t take much to bring it crashing down.
Her fifth surgery had gone well. Doctors were pleased, but germs and viruses are tough to see. Even tougher to fight. She developed an infection deep in the bone of her hip. Took them a while to find it. She started running a fever. It sat at 104 for days. Started taking its toll on her. She got weak. Doctors started muttering the word “amputation.” I canceled my clients and hung out at the hospital, wringing my hands. Threw a blanket on the cleaning room closet floor. Rod was stoic. Quiet. Monica was a mess. The doctors gave her something to help her sleep.
It was Monday night. Two a.m. Rod woke me. “She’s asking for you.” He looked tormented.
She was pale. ICU. Behind a plastic curtain. I reached out, placed my palm flat against hers. The plastic between us. The fever had ravaged her. Jody knew about my journals. About my writing. I’d shown her snippets. Too tired to open her eyes, she whispered, “Tell me…” She pointed at me. “Your story.”
One of my favorite stories as a kid was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I read all of the Oz books, but I kept that one under my pillow for reasons I cannot explain. Maybe it had something to do with the wizard… or the fact that there was one someone in some world somewhere who controlled the levers that controlled me. Anyway, I must have read it a thousand times. The last time I saw that book the green cover had faded white, several of the pages were missing, and the binding had been duct-taped more than once. I didn’t know it as a kid, but the author, Frank Baum, used to tell whimsical stories to kids, which later became the fodder for Oz. I’ve read that C. S. Lewis, A. A. Milne, Lewis Carroll, James Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, and J. K. Rowling did the same. Folks used to ask me where my stories came from. Psychoanalyzed me ad nauseam, trying to discover the place from which my stories grew. It’s a simple picture really: an orphanage, a bunk bed, a flashlight, Oz, and me. It doesn’t get any more complicated than that. Or, if it does they’re just smarter than me and I’m too stupid to understand what they’re saying.
When I wasn’t fishing, or reading to the kids, I was penning scenes in a notebook I carried in my back pocket. Jody knew this. She also knew that I’d put her in my book. To make it more interesting, I’d inserted her as a character in my story. Absent her handicap. She was giddy with expectation.
I ran to my truck. Pulled out the pages, and scooted up a stainless-steel stool next to her bed. The book was several hundred pages. No short read. It was the story of a one-legged, time-traveling pirate named Pete who lived in an old ship named Long Winded. Pete was flamboyant and wore ruffled shirts and a large purple hat with a peacock feather. He also wore a magical brass monoscope around his neck that could transport him back in time. A time line of years was etched onto the side of the brass—from present to several thousand years B.C. The farther out he extended the monoscope, the farther back he could see and travel into time. He, his ship, and any mates who traveled with him could travel back to any place or time in history. They could also travel back into places depicted in any of the books shelved in the cavernous library aboard his ship. This made for limitless adventures. Given my love of the ocean and all things seaworthy, the villain was the real-life seventeenth-century Dutch privateer, Piet Hein—the first and only captain to capture the entire Spanish treasure fleet. Doing so disrupted the European markets and threw life into chaos. Not too worried about Europe’s markets, Hein took the plunder to Holland, which pleased King Philip III even less. The problem with the plunder was that while it made him infinitely rich, it did not include one very important item. Yep, you guessed it. A magical monoscope. In the beginning of my story, Pete is sailing up the St. Johns River, where he moors at the docks alongside the River City Hospital and begins looking for a crew. Chapter one begins with the sound of his pegleg echoing down the halls of the children’s wing—just outside Jody’s door. Through the window, the moon casts a shadow across Piet Hein’s main sail silently coursing upriver. They didn’t have much time.
I said, “This might take a while.”
She smiled. “I have time.”
So, for the first time, ever, I opened my mouth and told a story that I’d written. And told it to someone other than myself.
For all of my life, I had stored my love in a place down inside me that had no outlet. I contained it there. Kept it to myself. Afraid to let it out. Thought if I did, it’d seep out and I’d be left with none. I didn’t have much to start with. Then I opened that book, tilted the pitcher that contained my small reservoir, and started pouring out. First, sparingly. A drop or two at a time. Then a trickle. Then a flow. The more I poured, the more I had to pour. The cup that never ran empty. Strange how that worked.
Three hours in and she opened her eyes. By daylight she was sipping water and they’d propped up her head. Rod and Monica sat and listened. Some of the nurses and doctors had taken their breaks, ate their lunch within earshot.
This event—reading a story to what might be a dying girl—had never been done before in this hospital.
Twenty-four hours later, I was still talking. A competing band of pirates had captured Pete, and demanded to know where he’d hidden the monoscope. The crew of Misfits had just landed on the island where Pete was being held and soon to be tortured. Jody was sitting up. Her fever had dropped. When she drifted off and slept a few hours, I did, too. Right next to the plastic that surrounded her bed. When she woke, I picked up where I’d left off. That night, she ate for the first time in a week. Two days in, her temperature was sitting at ninety-nine and holding.
Two days later, I finished the story. A story that was part fairy tale, part love story, part quest. It was inspired by Tolkien, Lewis, McDonald, and L’Amour all thrown into one kitchen sink and Jody played the lead—having risen from lowly crewmember to first mate. When I stopped, story completed, nurses and doctors stood and clapped. Some crying. Some smiling. Monica kissed me on the cheek and Rod hugged me. He was shaking. Jody stood inside her plastic wall and bowed for the audience surrounding her bed.
Jody recovered. They moved her back to her room, where she promptly asked for a purple hat with a peacock feather. She wore it every day. Pretty soon, we found ourselves back in the game room and word had spread. All the kids wanted to hear the story. She had me read it again. The place was packed. Nurses took their breaks. Doctors even filtered through.
That started two trends. The first had to do wi
th hats. Everybody, doctors and nurses included, started wearing hats. Second, every kid now wanted to be in my story. Play a part. Become a character—a crewmember. I had lots of stories so it was rather easy. I simply inserted their name for a character’s name. To make it fair, we passed a hat filled with slips of paper. “Winners” got their name in the story for the entire reading, but once in, they had to sit out the hat passing until everybody got in their story. Smaller parts, where maybe a character only appeared for one or two scenes, I “assigned” on the spur of the moment, giving kids the expectation that they might cameo in a story. The formula worked and the logjam spilled out of one room and into another, prompting the hospital to blow out two walls and expand the library.
Somebody told somebody who told somebody else who told somebody at the local news station. They showed up. Cameras in tow. Jody was sitting up, eating, talking about running and playing soccer. They got to me, shined the light in my face. Then they interviewed the doctors. They shook their heads. “I’ve never seen anything like it. That girl was at death’s door and then he walked in there, started reading that story… and then walked her out.” One of the networks picked up on it. Sent their morning anchor. Ran a story.
The phone started ringing from there.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Jody began walking laps around the hospital, albeit with the help of crutches, but the fact that she did anything under her own power was powerful enough. She spent hours in therapy every day. Rod and Monica never left her side. I fished during the day and spent every night at the hospital. And while I was more comfortable reading others’ stories, nobody wanted to hear those anymore. They wanted me to tell the stories I’d written.
I was on the water when my phone rang. “Peter Wyett?”
“This is P.W.”
“This is Jud Rollinger. I run a publishing house in New York. Heard you’ve got a story that kids like to hear.”
“They s-seem to s-sit still while I’m t-telling it.”