Emaciated. His eight-year-old boy looked emaciated. Emaciated, and he saw a psychiatrist twice a week. David ate. We made him eat. We watched him eat. David ate, just not enough. He pecked at his food and did not gain weight, not an ounce, and he did not grow, not an inch. What eight-year-old needed a shrink twice a week?<\/p>\n
Traffic pushed and pulled father and son at a confused pace toward Boston Children\u2019s Hospital and David\u2019s appointment with Dr. Fahnestock. The skin, tendon, muscle and bone spanning Officer Pete O\u2019Malley\u2019s jaw and temple rippled with thoughts he should not think and words he could not say. David was perched beside him in the front seat, both spindly arms to the outside of his seatbelt shoulder strap, his scant weight barely enough to offset the tension. The boy fixated on something outside their station wagon. Officer O\u2019Malley snapped a finger, harder than intended, against the back of David\u2019s head.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is so fascinating?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFire,\u201d David chirped. \u201cThere is a fire under the city.\u201d David pigeoned out spots in the fog his breath had made on the inside of the window, his sharp nose in profile looking to Officer O\u2019Malley like a bird\u2019s beak. He looked out the passenger-side window as they made their way north on Tremont Street toward Francis Street. He saw nothing to warrant David\u2019s excitement and looked askance at his son.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmoke from the sewers,\u201d David warbled in his small voice. \u201cLook at the sewers, smoke from them all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officer O\u2019Malley scanned the iron-grated drainage sewers on both sides of Tremont Street. \u201cThat is not smoke, David. It is steam. The water in the drainage pipe is warmer than the air outside, it makes steam,\u201d he explained, instantly regretting his matter-of-factness. He tried for a quick fix: \u201cDid you think dragons lived under the city?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNah, I thought a fire was burning underground,\u201d David answered. \u201cAnd we should pull the fire alarm.\u201d<\/p>\n
There had been no time to change before picking David up from school. Officer O\u2019Malley was in his police uniform. He adjusted the holster digging into his leg and checked the time. Dr. Fahnestock insisted David never miss or be late for an appointment. Consistency was imperative, he had been told, or admonished it felt like. David had been late a time or two.<\/p>\n
Failure to thrive, the words Dr. Fahnestock used when speaking of David to him and Linda, his wife, David\u2019s mother, never strayed far, in a worrisome way, from Officer O\u2019Malley\u2019s thoughts. Dr. Fahnestock was a renowned child psychiatrist and an absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous woman, model pretty, he thought, tall with long dark hair she wore lose down her back and a stunning smile she wore naturally, effortlessly, continuously. He forgot how breathtakingly beautiful and vibrant Dr. Fahnestock was between visits, and this made him jumble his words a bit each time they met. Didn\u2019t most kids thrive naturally or with ease, he wondered? Or maybe they throve satisfactorily or commendably or with excellence? What came after failing to thrive? What happened if his boy utterly failed to thrive? Officer O\u2019Malley tightened his grip on the steering wheel and willed traffic to thin out and time to slow down so they would not be late. He prayed for David to be small for his age. He could work with small for his age. Get David into calisthenics, gymnastics. Teach him to bite and claw and kick like a raptor. He plopped his police hat on David\u2019s head, amused by how lost in the thing his son looked.<\/p>\n
David\u2019s lips, thin red lines etched onto a pale face, twitched, maybe smiled. Officer O\u2019Malley could not be certain. David was a towhead, which made him appear ghostly white, translucent almost. His hair was so fine and white it looked iridescent. David cantered the police hat and followed a column of white smoke spewing from an industrial chimney up ahead and off to the right. He crooked his head against the car window and wrenched his neck at an impossible angle. Watching his son hold this contorted position brought to the mind of Officer O\u2019Malley a birdling alone in a nest with hollow bones, no appetite and not enough feathers or strength or instinct or thrive or whatever the fuck it took to fly. He zeroed on his son in that awkward birdlike position following a line of white smoke with an unnatural intensity to its vanishing point in a cold and cloudless afternoon sky, and he thought, what the fuck?<\/p>\n
Bullying was mentioned in David\u2019s last parent-teacher meeting, according to his wife. Nothing excessive, typical grammar-school stuff, promptly resolved. Officer O\u2019Malley could pry no more detail on the bullying from either Linda or David. The thought of his son being bullied made Officer O\u2019Malley\u2019s jaw and temple ripple. He searched David\u2019s delicate profile for the hard truth while David checked out the city from under a police hat. Aside from an intense fixity to his gaze at times, David seemed normal enough, untroubled, not failing at anything, just not growing, just small for his age, extremely small, pathetically small, abusively small, tragically small, deathly small, wraith small, too small for a seatbelt to work properly, too small to thrive.<\/p>\n
They needed to make a right turn. They were in the left lane. No one would let them cut over. Officer O\u2019Malley\u2019s enormous hands slammed down on the blue steering wheel of his Ford Country Squire station wagon. \u201cFuck you, Bozo,\u201d he snapped at a ComGas van blocking his way. He finagled the station wagon into the right lane but not in time to make the green light. The station wagon stopped jarringly before a crosswalk as hordes of people rushed to cross the intersection. Pedestrians swarmed in front of, behind and between cars stopped at the traffic light. David\u2019s head spun as if on a swivel monitoring the jaywalkers rushing their station wagon.<\/p>\n
Officer O\u2019Malley was looking straight ahead at the traffic light when his police hat, its hard visor, struck his thigh. David had his legs pulled up onto the seat, his skinny arms tautly wrapped around his shins. Looking deathly pale, David rocked, his eyes locked on the floor of the station wagon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong, David? What is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
David\u2019s eyes were open and unblinking. His pupils were dilated, making his eyes look to Officer O\u2019Malley like vacant black marbles. David rocked and stared at the floor. Officer O\u2019Malley snapped his fingers before David\u2019s face. \u201cDavid, Davey talk to me, son,\u201d he pleaded, gently shaking a knee with one hand while steering the station wagon with the other. Officer O\u2019Malley dropped into his dad voice, not much louder but world\u2019s deeper in tone and menace: \u201cCome on now, David. You are scaring me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Not much scared Officer O\u2019Malley. He had been a Boston cop for five years and had seen more than a few scary things. Officer O\u2019Malley could handle himself, but David\u2019s failure to thrive put the fear of God in him, spooked him witless, unnerved him, overwhelmed him, unmanned him. Small for his age or failure to thrive? What\u2019s in a label, Officer O\u2019Malley thought? He answered himself with a shudder: everything. Officer O\u2019Malley felt it in his marrow. They were into some seriously fucked up shit with a seven-year-old boy failing to thrive and needing a shrink twice a week.<\/p>\n
A commuter train on elevated tracks overtook them with deafening sound and engulfed their blue station wagon in its wake of swirling city grit. David, staring at the train from his sunken position in the passenger seat, bolted upright. \u201cRace it,\u201d he cawed, his hands splayed like talons on the wagon\u2019s blue dashboard. David strained against his seatbelt, the shoulder strap digging into the side of his thin neck, a neck so thin, Officer O\u2019Malley thought, he could wring it with one hand. Officer O\u2019Malley looked at a lone blue vein on the side of his son\u2019s neck protruding from below the seatbelt. He took note of the blood, the will coursing through his son\u2019s woefully undersized body.<\/p>\n
\u201cRace the train!\u201d David screeched, startling Officer O\u2019Malley with his vehemence. \u201cBeat it to the tunnel!\u201d<\/p>\n
The tunnel, where the train plunged underground and did not surface again until Forest Hills, was a quarter mile ahead. They were three passenger cars behind. David fought his seatbelt and slapped the blue dash. He was not going to sit back or back off, that much was clear to Officer O\u2019Malley who accelerated the station wagon while arching a burly forearm from the top of the blue steering wheel to check their speed. He pulled the station wagon even with the train and looked again at the vein, no it was an artery protruding from his son\u2019s neck above and below the seatbelt. Officer O\u2019Malley marveled at the bulging blue chord pulsing with thrive. He pressed down on the accelerator until his foot met with floorboard. Father and son flew down Tremont Street toward Francis Street neck and neck with the commuter train, Officer O\u2019Malley working his jaw and rocking in synch with his son as if the shifting of his weight could somehow make the difference.<\/p>\n
The race ended in a tie too close to call. Officer O\u2019Malley made a right on Francis Street and slapped down his left blinker for the turn into the parking garage for Boston Children\u2019s Hospital. He plopped his police hat on David\u2019s head for a second time and negotiated the spiraling garage entrance, pulling his hand down over his mouth, which had gone bone dry. David leaned into the never-ending turn, enjoying the corkscrew. Officer O\u2019Malley went a little faster, making their tires squeal. \u201cDavid, why did you take my hat off,\u201d he asked?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m asking you, David. Why did you take off my police hat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not take it off,\u201d David answered. \u00a0\u201cIt flew off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officer O\u2019Malley pulled into a parking space and looked his son over. David\u2019s Boston Red Sox jacket was bunched and twisted. \u201cShit, David, get your jacket squared away. We are late.\u201d He snapped his pointer finger, harder than intended, against the top of David\u2019s head. David struck a scarecrow pose with his arms straight out to the sides. Officer O\u2019Malley pinched the loose material above David\u2019s shoulders and centered the zipper. He rolled up excess sleeve and snapped the jacket\u2019s dark blue collar into shape. David\u2019s cowlick stuck up. Officer O\u2019Malley licked his hand and tried patting the cowlick down. It was no use. A pale towhead with a cowlick, one of those white, parrotlike birds, a cockatoo, Officer O\u2019Malley thought, a thought that made him smile.<\/p>\n
On their way to the elevator, David started with the questions. \u201cWhy is it so dark in here?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Officer O\u2019Malley looked at his watch. \u201cShit, we\u2019re late.\u201d<\/p>\n
David was trot-skipping, trying to keep up with his dad. \u201cI call her Felicia,\u201d he said, his light voice barely carrying. \u201cCan\u2019t say Fahnestock.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officer O\u2019Malley heard David\u2019s chirpy voice but not his words. He made a blind grab down and back for his boy\u2019s small hand. \u201cWe\u2019re late, David. Let\u2019s hustle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt smells like melted bubble gum in here, David said, and to play with his echo in the dark parking garage on his way to see a beautiful shrink, David repeated, \u201cBubble gum. Bubble gum. Bubble gum,\u201d which sounded to Officer O\u2019Malley like the clueless gobble, gobble, gobble of a turkey before slaughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
His woefully small son’s failure to thrive put the fear of God in burly Boston cop Pete O’Malley, spooked him witless, unnerved him, unmanned him. He felt it in his marrow. They were into some seriously fucked up shit with a seven-year-old boy failing to thrive and needing a shrink twice a week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":22489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-rory-doherty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21943"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22488,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21943\/revisions\/22488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}