Crowam 281 (19 page)

The surgeons began working on his head, prepping it for surgery. They started making small incisions into his skull. His head moved with every application of pressure from the scalpel. Blood dripped on the floor, like the pellets of water from the leaky kitchen sink. I could see his eyes twitch beneath his eyelids. His body fidgeted a bit. I could tell he was still breathing, but for the life of me, I had no idea what they were doing. For a moment I thought they were going to remove his brain. They might as well have. I watched in despair as the surgeons preyed on my dear friend Thomas.

I felt helpless and alone, just watching like some sort of bystander. The assistant dropped one of the scalpels on the floor. The surgeon was not pleased, ordering her to remove the instrument and find a replacement immediately. Dr. Sterg gave the assistant a stern look, embarrassed by her mistake. She immediately exited the operating room and came back with a new tray of instruments, this time without her operating mask on. “Hannah,” I said to myself.

She placed the new set of instruments on the table near where the doctor was operating and put on a new operating mask. She looked at the ceiling, stretching her neck. She looked in my direction. Her eyes weren’t as blue, they seemed grey and cold like the floor beneath her. She kept staring. I became startled. I thought she saw me. The doctor nudged her, getting her attention to assist in the surgery. I couldn’t bear to watch anymore, but I couldn’t leave Thomas alone while he was getting cut up. I waited, figuring out what to do next.

It took four hours for them to finish. The surgeons and Hannah left, leaving Thomas alone. I grabbed the grids of the vent to see if I could remove it. I lifted the vent off its hinges. It slid right off. I left the panel in the ventilation shaft. I waited a few minutes to see if anyone else came in. The jump down was several feet. I looked to see if there was anything I could use to reach the ventilation shaft. There was a chair in the corner of the room that would do the trick.

I leaped down, making a soft landing to not attract any attention to myself. I went to Thomas. It looked like he was sleeping. There were stitches on his skull where the surgeons made the incisions. They shaved the part of his head where they made the cuts. “Hey Thomas, wake up, pal.” His eyes remained closed. “Come on, wake up, will you. It’s me Jake.” I looked at the swinging doors, checking to see if anyone came. “Thomas, damn it, wake up!”

His eyes opened up. I jumped a bit when he opened them. It was like he never woke up before. “Hey, that’s a hell of a haircut you got their kid.” Thomas kept staring at the ceiling, ignoring my presence. “I guess I was never very good at jokes. Say, everyone’s been worried about you, pal. I was worried, too. What the hell were you doing running off like that? All over a bunch of books. You’re crazier than I am, you know that!”

Thomas’s head turned, looking at me. With those empty eyes, I knew he was gone, even though he was lying right in front of me. His soul departed, away from this cruel place. “Damn it, Thomas. Aren’t you listening to a word I’m saying?”

He said nothing, only staring. Saliva drooled from his mouth. His mouth stayed open as if his chin hung unattached from the rest of his face. I knew something was wrong. The bastards cut him up in the cruelest way. Killing him, well, that would have been humane for their standards. They kept him alive, but took away a human being’s most precious commodity: the mind; the ability to observe, to think, to be free to choose any which way to live in this crazy world of ours. All of his knowledge and his empathy were gone. He became a prisoner in his own body, trapped in flesh and bone and organs. Thomas was nothing more but a living, breathing corpse.

“Thomas, come on buddy. You got too much going for you. We’re supposed to go back to the States, remember? Go to Times Square. We’ll wine and dine with the most beautiful dames New York has to offer. Hell, you can head back to Europe afterward. You can go to those little cafes in Paris, Wouldn’t that be something?”

He stared back at the ceiling again, gasping for air as if he was trying to say something. He couldn’t say anything at all.

“Thomas, please say something. Buddy?” I shook him, thinking I would knock some sense into him, like the old Thomas could come back to life. It was no use. “Oh Thomas, what have they done to you?”

“You can’t help him.” Said the stitched boys in the bed behind me.

“What did they do to him?” I asked.

“It does not matter.” They said.

When I approached them, their faces were stitched together as if both their mouths were one. The way they were sewn, it looked like they were smiling.

“Why are they doing this?” I asked.

They struggled for a moment as they tried to swallow before they spit out their answer.

“Because they can.”

Their answer only confused me further. It’s simplicity only added a layer of complexity as to why people do such bad things. I looked around the room. The room seemed to swirl around me.

“How many more are there?” I asked.

They pointed at the swinging doors before they fell unconscious.

I went back to Thomas and gripped his hand, squeezing it as hard as I could. I left Thomas there, going through the swinging doors that led to the infirmary. There were rows of beds, all with boys adorning the same incisions Thomas had. They were in the same catatonic state, lifeless yet still breathing.

Countless boys who were lobotomized and maimed. I don’t know how many there were. Over one hundred maybe. I was too terrified to count. There were windows that looked out into the courtyard. It was dark, but I could see some figures standing outside. They looked like the figures I saw out the boarded up window when I first arrived at Crowam. A face emerged from the darkness, like a ghost through the night. His walk without a purpose, probably attracted by the light of the infirmary. I recognized him as the boy electrocuted in the operating room. He had bags underneath his eyes, his eyes bloodshot.

We watched one another, separated by nothing but glass. He pressed his hand against the glass. Both our hands touched separated by mere inches. I saw his lips move. “Go,” he said. I heard footsteps behind me along with the shadows that made them. I left the lost souls behind in the inner workings of Crowam.

I made it back to the kitchen. It was a miracle. The ventilation shafts were so dark and cold I thought I would never find my way back. The kitchen was quiet. Not the peaceful kind of quiet, but the kind where you think something was going to happen, like a monster lurked around the corner ready to devour you. The hallways were still. I walked through them. I became paranoid, like that monster was behind me.

My skin crawled. I pace hastened, feeling the monster behind me, inching closer.
Get a hold yourself
. I was talking to myself again, trying to regain my composure. I finally made it to the dorm rooms. The guard slept near the doorway. I began feeling sick. It’s amazing how the human body lets you know you have to vomit. That pit of awfulness in your stomach just waiting to come out. I entered the bathroom and ran to one of the stalls. I never puked harder in my entire life. Chunks of food and bile projectile out of my mouth like a fire hydrant. A sense of relief came over when I finished. The awfulness in my stomach gone, but the images I saw burned in my memory. I collapsed near the toilet, hugging the toilet bowl in case there was a need for seconds. I heard a whimper from the shower stalls. It was a mix of sniffling and coughing. Again, my curiosity getting the best of me. I looked into the shower to find Petey curled up in a ball in the corner, his face dug in between his legs. “Hey, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Go away,” he said. I sat next to the little guy. He was crying. I hated seeing him cry that way. It made me feel awful. I felt horrible about the way I treated him before. “Come on, kid. What’s with all the crying, huh? You keep crying like that you’re going to turn into a basket case? You wouldn’t want that would you?”

“What’s a basket case?” Petey asked.

“Forget I mentioned it.”

“Leave me alone. You don’t care about me. Nobody does.”

That’s not true. I like you. Owen, Charles, and Felix, too. They think you’re a swell kid. You’re more mature than us knuckleheads.”

Petey wiped away his tears, sniffling, his nose runny. “I’m scared.”

“Scared? You got nothing to be afraid of kid. It’s Christmas coming up soon, you know. Maybe Santa will get you a present. Anything you want”

“Santa’s not real.”

“Sure he is. I met the fat bastard myself. Why, he told me he’s going to get you a present and everything.”

“You’re lying,”

“I’m not lying. God’ honest truth. What do you want for Christmas?”

He wiped away more tears. “A mom and dad.”

“Well, damn kid. That’s kind of a tough order.”

“I thought you said Santa could get me anything I want.”

“Uh, yea, you’re right, kid. Say, why don’t we get out of here? It’s freezing in here. Let’s go someplace warmer.”

“No,” Petey said.

“Come on will ya. Stop being a brat. You shouldn’t be in here by yourself.”

“What do you care?”

I sat down next to Petey. The tiled floor wet from a previous shower. I leaned against the tiled wall. I was too tired to get up again.

“Listen kid. I’m sorry for the way I treated you. I didn’t mean it. You’re a good kid. I guess I was just thinking about myself. To tell you the truth, I’m scared out my mind. I thought I was tough. I guess I’m nothing but a scared kid. I miss parents. I have a hard time remembering their faces, like their ghosts fading away into nothingness.” Petey’s head landed on my shoulder as he fell to sleep.I needed to get to the others, but I was too tired to get up I began to doze off, falling asleep in a puddle of lukewarm water.

I woke up startled, as if I was falling in some endless pit. From looking through the bathroom window, it was still nighttime, though I was unsure of what time it was. Petey was still asleep. I knew had to get to the others and fast. I picked up Petey and carried him over my shoulder like a duffle bag.

We left the bathroom and headed to Felix’s dormitory. I knocked on the door until it opened. Felix opened it, half awake. “Jake, what are you doing here?”

“Get as many of the boys as you can downstairs in ten minutes.”

“What in bloody hell for?”

“Just do it, Felix. It’s important.”

“Why should I even listen to you?”

“Because our lives may depend on it. Good enough?”

Felix seemed reluctant to believe me, but decided to take my word for it.

“Alright, ten minutes.”

Petey and I went downstairs. I lit up some candles. There was an old treasure chest in the corner. Petey laid on top of it and he continued to sleep while I waited for the others to arrive.

“Better, thank you. Listen Jake, I…”

“Forget it, it’s not important.”

“It is. I sold you out. They got the best of me. I was scared. A coward.”

“You’re no coward. I hold most of the blame. This place has gotten the best of all of us.”

“Alright Jake, you have all of us here. What is it you have to tell us?” Felix asked.

The boys listened as I told them what I saw. The details were gruesome and disturbing. I had a difficult time believing it myself. I wasn’t even sure the rest of the boys would believe my story, yet I told it anyway because there was no alternative. Their expressions were of dismay. Their eyes widened with every gruesome detail of my account.

“Jake, I hope you understand that I have a rather difficult time believing your story,” Felix said.

“Why is that?”

“It just, well, it’s downright sensationalism. It bloody doesn’t make any sense.”

“Since when the hell did anything make sense in this place!” I said.

“But do you hear what you are saying? I mean your story, Thomas. It’s madness.”

“Could the surgery have had something to do with his wounds? Maybe they were trying to help him?”

I grew tired of arguing, getting irked by their persistence in rebutting my story. I got up and threw a bottle of vodka. The glass shattered somewhere in the back of the room. “God damn it, don’t you hear what I’m saying! Crowam isn’t an orphanage. It’s a slaughterhouse. They’re collecting us, hoarding us like we’re cattle. They’re cutting up our insides, keeping us alive in the most cruel and inhumane way imaginable. I saw with my own eyes what they did to Thomas. Other boys have shared Thomas’s fate.”

“And why didn’t you escape?” Jack asked.

“Because this concerns all of us.”

Felix got up and poured himself a shot of vodka, drinking the shot with haste. “My God. What do we do?’

“I’ll tell you what we do. We get the hell out of here.”

“How?” Owen asked.

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” I said.

“We’re going to need a hell of a bloody plan,” Owen said.

“Perhaps we should think this through,” Charles said.

“Think it through?”

“I just think we shouldn’t be too rash about this,” Charles said. “There must be another option besides escaping.”

“There are no other options.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Didn’t you hear a word I said?”

“There must be a rational explanation for all this. Do you know what would happen to us if they caught us trying to escape?”

“And do you realize will would happen if we stay?” I asked.

“Maybe Charles has a point. This might not be so simple,” Owen said.

“You see that little boy sleeping over there.” I pointed to Petey. “I saw him crying in the bathroom alone, only asking that one day he could have a mom and a dad. How we could live with ourselves knowing that in our last fleeting moments we died while letting a little boy die alone, to die without a fight?”