“Exploding Juice Boxes, Cobra Swords and Iron Num-chuks!”

“Exploding Juice Boxes, Cobra Swords and Iron Num-chuks!”

by Jeffrey VanDell

The workday was finally over. I hung my shop apron on the wooden peg with my name written in black marker on a piece of tape above my peg. “JIM”

“It’s time for us to be quiet, focus our minds, and think about all the good things we did today.” Foreman Bill made the hand sign for quiet and we all closed our eyes, put our feet together and made no sound, except Charlie whose mouth made chewing sounds all the time. He couldn’t help it and Foreman Bill understood that he couldn’t help it. It didn’t make it less distracting though.

We stood in a circle holding hands while Foreman Bill whispered the special going home words. “I am special and valued. My work and my ideas are good. When I make things I am working as hard as any other person.”

I live at State’s Special Group Home Number Six at 123 Linebrook Road in Ipswich, Massachusetts 01873, 617-555-3245. I have lived there since I was three when my mommy decided with her therapist that I was too special for her to keep for herself. I’m thirty-three now. I don’t miss my mommy.

My four roommates are my best friends and we watched all the wrestling and kung fu shows we wanted to on Saturdays. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we made parts for the people who own the Chinese factory. The factory was owned by the Chinese Emperor. We never saw him, but once one of the van drivers drove by the Emperor’s Palace and we saw one of his servants. The palace was big and had gold dragons standing guard outside the palace’s big glass doors. Our van driver, Juan, said we couldn’t go there because only Chinese people could go inside. My eyes look like Chinese eyes but my skin is white and I have freckles. I probably couldn’t get in.

We got paid on Friday. I made six dollars and some coins this week because I made over a thousand parts every day. I was the best worker at making knobs because my hands moved fast at the gluing part. One day I glued two knobs together by accident just to see what would happen. The Chinese people took my job away for a day. I never want to make knob mistakes again because I had to clean the bathrooms for the whole building. They smelled bad. There were poops in the toilets that no one flushed and I threw up in the toilets with the poops. I tasted the little white rings they put in the long sinks only boys pee in. It tasted like fire and I had to drink a lot of water to get the fire taste out of my mouth. Why didn’t they taste better? They smelled good.

“Everyone strapped in?” The new van driver, Miss Susie, came around and checked us all. I always forgot on purpose to do mine right because I liked it when she leaned over me and I could smell her hair and look at her when she wasn’t looking at me.

“Jim, you’re undone again. What am I going to do with you?” She said.

I always wanted to tell her she was pretty but I got scared.

Clark’s wheelchair was rolling over my toe and I pulled my legs together and closed my eyes. Clark started making moaning and chewing sounds and he smelled bad like he did poops in his pants. He always smelled that way and we took turns sitting next to him. I don’t know what he did at the workshop but sometimes his hands had bandages on them and his elbows had white bandages and tape like when they took blood from us every month. They had to take blood to make sure we were safe to work there. Sometimes people went away forever because their blood was bad.

The van dropped us off and the night staff, Miss Karen and Miss Janet, were making dinner for us. I liked the rice but the hot dogs were burned. I didn’t complain though because I did that once and got sent to bed without dinner and lost TV for the weekend. Clark ate in a separate room because it was too gross watching him eat the special baby food he had at every meal. After dinner, Tim and Reese and Bobby and I had a burping contest. Mark used to win because he could burp up to the number six. His blood was bad and he went to live on the farm or something. I wished I could visit him but if we did our blood would be bad too and we could never come back.

Miss Karen and Miss Janet opened canteen for us and we spent our money. Since I made the most money I bought candy for everyone and a few pens for my notebooks. I could write and Miss Karen showed me how to make the days of the week and write what I did in it every day. On Sunday I wrote for an extra long time and made up stories about Ninja Jim who had weapons like a Cobra Sword, Iron nunchucks, and an exploding juice box to stun everyone around him except him because he held his breath.

“Ok boys, lights out.” Miss Karen gave us our medicine in little paper cups. I only got a sleeping pill and vitamins. I liked the sleeping pills because I always had dreams where I was the Ninja Jim, the Kung fu hero, and could throw my exploding juice box and rescue Miss Susie from evil ninjas who wanted to take over the workshop.

At lights out I put my fingers in my ears to block out Reese’s snoring. I always woke up and my fingers were out of my ears but I never remembered when they came out. One time I dropped my sleeping pill between the cushions of the sofa and woke up when it was the middle of the night. Miss Karen and Miss Janet were sitting on the couch in the living room watching TV and eating popcorn out of the same bowl. I heard them talking about something they were going to do on their weekend off. We weren’t allowed to watch the news. Miss Karen had the code to the TV and she only let us watch educational shows, wrestling, cartoons, and Kung fu movies. One time she left the TV unlocked and I watched a news show but I didn’t understand the words, only the pictures.

I woke up Saturday morning and put my bathrobe on instead of my work clothes. Breakfast was whatever cereal we wanted to put in a bowl because Miss Karen and Miss Janet spent Saturdays washing our laundry and cleaning our rooms. Once a month they took us shopping for things we needed at the store but it wasn’t today. Reese and the others were awake and watching cartoons that I didn’t like so I played with the blocks, setting them up and smashing them until the cartoons were over.

We had to exercise on Saturday and Mr. William came and we walked to the park down the street and did three times around the big lake. Mr. William spoke on his phone the whole time like he usually did and we weren’t supposed to interrupt him unless it was an emergency. Once, when Timmy was still living with us before he went to the farm, he had to pee and Mr. William ignored him and he just opened his fly and went pee on the street while cars were going by. My. William didn’t notice and Timmy just caught up to us like it was normal. Timmy farted a lot. Sometimes Mr. William showed us pictures of his sisters. They weren’t wearing clothes like Miss Karen and Miss Janet. His sisters all wore bathing suits and some of them must have been adopted because they were white and Mr. Williams was a negro.

After exercise we watched Kung fu until dinner. On Saturdays we could choose pizza, Chinese food, burgers, taco food, or soup. We took turns spinning the wheel with the picture of the foods on it and it stopped at taco food. I thought I saw Miss Janet’s finger push the spinner when it went by taco food but why would she cheat? So we ate taco food but I only ate the meat and shell because the other stuff made me sick to my stomach and I threw up once after eating the white stuff that looked like soap on the taco food. After dinner it was chores. My chores were putting trash in the dumpster, putting groceries away, new towels in the closets, and organizing the game closet. Miss Janet said we could play a game together, be read to, make crafts, or watch one movie before lights out. Everyone but me wanted to watch a movie so they all went to the big room. Miss Janet said if I wanted to she would read to me and I said yes because she was a good reader, better than Miss Karen was.

Miss Janet read from her computer, which we weren’t allowed to touch. It was a story about a man who was swallowed by a fish.

“You mean like a shark?” I asked.

She didn’t seem to mind when I asked questions about her stories. If I asked when we were in a group I got in trouble. You weren’t supposed to ask questions when we were in a group.

“It could have been a whale. The…book says it was only a big fish.” She said. Her mouth smiled and I wondered what she thought was funny.

I asked her and she said, “It’s just that when I was um…your age I asked the same question and got the same answer from my mother.”

Miss Janet was younger than I was but she always said, “When I was your age…” like I was a little kid. Maybe she thought I wasn’t good at math? I knew my times tables to the threes and could write my name with the connected writing.

“So why did he go?” I asked. The fish story was still not making sense.

“Go where?”

“To the place where he yelled at the people for being bad.”

Miss Janet’s mouth pouted and I thought I had asked a bad question but she didn’t send me to my room or anything.

“Well Jim, a person doesn’t need someone to tell them what’s the right thing to do. They just do it.”

“But in the story the fish man hated the other people. Why would he go tell them the right thing to do?”

“Well, even though he hated them he wanted to help them.”

In all my Kung fu movies the good guys never wanted to help the bad guys. They just killed them. Sometimes someone from the bad guy’s side would go over to the good guy’s side, but not often.

“Who told him to go and tell them what they were doing was wrong?” I asked.

Miss Janet smiled and said, “I wish I could tell you. That’s all the time we have for today.”

“Thank you for reading to me. You read good.” I said.

“Any time, partner.”

She closed her computer and I wrote my Ninja Jim story for a while. I still wondered who told the fish man to go.

The week after that I found out that blood taking was on Thursday and I was upset about it. Thursday was my worst day. My mother died on a Thursday. I lost my best black comb on a Thursday. The van was late and we had to wait outside in the cold on a Thursday. The smoke alarm went off on a Thursday during dinner because Miss Karen burnt the pizza and the noise scared us all so much that Terry wet his pants. Our goldfish died on a Thursday and I had to get a shot on a Thursday because that was when my physical was. People were meaner on Thursday.

The nurse who took our blood wore a white smock like the lunch ladies at work but it had an arm patch with the three black bars inside it that meant he worked for the Company. He had dark skin like Pedro but spoke in a funny way that none of the other people at work spoke.

“Please to roll up your sleeve.” He said.

“Why don’t you say ‘Please roll up your sleeve?’ I asked.

“This will be stinging a little my friend.” He said, without smiling.

I liked it when he called me “friend.”

I felt a stick and bit my cheek so I wouldn’t cry. He put a bandage on my arm and gave me a piece of candy.

“You were very brave my friend. Next?” He looked over my head and I went back to work. I noticed that my vial of blood wasn’t sticking in the little holder the right way but I was afraid to say anything.

Miss Susie was about to strap me in and I was thinking about hot dog night because I wanted it to be pizza night instead when one of the bosses, Mark, came on the van and told me I needed to come back.

“Why? I did my job good today!” I asked, a little scared.

“We just need you for a minute. You have an…important job to do for us.” He said.

I got my lunch box and followed him inside. I’d never gone into work after it was dark and wondered how I’d get home.

“How am I getting home?” I asked.

“We’ll have someone pick you up.” He said while writing on a clipboard.

“What do you need me for?” I asked.

He didn’t say anything and used a big ring of keys to open the staff door. We weren’t allowed in the staff room. It was small. They only had a coffee machine and a couple of little refrigerators.

The dark-skinned nurse was waiting with his stuff and smiled when he saw me.

“Hello my little friend. I am sorry to say that I dropped your blood sample and we have to draw it again. Do you mind?” He motioned for me to sit down in the little chair with the armrest. I hated Thursdays even more now.

He took a long time finding the place to stick the needle but I didn’t even have to bite my cheek when he did because it hurt less than the other arm did.

“Ok my friend. You are all set and I again, apologize for any discomfort you may have felt. May the God’s bless you, my little friend. Mark, you should take him out to dinner for making me impale him twice.”

“I’ve got a date and three’s a crowd. You’re a man of the world Jim, you’ll understand.” Mark said that but I think he was making fun of me. The bosses weren’t supposed to make fun of us. There was a list of rights we had that was posted in the lunchroom and everyone was supposed to respect us.

The dark skinned doctor looked at Mark and shook his head with a frown.

Mark said, “Jeez, you guys have no sense of humor. Ok, Jim, for being so brave and having to miss your bus you can have these.”

Mark went into his coat pocket and gave me a box of candy and a pen that lighted up when you pushed a button on its side. The pen was the best thing anyone had ever given to me and I hid it in my deepest pocket.

He smiled and said, “Let’s get you a ride home.”

We walked upstairs through the part of work I’d never been through before. There were lots of doctor offices and places scientists worked. Rows and rows of bottles and glass tubes were on shelves. Machines that were spinning and things that looked like ovens made of shiny silver lined the walls. I wanted to look at everything but he was walking too fast and talking on his phone in a language I didn’t understand. There were people working there in white coats, doctors, who wore funny glasses and frowned at me as we walked through. A policeman stopped us and pointed at me.

“Hey, you can’t bring them back here. He’s not authorized. Do you have clearance for him?”  He asked.

“Relax Jerry, he had to have his blood drawn again because I dropped his sample. He didn’t see anything restricted.” Mark made a motion with his hand to his head when he said this and the policeman nodded.

“Oh, ok. I guess we can let you go this time. Move along.” The policeman motioned for us to move. I thought I saw him wink at Mark.

We went down another set of stairs and into a parking garage that you couldn’t see from the front of the building where we worked. I never knew it was there. I never knew the lab was there either. I was getting hungry for hot dogs.

“Ok pal here you go. Ching Lan will take you back to the house.” He opened the door of the most reddest car I’d ever seen and I got in.

The girl, Ching Lan, was sitting in the driver’s seat with a red leather jacket and mirrored sunglasses. She smiled at me and said, “Do you like fast cars because this is a really fast car.”

She was pretty and I couldn’t talk right when I was around pretty girls. She revved the engine and it was the loudest sound I’d ever heard. Ching Lan leaned over and pulled my strap tighter and said, “Hang on partner! My Name is Ching Lan and I like driving fast. Don’t throw up!”

The ride home was the best and fastest thing that had ever happened to me, even better than the pen Mark gave me, better than winning bingo three times last month, better than new clothes day when Miss Janet took us to the supply house. Ching Lan drove just like a racecar driver and I was pinned to the seat just like on the rides at Fun World where we went four summers ago. Ching Lan turned the radio up until I thought my ears would burst and she sang along with the song on the radio in that funny language I didn’t understand.         

“Are you hungry?” She yelled.

“Hot dog night,” I said. She laughed.

Ching Lan said something in her funny language and turned the car so fast I thought we would flip over. She yelled into her phone and looked at me and winked.

“Do you like Chinese food, I mean, REAL Chinese Food, not that fried crap they serve for Westerners?” She asked.

“Yes?” I said, not sure if that was the right answer.

She laughed then yelled into the phone a little more.

“Great! My family owns the best one in town and I’m hungry too. Don’t worry, I called your prison and told them I’d paroled you for the night. Your little wardens weren’t too thrilled though. What bitches they are! They don’t let you out much do they?”

I didn’t understand anything she said except we were going to eat Chinese food. Ching Lan turned the radio back up and sang along and I pretended that I was driving the car. My hands were in front of me turning the wheel and I pushed my feet like she did. All of a sudden we stopped and I couldn’t believe where we were, the Emperor’s Palace!

“Come on, I’ve got a table in the back.” Ching Lan undid my strap, leaned over and pushed the door open for me.

Inside it was better than the best Kung fu movie I’d ever seen. There were dragon statues and black shiny furniture with Chinese writing on it. The Emperor’s servants all wore the same palace uniform. Ching Lan sat down in the back and spoke to one of the servants who laughed and brought out little bowls filled with all kinds of foods I’d never seen before. Kate told me what each one was and I had a bite of each kind. At the end of the meal they brought us little bath towels that were hot to wash our hands with. It was much better than hot dog night.

“Did you like it?” Ching Lan asked.

“Thank you. It was good. It was the best meal I ever had. I feel so happy!” I said and looked at her face.

Ching Lan looked at me and smiled but her eyes looked sad, like when the hero at the end of the Kung fu movie has to leave even though he wants to stay in the village. She picked up little rice balls with her chop sticks and popped them into her mouth and sipped some tea. One of the servants came over and said something to her and a minute later a woman came out from the back. She had white hair like snow and smiled at us. She was the oldest person I’d ever seen but her eyes were almost glowing. Ching Lan hugged her but I stood up and did my best bow because she might have been the Emperor’s wife. I didn’t think of it before but Ching Lan was Chinese. Maybe she was the Emperor’s daughter? The old woman pointed to my seat and I sat down. The Emperor’s wife spoke to Ching Lan who rolled her eyes and said something back but the old woman smiled and pointed for her to sit down too.

The Emperor’s wife spoke to Ching Lan for a minute then she said, “Jim…it’s Jim right? This is my grandmother An, but everyone calls her “Grace”. She’s going to tell you a story. I’ll translate if she gets stuck, ok?”

Ching Lan sat back and the old woman told me a story about a woman and a dragon. Sometimes Ching Lan had to tell the woman a word in English that she didn’t know so the story was broken up, but I could understand it even better than Kung fu movies. There was this city we were all supposed to go to someday and everything would be better. There was a lot I didn’t understand but I knew that I was invited to the city. After the story was over the Emperor’s wife put her hands on my head and spoke in Chinese with her eyes closed for a few minutes. I didn’t know what to do so I just stayed real quiet. I felt peaceful when she was talking and I didn’t want it to ever end. The Emperor’s Wife stood up and I stood up and bowed to her again. Then she kissed Ching Lan and then smiled and left. Ching Lan wiped tears away and sighed.

“I need to pee Ching Lan. Is there a bathroom?” I asked.

She showed me where the bathroom was. It had black toilets with gold metal parts. I wondered if her family lived here all the time.

Ching Lan drove a lot slower on the ride to the group home and she didn’t turn on the radio but talked to me the whole way home.

“So Jim, my grandmother likes you. She even prayed for you. She prays for everyone though. She’s a good woman. I wish I were more like her. She says I’m too worldly but who cares? You only live once, right? She told me to give this to you. I think it’s silly but you know how old people are.”

Ching Lan gave me a little book. It was heavy and all the words had little numbers or letters next to them. I couldn’t read but there were a few pictures, maps, in the back.

“Thank you.” I said.

“Don’t thank me. It wasn’t my idea. I’m just glad I got to do one good thing for you before you are um…too old to enjoy it.” She pulled into the driveway where Miss Janet and Miss Karen usually parked and undid my straps. “Goodbye Jim. I’m going back to China for grad school in a month and I’ll probably never see you again. Don’t forget about me. I won’t forget about you. Have someone read the book to you. The stories are good. They might even be true.”

Ching Lan leaned over and kissed me on my lips like the village girl kissed the ninja at the end of “Blood, Sword, Revenge!” I couldn’t believe she kissed me.

“Thank you for the ride and the food.” I said.

Before I went in the house I hid the book in my jacket and put it in the secret hole at the back of Bobby’s closet with the pen and some throwing stars I got from one of the volunteer helpers who had to go to jail.

Miss Karen and Miss Janet asked me who brought me home and I said someone from work. I didn’t tell them about Mark’s pen, Ching Lan’s racing car ride, the Emperor’s wife, or the book she gave me. I wanted to tell them but my mouth wouldn’t work right.

“You must be tired. Why don’t you brush your teeth, wash your face and go to bed?” Said Miss Karen.

“Good night.” I said.

When I got to the top of the stairs I saw them watching me and whispering to each other.

For a few weeks nothing happened. Then one day when I was at work two policemen and a doctor came to get me while I was washing my hands in the bathroom.

“Your blood test came back positive. You’re going to a special hospital where you’ll be taken care of until you’re better.” Said the doctor.

“Am I going to the farm?” I asked.

“Yes. You’re going to the farm.” He said.

He was helping me take my clothes off and gave me a one-piece pajama suite that was blue and made of paper.

“I need to get my toothbrush from home.” I said.

“They’ll have one for you there. Don’t worry, they have everything you’ll ever need at the hospital. It’s more like a country club. Do you know what that is?” Asked the doctor.

“No.” I said.

The policemen and the doctor led me to a van that was parked behind the building. There were funny chairs inside and I had to put extra straps on my wrists and ankles.

“These are so you don’t fall out because the roads are very bumpy.” Said the doctor.

“The straps hurt.” I said.

The doctor put a pair of dark sunglasses on my face.

“I can’t see anything.” I said.

“You don’t have anything worth looking at. Just be quiet and enjoy the ride. You’ll be there in an hour and all your troubles will be over.” Said the doctor.

My legs felt numb and I didn’t like what was happening. How could my blood be bad? Was it Thursday?

I heard the doctor leave and come back two more times with other people but couldn’t see who it was. Finally, the van moved and we drove for a long time. I peed myself because no one would come when I yelled that I needed the bathroom. All the pee went down my leg and into the seat and feet of my paper suit. It smelled bad and I wanted to cry but the pills they gave us at home made us not want to laugh or cry too much.

Some of the others on the van started yelling and calling out for people who took care of them but no one came for long time.

The doctor came around with a water bottle and squirted some into my mouth until I couldn’t drink any more.

“I peed myself.” I told him.

He didn’t say anything and moved to squirt water at the next person. I heard the doctor talking to one of the policeman. One of them said the word “procedure” which is what we were supposed to do at our jobs. One of them said something like “…blood is the best and kidney’s too.” I didn’t know what kidneys were but I wasn’t a kid and my knees only hurt when I went up the stairs two at a time.

A scary feeling was happening in my belly and chest. Someone was crying. My pee smelled bad and someone made poops. That smelled bad too. Miss Janet always told me to think about my Kung fu stories when I was scared.

My imagination made pictures of me dressed in my ninja uniform. Sometimes I wore my black pajamas and put a black sock over my face to pretend I was a ninja, but only when no one was looking.

Ninja Jim was surrounded by Python’s evil ninjas. He used his exploding juice box to knock out three of them. Iron nun chucks bashed the head of two more and they went to sleep on the ground. A special assassin ninja had his sword out and Ninja Jim took out his secret Cobra Sword. The Cobra Sword was his master’s and he gave it to Jim before he was betrayed and killed by Vader, an evil ninja with mind control powers.

The van crashed. Glass from the window next to me went everywhere and cut my face.

The front of a car was sticking into of the front of the van and the driver was pinned between the front of the car and the back of his seat. Someone was screaming from the front of the van for us to come out. Miss Janet and Miss Karen pulled the side door open and they checked the people in the back first.

“I peed myself Miss Janet. I’m sorry. Can we go home now?” I said.

“Are you ok Jim?” She asked.

“My head hurts.” I tried to wipe the blood away from my face with my sleeve but it wouldn’t reach.

Miss Janet took a big knife from her leather bag and cut away my seat belts.

“Can you walk?” She asked.

“Yes. Where are we going?” I had to yell because someone was still screaming.

“Go wait outside with Karen. We’re going someplace safer. It’s going to be ok Jim.” She pushed my shoulder and I walked outside.

“Miss Karen, I’m bleeding. Can I have a napkin?” I threw up after I said that. Miss Karen gave me a little water bottle and I washed my mouth out.

“We have to get you out of here. Go wait by the cars. Be brave, ok?” She said.

I walked over to the cars she pointed at. Other people who I knew from work came out of the van and started walking to me. Some of them were bleeding like me and some were crying or screaming. I covered my ears with my hands so that I wouldn’t have to hear them. Then I had to pee again. As fast as I could I ran into the woods, opened the front of the little paper suit and let my thing out to pee, then zipped up and put my hands over my ears again. I felt better after peeing and turned around to see what was happening.

Miss Karen and Miss Janet were walking towards the cars and some of the others from the van were throwing up or screaming. Miss Janet motioned to me to take my hands off my ears. I took my hands off my head and then saw and heard the cement truck roaring towards everyone. The cement truck smashed into the cars and van and people. One of the cars smashed into the tree I was standing next to. I threw my hands over my head and they protected my head from a branch crushing me, but the tree pushed out down on me hard and it hurt a lot. I fell asleep for a few minutes.

Something was on fire. I could smell it. The cars and cement truck and van were all burning now. Everyone was dead, except me. It was nice and warm by the fire but the smoke smelled bad. I moved in the direction the smoke wasn’t blowing. Miss Janet, Miss Karen, and the others from the van, cars, and truck were spread out all over the road, dead. Two people from the cement truck that hit them were glowing from the fire and I wondered why they were such bad drivers. My mouth was dry and the blood from my face was drying in the corner of my eyes. I fell asleep again.

Ninja Jim used his white, healing powder to make his cuts go away. His dirty clothes came clean when he swam through the river.

My back was against a big tree and the sun was starting to come up. The van, truck, and cars weren’t burning anymore. The dead people were still there.

Ninja Jim snuck up behind Evil Vader with his Cobra Sword ready to chop off his head.

The sun was way up in the sky.

“Hello? My name is Jim.” I yelled.

I got up slowly. My back and legs ached. There were some clothes spilling out of a suitcase on the road so I went over and took what I needed. The pants were too short but the shirt fit ok. The best thing was the leather jacket. It was like an evil ninja would wear and it had little metal pieces on it that spelled out someone’s name on the back. I put it on and looked at myself in the only window of the truck that wasn’t broken. A few water bottles were on the road from the van so I took three and a few candy bars from someone’s lunch.

I walked over to Miss Karen and Miss Janet. “I’m sorry you’re dead. You were nice to me. I love you.” I said to Miss Karen and Miss Janet. Their faces were scraped and bruised but their eyes were closed and they looked like they were sleeping. I kissed them both on the cheek and looked around. I didn’t know where I was or how to get back. I started walking towards the woods.

I walked, ate candy bars, and drank water until it was dark again. I found a place to lie down on pine needles. The leather jacket was warm and big, like a sleeping bag. Before I fell asleep I was imagining my story.

Ninja Jim stole a motorcycle and drove up the side of a mountain. He used exploding juice boxes to kill the evil einjas and when he got to the top he found a cabin. There was a man in front of the cabin next to a tree that had been cut down to make wood for a fire he was cooking fish on. Ninja Jim watched the man’s lips move but no sound came out. Jim knew that the man had something important to say but the sound wasn’t reaching his ears.

The next day I woke up, drank the last of my water, and walked up a big hill. It wasn’t a mountain, but there was a man there, standing in front of a log cabin, like on the syrup bottle. He wore a brown jacket and was standing on the porch with an axe in his hand. There was a stump of a tree in his front yard. I think he used the axe to cut the tree and used the wood to make a fire on a grill in front of his cabin. It was in my dream but it was real now.

“I’ve been expecting you Jim. Would you like to have breakfast with me?” He asked.

“Hi, I’m thirsty and hungry. Everyone from the van is dead. Am I in trouble?”

“No Jim, you’re not in trouble. Sit down. I have some fish I caught this morning before you came. Here’s some bread and grape jelly. The water is from a clear spring and the bacon is from the farmer next door who is a friend of mine.” He pulled out a chair in front of a red picnic table like he was a waiter at a fancy restaurant.

“Thank you. I like everything.” The plate of food was hot and the man gave me a knife and fork. The backs of his hands had marks on them.

“Were you in a car accident too?” I asked.

“No, I wasn’t. Eat up Jim, we have a lot to do.” He went away into his cabin and let me eat alone. I didn’t want him to go. I liked him.

After I was done eating I sat back in the chair and watched the clouds for a while. My hands and face still had blood on them. The man came back and started a fire under a big metal tub filled with water.

“Are you making soup?” I said.

“No, is a bath for you. You’ve got blood and dirt all over.” He poured some white powder soap into the tub and stirred it with his hand.

“What about the people in the van and the truck?” I put my hand in the water to see if it was warm enough yet.

“Miss Karen and Miss Janet brought you to me, although I don’t think they understood that this is the way I meant to find you.” He smiled and chuckled. “They’re home now and quite happy. I can tell you that!”

After the bath he brought me a towel and some new clothes then we sat down on the porch and he told me lots of stories. Some of the stories were like the ones Miss Karen and Miss Janet read to me. As he spoke something happened to my mind. Words that I didn’t understand became comprehensible to me. Even the word “comprehensible” was one I would never have used or understood before. My mind was a mountain shrouded with snow, upon whose heights summer had broken. Every thought and word was a blade of green grass on a carpet of knowledge, every new concept the bud of an apple blossom in an orchard of understanding. Not only was my mind changing but my body was becoming the body I would have been born with if a chromosomal error hadn’t caused me to live a life as a man with Down’s Syndrome. After he told me the last story, about the raging of the sea, the water becoming bitter, and all of the horrors that awaited this world in the years to come, he asked me a simple question.

“Will you follow me?” He asked.

I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I could walk away and he would not love me any less than he did the moment before. But how could I walk away from him, the one who made me, who made me world?

“I will follow you.” I said, kneeling before him.

He put his hands on my head and breathed on me and his breath smelled like the lilacs in spring.

“It will not be easy James. You won’t have exploding juice boxes, iron nun chucks, or cobra swords to fight with. I am not granting you magical powers or super strength. You will not see me with your eyes like this again until you come home to me or I come back here. I have given you a healthy mind and body.” He said.

“Thank you!” I said.

“You’re very welcome. Now you must go. I will be with you James.” He vanished at the same moment the cabin, the bathtub, the grill and everything else that had been there.

“Goodbye!” I yelled and waved up towards the clouds.

As I walked down the small mountain I imagined what I could do with my life.

James goes to law school and works to protect the rights of people who were slaves because of their genetic markers.

Two deer bolted away from me as I came around a bend in a stand of pines.

James graduates from seminary and starts a mission in New Haven for prostitutes, drug addicts, and the homeless.

Up ahead I could see the stretch of road where the accident was.

James owns a business that allows single parents to be home for their children when they’re not in school.

Police cars and some black sedans with Company markings were parked on the side of the road. A refrigerated coroner’s van had its back door open and technicians were loading glossy black body bags into it. I walked up to the first officer I saw. She was my height and had blond hair like Susie O’Brien who drove the van for the group home.

“Officer, excuse me, but I saw the entire incident.” I said.

“Ok, I’m Officer McDougal what’s your name and can you tell me what happened?” She asked, getting out a pen and pad of paper.

“My name is James. I believe that the men in the van were illegally transporting mentally impaired workers from a factory owned by their company for the purpose of harvesting their organs. I know that it sounds far-fetched but if you check the back of the van you’ll find clothes, personal effects, and lots of medical records of the people wearing the blue paper jump suits. You will also find the medical records of other people who have disappeared while in the care of the Company.” She scribbled some notes on her pad.

“We found a few boxes of medical records. How do you know all this?” She asked.

James works as a carpenter. He marries Kate McDougal and have four children. They adopt children no one else takes, loving kids no one considered worthy of life.

“My name is James Roberts and if you’ll give me the time I can tell about their entire operation, Officer McDougal.” I said.

“Let’s sit down over there while I take your statement. I’m officer McDougal, but you can call me Kate.” She said with a smile.

The End