"Yabba Dabba Doo!"

From time to time, a kid or two would really bond with me and seek me out for special attention during the times I worked my shift. Brady Fletcher was one of these kids.

Brady was a cute little eight-year-old I couldn't help but take under my wing, despite my professional obligation to maintain certain boundaries. I couldn't help but shower this child with special attention—but not because I went out of my way to do so; it was because he went out of his way to seek my attention in predominantly appropriate ways; so, I was more than eager to oblige and reward and reinforce his positively expressed requests.

Brady was a somewhat chubby square-shaped child—sort of like a real-life Sponge Bob—who had the gross motor skills of a hippopotamus. Watching him run was a spectacle. He ran laboriously slow and threw his whole body into each stride in some kind of bizarre way I could never really put my finger on. It was as if he flung his arms and legs on the same side forward and backward at the same time—or something like that—in contrast to the normal human running style of flinging opposing arms and legs. Whatever it was that Brady did, it just looked completely awkward and wrong.

But this lack or coordination was part of what made Brady so endearing. He was like a three-legged pet that was all the more cute and precious because he didn't have all the polished faculties others of his species did. He was like the runt of the litter, the creature you take home and love with all your might because of the pity you feel for it and because of how adorable its shortcomings make it.

***

Brady's eccentricities didn't stop at the physical coordination of his limbs, however. One day, Lara and I were sitting just outside the semi-circle of kids engaged in a therapeutic group, and we both independently looked at Brady at the same time.

"What the—did you see that?" Lara fired at me in a sharp whisper.

"Holy crap, I sure did," I quietly shot back.

"Oh my god!"

What got us in such a frenzy was a crazy sight (literally?). When we both looked at Brady, here is what we saw: His head was cocked in our direction, and each of his eyes gazed off in a divergent path, as if he were a chameleon surveying completely unrelated areas of his environment. He held this improbable pose for a few moments.

Seeing this act of ocular gymnastics just really blew our minds, and Lara and I turned to each other for corroboration that the other indeed witnessed this freakish act of nature. We both in fact did.

Some time later, Brady had surgery on his eyes, apparently to repair a pair of lazy eyes or something of that nature. So his aberrant optical fluctuation was technically a symptom of his diagnosed condition. But I've seen lazy eyes before, and this crazy display was more than just lazy eyes: I guess you could describe it as a pair of eyes so-lazy-they're-downright-catatonic due to their extreme juxtaposition with anything straight and level in the world.

***

I recall Brady often getting shampoo in his eyes in the shower.

"Mr. Dave!" he would cry out.

So, I would have to go into the boys bathroom and check on Brady.

"Mr. Dave, I got shampoo in my eyes, and it hurts."

I would then have to coach Brady into letting the shower spray wash out his eyes.

"Ouch! ... Owww! ... It hurts! ... I can't open my eyes! ... Owww!"

But I would eventually convince him to open his eyes just long enough to get the shampoo out of his eyes, in spite of his protests that "it hurts!"

"Yeah, my eyes feel better now."

... But I would have to go back into the bathroom a few minutes later.

"Mr. Dave!"

"What do you need now, Brady?"

"I can't get my shirt on!"

When I'd check on Brady, I'd usually find that the crown of his head was stuck in the neck of the shirt. Oftentimes, the shirt would be backwards and inside-out. And sometimes a sleeve would be rolled up inward and his arm stuck in the twisted sleeve logjam.

When he finally got all of his clothes on, oftentimes his shirt would be tucked into his underwear, his pants twisted sideways, zipper undone, and his socks a pair of floppy messes on his feet. His dressing adventure might have been a little less cumbersome had he dried himself off sufficiently after exiting the shower. The water on his body made his clothes cling to his skin, accentuating his lack of gross motor coordination and further hampering his already deficient ability to pull up or unroll his clothes to their proper state.

With my help, however, we'd usually figure things out.

***

Bedtime was also a "special" time with Brady. He consistently asked for the "burrito tuck" at this hour of slumber. This special tuck consisted of laying him on the side of his covers and then rolling him across his covers like—what else—the contents of a burrito in its outer wrap.

He would be wrapped so tightly he couldn't move. But he loved this way of being tucked into bed. Within moments his eyes would roll into the back of his head.

"Good night, Mr. Dave," he'd drowsily mumble.

"Good night, Brady."

***

Once, Brady described to Lara and I the time that he had "sex" with the babysitter, apparently a young girl not much older than he was. We were all-ears, anticipating some horrid story of sexual molestation that we would have to painfully recount in documentation and verbally to our supervisor. But instead of describing some awful, corrupt encounter, what he told us was almost innocent.

"We took our clothes off and then jumped off the bed," Brady said.

When we asked him to elaborate, he asserted that jumping off the bed was what they indeed did. Whether there was more to interpret from this story, I don't know. Brady was adamant that he had "sex" by being naked and jumping off the bed. Could have been more to it—or not. We simply reported what we were told.

And had a laugh at Brady's apparent innocent naivety.

***

We knew that Brady was exposed to far worse, however. We knew this by observing Brady's behavior one day when he was in really bad space.

What set him off, I don't recall. He was in the Special Care room manically misbehaving, triggered earlier by something and now being oppositional and verbally aggressive toward us. While in Special Care, he also belied a past exposure to sexual acts inappropriate to a minor by making these assertions:

- He said he had watched pornographic movies that his mother owned while she left Brady and a young sibling alone in the house for significant lengths of time. While this claim in itself was not enough to convince me unequivocally that Brady was telling the truth about these events, what he did next proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was exposed to inappropriate sexual acts.

- He then talked about putting shaving cream on his nipples, then took off his shirt and began to lick his own nipples. Seeing this act disgusted me, and in another sense hurt me to see an eight-year-old aware of this kind of lewdness, and in yet another sense enraged me to know that someone exposed this poor, innocent child to such filthy awfulness.

I felt an overwhelming desire to exact retribution on the person who so corrupted this innocent child. The person responsible deserved a vehement berating as well as some "reflection time" behind bars.

***

On a brighter note, Brady spent a good ninety-five percent of the time I knew him engaged in the innocent behaviors of a naive child. Only when he was in the worst of space did he display such a disturbing demeanor.

Moreover, in addition to Sponge Bob, the argument could be made that Brady looked a lot like a little Barney Rubble. He had the same square-shaped head with flat top and brown hair, and his body was likewise squarish and squat with chunky limbs and wide feet.

One day, I decided to play a trick on Brady—as well as my supervisor, Mr. Stewart, who bore a striking resemblance to Fred Flintstone and therefore also bore the nickname. I instructed Brady to walk up to Mr. Stewart and belch out, "Hi Fred, I'm Barney!" which Brady indeed did.

Without missing a beat, Mr. Stewart bent down toward Brady, and responded, "Yabba dabba doo!"

Impeccable.


********

© 2008 David Lee Cummings