The Digger's Rest (11 page)

Simon watched through the cab window at how
effortlessly Mitch seemed to move. Unlike himself, saddled with a
short leg and a heavy brace, Mitch had an athletic quality and
easily dodged through the passer bys. He watched excitedly as the
booth man and Mitch exchanged cash for an envelope and Mitch came
trotting back to the cab, “Done!”

Next Mitch had the cabbie drop them off on
Old Compton Street at the edge of the theater district. They walked
a few blocks before Mitch stopped in front of a homey, cramped
looking little restaurant called The Stock Pot, then walked in. The
manager saw him immediately and smiled, “Long time no see, Dr.
Bramson. What’s it been, a year?”

“
At least, but it seems like a
lifetime,” he said smiling, taking the manager’s hand and shaking
it firmly. “Think you could have a table for us, Eddie? We’re kind
of in a hurry this time. Theater tickets, you know,” he
said.

“
Yes, of course, Dr. Bramson. I’ll have
a corner booth for you in just a minute. Consider yourself bumped
up,” Eddie said smiling and pointing to the bar. “Just give me a
minute.”

Mitch and Simon worked their way through the
line and the crowded space to the bar. While Mitch ordered drinks,
a Coke for Simon after his recent hangover, Simon took the time to
absorb all his eyes could see of everything around him, the hustle
and bustle of what seemed to be an endless array of tall blonde
waitresses rushing around, serving customers and speaking to each
other in what sounded like to him to be Polish.

When he brought his attention back around to
the front of the bar, he saw row after row of unframed signed 8x10
glossy photographs tacked to the wall, celebrities who apparently
favored the place. What he didn’t expect to see there was the
signed cover of Time Magazine with the caption, “Dr. Bramson’s
Bayeux” among them. He understood then, even if only for a fleeting
second, what it must be like to be Mitch, and in that moment Simon
Holly from the Holy Family Foster Home felt like he stood just a
little bit taller.

Once they were seated and the waitress
came over to them, Mitch ordered his usual, country pate for a
starter and Frutti Di Mare for his entrée, then he looked at Simon.
“So what’ll you have?” Simon’s head reeled, Wow! Pate? Frutti Di
Mare? He had no idea what that was.
What do
I do?
flashed through his head.

Mitch picked up on it like he could read his
mind, although his eyes that did all the telling, and he handled
it. “My friend will have the smoked mackerel to start, pot roast
with mash and root vegetables. I’ll have another beer and he’ll
have another Coke. We’ll finish with cheese and biscuits and…an
apple crumble and a custard tart. Oh, and, Miss, if we could have a
few extra small plates, please,” Mitch said.

The waitress smiled and nodded as she took
down the order in short hand, “Ja.”

When she was gone, he shook his head and
smiled at Simon, “Don’t worry. I got some of everything and the
extra plates are so you can test all of it. I never want you to
forget this trip, Simon. It’s going to be your introduction to the
world,” Mitch said, a replay of Simon’s words from the night before
echoing though his mind.

“
Oh, I don’t think there’ll much of a
chance of that,” Simon said smiling back brightly, and
blushing.

The meal was a resounding success. Simon
found out that he liked both the pate and smoked mackerel, loved
the pot roast and would definitely give that Frutti whatever
another try. Feeling on the verge of full, he passed on the cheese
so he would be sure to have room the desserts. He couldn’t decide
which he liked best, the crumble or the tart, so Mitch let him eat
all of both of them and ordered himself another beer. Then it was
on to the theater.

The walk of the four or five blocks to the
theater refreshed them both and they took their time, the benefit
of immediate seating for dinner. They strolled along, leisurely
taking in the sights of the theater district until they came to
their marquee.

The similarity between the big eyes of the
figure in the poster and Simon’s didn’t dawn on Mitch at the time
but would be unmistakable later.

Simon was fascinated by the posters and the
lights outside, getting more and more excited with each step as
they went in. His mouth dropped open when he saw the sumptuous art
nouveau carvings and plaster work, gilt cherubs adorning the entire
outline of the stage, shimmering in the glow from an enormous
crystal chandelier, dangling with what seemed to be hundreds of
intricately bowed teardrop crystals.

Around the chandelier, the rest of the
ceiling was divided into quarters by more gilt cherubs, each
quarter panel containing a gloriously drawn and executed tempera
mural of a seminal scene from Greek mythology. He recognized all of
them: Orpheus descending into Hades to rescue Eurydice; Icarus
flying into the sun; Medea lamenting her dead children with the
bloody dagger still in her hand; and Echo pining away for Cupid
among the flora and fauna of some mystical forest.

He was only pulled back to the
twenty-first century by the sound of Mitch’s voice laughing as they
arrived at their seats. “Hey, you’re gonna get a stiff neck that
way,” he said, handing him a program and pointing to their seats.
They were twelfth row center on the aisle. The best seats in the
house made easy since it the show was over twenty years old; a
perfect position for a panoramic musical like
Les Miz.

When the curtain went up, Mitch looked at
Simon who all of a sudden seemed to turn into a child again. His
eyes went wide when he saw the sets and his mouth fell open again
when the overture started and the cast began to take the stage. At
first Mitch felt the satisfaction he usually got with a job well
done, but it was somehow mixed with a nagging reservation of…what?
The impact of seeing Simon turn into a child again brought him back
to that snowy day at Holy Family. It worried him, reminding him
that Simon hadn’t had the benefit of an ordinary childhood, far
from it.

Everything seemed to be going well at first.
They both were enthralled by the compelling story of injustice, the
scope of the visual staging of pre-revolutionary France and most of
all the sweeping beauty of the music. Then Eponine, the orphaned
waif from the poster, took the stage for the show-stopping musical
number, “On My Own.” The girl who sang the role had an incredible
soaring voice that raised the rafters of that theater.

“
And now I'm all alone
again. Nowhere to turn, no one to go to. Without a home, without a
friend, without a face to say hello to. But now the night is near.
And I can make-believe he's here.”

Halfway through the song, Mitch felt a slight
trembling and heard muffled sounds next to him. He turned his head
to find Simon shaking, huge droplets falling from his eyes,
streaming down his face, his chest heaving with restrained
sobs.

“
All my life I've only been
pretending. Without me, his world will go on turning. The world is
full of happiness that I have never known.”

In that moment Mitch knew he’d made a
terrible mistake. As he looked at that heartbroken, sobbing boy,
the horrible know-ledge of Simon’s unforgivable childhood came
rushing back to him with the same intensity he had felt when he
first found him. He could feel Simon’s pain reflected in his own,
like a mirror held up to both their pasts. He must have looked just
like him that day at his mother’s funeral when Jack showed up.
Somewhere in the back of his mind his conscience spoke to
him,
Do not let him suffer, Mitchell. Do
something! But what?
he asked his conscience—and it
came to him. He thought about Jack. How he’d come to him at the
funeral home that day and held him close while he cried his heart
out on his shoulder. How his kind voice comforted him, his strong
arms making him feel safe and secure; reassuring him that he wasn’t
alone, and he acted on it.

He reached over and took Simon’s trembling
hand, holding it tightly, wiping his own eyes with his other until
the song was over and the scene had changed.

“
But only on my
own
…”

When the final curtain came down, they both
leapt to their feet, clapping and wiping what was left of the
dampness from their faces; Simon with an almost rapturous look on
his.

Out in the lobby afterwards, Simon excused
himself with his usual politeness and went to the men’s room to
wash his face, giving Mitch the time he needed to think of
something to say. Back a few minutes later, Simon looked better,
composed and… refreshed, having let his demons out of their cage,
at least until the next time.

“
I’m sorry, Simon. Maybe we should’ve
seen ‘Guys and Dolls’ instead. I wasn’t thinking…” Mitch said,
feeling guilty for having taken the kid on such an emotionally
charged rollercoaster ride so unnecessarily. After all Simon had
been through in his life before he’d found him, he’d rather cut off
his own hand than hurt Simon or let him be hurt.

“
Oh, no! Please don’t be sorry, Dr.
Bramson. I’m not. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in
my whole life. I’ll never forget it as long as I live,” Simon said,
a poignancy in his voice Mitch had never heard before, making sure
Mitch saw that his eyes were clear to know that he meant it. Then
Simon pointed to the concession stand to change the subject. “Can
I?”

Satisfied for the moment that maybe he’d done
a good thing after all, Mitch nodded and followed him. “We’ll have
a CD, two tee shirts, one extra large, one large, a poster and a
coffee cup,” he said, pushing out a fifty pound note over Simon’s
shoulder and taking the bag. “Don’t worry. English sizes run small
and they shrink,” he said as they headed out the door into the
street. “And now for something completely different…”

“
Huh? Simon asked.

“
You didn’t think we were going
straight back to the hotel, did you? Ooooooh noooooo!”

They grabbed another cab, Mitch telling the
driver, “The Tower tube station, please, driver.”

When they got out again at the tube station
across from the Tower of London, Simon saw a man dressed
dramatically in a cape and top hat standing on a box, waving around
pamphlets in his hand, surrounded by a group of people. Mitch
intentionally went ahead and handed the man some money. The man
handed him two pamphlets in return. Simon was only just approaching
the group by then. Mitch met him half way and handed him a
pamphlet. Simon looked at it in the glow of the lamp light. A chill
ran down his spine, “The Jack the Ripper Walking Tour,” and he
looked back up at Mitch, comic alarm written all over his face.

“
I told you it was something completely
different,” Mitch said, making his eyes look crazy and putting on a
sinister, devilish smile. “So…are you up for it?”

“
Oh, yeah, totally,” Simon answered
excitedly, thinking to himself,
I would not
have missed this ride for anything in the world.

As they did the walk, Mitch paid particular
attention to Simon’s reaction to the story teller, the tales and
the surroundings. It was a clear enough night after a short
Londonesque rain during the show that made the cobblestone streets
wet, and very dark. As he watched Simon’s eyes, he found they had
an ability in common, one he hadn’t noticed, or had no reason to
before.

When he was younger and first getting into
the historical art and archaeology field, he used to set his mind
to take him back to wherever it was he wanted to experience. Part
intellect, part imagination and part visualization, he could block
out modern world stimuli and realistically reconstruct whatever
period he was experiencing whether it was Renaissance Italy or
Ancient Egypt, the Court of Charlemagne or the world of El Cid.

He could imagine the sights and smells, the
manner of dress and the language. There were times he even thought
he could get into their minds, their thought patterns and processes
based on the knowledge available to them at the time. Many times he
could feel their superstition and their ignorance of science to
uniquely understand why they acted the way they did, most times in
ways that horrified the modern mind; the source of plagues and the
burning times of witches, the worshipping of many gods and the
sacrificing to them. He was seeing it in Simon’s eyes then, as they
walked through the wet cobblestone streets of Old London, his eyes
wide and wandering, taking in everything he could grasp,
synthesizing it into forms and language, dress and economics.

He was visualizing and understanding how the
squalor of Victorian London forced women who wanted to live
respectable lives into doing things they wouldn’t have ordinarily
done in order to feed themselves. He was visualizing and
understanding that there was no such thing as birth control or
condoms and that these women lived their lives in danger of
brutality and disease every day, finding no other solace than in
the cheap gin that took them away from it all for a short time, and
he understood the violence. That was when it dawned on Mitch that
he’d made another huge mistake in taking Simon there. He had
momentarily forgotten that Simon knew that world all too well,
first hand, and would carry the scars of it with him for the rest
of his life. But unlike his reaction to the show, Simon’s reaction
to the Ripper Walk was one of fascination, hesitating in his
analysis only when the speaker described the neighborhood church as
‘The Prostitute’s Church’ because they were known to stroll around
it looking for trade.