May 30, 2006
Go West Young Bear
Chapter 1
“I know you just want to do what’s best for me dad, but I still don’t see how this is gonna help. I mean if the best doctors in New York can’t help me, how in the name of God is some pagan witch woman gonna do any better?”
To say that George O’Malley was not happy about the move was a huge understatement, he’d spent his whole life, albeit a rather short life of only ten years, growing up in the suburbs of New York. He’s used every argument a kid could use to persuade his father it was a bad idea. His school was here, his friends was here, but none of that mattered to his father.
“I understand that you don’t like the idea of moving George,” his father Jack O’Malley, a huge strapping Brown Bear, tried once more to reason with his son, “but all of these doctors have tried everything they can think of to try to find something, hell anything that can give you some relief from this problem and they’ve all failed to do anything but give us some answers about why you’re like this son.”
Jack had been trying to get George to understand his reasoning for the move from day one, with very little success. The boy didn’t seem to understand what was at stake, or if he did he refused to believe that as this progressed it could very well be his life that would be on the line. Like it or not of all the alternate healing methods he had been researching on the Internet this one held the best hope the boy had to have anything like a normal life.
“But I like it here dad, I don’t want to move off to the middle of nowhere, Jesus H loving Christ what am I supposed to do in the woods huh, eat nuts and berries and talk to the trees?”
Why couldn’t dad just understand that he didn’t want to leave this town, he liked it here. His whole life as far as he could remember had been spent here in this town, in this house.
“Young man, we will not have this discussion again, we are moving to Winter Creek, and that’s the end of it. Now the movers will be done loading the furniture in 20 minutes, Dexter is going to make sure they get everything and take the keys to the real-estate agent tomorrow. Now get your ass down these stairs and get in the van now, DO NOT make me have to come up there and get you!”
“Yes sir.” He was defeated, no hope of getting his way on this. George stomped down the stairs and went through the empty first floor of the house he had grown up in, his toe claws tick ticking on the bare floors. His father met him at the stairs and escorted him to the garage and into the back of ‘the van’ as his dad called it. ‘More like the prison on wheels’ George thought as he climbed in the back door of the vehicle as his father handed him a backpack.
“Your MP3 player and earbuds, Nintendo DS and some games, and a few books and magazines the priestess suggests you read before you get there. Cooler’s stocked and there’s snacks for you in the basket up front. We won’t be stopping for several hours so relax and try to enjoy the ride son.” He tried to be jovial as he sealed his son once again into the specially modified cargo truck.
He loved his oldest son dearly, but this constant battle with the boy was wearing him down, and he didn’t know how much longer he could last. Jack walked to the drivers door and climbed into the seat, fastened his seat belt and headed out. This move had been a strain on the entire family, he and his wife had to gather the boys school records, medical records, everything they would need come fall to get at least one of their boys, hopefully both of them, enrolled into the school in their new hometown. Before they headed out Jack checked the carrying case that contained his laptop computer insuring he had the power adapter, cords and web camera that he would be needing later. All of the accessories accounted for he zipped the case shut laying it in the passengers seat. Everything ready he started the truck and headed out along the street his boys had grown up on, the first step of a very long trip to take his son to Colorado, and hopefully to freedom.. He drove for several hours, contemplating the many changes that his family had seen and endured over the last five years. The day George was born had been the happiest of his life, a joy that he felt again three years later when his youngest son Steve was born.
They were a happy family for a while. Until George turned seven, that was when the trouble began and their lives were turned upside down.
If anyone had told him life for his family could be turned inside out in a single day he would have thought they were crazy. The day had started hectically, birthday parties for seven year olds usually did, once the guests arrived accompanied by their parents the back yard turned into a living mass of hyperactive giggly young furs. Everything went well for the first few hours, then it all went wrong, horribly wrong in a matter of minutes. Even looking back on that day now, driving along I-80 towards their new home, he remembered just how quickly it had gone downhill...
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“Look Doc, I’m trying really hard to be understanding and patient, but after 12 hours you MUST have some idea of just what the hell is going on with my son. I don’t give a damn how bad it is just give it to me straight for christ's sake.” Jack O’Malley had been dealing with a small army of these people over the last half a day. Running on almost no sleep at all his patience was growing thin very quickly, he wanted answers no matter how bad the news may be.
“I’m truly sorry Mr. O’Malley, but we honestly don’t have a clue as to what his symptoms are, even less about what triggered the reactions and behaviors you described . What little we do know at this point is that George is, as far as examination and tests can confirm, a perfectly normal, healthy 7 year old boy. Nothing whatsoever to explain any of this is showing up in any test we’ve run so far. That’s partially why the psychologist is in there with the boy now. We can find no direct medical reason for this outburst you describe. We are trying to rule out any psychological causes for his actions,” the medico told him an apologetic look on his face.
The psychologists initial findings held no more answers than the medical tests. Days passed as his son was kept like an animal, strapped down, bound and trussed like a feral pig going to slaughter. Medicated nearly to the point of chemically induced coma just to keep him and everyone around him safe from his ‘outbursts’ as the medical professionals preferred to call them. Three long weeks passed as they ran every kind of medical and psychological test know to fur kind on his boy. When all else had failed miserably to provide even the slightest hint of what was wrong with the boy someone had a sudden brain fart and called in a geneticist on the slim chance that may provide a clue of any kind. Unbelievably it not only provided that clue, and several months later an answer, not a complete answer but an answer nonetheless. His son was the unlucky recipient of a mixed bag of genetic mutations that turned the young cubs life into a living hell. True looking at him he was a handsome normal looking cub. But inside he was a boiling, smoldering cauldron of ‘genetic malfunctions’ as they called his condition. Extremely heightened senses, early onset of a rapidly developing puberty, overactive sexual and mating drive. The boy was a ticking time bomb and there didn’t seems to be a fur on the planet that had any idea how to defuse him. Or if it was even possible to do so.
The worst of the problems from the incident, had been the legal proceedings. One of the other parents at the party that witnessed the attack had freaked and reported it to Child Protective Services before any kind of answers could be found. With his son restrained like a rabid feral animal, drugged into a constant stuper he’d been forced to endure days of the slow, grinding wheels of the legal system while his sons fate was decided. The states attorney of New York had pushed to have the youth incarcerated in a state run facility until such a time that he was deemed safe to return to society. There was not a single facility that was willing to take on the responsibility of such a potentially dangerous child of that age. Left with no other choice the judge released the boy back into the custody of his parents, but not without stipulations, many stipulations. Many more added by Child Protective Services as well, which strained Jacks sanity at times, but his son would be at home where he belonged. It had bought him time, for someone to find some way to allow his son to have a life.
Three long years of searching for anything that would help his son, his genetic abnormalities were far better understood true, but no one had any answers, or offered any kind of hope for the boy to ever have a life that wouldn’t include incarceration, every day of the rest of his life would be spent in one form of prison or another as it had for three long years. Six months ago, while researching alternative medicines and healing methods on the internet, he was approached in a chat room by a person claiming to have a possible solution for at least some of the boys suffering. He contacted the woman a few days later and after volumes of messages and information had been exchanged he began researching the claims this person made. The woman told him she was the high-priestess of a wiccan coven in Colorado. He learned that while it was a new age pagan religion, they did as she had said practice herbal and other holistic methods of healing. The meditation methods she had told him about did seem to have possibilities and he had begun researching them and teaching his son what he could about them. Over the past six months the buy had actually been able to gain enough control over himself that his mother could at last be within the same room with her son for short periods of time. Even that was a major success by comparison and reason enough for Jack to contact the woman again to learn more.
The conversation that followed had left the bear stunned, this woman on the other side of the country informed him that she thought she had an answer, it wasn’t some kind of miracle cure that would magically change the boy over night. But she assured him it may be the boys best hope for a far more normal life then he had. Several things that the boy would have to learn, meditation methods, herbal baths and other things that may combine to help him keep himself under control to some degree. Jack researched the area she said the town she lived in was located, Winter Creek Colorado. In itself the town offered quite a bit of hope for his son, being a smaller town located in a mountain valley removed from the giant throngs of people of big cities it was possible his son may not have to be confined in a room like he inhabited for three years. Calling it a room was being exceedingly generous about the true nature of where his son resided. A steel encased box, locked in by the near equivalent of a bank vault door without windows was not what any rational furson would call a room. Coming from old money, finances were never a problem for Jack, in no way hindering decisions concerning his sons happiness.
He and his wife Brenda had several discussions concerning a possible move to Colorado in order to attempt giving their afflicted son some kind of peace and happiness. Three weeks ago the Bengal Tigress had contacted him again, excitedly informing him there had been a new development in Winter Creek.
Another child, also born with genetic mutations had recently become a resident of the mountain town.
Other than being a distant niece of another resident of the town virtually nothing was known of the child’s background or history. When Jack asked how this had any bearing on the situation with his son the woman explained that this child, a female the same age as his son, would divulge nothing of her past. After many hours of interaction with the girl she discovered that the child had ‘abilities’ that may prove key in helping his son. Skeptical but intrigued he pressed her for further details, learning that the girl was very empathetic, able to feel and understand others deepest emotions, especially ones we hide from ourselves. She also seemed to be quite adept in lucid dreaming, astral projection, and transcendental meditation. Being a reasonably well educated and intelligent furson he had thought the woman was, to put it mildly off her rocker, but listened politely and held his tongue voicing his doubts in as nicely a manner as he could. She told him that the girl had requested the opportunity to prove to him that she could help his son and he reluctantly agreed, though he was only told that he would receive a package in a few days and to follow the instructions it contained.
Three days later the package arrived, much of it’s contents a mystery to him he nonetheless followed the instructions implicitly. Several small books and pamphlets included were to be given to his son to read over and he was to contact the tigress when the boy had read and understood the material. A few days later George informed him that he had read all of the material and understood what his part in this new experiment, what the boy would call anything the doctors threw at him in the way of tests, and he was willing to give it a try. That night Jack contacted the tigress again and it was agreed that the following night at eight p.m. local time he was to insure that the boy bathed using the items included in the package as directed and go to bed immediately after to complete his portion of the preparations. The woman would contact them the following evening, at six in the evening their time, and she wanted to speak to Jack and his son via video chat at that time. Skeptical that anything would happen he agreed, however being a protective father, and having a close friend that was a chemical engineer, he had the bottles and jars the boy was to use checked. His long time friend assured him they contained nothing more than bath salts, fur shampoo, an elixir, and incense, all formulated of naturally occurring ingredients, flower extracts, herbs, etc. Nothing that would pose any threat of harm to his son.
At the appointed time the boy took his bath following the instructions the woman had sent, settling himself into his bed immediately after, his father tucking him in and kissing him goodnight on the forehead. When he checked on his boy the next morning before starting his own day George had a strange look on his face. When he asked his son about the night before he answered, “I’m not supposed to tell you about it according to the tiger lady dad, but I can tell you that something strange did happen,” those were the only words the boy would say about it. That evening he went to his sons room and together they set up the video conference with the tigress, Jack O’Malley wasn’t prepared for what he heard and saw that night.
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Once the video conference connection was made Jack rolled the other office chair close to his sons desk and the two of them settled in. The white tigress came into view on the monitors screen after only a few moments.
“Good evening gentlemen, you I know Jack, am I to presume that this fine, handsome young man beside you is your son George?” the woman asked, an almost regal flourish in her speech..
“Yes, this is my son George Ms. Mittendorf, George this is Sharleen Mittendorf the woman I’ve been telling you about that thinks her group may be able to help you some,” Jack said making the introductions.
“Please call me Sharleen, Jack. George, a pleasure to finally meet you young man”, she said, a gentle smile on her maw.
“Nice to meet you too Ms. Sharleen ma’am,” George replied to her greeting.
“So Jack, has your son spilled the beans yet or has he kept you in the dark about his little adventure?” posing the question to the adult as she gazed at his son.
“The only thing he will say is that he’s not supposed to tell me about it but that something did happen, pretty cryptic for this little guy actually,” he said ruffling his sons head fur playfully.
“Okay then I see he followed my instructions as I asked. Now that you’ve had time to really think about what happened George, do you feel ready to tell your father about the experience?” she queried, that same soft smile still gracing her features.
“Yes ma’am, I’ve thought about it all day like you asked in your letter. I still don’t really understand it, or know what to think about it yet. But I would like to tell my dad about it if I can,” the boy said returning her smile.
“Then by all means do, begin whenever you’re ready dear. I only ask Jack that you let him speak freely and try to not interrupt him any more than absolutely necessary please.
George sat in his chair several long moments very still and quiet, as if recalling a memory that tried to elude him before he began to speak calmly and clearly.
“Well last night as I was trying to get to sleep I started trying to remember what going outside was like as you asked me to in the letter. It’s been a really long time since I’ve actually been outside, you know. What I do seem to kinda remember is fragments I guess you’d call it. Little pieces of a picture kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. So I think I drifted off to sleep, but kept seeing these pieces of pictures.”
“Well that’s where it got kinda weird, this picture came to mind, a whole picture not just pieces, but I didn’t recognize it. So I tried to see the pieces that I remembered again and the picture came back again. It happened four or five times so I finally just gave up and let it stay there. It looked kinda like that field out behind the house, all tall grass and a few trees in the distance. Then I noticed it was like I was floating over the top of the grass not walking through it. So I’m floating over the grass and I see this, like a hole in the grass kinda and I float over to it. When I looked down I saw, me just laying there with a goofy smile splattered all over my face. I looked happy but the weird thing was, I was naked.”
“Wait,” Jack said as he glanced over to his son, “You were laying in the grass naked, but you were happy?”
The tigress gave no indication other than to nod at Jack as he looked back to the screen.
“Yea, it was really weird. But then I heard this noise, kinda like someone was coming towards me and I saw myself jump up and look around but I couldn’t see anyone. So I lay back down in the grass and started smiling again. Then it was like I went back into my body cause I could feel myself laying in the grass and smiling. Then I heard the sound again but instead of getting up I just looked in the direction it came from, and this face came out of the grass, then the rest of the person right behind it. Dad It........it was a girl, mountain lion girl about my age maybe a little older and.......and.......and she was naked too.,” the boy sounded almost panicked as his head snapped to the side, staring into his fathers eyes.
Jacks and the priestess eyes went as wide as saucers at the revelation. Jack feared what was about to come next, as he glanced again at the screen before looking back into his sons face, patiently waiting for the boy to continue. George turned his head back towards the screen averting his gaze to stare at his paws, fidgeting in his seat, becoming somewhat embarrassed talking about this dream.
“And what happened next son?” Jack tentatively asked.
“She crawled over beside me and lay down with me and we hugged each other. We lay there like that for a little bit then we just, started kissing and hugging each other, that’s when I woke up. It was great dad, I didn’t freak out and run away, or try to hurt her. I just lay there with her like that, and it was great. I didn’t wake up screaming or sweaty, or anything really weird, just woke up with a smile on my face and felt, well happy.”
Ever since this mess began he’d been afraid of himself, even more afraid of what he could do to a girl, but this dream, it was fantastic. He had touched a girl, hugged her and even kissed her and hadn’t even thought of hurting her. He didn’t know what it meant but he liked it a lot anyway.
The woman looked from Jack to his son for several long moments before speaking, letting the boys father try to process what his son had just told him.
“George dear, I want you to try to remember the girl, can you do that for me please,” she asked the boy as he sat there almost in a daze.
“Yes ma’am I can try. Like I said she was about my age, nine maybe ten at the most, we were about the same height and she was really cute. She was a mountain lion, really pretty blonde hair about half way down her back I guess, real light colored, almost white fur on her chest and belly down to her, uhhhh girly parts, and the prettiest amethyst eyes.”
Jack sat there stunned at how his son described the girl he had seen in his dream, almost adoringly he thought, which was odd since the boy had barely even seen a girl in his life, and to the best of his own memory never a mountain lioness. His shock at the words of his son were nothing though compared to what he saw next on the screen, as the priestess stepped back a few paces and motioned to someone out of the cameras range. A very pretty little girl stepped in front of her and his jaw dropped, a female mountain lion, very cute with long flowing blonde hair that did indeed go to the middle of her back, and as they both stepped closer to the camera he saw she had the prettiest amethyst eyes he had ever seen.
As he opened his mouth to let the torrent of questions pour out of him, the little girl turned to the tigress and said, “Priestess Sharleen, who is that really cute bear boy on the screen?“ Is that the bear boy you’ve been telling me about,” the girl asked, her voice melodic and sweet, “the one with the big problem that needs our help?”
Before either she or Jack could respond George’s head snapped up at the sound of her voice. Jack O’Malley looked at his son, stunned to see the boy visibly relaxed. As the boy sat there utterly calm, a peaceful expression on his face that his father rarely saw, he realized that somehow his son recognized this girl and he smiled gently,“my name is George O’Malley, and it was a pleasure to meet you.”
“Hello, and thank you. My name is Eva Farley and it was a pleasure to meet you too,” the girl said smiling sweetly back at the boy at Jacks side
“Yes dear he is the one I’ve been telling you about. He saw you last night as he slept Eva, do you want to tell him and his father why he saw you dear or should I” the woman asked her.
“No Ms. Sharleen, if he saw me then I know that it is meant for me to tell him, and I should be the one to explain it to him” she said blushing slightly.
“Alright then dear, but give me a moment first, Jack I’m assuming you have many questions and we will try to answer them as best we can. I do ask though that you wait until you hear the girls explanation, it may serve to answer several of those questions.
“Yes I do.” he answered still dumbfounded by what he was seeing and hearing.
“Ok dear, go ahead and talk to George and tell him the things you need to say to him,” she said falling silent.
“Yes ma’am, so like I said my name is Eva, but I met you last night not just a few minutes ago,”
the young lioness began, her melodic voice seemingly holding the boy nearly in a trance.
“I would love to tell you all about myself, but I can’t. I don’t know what all Ms. Sharleen has told you or your dad about me, but there isn’t much to tell. The doctor here Ms Amanda Willson is my aunt but she’s a distant relative and she says she hasn’t heard from my parents in years. All I know is that I woke up on a bus when it arrived here and I can’t remember anything really about my parents. I do know that I can do some weird things though, some people think it’s all tricks and stuff but I know it isn’t. Like I can leave my body and travel to another place when I go to sleep, they call it tans pert...transcer....dang it,” she said clearly getting flustered.
The tigress spoke up saying, “transcendental meditation”.
“Yea that, and astral projection and what they call lucid dreaming. I know you probably won’t believe me either but you didn’t have just a dream last night. Not like you normally have a dream anyway”.Mr. O’Malley,” the young girl said looking to the boys father, “the books and stuff that we had your son read explained all this stuff to him. Ms. Sharleen also put some instructions in her letter for him so he’d know what he was supposed to do and think about as he fell asleep.Him trying to remember what it was like to be outside was part of it. That way he would be thinking about where you lived in New York and I could find him. You remember the stuff you put in your bathwater and the fur shampoo and stuff we told you to use George?” she asked the boy as she looked into his face again.
“Yes, the stuff that smelled like flowers and spices and stuff, it all smelled so good,”the boy said a huge grin on his muzzle.
“Yea, that stuff was some of the herbal medicines and stuff Ms. Sharleen and the pagans make here and use to help people She says it was to help mess with your nose, your sense of smell, right Ms. Sharleen?” the girl said looking to he tigress.
“That’s right, it’s a special mixture we made up just for you George to help block her pheromones, the thing that triggers your, I apologize for being blunt, extreme hornyness and desire to mate with a female violently. But there is something you and your father need to know, something I suspected but has now been proven to be fact. The herbal mixtures worked, but it shouldn’t have been as effective as it appears to have been. I suspect that for whatever reason this girl, sweet Eva, has far more to do with that success of her venture than anything we have done either alone or combined with our herbal lore. I am not at all certain which it is, but there is a way to find out once you are here in the Winter Creek area, and the arrangements have already been made.,” the woman said. “But I’ll let Eva tell you what is in store for you.”
“I’ll tell you all about the arrangements in a minute, but there is something else I need to do first George. I can tell by your dad’s face that he doesn’t believe any of this, even though I think he is trying to.
Last night I meditated extra hard on you and I came to meet you in your dream, because there was something I needed to know. And something you needed to know too, we needed to know if you and I could be around each other and I would be safe,” the girl blushed brightly her lightly colored fur tinged pink. “Ms. Sharleen explained to me exactly what it is that makes you get all crazy like you do, that it’s because of a girls...girly scent when she excited in that way,” she said averting her eyes momentarily blushing more deeply from embarrassment at her own forwardness. “I, made sure I was that way before I came to see you because you would be able to smell me when I did. No one knows how or why but when furs meet in a lucid dream, even if they’ve never met before, they can tell everything about the other fur just like they were right there with that fur in real life. Since we were able to be together in the dream and everything was okay it means we should be able to be together in real life and it be okay too,” Jack and George both suddenly wore expressions of total shock and disbelief.
“But, how is that possible?” Jack asked, startled by the volume of his own voice.
“We really do not know Jack, at least not with any certainty, but as I told you in our correspondence, Eva’s abilities are the result of her own genetic abnormalities. A geneticist that works in Denver and who has relatives here in Winter Creek suspects that in her case those anomalies have altered, as many call it, her girly scent. The pheromones that are given off by aroused fur’s that signal desire etc. in her case, differ from those of most females. This is what I hoped would be the difference and allow her to be safe around your son Jack. There is more you need know to but that can wait until after you arrive and we can confirm her safety around George,” she concluded.
“Your dad still looks like he doesn’t really believe the dream thing happened, but I know how we can prove it to him George, if you’ll answer one question,” the girl said with a grin.
“S....sure Eva what’s the question,” he asked his voice unsteady.
“Last night when I came to meet you I made sure we were both naked in the grass and we hugged and cuddled and kissed right,” she asked him, though he felt that wasn’t the question she meant.
”Y....yea we were naked in the grass and we did hug and cuddle and kiss,” he said wondering what she was getting at.
Jack O’Malley looked at the screen unconvinced, he knew the girl had been there while George had described the dream and had overheard it.
“But,” Eva said suddenly, “there was a part you left out that you didn’t tell your dad or the priestess. You and me are the only ones that know about it yet so here is my question. I want you to answer it completely not just a yes or no. Answer yes or no and tell them what you did. Did you like me squeezing your butt as much as I liked it?”
The gasp from his son stunned Jack, his son had held something back from the dream but this girl knew about it? Was it really possible that she had been with his son in his dream as she claimed?
“Y.....yes I liked you squeezing my butt,......... as much as I liked squeezing yours,” the boy said blushing furiously. “A.....and I liked it when you rubbed your cunny against my pecker when we were hugging too.”
Jack O’Malley’s jaw dropped and his eyes went as wide as dinner plates. He couldn’t believe he’d just heard his son say the words with his own ears.
“Are you okay there Jack?” The tigress was chuckling softly as she asked. “I told you there were things that you wouldn’t believe in this world that we may be able to employ to help your son. Things that traditional science and medicine discount as wives tales and superstition. Eva’s visit to him in the dream world has shown that there is a gentle, tender, kind and loving boy trapped inside him that wants more than anything to be set free. In that world she was as solid to him as the chair you’re sitting in is to you. You heard his description of the encounter yourself. Did that sound anything like what you have come to expect from your son around a female?”
“No certainly not what I’ve come to expect, but without a doubt what I’ve always hoped he would one day be able to experience.
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That night Jack had made his decision, no matter what it took he had to move his son to Colorado. He didn’t know what else this woman had in mind, and right then it was not a matter of concern to him at all. He still had doubts about the whole thing, after all it was pretty far fetched to think that his son and this girl could have been together in a dream as they both claimed. After the video call had ended he read all he could find on the internet about lucid dreams, transcendental meditation, and astral projection. It seemed like a bunch of metaphysical mumbo jumbo to him, but he had seen and heard things from his son that night that he couldn’t shake. All that aside if, as the tigress said, her scent was different that it did not trigger his sons reactions, it meant there may be some hope for his son.
Glancing to the dashboard Jack realized he needed to stop for fuel, a sudden rumble reminded him he had not eaten for hours as well. Pulling of at the next off ramp he pulled into the truck stop alongside a vacant pump, his wife pulling the champaign gold Escalade up to the other side.
“Need to fuel up, and I’m about to starve, not that a little break would hurt any of us I think,” Jack said grinning broadly at his younger son as he vaulted out of the vehicle stretching languidly rubbing his eyes.
“Ready to get something to eat Steve?” his father asked as they walked towards the restaurant.
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Several hours later, with the need to fuel the truck arising again he flipped on the intercom, “Have to gas this thing up again, you need anything back there?”
“Other than turning this thing around and going back home where I belong? No I don’t need a damn thing!” The anger in his voice was far less than it had been this morning, hopefully he would accept this move soon.
“Son we’ve been through this,” his father felt for him but had to do what he felt was best for his son.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry dad. No I’m fine..... wait did mom pack this ‘snack’ basket?”
“Yes why,” he asked.
“Pretzels, trail mix, rice cakes, and carrots? Do I look like a bunny rabbit or something’?”
“So chips, twinkles, and.....” he said waiting for the rest of the list.
“Some sodas, she’s got enough water back here to float a battle ship. Some cinnamon rolls, Susy Q’s, and an armload of candy bars, okay half an arm load” George said giggling slightly.
“Okay, be back with them in a minute,” Jack said as he flipped off the intercom and heading inside to purchase the snacks.
Within a few minutes they were back on the road when the intercom buzzed and Jack flipped it on,” what’s up son?”
“I’m sorry for being a jerk when we left. And thanks for looking out for me, I don’t say it enough but I do appreciate it.” Jack heard the sounds of his son snuggling himself down into the bed in the back of the truck, as he had done at home so many nights, alone.
Switching off the intercom he considered the choices he had made over the last few months. This trip, the move of two thousand miles, uprooting his families lives. He knew he wouldn’t have done anything different, there was no guarantee that anything could ever help his oldest child. After three long years, dozens of doctors, scientists and a cadre of researchers turning his son into a walking, talking lab rat it was incredible to think that a girl could possibly be the one best suited to be of help to the boy. The irony of the situation was not lost on him, the very thing the boy had become nearly terrified of may, because of the very same cause of his problems, genetics, be the key to his son having a life not spent caged
Jack O’Malley pondered that irony as he drove down the highway, he was either taking his son to a freedom the boy had all but forgotten, the freedom they both considered lost forever, or to yet another failure in a long line of failures. His hopes were for the former, the young man in the box behind him deserved it. Even if it was short lived or had immense restrictions, his family, and especially his oldest son, needed one in the win column.
