About five minutes later, Aaron felt a tapping on his back, “Why are you crying Aaron?” Aaron turned around; Conner was standing there in a diaper. The boy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He turned around in the trustee’s lap and reached out for Conner. The two boys hugged each other.
Aaron didn’t know why he was so attached to Conner, he just knew that the little boy became the most important thing in his life and he had to try to protect him. “Look Aaron, Bugs Bunny!” said Conner who let go of Aaron and backed up to show him his new pants. The diaper was full of Looney Tunes characters. Conner was ecstatic. One by one the boys who were taken into the ward returned with Looney Tunes on. One of the boys was 12. He wasn’t nutty about wearing a diaper, but it beat the shit out of running around naked as far as he was concerned. All five boys had rectal tears, Conner’s; at just shy of a quarter of an inch, was the largest. Their exam would wait until after they healed and they would wear diapers until then as well.
“I saw Alex Aaron, I saw Alex!” Conner said to his friend. Alex? Where did Conner see Alex? Aaron hadn’t seen him since the day before when the COs took him away! Aaron almost forgot about Alex. In jail, one day someone was there, and the next day they were gone. Most of the time, you didn’t even get to say “Goodbye,” they just disappeared. “What are you talking about Conner, where did you see Alex?” Aaron said to Conner. “He’s sleeping in a bed in there Aaron, and he has pajamas and underpants on!” said Conner. “Really?” replied Aaron. Conner nodded his head.
By this time, Michael and Doc were both coming through the door. Never in Aaron’s history had he initiated an approach to either a guard or a trustee, they were both to be avoided at all cost; but Aaron needed to find out how Alex was. In the Albany County Jail, they pretty much stuck together. Sometimes it meant that they were left alone, sometimes it meant that they would both be down on their knees together but at least they had each other. “Please sir, my friend Alex, is he OK? Can I see him?” Aaron asked Doc. Michael turned to Doc. “These three boys just came in from Albany. Klein sent them through Danamora for a joke.” Doc took off his glasses to clear his eyes from the day’s work. “Whose boys are these Michael?” Doc asked. “Mine,” said Michael. “Then it’s your call,” Doc said and returned to the rest of the boys who were finishing up their exams.
Aaron figured he had been rejected by Doc. After all, he walked away. Michael looked at Aaron who was watching Doc walk away. Reaching down, he took Conner by the hand. “I will take you to Alex, but he is asleep and he won’t wake up for you. Doc is taking care of him and Doc is the best doctor around,” Michael told Aaron. Michael reached for the door and pulled it open as Aaron and Conner followed.
Walking into the ward, Aaron was looking at two rows of beds with about 12 beds in them. Some of the beds were empty, but there were about 8 beds with boys either sleeping or sitting up reading comics or watching TV. Aaron wished he could be one of those boys, they all had either hospital gowns on or pajamas. Aaron could see that some of them even had underwear on under their pajamas!
Michael took Aaron and Conner to the end of the ward and there, behind drawn curtains Aaron saw Alex laying there in the bed. Alex was laying flat on the bed with no pillow under his head and had a big bandage wrapped around his head that covered his left ear; the one the guard smacked two days earlier. Coming from the bottom of the bandaged ear was a tube that went down the side of the bed and then went under it. Alex had one more tube in him; it came from his right wrist to a tube that came from a bottle over Alex’s bed. It dripped a clear liquid into the tube and a machine that kept making beeping sounds.
Aaron didn’t really know what he was looking at. He got next to Alex and watched him sleeping. “Is, is he going to be OK Michael?” Aaron asked. “Alex has a very bad infection and he’s asleep because of the medicine that is trying to stop the infection,” Michael said to both boys. “It’s going to take a little time to work, so he needs to sleep as much as he can.” “Is he going to die?” Aaron asked.
Michael made it a personal policy to never lie to the boys in his care. He knew that they had a lifetime of lies and bullshit and he wanted no part of it. He always chose his words very carefully when it came to the boys. False hope was worse than the truth. Michael rarely shed tears; he had been in the system way too long for that to happen. “We don’t know,” Michael said and needed to adjust some curtains on the bed next door.
Conner was on the other side of the bed from Aaron. His hand rubbed slowly across Alex’s stomach. Alex’s breathing was constant, but very slow. Conner leaned forward and pushed up Alex’s pajama top uncovering his belly button. He kissed Alex on the tummy. “He’s very hot!” Conner said. “We need to let him sleep,” Michael said to both boys and took Conner by the hand.
Aaron looked down at Alex. He didn’t exactly know why, but he bent down and kissed Alex. Michael needed to get the fuck out of there real fast. They returned to the group and Michael told a group of trustees to take the boys to the unit to wash up and prepare for lunch. The boys filed out as Michael sank into a chair racked with emotions that he wanted no part of. Michael was emotionally burning out like a Roman candle. He was slipping really fast and he knew it.
Doc didn’t say anything, he watched the exchange from his desk and took out a pad and did some writing. He handed the sheet of paper he had been writing on to one of his assistants and got up and walked over to Michael and sat down in the chair beside him. Neither man said anything to each other. They had been together now for over 8 years and knew each others moods very well. The assistant came back with a glass of water and two pills and handed them to Doc. “The boys will be fine for this afternoon and you’ll be back with them by dinner. Take these and go lie down on a bed in the ward Michael, It’s mandatory,” Doc said to his friend.
By invoking the phrase “It’s mandatory” Doc knew that Michael would cease any objections to his being put down. Even the smallest and youngest boy in the unit knew that “It’s mandatory” stopped any and all argument from a prisoner, it was going to happen and that was the end of it. “Rules” could be bent, mandatory was set in concrete. Michael took the pills from Doc’s hand and took the water. The trustee who brought the pills to him helped him get up out of the chair and Michael laid down in the bed next to Alex. Once again, Michael made an error in judgment; he cared and was paying the price for it.
Doc was making preparations. He called a meeting with his assistants to discuss Alex. If the fever ran out of control, Alex would die. At 104.5 Alex’s temperature was critically high. At that temperature, his brains were cooking and he could go into convulsions and die. “Let’s start ice packs and alcohol wraps on the patient. We have to get his body temperature down. Monitor him constantly, if the fever rises to 105 we will need to get him into an ice bath. If it goes to 105.5 we’ll start ice water enemas. If it rises to 106 for more than 2 or 3 hours, we’ve lost him. He won’t have a mind if he lives,” Doc told his team. “I will expect that everything we’re going to need will be within 15 feet of that boy stat.” Doc was pessimistic that he could save Alex. His chief worry was that the boy wasn’t putting up a fight; he was allowing himself to die.