An old van with darkened windows is not what the father, Doctor Romchuk, expected
The Boychild Ferret, in all his short days, does not remember ever being in such high spirits, so full of pep and spunk, so… almost free – “Heh”…
Yes, he does consider his doctor father’s move to palm him off onto the U.S. Government for his further life’s training and schooling a betrayal; yet, inside himself, he grudgingly concedes the move to be his father giving his son his first real crack at freedom. Doctor Romchuk, however, together with his wife, see the sudden brief advent of Josh Davies in their lives as a godsend – the unexpected chance to get their Ferret Boy out from under their feet, out of the house, and, to their great relief, out of the way. Plus, they quite naturally reason, it will all only be good for him.
“Heh… heh… and then I’m gonna break lots of rabbits’ necks, heh, and cut them open, and tear their guts out, and dissect their brains, and, and… heh… heh… heh…”
It is just before 8 a.m. on this late-summer Saturday morning, and the father has brought his strange and troubling boy to the small asphalt-covered parking lot one side of Sven Person’s Diner, having walked there from their bungalow.
The day, however, has already proven itself unexpectedly and oddly hot (this time of year?), the sun rapidly growing in strength, promising to make it a real scorcher. The doctor’s breathing is a little more labored than usual, the blood pressure, undoubtedly, perhaps alarmingly higher; he is annoyed, impatient, grumpy. He just wants to get this over with and go home. He’s already partially soaked through the short-sleeved dress shirt under his tree-bark brown suit jacket, with sweat stains showing and growing through the armpits, and he’s wiping sweat from his face, top of his bald head, and forehead with a mucus-soiled and -encrusted handkerchief.
‘So, where is this Josh Davies?’
“Heh… heh… heh…”
The Boychild Ferret is also sweating, and smelling, but, unlike his father, he is happy – happy-as-can-be, and carefree.
Dressed by his mother – according to her own fashion-sense that she’s reserved exclusively for this, her middle child, to ensure he’d look as handsome and presentable to the U.S. Government as possible – the Ferret Boy is wearing knee-length dark-green breeches with lederhosen-like suspenders over a button-up short-sleeved beach shirt that features a tumbling dolphin, sun, and palm-tree motif, knee-high red-and-white-striped socks stretching up and over pudgy calves rising out of broad black imitation leather buckle shoes on thick rubber soles, the latter specially orthopedically designed to make things easier on the Ferret’s tragically flat feet, and a propeller hat atop the Boychild’s head.
To demonstrate his almost newfound freedom, he drops his little knapsack next to the doctor and runs behind the diner. A moment later, his father notices a plume of wispy smoke rising from where he assumes his son to be, and the smell of burning tobacco quickly reaches his nose hairs.
He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a half-smoked pack of Chesterfields – there were 10. Now… nine…
“God damn… God damn, you, I going to –”
“Oh, don’t be too harsh on the lad…”
‘Josh Davies! But… but…’ the father is at a loss for words in his head for this specter’s sudden and, frankly, scary appearance, seemingly out of nowhere!
“After all, he’s probably far more nervous and anxious about this great change, which is about to take place in his life, than you are, Doctor…”
The misty, pale-blue eyes look up through the gold-framed granny glasses almost pleadingly at the doctor. Davies’ smile, even featuring, if the doctor’s own eyes are not deceiving him, a quivering lip, is nothing short of downright heartbreaking. The doctor is struck dumb; he is disarmed, and relieved, all at the same time. It will all be over, very soon now…
xxx
“And, you will be happy to know, Doctor, that we administer most of our program between locations in Lancaster and Harrisburg, and then we bring all our research and findings to Rutgers at Camden – for further analysis, as it were…working with some of the brightest minds in the education field today, oh, as well as other top scientists, but in other fields, of course…”
Doctor Romchuk is pleased to hear all this, not least because this government program’s physical proximity to the doctor’s home makes it relatively easy for the doctor to access and check it out for himself, should he have the time and, more importantly, feel like it. Furthermore, he holds a high opinion of Rutgers Camden, as he visits the university from time to time and uses its library for his own research and continual self-education. He knows some tenured professors in the sciences there and believes they generally hold a good opinion of him.
But the morning draws on and the unrelenting sun just grows stronger and stronger. As the doctor wipes dollops of sweat now constantly tumbling down the sides of his face and neck, his son erupts from behind the diner into the blazing open with a kind of heretofore unattested monstrous power and demon-like speed (given his tragically flat feet, among other steadily worsening physical flaws, heh). He wields a partly crushed and bent section of discarded gutter pipe as a hockey stick with which he hits and chases a flattened Coca-Cola can across Sven’s Diner’s broken asphalt lot.
“Heh… heh… heh…”
True, the Boychild Ferret’s stickhandling proves unexpectedly and inexplicably skillful; zigzagging over the entire lot, he carries and dribbles his aluminum puck contraption with a finesse that is as frightening to behold as it is admirable. Yet, clearly, the boy-creature is completely out of control…
“Heh… heh… Wayne Gretzky, Wayne Gretzky, up-and-coming great new Ukrainian hockey player, a real sensation, folks, there he is, he’s controlling the puck, heh… heh… he’s going against Mike Bossy, heh, already the greatest Ukrainian hockey star of all time, but, oooohh, nooo, Wayne Gretzky challenges him, he controls the puck, he controls the puck and he shoots, and he… and he… scoooores, heh-heh-heh… and now it’s Mike Bossy, and now Mike Bossy controls the puck and he shoots and he… and he… scoooores – goal, heh-heh, gooooaal! And now, ladies and gentlemen, Mike Bossy controls the puck again, and it’s gonna be a really big play here, folks, Mike Bossy controls the puck, and he skates by Wayne Gretzky, like he’s flying, maybe he even feels sorry for Wayne Gretzky, but he’s showing him who’s – the boss!, heh-heh, and he controls the puck, and he controls it and… and… but, oh, no, look, look, it’s Wayne Gretzky, and he just takes the puck away from Mike Bossy like it’s candy from a baby, and now he skates and skates all around Mike Bossy and… and… he scoooores!!! Goal… another goal for the great Wayne Gretzky… gooooaal!!! Heh-heh-heh…”
It is now almost 9 o’clock in the morning, and Doctor Romchuk feels like he is about to faint, and even begins to sway a little. Worriedly, if reluctantly, Josh Davies stretches out an arm to steady the doctor, who is no longer truly registering what is going on around him, when…
… finally, finally – an old, white Volkswagen van with a visibly rusted-out chassis and deeply dark-tinted windows skids to a clanky, rattling halt directly in front of them, sending a choking cloud of tan-and-gray dust spewing up into the relentless sun.
The event jolts the doctor back to full consciousness, though he feels weak – almost as if Josh Davies has planned it this way. And he is greatly upset by what he sees.
“Well, what did you expect, Doctor?” Davies asks. “A black limousine, perhaps, surrounding by motorcycles?”
The van’s sliding door opens, and instantly a crazed raccoon leaps out at the doctor, only to be jerked back violently by the chain around its neck, the other end of which is fastened to a fixture somewhere in the van’s interior and murky dark. A grizzly hand reaches out and yanks the frenzied animal backward even more.
And what are all those additional straps and restraining devices that are clearly not part of the van’s standard safety features? Gags?! Manacles?! And is that covered shape in the cargo space behind the seats, which seems to be moving, a child?!
The doctor, weak, confused, terrified and tired, is unable to fully grasp what he thinks he sees.
Impotent to act and paralyzed by fear, the doctor can only watch with utter horror and helplessness as Davies cholerically, lividly, and viciously manhandles his son, grabbing hold of the Boychild’s collar so gruffly that he actually rips his little beach shirt at the seam. He tears the makeshift hockey stick out of the Ferret Boy’s little hand and throws it away.
“Heh… heh… you can’t do this to me… heh… Pop… Pop… help me… help m-mmm…”
Davies tightly cups his broad, short-fingered and sinew-lumped farmer’s hand around the Boychild’s mouth and lifts his newly acquired charge up to the grizzly limb in the van, which pulls the catch inside and quickly straps him in. Somehow, the Ferret Boy appears to already be knocked out.
The whirl of hellish confusion is over. Doctor Romchuk is seated dumbly on the asphalt, next to his Ferret Boy’s little knapsack, and the van, and his son, and Josh Davies have all gone away…
Clouds have moved in over the Village of Angry Sparrow. The sun is now weaker and back in its time of season.
Carrying his Ferret son’s little green knapsack, the doctor stumbles into Main Street and then into The Crow’s Eye Tavern, kitty corner from Olson’s café. He is surprised, and relieved, to find it open so early on a Saturday morning.
Filed by Saint Stephan, September 8, 2025