Andrew Bradshaw Conquers the Fountain of Youth (Part 3)

Andrew Bradshaw, age 5, maybe 6, sat restless in an orange plastic chair leaned up against a wall at the Ocala Florida Police Department, Precinct 22. His eyes scattered about nervously as police officers and other workers flurried about attending to business that had nothing to do with him. He was clad in a haphazard outfit of indeterminate origin that reeked of dusty cheese. A dark blue sweatshirt mottled with grease stains, bright green sweatpants a few sizes too small, and thick socks, fuzzy and pink.

 

Questions chaotically popped up in his mind like grasshoppers jumping in a crowded shoebox. The more questions he had, the more pent-up that his rage had become. How could his theory about the Fountain of Youth been this right and yet it gone so completely wrong?

 

He saw a familiar face. It was Detective Freeman, a bald man with overdeveloped biceps. He wore bright red suspenders that complimented his orange goatee. His eyes were half shut—a comfortable expression of dourness and disinterest that he’d earned after 12 years of taking dull cases. He silently motioned for Andrew to follow him to his desk, where there was an identical plastic, orange chair waiting for him to occupy. Andrew shot him a suspicious glare but quickly obliged.

 

“We've recovered the duffel bag you said you left in the bathroom,” the detective said as he in a deep, throaty voice, as he sat down in the swivel chair behind his desk. “However, we didn't find your clothing in it.”

 

Andrew’s eyes shot wide open.

 

“What?” he squeaked. He pounded his fist on the detective's desk, which caused a cupful of pens to jump up and rattle. “You mean to say somebody has stolen my clothes?”

 

The detective shook his head, as though he’d been administered a mild electric shock. He then glared at Andrew severely with a mixture of alarm and uneasiness. Usually children Andrew’s age are timid and barely comprehensible. This kid, in contrast, was talking like an suburbanite retail shopper demanding to talk to the manager. He then spoke slowly, defensively, careful to enunciate every word.

 

“We found clothes in it, but they were not yours.”

 

He opened his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a yellow Hawaiian shirt. He spread it open—adult extra large.

 

“This, and all the other clothing we found in the bag, was clearly meant for a grown adult.“

 

Andrew shot out of the chair and ripped the shirt clean out of the detective's grip.

 

“That is my shirt, man!” Andrew screamed. 

 

Startled, the detective jumped back in his seat. Then he frowned, letting his sharp, ginger eyebrows morph into a jagged vee. He leaned over and jabbed his finger reproachingly just inches from the space between Andrew's eyes.

 

“Son,” the detective said firmly. “You sit down and do not stand up again until I tell you to, you understand?”

 

Andrew complied with the order, but there was fire behind his eyes. His lips were taut with rage, and they bared fiercely clenched baby teeth.

 

The detective leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

 

“I can stop talking to you right now and let you take that sass of yours in front of the judge,” he said. “As of now, I wasn't planning on charging you with anything. But you can keep pressing your luck, if you like. I have multiple witness accounts of you streaking. That's public indecency, son. That'll land you a few months in juvie. How would you like that?” 

 

Andrew again said nothing. His nostrils were flaring.

 

"Now of all the items we've recovered from the mall, this is the one we would most like your input."

 

He pulled out another artifact from his top desk drawer: a wallet sealed in a plastic sandwich bag.

 

Andrew recognized it immediately. 

 

He then removed a drivers' license from the wallet. Its mugshot, depicted the grown-up Andrew, ill-shaven, sleepy-faced, twisting his lips into something halfway between a smile and a scowl.

 

"Do you recognize this man?" he asked.

 

"That's me," Andrew said firmly.

 

The detective the gave Andrew an agitated, squinty smile.

 

"Did you just say that's you?" he said. He ping-ponged his eyes back and forth between Andrew and the mugshot.

 

"Yes," he continued confidently, triumphantly, sitting himself upright, holding his tiny head high. "I tell you, that man is me!"

 

The detective lifted up his eyebrows.

 

"This person is forty-five years old!" he protested.

 

"Precisely!" Andrew squealed. "That is exactly what I'm trying to tell you. I am a forty-five year old man."

 

The detective crossed his arms.

 

"I don't know what kind of game you're playing," he said, "but I advise you to stop that right now."

 

"I know I don't look like I'm forty-five, but I assure you that I am," Andrew said, "I appear in front of you as a five-year-old boy, because I have located the Fountain of Youth, and ..."

 

The detective closed his eyes.

 

"Let me stop you right there," he said, holding out his gigantic palm to him. "That is all very cute, and everything, but I don't have time for stories. Now do you recognize the man on this drivers' license or don't you?"

 

Andrew's blasted his eyes wide open, held his mouth agape. His face was boiling red.

 

"I tell you, man, that man is me," he cried.

 

The detective put his huge forearm on his desk and leaned over to look Andrew squarely in the eyes. He could hardly suppress his rage. Hot veins in his temples and neck were popping out like cords.

 

"The man in this photograph is not you!" he screamed.

 

"I tell you, man, that man is me!" Andrew repeated louder, pounding his fist on the desk, so hard that one of the pens managed to escape its confinement.

 

"Don't do that!" the detective yelled, grabbing the boy's wrist. He torpedoed tiny droplets of spit as he spoke only inches away from Andrew's face. "Just because I told you I'm not pressing charges, it doesn't mean I can't change my mind about it! Is that what you want, huh? You want me to change my mind? Is that what you want?"

 

Andrew struggled, wrestling his wrist free from the detective's grip. He then lowered his head and glowered up at the detective, curling his upper lip.

 

"Do your worst, you loathsome goon," Andrew growled. 

 

The detective winced and his biceps flexed, pulsated. He had that fiery look about him as though he could at any moment clench up his fist into a cannonball and deck the boy. However he had a second thought. He started to breathe slowly, deeply. He took another quick glance at the boy and shook his head pitifully. He then grabbed the pen that had gotten loose from the cup and turned his attention to a police report form on his desk.

 

"Now how do I get in contact with your parents?" he said flatly.

 

But Andrew wasn't finished. He furrowed his brow.

 

"How do I get in contact with yours?" he countered.

 

And in a flash, the detective's irate disposition returned full blast. His face was red as a beet. The detective then grabbed Andrew's wrist and brought in the license even more closely to his face. Andrew's eyes were beginning to moisten.

 

"Is this man a relative of yours?" he said more loudly, forcefully. 

 

"No, I tell you! That man is me!" Andrew's eyes were reddening, nose congesting. "If you want to contact my parents, you'll need to hold a seance, because they are dead, dammit! They are dead!" He wiped his oozey nose on his sleeve with one long, quick motion. He then spoke more softly, his mousy voice box trembling. "They lived long, fruitful lives, long into their 80s." He began to weep.

 

"I highly doubt that," the detective snapped. He let go of Andrew's wrist and once again turned his attention back to the form. "...That would mean your mother was menapausal when you were born. Impossible."

 

As he was furiously scribbling, Andrew was in between sobs and sniffles. And then he said frankly: "Why aren't you taking me seriously?"

 

Detective Freeman ignored that and continued writing.

 

Andrew pounded his fist on the detective's desk again, so hard that time and furious that it smarted his hand.

 

"Dammit, why aren't you taking me seriously?" he yelled.

 

The detective managed to ignore even that, but the strokes of his writing had grown more infuriated. He was breathing heavily. 

 

And Andrew saw that he could do nothing to capture the detective's attention, so for the time being, he stared.

 

But then Detective Freeman finally broke the silence to speak to Andrew in detail.

 

"For your information, kid, we've already tried contacting the person on that driver's license," he said. "When we failed to contact him at his home, we tried his place of employment. His coworkers said he was vacationing in Florida. That follows, because that was where we found his identification. And then I asked them if he had a child they were aware of. They were 100 percent adamant that he did not. Then I asked him if it was possible he had a child in secret, presuming that might have been you. But all they could do was laugh."

 

Andrew could feel his face getting hot. His blood was boiling. Those damned fools at work were always making jokes at his expense. He remembered how twisted up their faces looked as they mocked him, when he divulged to them that the Fountain of Youth was not only real, but he knew where it was located. But he proved them wrong. And he couldn't wait to go back to the office to see their faces when he showed them they were wrong.

 

"So what I have here is a lost, confused young child who was discovered running around naked in a shopping center. I have no idea who the child is, and the child doesn't appear to have much of an idea who he is. All I know is he appears to have intimate knowledge of this person named Andrew Bradshaw, who seems to have disappeared. So I am left with no other resolve but to request an arrest warrant for Bradshaw, on suspicion of a possible kidnapping. We'll have his mugshot posted up at every post office around the country and alert all precincts to be on the lookout. And whenever you feel like telling us where you come from, who your legal guardians are, the sooner we can get you home, OK?"

 

Andrew could feel his heart skip a beat. He felt spasms of panic cut through his mind. He thought again of the people at work, how they would react after being questioned by police in regards to his disappearance and connection to a possible kidnapping. How they would look for his picture on the wall whenever they visit the post office, scanning the photos of murderers, serial rapists, actual kidnappers until they find a familiar face: His. How his coworkers would talk amongst themselves, as they walk past his vacant desk, as if they'd known all along that he was some kind of monster. How they would tell and retell stories about him, how this notorious fugitive used to behave. His peculiar ways. It must be how all perverts must act. And even if Andrew was somehow able to transform back to his regular self and be absolved rightfully of such suspicion, the rumors would already have been cut too deep. He was never going to be able to show his face at work again. That is, unless he could stop this from happening.

 

Andrew let out a horrible, piercingly high-pitched scream as he hoisted himself on top of Detective Freeman's desk. He kicked over the cup of pens, sending them sliding, tumbling in all directions. The room that had been bustling with activity suddenly went completely still.

 

"My name is Andrew Bradshaw!" he declared, pointing his index finger rigidly at the ceiling. "I am in my 40s, and I have made a great discovery--perhaps the greatest discovery of my generation! I have done what the Spanish explorer Ponce De Leon could not and have located the legendary Fountain of Youth. It's real, folks. And it is right here in Ocala, Florida--in your very backyard. And look! Look at me! I am the very proof before your eyes that it is real. Do you see? Do I look like I'm in my 40s to anyone?"

 

The stillness persisted. 

 

Andrew's face turned a darker shade of red, angered by the non-response. He screamed out as forcefully as his lungs could push out air. 

 

"Why doesn't anyone believe me?" he cried.

 

Then he kicked Detective Freeman's computer monitor off the desk, and it landed onto the tiles with a bang, cracking fractured jags in the screen.

 

It was then Andrew felt something sharp sting his left shoulder. He looked to see that his sleeve was rolled up and a hypodermic needle was penetrating his flesh. He could see a gloved thumb was pushing down rapidly some kind of yellow liquid. Andrew looked to see who owned that hand, but his field of vision went fuzzy. He must have been given a tranquilizer. He felt its effects almost immediately. He knelt over on the desk drowsy. And then he layed down on the desk, resting his head in the crook of his arm. He was speaking softly as he drifted into ornery sleep.

 

"I've been studying the movements of European explorers in the New World for decades. Ever since I was a kid..."