Spring Eternal

Chapter 11
Things Turn Dramatic

Chapter Description: Cal and Iris night out turns rocky. (This is a rewrite of previously published Ch11. The previous version was a little forced.)

Cal closed his eyes as he allowed the sound of his wails to blot out the frightening phantasm that his world around him had instantly become. He clung to Iris as he balanced his chin on Iris’ shoulder allowing his distress to be loudly broadcast to the rows behind them. A tiny voice in the back of his mind was lecturing him that he was acting ridiculously. An integral part of himself was lecturing that he should be able to calmly rationalize that it was just a performer who meant to merely entertain, not intending to throw him into a full infantile meltdown. There, certainly, was not nearly enough threat to merit this extremely childish reaction. Despite the admonishing voice, Cal was shocked to discover the ease of being swept along with the wave of terror that struck when the frightening clown face loomed over him.

The soothing pressure of Iris’ hand on his back was welcome, pressing him against her shoulder as he reeled from the emotional onslaught he was experiencing. He could feel the terror attempt to slightly recede by the comfort of Iris’ soft warm body. He did not want to freely admit it but the welcoming the security that her body’s cozy terrain offered was like a balm to his wounded soul. He wound one small arm partially around her neck and while the other cupped the top of her shoulder, keeping her as an anchor as sobs shook his body.

Despite Iris’ repeated soft assurances of his safety, Cal could hear the performance going on behind him which meant the clowns were still nearby. The simple song had taken on a nightmarish quality to Cal’s ears. It signaled that the frightening presence of the clowns was just a few feet away, continuing their awful dance. As a result, he seemed to have no way to stifle the rolling upset still issuing forth from him. He opened his eyes a slit to see the theatre patrons behind him looking at him with a mix of sympathy and irritation at his behavior, but even the embarrassment caused by those sentiments was quashed by the intensity of his gut reaction.

Finally, surrendering that Cal would not be calming down in this environment, Iris leaned forward to grab his diaper bag from the floor. Catching Lancine’s eye, she mouthed that she was going to take him out of there. Her friend nodded in understanding, as her own granddaughter continued in her bouncing gyrations to the beat of the music. Slinging, the bag over her shoulder, Iris navigated her way down the row and out down the aisle as Cal continued to bawl at the top of his lungs. Nearby parents seated by the aisle seemed to commiserate with an understanding smile as they witnessed a familiar scenario.

Once, Cal and Iris reached the outside of the doors to the auditorium, Iris began to bounce Cal in her arms as she began to pace a section in the lobby. She wrapped her hand around the back of his head as she whispered calming sentiments into his ear. The sound of Iris’ voice flowed like a soothing mantra over his reeling mind

“It’s okay. You’re okay. Shhh…I’ve got you. You’re okay, sweetie.” Iris whispered as she walked.

Cal could not calm down for several minutes as Iris paced back and forth in the lobby, alternating gentle thumps on his back to smoothing his back between his shoulder blades. Finally, Cal started taking huge breaths, his chest inflating with each one as he tried to stop the cycle of sobs issuing from is chest as he felt calmer. The upset began to ebb as Iris continued in rhythmically patting his back, allowing the even pattern to wrap around his consciousness like a cocoon. When the frequency of Cal’s sobs had substantially slowed, Iris sat on a bench near the wall next to the bathrooms.

A few moments later, she pulled Cal from her shoulder and sat him on her lap. Cal huddled in the shelter provided by the architecture of Iris’ upper body. Leaning his head onto the swell of her breast, his fingers clutching the fabric of her blouse as Iris began to dig into the diaper bag next to her on the seat.

“Are you feeling better?” Iris asked as her hand came up to cup Cal’s head. Her other hand had retrieved a tissue from the bag, which she began to wipe Cal with short strokes.

With a dejected air and a frown pulling at the corners of Cal’s mouth, he briefly looked up at Iris with tearful eyes. Now quiet, he quickly averted his eyes and retreated further into the shelter of Iris’ shelter, and buried his face against her blouse.

“That’s okay.” Iris whispered as her fingers plucked and smoothed a lock of hair on Cal’s head. “There’s no rush. We’ll just sit here till we’re ready to go back in. Okay?” Looking at Cal’s shrinking demeanor, Iris answered her own question. “Okay.”

She stated with a few firm pats on the back of the small body in her lap. In response, Cal turned his head to lay against the soft perch of Iris’ breast as his fingers began to toy with a small pearl button on Iris’ blouse.

It seemed like no time had passed before the bell sounding intermission rang and the doors to the auditorium opened. A flood of chattering children and their herding parents soon filled the lobby. Every child was pulling at an adult, begging and whining for a drink, candy or a toy souvenir. Over by the bench where the pair were situated, a line for the bathrooms formed immediately. With the change of environment, Cal began to squirm in Iris’ lap till she set him on his feet between her legs. He watched the milling crowd that seemed to swell about them. He made sure to keep to the shelter of Iris legs. The bench filled up instantly with beleaguered adults managing one or more wiggling over stimulated child.

Cal’s attention wandered until it was drawn by a frazzled mother accompanied by two children who situated themselves at the end of the bench. The older belligerent looking girl of about six was casting hateful glares at her benign looking younger brother. The mother was occupied with digging through her oversized distressed leather bag. After an extensive search, she finally resurfaced with the most recently released electronic phone in her hand. She unlocked the phone and was about to punch in the desired function when the air was cut by a plaintive wail. With her mother otherwise occupied, the little girl taken the opportunity to unleash her wrath on her brother. The little boy was lying flat on the marble floor with his older sister standing triumphant over him. The mother quickly placed her phone on top of the rumpled leather bag as she dealt with the situation.

The neglected phone lay like a beacon on the bench to Cal’s eyes, drawing him out of his abstraction. The phone appeared to be a heaven sent avenue of escape of this predicament with Iris. He thought if he could just get his hands on it, he could contact Patrice and Randall. It was becoming easier to act like the child he appeared to be in Iris’ care. His only recourse was to get Randall and Patrice back here as soon as possible. If they stayed away any longer, who knows what state they would find him. He slyly measured the distance to the phone; but at the moment, he was totally flummoxed on how to get to it. Luckily at that moment, Iris’ friend and her granddaughter appeared in front of Iris. Lancine inquired about Cal while the little girl was distracted by the crowd. Iris commented that Cal was doing much better, but that the excitement might have been too much for him. Without looking down, Iris continued to visit with her friend as her hand absentmindedly patted his small body from time to time.

Seeing that Iris was now occupied with visiting with Lancine, Cal decided it was time to make his move. For a moment, he was torn on leaving Iris protective area so he could traverse the short distance to the phone. He hated to admit that he was intimidated, but he gathered his courage and began to make his way over to his target. Cal looked up one more time to see Iris’ attention directed elsewhere. Keeping his hand on top of Iris’ thigh, he began to take small hurried steps away from Iris till he managed to circle her leg. He finally found himself with a little more of a foot to his goal.

Leaving the security of Iris with a knot in his throat, he moved the few feet that separated him from the electronic device. He glanced over his shoulder to see the woman’s whose phone it was still dealing with the two children. He put out his pudgy hands and grasped the phone between them. He hit the phone symbol and the keypad came up. With a dexterity borne of desperation, he managed to dial Randall’s phone number. He hit the call button and waited for the call to be answered.

“Excuse me.” The strange voice called out as a tall shadow of the woman appeared over him. In response, Iris’ voice apologetically answered.

“Oh, my! Cal!” Iris’ shocked voice cut through the air and quickly became apologetic. “Honey, give phone back. I’m so sorry.”

Cal wrapped his hands around the phone as the call made a connection. It rang hollowly as Cal waited for his friend to answer. ‘Please, please answer’ was the urgent hopeful thought that reverberated through Cal as he stared at the phone. The sound of another electronic ring initiating was suddenly muffled by the adult hand inserting itself into his field of vision and engulfing the device.

“No, Calvin. That’s not a toy. That’s for big people.” Iris said as her larger hand with its superior strength took the phone easily out of the toddler’s hands.

Cal was stupefied as he saw the device effortlessly plucked from his hands and handed back to its owner. Just a nanosecond later, he could swear he heard the click of the call being answered before the woman‘s thumb deftly clicked it off and with it, his hopes for rescue. He stared numbly at the woman as she sat down on the bench and began to use the phone, singularly dismissing the dismayed gaze of the small toddler standing there. The sheer utter futility of the situation began to overwhelm him, to be so close and have it lose it like that. After several days of humiliation and frustration, his emotional control was akin to a leaky life raft in a hurricane, easily succumbing to the fury about it. To see the chance of rescue be so easily withdrawn, Cal allowed the feeling of powerlessness overwhelm him. At first, his plump lower lip began to heave in and out slowly at first with the stunned indignation as his loss of control.

Embarrassed, Iris reached over and easily grasped Cal’s forearm and began pulling the agitated toddler toward her. Looking back to the woman whose presence had been the cause of all his misfortune, Cal slowly trudged toward Iris and her patronizing friend and her granddaughter. To his ire, he saw Lancine was shaking her head with pursed lips in judgment of his recent behavior. Even Mindy, standing there with a finger in her mouth had the audacity to look over at him with deprecation.

In reaction, Cal’s mood went from defeat to rage. Seeing red, Cal stamped his feet, doing his best to halt the progress toward Iris. He began to buck his body away from Iris’ grasp, eventually succeeding and he backed away. It was fortuitous that the bell sounding the end of intermission rang. The mix of adults and children began to surge back to the entrances to the theatre in order to see the second half of the show. Cal spun away from Iris, intending to lose himself into in the mass of people. He charged forward with his hands in front of him, not thinking any thought but to get away. In a matter of seconds, he disappeared into the waves of people milling back toward the theatre.

Seeing her infantile charge disappear from her line of sight, Iris immediately stood up. She peered into the crowd, looking to see where Cal had gone. Her eyes darted back and forth, searching for a glimpse of his hair or clothing amidst the onslaught of people. She frantically called for Cal as she moved forward. Her friend, Lancine immediately informed that she would inform the nearby staff of the nearest concession stand about a missing child, and charged off, dragging bewildered Mindy in her wake.

Meanwhile, Cal was doing his best to navigate through the ocean of people, being buffeted by an impersonal knee of an adult or the body of an overexcited child. Some cautious adults would halt just short to ponder about the small human who seemed to be independently threading through the surging crowd. At this time, all Cal could think about was escaping from Iris’ good natured maternal fervor and returning back to his normal life. Pushing ineffectively against the stronger currents of anonymous legs and bodies, he found himself moving back into the auditorium for the second half of the performance. He bounced jarringly against the sea of anonymous adult legs and older children. As the crowd contracted to pass through the entrance of the hall, Cal could not resist the flow of the crowd as he too was pulled along. Cal fought and vented his discontent, but the sound was lost in the cloud of noise of excited children.

Finally inside the auditorium, Cal staggered as he was released from the flux of the incoming mass and looked back to the bottleneck of people back at the doorway. There was no way that he was going to be able to get back out to the lobby at the present time. All of the rage that had fueled his flight had left him as he stood, pushed up against an aisle seat as the concert goers moved toward their seats. He stood there uncertain of what to do. His initial plan was just to get away from Iris which had backfired on him. He was alone in the auditorium, being jostled by the odd distracted child. He felt incredibly vulnerable in the space.

After a minute, he saw that most of the crowd had returned to their seat and the bottleneck had thinned. He began to move back to the doors to the lobby, avoiding the last stragglers. The ushers were standing on each side of the exit with their backs turned as they began to release the doors. Cal approached with trepidation, taking slow halting steps, hoping to slip by them. He luckily managed to cross the threshold of the first pair of doors when he realized that the outer doors had already been closed. He walked over to them and pushed on one of the outer doors with all his might but it refused to budge. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the two ushers had just closed the other doors to the auditorium. The ushers remained on the other side, leaving Cal alone and trapped in the darkened area between the two doors. He began to slap at the outer door, hoping someone on the outside would open it. However, bouncy and raucous music began booming through the inner door, signaling that the show had restarted and muffling any noise he could make.

Just then, the outer door opened with a lagging mother and child. The latecomers stopped short at the sight of a lone toddler standing in the dark. Cal stood there, blinking into the light, not knowing what to do.

“What are you doing in here? Are you alone? Where’s your Mommy?” The woman looked astonished as she held the door open with her body and one hand on her own child.

Cal attempted to move past the woman, but her body efficiently blocked any possible exit.

“Oh, no. You stay here till we find who you belong to.” The perplexed woman called out over her shoulder. “Excuse me, there’s a child here that has been separated from his parent.”

“Yes, mam. Thank you for your help. That must be the child we’ve been looking for. The whole lobby is on lock down.” A deep masculine voice responded.

Before he could do anything, a larger silhouette filled the doorway, as a man in a uniform appeared. Cal stood frozen as he looked up at the officious figure.

“Well, there you are. I know someone who is looking for you.” The strange deep voice announced, unnerving Cal as he stood there.

In the next instant, the man quickly lifted Cal under the arms and tucked him up against his shoulder as he tilted his head to talk into the radio perched on the other. Seeing that situation was handled, the woman and her child slowly pushed the auditorium door open and went in to see the show.

“Security team stand down. Child has been located. Please inform the mother to meet at the auditorium security office.” The guard magnanimously announced “Now, young man, let’s get you back to whom you belong.”

Cal began to kick his legs as the guard began to walk toward the front of the lobby, where Iris was undoubtedly waiting. He placed his hands on the officious shirt and pushed with all his might to no advantage. His body was held easily by the large man who seemed to have no trouble controlling the apparent youngster.

“Uwa..way. I nee da ma fffon caw.” Cal pleaded in desperation.

He hoped to delay the reunion until he could make his important phone call. He was aware that any person would have a hard time understanding his diction, but he had to try. If he could just get this man to understand him, he thought desperately. In a last minute gamble, he grabbed the collar of the man two tone shirt, but the man calmly disengaged the small hands with only one of his larger adult hands.

“There, there. It’s okay.” The man stated as he gave Calvin a slight bounce in an effort to distract him.

The guard did not release Cal’s hands but held them easily, thereby immobilizing the toddler in his arms. As they made their way into the main lobby, Cal turned his head to see Iris standing at the far end near an office door. Her friend, Lancine, who was holding the hand of her granddaughter were standing there with her, giving her emotional support through this trial. A beatific expression of relief appeared on Iris’ face as she caught sight of him. Iris stepped forward to meet the man, hardly being able to wait the additional seconds to have her precious bundle back in her possession.

Cal shuddered as he saw Iris holding out her arms to sweep him from the guard’s arms. Instinctively, he voiced his disagreement with the situation as he felt the cold air swim about him as he was held out to Iris.

“NO!” His clearly enunciated exclamation rang through the hall, but held all the weight of a disobedient toddler to the adult sized occupants.

He strained against the grip of the large hands of the guard. Making his body rigid with his rejection of the situation, Cal kicked at Iris’ approaching hands as they greedily reached for him. He wildly writhed his body in every way possible to avoid Iris with every bit of his being. His body shuddered as he bowed away from the oncoming woman’s grasp. He began to get truly desperate to see how little his efforts were making. Then, without warning, his body suddenly expressed his disfavor in the most volatile way it could.