Jimmy ~ Mirna
Jane Doe. That's what the stupid chart says, hanging at the foot of the stupid hospital bed. It's the name they give people like me. The nobodies.
Maybe it's a good thing. As long as they don't know who I am, they can't put me somewhere. I'll wait for my chance to break out of here and go back to where I really belong.
My nurse leaves the room finally. Maybe this is my chance. I sit up, but I force myself to stay in the bed until I know she is really gone. If she sees me going for my clothes in the corner, I'll never get out of here.
I slump back into the pillows. It's a guard change. And even worse, my new guard isn't a nurse, or a doctor. He's dressed in a yellow polo shirt and khakis. A social worker. He comes in. Doesn't even bother to knock or wait for an invitation. That's how pathetic I am. I can't even control who comes to visit me when I end up in the hospital after having the fits on the side of the road. Like it matters anyways. The only visitor I would take is Tequana, but she isn't coming. That was painfully obvious the moment I woke up alone in the ambulance without my backpack. Tequana probably took my stuff and split as soon as she realized where she would be going if she stayed with me. The worst part is, I can't blame her.
"What do you want?" I snap.
The man doesn't miss a beat. He steps forward and holds out his hand. "Hi, I'm Jim Horton." What? No I'm from social services spiel? Who is this guy?
"What the hell is that?" I say, eyeing his outstretched hand.
"This is a handshake." I can't faze the guy. He even smiles at me. "Well, not yet anyway. That would require another hand. Currently it's a wannabe handshake." He looks at his hand and then back at me with that strange grin on his face.
"Why would I shake hands with you?" I cross my arms.
"Because that's what people do when they meet."
I catch a whiff of something—it reminds me of the McDonald's I didn't get to eat—and I spot a plain white bag in the guy's other hand. Did he bring me food?
"Yeah, whatever," I say under her breath, but I can tell this guy's type. He'll stand like that all day, so I might as well get it over with. I hold my hand up.
He takes my hand and shakes. "It's nice to meet you...?" He cocks his head and raises his eyebrows.
"Like I'd actually tell you my name." I pull my hand away and eye his bag of food. The smell of roast beef is starting to fill the room.
"That's too bad. If you don't want to tell me your name, I'll just have to give you one. Hmm ..." He gazes into my eyes, but I don't look directly at him. "How about Sapphire."
"Sapphire?" I spit the word in his face.
"Sure, Sapphire, for your eyes. Sapph for short."
"That is lame."
"Too bad. You gave away your right to complain the second you chose to make me pick your name for you."
I scoff, even though I've never met anyone who thought I deserve a name, let alone give me a name. "What'd you say your name was? ... Jimmy? Why are you here, anyway? You're not a doctor, and you're sure as hell not a social worker."
"How can you tell?" He smiles that same weird smile.
"All those assholes always give you their title, like it's something to be proud of. I'm Mary from Child Social Services, where we screw over every child who has the good fortune of falling into our care. I can't wait to screw you, too." I cross my arms and roll my eyes.
"My mistake. Let me introduce myself correctly," he says with another weird smile. "I'm Jimmy the painter."
"Painter?" I look into his face, and I see something different there, underneath his stubbled chin and lame brown eyes. Something real. Then I realize why his smile looks weird. It's a real smile, not some fake face he puts on to try to make me feel comfortable. Not the creepy smiles I always see on the streets, or the mandatory smiles of all the foster parents who try to win me over. No one has ever smiled at me like that. "...What do you paint?" I ask.
"Whatever my client wants me to paint, which is usually walls."
"Walls? You paint walls?" Wow, talk about lame. And here I thought he might actually be a cool starving artist type, like me.
"Sure, walls, siding, trim ... But what I really prefer are the murals. Ever been to Balmy Alley?"
I shake my head, feeling my face go warm. He is an artist.
"That's too bad. Everybody should see the murals at least once in their life."
No surprise. I've known this guy for five minutes and he's already telling me what to do. Yeah? Well what if I don't give a damn about stupid painted walls? What then, Jimmy the painter? That smell comes back again, making my mouth water and my stomach grumble. Making me even angrier. Why won't he just leave already?
"You look hungry," Jimmy says. "Go ahead. I already had my first sandwich anyways. This is my seconds." He holds his bag of food out to me.
If I take it from him, I'll owe him, but something comes over me. I grab the bag from him, pull out the roast beef sandwich, unwrap it and take a huge bite. The sandwich is still warm, the meat juicy, and the bread a little moist.
Jimmy watches me chew with this look on his face. Not the smug, full-of-himself face I expect. Not only is he not proud of himself for getting me to trust him enough to eat his food, he actually looks sad.
"Thank ... you," I say around the mouthful.
Jimmy finally sits down in the chair by my bed. "So, I understand you had a seizure," he says.
So they tell me. That's my life. People come in, but they always skip out on me, the way my life skips around like a bad cable TV connection. They feed me lies, and they ditch me. They tell me what to do and then skip out, before it's ever my turn to do the telling. For once, I'd love to be the one who leaves instead of the one who always gets left behind.
"Since I know your secret, I think it's only fair that you have something on me too, so here it is." Jimmy holds his hands up. "I have seizures, too."
He's like me? Could it be true? Not a doctor, not a social worker. But an artist with epilepsy, just like me? He comes in to have a conversation, not to find out who I am, or poke me with needles, or tell me what to do. Not to give me a new placement, or get me to trust him. It's too good to be true.
Which means that it isn't. Jimmy did try to find out who I am. And he nearly did get me to trust him. I may be homeless and hopeless, but I'm not stupid. I know an act when I see one. The painting, the food, the seizures, it's all part of his elaborate scheme. It's probably the best scheme I've ever seen.
"Right, I believe you, because you're such a great guy."
Jimmy doesn't even try to stick up for himself.
"Even if it was true, you're only telling me to get my trust," I say.
"What's so wrong with that?" he asks.
"Everything! It's fake, it's dirty, it's ... just like a social worker, trying to earn my trust just long enough to trap me and ditch me."
"You forgot. I'm Jimmy the painter, not Mary the social worker. And there's no trapping, no ditching, just a guy trying to do some honest good in a world that could use it."
Honest good? "But why?" I ask.
"Because the way I see it, there are two kinds of people in this world. People who help themselves, and people who help each other. I decided a long time ago that I would be someone who helps other people."
"By painting walls. Congratulations Jimmy. You've helped so many people."
"You know." Jimmy stands up. "I can't help someone who won't let herself be helped." He turns around and walks right out, leaving me alone. And without a guard.
Maybe he wasn't trying to trap me after all.
My Romantic Artist ~ Deb
I spot Jim coming down the hallway. I finish the call to child social services and hang up the phone. "Ready for lunch?"
He stands on the other side of the counter. "Sorry, I'm pretty sure I ruined lunch. That kid took my sandwich. It looks like you don't really have time to eat today anyway."
I shrug. He's right, we're so swamped I would feel bad if I took more than ten minutes. "I'll make it up to you tonight. How does dinner at Café Macaroni sound?"
"Sure." He smiles. That place is his favorite. I get ready to head back to work, but Jim grabs my hand. "I want to talk to you. Do you have five minutes?"
I finally realize how preoccupied he is. He hasn't really looked at me since he came back. "Jim, what's wrong?"
"I'm okay. I was just thinking about that girl."
The foster kid?
"She's lost; she needs help." Jim grabs my other hand and holds them together on the countertop. "I'm drawn to her, Deb."
What is he trying to say? "I took care of it. She'll be just fine."
"I think we should take her," he says.
Take her? What? He wants us to adopt her? The only reason why I even considered adoption was because Jim didn't want to risk passing epilepsy on to his kids. And now he wants us to adopt a kid who has epilepsy. "Jim, I know we're all set up for an adoption, but I always thought you wanted a baby."
"Hear me out, Deb. This girl is alone and scared. She needs someone she can relate to, or all her second chances will just go to waste." He stares at my hands. "We don't have to adopt her, just foster her for a while and see how it goes. Don't make your decision now. Think about it. Go talk to her and give her another chance. We'll go from there."
He's so fixated on this. I could never say no. "Oh, Jim." I reach up and put my hand on his face. He puts his hand over mine. "You're such a romantic."
"I'm jealous of you, Deb. You get to help people all day, and I paint walls."
"Jim! Your murals are amazing; don't say that." I sidle around the counter and pull him toward me. "You're my romantic artist, and I love you. Let's go see her."
The look on Jim's face gives me a surge of emotions. Pride, love, joy. He pulls me into a hug, the best thank you he could ever give me.
I take his hand and lead him down the hall back toward the girl's room. "Just to warn you, she's pretty rough around the edges," he says.
I laugh. "I know. She kicked me twice already."
He laughs too. "She called me a liar and said I was only trying to earn her trust so I could ditch her later."
"Oh dear ..." I sigh. I'd feel just awful if she turns out to be right about that. Then I realize how big of a commitment we're about to make. We walk by the front counter and go down the hallway to her room.
We both stop dead at the door. The room isempty.
New Dawn ~ Mirna
I get off the bus and head down the street. This is ridiculous, but there's nowhere else to go, so I walk up to the first person I see and say, "This the way to Balmy Alley?"
The man nods and points further down the street.
My heart is pounding. I break into a run down the street, past an old-looking restaurant. I stumble to a halt at the corner. The alley is filled with colors. I made it.
Just about every inch of the alley is covered in paint. Wow. Most of the murals are so strange, but cool, in their own way. Which wall did Jimmy do? I walk until something catches my eye.
The mural isn't even on a wall. It's painted on the back of a fence—a rural scene with mountains in the background and a mob of people in colorful clothes in the foreground. All the people look Mexican or something. Two people are holding a chain across the whole mural, but it's broken. All the people have their fists in the air. The old woman with the chain really draws me in. She has a ring in her nose. That is wicked.
"It's pretty amazing, isn't it?"
Jimmy is standing across the alley with a woman next to him. He found me. In this huge city, where I could have gone anywhere, we found each other here. Is it because he knew I'd come to try and find his painting, or because I was hoping he'd look for me here? Maybe it's both, and maybe it doesn't even matter.
"What does it mean?" I ask.
He comes across the alley and stares at the painted fence. "It's a New Dawn, Mirna. Naya Bihana."
Why did he call me Sapphire if he knew my name?
"You see that chain?" Jimmy points. "It represents everything that holds you back and keeps you down. It's broken because the people overcame the struggles in their lives and made a new start for themselves."
"How did you find me, Jimmy?"
He comes over and puts a hand on my shoulder. "Why did you run away, Sapph?"
I shrug. He's so annoying! I turn away and stare at the two people holding the chain. They look so sad.
"Where are you going to go?"
I shrug. Like I'd tell him?
Jimmy scrunches up his face. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you can't just wander the streets. You need clothing and shelter and food. And you need your medication, or you'll just end up back in the hospital again ... or worse."
"Why should you care?" I say under my breath.
"We have an empty bed and an open spot at our table ... Sapph, you should come with us."
"Why should I?!" I push his hand off my shoulder and step away from him. "Why should I do anything you say? You're just—"
"You're right," he interrupts me. "I shouldn't tell you what to do. I just met you. The invitation still stands, but if you want to live your life on the streets, I won't stop you." Then he turns and walks back across the alley to the woman he's with. She gazes over his shoulder at me and nods at him. They start to walk away.
He's leaving me? After he came all the way over here to look for me, when he didn't even know if I'd be here or not, he's just going to leave? Why did I come here anyway? To look at stupid paint on the walls? I stare at the stupid thing. In the crowd of painted people, one person catches my eye—a woman holding a child in her arms. The way a mother should hold a child.
I gaze down the alley at Jimmy and the lady with him. Holding each other like a real family, and I suddenly want to be a part of that more than I've ever wanted anything before in my life.
I can't stand here and watch them walk away from me.
"Wait!" I race down the alley after them.
They both turn toward me with open arms, and suddenlyI realize they never would have left me behind.
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