Thinking back over how I mistreated him reminds me of how Romulus mistreated me. I hope, I pray my having disrespected that gentleman does not lead to a life-threatening circumstance for me, considering how the enemy shoots to kill. And judging based on the contents of some of the stories Mr. Louis shared with me, about how Satan and them operate, he’s dead – dead as a doorknob, deceased as in a death that would have not been had I not offered Romulus an offer that required relocation to the metropolitan area with the second-highest firearm murder rate in the nation.
Seven
Four more weeks having flown past, I ease from the blue sleeping bag to stand on my feet, yawning, stretching my bones and tendons and muscles awake. My clothes emit a more pungent smell than garbage truck juice. The grown hairs on my head and on my face resemble the nappy beginning of a lion’s mane shorter in length than the overgrown one Mr. Louis has.
I set out for the hospital without peeking out the blanketed opening at the weather.
For the past weeks, I avoided the route I had been taking since the night the automobile let down on me – walking an extra mile to keep from having to face the narrow passage Romulus was murdered in. I had been suffering flashbacks and nightmares about the things he yelled out to me that afternoon, the disbelief and the heartbreak that appeared on his face the instant I refused to help and resumed walking home, how he cursed me and Jennifer both and went as far as wishing me and her gruesome deaths.
No more! I’m taking the route I have been taking since the morning following the night I became homeless. I haven’t run from a problem in a while, and I don’t plan on letting that experience continue on intimidating me from handling the choice I made.
Nearing the narrow passage with my straight face fixed in the direction I am walking, I all of sudden begin to perceive his furious tone of voice from that afternoon, then the laughs we shared throughout the headquarters of Jen Juice, the business conferences we attended for the sake of bettering the corporation from a sales and customer satisfaction standpoint. We were familially close until he crossed the line with his profane words against Jen and me.
Relation is irrelevant to me when someone causes her harm, relatives included. I understand nothing compares to relatives. I also understand unconditional love to be one of His greatest gifts to mankind – according to biblical verses my mother read to me a number of nights, behind her long face and figure being beaten, thrashed, assaulted, and sometimes burned at the hands of a former stepfather of mine.
She would come staggering or limping or crawling through my bedroom door in the middle of the night, at one, two, and sometimes three in the morning. I would pose a question to her about the true meaning, and with a bloodied nose and swollen smile, she would grab the collection of sacred writings from the nightstand, flip open to First Corinthians, chapter thirteen, verse four, and read aloud to me. I have not gone a day without remembering her weeping voice. I’m reminded of her voice each time I begin to feel like I cannot endure another second in the predicament with Jen. I’m reminded of how lonely my mother seemed – like she had yet to experience the biblical definition of love, like she read for my benefit alone, like she began to believe that kind of love would never find her, the kind of love my girlfriend Jennifer feels when she thinks of me, her boyfriend Gabriel Clevenger.
Stepping past the entrance to the narrow passage, I glance in the direction of where I remember last seeing Romulus on his knees. A chalk outline on the cement, near the dumpster, indicates the place where the corpse was found, the word through the vine on the streets being Romulus was pronounced dead on arrival, prior to investigators arriving to process the scene. Instead of halting to investigate further into the matter, to see if I can create a mental picture of what and how things happened, I continue walking without blinking once, the wintry temperatures – which I’ve become immune to – not causing me a single quiver or teeth chatter.
I am determined to spend this morning with her, determined to be the smile her eyes open to, if this morning by any chance is the morning she is to return to me. But like most people facing trials and tribulations that require immense patience, discipline, and perseverance, a small doubt seems to be searching for someplace to embed itself in the back of my mind. Oftentimes I deal with it immediately. Other times, it has taken anywhere from days, weeks, and sometimes even months for me to pull my head out of my ass and realize the doubt needs to be dealt with before its repercussions and its mannerisms deal with me, or in my girlfriend Jennifer’s terms, “the man who is stubborn as a mule”, which I am in certain circumstances.
For instance, she has this notion that alludes to me being too considerate of Jen Juice employees, which is untrue; I no longer am chief executive officer there. In complete truth, I admit to the take being partially true, the main concern being the Forgiveness Rule, a rule I laid out for the purpose of blessing employees with a chance to redeem themselves through extensive amounts of community service, a onetime donation of at least ten thousand dollars to either an afterschool program or a college-bound person of eighteen years of age, if theirs was truly an honest mistake against corporation policies.
Her perspective about blessing an individual with a second chance is that an individual sometimes needs to be taught a lesson through termination. Once she suggested that I terminate a janitorial employee for not cleaning according to her standards, and I refused to let that convince me to terminate the then-thirty-one-year-old single mother, whom Jennifer immediately sympathized for when I spoke of the woman being a single parent. Even after I made it known the woman had tested positive for marijuana usage, which was later proven a prescription for the partial-sighted reason behind her good but not great mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, and scrubbing floors and toilets as clean as other janitorial employees. I mean, the woman worked her backside off for the sake of the little faces she had to feed at home. It wasn’t until Jen heard the situation in full that she knew in her heart she was wrong, so wrong that she took it upon herself to go apologize to the kind-tempered woman by helping her and her children to a better place to live and more reliable means of transportation apart from the bus she religiously rode each morning to work. I also raised the woman to making nineteen dollars an hour.
Though never minding her advice that one time worked in my favor, I admit I should’ve applied the same advice toward a different situation that happened not long after that one, because the rule paved the way for an employee to pretend he was serious about redeeming himself – only to revert back to stealing. I should’ve known better than to allow myself to be duped into believing him when he couldn’t even look me in the eyes. He just sat there in the guest chair with a lowered face, without ever intending to change. He deceived me into believing for financial reasons. Or shall I say was allowed to because Jen forewarned me about that rule. Four hundred thousand dollars later, I called a meeting to inform each of the employees about my decision to do away with it. One man loused privileged fruit up for everyone.
Had I listened to her in the beginning, the four hundred thousand dollars he embezzled could’ve gone towards changing the life of an underprivileged grade school student who lacked the financial means to attend college and further himself in education.
I learned quite a few things from that circumstance, two in particular. One, be mindful and not naïve. Two, Jen is seldom wrong about things. Not about that, not about herself, not about me, and more important than life itself, seldom has she been wrong about us.
*
Checking paperwork on the clipboard in her grip, Dr. Jamison enters the frigid climate of Jen’s hospital room with an earnest expression, her face brushed with a light coat of makeup, the laboratory garment with sleeves, covering the upper part of her body, as white as the snow that flaked down from the pale blue sky along my walk here.
I’m not sure what prompted me to position the armchair at the other side of the bed – against normal placement, backside of its backrest to the door – but I
’m glad I did. It put me in perfect position to notice Dr. Jamison the instant she eased the door open from a crack to enter and then right back to a crack to begin penning observations based on the electrocardiogram along with other attached machines that give readings on Jen’s heart, breathing, and hydration.
“Oh! Had no clue you were here. I can leave, come back later if you want, if you’d like for the two of you to be alone together,” Dr. Jamison says, raising a hand from gripping the clipboard to hand-gesture in the direction from which she came.
“Please, stay.” I stand. I round the foot of the bed to her. “Anything new?”
“Yes. Have a look for yourself.”
I turn to place attention on Jennifer. I cannot believe I overlooked something I should’ve noticed the instant I began making for a place to have a seat.
“Look at her. The exact same as she was the first time you asked me that question.”
“What!” I steer my undivided attention back on Dr. Jamison. I cannot believe she had the nerve to crack a sarcastic remark about Jennifer’s condition.
The first thought through my mind was had she not been of the opposite sex, I’d have snatched her up by the collar of her long coat and wrung her neck – the exact same treatment I had given Romulus a little under a month ago. To think I believed her character and purpose for being a medical practitioner was incomparably different from the others I either encountered firsthand or heard about through emotionally-scarred former coworkers of mine. She looked me in the eyes, disguising her true self behind a look that passed for sincerity – on the face externally – and lied about a heap of things. How remedial I feel for leaving Jen in her care!
“Hate to be the bearer of bad news.” She wipes the slight smirk off her face. “You need to start thinking about what you’re doing to her. The kind of torture you’re putting her through in refusing to let her move on isn’t what’s best for her.”
I look off. I give a headshake, beyond offended. “I knew it,” I say, placing my attention back on her. “Just like the rest of ’em. Knew it was too good to be true, a doctor with selfless character in medicine.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I take a step closer, stepping into her face. “What you think it means?” I pause. I give her a slow-burning stare. “What ever happened to ‘I think you’re doing the right thing’ or ‘I think what you’re doing is extremely sweet’ or my favorite, ‘if I was in your shoes, I’d be doing the same thing’?” I say, impersonating her pretentious, caring voice. I drop the hysterical horseplay from my demeanor, narrow my eyes at her unable-to-even-look-at-me expression.
She musters the courage to look at me. Finally. “I know you mean good. But you really need to start facing the facts. Accept the fact that she’s gone and isn’t coming back.”
“What!” I say, drawing back my face. The statement brings me teary eyes. I have a glimpse at Jennifer through the peripheral vision of my right eye. “So, you telling me I need to accept the fact that she’s gone, give up on the most important person in my life?”
She looks at Jen and then gives her attention back to me. “Yes.”
“Now you see, that’s the difference between me and you.”
A wrinkle appears on her forehead. She squints to a small degree, turns her face at a slight angle with her eyes remaining glued on me.
“You give up on people who mean the world to you. I don’t.” I let the statement register. “You think that just because you’ve all the medical knowledge known to man that you’re in control. Newsflash! You’re not. The books you spent eight, nine, ten years studying don’t have anything on The One you doctors always seem to underestimate.”
“God is not for torturing people,” she argues.
“Is that so?”
“Yes!”
“Then tell me what you think God thinks about you giving up on one of His children?”
Unable to find the words to answer back, she lowers her hooded eyes and then her face and raises them to look into the ceiling, straining to keep from letting tears leak, I suppose, judging based on the tearful gloss in her eyes; and I refuse to sympathize.
“First Timothy, five-eight. ‘But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.’ John, fifteen-thirteen. ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.’ First Peter, four-eight. ‘Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.’ First John, four-eight. ‘Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.’ Tell me again what you know about love, Dr. Jamison.”
She raises a hand to wipe falling tears from her cheeks and eyes. “It’s unconditional.”
“Exactly.” I pause for a moment to simply look at her. “Thought a married woman like yourself would understand, but guess I was wrong. I feel for your husband.” I speak down at her, her reacting with downcast eyes and a dropped jaw, prior to storming from the room with her emotions in a wreck, leaving me alone so I can revert back to admiring time with the person I traveled a good ways to see.
I’m not sure if she feels the same as the other medical practitioners who became familiar with our circumstances by word of mouth, but if she does, she can go to Hell. I’ll be damned if I let anybody – male or female – speak death over what she knows nothing about. She’s not God. She doesn’t have ultimate command over life or death, let alone if Jen will wake from the coma to lead a normal life. I’m not going to stand here pretending not to be scared of what the outcome can be. The torment from not knowing has me scared beyond common sense.
I haven’t an idea what I would do if she never wakes from the unconscious state, making it impossible for her eyes to open to me, if I’m never granted the chance to validate how much I appreciate her smile, her laugh, the half-smile half-pout expression she gives when she intends to sweet-talk me into an entire evening of watching chick flicks – which I use every line I could think of to escape: my “I-think-I-do-not-feel-so-well” storming from the living room to the bathroom with a hand over the stomach, the “how-about-you-go-dress-in-something-nice-and-let-me-take-you-someplace-nice” line. Both lines won me escapes. But neither of them compares to the time I waited for the movie to start to sneak into the kitchen to prepare dinner, thinking I found a sure way out of the romance movie. She hit pause. She came looking for me, calling my name, calling me out on making an excuse to keep from having to spend time with her – only to be surprised by me, in an apron, roasting herbed tilapia in a lemon-butter sauce and sautéing asparagus, her favorite of many dishes I prepared for her.
To claim her reaction was happiness would be an understatement. There was more than happiness behind her blush. There was love. There was gratitude. There were deeply moved emotions building from her heart to her eyes as she stood with her back leaning against the doorframe, watching me. It was special. I could tell she felt appreciated. I could tell she felt admired. I could tell there wasn’t any place she would have rather been other than there, in the moment, with me, adding to the rich supply of memories we created together. I…
The increase of hardly audible noise from the hall grabs my attention, me standing to turn in time to find Dr. Jamison returning with a humbled gesture on her face.
“About earlier—” Remorse overwhelms her from within. “—I was out of line. Hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. If not, I understand. It’s just—this morning, I’ve been under so much stress. My marriage has fallen apart. I’m here ninety percent of the day and night looking after people I barely even know, instead of being at home, spending time with my husband.” She lets her face hang at the polished floor. “Arrived home last night to his things gone, from his designer suits to the mismatched socks that were in the sock drawer. Everything. He left his wedding band on the nightstand next to a note, that was a reminder to me about yesterday making ten years of marriage for us, and, like the past fou
r anniversaries before yesterday, I became so consumed with things that needed to be done here that I forgot. Now he won’t even talk to me.” Her emotions collapse like a dam – unleashing tears that were building from her soul to her eyes. “He won’t answer calls, hasn’t responded to any of my messages.” She sniffs the clear watery mucous – which about runs from her nostril – back into her nose. She gives me a disappointed expression. “I don’t know what to do. It’s that time of the month, can’t concentrate, can’t sleep now that he’s gone,” she says, falling into me, me wrapping arms around her to clasp, console, and embrace her hurt.
I am ashamed of myself for making assumptions without questioning about her occupation, about her husband, about her parents, about her wellbeing in general, the least I could have done in return for how sacrificial she has been. I should’ve known mental and emotional pain were the driving force behind her misrepresenting her character a moment ago. I should’ve known better because of the depth of the enlightening sit-and-listen I shared with a psychiatrist while attending a business conference in London. A ten-year study of hers validated an educated guess related to the prime reason for a woman acting out of character toward innocent people, the prime reason being due to frustration that is provoked by someone other than the individual the frustration is being taken out on. I should’ve at least thought to question to the root of problem before I began slandering her character.
I should be the person apologizing. I should be the person disclosing the slander I used to obliterate the mental picture I had in mind of her ulterior motive. I certainly had reason to be offended over the sarcastic remark; I had reason to pose mental questions about her character and ulterior motive but no reason to haul off and remark about her husband. I lurched overboard with that statement. I need to acknowledge the wrong but am not sure if the moment is time-appropriate because of her present cries. Considering the remark contributed to the unbearable disappointment she was buried under, when she initially entered into the room to make observations, I feel obligated to just stand here, without interrupting, and let her cleanse her soul into the lower chest of my unlaundered tee.
My Bridge To Forever Page 12
