Jex Blackwell Saves the World

by P. William Grimm

  Jex Blackwell Saves the World

  P. William Grimm

  Jex Blackwell Saves the World by P. William Grimm

  ISBN: 978-1-938349-77-5

  eISBN: 978-1-938349-82-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017957285

  Copyright © 2018 P. William Grimm

  This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

  Cover art by Emily Timm

  Heart and Stethoscope illustration by Cardiac Cat

  Layout and book design by Mark Givens

  Excerpt from GREAT MISTAKE MAKER by Spoonboy. Written by David Combs and used by permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

  Excerpt(s) from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST: A NOVEL by Ken Kesey, copyright © 1976 by Ken Kesey. Used by permission of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

  Excerpt from CRICKETS IN THE RAIN by Allo Darlin’. Written by Allo Darlin’. Published by Angular Publishing, Ltd and used by permission. All rights reserved.

  First Pelekinesis Printing 2018

  For information:

  Pelekinesis, 112 Harvard Ave #65, Claremont, CA 91711 USA

  www.pelekinesis.com

  Contents

  Free-styling [Diagnosis]

  After Leviathan [Diagnosis]

  Jenny the Chicken [Diagnosis]

  Bawdy DySmurfia [Diagnosis]

  Little Toy Saxophone [Diagnosis]

  Ana Gnorisis [Diagnosis]

  Appendix

  For Emily

  Free-styling

  Jex Blackwell is not a frightened girl. The alley is dark. It is raining lightly. The streetlights stream through the fog, soaking the alley in a faint glow. The scene is reminiscent of a Sherlock Holmes book or Dashiell Hammett novel. Jex has read them all, from A Study in Scarlet to The Thin Man, and so she is confident of two things: the hero always gets it right and the hero never dies. The problem, Jex thinks to herself, is that she is no hero. She never gets it right and in her sixteen years, she has come close to dying more than once, with only dumb luck between her and the reaper. Still, she loves the hazy street, the late night, the piercing silence of the downtown evening. Standing precariously on an old oil barrel, she shakes a can of spray paint. The only sound in the cool Los Angeles night is the rhythm of the glacket clacking like a broken Christmas bell.

  Jex sometimes stencils when she tags, but tonight she is going free-style. It is a throwie design that is mostly in her head and she didn’t have time to cut the stencils, anyways. This project won’t take long. In any event, free-style is just that, free. Jex is feeling like she needs some freedom tonight. The day was rough and the sun couldn’t set fast enough. The quieting of the angry din of the day came slowly, but finally it came. Cars and people and the inevitable conflict that goes with them bring out things in Jex that she does not like – anger and sadness and rage. So, mostly she hides in the daytime. When the moon rises and spreads its arms around the city, Jex can relax a little bit. The combination of precision and panic that forms the art of free-style tagging is a meditative environment for Jex. The long strokes and quick bursts of spray paint, with the ever-looming possibility of a fast run from the cops or some angry random tagger, somehow calms Jex. It allows her to think. In the moment is the only time she can really think.

  Jex never listens to music when she tags. Too many risks out there, and she has to stay sharp. It’s too bad because Jex loves music. Her favorite band right now is Mischief Brew, a folk punk band from Philadelphia. They are old school as hell, for sure, butif you ask Jex, she would tell you how rad they are, her Southern California twang popping up and down in a sing-song tone she uses only when discussing subjects that interest her. Those sorts of subjects are few and far between, but Mischief Brew is at the top of the short list. She knows these songs well, old friends each of them. They ring around in her head when she is tagging, an imperfect but sufficient replacement for the music itself.

  The song is slightly out of tune in Jex’s head, blunt pounding on an acoustic guitar, Eric Peterson screaming out about hopes and dreams and fears. Peterson isn’t around anymore, his time ended by his own hand, and so neither is Mischief Brew. But Jex is still here. And Jex still has her dreams.

  Jex steps off the barrel and carefully plops three feet to the ground. She has done the same thing a hundred times before and so she moves with grace and purposefulness, almost silently. She peers left and right. Seeing nobody, she takes a moment to appreciate her work. The graffiti is about two feet high and two feet wide - taking up most of the center of the alley wall. It covers up a couple of faded out pieces but not anything by anybody that would give Jex concern. Jex’s piece is mostly red with outlines and highlights of black here and there. The tag is simple but bold, the same way she has tagged it all over the city, from Venice to Silver Lake and back.

  * * *

  Jex looks the piece up and down, and nods her head in approval. Not her worst work, not by a long shot, but it’s OK. She looks down at her left hand, which is covered in black paint, and wiggles her now-aching fingers. It is not her first tag of the night. She is dressed in a long sleeve gray sweatshirt and blue jeans with a hole in the knee. Her black Chucks are covered in a splatter swirl of paint – black, gray, white, red and more – and her short dirty blonde hair is pulled back in a small ponytail. She wears the same thing all the time, her look is as simple and punk elegant as her graffiti. No posing. No bullshit. She pulls out a pack of Camel Crushs and lights one up. She puffs out smoke and crushes the filter between her fingers. It brings a weird satisfaction, and Jex disappears into thought.

  “Jexie, Jexie!! It’s the Pope. Jexie, Jexie. PoPo.”

  The young girl, she couldn’t have been any older than Jex, probably younger, appears out of nowhere and is running as she shouts out her warning. “Jexie, Jexie. It’s the Pope.” She has dark hair, stands maybe five feet, and is wearing a black backpack, black jeans and a black long sleeve shirt. She disappears as quickly as she appeared.

  Jex disappears even faster. By the time the young girl is past her, Jex has already climbed the fire escape ladder and is in the hallway of the building. She blasts through the stairwell, slams open the roof door, and is outside again, five stories up. Blue and red lights illuminate the streets below, but Jex is far enough up that the colors are faded and hollow.

  Jex pauses for a moment to listen to her breathing compete with the radios echoing through the alley. After a moment it is clear that the cops aren’t looking to harass taggers tonight. Someone shot someone somewhere and the police want to know about it. Jex, having nothing of interest to say on the subject, moves along at a leisurely pace over several buildings before deciding to open a roof door and head down back to the street almost a block past the cops. Even with nothing to hide, Jex is happy to keep her distance. Maybe everybody has something to hide.

  Five minutes or so pass before Jex hears the sounds of a skateboard coming up fast behind her. She can tell by the sound of the wheels hitting the concrete who it is, so she doesn’t flinch at all. “Thanks for the heads up,” she says without bothering to even look up.

  “Oh, no problem,” says Q. “Fuck the police.” Q, the young girl who gave the warning earlier, her chin up as she jumps off the board, kicks its tail and it flies up into her waiting hand. She starts to walk next to Jex but finds she needs to nearly jog to keep up. . “They’re nothing but haters,” she shrugs.

  “That’s for sure,” Jex mutters quietly, almost silently, as she stares aimlessly down the alleyway. “I”ve got no time for cops.”

/>   “Me neither,” Q quickly agrees, her head bobbing up and down. “I think it was about that bum down on Grand Street. The one with the big blue hat and yellow pants. You know that one?”

  “Yeah,” Jex confirms aimlessly. “I think I remember seeing him. I don’t know him, though.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t know him, either, but I heard he was dead. Dead as could be after he got beat up by two guys.”

  It doesn’t seem to phase Jex at all. “Where did you hear that from?”

  Q just shrugs. “I just heard it,” she says.

  Jex smiles. “You just heard it?”

  “Yeah, I just heard it.”

  The two walk awhile in silence, onto Broadway. The night is dark and there are few people around. Some of the old lights of Broadway still flicker on and off but mostly it is dead so late at night. Downtown Los Angeles being what it is, it is dead most of the time, late at night or not.

  Q seems awkward and she is the first one to break the silence. “Anyways, I just been walking around tonight, not doing much of anything. I was at the library until closing time and then I just been walking around.”

  “Yeah, I was working tonight, shelving books until it closed.”

  “Yeah, I saw you but you looked busy and I thought you looked like you could use some space so I didn’t say anything.”

  Q stops speaking for a moment, that kind of pause you allow when you are hoping someone is going to say something. Jex doesn’t say anything and so Q starts up talking again.

  “Yeah, anyways, other than that, I haven’t been doing too much. Did some dumpster diving behind the Standard. Nothin’ there but half a beer, and I didn’t want any beer.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yeah.”

  The silence returns for a moment as the two walk down Broadway, heading with determination precisely nowhere. Q’s phone breaks the silence, a digital frog’s strained ribbit. Q looks down and reads a text. She shrugs again, in the way she does, not quite angry and not quite sad; some kind of twisted frustration she knows too well for someone of this age.

  “So hey, Jex, I was meaning to ask you this, but I didn’t yet.”

  “What’s that,” Jex responds with a sigh, as though she knew the text was not anything good. As though she had heard the same build-up to a request many times before and they were never good.

  “So you know that woman, Betsy? The one that used to work at the 7-11?”

  “You mean the one with the tattoo on her face?”

  Q pauses. “No, that’s Jolene. She still works at the 7-11. Betsy is the one with the long fingernails that doesn’t work there no more – she has the nose ring like you have.”

  “Septum ring,” Jex specifies.

  “Yeah, a septum ring. That’s what I said. The one with the long fingernails and the septum ring. You remember her.”

  “I remember her. She was pregnant, right?”

  Q’s eyes light up. “Yes! Yes! That’s the one,” almost hopping. “The pregnant one. She was pregnant. She had the kid like four months ago. It’s a boy. His name is Ben.”

  “Congrats to Betsy. Now she’s a mommy,” Jex responds, something like sarcasm dripping from her words.

  Q continues with a renewed reluctance in her voice. “Well, anyways, yeah, she’s a mom now. And the baby has been crying, like, non-stop.”

  “That’s what babies do,” Jex interrupted. “They cry like non-stop. It’s why they are a pain in the butt and you shouldn’t have them when you’re, like... what is that girl, twenty?”

  Q studies her sneakers as she walks. After a few moments, Jex continues.

  “So … the baby cries. What els...”

  “The thing is,” Q breaks in excitedly, “Ben has this stupid high fever. And it’s, like, totally off the charts. And I know you don’t know Betsy or nothing, but trust me, Betsy isn’t the kind of girl to be taking her baby to a doctor and all that. She’s like off the grid, you know?”

  Jex shakes her head. “Nice,” she whispers with a hint of anger or frustration or something.

  “Yeah, well, anyways. She isn’t never going to go to a doctor with a sick baby. She just don’t trust anybody. But the fever is really bad and when I went there today, I went there after the library closed, when I went there, the baby was like really hot. I tried to pick him up but man that baby wailed. And I have held that baby like ten times before at least and he always loves me. It was like he was in pain or something. Like he was just lying there doing nothing but sobbing and I picked him up and he just squealed. And he was so hot, it was like he was in a microwave or something.”

  Jex doesn’t respond but Q can see that she piqued her interest, however reluctant it might be. There is a long pause and Q, now impatient, begins to talk again. There’s not time for Jex to get to the point in her own good time. She knows the point.

  “So, anyways, Jex, you know, I was wondering, if you’re not doing anything, you know, you’re all smart and shit, and I was thinking, maybe Betsy wouldn’t see no doctor, but…”

  “But maybe she’ll let some punk kid play doctor on her,” Jex interjects, shaking her head.

  Q looks at her with those pleading brown eyes, wide and insidiously innocent. “You know you could Jex. You’re almost like a fucking doctor already, with all those books you’re reading and that stuff in your bag. You’re like Inspector Gadget. If you saw her and you talk the way you do and you check her out, I bet you could tell her what’s wrong. I bet you could tell her and get her to go a doctor.”

  “I volunteer as an intern at the hospital when I’m not working at the library,” Jex smiles. “Pulling sheets off beds and shit. Not exactly a medical professional.”

  “Aw, bullshit, Jex, you know you do all kinds of cray-cray shit at the hospital. Remember that time you helped that guy who thought he had gas and he was really having a stroke and you …”

  Jex cuts her off. “And I have no doubt I could tell her to go to a doctor. What I can’t get her to do is to listen.”

  “But you can try,” Q protests. “That baby is so hot, Jex. I’m worried. “Q touches Jex’s arm and the two stop walking for a moment. “Come on. Do it for Ben. I am asking you, not for Betsy, but for the baby. At least see the baby.”

  Jex looks down at Q, and then she looks left and right, as if someone or something might be coming down the street that would lift her up and out of this interaction. Having no such luck, she lets out a heavy sigh, the weight of the world on her shoulders. But it doesn’t seem to slow her down.

  “Shit,” utters Jex in a tone of resignation, pulling absently on her ponytail. “OK. We can at least see the baby.”

  * * *

  It is some time after midnight when Jex and Q step into the dirty apartment building, just a couple blocks east of the Mayan Theater. The hallway smells sweet, but not sweet like candy – sweet like something bad. Q doesn’t react to it, maybe because she was there earlier in the day and knew what to expect. Jex doesn’t react to it, either, maybe because she just doesn’t care; maybe something else.

  “Knock again,” Jex urges. Q resists, saying, “it hasn’t been a minute.”

  “Yeah, but are we going to stand here out in the hallway all friggin’ night?” Crap apartment hallways late at night don’t scare Jex. But why tempt fate?

  “Give it a minute,” Q says in a loud whisper.

  “Uchhh,” Jex groans and raps on the door herself. The suddenness of the knock causes Q to jump. She punches Jex in the arm but the rapping seems to do the trick, as something stirs behind the door of apartment 204. After another moment, the door cracks open. There isn’t much light but Jex can see Betsy’s face. She seems even younger than Jex remembered, not much older than Jex. It is clear she is agitated.

  “What you want, Q? And who the hell you have with you? You know I’m busy. You know I’m distracted.”

  Betsy moves to close the door but Q is quick, sticking her Doc Marten in between the door and the skirt of the doorway. “Boo, wait
a second,” Q pleads to Betsy. “This is the girl that I told you about. She can help you.” Her voice shifts to a whisper. “She can help Ben.”

  Betsy’s eyes widen in disbelief. “This little punk bitch can help me?” she yelps incredulously. “Q, you gotta stop doing whatever drugs you be doing, or give some of ‘em to me, else you crazy as this little white girl if you think she’s going anywhere near my baby.”

  Q squishes up her face in protest. “Boo, don’t be like that. I am telling you, if you trust me, you can trust Jex. She …”

  Jex interrupts Q in a voice that is suddenly calm and cool. “Betsy, my name is Jex Blackwell. I may not know much, but I know how to figure out if major, basic illnesses or sicknesses are present. Triaging, it’s called. I have received training directly from the chief medical officer at County USC, Dr. Catherine Stephens. I have a stethoscope and otoscope and a baby thermometer and everything else I need to get an initial sense of whether your baby is just throwing his first temper tantrum or whether it might be something worse. Your baby is four months old Q tells me, which means the immunoglobulins that you transferred to him in your last twelve weeks of pregnancy — the things that protect him from sickness and bad stuff — have pretty much disappeared from his body, but he is still too young to develop his own immunoglobulins. He is vulnerable right now. That also means he is still too young to be vaccinated against some of the worst stuff he can expect to see in his life. Seriously.”

  Betsy’s expression turned blank as Jex spoke. She responds equally blankly. “She’s not getting vaccinated. I don’t want her to get autistic.”

  Jex takes a deep breath before waving the comment off with her hand. “I am not going to address that because it really doesn’t matter right now. This is a very risky stage of a baby’s life. With just a little bit of care, though, he will be just fine and he probably is.” She pauses for just a moment to study Betsy’s face, still blank, before she continues. “He probably is. The point is that I can look at him, just for a minute, and maybe, at the very least, I can tell Q to go shut her mouth and stop butting in, because, frankly, I don’t really want to be here any more than you want me here.”