Ray of Sunlight (5 page)

The next day happened to be Saturday, so I stayed in my room all morning. Around 10:00 Mom started in on me about getting up and ready to go to community service. I ignored her. I had thought about skipping the whole thing and staying locked in my room indefinitely, but there were several things wrong with that plan.

First of all, the wardens—otherwise known as parents—would call Attila, and I’d probably be off to juvie for violation of a court order. I had somehow dodged the bullet on that for the fight last night. If they were going to press charges, most likely I would have already been arrested—so I didn’t want to blow it for something as stupid as not showing up for community service.

Second, I was getting hungry, and if I left the room to get food, it would be harder to find a reason to “forget the time” and not go to the bus stop. Third, community service was turning out not to be that bad, and it got me out of the house. And fourth, but most importantly, I actually enjoyed spending time with CJ. He had been getting me to help more and more—in all of the departments—and I was getting to know the kids. They weren’t that bad really. Being around them actually kind of made me forget, for a short time, how angry I was about everything else in my life. And it was simply impossible to be angry around CJ.

So, I got ready right at the last minute, grabbed a Pop-Tart, banana, and a pack of honeybuns, drank juice from the carton, just to tick my mother off, and ran out of the house without a “hello,” “good-bye,” or even a “kiss my ass.” I arrived at the bus stop right as the bus pulled up. Mr. Nobody greeted me in that infuriatingly cheerful voice of his, and I ignored him, as usual, and found my regular seat. Hey, he should be glad I had dropped the “giving him the finger” part of the routine.

W
HEN
I
got to the hospital, I checked in with Groucho and signed in at the nurses’ station like I was supposed to do, even though there was no one there right then to tell me to. Wasn’t I turning into an obedient little boy? Then I went to the dayroom, expecting CJ to already be there, setting up. He usually was on Saturdays.

I thought he was just running late, so I went about setting the chairs in a circle like he usually wanted them. I’d spent a lot of time with CJ over the last two months and had hardly ever known him to be late, but I’d never known him to miss a show, so that had to be it.

I’d only gotten three or four moved when Ms. Carol came in.

“CJ’s not coming in today, hon,” she said in her sweet voice. It occurred to me, over the last two months, that she was the only person I could think of—other than CJ—who I not only tolerated but actually sort of liked. Lots of people use “hon” or “sweetie” or some such shit, but unlike all the others I knew of, she didn’t sound fake. She really seemed to care about all the kids, about CJ… even about me.

But that didn’t answer why CJ wasn’t coming today.

“Why?” I knew he was scheduled for a treatment the previous day, but I’d never known that to keep him from the kids before. There were times when it seemed it was all he could do just to sit and read to them, but he always made time for them. Granted, I’d only known him for two months, but that much was obvious. “What’s wrong?”

She tried to smile. “This round of treatments seems to be hitting him a little harder.”

“Hard enough to disappoint the kids?” I was still incredulous. “That doesn’t sound like CJ.”

“It’s
not
like him,” she agreed. “But today it’s true.” She looked at the chairs. “You can go ahead and put these back and start on the list I had for you to do after CJ had finished his shows here and in the neuro ward.” Over there were kids with brain tumors and muscular dystrophy and a bunch of other stuff I had been told but couldn’t remember. I’d been going there with CJ too, and he usually tried to get to at least two wards on Saturdays and the other one on Sunday. He said he wanted me to know all the kids. I don’t know why, but that seemed to be important to him.

“Can’t I just go see him?” I blurted out. “I know I’m technically assigned to this ward, but I’ve gone to the others with CJ to help with the other patients. He’s a patient, so can’t I just go help with him?” I didn’t know why it was so important to me, but it really was. I had to see him. I had to know he was okay, or at least that he was
going
to be okay.

“I don’t think he wants anyone to see him right now, hon.”

“Can I go see? Please?” I didn’t remember the last time I used that word and didn’t mean it sarcastically. “If he doesn’t want me there, I’ll leave. But I have to at least check in on him.”

She reluctantly agreed but told me to come straight back if he didn’t want company.

W
HEN
I
got to the door of his room, I was shocked by how he looked. He always managed to look so much healthier in clown garb, but he looked even sicker than normal today as he lay there with his eyes closed. Just as I started into the room, he lurched forward and threw up into the basin in his lap that was already dangerously full of vomit.

A nurse pushed past me as I stood rooted to the spot just a couple of steps from the door.

“Here you go, baby.” She exchanged the full basin for the empty one she had brought in. “Let me go clean that one out for you.” She went into the en suite bathroom, and I could hear her throwing the… stuff… into the toilet and flushing, then running the water, no doubt rinsing out the basin.

She came back out and laid the clean basin on the bedside table and then looked at me. “Are you going to visit for a while?” Most of the nurses there knew me, and I recognized them but never bothered to put names to faces.

CJ hadn’t seemed to notice me until just then, and he turned away. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Like what? Human?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood. “’Cause I gotta tell you, man, I was starting to wonder when you crash-landed from Krypton.”

He chuckled weakly at that. “Yeah, well, I think they injected me with Kryptonite yesterday.”

“Looks like it,” I agreed, but meanwhile, the nurse was waiting for an answer, so I looked at her. “Yeah. I’m staying.”

CJ started to interrupt. “Russ, I—”

“I’m staying,” I repeated more firmly. I knew I had told Ms. Carol I would leave if CJ didn’t want me there, but screw it. I wasn’t leaving him. That was so out of character for me. I’d never voluntarily been by the side of someone who was vomiting. I wasn’t really the “caregiver” type. But I wanted to be here for him. I had no idea why it was so important to me to stay, but it really was.

The nurse looked at CJ for his permission, and he just nodded.

“Smart man,” I said. “Knowing when you’re outmatched.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. As sick as he looked, if it had reached his eyes, I’d really think he was Superman.

After the nurse left, I pulled a chair up to his bed, not having the faintest clue about what I should do now. It wasn’t like I had ever been around a sick person before. Not this sick. Pete had had a high fever one day last year, and Mom made me take him some soup, but it wasn’t like I stayed or anything.

CJ seemed to notice something for the first time.

“Come here.” He gestured for me to lean forward, then reached out and gently took my chin. “What happened?”

I had forgotten my jaw was pretty spectacularly bruised.

“Oh nothing,” I lied. I’m not sure why I didn’t launch into a tirade about how evil my parents were and how my own mother smacked me upside the head with a baseball bat. But somehow, looking at him lying there, I just couldn’t muster up my usual anger. And I had to admit, if only to myself, that the whole thing had really been my fault. But I repeated, “Not a thing.”

“That’s obviously a lie.” CJ saw right through me. “But I’ll take your answer as a ‘butt out’ and leave it alone.”

“Not so much a ‘butt out’ as an ‘I did something stupid and don’t want to talk about it.’”

He chuckled. “That’s cool too.”

We talked for a little while, and then he fell asleep. I didn’t want to leave, but I probably should go do some work. And no one was more surprised than I that those words even went through my head, let alone that I was actually going to act on them.

T
HE
NEXT
day CJ still wasn’t in the playroom when I got there. I knew he had planned on rescheduling the burn unit for then, if he felt better. I figured he still felt bad and made my way over to visit him, after obtaining permission from Ms. Carol—and just when had I started caring about having permission? But as the elevator doors opened, I was greeted by a shock of bright colors and a painted-on smile.

“Are you feeling better?” I asked. It sounded like a dumb question, but it really didn’t look like he felt any better.

“I’m not throwing up today,” he answered, like that made it okay to push himself so hard.

I must have let my disapproval show on my face, because he added, “I need this as much as the kids do, Russ. It gets my mind off of everything.”

“I still think you push yourself too hard.”

“Duly noted,” he said as he pushed past me to get clear of the doors before they closed.

I followed him back to the playroom and helped him set up on the big, overstuffed chair near the carpeted area. Then I went to help the staff bring the kids in. I could tell there wouldn’t be nearly as much work done on their more active goals today. CJ just wasn’t up for it. But, I had no doubt he’d work on all the goals he could. And I knew a few of the goals, by now, so I offered to work on some of the more physical ones.

Since the kids trickled in instead of being there when he made his entrance, I figured he wouldn’t get to say his signature intro. Silly me. I should have known better. It had become something the kids looked forward to, and CJ would never let the kids down if he could help it. So, once they were all seated in front of him, he picked up his oversized bag, made a big deal of rooting through it like he couldn’t find what he wanted, then pulled out a pump and a pack of balloons and announced, “It’s showtime!”

The kids cheered as expected.

He had brought those long balloons that clowns always seemed to have on them somewhere and made animals and hats for everyone, getting some kids to pick through the bag to find a certain color, others to stretch the balloons and hand them to him, and still others to operate the pump to blow them up. As usual, no one seemed to realize they were doing PT.

When everyone had a balloon… something or other… he handed out art supplies and asked everyone to draw something in the room. He took a page of drawing paper himself and handed me a sheet. He gave me a look that told me I
would
draw a picture along with everyone else.

I hadn’t drawn for a long while. I used to draw all the time when I was little—I had loved it and had always been told I was really good at it—but once Dad left, Mom didn’t seem as interested in hanging my artwork on the fridge or even looking at it really. That first Mother’s Day, I had drawn her a picture of our family… our whole family, including Dad. Looking back, I can see why that would have upset her, but I was twelve at the time. What did I know? Anyway, I had made a frame out of Popsicle sticks and put a magnet on the back so she could display it. When she opened it and saw what it was, she threw it on the couch and said she didn’t want that shit. I never gave her another drawing.

I had continued to draw for a little while, until Pete found a picture I drew of Abby Collins, a girl in my eighth grade class that I thought was cute. He took it to school and showed everyone. I was new in that school anyway and was attracting a lot of the wrong kind of attention. People were constantly harassing me about something or another, and there was one gang of boys that seemed to make it their life mission to beat the crap out of me once a day whether I needed it or not. The picture, and the “crush” on Abby, was fair game for more ammunition, apparently. They all picked on me about it so bad that I just gave up drawing altogether. It was months before I’d even started back with doodles and designs in my notebooks—on the few days I stayed awake—in lieu of notes that were supposed to be there. But even then, those were minimal, and never anything recognizable as anything, let alone any
one
.

So, I awkwardly picked up a pack of colored pencils and a book to bear down on, and started drawing the first thing that came into my mind: CJ… in full clown getup. It was supposed to be something in the room after all, and he, as always, fairly dominated the room.

I was surprised by how quickly everything came back to me. Drawing had always been so easy for me, and I could lose myself in it, so it was fun too. I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed it. So, I just let myself get swept away in the lines and shapes and colors that, with any luck at all, would look like CJ when I got finished.

He allowed the kids plenty of time to finish their pictures and he “oohed” and “ahhed” over each one, then let the kids pick where in the room they wanted their drawing to be displayed—except for the few who wanted to give it to their parents instead and a couple who insisted that they wanted CJ to have it.

I had gotten so engrossed by then in putting the finishing touches on my work that I hadn’t even realized CJ had come over to the couch where I was sitting until he spoke.

“Russ,” he exclaimed. “That’s fantastic! It looks just like me. I didn’t know you were an artist!”

“I’m not,” I admitted. “I haven’t drawn for years.”

“Well that’s spectacular!” Then he asked, sheepishly, “May I have it?”

“Gee, Ma,” I teased, “you gonna hang it on the fridge?”

He chuckled. “I’d like to put it by my makeup table in my room.”

He actually seemed sincere. I looked back at the drawing. It
had
turned out fairly well—better than I had thought it would. I wasn’t sure it was worthy of the fuss, though. “Sure, you can have it.”