by Pepper Pace
Troy felt tears in his eyes and didn’t know why. ‘The ch-ch-church, sir.’ Kelly pulled up in front of Wesleyan AME Church and led Troy inside. He had thawed out some but was still having a hard time manipulating his hands and standing on his feet. His body felt like a big throbbing exposed nerve! Inside Kelly spoke in a familiar manner with the pastor while Troy sat slumped in a chair. The two spoke quietly and glanced at him, he didn’t know what was being said but after a minute they approached him and Troy stood on shaky feet. Kelly offered his hand. Troy looked at it surprised and then shook it.
‘Got you all set up here, Troy. Pastor Greene will take good care of you.’ Kelly walked away.
‘Thank you.’ He said. He never saw Kelly again. But Pastor Greene and all of the others at Wesleyan were as helpful as Kelly. Pastor Greene had the director of the WHHP come pick him up. The church sponsored the Wesleyan Helping Hands program to help the down and out get back on their feet. The director was Dan Greene, the pastor’s son.
They took him to a local medical center sponsored by WHHP but he had several broken ribs that required him to go to the local hospital. He didn’t want to, would have walked away but Dan promised that he would stay with him and he did. In addition to the broken ribs he had a broken nose, a fractured jaw, and frostbite on his fingertips. He got stitched up, given antibiotics, and released to Dan’s care with instructions that his fingertips may have to be removed if the circulation did not return.
Dan took him back to WHHP and he was assigned a nice room that had a bed, desk and a private bathroom. He gave Dan a surprised look.
‘Sorry it’s not very nice, but it’s just supposed to be a way center until you get back on your feet.’
‘No, it’s…’ Tears came to his eyes. ‘…it’s nice.’
Troy stayed with WHHP for three months. Sensation returned to his fingers and WHHP went about helping him with the task of finding a job, but he wanted to work at the facility. Pastor Greene told him that the purpose of the program was to help him to get transitioned back into society, but when he offered to work in the kitchen for free to pay his boarding, it was an offer they couldn’t refuse.
He was good in the kitchen and felt at home. He got to run it the way he wanted. The church ladies used to take turns cooking, but they gladly relinquished the job to him, teaching him how to fry chicken, make greens, biscuits from scratch and the best beef stew he’d ever eaten.
When he wasn’t working in the kitchen he attended classes; not just educational but therapeutic. He did great in the educational classes, taking his GED test and passing it within weeks.
The therapy was the worst. Again they tried to convince him that he should take medication. ‘The state of Ohio will help subsidize a place for you to live and you will be off the streets, isn’t that what you want Troy?’
He didn’t know what he wanted but he let them help get him into the system and soon he was in a nice apartment. Unfortunately for him, with a real apartment he had to have a real job so he left his beloved kitchen and WHHP got him a job at a telemarketing company that was ‘handicap’ friendly.
He was given medications to relax his brain’s seizure output synopsis. It also relaxed everything else. At night he’d sit in front of his television set and not even know what he’d watched all evening. At work he was tired and yawned all of the time. His hands shook even more than they did before so he got medication. The medication took a long time to work on him because they kept adjusting it. One thing gave him insomnia, one thing made him too sleepy, something else helped with the stuttering and tics but it might make him lose his appetite.
‘Look, I don’t want to take the medication anymore.’ He said to the doctor. ‘I can’t think straight. I don’t have any desire to do things. And I feel sick or high all of the time.’
‘We’ll just have to keep adjusting it until we find the right combination. It’s a work in progress, Troy. And if you come off your meds completely you’ll lose your subsidy.’ He felt like a test subject. Maybe they were even doing experiments on him. That sounded too close to paranoia, but people only call it that because it’s so close to the truth.
Troy stuck with the program for six months, but frankly he hated his job. He never made commission because no one had the patience for the slow talking mutant or the stuttering geek that he sounded like.
The state told him that he didn’t have to work. He could just collect his SSA so he tried that for a while. He met Donna, an older woman that worked as a waitress. She had two kids and tried to move into his one bedroom apartment but when it messed with his SSA he kicked them out. It wasn’t a loss, her kids didn’t listen to him and she stopped having sex with him as soon as she was in his apartment, plus she was just plain mean.
Troy was no longer a virgin but he still hadn’t formed any meaningful relationships with females. It seemed that most of the women he met just wanted to move into his place when it was cold and they disappeared from sight when the weather was nice. And of course, he was always mindful and distrustful of street women because of the virus. Stable women with jobs were few and far between. Once he had an ‘episode’ they flew the coop. Eventually he did lose his housing because too many people were coming in and out. But by that time he was convinced that the entire system was just a trap; tease you with benefits subsidies and make you jump through endless hoops knowing that they will only threaten to snatch everything from you on a whim. Without state benefits then don’t get sick, be forced to find a job that offers insurance and a place to live that won’t wipe out your entire pay.
Yeah, it can be done, by someone who didn’t care enough about material things. But that person wouldn’t care about having an apartment in the first place. And so here he was.
He packed up the few belongings that he wanted to keep and he hit the road. Over the next few years he travelled to Kentucky, and Tennessee, and did odd jobs, worked construction, stood in a field picking tobacco with immigrants, until a trucker led him back to Ohio, where he was when he interrupted the beating of a lone black woman by three street thugs.
CHAPTER 6
Troy blinked his eyes several times and then focused on Juicy, and the topic of the police.
"Not all of them are bad. But th-th-THEIR jobs are to keep the streets clean. I get that. Sometimes when they start to recognize you they take it as a sign to do o-o-o..." Troy was sweating with his struggles. "...other things to you."
"Like what?" She asked feeling that heat of anger boiling up from the pit of her stomach.
"Juicy, never mind. I avoid the cops when I have to." His lip began to twitch and then his neck.
Troy closed his eyes. His face growing pale as the tic intensified and his face began to jerk.
"Are you okay?"
"You g-g-got anything for a headache?"
Juicy jumped up. "Yeah! Hold on." She hurried to the bathroom returning with a huge bottle of ibuprofen. She put it on the table in front of Troy then hurried to the fridge for a bottled water.
With squinted red rimmed eyes Troy struggled with the cap until Juicy took it from his hands and opened it for him. Troy squinted at the bottled water.
"Juicy I need some tap water please. That's going to be too cold." His voice sounded low and pained.
She was really worried now. She grabbed a glass and ran some tap water in it then put it on the table. He was shaking out eight pills into his palms.
Damn, she'd never seen anyone take eight all at once! She almost stopped him before she remembered that Troy knew Troy better than she did.
He swallowed down the pills expertly then with elbows on the table he buried his fists into his hair.
Juicy pulled her chair close to his. Tentatively she put her hand on his shoulder. He flinched at her touch.
"No..." He whimpered softly, "…hurts."
"When I touch you it hurts?"
He grimaced and opened his tightly squeezed eyes. "I'm going to be sick..." He stumbled to his feet and hurried to the bathroom. The towel wa
s still on the chair. Juicy looked at that for a moment then towards the bathroom where the sounds of gagging could be clearly heard.
Troy was in there for a long time then she heard the sound of flushing, water running and last gurgling. He must have found her mouthwash.
His head was hanging low when he stumbled out of the bathroom. It reminded her of how he looked when she had first seen him in the alley with his head low and like he was swimming up from a crack high.
It hadn't been drugs, it had been a migraine!
Ignoring his nudity, Juicy took his elbow, careful so as not to cause him any discomfort.
"You need to lie down." She led him to her bedroom. The blinds were still closed and the room was pleasantly dark.
Troy climbed into bed and lay on his side curled up into a fetal ball. She covered him with a quilt and he didn't protest.
She tiptoed out of the room closing the door behind her. Had she brought the episode on by bringing up unpleasant topics? The idea of it made her feel sick herself. Good or bad, Troy was...different. She should have never pushed him so hard.
As he slept Juicy reluctantly took care of some business, though it was hard to pull her attention from him. Using her home phone, she retrieved the messages from her stolen cell phone. She'd long since learned not to give out her home phone number to clients; learning the hard way that ignorant Negroes will call you morning, noon and night if they wanted their hair done bad enough!
Sure enough, the only messages she had were from her clients and they had blown up her phone so bad that her voicemail was filled. Some had been so mad they had cursed her up one side and down the other for leaving them hanging with nappy heads. A few had sworn never to deal with her sorry ass again.
She was going to have to give some free appointments off of this. She needed her regulars as they were her bread and butter. Checking her appointment book she decided to cancel the next few days of appointments and to contact the ones that had already been missed and get them rescheduled.
When she explained that she had been mugged and just out of a coma a few of those ungrateful heifers had still complained about their inconvenience. She swore to herself that those voicing any complaints had earned themselves a burned ear or neck!
Juicy picked up the ibuprofen bottle, shook out a couple into her own hands. Her head was beginning to ache a bit. Then she went downstairs for Troy's clothes before someone stole them.
She folded them neatly and tiptoed into the bedroom to place them at the foot of the bed. He was sleeping soundly, breathing evenly, and not appearing to have moved at all. Juicy stood there and looked at him.
Troy was so handsome that it made her chest ache. There, she had admitted it. He was beautiful. He was probably the one purest person that she had ever known in her pitiful excuse for a life. What had made him kiss her like that? Was it because he hadn't been laid in at least the last three days? Was it because...maybe he saw something in her that others couldn't...something beyond her loud mouth and bad attitude? In that alley before the attack, he had called her beautiful.
Juicy frowned and shook her head. She left the room and went into the bathroom where she cleaned it from top to bottom, before running a hot bath and soaking away the aches that had settled deep into her bones and muscles. She showered afterwards, allowing the gentle spray of water to rinse her carefully shampooed dreds.
Afterwards she dried herself, and made sure that each golden tress was devoid of water. Then she reapplied cotton balls and secured them with another doo rag. She stared at her naked body in the foggy bathroom mirror and suddenly felt drained…and something more. It wasn't even night, yet she felt as if she'd been up for days. And warring with her fatigue was a need that Troy’s earlier words had awakened.
‘I’m sorry Juicy. It’s been so long since I’ve been touched…’
She almost couldn’t breathe when she thought about how much she, herself, needed someone’s kind touch.
Stepping out of the bathroom, she looked at the closed door of her bedroom, then with her hands crossed over her naked chest she slipped carefully into her room. Troy was still sleeping and he still hadn't changed positions.
Was he breathing?! She hurried over to the bed and relief washed over her when she saw the steady rise and fall of his chest. He looked so content, so comfortable. Could she...could she be with a man like Troy?
‘…I can take care of you.’ He had said.
Never taking her eyes from his form, Juicy slid into bed. She knew what she wanted more than anything else in life right now. She wanted to stroke Troy's naked skin and to soothe his brow. Juicy wanted to kiss his waiting lips and feel him slide into her anxious body. She wanted to feel his hands caress her skin...
But for now, she had to be content to watch him sleep. She did this, examining the stubble on his cheek, the shadows his lashes cast on the pale skin of his cheek, and the dark blond hair that fell across his brow. Before long her eyes drooped. The ibuprofen, the shower, the conversation with Troy, the sex...it had all drained her and she fell asleep watching him, wanting him.
***
Juicy reached up to scratch her arm as something slid across it, making her skin itch, tickling her flesh. When she felt the same sensation slipping across her hip she opened her eyes.
Troy was up on his elbow watching her with clear eyes. Apparently his headache had disappeared and apparently he had been awake for some time. It was his fingers that were tracing the lines of her nudity. He himself was equally as nude as he had pushed the quilt away. Wordlessly he brought his fingers to her lips and touched her there with just the tips.
Juicy blinked and resisted the urge to run away. Instead she placed her hand on the hip that was positioned only inches from her own. She could feel the sudden heat emanating from his pelvis even before she saw the rise of his penis. Juicy slowly scooted closer to him until their pelvises were touching. Troy slid his arm around her and pulled her against him fully and she draped her own arm around him and clutched him. They smiled at each other.
Troy reached up and traced the line of her jaw with his fingertips seconds before kissing her. After a long moment of exploring her mouth, he looked back with a slight frown. His fingers moved to a deep bruise on her hip.
“Does this hurt?”
“Not really.” She murmured. He sat up and leaned over her, urging her onto her back. Then he began to gently kiss her body, his touch light over her bruises. Juicy closed her eyes enjoying his light touch. When he finished kissing the front of her, he had her roll over and he kissed the back of her.
She had peeked at him when he reached the pooch of her belly. He kissed circles around her belly button causing her to giggle and then she sighed. Now he had placed his cheek against the round of her ass, stroking down the back of her thighs.
Her moans grew as her skin became sensitized. She felt him sit up and then he placed his fingers on her lower back, running them down her spine. She trembled.
“How about here? How does it feel here?”
“Feels good…”
“There’s a bad bruise here.” She glanced over her shoulder and tried to see but couldn’t.
“Kiss it.” She suggested.
He did. She started to shake more.
“Troy…” She sighed.
“I’m here.” He moved his body up until he was nuzzling the back of her neck and moving his body against hers. “Juice, do you have any condoms?” He whispered into her ear.
Her eyes opened and reality flooded her senses. So many realities came to mind with the mention of that one word; Condom. “Yes.” She said quickly and moved to reach for her bedside table for a roll of condoms. She handed them to him nervously. Maybe she shouldn’t be doing this…
“I don’t want you to worry about this, okay.” He was still whispering even though he didn’t need to. But his soft words were soothing and she listened intently. “I haven’t made love with anyone in years, Juicy. But every time I go to a shelter, or clin
ic, I have to get tested. I don’t use drugs and I’m not gay, I don’t…do that.” He paused and stared intently into her eyes. “So, please don’t worry.”
She watched him with openness. “Years? You haven’t been with anyone in years?”
He shrugged slightly and placed his lips on her shoulder. “I don’t really care about that.” His eyes stared deeply into hers. “You don’t…You don’t have a boyfriend?”