I brought down a few old shirts I didn’t wear anymore and a sports bra that might fit her. I also gave her an old Halloween wig, for which I had paid good money, and a few headscarves that would make the wig look believable. Once dressed, she looked like any other kid you might see trying to buy some cheap jewelry off me in my store. I nodded at her. Jane would be safe now.
“So, this is when I pay you, yes? I owe you flesh. I appreciate what you’ve done, and I will pay you. A deal is a deal.”
She looked and sounded resolute. The girl was ready to pay, but I shook my head.
“Listen kid, forget about that. Just go and live a good life for me, okay? I’ve got enough skin to last me a year.”
Her face softened and she hugged me. I wanted to say so many things to her. All night we had spent together building her life. The darkness outside was lightening with the coming sun. I wished profound words would exit my mouth to inspire her on her next journey, but they just weren’t there. I squeezed her tighter and handed her a Dakota’s Jewel bag that had a few extra shirts, some more scarfs, and some money.
“That’s just a little cash to help you get started. There’s also an address in there to a really good halfway house run by some friends of mine. Use some of that money to take a taxi there. Don’t walk. Ask for Marlene and tell her Dakota sent you. They specialize in getting kids into colleges.”
“But what if I’m not smart enough for college?”
“You are.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I wrote you that way.”
We smiled at each other. She reached in and found the other thing I had placed in the bag for her. They were a pair of earrings from my stock. It was a set of beautiful, identical sparrows.
“What’s this?”
“In memory of your parents,” I said.
We hugged again, and before I started crying all over myself once more, I gently pushed her away.
“All right, get out of here before anyone sees you.”
I sniffed and cleared my face on a rag. With a flash of a grateful smile, the girl, now Jane, was out of my store and out of my life. The whole place suddenly seemed so empty, but I wouldn’t cry again. I locked up the store and made my way up the creaky, wooden steps to my loft apartment. First, the boots came off, then the jeans, then the shirt and leather vest. I pulled on the biggest nightshirt I could find and reveled in its comfort.
The past evening had been a whirlwind, and now, I could reflect. I had created an entire life. Well, not a whole one, but one up until the cusp of adulthood. Everything I wrote was true to that girl. I had saved her. I had given her life; even though I knew the thought was wrong, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was what the Maker felt. I altered memories in the past, sure I had. Sometimes, I even invented a few things here and there, but tonight, I had acted as that girl’s Maker.
A crazy thought occurred to me. Would the Maker pick up where I had left off with her? Would Jane wake up tomorrow with our night together written below my writing? If that was the case, I could always erase it like I did for so many others to protect us. I knew it would probably show up on my back, but I didn’t mind. The mayor made sure the cops didn’t read my body.
But what if the Maker never wrote anything more for her ever again? What if whatever afflicted her plagued her further, and no writing continued at all? If that happened, I knew what I’d do. I’d do the Maker’s job for Jane. I’d continue writing down her life no matter what. I’d protect that little girl. After all, in a way, I was her Maker. I wouldn’t let her down.
I walked over to the sink to wash my face and brush my teeth. The time for mascara removal was long overdue. It wasn’t until I looked up into the mirror that I saw it. The word was written boldly and straight across my forehead so no one could miss it. My mouth fell open, and I almost said the word aloud.
Pride
“Well, shit.”
I stood there gaping at my forehead for a long time. Like a moron, my next instinct was to splash water on my hand and try to rub it off. That obviously didn’t help, so I stared at myself for a long while wondering what to do and how long it had been there.
After a while, I decided what the hell. I made a kissy face at the mirror and gave myself a sexy wink.
“I guess it’s time to cut some bangs,” I said to my reflection.
After all, when you can’t do something about it, might as well own it. There were worse things in this life to be labeled.
Chapter Six: Toby
Nobody seemed to recognize me. I’m not complaining, mind you. It’s the way of things, and something I rather preferred to be honest. People who get noticed often do when they try to be noticed. Me? I can move about the hospital like a gray ghost leaving order in my wake. Tidy ghosts are after all the best ghosts to have around.
The uniform helped with the invisibility trick. Doctors wore white. Everyone always noticed the doctors in those bright white lab coats of theirs. Nurses came next in their blue scrubs. It was a calming blue but one you looked for because she probably had your next pill or whatever you needed. Khaki scrubs were for the orderlies. They were only barely more noticeable than me, but you saw them, especially when you didn’t want to. When someone came in thrashing about all violent, that’s when a whole herd of khaki took charge. Everyone noticed khaki when that happened.
Custodial staff were in gray. That was me. There was this theory of mine that they put us in the blandest color imaginable to have us blend into the background so we didn’t call attention to ourselves. As if we were not really important at all. We wore gray so no one made the mistake of thinking we actually mattered. Maybe that was a bitter way to think about the whole uniform thing, but you see, the gray ghost life was my choice. I wanted to be in the background. Out of the spotlight.
I got these headaches when life blew up too colorful. That was the best way I could explain it. During high school, I had top marks without trying too hard. Everyone paid attention to me then. My mom and dad were so proud, but the more I achieved, the more attention I got, and the more my head hurt. Soon, life wasn’t all about the correct things; it was about the test things. I was so good at the test things, but everyone was so overwhelmingly pre-occupied with it. As if the test things somehow explained everything you were with a number. A score, a ranking could not tell anyone what you were. It only told them that you were good at playing the game of tests.
The real things were what interested me, the life things, like music. Music was definitely a life thing. The way people discussed emotions with one another without ever saying a word, like with their eyes and their hands. That was a life thing. Someone might have a hard time looking into your eyes. Another person may find it hard not to count every ceiling tile in a room to make sure there were enough. One person may hate to hug, and the reason why is a story they don’t want to tell until they know you really well. That too was a life thing.
There was a day I was taking final exams during high school. It was a test thing my parents really wanted me to do, so I did it for them. My mom, she always wore her proud smile after a test. When I came home, there was a police officer waiting with news about a traffic accident and my mom and dad. It had been a collision coming back from picking up groceries to make a big dinner for me. Dad was good at cakes. He was going to bake a red velvet one for me. What happened in the car was a bad life thing, and one I missed because of the stupid test thing I was doing. They were gone, and it was my fault. All for a test thing.
Despite all of my teachers’ urging, I declined the offers of college. The University of Texas offered me a full academic scholarship, but I politely declined it. The limelight was blinding, and I didn’t want it anymore. What I desired was to be invisible, a gray ghost. I wanted to continue my studies of things that mattered.
My first day as a custodian at Baylor Medical Center was the first day in years I had no headache. No one noticed me. No one cared about my test scores. No one looked at me with sad
walls behind their eyes because they knew what had happened to my parents. I was in the background. I was invisible. I was free to learn.
When I learned about music, the old types that no one performed anymore, was what I liked most. Musicals were amazing when it came to generating different emotions. My favorite was a song from a play called Chicago. A sad man sang in a wonderfully heartbreaking way that his name was Mr. Cellophane. He was in the background, and no one noticed him. It was as if he was see-through. I loved that. I wanted that. To be Mr. Cellophane was my goal.
Music became a hobby of mine. I collected digital copies of every bit of music I could find. The act of finding a piece of music I never heard before was like finding a treasure buried beneath the sand. If music could transform my mind, perhaps it could transform others. Maybe it could change the sick people in my hospital.
The patients at Baylor became my research subjects. I collected several cheap music players capable of playing a song remotely controlled by my own handheld mixer. When no one noticed me, I would slip into someone’s room with the player. My cover was that I was emptying their trashcan or sweeping the floor, but what I was really doing was planting one of my players under their bed.
When no one was about, I would play a piece of music I thought might cheer the person on that bed. It was a lot of trial and error. Apparently, not all people reacted the same to musicals as I did.
Mr. Gunterson in 213B hopped up from his bed when I played something from Cabaret and shouted angrily. “Where’s that queer music coming from?”
It turned out, after many tries, that Mr. Gunterson really enjoyed old-style heavy metal.
Mrs. Parson down the hall from him loved the musicals I played for her, but preferred the happier songs. Mr. Terre liked the musicals all right, but hated Grease. Mrs. Smith detested anything that wasn’t punk rock, and Mr. Turner wanted R&B. The patients on the younger floors all enjoyed the fun musicals with the silly songs, but liked the newer retro techno rap best of all.
I took diligent notes, and stocked up on players, thinking that eventually someone would report the music and my equipment would be found. The most amazing part of this experiment was that no one talked about the sudden appearance of the music. No one told their nurse about it. Even when Mr. Parks sat up and yelled that he hated fucking Barbara Streisand, no one paid him any mind at all, and he didn’t report it. A wobbly theory of why was formulating in my mind that had a lot of unanswered questions in it. Real questions and not test questions, so they weren’t as clear.
The day she appeared seemed like any other day at first. No one noticed me walk in the door. I waved hello without much eye contact to several of the nurses I recognized. A few waved back with a smile then instantly looked away from me. It wasn’t until I got to the fourth floor that I noticed the difference.
It was like when you were a kid and you kicked over an anthill. The ants on the bottom of the hill didn’t know anything was amiss at first, but the ones on the top levels scurried around like maniacs. Doctors, nurses and orderlies were walking hurriedly about the floor. It was never wise to be seen running in the hospital. Someone might think there was an emergency then panic. Regardless, something sure was happening, because the activity around me was deafening. The people who weren’t buzzing back and forth were talking excitedly to one another. The world seemed to vibrate from tension. I didn’t like it. There were too many people near me.
Excitement in a hospital was like an open wound. All the people fluttered about like white blood cells, trying desperately to know what was happening and adjust. To find the source, to find the wound, you just had to go where there was the greatest concentration of white blood cells. I followed the chaos and found a cluster of them hovering around room 462.
Some medical students milled past me, bumping into me as they went. They registered my presence long enough to mutter a quick apology before going on their way. I was not a fan of touching people in close quarters, but I shrugged it off to better hear what they were saying.
“You ever seen anything like that?”
“No. It’s crazy.”
“Totally unmarked. Not a tattoo on her.”
“What does Dr. Patel think?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think she’s seen her yet.”
As if summoned by some Goddess of Coincidence, Dr. Patel rounded the corner, parting the milling masses in her wake. She was a pretty woman with her almond eyes and dark hair pulled back in a tight knot. Dr. Patel knew she was pretty, but she was stern and no nonsense as much as she was pretty, perhaps more so to compensate. She was intimidating even to other doctors. I backed into a corner to better disappear as she approached.
“Surely all of you have something like work to be doing,” she said loud enough to disperse the crowd.
I lingered long enough to peek inside the room as the doctor entered. There, sleeping in the bed, was a perfectly unmarked girl, not one tattoo was etched on her that I could see. She was thin and fair. The door slammed in my face before I could get another look, but I knew I had to find out more.
The rumor mill around the hospital was in full force. Much of it was speculation. The bed had been empty the night before, and the morning had magically brought with her an unconscious girl. A few people had seen the girl’s bald head and dubbed her an alien. Others had decided she was a military hostage being kept under wraps. The facts were she seemed to appear from nowhere, there wasn’t a mark on her, and she hadn’t woken yet.
Speculation was not enough to satisfy me. Seeing the girl again became my main goal. I was working a double that day, which meant I would be around at night when most people were gone. Timing would be everything. The evening would have to be planned out according to my notes on the nurses. At around nine at night, the two graveyard shift nurses ate their dinner together in the break room. It was a space that allowed them access to the callboard but no visual access to room 462. There would be a small window then to make my move.
The door to the room was locked. This was not a surprise and not a problem. Every custodian had a card key that opened every door in Baylor, a skeleton key they called it. I never knew why. At any rate, the gray ghost opened the door with the skeleton key and entered.
The girl was still unconscious. They had put an IV in her arm, but she slept just as gently as she had that morning, unaware of the scandal her presence was causing. She looked remarkable. Skin so pale and delicate and completely unmarked by any tattoo. I had thought people were pretty before. I had decided things, like music and art, were beautiful. However, I had never labeled a person beautiful before, but that’s what she was. Her beauty was a real thing.
Gingerly and without a sound, I placed the remote music player underneath her bed. There was this little shelf inside the mechanical contraption that made the bed move. It was a perfect hiding spot for a player, and it was difficult to easily see unless you bent over looking for it. I had just enough time to stand back up after placing my equipment when the door to her room flew open and a nurse walked into the room. She and I met eyes, startling each other.
“Toby! What...what are you doing in here?”
Nancy was one of the only nurses who knew my name. She knew everyone and was nice to them all. That’s just the kind of person she was.
“I’m cleaning the floor.”
I was never good at lying, so my answer sounded hollow, as if it was full of air instead of true things. Not only that, but my mop cart was still sitting outside of the room. My eyes quivered with the knowledge of my bad lie. Her face screwed into a strange smile. It was a smile that meant she didn’t believe me.
“Curious, huh?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“I can’t fault your curiosity, Toby. Everyone is curious about this one.”
Together, we looked at the unconscious girl.
“Poor thing. She has no idea the world of trouble she’s going to wake up to. If she ever wakes up.”
“Is she okay?”
“All the tests say she’s fine. We have no idea where she came from, though. I guess we’ll see what she has to say. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
She ushered me out, being sure not to touch my shoulder like she would many of the others. Nancy was nice and knew I wouldn’t like that.
With the blinds drawn and the door locked, I couldn’t test different music on the girl and accurately record her reactions. There would be no way to watch for visual cues. The video feed of her room went straight to the nurses’ station, and someone was there all the time. My only alternative was to choose music for her and hope she liked it.
This was a frustrating dilemma. I didn’t know anything about the girl. Often, a person’s age clued me in to their preferences, but the younger music seemed too rambunctious for her for some reason. The old musicals I liked didn’t feel right either. When I came to a conclusion, it was one that seemed obvious retrospectively. She was beautiful without words, and the most beautiful music I could think of without words was classical music. The most fitting classical pieces I knew for a girl like her were Chopin’s Nocturnes. They told so much without ever saying a thing. Just listening to them reminded me of her.
I pressed play on my mixer and waited. While I sat in the shadows of the empty room down the hall, I imagined the girl hearing the lovely music without words and it rousing her from her sleep. Her eyes would flutter open to the perfection of the human soul. I pictured her first memory of this new waking world to be Chopin, and I really hoped she wasn’t a techno fan.
After a few minutes, there was a commotion at the nurses’ station. Emma, the other nurse on duty, was running toward room 462 all wide-eyed and calling for Nancy. Excitement coursed through my body, and I was so giddy I almost forgot to press the stop button on my mixer before the two nurses raced inside the room.
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