by J D Jacobs
Jenkins points to the crowd, and every single person is fully focused on the band, singing along with the lyrics. Even if they don’t know the song, they’re swaying back and forth to the beat. They’re enjoying themselves.
“These people love you, Jaden, because you give them hope for the future. Something to look forward to. So that means that the Tryton people have a nostalgia for the past and an optimism for the future. But we don’t have anything for the present.”
“I’m guessing that isn’t a good thing. What’s your solution?”
Jenkins rubs his bushy mustache as he speaks. “Now you can’t tell anybody what I’m about to tell you, okay? This is top-secret.” I pinch the corner of my lips and zip them shut. “I’ve mentioned to you once before that there is one other surviving city. This city is named Avvil and it’s in Minnesota. It was constructed years ago to prepare for any form of apocalypse: worldwide flood, giant meteor, you name it. Luckily, it was also successful in protecting against the Cozmin, but unfortunately it was the only such city that was made. Their leader and I have been communicating back-and-forth as of late.”
I try to act surprised since Grant mentioned this city before, but these are the first details I’ve heard about it. “What have you and the leader of Avvil been saying?”
“Avvil has a way of being content with the present, but they lack the hopeful future that Tryton has. This is, of course, because Avvil doesn’t have you. I think–now hear me out–that if we can somehow coexist with these people, only for a short amount of time, then they will have the hope they need and we can bring back to Tryton the excitement for the present time.”
I slowly raise my eyebrow at Jenkins. That is one of the most unnecessarily complicated reasons I’ve ever heard. I don’t even know if I understand the proposal completely. He wants to make Tryton happy for the present, all while giving this new city the same false hope that Tryton has for the future? This idea sounds idiotic, and I feel like Jenkins is stretching for a reason.
“Sounds like you want to trade me to Avvil.”
“That’s not what I’m proposing.”
“What exactly is your proposal?”
“We don’t want to trade you; we simply want you to visit Avvil. We want you to give them the hope you gave the people here. We want you to be their morale booster, their new hero. We want the face of Jaden Foxx to spread outside of Tryton; let the world know of you!”
I turn back to the band as his absurd request settles in. “First off, I’m not this hero I keep being portrayed as. I’m not going to save Tryton, and I’m not going to save Avvil, either. Do you not remember what you told me my first day in Tryton?” I lower my voice so no one can overhear us. “You told me that I give these people hope when, in reality, they shouldn’t have any. The last thing I want to do is continue my spread of false hope.”
“The only person who calls it false hope is you,” says Jenkins. “I said that because there is no hope for life outside these walls. But Tryton’s vision has changed since then. We can make a future within these walls; there’s definitely hope for that! You don’t know the role you can play in shaping Tryton’s future, and until we realize what exactly it is that you can do, we can use you to boost people’s spirits not only here but in Avvil.”
“Secondly,” I continue, “who is this ‘we’ that you keep talking about? Who are the people in charge of this plan?”
“I’ve only discussed this with your father and with the city council. The city council said they would only approve of it if you were on board.”
“What’s up with the BS reason, though? Morale booster? C’mon, I don’t know where you’re trying to get with that but it’s not a good reason to go flying across the country and risk lives. If they can’t find a way to boost their own morale, that’s their problem.”
“Fine then,” Jenkins concedes. He gives a soft chuckle under his breath, and I sense that the inimical behavior of Jenkins is about to be unleashed. “But maybe you’ll want to go if I told you that some people with just a tiny hint of purple might be there to greet you.”
I perk up, my eyes widen in shock. “Purple? What about it?”
“Oh, come on, Jaden! It’s obvious! You’re constantly looking for someone that shares the purple connection with you and your eyes. You throw in hints here and there, hoping someone takes them. Even now, with the purple basketball jersey you have on. Your hints are subtle, yet so evident.”
“This jersey has nothing to do with…” I begin but decide that the argument’s not worth it.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed. I also have been keeping an eye out for people that may have some purple to them. Perhaps there’s people in Avvil with it. Perhaps there’s someone in Tryton that has the purple trait you’re looking for. In fact, they may even be in this room right now.”
“They’re not,” I respond. Does Jenkins know that Grant has it, too? I don’t see Grant anywhere; Jenkins has to be bluffing. A part of me feels that Jenkins couldn’t have found this out on his own. What if this third person told Jenkins about the reasoning behind the purple color? Who is this third person, though? Wait a minute…
“Are you immune?”
“Ha! I wish I was immune!” Jenkins gives a hearty laugh, then looks at me like he’s successfully pried the answer he wanted out of me. “You have purple in your eyes, so you’re immune. But who else has purple? Is it somebody you know? Has to be somebody else in this city, right? Somewhere… Maybe in Avvil, maybe in the hospital, maybe in this bar… They could be in this bar.”
“No, the person can’t…” I pause. I know that Grant and I have it, but maybe Jenkins knows who the third person is. Maybe that’s why he brought me to this bar, for me to find this third person. “You know who it is? They’re in this bar, aren’t they?”
Jenkins shrugs, but his shrug shows no sign of uncertainty. “Why don’t you ask the people in here and find out?”
I’m honestly nervous at the moment. I wanted to find the third person, but now I’m not so sure. What’s going to happen to me when I find this guy? Do I tell him that he is immune to the disease just like I am? Is that sudden significance something he would want to be burdened with?
But he has to know. Jenkins had to have told this guy to meet at the bar right now, had to have told him that there’s some connection between me and this mystery man. This guy already knows his significance, and the only person not in the knowing is me.
“Tell me who it is.”
He doesn’t budge. “You’ll have to find the person yourself.”
I stand up on the table and call out to the crowd. A few people turn around to glance at me, but they pay me no mind. The Guitar Gangsters are playing too loudly and the people are too submerged in the music to listen or even acknowledge me.
I look at Jenkins, who points to the stage that everybody is turned to and mouths the words “give that a shot.” As much as I hate his suggestion, he knows what I don’t. I have to listen to him.
I jump down from the table and jog to the stage. A large guard is standing at the base of the stage, and he halts me from going any farther. The first thing that comes to mind is to point to my face, and I yell “I’m Jaden Foxx” to the guy, hoping my celebrity status gets me what I want. Surprisingly, the guard lets me by. The steps lead backstage, so he only thinks I’m getting a closer look, anyway.
I jump up the stairs, pass by the drummer, and make my way to the lead singer’s microphone. The band members I pass look even more disoriented than the drunk people in the crowd who throw questionable looks at me.
“Sorry,” I tell the singer as I pull the microphone off the stand. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but I have a very important question for those listening to me. Is there anybody out here, in the crowd or on the stage or anybody at all that has anything purple on their body?”
The crowd looks at me like I’m speaking another language. I hear a few of the people murmur to one another, so I continue to clarify my sta
tement. “Not necessarily purple. A light lilac color, maybe a lavender shade or something. You’ll know what I’m talking about if you have it.”
I wait for what has to be the most awkward five seconds of my life. Nobody speaks up. “Anybody?” I weakly ask in the mic, hoping someone finally stands up. This is not the time for the third person to be shy.
I hear someone in the crowd yell “get off the stage,” and a few agreeing jeers follow it. I turn around to the band behind me; what if it’s one of them? “Do you guys have it? What about you?” I point over to the bassist whose suspenders are purple and pull on them. “Your suspenders are purple, that has to mean something, right?”
“C’mon, kid, get off the stage,” the bassist tells me as he slaps my hand away. The rest of the band members and crowd unanimously agree that I should leave, and a guard comes up to take me off the stage. I take one last look in the crowd before I’m escorted out. Every single eye is looking at me with annoyance. Nobody is looking at me with the look of acceptance that I’d expect from the third guy. All of them look at me like I just interrupted their fun only to humiliate myself, which is exactly what I did. I make my way out of the bar and immediately walk back to the hospital.
“Jaden! Wait up,” I hear Jenkins guiltily call out behind me. “I thought they would be in there, I really did.”
I keep walking with my back to him and my head drooped. I’m utterly humiliated. I can’t believe what I just did. I flat-out embarrassed myself all because I let Jenkins lie to me. He got his answer about the purple color and made me look stupid in front of a crowd full of people. On top of that, he’s sending me to an unknown city just so I can lie to them, too. He played me like a fool and isn’t showing any sign of stopping soon.
9.
I make my way to the bottom floor of the hospital where my dad and most of the nurses stay. I’ve always had trouble finding Dad’s office through the labyrinth of hallways on this floor.
I’ve given myself a night of sleep for me to think over what happened at the Crowbar. There’s plenty of questions that I can’t seem to answer, such as why Jenkins would tell me the third guy was in the bar. Then there’s the whole issue on Jenkins persuading me to go on stage and ask the audience. Was it just to embarrass me, or was the third guy actually in that room and he didn’t speak up? As much as I want to believe that the third guy was in that bar, I can’t help but think that Jenkins was lying to me just to be an ass. I guess me being nice around him was pointless.
I find my dad’s room, which is a huge office equipped with a couple of couches, a few comfy chairs, and an untidy desk. In the back of the room is a door leading to the living area that Dad stays in, equipped with a small bedroom and bathroom.
I call for Dad once I enter his room. “Back here,” he calls out from his bathroom, studying himself through his mirror and carefully gliding a razor over his shaving cream-splotched jawline. “Give me a second and I’ll be done.”
“Alright,” I say as I walk over and investigate the belongings on his desk. Most of the papers on his desk are evaluation forms for the kids in the nurse training program. Mostly all of them have his signature penned on them with red ink, but there are a few exceptions, as some people aren’t exactly ready to pass nursing school quite yet. I pick up one of the papers that isn’t signed, belonging to a guy named Jason Landry. The evaluation notes say that he “lacks proper communication skills around patients; constantly nervous; absolutely terrified of the Cozmin disease.”
“Who you got there?” Dad asks as he closes the door to the back room behind him, rubbing a towel over his cleanly shaven face.
“Oh, uhh…” I drop the paper, afraid I infringed on some confidential documents. “Nobody. Nothing.”
“It’s fine,” he chuckles and picks up the paper I dropped. “Oh yeah, Mr. Landry. He was in nursing school at the University of Iowa. He really would have made a great nurse, but he’s too timid. It’s the virus. He’s scared of the Cozmin and is therefore scared of being around patients who may have it. I’m assuming his family took a turn for the worse from the disease, but you can’t be scared of it forever.”
I look at Dad as he freshens up on the observations he wrote down. “Have you heard about what happened last night?”
Dad looks away from the paper and to me. “What, with you and Harrison? How did that go?”
“It went terrible. First of all, he…” I think before I carry on about Jenkins knowing about the purple connection, but I decide that if Jenkins knows, then there’s no harm if Dad knows, too. “There’s a connection with my purple eyes and me being immune to the virus. I know for a fact there is. Jenkins knew this last night and told me that there was somebody else in this city–in that bar–that was also immune to the disease.”
Dad ponders for a minute, replaying my words in his head. “Why and where would Harrison come up with… Nevermind, I’ll talk to him about it later…” Dad’s thoughts are scattered, and he doesn’t know where to start. “Okay, so why does Harrison thinks that there’s a connection between your purple eyes and you being immune to the Cozmin?”
“Well, he didn’t think that until I told him last night. I’m the one who initially put the connection together. Jenkins must’ve had a hunch, though, because he talked like there was another person with purple in the city.”
I give Dad time to grasp on to what I said, and he gives an admitting smile. “I suppose that’s why you kept talking about the color purple to new people? In order to find somebody else with purple in them to see if they’re immune to the disease, too?”
“Basically. It sounds crazy, but I know that purple is connected to the immunity. I have purple eyes, the dogs in Westwood have purple fur, and my rats in Westwood have purple tails. We all have it and we’re all immune. But anyway, Jenkins told me that the other person with purple was in the bar last night, but the only way I could get the people in the bar’s attention was to interrupt the band and–”
“No.” Dad knows where I’m going before I even get there. “Don’t tell me you went on stage.”
“It was the only way to get everyone’s attention. I thought that the other person would fess up, but he never did.”
“Jaden, what the hell were you thinking?” He asks with a mixture of disappointment and chagrin. “You went in front of everyone and asked them if they had any purple to them? Were you drunk, son?”
“Look, Jenkins convinced me to. I thought the other guy was going to–”
“Do you realize that now the entire city will know about this before the day is over? No, the Crowbar would’ve been packed on a Saturday night. The entire city will know about this before noon today. Do you know how silly you sound in the first place, continuously talking about this color? It’s senseless and makes you look crazy. And then you go and ask a bar full of people about it? Jesus, son. How gullible could you be?”
Maybe Dad’s right. Maybe the talking Grim and Grant are wrong. There may not be any significance to the purple color, there may not be another person in this city immune like me and Grant. But how do I explain my rats and those dogs in Westwood? It’s not a mere coincidence that everything that’s purple can survive the Cozmin. Whatever, though. I want to change the subject with Dad, and luckily he does so without me having to.
“…but it’s fine,” Dad says with a sigh. “We can worry about this later. That wasn’t the big news I wanted him to talk to you about. Did he tell you about Avvil?”
“Yeah, he did,” I answer, just as upset about this as I was the last subject. “This is stupid. The last thing I want to do is go to some other city. You’re not okay with this, right?”
“Well, son, it’s actually a good idea when you think of what it can do to both of our cities. It finally gives us a relationship outside Tryton’s walls, plus the people there will be excited to see you. It’s a win-win.”
“I don’t see the point in going,” I tell him. “Besides, I’ve now gotten used to Tryton. I don’t want to le
ave for another city and go along with this charade.”
“This isn’t just ‘another city,’” he assures me. “This is the only other city of living humans that we know of on this planet. You’re not going to be there long, anyway. And to be honest, after the little scene you had last night, it would be best for you to take a break from Tryton. People are going to lie to you about having something purple just so they can be relevant. You need to make this trip and let the scene die down a little.”
I take a seat in one of Dad’s leather chairs and sink into it. “When is this trip going to be?”
“We were thinking about later this week, but I’m now aiming for Tuesday. Which is good because, if I’m being honest, I don’t want you out in the streets of Tryton again until you get back from Avvil.”
“Tuesday? Are you serious? That gives me two days to prep! If you don’t want me on the streets, cake me back up in my room for a few days; you’ve done that before.”
I haven’t really given Dad attitude ever in my life until right now. It takes him off guard just as much as it does me. I was always scared he’d beat me if I talked back to him when I was little, and I always had that option in the back of my mind while growing up. I don’t know if my celebrity status is suddenly making me feel invincible, but that feeling fades away fast as Dad throws me a sharp look.
“I didn’t give you a choice, Jaden,” he says with a hidden temper in his voice. “I don’t think you realize the severity of what you did last night. Everybody is going to be talking about it, and you don’t… It’s what’s best for you.” I guess he has a point to be angry. People will annoy him just as much as they would annoy me about last night.