6 Months Earlier
January 2009
“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
I smiled politely at the soft spoken man setting up camp for the night in a tiny crawl space between Avenue B and Harvey. He’d been quite the first two trips Elijah and I took around the block, but by the third trip he’d decided to say something.
“He’s getting over an ear infection”, I told the man.
I say this in passing because I don’t want to give this man time to ask for money. Or maybe he won’t? Maybe he can tell I don’t have any either? Elijah and I walked the block one more time. It was getting late, so I carried the stroller up the two steps into the olive green eights story West Village walk up. Elijah’s green eyes were red from rubbing and his right ear was bright red.
“Please, Elijah”, I begged once we were in the lobby, “Go to sleep. Please. Please so we can go back upstairs. Please, I have a test tomorrow.”
I swung my monogrammed pink and navy book bag around and dug through it until I found his ear drops. The sudden sensation of the drops on his ears caused him to scream out.
“Sorry”, I said adding the last few drops.
I carried Elijah and the stroller up to the sixth floor. In the hallway Ms. Lora from 6C walked right past me in her big black mirrored shades, multiple shawls and tote bags. For some reason she only ever seemed to go out after dark.
“Hi, Ms. Lora”, I said trying to be nice even though she’d called the landlord twice on us about Elijah’s crying. She’d never had kids and I tried to convince her that was just how babies communicated.
“Mhmmm”, she said not stopping to talk.
I knocked on the door to 6B and a loud voice called out
“WHO IS IT”, Maddison called.
“It’s us” I said, “My hands are full.”
I heard lots of movement and Madison opened the door and helped me bring the stroller in. Her bright red hair had a wet blue streak that hadn’t been there when I left an hour ago. The air inside her and Eric’s apartment was thick with smoke, but they had fans on and tried to wave the pot smoke away from Elijah. I went to sit on the full sized mattress plopped on the floor space we rented from Maddie and Eric.
“I can take him”, Maddie offered moving the ash trays into the bedroom and shutting the door.
I let her take him, even though I knew if he cried for more than five minutes she’d give him back. Maddie loved babies and was super sweet to Elijah, but she had a hard time if he wasn’t at his cutest.
With my hands free I picked up my pharmacology book and was hit with a bad bout of nausea. Apart from the smoke, the apartment still smelled like the pizza we’d all gone in on for dinner. Eric had ordered meat lovers and I’d tried to discreetly take the meat of my slice.
Maddie had taken Elijah back to the couch to lounge with her and Eric. Eric was trying to make him laugh but at just three months Elijah hadn’t picked up smiling yet.
Eric still hadn’t even bothered to change out of his investment banker costume of a suit and tie. Sometimes I think he went to bed in because it was too hard to take off. I’d had to learn a lot about other men from him, like for some reason he always walked around the apartment with his pants unbuttoned. Maddie said he did it for “comfort. “Every time I saw Maddie and Eric with Elijah I couldn’t help but to think about what they’d be like as parents. And they were already saints in my book for taking us in.
---
A few months ago Tomas and I had celebrated for the first time in a long time when I got the certified nurse’s assistant job at Lenox Hill Hospital. It was a salaried with benefits and they’d reimburse the tuition for me to finish my BSN. It was a major bright spot just weeks after Tomas’ mother overdosed in the middle of the night.
He never talked about that night, but I know they were up late that night. I know his mom had gotten her hands on some meth, he hadn’t taken any but he’d let her get high. When we woke up the next morning all the meth was all gone, along with my Tylenol 3s and Rose Alexander. I mean she was there---slumped over the table-- but she was gone. It was the first time I’d gently laid down and gave a little dignity to a dead body.
Ms. Alexander left us with a bag of party clothes and a suitcase filled with stolen merchandise. Tomas took care of the arrangements or her funeral across three credit cards. Every now and then we’d get a sick surprise like some collector, drug dealer or boyfriend calling Tomas looking for her. She left her life so . . . unfinished, so messy. The whole time all I could think was . . . she deserved it. Not that I ever told Tomas that.
So, yes. When I got the job we sure as hell celebrated. Nothing big. Just dinner at the diner down the street. I even bought Elijah brand new outfit. Someone from the building must have found out about my new job, because a few days later we’d gotten an eviction notice stating we no long met the financial requirements for government housing. Tomas and I interchangeably tried to go to HAVSA to fight our case for subsidized housing, but with our demanding work schedules we couldn’t sit for hours in a downtown office building.
We were evicted from our Bronx apartment in less than a week. Venus DeMilo, Tomas’ boss and owner of Venus’ Body Art & Studio, let us keep our stuff in the tattoo parlor’s basement. At the time that amounted to my school books, two suitcases of clothes, pictures, blankets a box with pans and plates. I kept three days of clothes in my book bag with me at all times and played every day by ear.
Tomas told me Venus and her first husband had moved to from Osaka to New York City in the eighties, and, even though she’d come from a wealthy family, she knew how tough the city was and tried to help her artist when she could.
Tomas had been evicted so many times in his youth, that he knew how to manage. Luckily the tattoo parlor was open 24/7, so he could pull odd hours and even though he never told me, I was sure he was probably sleeping outside some nights.
Miss. Melanie, the nursing manager had a huge heart and let me stay with her for the first night, then she got Elijah and me into a shelter for two weeks. It was in a tough part of town, on the first night women tried to fight me when I kept my reading light on so I could study, then Elijah's’ formula kept going missing. The shelter watched him while I worked my 4am-11pm morning shifts and went to classes from 2pm to 6:30.
More than a few times class had run over and I’d miss the 7 o’clock curfew for the shelter and they wouldn’t let me in. On those nights I’d have to take a train all the way down to The East Village and spend the night at the tattoo parlor with Tomas. I’d pretend like I was visiting but no one said anything when I fell asleep in the waiting room. Despite the smoking, crude jokes and questionable decisions I felt okay there.
The shop was tucked into a highly visible street and there were tons of walk ins. Tomas was still the newbie and given a station in the way back. I sometimes sat in a chair out of the way so I could study. Venus liked to take me into the basement/employee lounge to give me a free tattoo. I wasn’t even sure I wanted one but I figured it was the least I could do and it was very pretty. Venus was sweet but I later figured out she was doing it because having a tired scruffy unkempt girl in her shop didn’t match the off-beat quirky but sexy artistic ambience she had going on in her shop.
Tomas was cool, calm and collected when he was at work. He always focused on his work and wasn’t chatty like DiVo or Essence. When he didn’t have a client he was always sketching or practicing on himself. Venus only gave him quickie walk-ins when he picked up shifts or had him walk new clients through a consultation, occasionally his art would catch someone’s attention, but some of the artist spent years studying under Venus and could do things to with ink and skin that seemed otherworldly.
I could tell that he loved that place. It was worlds away from where he’d been. It was also one of the last places he ever walked into on his own two feet.
+++
It was a busy Saturday night shift. Venus and her tenured artist were booked
solid the entire month, Tomas was taking on Walk-ins and his own small list of
clients. I noticed Tomas seemed a little out of it whenever I came by the shop,
but I figured it was the stress of being homeless and I had no idea what he’d
been eating.
It must have been passed midnight when he passed out while working on a client
and was rushed to the hospital. DiVo, the head artist, called me that morning
and told me he’d been taken to my hospital. In a panic I’d bundled Elijah up
and rushed to Lennox Hill.
When I made it up to immunology, Dr. Lane was standing by his bed and flipping through his charts. He was in one of the tiny single rooms that was going to cost at least $100 a night with my benefits and courtesy discount.
“How many days did you miss?” Dr. Lane asked.
“One”, he said,”Just one … It think …I don’t know, days have been running together lately”
“That doesn’t work”, Dr. Lane snapped, “Not with HARRT. You can’t miss a day. Not one. How the hell did you miss a day?”
Tomas looked up and realized I was in the room. It was always good when he was sitting up and talking.
“I’ve been moving around a lot, it’s hard to keep up and I…I needed something for the pain, so I bought some Oxy instead of the HARRT. I’m not using but you wouldn’t fucking prescribe anything for--”
“Tomas, Please”, I said. I knew Tomas and Dr. Lane had a more open relationship but she was a doctor at this hospital and basically my boss.
“Tomas.”, Dr. Lane said shaking her head, “You were doing so well.”
“I’m not using”, Tomas explained flipping the page on his sketchbook, “It was just for the pain. The night shifts were getting fucking rough, I didn’t even want to leave because of the pain. I could barely make it up the stairs DiVo’s apartment above the shop. I don’t know… it’s my legs, I told you”
I moved to sit next to his bed while Dr. Lane did some preliminaries. I’m not sure when I stopped worrying over Tomas and started studying her technique.
“I’m calling a rheumatologist”, she said, “I want him to consult. Just in case. But no more fuck ups, Tomas.”
Elijah started crying and I checked my watch, my shift had started an hour ago.
“I’m doing paperwork all morning”, Dr. Lane said, “I can watch Elijah until your lunch.”
“Thank you”, I said then turned to Tomas. I hadn’t even said anything to him but I hope he saw the disappointment in my eyes.
---
The untreated infection the rheumatologist detected deep in Tomas’ quadriceps and adductors was aggressive. Even with the HARRT it was unlikely his body would have been able to fight off the infection, but if he’d been going to regular appointments there may have been a chance it could have been treated.
They’d been able to remove the decayed muscle that was causing more of the pain, but the fibromyalgia had spread to other tendons. Tomas was in the hospital for three days post-op. I was glad I wasn’t working that floor. Tomas spent enough time in hospitals to know what I did as a nurse’s attendant, but I didn’t want him to see me cleaning hospital rooms and collecting food trays.
He just had to focus on getting better.
So I didn’t tell him that Elijah and I had been rotated out of the shelter. At night Venus let Elijah and I sleep in the tattoo shop’s basement while we figured things out. The basement was mostly a stockroom but it was really spacious with black and white parquet floors, a bathroom and shelves of ink and tattoo equipment.
Venus kept bunk beds down there for artist working double shifts or in between residences. Except for the parade of customers and artist going in and out to use the bathroom, it was a good place to be. I could easily bathe Elijah in the sink and I showered at work, but it wasn’t a place for a baby.
I left Elijah in Tomas’ hospital room while I worked and went to class. It wasn’t allowed, but most of the staff was willing to look the other way. During my lunch breaks I’d go up and sit with them, usually I’d find Elijah fighting the bottle Tomas was trying to give him.
“They said the pain isn’t going to go away”, Tomas had said one time while staring at the stitches on his legs.
“I know”, I said, but it was actually the first I’d heard it. I guess it made sense when I thought about it. The Fibromyalgia must have destroyed his nerves.
“It’s so fucked up and Dr. Lane won’t prescribe anything for the pain—I’m supposed to just…learn to manager it?”
Dr. Lane knew we were struggling. She probably thought if she gave him anything to strong he’d try to sell it. He was also a former addict. It was good call, but I hated that she made it.
“I’m sorry”, I said, “But there are a ton of ways to deal with pain that don’t involve drugs.”
The wheelchair that the insurance company provided had arrived and it was propped up against the wall, it was ominous and Tomas couldn’t tear his eyes from it. We just silently stare at each other and wonder how we ended up in this fucking situation and how we were going to get out.
---
I don’t know how Tomas talked Maddie and Eric into letting us rent a mattress in the living room of their tiny West Village apartment, but I was unendingly grateful. With Maddie taking an extended gap year between after college, she was willing to watch Elijah for free.
Tomas had met Maddie and Eric when he first moved to New York City, I knew there was some history the three of them shared but they never talked about it around me.
So, we’d been here for nearly two months and counting
We just paid $500 a month and Tomas did some free tattoos for Eric with the portable machine he had to hide from Venus. She didn’t want any of her artist moonlighting and doing tattoo work in an apartment could get his license revoked. Our meager belongings were stuffed in a corner of Venus’ basement and we’d been living out of two duffel bags for the past two months.
I did some light cleaning while Eric and Maddie played with Elijah. He was quiet now and staring quizzically at them. The apartment had one bathroom and I took my scheduled time to shower. While I braided my hair in the bathroom mirror, I tried not to think about how I’d accidently walked in on a blow job in this very bathroom last week, when I’d skipped class to take a nap. When we were all together at some point Eric had told Tomas about it thinking he would find it funny. Tomas laughed but I think he was jealous.
Last month Maddie had taken Eric to meet her parents for Christmas, so Tomas and I had the entire apartment to ourselves. With them gone, Tomas didn’t have to hide all the help he needed. The wheelchair he could figure out, but the chronic pain was hurdle he would never get over if he kept asking for drugs. He couldn’t control the muscles in his legs and his skin was constantly bruised from falling in the shower.
Since we were alone in the apartment that weekend he let me give him a bath. It was good practice for me, because the nurses were allowing me to clean and change patients. He was noticeably hard and it made me think of the tragically embarrassing stories some nurses told me about how that happened sometimes with patients. I don’t know why but I helped ease his erection with my hand and a wash cloth. It made me a little uncomfortable, but I was glad it made him forget about the pain for a while.
For Christmas the next day we ordered Chinese food and each unwrapped a gift we’d bought Elijah. Tomas had bought him some two new outfits and I’d picked up a baby keyboard. We weren’t supposed to exchange gifts but he’d bought me a large Hershey bar, I ate a little bit of it and the rest of it disappeared when Madison and Eric came back home.
I’d crowded on the couch with Madison and Eric to welcome the New Year with sparkling, while Tomas spent the night working the flashy club nights Venus was sponsoring downtown. DiVo and another artist poured him into the apartment at 3am, he’d was slightly buzzed, covered in a light sprinkling of confetti and laughing.
He’d been happy so of course that meant everything had to go downhill from there.
+++
Elijah finally fell asleep and I set him on the mattress and curled in next to him. He felt warm and whined in his sleep. . He probably had roseola again. We really needed to work on building his immune system. I fished around in my book bag for the baby Tylenol and tried to rock him into a comforting sleep.
From my vantage point on the mattress I watched Tomas. He was sitting on the other side of Eric, leaning back into the thick leather Barcalounger couch. He had a pencil and hotel notebook in his hand, the thick pencil had left smudges all over his t-shirt, which was the same dark gray of his eyes. The shirt was looser than I remembered and so were his black jeans, which were splattered with paint from his painting days. . The hair he never had time to cut was pulled back and out of his face. Deep lines where in his eyes and cut into his cheeks.
He’d have to sleep on the couch, there was no way he could sleep next to Elijah if he had another infection. I tried to convey this with my eyes, but Tomas never took his eyes away from his sketches. I pulled my blanket over me and listened to Eric laughing while he watched some crude comedy he’d seen a million times.
The TV was so loud Eric didn’t even hear the knock on the door. I started to get up, but I saw Tomas moving himself into his wheelchair and head towards the door. Someone turned all the lights on and I sat up and saw three people in polo shirts and a police officer standing in the doorway.
“Oh, fuck”, Maddie whispered trying not to look at the vase where they kept their pot.
My mind raced to all the stolen shit Ms. Alexander had stolen that we hadn’t returned. Elijah stirred and started crying. There was a lot of shouting and I realized Tomas was blocking the people from coming in.
“Tomas”, I said, “what’s going?”
“Really? You people can’t be fucking serious”, Tomas said to the people.
The cop started yelling at him, but I wasn’t really listening because a woman in a polo shirt was picking up Elijah and taking him.
“Wait”, I said, “What are you doing? No. No. Oh no. Everything is fine. What are you doing?”
I glanced at the CPS logo on her shirt. All at once I hits me that this apartment smells like pot and Tomas and Eric are drunk and I was sleeping on a mattress in the living room. Fuck. This looked bad but we’d been through worse.
“Ma’am we’ve gotten multiple phone calls about a child in danger. We have a warrant to remove the child.” The woman said.
“Please, he’s fine. He’s fine. It’s just an ear infection. Who called? What’s going on?”
“You’ll be contacted when there is a court date, if you interfere we can arrest you.”
Tomas was behind me and he was holding my hands behind my back, my mouth tasted like salt and for some reason Eric was just yelling at these people for invading his home.
“Please”, I tried but I can barley hear myself.
The police officer escorts the CPS agents out of the apartment. It happened so fast.
“They are like fucking fascist”, Tomas said once they are gone, “Fucking government idiots. If you would have fought back they would push back the court date”
Eric and Maddie are drunkenly booing the officers out the
window. I realized Tomas is speaking from his probably bitter from personal experience. Sure, I’d been in
and out of Foster care when my mother was working on her issues, but it
was always for a good reason. I hadn’t’ done anything wrong. I was doing everything I could.
I hadn’t done anything wrong
Tomas pulled me down into his wheelchair before my legs can give out from beneath me.
+++
Author's Note
Okay, I know there is a lot of plot dump but we've got a few things to set up. Also these chapters are turning out to be much shorter than I anticipated . . .