Down Chapter 2

Leaving the soldier bothered Mercedes. She tried to go home and relax, promising herself she would check on him the next day, but it felt wrong. As she sat beneath her covers, too tired to wrap her hair, she started to feel haunted by ghosts and fears that had everything and nothing to do with the soldier sleeping in the museum. He was just so wounded, poor and alone. "No one should be that alone," she mumbled into her cup, her first drink in six months.

Her loneliness began the day Mike enlisted. He was her Asian high school sweetheart, the boy who loved her and touched her from the inside out. His smile was everything and he could dance like no one she'd ever seen before. He made gravity look like a lie and physics was fiction when he performed. Above all, he loved his smile. No matter what happened around them or whatever he was doing, he saved a smile just for her. "It's because looking at you never fails to brighten my day, 'Cedes," he told her a dozen times. Their problem was money. There was none for college and Mike dreamed of enlisting in the Army to help pay for school. "I'll be able to make some money, get my education, come back and marry my girl," he told her when they lay together, bodies entangled in the backseat of his old car. Mike was a year ahead of her in school and his senior year flew by. The next thing she knew, they were at an enlistment center. He was hugging her and saying goodbye while she choked on the words announcing her pregnancy.

It was too hard to say.

It's why she didn't tell her mother until she started showing. It's why she couldn't tell him in any of the letters she sent or the few phone calls she received.

I'm pregnant, Mike. We're having a baby.

The deafening lack of support bruised her spirits. Her mother was too ashamed to help a statistic. Her friends judged her for keeping her baby. Even her body betrayed her by being too slow to keep up in gym, too tired to study, and too busy growing a child to stay in school. Mike was far away and the communication was too infrequent to make her feel his love. Sure, her mother came to the hospital when the baby was born and she held little Isaiah and played with his toes and fingers. Yet, she made sure to say, "You better make a way to feed and take care of him. I ain't babysitting and I'm not supporting a child I didn't have. You laid down and created him. You take care of him."

Fine. She works two jobs to afford food, diapers and a babysitter. She cries at night because she can't afford to buy her baby shoes, but her mother wants help with the bills.

Fine. She takes up a night shift cleaning motel rooms and brings her baby to work. The skeleton crew doesn't tell on her. They let her keep him in a spare room from time to time. It's been two months since she's heard from Mike and Isaiah resembles him more every day. She loves her baby more than anything. His baby smell comforts her and his smile at the sight of her comes directly from his father. Sleeping, however, is hard because struggling has sapped her of energy.

Fine. She drinks alcohol to help her wind down. Why not? It works for her mother. Isaiah can crawl now and keeping him still during her night shift is not so easy.

Surviving off three hours of sleep a night is okay until the day she falls asleep. During her 15 minute break, she lies on the bed with him cuddling him close for a nap. That way she can finish her shift in peace while he sleeps. This is supposed to be quick, so she doesn't close the door. She has him in her arms, running her fingers through his baby curls and breathing in the scent of his baby powder. All she does is close her eyes. She didn't mean to fall asleep.

A police officer wakes her up. He's standing next to her manager, Paul. They tell her Isaiah crawled out of the room. He's fallen down a flight of stairs. He's alive, but badly hurt. The doctor isn't sure if the damage to his head and body was permanent. The Department of Children and Families would not let her hold him or see him alone. She could not take him home. On April 15th, two weeks before the anniversary of Mike's enlistment, the courts placed her child in foster care.

Spiritually, she was wounded. Her heartbreak felt physically real and her loneliness absolute. Nobody should be left with no one to turn to in times of need. No one should be that alone.

Sighing, Mercedes placed her drink down on the nightstand. Running her fingers through her curls, she came to peace with her decision. She was going to help him. Whoever that soldier was, she was going to help him get to a better place.

Getting out of bed and grabbing her keys, Mercedes began trying to figure out how.


Though his vision began to blur, Sam found the bed in the basement. His arm was sore and he knew his fever worsened despite the aspirin he took earlier. Lying on the cramped, musty spring mattress was a relief.

To entertain himself, Sam thought of his curvaceous, brown savior. I'll call her Ms. Pretty, he thought, smiling at his own whimsy. Sam was an equal opportunity lover. He liked what liked him, but she looked like a nice handful. Holding his throbbing arm, Sam wondered if she would like him if he only had one arm. "Oh yeah, I'm such a catch," he laughed hysterically, "horny, hungry, homeless and now handicapped to boot." His laugh quickly turned into a cough. Shuffling to get comfortable, Sam wondered what she thought of him. He certainly knew what he thought of her. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Sam began to sing an old song that came to him. He sang:

You are so beautiful to me

You are so beautiful to me

Can't you see?

You're everything I hoped for

You're everything I need

You are so beautiful

To me

Closing his eyes, Sam gave into his fever, but held on to the thought of Ms. Pretty.


Shaking her head at her impulsiveness, Mercedes pulled up to her job. "I am so going to be fired for this," she muttered under her breath as she went towards the back entrance. Squaring her shoulders and practicing her story if she was discovered, Mercedes walked up to the door. The day janitor was always leaving his key when he went for a smoke. To prevent from being locked out, he kept a spare under a handful of gravel covered by the milk crate he sat on during his break. Uncovering the spare key, she let herself into the building. Too afraid to turn on the lights, Mercedes tried to make her way in the dark. Crossing the basement, Mercedes saw of the sleeping soldier on the bed. He was shivering with fever. She took a step into the room when she knocked into a pail filled with cleaning supplies.

"Shit," she cursed, as the clanging noise seemed to echo in the building. Holding still, Mercedes winced as she listened for any oncoming footsteps. Looking towards the bed, she gasped to see it empty. Searching for the soldier, she looked to see him under the bed with his hands covering his head.

Holding her arms out, she said to him, "I'm here to help."

"Help," was all Sam heard. In his head, he was back overseas. He heard the bomb go off and found cover liked he'd been trained. Feverishly straining to make sense of what was happening, Sam saw Ms. Pretty standing there. "Help," he heard again. Didn't she hear the bomb? He had to get her out of harm's way.

"We have to get you out of here," Mercedes said to the zoned out soldier. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was damp with sweat. Thankfully, she saw him start to come out from under the bed.

Gathering his flagging strength, Sam knew he had to get her to safety. "I'll save you Ms. Pretty," he said to her. Adrenaline pushing his overheated body, Sam crawled out and tried to stand.

Mercedes rushed over to help him up. Pulling his arm over her shoulder, she said to him, "We have to get to my car. I'll take you to a hospital."

Sam forced his body to move forward. He pushed his pain to the side and focused on his objective: get Ms. Pretty to safety.

As Mercedes led them to her car, she heard him saying, "I'll get you to safety, Ms. Pretty. I'll save you." Figuring his delusion was the only thing keeping him moving, she fed into it, "That's right. I need you to save me soldier. Help me get to the car." To her amazement, he straightened and carried even more of his own weight. His arm tightened across her shoulders and he moved forward with pained purpose. "I'll save you," he said again, determination overtaking the weakness in his voice.

With difficulty, they made it to her car and sat him in the passenger seat. As she drove, he looked at her with unseeing eyes, feverishly repeating, "I'll save you, Ms. Pretty. I'll save you."

A/N: meh, I'm still finding a flow. Thanks for the support.