Disclaimer: Jay & Silent Bob are the intellectual property of Kevin Smith and View Askew Productions, and I have no intent to profit financially from the use of these characters.
NINE
Been sitting here for two days and I swear, I cannot think of one more fucking thing to say. I'm talked out. Quite the switch, don't you think, Silent fucking Bob talking for two days straight, while Jay, who hardly shuts his mouth even in sleep, lays here absolutely speechless.
Not that he has much choice. Hard to talk when you're unconscious, harder still when you've got a tube jammed down your throat.
It's hard to tolerate. Hard to sit here hour after fucking hour, watching his chest rise and fall with measured precision as the respirator pushes breath into his lungs. Click. Whoosh. Click. Whoosh. Pair that with the sound of the cardiac monitor over the bed, tracing the peaks and valleys of his heartbeat. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Enough to give anybody a fucking headache after awhile.
Well, that symphony combined with a thousand other things. My muscles drawn tight, my body forced into unnatural contortions courtesy of this avocado green molded plastic chair. My stomach tied in knots, empty except for the occasional cup of gritty, lukewarm coffee offered by a nurse. My eyes stinging from lack of sleep and the accumulation of countless unshed tears.
My left hand, throbbing with pain and itching under the bandages, cradled useless against my chest. My right hand shoved through the bedrail and wrapped around one of Jay's, cold and motionless and so fucking pale, a bruise forming around the IV needle piercing it. My throat sore, because I've spent 48 hours forcing words around a lump that won't go away.
I keep telling him to hang on, that I'm here, that I'm watching his back, that he's safe and that I won't let anyone hurt him. I keep telling him that he's gonna be ok. That everything's gonna be ok. As if saying it, over and over and over again, will make it happen. As if I have some kind of supernatural control over the outcome of this hideous, horrible fucking situation.
My brain goes to buzzing sometimes. With guilt for my role in all of this, same guilt as I felt staring at that bloody bag of joints, only more focused now with the absence of medication. Guilt for taking this fourteen year old kid and putting him on someone else's turf to sell weed, naive fuck that I am, thinking the worst that could happen would be a little pushing and shoving, a few punches thrown.
Buzzes with rage too. I picture that fucker sometimes, with photographic clarity, his mouth against the boy's ear in that split second before I saw the blood spreading down the front of those faded, tattered jeans, and I fantasize about slitting his fucking throat.
Always come back to the present, though, to the pain I'd like to avoid. To Jay and the condition he's in right now. Barely alive.
Coming down off the pain killers that first day, someone came to me, found me a clean shirt, and led me up here to the third floor where they were still operating on him. Against hospital policy but they filled me in on all the details when I begged.
Eight hours of surgery, give or take, when they were done. So much blood lost, so much damage done to so many organs. So few guarantees. Maybe that's why they told me. Maybe that's why they didn't put up a fight when I insisted on coming in here. Maybe that's why they've let me sit here, almost constantly, for two days, despite the inevitable rules about visiting hours.
Suspicious character, I know that's what some of them thought, showing up here with their fragile patient under such questionable circumstances. Could be his pimp, or maybe his sugar daddy. At best, I'm his partner in crime, and that's contemptible enough, right? Should know better, even if I'm only five years his senior. I believe the charge is "corruption of a minor".
But after two days, the looks on their faces have softened. They've watched me in here, holding his hand, talking to him, foregoing food and sleep. Maybe they think it's noble. What they don't realize is that I have no choice in the matter.
I don't know when that happened. Could have been any number of moments. Tripping over his outstretched leg on the sidewalk and pulling my fist back to smack him in the mouth for the inconvenience. Seeing him struggle in that alleyway, mouth sealed shut and knuckles scraping the asphalt. Watching his fevered sleep on my couch. Feeling red hot rage flood through me when that fucker's fist met with his face.
No. No. I know the exact moment I committed myself to this, even if I wasn't aware of it at the time. Committed myself to watching over him. To doing whatever the fuck I could to help him, to protect him, for as long as he would tolerate.
It was after the scuffle, back at my place, and Jay was peering into the mirror over the bathroom sink, examining the cut on his forehead and wincing. I offered to clean and dress it for him. Nerves frayed by the fight, wary and agitated, he finally nodded and sat down on the edge of the tub. So much shit playing out across his tired face, sitting there, fear and pain and a dozen other unreadable emotions. I started washing out the cut, warning him each time I went to touch him, blowing on it to take away the sting.
He shuddered then, looking up at me, tears filling his eyes, and the awful thought crossed my mind that this might be the gentlest anyone had ever been with him. Ever. He trembled for a few seconds and then he relaxed, to the point I thought he might slump over and fall into the bathtub.
Yeah, that was the moment.
The memory chokes me and I stare at him.
He's so fucking young and so alone. Scarred. A jagged tear in his upper lip, a small crescent carved out over his eyebrow, a clean, straight line down his forearm, details hidden before because the kid was in perpetual motion, a blur of gangly, graceful limbs and long golden hair.
He's survived God only knows how many abuses and betrayals and abandonments to get to this point. Fourteen years old and about as strong and stubborn a person as I've ever met, streetwise, quick on his feet. Funny and shrewd and resourceful.
No parents. No brothers and sisters. No distant relations. No one has shown up these last two days and I've given up hope that anyone will because I know the hospital has already made all the requisite calls to the authorities. I knew in my gut, if not in point of fact, that there was no one.
It breaks my heart all the same, knowing that I'm it. That I'm all he has. Because he deserves more.
I lean in for the millionth time, rest my shoulder against the bed rail and brush my thumb across his fingers. I find my voice. Remind him yet again that I'm here, that he's safe and that I won't let anyone hurt him. Ask him to hang on. Tell him if he's got nothing else, he's got me, what little comfort that might be.
I tell him that I won't leave him.
His hand twitches. I gasp. He's been motionless for two days. Completely motionless. Could this be a muscle spasm or a reflex? Or can he hear me? Is he beginning to come out of this half dead, comatose state?
"Jay?" I whisper. "Jay, can you hear me?" Again. His fingers tense and then relax in my hand. The movement is subtle but clear. I stare at him, waiting for more. There's nothing new. Eyes closed, lips taped mostly shut around the respirator tube jammed between his teeth. Hospital sheet crisp and smooth and perfect across his chest in the exact same position it's been since the nurses last folded it down.
Again. Those long, slender fingers squeeze mine with more urgency, more pressure this time, before they go slack. I glance around me, with an odd feeling that if I alert anyone else to what he's doing, he'll stop and I'll look like an idiot.
"Shit, Jay, you can hear me, can't you?" I ask again, incredulous, as if he hasn't already answered.
Then he moves his head. They've had him facing forward, chin tilted slightly upward, perhaps to accommodate the tube down his throat, but he's turning, turning toward me, and tipping his face down. He stops after just a few seconds, maybe an inch or two of movement.
I swear to God, I think my face is going to crack because the smile twisting my lips feels so foreign.
Break my silence, the silence I've tried to keep with everybody but Jay, by hissing at the nearest nurse to come over, that he's moving, that he's squeezing my hand and turning his head and does she think that maybe he's waking up?
It's a few moments before I realize I've got tears running down my cheeks, but I'm not embarrassed. Nothing has ever, ever made me so fucking happy as the feeling of his hand squeezing mine and the sight of his head turning toward the sound of my voice. Because it means he's going to live through this.
Few minutes later I go to the bathroom and I cry, sobbing with relief, and when the tears dry up I collapse on a waiting room couch and let myself sleep because Jay, God bless him, will still be there when I wake up.