Ray of Sunlight (3 page)

I passed by the same door a half-dozen times, trying to find this guy. I was getting angrier and angrier the longer it was taking. It was now almost ten minutes after I was supposed to have left. Attila was going to hear about this. This was coming off the time I owed. I wasn’t donating extra time. No way!

“Fresh meat? Is that you?” I heard a weak voice coming from the nearby room, so I backed up a little to see inside.

From the nickname, I assumed this was CJ, but when I looked at the person lying on the bed, I couldn’t believe it. The clown makeup was gone, of course, but his face wasn’t any less white. The bright red wig was missing, and there was no hair at all to replace it. His eyes seemed sunken in and his cheekbones were far too prominent. The clown had had dark face paint under the jawline and cheekbones, emphasizing this, but it came across as a trick of the makeup. Now I could see clearly that it wasn’t a trick at all. His cheeks were really that sunken in. His body was wrecked too. All of those baggy clothes had hidden how rail thin he was. His eyes looked tired, but that trademark twinkle was still there.

“CJ?” I stepped inside the room.

“In the flesh,” he answered. “Although, admittedly, not much more than flesh right now.”

I couldn’t believe he was still joking. He had to feel awful. He looked just this side of dead.

I knew Ms. Carol had said he had cancer, and I knew he had some kind of treatment, but I had assumed he had some minor kind of cancer or something—if there was such a thing—or that maybe this was his first treatment. I mean he was jumping and running all over the place with the burned kids. So I figured it couldn’t be all that serious.

But, from the look of him now, it obviously was. It looked like he’d been battling this for a while too.

And judging by the room, he’d been there a long time. There was a makeup table, complete with lights all around the large mirror in the corner, with a variety of clown makeup on it, along with several wigs. Throughout the room, there were kids’ drawings of various things, but mostly of clowns. There were also posters all over the place: pictures of clowns, of course, but also various other people and groups with heavy face paint. There were numerous bands I didn’t know, wearing corpse paint, but there was one band I did recognize.

“KISS?” I chuckled and pointed to the iconic poster.

CJ laughed too as he weakly gestured to all the posters. “They’re kind of a running joke. The nurses or patients, or sometimes parents of my kids, give them to me. All of them have face paint.”

“Yeah, I caught that.” I smiled. “Do you actually like any of these bands?”

“Most of them I haven’t really heard, but someone got me a KISS album once. I do like some of their songs.” He tried to sit up a little straighter. “I really like ‘Beth.’”

“Oh man,” I sighed in disappointment. “That’s the one sissy song they ever made.”

CJ chuckled and shrugged. “You like KISS? Most people our age have barely heard of them.”

“Well, back when I still saw my grandma, I’d listen to her records. She had all their albums. Queen and AC/DC too… even some Bee Gees, if you can believe that. All sorts of stuff from that era. Some of it was pretty bitchin’.”

He chuckled again but started to fidget. I could tell he was getting tired.

“Hey, maybe you can help me. I’m supposed to give this”—I jiggled the box—“to the janitor over here, but I can’t find him.”

“Fred?” he asked, but I shrugged. How was I supposed to know? If Ms. Carol told me his name, I didn’t remember it. But, he just looked at the clock, then continued. “It’s after 5:00, so he’d be on dinner break. He’s either in the break room, the cafeteria, or the chapel.”

“The chapel?” Places to eat during a dinner break, I understood. I hadn’t expected “chapel” to be on the list of possibilities. You can’t eat there.

“He says he can’t work here, with all this suffering, without offering up some prayers to try to alleviate some of it. Says it’s the only way he feels he can help, even though I keep telling him he helps in other ways too.”

“How does a janitor help with any of the suffering?” I hadn’t really meant to sound like an asshole—this time—but it sort of came out that way anyway.

“Oh, a lot of ways.” CJ didn’t seem fazed by my assholishness. “He knows the name of every kid in this ward and knows a little something about each one, enough so that he can interact on a personal level with every single one of them. When he comes in to clean the rooms, he calls each kid by name and strikes up a conversation. Sometimes he brings a little something—nothing too expensive because he doesn’t make much money, but enough to show he’s thinking about us. He brought me one of the posters. Susie, down the hall, likes root-beer-flavored hard candies. They’re hard to find, but he brings her one each day. Michael likes Hot Wheels, so every time he starts a new round of chemo, he comes back to find a new one on his pillow.”

I was unimpressed. “That’s not really helping, though. They still have cancer. He can’t fix that. So why bother?”

CJ shook his head. “It’s the fact that he ‘bothers’ anyway that makes the difference. All these kids have so many clouds in their lives—so many storms. They need a few rays of sunlight from time to time. Fred provides that. Just a little light on a cloudy day. We all need that, even people without cancer.”

“I suppose.” I still wasn’t convinced. “Still doesn’t sound like much, though.”

“Doesn’t have to be.” CJ shrugged and smiled. “It’s enough that he tries.”

“Is that why you dress up like a clown and dance all over the place?” That sounded more scornful than I had meant it, but CJ just smiled.

“I don’t think anyone has ever accused me of dancing before.”

I chuckled. “I didn’t say you danced
well.”

His eyes twinkled even more. I wouldn’t have thought that was possible. They had been twinkling the whole time. Even as sick as he obviously was.

“I don’t dance. But I do what I can. I’m good at making kids laugh. Always have been. And if ever there were kids who needed to laugh, it’s these guys.”

“That’s not all you do, though.” I remembered what Ms. Carol had said. “You incorporate PT into it too.”

“Yeah, that’s just kind of evolved over the last… year or so…. I noticed some of their parents doing exercises with them and thought I could provide more opportunities for practice. So I got the parents, or in some cases the PTs, to teach me the exercises and got permission from them… both… the parents and the PTs… to integrate some of them in the show.”

“A year?” I seized on that. “Is that how long you’ve been here?”

“Yeah, about that long, yeah. Something like that.”

“Full time? Don’t you ever go home?”

I didn’t know if he changed the subject on purpose or if it just happened, but he pointed out into the hallway.

“There’s Fred. You needed to get those supplies to him, didn’t you? What time did you plan to leave?’

It had been so fun talking to CJ that I hadn’t even noticed that it was now 5:30.

“Well,” I said, smiling, “a half hour ago actually.”

“I hope you brought your time machine, then.” He chuckled.

“Maybe that’s what’s in here.” I played along as I jostled the box I was still holding.

“Yeah, I can see Fred ordering a time machine.” He still had that twinkle in his eyes, but he could barely hold his head up.

“I’d better go find out, then.” I started out the door but then turned back, and said, “I’ll be back tomorrow.” I wasn’t sure why I was telling him that, but it was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“I’ll be here.” He was almost asleep by then.

“I’ll stop by, then,” I promised as I padded out the door to catch Fred.

I
WAS
leaving the hospital later than planned, so I had missed the bus. If I’d had a cell phone like a normal teenager, I could have called someone; not that I would have known who to call. Mom and Allen would both preach the whole way home, and Pete would throw in my face that he had a car and I didn’t. Who needs any of that?

I had memorized the bus schedule on the way over—just because there wasn’t anything else to do and because numbers had always come easily to me… not that you could tell that by my math grades. So, I knew the next bus would arrive about the same time either of them could get here anyway. I just waited on the bench.

When the bus finally got there, it wasn’t the same driver. I’m not sure why I thought it would be. But, then I wondered what Mr. Nobody would tell Attila − if he would find the need to tell her anything. I mean, I came, right? I was just late leaving. Of course, I guess it could look like maybe I just disappeared and did whatever. I’d maybe even try that, except that Groucho was planning on making me sign in
and
out, and except for the time in Oncology, there was someone keeping tabs on me every minute, the whole day. So, Mr. Nobody could report me if he wanted, but Groucho could vouch for me, so… whatever.

As soon as I got home, though, World War III started.

“Where the hell have you been?” Allen started right in. “The bus you were
supposed
to be on passed by almost two hours ago.”

“I got held up.” I was so over this whole conversation. I had waited almost an hour for the second bus and had already been running a half hour late, and this bus took a different route. He was lucky I wasn’t even later than I was. The driver had told me that usually he’d be yet another fifteen minutes or so running by here, but he didn’t have his usual church group to drop off today so he came straight here.

“Doing what, Russell?” Mom had to chime in.

“Looking for a time machine,” I snarled and then stomped off to my room. It had been a stupid question. It didn’t deserve a better answer. If they didn’t trust me, they could damned well take me and pick me up themselves. Or better yet, they could get me a goddamned car.

I was surprised that they let it drop, but I didn’t much care one way or the other. I was storming past Pete’s room, and he was standing in the doorway.

“How did it go today?” he asked in that oh-so-cheerful voice that made me want to wring his scrawny little neck just to squeeze the “happy” out.

“Fuck off.” I stormed past and swooped into my room.

Just before I slammed the door, I heard him say, “Well maybe
tomorrow will be better. Maybe we’ll be up to ‘screw you!’
instead.”

T
HE
NEXT
morning was excruciating. Allen stomped around, barking orders at me and giving me a list of chores I couldn’t possibly get finished in time to leave for community service. Mom gave me the silent treatment, no doubt for my perceived betrayal of her trust the previous day. And Pete sat there with that infuriating cheerfulness, waiting for his ride to pick him up.

He’d started going to church with his friend, Jacob, down the road. He said he’d “found God,” and that’s why he was so happy now. I suspected he just had the hots for Jacob’s sister and was slipping away with her during the church service. Getting into her pants would certainly make
me
happy. She was a fox. Then again, getting into her brother’s pants would make me happy too. He was a fox also.

I had known for a while now that I was attracted to both boys and girls, but I was usually too busy being angry at the world to really connect with anyone. But, even if I wanted the entanglements that undoubtedly came with sex, I wouldn’t risk anything with a guy. Allen hated me as it was, and both he and Mom were extremely homophobic. So it just wasn’t worth it to me.

But anyway, I sat there, making breakfast last as long as possible, then dragged my feet about the chores. Soon it was time to catch the bus, and I grabbed my backpack and headed toward the door.

“Hey, you little snot,” Allen yelled, eloquent as ever. “You didn’t do your chores.”

“Can’t be late for Community Service,” I said, truly reveling in my parting shot. I didn’t even answer when he hollered.

“You damned well better not be late getting home tonight!”

I suddenly hoped they had more last minute packages for me that day, so I’d have an excuse to do just that.

M
S
. C
AROL
,
my own personal drill instructor, had me clean the playroom, complete with sanitizing all the toys the little rug rats had no doubt drooled all over.

“Who cleaned them
last
year?” I groused.

“
I
cleaned them
yesterday
morning,” she said in that deceivingly gentle voice she had. “These kids are especially susceptible to infection. They’re either waiting for skin grafts, or between skin grafts, and even with the pressure bandages, they can get infections easily, and some of their immune systems are so taxed, they get sick easily too. They don’t need to be picking up something from their toys.”

Okay, you see, I didn’t know that they cleaned everything so often. As far as I knew we had
never
cleaned our toys at home. And if germs were people-sized, there were probably enough of them on the Gameboy alone to assault all of New York in an all-out frontal attack. But, I guess hospitals had to be cleaner than that and hospitals for crispy critters and Charlie Browns had to take extra care.

I
HAD
expected to have to ask for time to look in on CJ in Oncology since he had just had a treatment the previous day, but when I went into the playroom to clean, there he was, in full clown regalia, sitting on an ottoman with the kids gathered all around him and even over him. It reminded me of the picture of
Jesus and the Children
Pete had over his bed. Their faces, every single one of them, were filled with such peace and joy. Here were kids… I mean, half of them didn’t even have faces
…
not the faces they were born with… and a simple book being read by a clown could make them this happy? I couldn’t understand that. It would take a
lot
more than that to make
me
happy, and I wasn’t burned.