HELPER12, Jack Blaine [reading in the dark .TXT] 📗

“Don’t he remind you of Gregory?”  The Driver looks at Helper after one of Jobee’s particularly long giggling sessions.  “He’s so happy.”

Helper looks back at the Driver as though he’s just screamed.

“No,” she spits, cutting her eyes sharply between the Driver and me.  “He doesn’t.”

The Driver watches her bob her head back and forth between me and him, frowning, and then his eyes get wide.  You can see the actual moment when his brain makes some connection.  He opens his mouth to say something, but then he shuts it.

“Who is Gregory?”  I wonder what could make Helper so apoplectic.

“None of your affair.”  Helper squeezes her mouth shut on something else, something she wants to say but won’t.  She gets up and starts to clear the table.

“I’m not done!”  The Driver watches as she whisks his plate out from in front of him.

“You are now,” she hisses.

Dinner is over.

The days are idyllic.  I have never had so much time alone, to do what I will, to simply be.  Jobee is calm, so easy to care for that I feel as though I am not working at all.  I spend much of the time in the courtyard, sitting with him, watching him discover light and color and texture.  When he first feels the spray of water from the fountain on his hand, he blinks and blinks, and then smiles the widest of his smiles.  He laughs easily, and I see what the Driver has said is true: he is happy.

Even I feel something like it; if not happiness, contentment.  It frightens me, that I could be close to content with such an existence. The only reason I’m not more bothered by it is that I know it’s temporary—soon enough the Sloanes will be back.  And I can’t really blame myself for feeling some relief, at least.  This sort of baby care is so different from what I did in the Ward, this watching how he grows into himself instead of measuring his urine output.

The strangest thing about this contentment is that it makes me want to draw more, not less.  I always thought my drawings were an escape; that they helped me forget my life.  And they did, but they were also an expression, I think.  And this new freedom, this chance to be still and hear my own thoughts, to be able to appreciate the sound of Jobee’s soft breath, or the texture of his silken hair, these things make me want to express myself too.

I take out my three hidden drawings at night.  I don’t think there are cameras in my room, but I go into the tiny bathroom and turn toward a corner just to be safe.  The last three drawings I did in my old life.  One is of Kris.  She is sitting on my cube cot, hands folded in her lap.  She’s quite beautiful, though she always denied that.  She has a bow-shaped mouth, and lovely eyes.  In my drawing, she is looking down, like she always used to do when we talked, at least if we were talking about anything real.  I think she felt that if nobody could see her eyes, they wouldn’t be able to see her feelings.  I miss Kris.  I hope she’s well.

The second drawing is a study of my Jacket.  I don’t remember why I chose to draw him.  He looks as dirty as he is in life, and as dodgy.  His hair is short, but not regulation hair.  I wonder how he gets away with it, day after day, standing there at the station with his non-regulation hair, selling contraband to passersby.  I know there are so many other, worse things happening that the police don’t care too much about him.  But I wonder how long his luck will hold out.

The last drawing is the start of a self portrait.  I’ve drawn my eyes, but I didn’t get any further.  I stare for a long time at my half-reflection, peering up from the wrinkled gown wrapper, and then I set the drawings aside.  I didn’t bring my pencils; I dropped them on the street like the contraband they were before I got into the Sloane’s vehicle.  I’m sure nobody saw me do it.  I have no paper here at the Sloanes, either.  I don’t wear sterile gowns, and I don’t know what I could easily take from here to draw on without being discovered.  So I can’t draw.  I can only look at my last three drawings.

Night is coming on fast; I’ve already bathed Jobee, and he’s snuffling in his crib.  It’s time I went to sleep, too.  I pull back the sheets on my bed, still surprised by their softness, and climb in.  Within minutes of closing my eyes, I am slumbering, dreamless.

Until I hear the shouting.

Chapter Nine

It’s coming from downstairs.  There are at least two people yelling—one of them Helper.  Her shrill screech is unmistakable.  I scramble out of bed, throw on my robe, and am downstairs in a moment.

It’s dark, but I can tell the commotion is coming from the front hall.  I run toward it—straight into the small table they keep against the wall there.  My big toe takes the brunt of the collision, and I grit my teeth so I won’t scream.  As I round the corner to the front door, I see Helper thwacking someone on the floor with her bath towel.  She must have just taken a bath; she’s dressed in a robe and her hair is wet.  She’s holding her robe closed with one hand and swinging her bath towel with the other.  Whoever she’s hitting is cursing at her from where he lays on the floor.

Before I can get any closer the Driver pushes past me from out of nowhere.  He’s carrying a club of some sort, short and deadly-looking.  He raises it up high over his head, and starts to bring it down.  I’ve been scrabbling along the wall