Entry Fifty-nine: Save Me, Black Jesus

[A story in many parts: Part Ten of Thirteen]

Chapter Seven

When I woke up it was dark. I suffered a few seconds of freaking out, a little dizzy, wondering where I was. But then I heard the beeps and figured that was a sure sign I was still among the living. Then it hit me that it was dark. I mean really dark and that meant somebody came in and turned off the Blinking Lights from Hades. It’s proof there’s a compassionate soul left in the world after all. I was just getting used to the calm of the darkness when someone opened the door and messed things up by letting in the light from the hallway. I was surprised when I heard, “You awake, Mr. C?” and knew it was the mopper, the black dude from the cleaning crew. He came over and sat next to me, made sure I could see him and started talking to me. He didn’t mess around, no chit-chatting about his kids and stuff. He jumped right into the change in my situation and talked about what he referred to as his “troubled spirit” and the only way he could get any peace was to have a one-on-one with me. I’m usually pretty hostile to any religious talk but for some reason, when Eric—he finally told me his name—started talking about it, I wasn’t annoyed all that much. Maybe it was something about his voice or that he’d made a special trip to my room on his break. Hell, it could have been that I didn’t have anything better to do but, whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter because when he started in on his story I listened.

All words and images ©2005/J. Colle