But it turns out there was more to the story than I thought.
Because right at that moment, the love of my young adult life was lying in a hospital bed, clearly still held prisoner by the choices he had made long before I had ever met him.
I got to my feet angrily, balling my hands into fists. I felt like hitting something. Smashing things.
No one even knew who he was. No one was looking for him.
He was still the lost, forgotten boy.
I was so angry with him for becoming another damn statistic. For giving up on our dreams.
How could he do that?
I opened the door and stepped back into the hallway. I should return to his room. I needed to notify the police about who he was. I knew his name. I knew his history. I knew bits and pieces about his life that would help fill in the gaps.
But I was missing the big chunk. What had happened to him in the last fifteen years and how he ended up nameless and bleeding in a hospital bed?
I pressed my fist to my mouth and swallowed the enraged sobs that inched up my throat.
I should pass the case off to Tess. I needed to tell Jason that I knew him and thus working with him inappropriate.
I opened Yoss’s file and stared down at the black and white facts.
Homeless.
Found unconscious.
Significant trauma.
I closed the folder and headed to the elevator. There were some phone calls I needed to make before I did anything else.
“Hello, this is Imogen Conner, the ICU social worker over at Lupton Memorial Hospital. Is Detective Preston available?” I chewed on the end of my pen and waited as I was transferred.
I couldn’t stop re-reading Yoss’s admission paperwork. The extent of his injuries was significant. But he was expected to make a full recovery.
That’s what worried me.
After he was better, where would he go? What would he do?
I knew the horrible things he did to stay alive. I had tried to ignore them when I was a girl. I couldn’t ignore them now.
“This is Detective Preston,” a rough voice said on the other end. I pressed the phone to my ear and took a deep breath.
“Hi Detective Preston, this is Imogen Conner, the social worker assigned to the homeless man’s case.”
“Excuse me?” Detective Preston asked, sounding annoyed.
“The unconscious man you and your partner brought into the emergency room early this morning. You found him underneath Seventh Street Bridge,” I prompted, irritated that he didn’t remember.
“Oh, him. Yeah, sorry if I don’t remember every crack head hustler that I find half dead on the streets,” he remarked unkindly. His casual dismissal of Yoss pissed me off.
“He’s not a crack head. He’s a person,” I reminded him firmly, unable to help myself.
Detective Preston chuckled indulgently. “You bleeding hearts are all the same. I apologize for my less than sympathetic response. But you see one, you’ve seen ’em all, I’m afraid.”
I tapped my pen against the desk in agitation. I cleared my throat. “What do you know about him? Have you been able to locate his family? People that know him?” I asked. I didn’t rush to reveal what I knew about the mystery man in ICU. Something told me to hold off on handing over my own information.
“A couple of officers took his picture down to the burned out warehouse the kids call The Pit. It’s where the city’s homeless hang out. There was a nasty fire there years ago. Would have thought it would keep those people out. But they’re like cockroaches. We try to sweep through a couple of times a month but they keep coming back.” He sounded disgusted and I already loathed the judgmental man.
“Anyway, a few people thought he looked like a guy named Yossarian Frazier, but they couldn’t be sure. Apparently this Yossarian character hadn’t been around in a while. One woman thought he had gotten a job and moved away. If the guy in ICU is this Yossarian, the only job he had was of the don’t pick up the soap variety.” He laughed as though he were telling a joke. I tasted bile and thought I was going to be ill.
“I don’t think a man being almost beaten to death is something to laugh about, Detective,” I spat out, furious at his dispassionate assessment of the Yoss’s situation.
Detective Preston coughed and sobered a bit. “Well, my partner recognized the name. Said this Yossarian fellow is a street hustler. Has been since he was a kid. He was arrested five years or so ago for solicitation down near the river. That’s a well-known place for johns to pick up their flavor of the day. Yossarian seems a little old to be appealing to the normal sleaze that frequents that area of town. But obviously he’s gotten mixed up with some messed up stuff if this is the same person we brought in last night.”
“What about his family?” I asked softly. Maybe he had someone, somewhere that would be looking for him. Perhaps his grandmother…