Jill finished her notations and handed me the patient’s chart. I read through the medical jargon quickly and didn’t see any further information that I hadn’t already been given.
“He’d been beaten pretty badly. The police seem to think he had been attacked by a…” Jill leaned in close and dropped her voice into a scandalized whisper. “By a john. He’s some sort of male prostitute.”
She sounded horrified. Her disgust erased her earlier sympathy.
“Well, it’s a good thing it’s not our job to judge him then, isn’t it?” I remarked sharply, though I understood her censure too well. I had shared her revulsion once upon a time.
Jill’s eyes widened. “I didn’t mean—”
I lifted my hand and waved away her words. “I was told that the police came by to take a picture. So they know he’s a hustler, but they don’t know his name?”
Jill bit down on her lip, looking contrite by my reprimand. “No. The detective that was here earlier said so many of them hang out by that bridge and near the river, they can’t keep track of them all. He thought he had spoken to him in the past though. So obviously this man has been out there doing whatever he was doing for a long time.” Jill made a face. “I just don’t get how people can do that sort of thing. To be used like that for money. It’s awful!”
“You have no idea what people are willing to do to put food in their belly or drugs in their body. A life on the streets makes people desperate,” I snapped.
“Oh, well, that’s true. But anyway, the detective left his card so you can call him.” She handed me a small white business card, which I promptly tucked into the case file.
They didn’t know his name. Only the sordid details of his obviously tragic life. The man had been thrown away. Discarded. Forgotten.
I felt my anger flare and my stomach knotted uncomfortably.
“Are you running blood tests to check for STDs?” I asked.
“Of course. We should get the labs back soon,” Jill answered.
I handed her the patient’s chart and turned towards the closed door. “Well let me go see Mr. Mysterious.”
Jill put a hand on my arm. “Just be prepared, he looks really bad.”
I didn’t need the warning. I had seen some awful things in my seven years at the hospital. I was positive I could handle it.
“I’ll be fine.” I twisted the doorknob and walked inside, clutching the client file to my chest.
“But you can tell he’s a looker. Such a waste,” Jill muttered.
Don’t smack the nurse. That would be bad, Imogen, I reminded myself. Instead of commenting, I shut the door in Jill’s face.
The room smelled sterile. Too clean. Even though I was used to the hospital stench of cleaning products and sickness, it was anything but pleasant.
The constant drone of the beeping monitors filled the silence. I barely noticed them. I walked towards the pale blue curtain that separated the patient from the rest of the room.
I was already thinking of possible line items to include in the patient’s service plan. I was in social work mode. I plastered a professional smile on my face and griped the curtain in my hand, giving it a hearty yank. The body on the bed didn’t move. Not a twitch or a muscle spasm. I let the smile drop now that it seemed unnecessary.
I focused first on his feet. I slowly made my way up the length of his obviously thin body. His hands rested on either side of him and were all skin and bones. Long, knobby fingers. Knuckles raw and scabbed over. He appeared almost emaciated. Finally my eyes settled on a very battered and swollen face.
Jill hadn’t been lying. The man was hardly recognizable as a person. His mouth was puffy and split. His right cheek was black, blue, and yellow from the marrow bruising, and his head was covered in stark white bandages.
His eyes were of course closed, but I got the impression of long, thick lashes on abused skin.
How would the police ever be able to identify him looking as he did? No one would be able to tell who he was. He barely looked human.
“You poor man,” I murmured, pulling a chair up to the side of the bed and sitting down.
I stared long and hard at his beaten face. “What happened to you?” I whispered knowing he wouldn’t answer me.
I lifted my pen and started to fill out the social work assessment sheet that I had brought with me. Until he woke up, I wouldn’t be able to do much for him. I needed his history. His story.
I needed his name.
He had been found underneath Seventh Street Bridge.
My throat felt uncomfortably tight and my hands trembled so badly it made holding the pen almost impossible.
Seventh Street Bridge…
Would time ever erase the impact of those memories?
It was all too easy to let my mind wander to the boy I had met under that bridge years ago. When the sky was red and tears dried on my cheeks.
The boy with black hair and wild, green eyes.
“I won’t leave you, Imi, not ever. You and me, we’re a definite. I don’t have anything if I don’t have you. You have to believe that.”
I had believed him with every piece of my trusting teenage heart.