Between the Middle and Index Fingers

Between the Middle and Index Fingers

I don’t feel scared, but I can feel my heart pounding, and my face is hot. I can feel my hands shaking as I sit at a desk and watch a man shuffle through papers. He is an old man with short thick hair. I notice his hands as he brings the papers together, turns them on their edge, and gently drops them on their edge to stack them evenly on his desk. His hands are worn with plenty of hair on them. He looks like a family man; he must have kids. His children must be older though, probably about my age, probably juniors or seniors in college. The man takes his time to look through my papers as I desperately try and read his face, so I can get a head start as to what he is about to tell me. The office has the scent of latex and a feel of coldness about it, like the kind of coldness you feel from putting your bare feet on hard tile floors.

I have not slept much in the past few months or really slept at all; every time I close my eyes I see the same thing. The vision won’t leave my mind. I close my eyes, and all I see is my hand. I hold it up in front of my face to see the needle stabbing me. The head of the needle penetrates between the knuckles of my right index and middle finger. It has been months, and I can still feel the pain. I am awakened from my vision by the voice of the doctor sitting in front of me. “Mr. Jakes," he says. I hear the words but it seems like for a split second I forgot that that was my name. He repeats it and this time uses my whole name “Mr. Jerome Jakes." looking up from the ground I connect with the man and make eye contact. My hearts sinks and I am deeply saddened because I can tell that he regrets locking eyes with me. Just as the executioner never looks the condemned man in the eyes, so, too, am I a condemned man, and just the same, he wishes he had not made eye contact with me. The man looks back down at the papers. “Mr. Jakes, your test results have come back and they are positive and even though H.I.V. is incurable that does not mean …………." His voice slowly fell out and all I could see was his lips moving. I do not feel a need to wait for him to finish; I slowly stand up from the chair and make my way first out of his office and then out of the building. Once I get to my beat up Honda Civic, I realized that I have nowhere to go. I then spend the next two hours sitting in my car trying to think of something that would make me feel better, maybe just a little better. After finding nothing to relieve the pain, I then realize that from now on my life will be divided into two parts, the time before the office meeting and the time after. I am not mad, nor am I sad. I have tried to cry (thinking that it would relieve my pain) but my efforts were futile; I could not even squeeze a drop. Hours go by, and as I watch the sun goes down, I am filled with fear, the fear that I will fall asleep. The thought of sleeping bothers me because I feel as if I am already in a dream. Despite my every effort to stay awake, my eyes fall shut, and I have the dream.

Driving down a dark empty road, I see the car in front of me drive off the pavement, into the grass, into a barbwire fence and then a pole. The car recoils from the sudden stop. The rear tires lift off the ground, still spinning, and amidst the sounds of crunching metal and broken glass, the tires slowly return back to the ground. I slam on my brakes, and my car slides to a stop on the cold wet road. I run to the car, hop over the ditch and get my foot stuck and sliced up by the rundown barbwire fence. I stumble to the car, and as I shuffle through the rubble, I see a woman and a small child. I first grab the child from the car and place her in the wet grass far from the roadside. Next, I go back for the woman; I save her for last because she is covered with blood and looks to already be dead. I slide my hand under her body and feel that her body is cold. I lift her out of the seat and carry her cold lifeless body out of the car and set her next to the child. After setting her down in the grass, I step back. I feel cold and wet but not so much wet from the rain but rather wet from blood. The last thing I notice is something that filled me with fear and uncertainty. I look down to notice something in my right hand. It is a needle stabbing me between the index and middle fingers.

I awake to find myself still in my car, which is still in the office parking lot. I look to the clock to find that I have slept for only three minutes. With shaking hands, I turn the key and start my car, and then I take a moment to wipe the burning sweat from my eyes. Today, I start the second part of my life; today, I tell my family that I will soon die, and today I will find my place in this world. I stop by the gas station on the way home to get a PowerAde and some candy. As I enter the gas station, I notice a child running through the store. The child is running because his mom is chasing him, and as the child tries to elude his mother, he knocks down everything in his path to increase the amount of obstacles for his mother to avoid and to slow her down. The store manager, with his heavy Middle Eastern accent, yells loudly. Finally, the mother corrals the little boy and sends him to the car. I walk to the register stepping over bags of candy and chips that litter the floor. I buy my PowerAde and candy and leave the store. Walking out of the store, I see the same little boy and what must be his brother who looks to be almost the same age, fighting in the parking lot. The two little boys must be only a year apart. The child from the store looks to be the older one and has the advantage. He has the younger one locked in a headlock with one hand and uses the other hand to give him a noogy. I had to laugh to myself as I watch the younger child try and swing his hands up to hit his older brother. Finally, the older child lets go, and the younger child takes one step back, winds up, and kicks the older brother square in the nuts. As the older brother falls under the deadly blow, the younger brother throws up his hands in victory. Getting into my car, I could not help but laugh a little. After my moment of laughter, I realize that that women has great kids and a great life, both of which I will never have.

I stop by my house to tell my mom the situation. After I finish the last sentence of my story my mom breaks our eye contact and looks to the floor. She starts to cry and I watch as the first tear rolls down her face and drops from her chin. The tear falls through the air and splatters on the floor; that tear could just as well have been my heart falling to the floor and breaking into a million peaces. She has always been there for me and now, some day, I will not have a chance to be there for her. My biggest regret, is knowing that I let my mom down. I turn to her and say, “I am sorry mom.” I wait a second for a response but all I hear is her frantic breathing as she tries to fight back the tears and answer me. I wrap my arms around her and rub her back with my hands. “I know mom, I love you too.” I then tell her that I have to leave. I start to drive, having no destination. I drive for many hours only to end up at my college, my old college. College is for people with a future. I used to have a future. I could have done anything. I enjoyed sports and I was always the head of my class, but now is the beginning of the end for me. My life is too short for a future, and I am too sick for love. There will be no love of my life for me, and no happiness. My handicap has taken away my every dream, and now I find that the only things that make this life bearable are now gone. The town of my college fades in my rearview mirror. The lights all fade to darkness, and I start my drive down a long, dark and lonely road. The smell of wet pavement is poring through my car vents. I can tell it is about to rain. The road seems so quiet; all I can hear is the wind and the gentle hum of the pavement rolling under my tires. For the first time in my life, I am truly alone and truly without purpose or love. I start to cry because it is now that I realize that God has left me, and I am now all on my own. I pull to the side and turn off my car. My crying has blurred my eyes, and I cannot see. My tears soak my hands, and the crying starts to make my face sore. Finally, I stop crying. I go to start my car, but it will not start. I try over and over, but it will not work. I get out of the car, and pop the hood in the pouring rain only to find that I am out of gas, and the gauge inside the car must not be working. I could have sworn that I put gas in it, and my frustration starts to reach its climax. “Well, this is just freakin' great.” I clench up my fists and picture myself destroying the car and ripping it to pieces like Hulk in the cartoons. I find that, just like everything in this world, there is nothing I can do, and putting my hand through the window would only cause more pain. I decide to just leave the car. “Just forget it; I guess I will just walk in the freakin' rain.”
My first step lands on a pile of mud, and I slip and fall face down with mud and water all over my face and in my ears. As I spit mud from my mouth, I think that maybe I should just stay here; maybe I should die here. For the first time in my life, I consider giving up. I just don’t see the point any more. After deciding that death in the mud is less then I deserve, I slowly make it to me knees. The rain pounds my face and washes the mud off. I then make it to my feet and start to walk. Raindrops litter the street and I can hear the soft crackle of rain falling from leaf to leaf and then onto the wet grass. I think to myself, “How could this happen? I was doing the right thing. I did the right thing to help the lady and the child, and what do I get? I will now die for my kindness. I should have just kept driving. I should have never stopped. That is what I get for doing the right thing. All my life I have done the right thing, and look what it has gotten me. I have never known love, and now I never will. All life is, is a pursuit of joy, and once you get it, it lasts for a tenth of a second as it slips through your hands like sand through your finger tips. Nothing I have done is worth a thing. What is the point of helping others when their life is just as worthless as mine?" I suddenly hear a voice yelling form across the dark street. The man seems to be talking to himself. The voice frightened me, and I jumped. What on earth is a person doing walking in the middle of the nowhere at midnight? There is not a house within twenty miles. The man must be crazy. Oh well, what is the worst he could do, kill me? The man yells out, “This is not it, ya know.” You have got to be kidding me; it just keeps getting worse. He is now crossing the street to follow me. This guy must know something I don’t know because he is in way too good of a mood to be out here walking in the middle of nowhere in the rain. The man looks to be maybe in his late 30’s or early 40's. He doesn’t look like a man you would see wandering the streets this late at night, way out here, but now come to think of it, nobody would look right. He is wearing regular blue jeans and an old NFL Seahawks jacket. His clothes fit him too well to be clothes that a bum would wear, and his jacket looks new, but he must have had it a long time because it has the old logo. None of this makes sense. I have been walking for hours, and I know there has been nobody in front of me or behind me. He must have come out of the forest, but his shoes are not muddy. I can tell he has not been walking long because his feet still have spring to them. As he walks up next to me, I step over. I figure I will take the said with the road on it. What’s the difference anyways.
The man repeats his first statement. “This is not it, ya know.”
I look at him and ask, “What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said,” the man replies.
“Whatever,” I mutter under my voice.
“What are you doing in the middle of nowhere?” I ask him.
“I guess I am out here for the same reason you are,” he replies.
“How can you say that, you have no idea why I am here? Why can’t you just give me a straight forward answer?” My quickness to anger did not seem to startle him, nor did he get angry in return; he just politely changed the subject. The old man went on to talk about the weather and other things of no importance. He would often stop to pick up a hand full of mud, which he would play with as he walked along. I get the will to ask him a question, which had been nagging me, “What did you mean by the first statement you said?” He turned and looked at me as if he had been waiting for me to ask.
He said, “This is not it, Jerome. This right here is not all there is. I heard you talking to yourself back there, and I just wanted to tell you that it is not over. If you knew what lay ahead for you and those you love, you would not be able to contain yourself. You would be so filled with joy you would blow a fuse. The only reason you cry is because you feel that there is no hope, but, Jerome, remember that great things are accomplished by people who have held on long after there seems to be no hope at all.”
After hearing this I turned to him and asked, “Who are you?”
“Do you remember the mother and child you saved from the car wreck,” the man says.
“Yes, how could I forget? I am reminded every time I close my eyes,” I reply.
“I have been sent by the woman; she asked me to come look out for you.” The man replies. I was told that she was dead. Why would she send a man to help me anyways?
“That is why you are here?” I ask.
“Yes,” the man replies.
“How did you know where I would be?” I ask.
“I just know,” he says back. “Jerome, I came here to let you know that this is not it. Just like every day, tomorrow the sun will rise and things are never as bad as they seem.”
After I hear this, I then ask him, “Why am I so alone? Why is there a void that I can never fill?”
The man replies, “Jerome, everybody on this earth is desperately searching for the same thing. You are born with a need. Many people spend their life looking for a way to fill this need, but just as a child needs its mother, so, too, do humans long for their creator. Jerome, you have been committed to doing the right thing, and anytime you are truly committed you will find that keeping that commitment will not always be easy. No one was more committed then my old friend Paul. Paul was a man who was persecuted for his religion and through this he, served dozens of prison sentences. He was beaten times without number. He was beaten the regulation thirty-nine stripes five times. He was beaten with rods three times. He was stoned once. He was shipwrecked three times, and he spent twenty-four hours in the open sea. Paul wrote, “In my travels I have been in constant danger from rivers and floods, from bandits and from my own countrymen. I have faced danger in city streets, danger in the desert, and danger on high seas. I have known exhaustion, pain, long vigils, hunger and thirst, doing without meals, cold, and lack of clothing. At the end of Paul’s trials, he writes, “But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy.” In Paul’s life, he accomplished many great and amazing things, and these things where accomplished by him never giving up. The reason he never gave up is because he knew that this life is not all there is. Jerome, sometimes when you lose, you really win. You have been given great talents, and you have a chance to do great things, but with this gift much is expected of you.”
“I have a question, what was her name?” I ask
“Jenny Heart,” he replies.
“What about the girl?” I ask.
“Her name is Karin,” he replies.
“How old is Karin?” I ask.
“She is five,” the man replies.
“Does Karin suffer from the same affliction as myself?” I ask.
“No,” the man replies
“Can I ever meet them?” I ask.
“You can meet Karin as soon as you want, and I think that it will help you realize what you have done. It will put things in perspective. You will have to wait to meet Jenny though.”
“Jenny is dead isn’t she?” I ask.
“Yes,” he answers.
“She was dead the day I found her, she died in the car wreck that night didn’t she.”
“Yes,” he replies.
“Who are you? Why are you really here, and most of all, how do you know my name?” I ask.
“Jerome, even before you were born, I knew you, and you have known me for many years now. I have always been with you. I never left you. I was with you the whole time. I promise to always be here for you. And I promise that next to every fallen person you will see me lifting them up and next to every blade of grass you can hear me whispering the words,’ Grow, grow’. For I want nothing more then for your happiness,” he assures me.
“Why is life so hard?” I ask.
“I never said life would be easy, I just promise that you will never have to go it alone,” he replies.
After walking for hours, I could see a small town in the distance, and I knew that our walk was almost over. My mind started to cycle through millions of questions that I wanted to ask him. Before I can even open my mouth to ask, he turns to me and smiles.
“Jerome, right now you only see the first step on the staircase, and the only way to see the next step is to just keep walking. You will know everything in time. By the way, Jerome, you should really try and get some sleep.”
“I can’t sleep; I am haunted by the vision of that night,” I reply.
“I think you will be all right.” As the man says this, he places his hand on my shoulder. The moment his hand touches me, my body is filled with a feeling of great intensity. It is as if love is a blanket, and I am being wrapped in it. It is as if joy is a liquid, and I am being filled with it. The feeling is so intense that my body cannot withstand it, my knees buckle, and I fall to my hands and knees. My hands grip the grass, and my back arches, and all my muscles strain. My body is so overloaded with feelings that I find myself flashing in and out of consciousness as if a strobe light was in my brain. I awake lying on my back gasping for air.

There is the feel of a pillow under my head and sheets covering my body. I open my eyes to see a ceiling and lights. I am in a room. The room is large from what I can see, but it may be larger. I cannot tell because parts of the room are closed off by curtains. A man walking by in white clothes and carrying a clipboard stops and comes to my bed.
“Mr. Jakes, you are in Thomas Memorial Hospital, and I am Dr. Bears,” The man in white explains.
“How did I get here?” I ask.
“You called 911 from a woman’s cell phone. From the testimony of a five-year-old girl, her mother crashed her car, and you came and helped them both get out of the car. From what I know from the woman’s death and from your blood sample, I can see that both you and the woman suffered a drug overdose. The drug is not yet known. It will take a few weeks to find that out. Mr. Jakes, did you know the woman.”
“No sir. I was driving, and I saw her car go off the road. I first saved the little girl and then the women. After saving them both, I find that I had been stabbed with a needle. I was stabbed between the middle and index finger of my right hand.”
“Mr. Jakes, the drug that was injected in you had you unconscious for two days, but you seemed to have recovered just fine. You don’t seem to have any brain damage, but there is one other thing.” As the doctor pauses, I already know what he is about to say, and it comes as no surprise to me.
“Jerome the woman you saved suffered from AIDs, and therefore you are extremely likely to have the disease also.”
“I know,” I respond. I can tell that he is surprised by my answer. He decides to wait for a time when I am more coherent to discuss the details.
“Is the little girl in this hospital?” I ask.
“Yes, and as soon as you feel better, I will be glad to introduce you to her. Her name is Karin,” he responds.
Upon hearing this, I sit up in my bed and gently remove all the wires and tubes connected to me, and I stand up.
“Where is she?” I ask eagerly.
“I don’t know if it is such a good idea for you to see her right now in your condition,” Dr. Bears exclaims.
“I feel fine, and I really want to see her,” I tell him.
“All right, Jerome, I guess this will be okay.” I was surprised by Mr. Bears’ kindness and the time he has already taken for me. I have never met a doctor who took so much time with one of his patients. Dr. Bears guided me up the stairs to the children’s hospital. As I walk along the halls of the children’s hospital, I see cutouts of little hands, drawings of Santa Clauses and one big calendar, which counted down all the days until Christmas. There are nineteen days left. As I continued through the halls, I saw many sick little children, and I hoped that Karin would not be the same. I knew she could talk, but I was still afraid to ask the doctor and even more afraid to see her sick. Off at the end of the hall, I can see a girl running and laughing as she sprints in and out of rooms down the hall. Behind the girl is a nurse trying to end this silly game. As the girl continues to elude the nurse, she comes closer and closer to us until finally she runs past the doctor and I. The doctor reaches out and snags the girl by the arm.
“I got her,” he exclaims.
The girl swings around from the gentle jolt of being grabbed and runs into me. As she recoils from the bump, she steps back and looks up to see what she hit. As she looks up, I look down, and I am hypnotized by the most beautiful sight of my life. Her little innocent green eyes look up at me, and my eyes start to water. Her eyes look as nothing I have ever seen on this earth. It looks like a star exploded in all its power and in it, it creates a black hole which meets in the middle, sucking and twisting all the colors of the universe and making a beautiful green color. Her eyes seem to know no fear, no pain and no sadness. Karin recognizes me at first sight. I drop to one knee to bring myself to her level, and I say, “Hi Karin. Do you remember me?”
“Yes, you are Jerome,” She answers. I look to Dr. Bears as to nonverbally ask how she knew my name. He looks back at me with a puzzled look and raises his shoulders as to say that he doesn’t know.
“How do you know my name?” I ask her.
“A man told me,” she responds.
“How do you know this man and where is he?” I ask.
“I don’t know? I only saw him once. I saw him in a dream.”
“What did he tell you?” I ask.
“He told me that from now on you will look after me,” Karin responds.
At this point the doctor pulls me aside. As he pulls me away the girl squeezes my hand and follows along with us.
The doctor stops and tells me under his voice so that Karin cannot hear. “This girl has no family. Both her father and mother have passed away. I had a feeling that you might want to adopt her because you are, for the most part, one of the only people who knows she exists. I figured that putting her in an orphanage would not be the right thing to do. I have already done the check and you met all the requirements for adoption. I even printed up all the paper work.”
I nod as if to say yes, and the doctor takes us downstairs.

I finish signing my name on a large stack of papers, and I reach down for Karin’s small hand. As I grip her little hand tightly, we walk through the two sliding glass doors, which leave the hospital and lead to the world outside. Going through the last door, I am hit by the smell of fresh air and the soft heat from the sun. I then realize that my car must still be parked on the side of the road where the crash happened. I pull my keys out and look down to Karin and say, “Well, Karin, I got my keys right here, but I think I parked a little too far away for walking distance. You don’t suppose that the ambulance will give us a ride back to our car, do ya. Yeah, I did not think so, either. Uh well, I am sure we will figure something out. A man once told me that it will not always be easy, but at least, we don’t have to go it alone.”