JOSHUA'S P.O.V
People tell me your response determines your future. When I am wronged, deeply hurt, bitter, cheated, wrongly accused, my response determines my future, the landlord today can be the tenant tomorrow, the tenant today can be the landlord tomorrow, the priest today can be the drunkard tomorrow, the drunkard today can be the pastor tomorrow, the beginner is not the owner but the finisher, life is a race, so John Bevere said.
4:30A.M is not exactly my preferred time to pull out my head from the pillow. I was never a night or morning person, but an entertaining sound from a violin poked my ears and stopped before I managed to flip open my eyes expecting to see my princess by my side, for our daily routine, my fingers would brush her hair, give her a few tickles, allow her to make jokes about how bad I was in the Kitchen, pondering on the first day I tried to bake her a cake and used salt instead of sugar. I wondered "Where is she?"
The sweet harmony from the violin began to flow again, "Argh" it pulled me out of the bed in anger. No matter how sweet the sound may be, I took my gown off, threw it to the floor, put on my shirt, and slammed the door, my lips couldn't wait to scream at the instrumentalist for pushing me down from cloud nine, but I walked back in, grabbed the purse on the floor, picked up a few quarters and a dollar, to get some M&M's on my way back from the war of words. I rolled my walker as fast as I could through the passage. The violin was crying, still, I walked through the passage with my walker infuriated, practicing the speech. "If you don't pipe down right now, I'll use those violin strings to hang you off this building."
I was ready to put on a tough-guy image, so I switched on the lights and yelled, "Look here!" I kept quiet and was amazed by how my stiff jawline transformed into a smiling Emoji by a glance, she had light brown hair, to match her brown eyes. My first thought was nothing, I was speechless and thoughtless.
She responded, "Yes, hello, I'm listening."
I began to mumble "Hi, hmm I'm sorry, I was, I was hunh I was headed to the, to the candy machine."
"Candy machine?"
"No, sorry. I meant vending machine, vending machine. So, anyway, I was headed there, must have forgotten my manners or something, but I was completely blown away by the sweet harmony, I'm sorry for just storming in here like that."
"No worries, the door was wide open. But anyway, I'm glad you liked the music."
"Like, no lady I loved it."
"Did it wake you? I tend to lose thought of my surroundings when I play and sometimes get too loud."
"No, I was awake; wide…. awake."
"Couldn't get any sleep?" she asked.
"Something like that. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, that's all, I was craving some chocolate." Yes, it was a horrible response, but when in the presence of greatness, I lost myself, and at that moment I hated myself.
I hated myself because I had Erica, my childhood sweetheart. We met at a bar in early 2007, went camping and dancing in 2008, and in 2009 she began to call me honey while I called her Princess, But of course, she had her flaws. She was unpredictable, checked up on me hourly, and held up a chainsaw when other women said hi, Her mothers 6 bedroom triplex and Porsche had no influence on her feelings towards me. She was patient no matter what stones were thrown, occasionally she shielded me from them, but of course, at times she threw a few of her own. She knitted up the holes in my socks, my decade of non-stop seizures did not chase her away, instead, it brought her closer, she was a beautiful paralegal engaged to a college dropout. Whenever she found me finishing my evening walks and jogs, she would beg to play masseuse, my shoulders and feet never complained, but at that moment when I entered the room and saw that lady laying there, I thought to myself, damn Temptation is a B###h.
We fell silent for a moment. I couldn't think of stupid things to say, so I got closer, stretched out my hand. "By the way, I'm Joshua, Joshua Matthews."
"Kimberly" Her hands were as soft as cotton, eyes as brown as wood, it wouldn't be surprising if wings came along with the package. She continued, "Welcome to my paradise."
I laughed before foolishly teasing, "Paradise huh? you've never been to Miami?"
The magnet I call Erica kept pulling me away from this woman, but Kimberly's beauty slowly wrapped a chain around my neck, I was never the shy type, but running to the bathroom wouldn't have been a bad idea right then, I asked "you're a fan of Jazz music? Let me hear you play?"
"I already woke one person up."
"Are you a professional or part of some kind of orchestra band, you know the ones where the guy holds a stick in his hands like harry porter and creates magic with musical instruments"
She chuckled. "Neither, call it musical therapy, it brings a sense of healing to my mind."
"You checked into a hospital for some musical healing, damn, you must be loaded."
The tone of her voice declined as she answered, "No." Her patience was being tested by my disrespectful jokes.
"Three things brought me peace of mind in my life, the sound of musical instruments, money, and getting wasted at the bar down the street from my mother's house. A great life?"
The energy in the room turned negative. I was out of words again and we had an awkward moment. "Come on. I've got two dollars and two quarters. Walk me to the vending machine, let me make up for my bad manners, let's go get some candy,".
She was all smiles as she said, "You want to make up for disrupting me by taking me to get some candy? Doesn't that prolong the disturbance?"
"Okay, take the gloves off, no need to get defensive. I'm offering you a snack. I roamed into your room, what is it? Four A.M must have given you the creeps. It was fortunate you had clothes on."
"Stop letting your thoughts get too far ahead of you," she demanded, looking at the clock. "It's 4:33 A.M. A creep walks into my room, speaking like a retard and asking me on a date at a vending machine."
"It was just an offer; I'm not gonna touch you."
She shook her head and said something in Spanish "Baboosa".
"I'll take that as a compliment".
"you speak Spanish?"
"No" I didn't understand what she called me but I sure hoped it was a good word.
"give me my share of the money."
I handed her a dollar and twenty-five cents. "Keep it safe."
She said, "Give me a minute." I stood in front of her, she was sitting on the bed, my feet refused to walk, my heartbeat increased, until she repeated, "Vamos, I said give me a minute."
"Oh yeah sure." She placed the money on the bed.
I stepped outside back to where I left my walker before coming in. so there I was leaning on the walker, waiting, blowing air out of my mouth; so I could smell my breath and figure out if I should look her in the eye while speaking or look at her feet.
She walked out of the room. I whispered, "Wow."
She noticed the walker and asked, "Are you sure you should be walking around at this time of the morning?"
"Yes, you know what, you take it, seems like you need it more than I do. Don't worry I just roll this thing around, so the nurses don't get mad."
We started the walk and she responded, "And today you don't mind upsetting them?"
"A man is allowed to be foolish sometimes."
"I wonder."
"What?"
"How often you say that, Well, a fool makes a lot of mistakes."
"I don't make mistakes; I have control over everything I do."
"so you wrote it in your calendar, today I'm gonna let them carry me into an ambulance and have brain surgery done" I remained silent, and she commented "The first mistake a person who claims they don't make mistakes makes is making the claim itself. So, erm…. let's play a game. I guarantee in the next five minutes you're going to make yourself look stupid."
"Keep talking."
"You're going to look foolish"
"Keep talking."
My head was erupting as she suggested, "Flip a coin heads or tails?"
I asked, "First, what are we playing for?"
"Respect. I'll apologize for my behavior, I've done nothing but judge you since I met you, there's just so much to judge, but I'll pay for the candy, answer any question you have and we start again."
"Deal." I gave her a quarter and said, "Heads."
She flipped the coin, it landed on the floor and we were looking at George Washington.
I declared, "I believe someone owes me an apology."
"I've been nothing but good to you, so I have nothing to apologize for."
"Was that it? Was that the trick or the big embarrassing moment I was going to have?"
I chuckled, she hissed and said "Keep walking."
We kept walking and I asked, "All right, tell me where you are from?"
"The united states of…..."
I stopped her before she finished the sentence, now who WAS embarrassing themselves? I tried again. "Which state are you from?"
"Let's not talk about me, what about you?"
"Atlanta Georgia, the state of Joy, I've always wondered why they spell it that way. They could have just named it Joygia, what do you think?"
She smiled and said, "I've met a lot of positive-minded people here. Almost everywhere I look there's a smile on the face of the person right next to me."
"True."
"Then why are you so different?"
"Lady you've known me 10 minutes, why do you keep judging me?"
"I'm sorry I judge all men, I can't help it".
I said "you need to see a therapist"
She said in Spanish "Cabeza grande, cerebro pequeno". (big head smaill brain)
"Will you stop insulting me in Spanish?" finally that chain was about to be broken, I liked her until she started talking, but couldn't keep my eyes off her
"So, as I was saying, I'm from the state that you're safely residing in; I live in Lawrenceville about 36 miles from here, just survived brain surgery"
She asked, "Aw, were they able to get it all out?"
"The Tumor?"
"No the brain".
I looked at her "They couldn't risk it. If they had tried, I might not have been able to see and warn you that there's a spider on your gown." She didn't shake, she really was not like the others I'd come across before, she didn't budge, didn't like any of my jokes, nobody could read my emotions like Erica, nobody could put a smile on my face as she did, my face was like paper and her love a pencil and crayons, her hands and words could draw a smile on my face but also put a frown on it too, so I kept thinking to myself, what am I still doing here? why am I letting myself spoil my only source of happiness?
After the violin lady heard the narrative, she slowed down a bit; it seemed she wasn't as tough as she expected, so I asked, "You okay?" She started coughing and I repeated the question. "Are you okay? Do you want me to call you a nurse or something?"
"I'm fine," she gasped. "Really, I'm all right."
"I can walk you back if you want, let's go."
"Stop it, don't baby me, and don't hold me. I'll be fine."
"Well, I don't want blood on my hands, so M&M'S or Snickers pick one, you'll have it in your hands in three minutes."
She faced up towards the ceiling in pain and threw in the towel. "You have three minutes and don't walk back into that room if you're five seconds late."
"I'm a man of his word, now take it easy, use my walker and slowly walk back. See you in a second."
As she walked away, I glanced at her before I walked to the vending machine. I exhaled put my hands in my pocket and found nothing but a dollar, again I drilled my hand through the pockets and found just a dollar, I was short twenty-five cents, I kept touching my hips, right and left thigh ., looking down to the ground before realizing I'd lost the game, she didn't return the coin I gave her to flip. Heads or tails, I had lost. My first mistake was fantasizing about her, agreeing to play the game, the second was letting her defeat me by handing over the coin, and in the end, she didn't even walk me to the vending machine. . I banged on the vending machine so hard the smiley face on the M&M sachets began to frown. The night nurse, Linda, heard the noise. She walked towards me with Erica right behind her, ready for battle.