Beautiful Ashes: Brandi Dawn Henderson

 
Presented by Jen Michalski, for PANK. For a description of this guest series, click here.
 

“Easy”

Paul combed straggly bits of long, blonde hair over his pointy, bald dome and believed he was pregnant with Chinese twins. Most days, while other clients were concentrating on counting coins into their palms in preparation for a supervised trip to the nearby Starbucks, Paul sat quietly in a rocking chair, pushing off with his long legs while carefully crocheting the latest beautiful blanket in preparation for the birth of his little girls.

Though I had a degree in psychology, I’d never worked with the developmentally disabled before. I was new on the job by a couple weeks and did my best to be adaptable and kind while managing the needs of a varied clientele. Some clients were completely harmless, like two women in their forties with Down Syndrome who helped me warm up each morning by requesting Cyndi Lauper dance parties. “Girrrllls, they wanna have fu-un, YEAHH GIRLLLS, they wanna have fuuuuun,” we’d all yell from within the windowed walls of the music room, other clients pressing their faces inward from the main floor as we hopped from foot to foot and shook our elbows around. Other clients, though, made me nervous.

Greg was hunched and his caretaker was clearly overworked or underconcerned, as she regularly sent Greg to “work,” as the clients called their daytime activities with us, unshowered, with thick, yellow sheets covering his teeth. He took an immediate liking to me and clung to my left sleeve whenever he could find me. Though taller than I was, Greg hunched himself so that his forehead pressed into the back of my shoulder; he rubbed his face back and forth on my soft sweaters and pressed his eye sockets, one by one, onto the ball of my shoulder. I tried to balance the grace of human connection with the limits of my own comfort, so, at times, male co-workers would peel his grip from me and sit him in a chair where he would curl deeply into himself and ask for me until I returned.

The walls of the low-ceilinged main room were decorated with colorful paintings and drawings which were so plentiful that we were constantly rotating new work into the mix — bunnies cut out of construction paper, collages made up of name brand magazine advertisements of Coach bags and Dreyer’s ice cream, unbelievably sweet love poems between clients romantically involved with one another, the slow scrawl of hands unaware they held markers. The ping of playground balls being passed from person to person added an ever-present staccato to the orchestra of anxious voices, the record player from the music room, the squeak of markers pressed hard onto paper, the rush of traffic passing by our corner building outside, the sometimes-troubling high buzz of fluorescent lights, and the careful and smile-inducing trash talk of those playing checkers and other board games.

One of these trash talkers was Rick, a tall, floppy-haired fellow in his early twenties who suffered from a number of ailments including a challenging case of Tourette’s Syndrome. When frustrated or anxious, Rick had one go-to phrase: “Skunk ass vampire bitch!” He used it when too many of his red checker pieces were taken; when someone threw the playground ball too carelessly; and when other clients, who were less aware of physical comfort zones, wandered too close to his own.

Perhaps I should have waited a few more weeks before volunteering to take Paul, Greg, and Rick out by myself, but the co-worker who was supposed to accompany us had called in sick, and the plan for the day was to visit a local small-scale radio station. The guys were so excited, and I felt sure I could handle it, so Rick put on his denim jacket, Paul wrapped himself in a crocheted shawl, and I peeled Greg’s grip from my shoulder, temporarily, in order to help him into his fragrant, dirt-streaked coat. I signed each of them out, made sure they each had their bus passes on cords around their necks, and we emerged into the bright, crisp air, Greg pressing his eyes to my shoulder in response to the sudden glow from the April sun.

Before setting out, my manager had reminded me that, though Paul is sweet as peach pie, he is also a pedophile to be watched at all times. Drawn to children, he seeks to touch them, as he believes he will bring them pleasure. It is something he has been told not to do many times, and in many different ways, but something that he cannot learn or remember as easily as other things like intricate crochet patterns or facts about China.

Standing on the curb in front of our office, the four of us waited for the bus, excited smiles all around. Paul said he wanted to talk on the radio about his dreams of owning a deep-sea diving suit. “Why do you want a deep-sea diving suit, Paul?” I asked, and, in his slow, almost-southern drawl, he responded, “So I can go into th’ ocean and get sushi for m’ fahmily. And I want a farm that has horses so m’ Chay-nese girls can ride ‘um.” I told him those were very considerate goals as I watched Rick’s eyes dart back and forth with the flow of traffic.

When the bus slowed to a stop in front of us, the driver took one look at us and didn’t bother to hide his disdain. He sat behind the wheel impatiently, raised his eyebrows, and smirked as Paul held his pass up for close inspection while waiting to be told he could go sit down. I, along with an attached Greg, stepped in front of Rick to assure Paul he could keep walking and find a seat, and the driver took the opportunity to close the door in Rick’s face. “Hey!” I yelled at the driver, and Greg rubbed his face on my sweater hard while whimpering. Rick, simultaneously left out and protective of me, pounded his fist on the door. Paul stood in the same spot by the driver, twisting his shawl in his hands. “Open the door,” I told the driver, my eyes held on his. He rolled his eyes, mumbled a barely comprehensible “something something retards,” and opened the door for Rick.

Though shaken and furious, I smiled at Paul, Greg, and Rick, and pointed out some seats near the middle of the bus. Paul sat near the window; Greg sat next to him gripping my arm as I stood near him in the aisle; and Rick moved to sit politely in the seat ahead of us, near a woman who made a violent grab for her purse, made a disgusted face, and moved as far toward the window and away from Rick as she possibly could. After the frustration caused by the bus driver, this was too much for him.

He began to rock.

“Rick,” I said softly, calmly.

I saw his jaw tighten and stay that way.

“Rick,” I repeated, leaning closer into his line of sight, as close as I could get without tearing Greg’s grip from my arm.

And then he stood up, full height, leaned over the woman, and let his words rain down on her: “SKUNK ASS VAMPIRE BITCH! SKUNK ASS VAMPIRE BITCH! SKUNK ASS VAMPIRE BITCH!”

He was shaking. The woman, a large-statured lady before he’d begun yelling, had shrunk herself small enough to fit into a teacup. Greg, with ascending volume, shook his head on my arm and said into my back, “no. No. NO. NO! NONONONO!” Paul sat quietly with big eyes, biting his lower lip with crooked upper teeth.

“It’s okay,” I said to the people around us as well as to my clients, just loud enough to be heard over the commotion. “It’s okay, they’re just overwhelmed.” I pulled the line for the bus stop and the driver stopped immediately though we were not near a designated stop. Dozens of eyes, both compassionate and angry, watched as I coaxed Rick, then Greg, then Paul from the bus, weaved them between the parked cars beside the bus, and got us all onto the sidewalk.

“Sorry,” Rick said.

“Me too,” I told him. “I’m sorry you felt frustrated, and that the woman sitting next to you wasn’t feeling kind.”
He was still breathing hard; his face was flushed. Greg was still muttering, softly, “no. No.”

I asked Rick if he felt like he would like to get on another bus, or if he thought it would be a better idea if we walked the six blocks or so back to the office. I told him we could stop by Starbucks, that we could set up the visit to the radio station for another day if he didn’t feel up to it today.

“Uh oh,” he said.

I was confused. “What, Rick?”

He was looking over my head. “Uh oh, uh oh.”

I turned around, and could taste my heart in my mouth. Paul, half a block away, shawl in his hands, was headed straight for a stroller. The baby’s mother had her back turned to the child as she stood over an open newspaper on an outdoor cafe table.

“Paul!” I called. I wanted to run, but Greg’s standing-still weight kept me anchored. I quickly unfolded his fingers from me and looked Rick in the eye. “Rick, please stay here. Please let Greg hold your arm. I will be right back, okay?” Rick nodded and then glanced back up toward Paul. “Uh oh,” he said, again. “No. NO. NO NO NO,” said Greg.

I’d never run so fast in my life.

When I reached Paul, he was just beginning to lean over the stroller; a lullaby rose softly from his lips. “Rock uh bye bay-bee,” he sang. The mother, alerted by the slapping of my shoes on the concrete, swung around and jerked the stroller away from us. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” Paul looked between the mother and me, stunned. The mother looked angry and confused. “I’m so sorry,” I repeated, and darted my eyes between our situation and where Greg and Rick stood. I touched Paul’s elbow gently, “Come on,” I said, “Let’s walk to the coffee shop with Greg and Rick.”

Paul’s chin quivered and twin teardrops fell from his eyes. He took two steps with me before turning around. “Ma’amm,” he drawled, and the mother looked over her shoulder from the few paces she’d taken in the opposite direction. She waited to hear what he would say. He took a step toward her, held out his shawl, and said quietly, “I made this fuh’ your bay-bee.” She smiled, and blinked several times to hold back her own tears. She took the shawl he held out to her and, for a moment, placed her hand on top of his. When we turned around toward Greg and Rick, Paul’s whole body shuddered in a sob.

My throat was tight when I said, “Paul, that was a nice gift.” I didn’t want to remind him of the rules just yet.

None of the guys felt like stopping for coffee, so we took our time walking the six blocks back to the office. Greg, happy to be near me again, smiled into my shoulder; Rick said he wished he had a ball to bounce while we walked; Paul walked in silence while tears fell down his cheeks.

Back at the office, I signed each client back in, put their bus passes into the appropriate cubby areas, and sank into a chair near the craft table. One of my co-workers had taken Greg from my arm and tried to get him to listen to a guest playing guitar in the music room; from within, he pressed his face to the windowed-wall and looked out to be sure I was still there.

Rick played catch with a playground ball and got yelled at by other clients when he started dribbling in place instead of passing; in response to the yelling, he yelled back, “SKUNK ASS VAMPIRE BITCH!” and the two women with Down Syndrome said, “Yeah, yeah, we know. Always skunk everything. Now pass the ball.”

I showed another client how to make paper airplanes while, out of the corner of my eye, I watched Paul rock in his chair and loop yarn over his crochet hook. “Paul,” I called, worried about him, “Come over here. I want to show you something.” He slowly put down his hook and folded his blanket-in-progress on the chair.

“Whut?” he said.

“I want to show you how to make a paper airplane, Paul.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” he said.

“I’ll show you! It’s easy!”

And, with that, he tilted his head to the side and smiled an all-knowing smile. “What’s easy for you isn’t the same as what’s easy for me,” he said. “I can’t make paper airplanes, and you…riding the bus is not easy for you. Prah-bably not even if I showed you.”

***
Brandi Dawn Henderson is a traveling writer, on regular journeys that prove truths to be no strangers to fictions. She is the Editor in Chief of Outside In Literary & Travel Magazine and co-edits Prompt & Circumstance, a resource dedicated to lighting creative fires. She wrote a relatively successful expat column and an utter failure of an advice column for a year in New Delhi, is the author of the travel anthology Whereabouts: Stepping Out of Place (2Leaf Press), and has had work published in a variety of journals. She now resides near Portland with a red-bearded outdoorsman and two dogs, Lola and Cormac McArfy.