Jesus

JESUS

Fifty-eight year-old Jesus Martinez is about to go to the men's locker room when his boss, Mr. Rodney Brown stops him. Sixty-six and from Jamaica, Mr. Brown is not only head of security but runs the Riverdale Senior Center better than Dr. Piccolo himself. Because his mother was a nurse in England, Rodney Brown grew up in a hospital. He keeps an eye on JC like an older brother. "Hey, JC, Ms G. wants to see you pronto. They just moved her to Ward D." Jesus knew right then and there that Ms. G was not doing well.

As he quickly walks towards Ward D, now named D for “Death", he automatically pulls out his portable nebulizer and takes a couple of "quick hits”, before putting on his heavy plastic blue gloves and special white NP-95 respirator mask; just slowing down enough to check every inch of his body for any open pores. Asthmatic since his early twenties, JC knows about lethal airborne germs and how they can destroy your body within days if not hours.

Just barely graduating from Evander Childs High School 40 years ago, JC was a lonely child whose single mother and career social worker raised him and his younger sister Carmen, mostly at home, where JC became a news junkie instead of a street junkie, watching El Mundo and Channel 7 News day and night. And because of it no one is better informed then JC, especially as COVID-19 slowly takes over the national and local news. His mother overprotected him not just because of his acute asthma but being a bit slow JC remains childlike.

And now Ms. G is in trouble. She showed signs of the "Big V" only a couple of day ago and at 74 she probably will not make it. But after his mother died, Ms. G became JC's adopted mother, always telling him not to forget to wear his mask and gloves way before the Big V hit the Big Apple and the Riverdale Senior Center in the Bronx, where JC has been working for over twenty years as a janitor, thanks to his mother or "Saint Madre Rosa" as the local Catholic priest nicknamed her.

Always religious his mother lighted white praying candles everyday with an image of Jesus Christ printed on them, on top of her very own altar with praying beads and bible included. JC thought his birthday was everyday. There was only one name he was going to end up with - Jesus Martinez.

As he presses the security code that opens the double doors to Ward D, he looks up at the large wooden cross above the entrance and enters. JC now looks down the white corridor full of health care workers shrouded in white gowns, blue medical gloves and white full face respirator masks. JC thinks for a moment that he is in heaven.

Only a month ago some of the doctors and nurses were not obeying the new "social distancing rules" in the same corridor. JC knew better and one day three weeks ago he walked into the private medical staff cafeteria room, spotting both doctor and nurses having coffee right next to each other, conversing and watching the news.

Because of his asthma JC was already wearing a blue mask and gloves. He looked up at the ABC 7 news announcer,” It has been advised that if you are around anyone with a constant cough to immediately distance yourself.” JC immediately walked out of the cafeteria, turned around and quickly walked back in coughing uncontrollably. The whole medical staff suddenly jumped up and ran around him, quickly exiting the now empty cafeteria room.

Remembering, a smile comes to JC's face. It quickly fades as he enters room 423, Ms. G's room. She is surrounded by Dr. Robert Piccolo and two nurses who are checking her meds and pulse. Fifty-eight and head of the RSC, Dr. Piccolo does everything by the book. Unlike JC, he has no room for humor and chastised JC for causing his medical staff to almost puke up their lunch three weeks ago. Fluent in Italian, he always catches JC in his candid remarks in Spanish about life at the RSC. Both he and JC look down at Ms. G whose breathing has become increasingly labored.

RN Billi Thompson, forty-five and a twenty year veteran of the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital trauma ward, she left it only a month ago to spend more time with her fifteen year old daughter Tracy. Now she barely sees her because of the Big V. A close neighbor stepped into to permanently babysit. A single mom Billi worries that if anything should happen to her, Tracy will end up homeless as she did once as a child.

Billi puts her right hand on Ms. G's right shoulder and softly rubs it. Her red nose after wearing the “NP-95" for fifteen straight hours is red just like her eyes. Ms. G is a favorite patient of hers too. As Ms. G opens her eyes a smile comes over her face as she spots JS holding her left hand. He is slowly rubbing it as his eyes moisten.

British by birth, Ms. G like JC's mother and had been a social worker for over fifty years, befriending his mother who had worked for the city too. She is the last link to Saint Madre Rosa besides JC's younger sister Carmen. "JC, where have you been? I told Mr. Brown that I needed to see you...Right here Ms. G, everything is going to be okay."