Disclaimer: Jay & Silent Bob are the intellectual property of Kevin Smith and View Askew Productions, and I have no intent to profit financially from the use of these characters.

FOURTEEN

Fuck. Hate this fucking hospital.

Yeah, yeah, I know what I said the other day about it being warm and fucking safe and nice here and how piss scared I am about going into another foster home or back into one of those fucking youth centers, specially as weak and fucked up as I'll still be when I leave here. S'all still true.

And I will be out of here soon, out of intensive care at least. Doc came by today and told me I'm doing lots better. Kidneys were the big holdout, they kept having to come in here and run my blood through one of those fucking machines . . . dialysis, I think that's what that shit's called. Anyways, they're finally working. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, they'll ship me outta here and into a room where they don't fucking bother me every ten fucking minutes.

Can't come quick enough, I'll fucking tell you that. Trapped in this fucking bed, people around day and night, never any fucking privacy. You live on the street a while, sleeping and pissing out in the open, eyes on you every fucking minute and always somebody up in your face, you get to craving privacy.

And the noises in here at fucking night, Jesus Christ. People coughing and moving in their chairs, shuffling off to the john, machines beeping and clicking, nurses whispering off in the corner, fucking shit never fucking ends and it makes me crazy. Fucking apeshit, that's what it makes me. Probably wouldn't get no sleep at all if they didn't have me stoned most of the fucking time.

Days ain't much better. Specially when Silent Bob's gone, like he is right now. Gone when I woke up this morning, nurse said he had some errands to do, whatever the fuck those were, and that he'd be back later. I'd say eight fucking hours going by is "later" but there ain't been no sign of that tubby fuck.

No . . . wait . . . staring out the window, the big fucking window right beside me, like I been all day, and I think I see something off down the hall, a round shape in a long coat . . . yeah, oh fuck, it is him, finally. Shit I hate how glad I am to see that fat fuck. Going fucking soft in this goddamn hospital.

He smiles so fucking big when he comes in the door and damned if I can do anything about the big shit eating grin that spreads across my own face.

"Where the fuck you been all day, Lunchbox?" Sit up some in the bed, so fucking excited not to be alone anymore that I'm getting a burst of energy like I ain't felt since I got stabbed. Silent Bob's eyebrows go up, surprised and maybe worried too, seeing me move so sudden. "I'm fine, fuck, man, quit fucking looking at me like that. I asked you a question. Where the fuck you been all day?"

Silent Bob lifts his good hand and I see it's wrapped around the handles of a big paper shopping bag. He rattles it at me. "Went out and spent some mad cash, huh?" He nods, puts the bag down, then flips up the collar of the coat he's wearing and fingers the lapel, just one eyebrow lifted this time, like he's hot shit.

"Oh a new trench." Does a turn or two, fucking modeling for me, cracks me up. "Yeah, s'nice. Nice coat. Looks good on you. Not real bad ass, like the black one, though, don't know how many punks you can scare in a fucking pussy coat like that, but it's nice." He frowns a second and I laugh. "Nah I'm just kidding. It ain't your coat scared anybody before anyway. Really. Looks good." I stare down at the bag. "What else you get?"

Silent Bob sits down in his usual chair and reaches into the bag, comes out with a handful of comics, sheathed in plastic and protected by backing boards, lays 'em on the bed next to my leg. Pick a couple up while he digs some more in the bag.

"Cool, fucking Wolverine, now that's one bad motherfucker, Silent Bob. You know your fucking superheroes." He plops down another ten books. X-Men, Wolverine, Superman, Batman, Spawn. "Some pretty good shit. Bet you have a pretty big collection somewhere back at your place, huh, bet you were into what . . . maybe fucking Spiderman and Superman, maybe some Green Arrow and Daredevil and shit, back in the day? Am I right?"

No answer so I look up from the comics. He's got his head tipped to one side.

"What, you silent fuck? What?" Lifts his hand and slides it across the books, like Vanna fucking White, then kinda waves toward me. Books, me. Oh, books . . . mine? These are mine? He's fucking giving these to me? "You're fucking giving these to me? What, like a present?" He nods, and I swear that fucking grin just grew another inch, takes up his whole fucking face.

Shit. Fucking giving me a present. Can't remember the last time somebody gave me a present. Sure, Silent Bob gave me those clothes and that coat but that shit was somewhere between charity and trash collection anyways. This, though. Fucking comics.

Oh fuck. Tears, lump in my throat. I love comics. I do. Ain't had one in years, not to keep. Do you know how hard it is to hold onto shit like that in the street? Im-fucking-possible, that's how hard. Shit there's gotta be twenty fucking comic books here.

Glance at Silent Bob again but he's busy, bent over, and when he comes up he's got something else, a shiny red Walkman and headphones, still in the package, and some tapes. Too stunned to say anything or do anything more than just take 'em cause he's shoving 'em at me and bending over again. Morris Day and the Time, Ice Cube and King Diamond. Fuck. Choice tunes.

And who the fuck woulda put these fuckers together off the top of their head? Nobody. Shit this bitch's been listening to me. Really listening when I run my mouth. Paying attention.

Fucking tears and the fucking lump ain't going away now, for sure.

Puts one more armload of shit on the bed, between my feet. He points at it, makes a face and shrugs, waves off, like he's telling me this stuff's no big deal, and I guess if I was some kid checking out the haul on Christmas morning, maybe I'd agree. Flannel PJ's and a robe and slippers and a toothbrush and a hairbrush.

But fuck. Even the kid I used to be woulda been happy to get that shit on Christmas or any other day, fucking shitty as my life's always been. And now? Been wearing the same three shirts and two pairs of pants every fucking day for six months, forget a luxury like pajamas, and how often do you think I got to brush my teeth or my hair living on the street?

Reach out, touch the flannel, smooth and soft. Clean. Probably gonna feel really fucking good against my skin.

"Fuck, man." I finally say. Can't look at him, not with these fucking tears in my eyes. But I can say it. Won't fucking kill me to say it. "Thank you. Thanks. For all of it."

"You're ok with this, then?" Silent Bob says. Swallow hard and take as deep a breath as I can, and make myself look at him. Silly fuck. Yeah sure, he knows me by now. He was waiting for an ass chewing, wasn't he? But he's still smiling.

"Yeah. I'm ok with it." Face changes then. Concentrating. Thinking. Or something. Shit, what the fuck do I know, spent how many weeks now with this fuck? And I ain't figured out one thing about reading him yet, least when he ain't making faces, so I don't know why the fuck I keep trying.

"Probably should have talked to you about this before." he says. Starting off a new subject, and now I realize he's nervous. "I talked to the social worker yesterday, before she left."

"Oh yeah? What the fuck did she say? She tell you anything about where they're fucking sending me?" Little spark of fear in my stomach now. Probably fucking Parker Youth Center downtown. What it is, it's fucking prison for kids that nobody wants, punishment for having been fucked over every other place in the system. Fucking backwards shit.

Seen the inside of that fucking place more than enough already. First time I was pretty young, didn't know shit, but I fucking learned, living there. Kinda place you don't drop the soap in the fucking showers, you know what I'm saying? Kinda place you sleep with your eyes open and your hand wrapped around a sock full of rocks. Fuck.

Shiver just thinking about it and miss whatever the fuck Silent Bob says next, so busy fucking worrying about Parker.

"Jay, did you hear me?"

"No. What the fuck did you say?"

"We talked about the possibility of you coming to stay with me when you leave the hospital."

Huh. Nah. Musta heard him wrong. No. No. He said "stay with me", he did. Was looking right at him. Still am. Same face I been looking at every fucking day in this hospital. Same guy who sits there and watches me sleep and fucking calms me down when I get scared. Same guy who got sliced trying to protect me.

Wasn't too long ago that I was sitting in his living room floor with my belly full of food, rolling joints and thinking about asking for this exact fucking thing but too proud or too embarrassed or too afraid to do it. And fuck if he ain't offering it to me now.

"Live with you?" I manage to say. Wanna be sure we ain't talking about two different things. "You mean live with you?"

Silent Bob nods, and then he explains how he talked to Mary fucking Sunshine, how she said it was a long shot, how she finally let him fill out the paperwork and how he went out and got himself a real job today. Most words I've ever heard out of his fucking silent mouth all at once since I met him.

Tears come back while he's talking, and my throat tries to close again while something else starts opening up in my gut, somewhere between my heart and my stomach, some kind of feeling I guess, and I don't recognize it. Never been there before. It's warm. It goes along with the tears and the lump and the idea that for once in my fucking life, somebody seems to . . . to fucking care about me? Love me?

Holy fuck, I think I might start bawling for a second, roll over in the bed and cry like a fucking baby just cause it feels so fucking good, but then it intensifies, getting hotter and hotter and stronger and stronger until it fucking twists around on itself and becomes something more familiar.

Some feeling like I used to have when I was a kid, when my folks were fucking sober and not hating it so much, and maybe my mom would smile at me or brush my hair or cook me pancakes for breakfast and I'd think I was in fucking heaven, and I'd start thinking that maybe, just maybe, things weren't always gonna suck, that maybe there was a chance things were gonna change . . .

Fuck this shit. This is fucking dangerous, this feeling, it's fucking trust and it's hope and it's need, and every fucking one of those is something they can use against you, hurt you worse than a knife or a fist or a fucking cock up your ass ever could.

"Fuck this shit." I whisper and I gotta look away from him because I know I'm so opened up, so raw and so fucking needy right now, that he could put a hook right into me and drag me someplace I don't wanna fucking go . . .

"What?" Silent Bob asks me. "What did you say?"

"Said fuck this shit." Don't have the balls to do more than whisper it one more time. All that fucking energy and all that good shit, all those good feelings, just gone. Just rolling outta me. Oh God. Slip down under the covers and if I could, I'd throw my leg to the side and kick those fucking comic books off the bed, those books and tapes and fucking pajamas and all of it, just kick every bit of it into the floor, but I'm so fucking wrecked I can't even do that.

Can't even say nothing else.

Silent Bob's bending over me now and I can feel his hand on my shoulder, this way he has of putting it there and not moving and just waiting, and there's something inside of me that won't let me push him away. I want to. I want to just fucking hit him in his fat fucking face and scream at him to get the fuck away and never come back but I can't.

I can't.

Crying now, swear to fucking God it never ends with the fucking crying in this goddamn hospital, s'just one thing after another and I'd blame it on the dope and the injuries if I could but I know that ain't what makes me lay here sobbing into my pillow. It's the old wounds that hurt me the most, the ones that never left a fucking mark or a scar anywhere but my heart.

He knows that. Silent tubby fuck standing over me and just gently touching my shoulder and waiting, he knows that. Guy who'd risk his own life to save mine, guy who'd go out and buy all this shit and give it to me knowing it's probably gonna end up with me ripping him a new asshole, guy who'd offer me a place to live and expect nothing in return.

I fucking know who he is, even the way I feel right now, I know.

So crazy, so fucking mixed up, having both things in my head at once, the suspicion and the rage and the fucking despair that comes from fourteen goddamn years of being fucked and beat and thrown away like a piece of fucking trash, and this new soft feeling, still kicking around underneath the pain, brought on by knowing that this stupid fucker really does care about me and he really don't have any hidden agenda.

Don't make no fucking sense at all.