Features

“I brought my rap sheet,” he says. 

“What?” I ask. 

“I brought my rap sheet for you to see,” he answers. 

“I don’t want to see your rap sheet.” 

“But it’s important,” he says. “It is something you must know about me.” 

I watch him as he fumbles with the zippers on his scruffy backpack. He’s a very large man and his movements are clumsy. He breathes heavily as he bends forward, digging inside the bag. The chair he sits on appears too small to hold him. Hell, my entire dining room seems too small, as if the walls have suddenly collapsed in upon us. I feel hot, squeezed. 

“Here,” he says, looking up at me, leaning back in the too-small chair, smiling at his success at finding his papers. He opens a manila folder and offers its content to me. “Look carefully. You will see what I have done. It is important that you know.” 

I’ve never seen a rap sheet before. The papers he hands me are folded, stapled and paper clipped together, creased and wrinkled. I unfold them. It looks like a well-read manuscript printed on legal-size paper. As soon as my eyes hit the first page they begin to swim. 

“Too much information,” I say, handing the papers back to him. 

“I will show you,” he says kindly. He leans forward in the chair, takes the papers from me, and thumbs through them quickly. 

“Let me get my glasses,” he says. He reaches into the backpack again, and pulls out a pair of cheap, dime store bifocals. The frames are clunky and black. They magnify his eyes. 

“Look here,” he says, shuffling the papers again, pointing to the top of the second page with a soiled, thick finger. “Soliciting.” 

“Soliciting what?” I ask. 

“Drugs,” he says. 

“What kind of drugs?” 

“Cocaine, crack, weed. But it don’t matter. What matters is the date. See the date up here in the corner?” He taps the top left side of the page with his knuckle. 

I squint. 

“Nineteen-ninety-four,” he says. “Almost 10 years ago.” 

“Eleven,” I say. 

“Si,” he answers enthusiastically. “Eleven, exactly. A long time ago, don’t you think?” 

I shrug. “And the others?” 

“All a long time ago,” he says, flipping rapidly through the ragged sheets. 

“Two in 1995, one in 1996, three or four in 1997. Some for soliciting, some for public drunkenness, vagrancy, possession, pimping. And then.” 

He pauses. I wait. 

“And then no more,” he shouts triumphantly. “They finally put me in jail. I clean up. I go to rehab when I get out. Meetings every morning, every night, and sometimes in the afternoons. I get a job. I take care of sick people like your husband. I don’t do drugs no more. I’m clean.” 

He looks at me. I stare down at my hands, study the blue veins and brown spots. 

“I’m clean,” he repeats, staring straight ahead at some unknown space above my head. “And I’ve found Jesus, our lord and savior. He forgives me for all my mistakes. He say to me, come senor, make a new start. You can do this.” 

There is a momentary silence between us. 

“All right,” I say quietly. “Can you start tomorrow?” 

“Si,” he says. He smiles. “Tomorrow will be good.” 

I know that he knows I’m desperate for his help. 

“And don’t show me those rap sheets anymore,” I say, rising from my chair, trying to regain some control. “I don’t want to see or think about them ever again.” 

“Of course,” he says, shoving the papers back inside his bag. He follows me to the front door, past the hospital bed where my husband lies perfectly still, sleeping. Outside on the sidewalk we shake hands. 

“But I must tell you,” he says, swinging the backpack onto his left shoulder, “these papers I carry are of importance, you know? They are a record of where I’ve been, the bad things I done to myself, to other people, but also, they tell the story of what I’ve overcome. You see what I’m saying? There’s beauty in that, señorita.”n