Page 4 of The Delivery

I stop in the bathroom on the second floor to straighten my skirt and run some water through my frizzy hair. I am the project director around here; I might as well try to exercise my authority. It’s perfectly normal for me to go upstairs to ask a group leader about a new candidate. I use my wet paper towel to try to rub off some fresh graffiti written in gold sharpie on the mirror. “Facts!” It reads. “Aliyah is a cunt.”

I arrive just as Jennifer is locking up her classroom. We call them “creative spaces” here, but that’s really just the lingo we use to keep the kids from associating Pathways with school. Experience has shown me if they think it’s anything like school, they treat it as such and ditch. Creative spaces help them to forget they’re doing something court ordered.

Jennifer is beautiful in true valley girl fashion. My Russian roots gave me thick legs and a stocky trunk. At least I blame it on my heritage and not my diet or my sporadic exercise regime that always plays second fiddle to whatever else I’m doing. I’ve got a physique that’s made for harvesting potatoes and Jennifer is the owner of real thigh gaps, long, blonde beachy waves, freckles and big baby blues. I’m Velma to her Daphne.

“Oh, hey, Lana! Did you need something from the creative space? I was just locking up.”

I take my glasses off and wave the file I’m holding at her.

“No! I just wanted to ask you about a new candidate. He failed to show and finish his intake paperwork. I was just wondering if he completed his project with you today?”

“Who? Mozey? The guy with the rings and the hair, right?”

Shit, shit shit! She noticed him too. I’m such a baby because I can’t help but wonder if he was smitten with her like everyone else is and whether or not they bonded over today’s project. I’m torn between wanting to hear he was successful and impressed the socks off of everyone and wanting to hear he ditched so I won’t have to confront the fact that maybe I’m attracted to him. I can tell just by the way Jennifer said his name that Mozey possesses a certain physical allure and forthright personality that makes people pay attention. I’m definitely not the only one who sees it.

“That’s the one!” I say, hoping my face isn’t as transparent as my feelings. I open his file folder and stare at the blank page.

“He hurried out as soon as we were finished, but he told me to give you this,” she says as she thrusts a folded note at me.

My heart does a lurch at the folded note. How very high school of you, Mozey. But I’ll take it. I really need a fucking boyfriend. Or maybe just a friend that’s a boy—for fucking. Friday night’s binge gin and tonic time with Janey really isn’t cutting it. I’d never call myself needy, but the occasional one-night-stands are not really working out for me either. It’s barely human interaction. They’re more like alcohol-fueled, sad dates, where I’m jerking myself off on a stranger after a few too many beers. Very romantic. What did you say your name was again? I hope you don’t mind that I squirt when I come. The overindulgence in booze isn’t an addiction. It’s purposefully called on to summon bravery and activate blinders. I’d need a real boyfriend to have sober sex. I haven’t had one in years.

I realize I’m standing frozen with the note in my hand. I stuff it into his file a little too enthusiastically, crushing it as I go. Good. See I don’t care. I don’t even want to read it. I tell myself for Jennifer’s benefit.

“Was the candidate a team asset?” I ask.

We used to use numbers to score candidates on their performance and to gauge their commitment, but then it felt a little too close to a high risk teen beauty pageant, as if we were scoring candidates on a one to ten scale for hotness. Since then we’ve changed the vocabulary. Now we just sound like a bunch of corporate drones talking about clients as if their sole worth in this world resided in their dedication to our program.

Mozey is a ten. Ten for personality and a fucking TEN for the swimsuit competition. Get the sash and the crown. He’s already won. Even my mascara is running.

“He really was! At first he was so quiet and just kept to himself, but then, he started drawing. Here, Lana, you should really take a look at this,” she says as she digs in her purse for the keys.

“Oh, that’s okay. I just wanted to know if he participated.”

“No, really, you need to see this.”

She pushes open the door and flicks on the light. I follow in behind her.

“I could easily say he’s the most talented artist we’ve ever had at Pathways. At least since I’ve been here.”

The entire south wall of the room is covered in paper. A giant, colorful skull looms out of a dark, blue-gray sky.

“This was a tricky project, mainly because of the scale and the shape. We’re used to running low and wide on murals almost all of the time. The Mexican heritage park space has just one wall, and it’s a tall one. We had to build scaffolding and level off platforms for painting at the various levels.”

I can barely hear Jennifer as I walk toward the impressive sketch. The skull isn’t a light-hearted Día de los Muertos candy sugared skull; it’s Death, leering and laughing and loving his power. Right in my face— jumping off of the canvas. The piece is both magnetic and breathtakingly frightening. Inside each hollow eye is detailed content with bright, swirling colors to contrast the stormy sky. One eye holds the Aztec calendar, the other the national symbol, an eagle with a serpent perched on a cactus set on a back drop of Mayan ruins in the colors of the Mexican flag. At the base of the skull are minute history lessons in indigenous sacrifice rituals— primitive modes of human torture. Headless bodies splayed across pyramids, the steps bathed in black blood. A priest cloaked in raven feathers, a frozen scream etched into his face, his fists shaking at a whiteout sun. I recognize the severed heads of Spanish soldiers from their helmets. This is the taking of Tenochtitlan. History lessons I can barely remember from school. On the other side are the Mayans, depicted with equal violence. There’s a disembowelment up front and center, involving the swallowing of a sisal rope embedded with thorns. The Mayans are surrounded by swirling cosmos, asteroids in the distance set on a collision course. They are oblivious, but I can see their fate.

The piece eats my words. My emotions and thoughts are all over the place.

“Wow!” is all I can manage. So much must be going on inside that kid’s head.

“We painted or more like handed him the acrylic blobs on a palette and drooled. Mozey alone came up with everything—the entire design.”

My words are gone. They escaped my mouth, ran down my chest, tumbled across the floor then squeezed out the crack under the door.

I’ve seen some pretty impressive mural art in my time. I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I’m also fairly well-versed in Chicano art and the hybrid that’s come of mixing gallery quality material with street art style. I know my murals, okay? We’ve executed at least one a week since I started at this place. This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s terrifying and captivating and beautiful. Kind of like my curiosity for this new “team asset,” Mr. Mozey Cruz.

“Holy shit, Jennifer! I don’t know what to say. I take it, he’s Mexican?’

“Well, I asked him, and he said he grew up here. He was born in Mexico, but he doesn’t really remember it much. I asked him if he was formally trained. He just laughed and shook his head. He must be entirely self-taught.”

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