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fine.”
    “Did you see him after?”
    “No, he’s homeless, I think. He disappeared after he got stitched up. I tried to find him in the hospital, but he left before I could get a ride over there. And he hasn’t been in his usual spot since. I’d like to find him. To thank him.” The sick feeling returned to my stomach as I thought about what would have happened had he not stepped up. “Jordan’s boyfriend wants to do a human interest piece on him. But I don’t know about that yet . . . I’m still thinking about it.”
    “I bet you could raise a lot of money for him that way.”
    “I know, but something tells me he doesn’t want the attention. And I’m skeptical about those fundraisers. I’ve heard of those things happening before where the person just ends up in more trouble. Not that I wouldn’t do it, but I feel like in most cases it’s putting a band aid on a stab wound.”
    “An apt comparison.”
    “Not that I’m against it . . . I just want to speak to him first. I don’t want to thrust him into anything without making sure he’s okay with it.”
    Jessa sighed, as if trying to recalibrate after getting the bad news. Then a baby’s cry rung from my phone’s speaker. “Shit, I mean crap . . . that’s Emm. I should go.”
    “Okay.”
    “Bird?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re okay right? I mean with everything?”
    “I’m fine. I swear.” But I knew she wasn’t just talking about the mugging.
    “Okay. I love you, talk to you soon. And please be safe!”
    “Love you, too.”

ASH
    AFTER SHOVELING THE plate of food Miller left on the kitchenette counter (next to a hundred dollar bill, which I pocketed), and making a few sandwiches to go, I headed back out to Downtown LA. I had slept about fourteen hours, and I was not feeling nearly as down as I had been when the muggers approached me.
    The incident awakened the need to get something out of me and onto a canvas. Unfortunately, canvas is expensive, and so is paint. The term “starving artist,” I am convinced, has very much to do with the cost of art supplies.
    I had to be careful with this urge, and that’s what was frustrating. That’s why it was safer for me not to paint at all. I didn’t want to turn anything on. I had a side to me that was frenzied, especially when it came to the things I was passionate about. The temptation to paint triggered other sides of me that couldn’t be controlled. It couldn’t always be helped, but I could minimize the risk.
    Every time I saw that girl, drowning in color and light, it lit that little spark in me. But I was able to dampen it. I only saw her for seconds at a time and my willpower wasn’t that terrible. But this explosion of chaos and adrenaline that we had experienced together pushed me to the tipping point. The sensory experience was overpowering, and while I slept, I dreamt about it: the crimson hue of her voice traveling in jagged waves across my vision as she yelled for them to stop. Watching her lavender outline turn yellow as she tried not to whimper in fear. Transparent shapes that floated in front of me, like shattered glass, as my anger rose. The constant stench of piss in the alleyway, overwhelmed by the smell of gasoline as that fuck thrust his hips against her.
    The scene was more vibrant than I had experienced in the past few years. Now I was forced to create because this time, it was more than a few seconds and it was more than watching her from a distance. We had made contact.
    So I had an idea. I went back downtown and bought a couple of canisters of shitty spray paint. Then, I went through dumpsters, collecting empty cardboard boxes and flattening them. Once I had enough, I slipped into a building I was familiar with, and accessed the roof.
    I laid out all the cardboard, ready to convert the shapes, colors and lights that lived in my vision into a physical reality.
    I shook the can of bright yellow, my fingers tingling at the familiar sound of the bead agitating the paint.