As the crowd clustered around him, he worked like a politician on the campaign trail, hugging and shaking hands with nearly every one of them. Hatch remained seated on her prickly perch and watched from a distance while she continued to wait for the store's opening.
About a half hour later, most of the crowd had gone, and those who lingered behind clustered in small groups. But the ambulance idled in the same spot. She had watched the man who'd driven there dispense basic necessities, toiletries, water, diapers, and clothes. A young mother walked away with a package of diapers and a box of formula balanced in one arm while her infant child clung to the other. He closed the rear doors to the ambulance, passing a worried glance in Hatch's direction as he did.
She dipped her head and rolled her shoulders forward. Hatch wanted to obscure her face and height from the approaching ambulance man, hoping to dismiss any good-natured attempt to help her. The people she was hunting were likely to have eyes everywhere. Coupled with a recent critical misread of character in Arizona that nearly left her dead, Hatch had no intention of letting her guard down again any time soon.
Her subterfuge did nothing to stop his approach. If anything, it worked to broaden the smile cresting his face as he stopped in front of her. The toes of his worn sneakers nearly touched her boots.
"Estas bien, querida?"
She understood enough Spanish to know he was asking if she was okay. Hatch could've likely inferred it from his body language. Although she was fluent in three languages, Spanish was not one of them. She did, however, have a passable knowledge for conversational Spanish, but was by no means fluent.
"Please leave me alone," she said back in his native tongue, but poorly delivered and without the proper inflection. Hatch saw the expression on his face and knew immediately her ruse failed.
His knees cracked as he squatted, putting his face in front of hers. She peered out from beneath the dirty tendrils of greasy hair splayed across her face. She met his brown eyes and registered their surprise.
"You're an American?" His English was good. Hatch picked up on a slight drawl. Texas or maybe Arizona.
"I'm fine."
"You look miserable. Can I call somebody for you? Maybe I can take you back to your hotel?"
"I don't have a hotel." He looked even more confused now. Looking down at Hatch as she no longer tried to hide her face. She pulled back her hair and sat up. The kind-eyed man stepped back, taking her in.
She looked at the man and then over at his ambulance. "You a medic?"
"No." A permanent smile was stamped into his beaming face. "I am a certified EMT—well—at least I was when I lived in Chihuahua. Retired now."
"The ambulance?"
"Bought it, fixed it up, and put it to good use." He waved a hand in the direction of the ambulance where the crowd had been. "I help the homeless whose numbers grow daily. Many are desperate for asylum and find themselves lost and cast away."
"You do what, exactly?"
"I provide basic needs. Food, water, hygiene, and medicines like Tylenol and cough syrup."
"Are you government funded?"
He laughed. "No. I started this on my own and been doing it that way ever since. I like it that way."
"That's a big load to shoulder."
"Depends. I try to keep things in perspective." The perma-smile dimmed but did not recede altogether. "I was born in an alley much like the one you're sitting in."
"Must've been rough."
"Especially when you're brought into this world at the hand of a murderer's blade. I was cut from my mother's belly a month premature."
"Why? Who would kill a pregnant woman?"
"The who and why doesn't matter. What matters is the perspective such events bring to one's life." Hatch thought of the long list of tragedies and the direct impact it had on her view of the world as he continued, “So, yes, to some, this work that I do would come at great cost. But not to me. Each day I wake and get to help my fellow humans is a good day to me.
"Listen to me ramble on. I didn't even introduce myself. I'm Javier," he outstretched his hand as he stood. "But everybody calls me Azul. Because of the color I painted my ambulance."
"You probably don't want to do that." She looked down at the filth covering her body and Azul's eyes followed. "That's not just dirt."
"Sounds like you've got a bit of perspective too, eh?
"Listen, I don't want to press. You don't have to tell me what happened to you. I probably wouldn't want to know. I just want to make sure you're okay?"
"I am."
"At least let me give you some things to help you get cleaned up." His eyes pled his case.
The idea of getting cleaned up trumped any other options as she counted down the seconds until the clothing shop opened. Hatch stood. Being only two inches shorter than the six-foot man shocked him.
"I didn't realize you were so tall."
"Just the way I was made." Hatch gave a shrug.
"I didn't mean it that way. I have a change of clothes in the back that just might fit."
She looked down at the dark smears on her pants and shirt, knowing full well that not all of it was dirt. The smell of her own stink had stopped registering with her a while ago but seeing the expression on Javier's face told her it was bad. "I think I might take you up on that offer."
"They were my son's."
"How old?"
"Dead."
"I'm sorry," Hatch said. He gave a smile, but not as genuine. He struggled to mask his pain. Hatch recognized the look, having seen it in herself too many times to count.
Azul sighed as he led Hatch out of the alleyway to the back of the ambulance. "It's not a safe place by any reasonable measure. Lot of bad people out here doing bad things. But there's lots of good being done by good people."
"Your vision of retirement may not be what other people envision, but I'm sure the people you serve are grateful. I sure am."
Azul opened the doors and climbed inside. He slithered his way down the neatly packed rows of shelves containing Tylenol and other over-the-counter drugs. Boxes of diapers filled a corner along with bottles of water and other odds and ends. He stooped at the dividing wall separating the cab from the back. Azul grabbed a yellow plastic grocery bag tucked beside a stack of baby formula. He returned a moment later, bag in hand which he handed to Hatch.
The bag contained a pair of jeans, worn thin at the knees but otherwise in good condition. Underneath was a long-sleeved collarless white cotton t-shirt.
"Sorry. I know it's getting warm. Maybe you can tear the sleeves off if you need to."
"This is more than generous. It's perfect." She looked at the white fabric and her dirty hand holding the bag it was in. "Mind if I use one of those water bottles to rinse off a bit?"
"I've got something better." The smile never left his face as he turned his back to her and fished around in a brown cardboard box. He spun around holding a package of sanitizing moist wipes. "Use as many as you need."
Hatch went to work getting the grime off her hands, using every inch of the damp toilettes to dig into every crack and crevice. She made a neat stack of the soiled cloths on the back fender. With her hands clean, she set about cleaning her face. A few minutes later, Hatch was cleaned up as good as she was going to get.