Tom´s Story

by Claudio Hernández

  Tom backed slowly, ascending a step backwards, as if he had suddenly discovered that it was pleasant.

  "Come up now!!!" His mother's voice sounded, cascading and creaking, and bouncing around the walls of the house like expansive waves. Her squeaky voice that would reach the outer limits and make it to the neighbors' houses on both sides of the street, about two blocks away. You could even hear it on the edge of the empty park on a Tuesday morning of an exasperating July. But fortunately or unfortunately, the neighbors were already used to her continuous attacks of hysteria and wondered how Tom was still alive. The neighbors? Rather, their distant and far neighbors from number 3.

  Tom climbed one step further, while the tongue between his lips twitched like a worm in the middle of drool. It played in a corner of his mouth and hid behind his thick lips, cut in strips by the continual habit of ripping off his skin with his big front teeth. The knee-length pants still tore a little in a dull sound.

  "I'm going to the showeeer" he stammered, pulling out his tongue again. Drool slowly crawled down his chin. "Sha showeeeer..."

  There was only one step left.

  Stella's heart throbbed with uncontrolled impatience and fury. She bit her lips hard and bled. This morning, the hangover had been deadly, and discovering again how her son had promised a new erection had been the last straw for her, after seeing in surprise how her stomach had been playing a trick that morning. Her stomach had become a grim nest of snakes nibbling on the very walls of her most important digestive organ. But pain was no obstacle to bawl again that morning.

  "Why has the Lord given me this jerk?" The truth is that the same question was formulated every damn day, but there was no answer. And that simply made her crazy. Can anyone answer this or other kind of similar questions, such as why did God make me poor? And it had to be added. Why had God allowed her to devote herself to drinking after her husband died of cancer for the same reason? By the same explanation and certainty with which she knew that she would follow him if she continued on that path. But she did not give a damn. She really did not give a fuck. She gave a fuck to leave Tom alone in this fucking world. "Are you messing with me this morning?" There was no answer from Tom. On the floor, an ant had managed to get close to a crumb of bread and tried to carry it on its back, complete. It could not carry it; it shook and overturned. So it began its task of cutting it with disproportionate skill. Five feet and half above, a severe rictus on Stella's lips, she showed an ugly twisted grimace. "Tom..."

  Tom managed to get to the landing in the hallway, his pants still at knee length. He turned slowly to his mother and stared at her with his little eyes like olives.

  "I'm readeee."

  His mother extended the long, bony arm with her index finger stretched out, slightly curved by a bone defect.

  "In the shower. I want you to get in the shower right away."

  This time, Tom had no choice but to obey her.

  He let himself be dragged over the linoleum and opened the door to the bathroom. He went in and closed the door again. As he approached the bathtub, his pants sagged and fell to the floor around his ankles. He lifted one foot first, then the other. Then, he began to lower his underpants, and when he stepped inside the bathtub, ready to open the water tap, he wondered once again what the hell where the two lumps that his new neighbor had at chest height and that he did not have.

  Surprisingly, it pleased him to remember them.

  When the living image of two taut breasts covered his little imagination, Tom discovered with amazement that he was beginning to have a new erection.

  13

  Not all the neighbors of the house in front gave him an erection. He rather hated them. That was when Tom got into the identity of Jack, but of course he did not remember anything that Jack did. That would be later. He only remembered when he was Tom and neighbors disappeared in strange circumstances, as water disappears into the drain. And Jack was always there. It was the partial identity that snatched more of his personality. Sometimes he was William and tried on his mom's panties, while hiding the peepee between his legs, crossing them to make it look like a mons pubis. He smiled, his eyes sparkling. Then he knew what panties were. But Jack did not do that. He did bad things that were not worth remembering.

  Once he felt the thin skin of a neck open beneath his blade, and a thick, hot liquid gushed out from it .It was blood, and bloodshot eyes opened more and more, while pulling his hand curled in hair, head back. The cut grew larger and showed the trachea into two parts and a stream of blood which bathed him in heat and snatched a very large spot on the floor. It was the pool of blood that was beginning to coagulate, and Jack was smiling. Tom did not remember that, because he did not know he was Jack either.

  Then, he hid the corpse and cleaned everything with an obsessive neatness and nobody in the family suspected anything. That had happened several times. But the neck thing was a religious experience. There were other ways of killing and quenching his obsessive thirst. All of them, in a great way, produced pleasure but without an erection. That was Jack. Then, there was one less neighbor in front of his house. He hated them with great intensity. With explicit insanity .Neither Danny, nor Charlie, nor Sue, nor William knew anything about Jack. Each personality acted in an incipient way in the margin of everything. No identity was ran into another even though Jack, a partial identity, always took over Tom. How many identities did he have and how did they manifest? And how many more were coming? Tom did not know. His psychiatrist did not know, his mom did not know. No one knew, and he would soon have a very powerful new dissociative identity, called Justin, much worse than Jack. It was about to manifest. He had so little time.

  The psychiatrist had told his momma that "from these, at least two repeatedly take control of the person's behavior." This phrase was part of a rant that had left his momma looking towards Denver and thinking about having a drink of alcohol. These two personalities were Jack and Justin, no doubt, although she knows nothing, and never knew, at least in a way. Multiple. Except for his cousin Amelia. Who was she? What was her role in all this? What did she know about all this?

  Personality disorders depicted little in this abstract painting. Tom was sick.

  14

  Chumy was the first to open his eyes in the new house of the Candralls’ and the first to recognize the first familiar corners for him. He opened the door, that was slightly ajar, using his little paw and went down the stairs with great skill until he reached the kitchen. He hoped to find his favorite dish of tuna with vegetables, waiting for him in a corner of the kitchen. He did not exactly find that, but a bunch of boxes, some of them closed and others open. He sniffed at a few of them, stepping with the aid of his hind legs and inserting his wet snout into each box. Pots, pans, glasses wrapped in paper, his empty plate which he recognized by its familiar smell, rolls of paper, the coffee maker... Disappointed, he finished the inspection and returned next to Tony, licking his face, and that's how Tony woke up on his first morning at Road House.

  "Hello Chumy" he caressed the cat and it began to purr, leaving a narrow gleam in its eyes. "Are you sleepy, Chumy?" The cat wiggled its tail and began to lick his face again, making Tony burst into laughter.

  In another room, someone bellowed momentarily into a full awakening of pain all over the body.

  "Darling, it's ten o'clock" Louis said after a big yawn. Eillen opened her eyes. The sun streamed through the window, warm and pleasant. It would soon turn Road House into a cauldron about to explode. The month of August was a few days about to start.

  Samantha simply was still sleeping placidly with her breasts uncovered as the sun caressed them with its penetrating heat in utter silence.

  Louis straightened up on the mattress and somehow pulled his feet from the so-called bed, which were disproportionately curved upward like two great frames when his feet touched the warm linoleum floor. With a pain-filled movement and bone crunches, he got to his feet and when he did, he stretched his arms, yawning again.


  "Uuuaaahhhgggg!!!"

  Eillen smiled.

  "Where did I leave the clothes?"

  Eillen pointed to the floor and then to his face.

  "Ah!" Louis winced. For God's sake, he was momentarily baffled and did not remember that he had moved. "What day is today?"

  "Tuesday" Eillen announced, leaning on the mattress. "And you slept with your glasses on" she wore a clear, almost transparent robe, by which you could guess the marked curves at her waist and, especially, her breasts. It was a delight to try to guess how her nipples were that July morning, fiddling with her robe embroidery. Sitting on the mattress, she made a strange game with her arms and removed the robe. Two breasts, erect and still firm despite having fed two children, appeared in the new world. Black panties snugged against her waist gently. Eillen was five years younger than Louis. She had to be in her mid-thirties. Eillen never said her true age. That was a trick to stay young for a relatively long time .And the truth is that it worked. Standing up, she skirted the mattress in search of her pants. There were boxes everywhere, as if they had been planted right there hoping to see them grow. The double room was waiting, dismantled, leaning against the opposite wall. One of the wardrobe doors threatened to collapse to the floor.

  "It's a splendid day" she said, wrapping her long arms around his neck.

  "And we have a lot ahead of us" he announced, pressing himself against her. Her breasts were now two hot, burning, gelatinous masses crushed against his chest.

  "Come, we must start the day already" she said, pulling away from him. "I know you. You get involved fast as soon as you caress me."

  "What's wrong with that?"

  "Nothing. It's just that it's ten o'clock in the morning, and it's too late for that" she smiled sweetly at him, her hair dyed blond. She was really a brunette, as her daughter Samantha. A jet black, sensual beautiful. But at a certain age, Eillen preferred to dye her hair blond to look younger. It was time to change.

  Louis bent down, complaining, and grabbed his jeans.

  "It's okay, but as soon as I mount this damn room today...Get ready for tonight."

  Eillen smiled again.

  Would he get to assemble the furniture in a day with one useless hand?

  Eillen knew he would not and that sex had to wait at least for a few days.

  Louis wrapped himself in a short-sleeved T-shirt with a large X drawn on the back. The treasure is hidden here, said the slogan. After this, Louis crossed the hall and went down the stairs whistling. Eillen stood for a little longer by the window and discovered that there was a park at the other end of the street. The park was empty. A little bird settled on the ground and picked up a crumb of bread with some insecurity, jerking its head from side to side. Then, it took off and disappeared.

  Eillen was radiant under the rays of the sun of a day that promised to be warm, her long, invisible fingers caressing her breasts. An old man walked in front of the garden of her house in shorts, and Eillen thought it was a comical scene. It was an old man with crooked legs and thin, barely haired, who chased his dog with long fangs. With the chest sunken and a bald shining under the sphere of the sun. Eillen could not contain a slight chuckle, which made her more beautiful. Two holes formed under her cheeks, giving a greater appeal to her face.

  That morning, Eillen was splendid.

  The old man disappeared in the corner of Balfour Avenue, and Eillen stepped away from the window and looked around the bare room wondering where to put things. She stayed like this for a long time until she decided to put on jeans and a T-shirt over her bare breasts.

  Five minutes later, she met Louis in the kitchen, with Tony in her arms, after waking Samantha, who by now would be getting dressed.

  "Honey, Mom must make breakfast. So wait here." She sat Tony on one of the chairs, beside the table covered with boxes, and Tony extended his short arm to one of the boxes with the intention of uncapping it.

  "I found the frying pan and the box containing the eggs" Louis announced, raising an egg with his left hand. "At least we can have scrambled eggs on our first day. Where the hell did I put the juice? I'm sure it was in one of these boxes." Louis was rummaging in one of the boxes, where he found a jar of salt.

  "Can we do the scramble?" Eillen asked, pointing to the burners on the counter.

  Louis turned to her.

  "If there is no gas" he reflected, then added. "But damn, Road House has already gotten city gas. I forgot. It came in the contract of the house, and we are up to date. The problem will be finding matches."

  Eillen walked over to the counter and noticed that it was one of those models that did not need matches. All you had to do was press a button.

  "We won’t need the matches, sweetie" she announced.

  "Great!"

  "She said sweetie" Tony smiled, with the box already open. Eillen smiled at him in surprise.

  "The little guy already talks a lot" Louis boasted.

  "He learns fast" Eillen explained. She opened the gas and pressed the button. Suddenly, the burner ignited a flash that forced her to retreat back, slightly in a fright. "Wooow!"

  "What's up, Eillen?"

  "Nothing. I didn't expect this to work this way."

  "Fire. Buff, mom made fire."

  At that moment, Samantha entered the kitchen and stroked Tony's hair.

  "What you say, tadpole?"

  And she kissed his forehead.

  Louis finally found the carton of orange juice and lifted it as if he had found a treasure.

  "There it is! Now, where’s Tony's milk?" He looked at Tony with narrow, slightly open eyes.

  "Who knows? In this mess..." Samantha sighed, sitting on a chair. Chumy climbed onto the table and circled the boxes towards her. He watched her with his green eyes and opened his snout slightly in a meow of reflection. “What is it, Chumy? Do you want to eat?" Chumy lifted his tail, aiming eternally toward the kitchen ceiling, and meowed again. "It's okay, I'll look for your food. Mom, do you know where Chumy's food is?"

  Her mother put out the fire, turned to her, and pointed at a couple of boxes.

  "I suppose it's in one of those boxes. I think I remember. I'm not so sure with all this mess."

  Eillen came up to her, raising her hands, a little alarmed. She was overwhelmed by moving. This was the fourth move she had since she married Louis. She lived in New York for two years, a year in Bangor, in Portland, and now in quiet Road House. A spot on the map on the way between Portland and Boston. State of Maine. She liked the idea. Were there any famous people on that land? Of course there were. In the United States, there are famous people everywhere. Actors, writers, TV hosts... How many times had Eillen dreamed of writing a novel and becoming famous? But so far, she had not done it.

  What a shame.

  The important thing was that Louis was always by her side.

  "Honey, bring me the frying pan and eggs."

  Louis held out the frying pan and then the eggs.

  "Now we have to find the glasses" Louis announced in a slightly raised voice, addressing Samantha.

  "I'll look for them!" Samantha cried, rising from her chair.

  Louis winked at his wife. She gave him a smile.

  "Let's see, I'll start with this box" Samantha pointed to one of the boxes with a contemptuous look and began to open it.

  "I want milk!" Tony said hurriedly, striking with his fist the box he had already rummaged in with frightful curiosity.

  "Honey, your sister is looking for the glasses" mom explained to him, coming back after lighting the fire again.

  "Mom, I want milk" he insisted, smiling.

  "I've found the glasses!" Samantha said, lifting one of them.

  "All right, Samantha, give it to me."

  "Here you go."

  "Tony will be the first to have breakfast on our first day." She picked up the glass that Samantha was holding and put it on the table, moving at least a couple of boxes. She took the carton of milk and poured some into the glass, which Tony quickly r
ushed to drink.

  "That's good, mom" Tony said, his lips smeared with milk. Chumy walked over to Tony and tried to lick his lips. Tony pushed him away.

  "Chumy's hungry" Eillen announced.

  "I know, mom. I'm looking for his food" Samantha said as she found it under a pot. “Here it is, Chumy, I found it."

  Chumy jumped from the table to the floor and tangled in Samantha's feet, meowing.

  "Now I have to find your plate."

  Eillen returned to the counter and lit the fire again. This time, she waited for the blast and moved slightly off the counter when her long finger fell on the discolored button. Flushhh!

  "Where's the oil?" Eillen asked as she set the pan on the stove.

  "The oil is here" Louis announced with a big grin on his face as he lifted the half-empty bottle of oil with his left hand.

  "I have to love you" Eillen said, coming back for the oil, hands outstretched and a sweet smile on her face. Louis noticed that her nipples showed considerably through her shirt. It made him feel a slight sense of joy and spectacular vision.

  Eillen kissed Louis on the lips, and Samantha clapped for a moment.

  Louis and Eillen blushed for a moment, and she returned to the side of the counter.

  "Leave that for tonight" Samantha teased as she rummaged in one of the boxes on the floor.

  Chumy was licking the rim of the can of tuna with vegetables. Somehow he had recognized his food and was eager to prick his tooth.

  "Chummy is hungry" Tony said with a fake milk mustache under his snub nose.

  "Yes, and he found his food" Louis smiled, watching his tadpole carefully. His eyes shone in the hot sun that morning.

  Samantha found Chumy's plate under some paper napkins that someone had put there, probably intentionally with the only purpose of separating Chumy's stuff from the other things. There was a spare dish and the water dish, as well as the flimsy barbed brush and a mitten for hair, and a bottle of cat cologne. A big-eyed dark cat showed one of those bottles in one of its claws, as it showed a few fangs. The drawing was fine, but the reality was that cats did not really like cologne. When Chumy saw someone in the family unscrewing the bottle of cologne, he ran as fast as he could up the stairs, sliding down on every bend in the hallway.