Tom´s Story

by Claudio Hernández

  "Nor should they drink so much."

  "Stop it already! Stop fooling around! What I needed!"

  "Ma'am, don't yell at me. I'm not doing anything wrong."

  "Ahhh!" And her voice cut like a dry branch, and she arched her body as if she wanted to vomit right there, under the yellow light of sixty watts.

  Danny took the cat in his lap and hid under the dirty sheet. The animal pulled out its nails and scratched the sheet, trying to get out of there. Danny held it tight.

  At last, Stella stood erect again and yelled expletives that Danny could not hear.

  "You son of a bitch! Are you crazy?! Have you lost your marbles?!" Stella put her index finger to her temple and continued. “You are not my son. You are not my son!" Stella's voice rose so loud it sounded like a soprano warming her voice. In that attempt, she fell on her knees to the ground. There was a clack noise from one of them. The pain crawled up her leg, and she whooped. The bottle of Bourbon fell to the ground, tinkling, and rolled under Tom's bed. With great effort, she rose from the floor, complaining again as she leaned against the door frame.

  "You are not my son!" And she went to the corridor. A few minutes later, she was again before the great Christ with her hands clasped so hard she dug her nails in the palms of her hands. The crescent-shaped wounds began to bleed.

  Meanwhile, Danny-Tom-Danny began to grow tired while the cat purred on his chest. The night continued its course.

  75

  The sun rose pretty early the next day, and the first rays of the sun illuminated part of Samantha's face, who was still awake. She had spent the worst night of her life. But she thought that maybe today, on this new day, things would not work differently. She thought everything would go better, that everything would be solved. But none of that happened.

  76

  "Tom?" Stella's voice was husky but slower. She was calmer, but hungover. Early in the morning, before the sun rose, she was already praying a rhetoric.

  The cat turned its head and moved its ears in several directions, as if she had called him.

  "Tom?" Stella repeated, afraid to pass the threshold. Only when she was sober she was afraid. When she was drunk, she would even stand in front of a truck in the middle of the highway showing off her hanging tits.

  The cat got to his feet. He stood beside Tom, who was still sleeping peacefully, face down. And as usual, the computer screen was on and showing the huge and deformed mouth of a zombie. The video game was static, and the screen saver was off.

  "Tom!" Stella snorted, still clinging to the jamb of the door, totally disheveled. She said very often that in order to pray, one did not have to be in a hairdo.

  This time, a grunt came from Tom's mouth, and his huge ass moved to the side.

  Stop it! Old woman, I've noticed. Your hysterical screams.

  However, not a word came from Tom's mouth.

  "It's very late. Breakfast is ready downstairs, son."

  Son? At last! Old Stella had called him son. Hallelujah! How bad that Tom was not awake to hear that magic word! Ever since dad kicked the bucket, the bitch had not called him that, well, at least not in that sweet tone. She did it to refer to him when she talked to other people, for example when she first went to the psychiatrist with him. Even later, she said "my son" when she wanted to explain something about him. But calling him son? Never!

  The cat stretched its front legs, and nails like spatulas appeared from the fur. He scratched the mattress with them.

  Stella said nothing else at the moment, turned, and headed for the stairs. After a long silence in which only her footsteps on the wood were heard, like splashing as her feet sweated, she said something else.

  "Get dressed; I'm waiting for you downstairs in the kitchen."

  What was so special about that day?

  Everything was twisted again just half an hour later.

  77

  Samantha decided to put an end to her desperation. She attempted to call her father to ask how her little brother Tony was, but it was too soon to have an answer from the doctor and too late to look for the cat. If Tony came home and did not see Chumy first, he would have a fit. So she decided to go looking for Chumy. If he was not home and still had not come back, he'd gone out to patrol, she thought.

  With her eyes well swollen and noticeably tired, she left the house. The sun blinded her even more, and she had to put her hand to her forehead. It felt like a fire devouring her in life. She took a deep breath and found enough strength to go to her neighbor's house, although the idea did not excite her too much.

  She crossed the garden and at the end of the paved road turned right. She walked a few meters down the sidewalk and stopped before the entrance of the... What were their names? She wondered for too long. Suddenly, she remembered. The old woman had introduced herself as Stella. She resumed her pace and entered the Rush's property.

  The only beautiful thing there was the sun that shone over the ground, but everything else was disgusting. There was trash everywhere, and the central road was not paved. It was as if night after night they had dug pits to bury god knows what and then they would have stacked the freshly removed earth, drawing all kinds of dunes and holes. There was a moldy odor in the air, even though it was summer. Why did not that smell come to her house if it was less than five meters away? She had no idea, but it smelled stale, rotten.

  Samantha suddenly noticed that the curtain of a window was slammed shut. But she had not seen anyone there behind that faded, fucking glass, she thought idly.

  And as she approached, she saw more of the dirt that covered it. Evidently the curtain or the rag or whatever was still closed. Samantha was not fearful to get closer to the door, but suddenly she almost fell on her ass as old Stella suddenly appeared through a door that opened suddenly in the midmorning.

  "What are you doing here?" Stella's voice was still hoarse, as if her mouth were dry. Yes, a drink now would do just fine to soften the throat or burn it.

  Samantha's heart struck her chest like an old diesel engine after several attempts to pull it off, except that she did not expel any toxic cloud of blue smoke anywhere, except maybe her ass.

  "Is my cat there, ma'am?" Samantha asked, her fist resting on her chest.

  "Cat?" There was a short silence as he stared at her. It was a furious and eerily reddened look. "There is no cat here, Miss. You can go where you came from." But she knew she was lying. The cat was with Tom.

  "It's here!" An effeminate voice said suddenly.

  This time, Stella had the scare of her life. Her legs trembled like dynamited pillars ready to collapse. She had to cling to the door jamb with both hands. She could not believe what she saw.

  Tom, now under Sue's identity, was dressed as a woman, wearing some of his mother's clothes—well, Stella's clothes—and had Chumy in her lap, gently held.

  "It's this cat, isn't it?" She had painted her eyes and lips, and beneath her sweater part of her bulging belly peeked out just above the waist of her long black skirt.

  "Huh?" Samantha could only react this way.

  "I'm Sue. What's your name, beautiful lady?" Tom-Sue reached out and showed her some painted nails.

  "Sa...Samantha."

  "And this lovely cat, what's his name?"

  "Chu...Chumy."

  "Okay, well, we're all here" she said, smiling from ear to ear. Stella was beginning to have a heart attack.

  A few seconds later, and as best as she could, she went into the house, heading straight for the dark room where the great, patient, static Christ awaited her.

  78

  "You will not believe what I've seen, dad!" She was euphoric and moved her hands like blades in a windmill. “The two of them are insane!"

  "What's the matter, daughter?"

  Samantha was prancing bare foot on the carpet, like a child who has seen her toys under the Christmas tree.

  "The neighbor's son was dressed..." She paused for a breath, "like a woman!"

  "Wait, Samantha..."
r />   "Dad!" She was exalted and with her eyes wider than usual, quite the opposite to the effect of a dose of drug.

  "Daughter, explain yourself better. How do you know he was dressed as a woman? Do you spy on the neighbors?"

  "No!" Samantha briefly pushed the cell phone away from her right ear and frowned. After a second, she continued. "You'll see. Chumy ran away last night..."

  "Have you found him?" Louis cut her off like an ax.

  "Yes!"

  "Oh!"

  Outside, the sun pushed hard enough to melt the thickest paint. Suddenly, amidst the excitement, she thought she wanted to eat an ice cream. But what the hell was she thinking about? Ask for Tony. But she forgot.

  "The cat is fine" she explained now, but the next sentence turned hysterical and sharp again. “But he was dressed as a woman. And he said his name was Sue!"

  "Sue? Who is Sue?"

  "Your retard neighbor, dad."

  "I don't understand...Didn't he have another name?"

  "Yes, of course, but now I don't remember."

  "They say he's a very shy boy, who never leaves home. He hasn't been to school."

  "Dad" she wanted to get Louis's attention by emphasizing the word DAD.

  "What? Tell me, daughter."

  "The guy was dressed as a woman and said his name was Sue, and then he gave me the cat, well Chumy." She accidentally sketched an almost hysterical smile, dealing with madness, with misunderstanding.

  "He must have a problem of sexual origin. Nowadays, everyone comes out of the closet. Maybe this is a face that we didn't know about our neighbor." Louis's voice sounded soft as silk.

  "You always find explanations for everything, dad." Samantha relaxed as she sat down on the couch.

  "Sure. You have to see things from every possible angle. Look, since I lost my hand, everything seems so different to me... “Louis was about to tell his old story about his hand, and its lost, and his adaptation to its absence, and how the world seemed different from then on.

  "Good-bye, dad" Samantha hung up with a wrinkled forehead.

  No doubt she had forgotten the most important thing.

  Asking for Tony's health status.

  79

  "You bastard!" Stella had a broom in both hands and beat Tom-Sue as she cursed him. “You fucking son of a bitch! Where did you learn that faggot shit?"

  "Ma'am, don't hit me" Sue said, her hand raised to her head, staring at the floor, as if there was something interesting down there.

  "Take off my clothes! And pray to the Lord!"

  "Lady, calm down."

  "Atone for your sins!" But Stella did not remember what dissociative identity disorder meant, that word "DID" that the psychiatrist had written, and that something could happen in Tom in the long run. At that time, she was not paying attention. For Stella, a deeply believer and compulsive drinker at the same time, her son was a begetting of evil, a born sinner, a devil who sashayed before her almost every night, a mental diverter.

  80

  When the storm passed and Tom was Tom again, he had another nightmare while napping.

  His mother with the everlasting bottle of Bourbon in her hand kept praying to the Christ, and Tom remembered things in his deep sleep.

  Jack was gripping his roque mallet in a hand, tightly clasped at one end. He was wandering, as if the roque mallet were too heavy. His hunched body seemed to dance a slow step with every step he took. He came up to her from behind, stealthily and controlling his breathing, which was quiet under the cool light of the bulb.

  The woman, who lived alone at home, had her back to him, ignoring her immediate future. A horrifyingly, disturbing real future stalked her.

  Jack lifted the roque mallet over his right shoulder, now gripped with both hands and his body tilted. He took impulse and unloaded strongly on the distracted woman of long hair of copper color. The blow sounded dry and rotund, and echo was made in the room, bouncing the sound on the walls like water.

  "I don't want anybody!" Jack had barked, his teeth tight, as if he wanted to grind a chicken bone with them.

  Blood splashed across the floor, and a part of the brain mass oozed through the huge hole in her skull. Some of the hair had been ripped off and blended with blood and gray matter. From the back of the woman, who was beginning to fall under gravity, ran a stream of hot blood that she no longer felt, for her vital signs were now non-existent. Finally, she fell to the ground with a thud that this time did not resonate, and the blood began to form a great dark puddle that reached one of Jack's boots.

  Jack's sparkling eyes showed all the horror of a murderer. He saw that on the opposite far wall there was a mirror, and then he saw that it was him...

  Tom woke up sweating copiously once more in that long summer. His heart was pounding in his temples, and he felt a tingling in his hands.

  "No... it ca... can't be" Tom whispered, touching his face with sweaty hands and an expression of utter astonishment. "It can't... can't be... me."

  He had seen his own face.

  And again, he saw those arms moving through the window, looking for something. Looking for whom? There were purple arms and hands in the hollow of the window and under the bed.

  Tom, despite his overweight, jumped on the bed, terribly frightened.

  Fleeting memories and visions mingled now, and he still did not understand anything of what was happening to him.

  81

  The melody of Samantha's cell phone began to ring. It was a part of Beyonce's song "Crazy in Love.” Samantha got up from the chair to pick up the phone that was on the table in front of the sofa; she was in the kitchen. When she reached it twenty seconds later, she saw the word "Dad" flashing on the screen. She slid her thin finger horizontally across the screen to answer.

  "Dad!" Outside, the sun cast its last red rays from behind the lofty mountains that could be seen from the window.

  "Daughter, are you ok?"

  "Yes, why?"

  "It's nothing, but you've forgotten to ask about your brother Tony's condition."

  Suddenly, she slapped her forehead with her free hand, making a dry noise.

  "What was that?" Louis asked from the other side of the conversation after he heard the thump.

  "Oh! Nothing" Samantha said, walking around the coffee table, careful not to hit her knees because it would not be the first time she'd hit herself in two days. “I had forgotten. What I saw this morning has left me a little worried, I would say stunned, and I forgot about that..."

  "I understand," Louis cut her off for a second. "But I explained before..."

  "Yes! Yeah, how's Tony?"

  There was a new silence in which Samantha's chest began to feel warm.

  "They have to do more tests," Louis finally said in a broken voice.

  "Is it serious? Have they found anything new?"

  "Apparently your brother has more than just a heart murmur. Dr. John explained to me this afternoon quickly, and I didn't understand much, but I'm telling you it's not serious at all. Maybe..."

  "Maybe?" Samantha interrupted, much more nervous than at the beginning of the conversation. Now the sun was a faint mirror among the mountains. It had disappeared.

  "Well, it looks like they'll have to perform a little intervention."

  "Oh God!" Samantha said, glancing at the faded shadows that were coming through the window. She had to turn on the light.

  "Calm down! It's nothing serious. I insist, it's a small thing."

  "But they're going to put him in the operating room!" She objected as she made her way to the wall with the light switch, not before tapping her knee with the coffee table. Clack.

  "It's a little intervention, nothing more. They don't even have to anesthetize him completely. It's just the arm area," Louis explained, his voice weak and broken.

  "I know you're lying to me, dad" and the dim light flooded the living-room.

  "No, daughter. I'm telling you the truth. Tomorrow, I'll call you again to give you more details."

>   "On another subject, what worries you about your neighbor?"

  "Everything" Samantha said in a sort of whistle.

  "Stay inside, with the doors closed if you're so scared or worried about that..."

  "Insane man?"

  "Well, I'm too bad to remember names."

  "I know dad, me too."

  "Take care. I’ll call you again tomorrow, around noon. Keep an eye on the phone."

  "Yes dad. Everything will be fine."

  But she did not know that things would soon be twisted.

  Justin was about to appear, but before there was Charlie. Justin, still hidden, would take over. Samantha would face the most horrible thing she had ever imagined.

  However, it was not the time yet.

  But it would not be long.

  82

  Tom was bent over the computer. His plump fingers were dancing over the noisy keys. On the other side of the massive tangle of wires and nodes that make up an Internet connection was Amelia writing. Both wrote at once, and on different occasions the messages intersected and Tom had difficulty ordering the incoming messages into what he called "small window of Faseebooc." Tom would have preferred to talk over the phone, but this time he had to write because, he did not know why, the phone did not work.

  "What's the matter, Tom? I notice you very nervous." The message appeared in the dialog box of the Facebook application. Tom, still wearing prescription glasses, had a hard time seeing the letters. In fact, he was not completely capable of reading a phrase in one attempt. With his index finger, followed every word that appeared on the screen, as if it were a book.

  Then he wrote.

  "I have memry tinks."

  "Do you remember things?"

  There was an endless time before Tom wrote again.

  "Yes"

  "What do you remember? What kind of memories are they?"

  "Bad memrys"

  The dotted line began to dance again in the dialogue window.

  "Are you having nightmares?"

  "I tink yes"

  "That's normal, Tom. Everyone has nightmares, and some of them are terrible, like real experiences but very bad ones. Sometimes they are so scary that you wake up in the middle of the night, all sweaty...And you realize that everything has been a cruel nightmare, because maybe you have been sleeping in a bad posture."