Jimmy neither groaned nor grunted nor issued one of those beseeching whimpers that used to so affect his mother.
There were times when Hector was glad that his son could not talk. Silence could seem like absolution.
“I’ll make our dinner now. I’ll come for you in a while, when it’s on the table.”
Jimmy leaned forward and, between his flattened palms, pressed his deformed forehead to the windowpane.
In the kitchen, Hector popped the cap off an ice-cold Corona. He poured a double shot of tequila, tossed it back, and chased it with a long swallow of beer. He poured another double shot. He put the glass and the bottle beside the cutting board, next to the sink, where he would be working.
He was sixty-five and weary. For years, he’d given up drinking. But when Annalisa died, he had needed compensation for the loss.
Drinking had been their ruin. Maybe Jimmy would have been born as he was even if Annalisa had never touched a drop of alcohol, but in her grief and guilt, she would not allow either her or Hector to take refuge in that possibility. What they had done required atonement through sacrifice.
As Hector accused himself again, as if at confession, he peeled potatoes before slicing them to be fried. When the knife pierced his lower back, it carried with it a fierce heat that seemed to set his innards afire. The potato and peeler dropped from his hands into the sink as the knife ripped out of him. The blade stabbed deep again, and Hector collapsed against the counter. From behind him came a terrible voice that could be that of no one but his voiceless son. “Parasite. Pestilence.”
PART 4
THE TRUE JIMMY
We were created to be creators, and we create ceaselessly, both consciously and unconsciously.
—Ganesh Patel
63
Jimmy knew happy and he knew sad and he knew the place between when he wasn’t happy or sad, when he just was. He didn’t always know what made him happy or sad, those feelings just happened to him, and there wasn’t anything he could do to make happy come when he wasn’t or make sad go away when he was.
He knew fear, but not often because he didn’t know what he should be afraid of until it happened. And after whatever happened was done with, the fear usually went away; there was no reason for it to last.
The only fear that lasted long was the fear when the Thing moved inside him and did what it wanted with him. A long time ago when the little girl lived here, the Thing moved into Jimmy every day, moved in and stayed and stayed, so he was afraid most always even though the little girl was nice.
The Thing was not nice.
Time passed, and he all but forgot about the little girl and the Thing. They were far away like in a fog. Mostly he thought of them in his sleep, not much when awake. Then a while ago the Thing came into him again and did what it wanted, and the little girl came back, too, but she wasn’t little anymore, just a girl.
The Thing was always not nice, even long ago, but it was even colder now than it was before, colder and darker and even more not nice. A long time ago the Thing wasn’t mean to the girl, but it was mean to her now. Jimmy knew mean. People were sometimes mean to him.
The Thing wanted to hurt the girl. Jimmy never wanted to hurt anyone, but when the Thing was in him, he knew what it was like for the Thing to want to hurt someone because he felt a little of what the Thing felt. It scared him to feel that.
He didn’t know the Thing was going to make him hurt Father until the hurting started. The hurting didn’t last long, and that was good, but there was blood, and blood was never good. Father lay on the floor not moving, just staring, his eyes very wide.
The Thing was so angry that Jimmy felt sick and thought he would throw up, but he didn’t. Jimmy was never angry much, and when he was angry he was always angry with himself. He was sometimes angry with himself for being dumb and not able to stop being dumb.
Father was still on the floor, staring at nothing Jimmy could see, staring at the ceiling, staring as if some bug was crawling up there, but there wasn’t any bug. That was when the Thing went away and wasn’t in Jimmy anymore.
He stood over his father, not knowing what to do. He put the knife on the counter. He waited. Father didn’t make any sounds of being hurt. He seemed to be resting. But his eyes were open.
Jimmy let out a sound that always made people ask what was wrong, but his father didn’t ask. Jimmy let out the sound again. His father was quiet.
Just wait and see. Sometimes when you didn’t know what was happening, the best thing you could do was wait. So then what was happening would finish happening, and you would know what to do. At least sometimes you would know.