In the Language of Scorpions. Charles Allen Gramlich
visitor he was expecting at midnight.
To pass the time he glanced out the window. The moon bulked hugely above the horizon, its summer light turned to saffron by the orange curtains his mother had chosen for the room. He hated that color, just as he hated this room, as he hated the bed on which he was lying, and the pajamas in which his mother had dressed him. He thought sometimes he hated his mother but he could not be sure. He was certain, though, that he hated himself, the useless thing that he was. But that would all change, would all be better, if midnight ever came.
He twisted under the bed covers as much as he could, nearly stifling in the night’s heat, and finally succeeded in working the sheets down off of his thin body with pained and fumbling fingers. He looked down at his legs. What he would have given to see them strong again. But they were nearly gone.
A glance spared at his arms showed them pale, and thin, and wasted. Soon, they and the legs would be like dried sticks, and he would lie here and only his eyes would move. He would have cursed the disease that chained him down but his curses had long since dried up into dust that clogged his mouth.
If only it were not so hot, he thought. Even the breeze from the window blew superheated, but at least it stirred the air in the room.
He closed his eyes after a while and let his mind drift, trying to escape the room, the heat, his illness. He pictured himself in younger days, skinny dipping in the chill water of Flanagan’s lake with Robert and Danny. He remembered the frozen ice-cream bars that dripped and ran in the summer heat and got sticky all over your hands. Yet they were so icy at first that they stuck to your tongue, and it hurt your teeth to bite them. He thought, also, of his grandmother’s back porch, always so shadowy and cool, and of the tea she would make for him and Danny whenever they came in tired from playing soldiers.
And, as always when he freed his memories, he thought of Theresa, his mind skittering around her name like a dog that had been beaten too often. He had once sworn never to forgive her for leaving him to suffer the illness alone. He had let the anger and pain build up inside of him and had waited for them to bloom, like black flowers from ashes. That had been long ago. He no longer had the energy to sustain those emotions. He only wished she would come back, and knew she would not.
Footsteps in the hallway snatched him from his thoughts. For a moment he hoped they were Joey’s—fourteen and his only friend—but the sound was too light for his brother’s feet. Most people would not have been able to hear those soft shuffles at all, but he heard them. There was nothing wrong with his ears. They seemed even better now that the rest of him was dying. Thank goodness for small favors.
He listened as the feathery steps strayed closer. Go past, he begged. Go on past.
They stopped just outside his door. The old porcelain knob started to turn and the door opened. He glanced at the time. The numerals changed as he watched—11:32—and his mother peeked into the room.
“Are you all right, Frank honey?” she asked. “Need more covers?”
He shook his head but she didn’t seem to be watching.
“My goodness,” she said, coming closer. “You’ve gotten your sheet off. Here, let me tuck you in.”
“No,” he croaked. But his jaws would scarcely move, and his tongue was dry and swollen in his mouth, and nothing came out but a faint expulsion of air.
His mother leaned over him, fluffed his pillow, and pulled the sheet up under his chin. Her breath smelled like mint mouthwash. Her hair looked orange under the curtain-distorted moonlight but he knew that it was gray. Mother was not old but she seemed old. Her eyes hurt him with their wrinkles and she had left her teeth in the bathroom.
Slowly, she walked around the bed, and as she went she snapped the sheets taut and tucked them beneath the mattress. All the way around she went, sealing him in as if sewing him into a shroud. He squirmed, trying to raise his shoulders, but she pushed them down, surprisingly strong against his weakness, and patted him on the cheek.
“There, there now,” she said. “It’s all right. Mother’s here. You mustn’t fight you know. It’s not good for you to strain yourself.”
He was afraid to nod, afraid of what she might read into it. His glance went past her shoulder, seeing the curtains stirred by the night wind. Don’t look at the window, he whispered to himself. Don’t look. Don’t feel the breeze. It’s blowing cooler.
“And my word,” she scolded, clapping a hand over her mouth. “You’ve gotten the window open. Now how on earth did you do that?” She tsk tsked deep in her throat.
He didn’t, he couldn’t, tell her of the pain, of the struggle to get onto his crutches and over to the window, to fumble with numb hands on the lock so he could open the glass and catch a breath of air that was not stale with age. He couldn’t tell her about Joey or she would be angry—Joey, who helped but let him do so much on his own because the boy knew his older brother needed to. He could not tell her though he wanted to. His grunt was loud in the room.
His mother moved to the window and stopped, her faded hand on the glass to close it. She looked back over her shoulder, smiling at him as if to savor what she was doing for her boy, her loving son.
Doing for him, doing to him! The echoes of the thoughts were like the laughter of clowns. He shook his head at her as if to tell her no, and she shut the window and locked it.
“There,” she said. “Now you won’t catch your death.” She went past him, brushing his damp forehead with dry and brittle lips. “Goodnight honey,” she crooned. “Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
She picked up his crutches as she was leaving and took them with her. The door clicked shut just as a sudden cool breeze rattled twigs against the window. Frank closed his eyes tightly and shook his head.
The reflected light of the clock seemed dark against his shuttered lids, more red than orange. It was 11:39 he knew, and had his knowing confirmed by opening his eyes and looking up. The numerals did not change again, even though he watched, and at last he turned away, only to think of heat.
Sweat was running on his face and a bead caught suddenly at the tip of his nose, tickling. He could not raise his hands from their prison beneath the sheet so he shook his head. The droplet clung perversely. He began working his shoulders back and forth to loosen the covers so that he could free his arm. After an eternity he succeeded. One hand came free and reached up, and the bead let loose before he could touch it and ran down his neck like a scuttling spider. Almost, he thought he would cry.
He had lost track of the time and for a moment could not recall where to look. His thoughts were whirling around in his head. His mind seemed hot, hot, and the bed was wet beneath him. He wanted to call out to Joey who slept across the hall—Joey would help him—but he knew that his voice would no longer carry that far. It was failing like the rest of him. Even if he could call out it would only bring his mother back, and the little rituals would start again, the little horrors that she did because she loved him. She must have loved him very much because she spent so much of her time caring for him.
He wondered if she hated him for it.
The clock gave a little buzz that drew his attention and he glanced at it, remembering. The minutes ticked over and raced away, 11:45, 11:46, ’47, ’48. The color was definitely darker now, almost bloody red, and it seemed to pulse with his heart. He reached with his free hand to pull back the sheets and stopped as a sound bruised his ears.
Down the stairs and to the right was a door leading to the outside. He remembered where it was though it had been months since he had used it. Now there was the tinkle of a hand on the door and the whisper of a breeze coming in. And there were footsteps, shuffling, but they were not those of his mother. Oh yes, he heard those sounds. His hearing was so acute, so exquisite, and he had been waiting so long, so long. He looked at the time. It was 11:51.
Faster, he urged it. Go faster. And, as if it had heard him and was giggling to itself, the clock gave a click and the time slipped back—11:50.