⸻A few years ago, when I was six, I flipped Mom off.
⸻I was a sick little boy with a mid-grade fever, and she didn’t want to leave me alone. I was too little, too sick, too six. But she didn’t have a choice. And she didn’t see a solution. And there was never anybody reliable. She was overworked. She looked like Work. She would sweat through her good clothes. Her breathing was graphic.
⸻Her business was outside the home that day, barely: around the corner and down the street, she said.
⸻She felt my forehead and told me to sit still and prayed for me to sit still for just those two hours. I sneezed a little sneeze. I coughed a little cough. My little nose was a little faucet. Even Mom was little.
⸻She was the one who turned on the TV. She didn’t care what was on. She was holding her breath. She slinked out. She was the worst parent in the world. She was the ambivalent sigh of too many things to do. I could not know that these hours were the final hours before I met my condition.
⸻Dad wasn’t there. His business was outside the home, except not around the corner and down the street. A plane and a train away. Joked that he had to bring home the bacon. When it comes to my father, I am immediately understanding. He’s off the hook. When it comes to my mother, we speak with our eyes. We keep on trading missed phone calls these days. Me and Mom. Me and Dad. My eyes and ears are with my telephone, permanently; it’s brown, sentimental, old fashioned, attached to the wall in the hallway.
⸻Mom gone. Kept still. Black-day rain poured down from the day-black sky and clattered on the windowsills.
⸻I caught an imbecelic flick.
⸻Its mutant stars are now hopeless homeless burnouts—freaky beggars on freaky streets. The sex was over my head, and I didn’t really get what a frat house was. Beer pong and bongs, hazing and mayhem, nobody was watching me watch the movie. I pretended to laugh at the antics. A fraternity brother learned how to read. A sorority sister accidentally massaged her father inside the pants on family weekend, which fell on Halloween. A hamburger mask allowed the molestation. All the parents were visiting: the parents of the horny nerds, the parents of the relentless jocks, the parents of the dumb blondes. I laughed as if I were being watched, but laughing hurt. And then: the finger. It occupied a second about halfway through... One graduating senior gave it to another. They didn’t like each other. A fabled rivalry gone back to freshman year. I leaned in, but the moment was gone. What did it mean? This finger? The middle one.
⸻Well, I had the gist in my little hands: real mean, real funny, real mean, real funny...
⸻I had to try it on someone. As soon as possible. Mom. She would be a good fit.
⸻I slept with Mom and Dad in their big bed when I was scared. I was always scared. And Dad used to hate it—when, late at night, I’d flee my little bed and jump into their big one. He so hated this wild, babyish part of me. He didn’t want to hate any part of me. I knew that this habit of mine made him nervous and ashamed.
⸻I am not afraid of the dark. I welcome it now. Its softness.
⸻Things were never completely dark in their bedroom; the city leaked through the blinds.
⸻I became a little gentleman when Mom was alone in the big bed. I simply allowed myself—effortlessly—with class, grace, and fulfillment in my heart.
⸻Mom was asleep when I got into bed with her that night? She was in bed, dreaming?
⸻No. Mom was not asleep. She was in bed, reading. Either way: no skin off her back. That’s how it seemed—on paper at least, on skin at least. Or? Skin off her back? And? She minded? I was tossing and turning up a storm. How worried was she about me? She turned to me. To investigate. The bedquake. I saw her eyes. I was a little terror. I was the finger I’d been contemplating for a lifetime. She was the beneficiary. I launched my attack.
⸻My hand darted from under the covers. I jabbed the air with my pinky. Yes, I gave her the wrong finger, but she knew exactly what I was reaching for. Even in the shadowiness of their bedroom, Mom could make out my failure; my little unacceptable gesture, utterly failed. Mom has always maintained a bad habit of saying mistakes, accidents, and coincidences don’t exist. I maintained my pinky in the dim light.
⸻She demanded I tell her where I’d learned such a thing. I held my mouth. Dad would be hearing about this. Still. It was worth it. I liked the shock. The disaster in her face. Our inaugural war. Plus, my little face: blank yet stern yet blank again. She slapped me.
⸻I began sobbing, of course, and this was on top of the cold, and just when things were going good, you know? I hate it—shock, going into it. I hate it—when it’s not fair for somebody who’s never been in trouble before. I hate them—those generous, motherly slaps across the face—the ones that’ll change the course of your little face forever—it’s life, that mouth, the whole country of it—I can feel them now. I hate it, again and more—when you didn’t know what you did was this bad.
⸻When Mom washes my hair, she washes my nervous thoughts down the drain, too.
⸻Certainly never ever practice the freedom of crying.
⸻I resolved that night to give her nothing.
⸻To determine the start of my condition. To take its history to my little grave. Never to deny it.
Myles Zavelo lives in New York.