Jesse Goolsby - I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them

Eventually one pair of insurance men circles back with frequency. The older one, with gray hair, always messes with his paisley tie, and his crumpled suit struggles to cover his bulging midsection. He and his younger partner come back time and again, and after one particular visit Armando guesses they will never return, because his mother hugs them and kisses them on their cheeks and his father shakes their hands and hugs them and calls them “my brothers.”

That night Armando’s parents take the family to the Cliff House in Manitou Springs, where the family drinks Martinelli’s sparkling cider from champagne glasses. His mother sings “Saturday in the Park” on the way home.

One January morning Armando’s mother undergoes a kidney-pancreas transplant in a Denver hospital. Two nights later — just he and Marie are home — Armando paws through his neighbor’s trash and swipes a five-foot-long, thick cardboard tube used to ship fly-fishing rods. He gathers up a few racquetballs and tennis balls, a screwdriver, and a red gasoline can from the garage. From his father’s gun safe he grabs a can of black powder, a fuse, and two M-80s. On their way to the snow-dusted back yard, he asks Marie to get a set of tongs and oven mitts from the kitchen.

He positions the tube at a 45-degree angle over the back fence, aiming toward the lights of downtown Colorado Springs. With the screwdriver he punctures the tube near the base and threads the fuse through. He places the M-80s in the can of black powder and the can of powder in the tube, insuring that one of the fuse’s tips rests deep in the small, dark kernels. The pungent smell surrounds him. Once the contraption is stable, oven-mitted Marie dips two racquetballs and four tennis balls into the gasoline with the tongs, then drops them down the tube.

Armando pulls a lighter from his pocket and walks over to Marie, still mitted, and she backs away.

“Holy shit,” she says. “This is a great idea.”

“God, forgive us,” he says. “Get the car ready. If it’s big, we’ll take off.” He smells his hands.

“I want to see it.”

“Okay.”

“Wash your hands first,” Marie says. “We should wash our hands.”

“Good.”

His still-damp hands hold the lighter and the fuse. A helicopter flies overhead, so he waits. Then another.

“Fort Carson,” he says. “Invasion.”

“Red Dawn?”

“Go, Army. Start up the tanks.”

Armando flicks the lighter and a miniature flame jumps to life. He lights the fuse and backs away.

“Cover your ears,” Marie says, hands on her ears.

“No.”

“Cover them.”

He can still hear the helicopters in the distance, the spinning rotor blades compressing the air tight. He watches his cardboard cannon, all potential, all rush, blood racing in his ears, floating, and a fire illuminates the tube from within, a split-second reverie of light and heat before the orange-tinged explosion rocks the night.

Armando’s mother returns home three weeks later with someone else’s organs tied inside her body. Her face bloats from anti-rejection drugs, and she sprouts light blond whiskers on her chin and a few strands hug her cheeks. If the new hair humiliates her, she never says so, and once in a while she still manages a toothy smile. Still, he wonders why she refuses to shave, but he lacks the nerve to ask.

His community service for the back-yard cannon explosion doesn’t start for another month. His father told him two things when the judgment was handed down: never confess and never do the same thing twice. They pay someone to fix the fence.

Armando doesn’t recognize the life draining from his mother until she grows scared of leaving the house, then of walking, then of standing. Her singing stops, and now, lying on their green living room couch, drinking 7Up and chewing saltine crackers, she will not speak unless spoken to, and even then she offers only one-word answers.

Armando, his father, and his sister try to play games with his mother or read to her every now and then, but mostly she lies there with a glassy stare. Still, at the end of the nightly story, or when he wins at Sorry or Uno, she says “Yes” or “Good” and strains a smile. But the Torres home grows sullen with the February snow, and he finds reasons not to return home until late at night. He kisses his mother on his way to bed and she stares up at him, still somehow knowing him, and although he hates himself for thinking it, he crawls under the sheets wondering if the person confined to the couch is still his mother or if she is something else now. On the worst days, when she barely moves or eats, he battles himself, wondering if he should pray for a swift, pain-free death, but then the anger overtakes him and he forces images of resurrection — his mother standing, walking, singing again.

One night his family plays the game Taboo. The score isn’t important to them. Armando’s mother mainly stays silent anyway. This time Armando draws the word tower. The taboo words eliminate most of the clues he would use, so he starts out with “It’s tall, straight, and long,” and before he says another word his mother shouts “Penis!” Armando, his father, and his sister freeze for an instant, dumbfounded, and then his mother laughs, and laughs again, and her giggles swell into full-throttle, full-belly roars. The implausible sound fills the room, and she sits up and doubles over, grabbing at her belly.

“Penis,” she says, and her eyes water and she laughs and hoots and snorts uncontrollably, and Armando’s sister and he laugh, and his father wipes at his eyes, and his mother keeps saying “Penis” and busting up and grabbing at her stomach, and she can’t stop herself and they don’t want her to stop, and she roars then says, “It hurts. It hurts,” and she grabs her body, and all of them know she’s in pain, but she keeps laughing.

“It hurts,” she says, and her cheeks are wet with tears, and she presses her hands to her midsection.

“Stop,” she says. “Stop it.” But she can’t stop, and she laugh-speaks “Help,” but it takes them a while to understand, so his mother says, “Help me,” and his father rises and goes to her. He places his hands on her stomach and asks, “Here?”

“Yes,” she says, her laughter swiftly shifting to groans. “Press.” Armando’s father presses his hands and they sink into her scarred belly. His mother brings her hands to her face and wipes at her cheeks.

“Harder,” she says, so his father presses further in, and she moans and clenches her hands. When his mother calms down, his father helps her recline on the couch, easing her head down onto her favorite red pillow. With their bedtime near, Armando and his sister pick up the word cards and put the game away. His mother’s laughter still wafts in the room. They kiss their mother’s forehead and say good night. They walk down the short hallway together.

“Mom’s okay,” his sister says. “She’s getting better.”

“Yes,” he says.

“What was the secret word?” she asks.

“Tower,” he says.

“Tower,” she repeats, then pauses. “But you said ‘long.’ That doesn’t make sense. A tower isn’t long. You should have said, ‘ blank of power.’ She would’ve gotten it.” She shakes her head and turns and walks away.

One morning, after another week of his mother’s slow sink into the couch, soundless, his father comes into his room while Armando readies for school.

“She wants you to play,” he says. “It’s no big deal. Relax. But please. She’s asking for you.”

“Dad.”

“Just do it. It’s okay. I know what you’re going to say. Please.”

Armando brings his fingers to his lips and his insides evaporate. He visualizes his blind instructor, his words: “No. Again. No. Again. Are you trying? Have you practiced?” His trombone has been untouched for weeks, and he hasn’t progressed past basic scales and simple kids’ songs.