Удушье (Choke)

Someday.

This is even after the Easter Bunny turned out to be a lie. Even after Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and Saint Christo­pher and Newtonian physics and the Niels Bohr model of the atom, this stupid, stupid kid still believed the Mommy.

Someday, when he's grown up, the Mommy tells the shadow, the kid will come back here and see how he's grown into the exact outline she'd planned for him this night.

The kid's bare arms shake with the cold.

And the Mommy said, 'Control yourself, damn it. Hold still or you'll ruin everything.'

And the kid tried to feel warmer, but no matter how bright they were, the headlights didn't give off any heat.

'I need to make a clear outline,' the Mommy said. 'If you tremble, you'll turn out all blurred.'

It wasn't until years later, until this stupid little loser was through college with honors and he'd busted his hump to get into the University of Southern California School of Medicine—until he was twenty-four years old and in his second year of medical school, when his mother was diagnosed and he was named as her guardian—it wasn't until then that it dawned on this little stooge that growing strong and rich and smart was only the first half of your life story.

Now the kid's ears ache with the cold. He feels dizzy and hy­perventilated. His little stool- pigeon chest is all dimpled chicken skin. His nipples are pinched up by the cold into hard red pim­ples, and the little ejaculate tells himself: For real, I deserve this.

And the Mommy says, 'Try to at least stand up straight.'

The kid rolls his shoulders back and imagines the headlights are a firing squad. He deserves pneumonia. He deserves tubercu­losis.

See also: Hypothermia.

See also: Typhoid fever.

And the Mommy says, 'After tonight, I'm not going to be around to nag you.'

The bus motor idles, putting out a long tornado of blue smoke.

And the Mommy says, 'So hold still, and don't make me spank you.'

And sure as hell, this little brat deserved to get spanked. He deserved whatever he got. This is the deluded little rube who really thought the future would be any better. If you just worked hard enough. If you just learned enough. Ran fast enough. Every­thing would turn out right, and your life would amount to some­ thing.

The wind gusts and dry grains of snow scatter down from the trees, each flake stinging against his ears and cheeks. More snow melts between the laces of his shoes.

'You'll see,' the Mommy says. 'This will be worth a little suf­fering.'

This would be a story he could tell his own son. Someday.

The ancient girl, the Mommy tells him, she never saw her lover ever again.

And the kid is stupid enough to think a picture or a sculpture or a story could somehow replace anybody you love.

And the Mommy says, 'You have so much to look forward to.'

It's hard to swallow, but this is the stupid, lazy, ridiculous lit­tle kid who just stood shaking, squinting into the glare and the roar, and who thought the future would be so bright. Picture anybody growing up so stupid he didn't know that hope is just another phase you'll grow out of. Who thought you could make something, anything, that would last forever.

It feels stupid even to remember this stuff. It's a wonder he's lived this long.

So, again, if you're going to read this, don't.