Read Online Like Son by Felicia Luna Lemus - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Felicia Luna Lemus
Tags: General Fiction
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was like he melted, Francisca,” he said.
Chip told me that the little boy’s father had taken his only son to a motel room, poured gasoline on him, thrown a lit match, and left him to burn to death. Firefighters found the boy and put out the flames before he died, but not before his entire body was covered in third-degree burns. He would live. The father would go to prison for sure.
“Monster,” Chip said, presumably in reference to the boy’s father.
And then he sat across from me at the kitchen table and cried. I continued eating my Tony the Tiger cereal afternoon snack. And I know this is sick, but I wished I had thirddegree burns from head to toe like the little boy. I fantasized about being in the hospital, about being covered in gauze and icepacks, about IV tubes sticking out of me and machines keeping me alive. I wanted nurses and doctors frantically flitting about treating me. I fantasized about suffering unearthly brutal but easily diagnosed pain. I daydreamed about Chip being arrested and spending the rest of his life in prison.
So, who was I?
I’d been the person who knew best how full of shit my mother’s airs of impeccability were. She, entirely invested in surface—sculpting, plump-injecting, and laser-beam smoothing other people’s aging bodies, perfecting the false flawless mask she herself put on each day—probably would have stayed married to Chip forever if it had been an option. Given the opportunity, she would have stuck by his side and taken endless holiday card portraits smiling with him in matching sweaters next to the Christmas tree. But, in a glaringly public addition to his early midlife crisis, he’d had an affair with a nurse coworker and then served my mother with divorce papers. It was so pathetically Seven Year Itch.
My mother refused to sign the divorce papers. Shut down and totally depressed, she diagnosed herself with Epstein Barr Virus. Desperate for company, I guess, she told me that I too was seriously ill with the virus. After months of her insistent, persistent diagnosis, I gave in.
January 1986:
Bedridden and covered in severe hives that I’d somehow manifested as medical proof of what an obedient kid I was, I watched hours and hours of live news coverage leading up to the Challenger shuttle launch. I was completely fascinated with NASA stuff, with knowing every little detail about the preparations and equipment and crew. I liked the science teacher guest astronaut who gave thumbs-up and big smiles at press conferences. She looked like she’d be a cool teacher, unlike the ones who threatened to fail me for the countless days of eighth grade curriculum I’d missed that year. I woke so damned excited the day of the launch. I sat right in front of my bedroom television, volume all the way up, glued to the set, counting down with Ground Control. And then … well, you know what happened.
I watched the explosion and all the instant replays. And I sobbed. Uncontrollably. Hives in my throat swelled from the stress. I couldn’t breathe. My mom wasn’t home. She was meeting with her lawyer that day. I was alone. My windpipe constricting, I gasped for air. Several seconds passed. Blue specks and white streamers filled my line of vision. My ears felt heavy. I heard buzzing. The sound in my left ear went out entirely. I was unable to inhale a full breath. I gasped. I was going to pass out. Panicked, I reached for the EpiPen my mother had left in my room in anticipation of such an event. She had explained how to use the clunky penlike contraption when she first diagnosed me with hives.
“The EpiPen is filled with 0.3 milligrams of epinephrine, a dose sufficient to halt a grown man’s anaphylaxic reaction. The syringe is spring-loaded and automatic. Just press the tip of the pen to your outer thigh until you hear it click. Count to thirty. It’ll inject on its own,” she’d lectured with a slight glimmer in her eye.
The hives were visibly worsening. Dizzy, my hands
Chip told me that the little boy’s father had taken his only son to a motel room, poured gasoline on him, thrown a lit match, and left him to burn to death. Firefighters found the boy and put out the flames before he died, but not before his entire body was covered in third-degree burns. He would live. The father would go to prison for sure.
“Monster,” Chip said, presumably in reference to the boy’s father.
And then he sat across from me at the kitchen table and cried. I continued eating my Tony the Tiger cereal afternoon snack. And I know this is sick, but I wished I had thirddegree burns from head to toe like the little boy. I fantasized about being in the hospital, about being covered in gauze and icepacks, about IV tubes sticking out of me and machines keeping me alive. I wanted nurses and doctors frantically flitting about treating me. I fantasized about suffering unearthly brutal but easily diagnosed pain. I daydreamed about Chip being arrested and spending the rest of his life in prison.
So, who was I?
I’d been the person who knew best how full of shit my mother’s airs of impeccability were. She, entirely invested in surface—sculpting, plump-injecting, and laser-beam smoothing other people’s aging bodies, perfecting the false flawless mask she herself put on each day—probably would have stayed married to Chip forever if it had been an option. Given the opportunity, she would have stuck by his side and taken endless holiday card portraits smiling with him in matching sweaters next to the Christmas tree. But, in a glaringly public addition to his early midlife crisis, he’d had an affair with a nurse coworker and then served my mother with divorce papers. It was so pathetically Seven Year Itch.
My mother refused to sign the divorce papers. Shut down and totally depressed, she diagnosed herself with Epstein Barr Virus. Desperate for company, I guess, she told me that I too was seriously ill with the virus. After months of her insistent, persistent diagnosis, I gave in.
January 1986:
Bedridden and covered in severe hives that I’d somehow manifested as medical proof of what an obedient kid I was, I watched hours and hours of live news coverage leading up to the Challenger shuttle launch. I was completely fascinated with NASA stuff, with knowing every little detail about the preparations and equipment and crew. I liked the science teacher guest astronaut who gave thumbs-up and big smiles at press conferences. She looked like she’d be a cool teacher, unlike the ones who threatened to fail me for the countless days of eighth grade curriculum I’d missed that year. I woke so damned excited the day of the launch. I sat right in front of my bedroom television, volume all the way up, glued to the set, counting down with Ground Control. And then … well, you know what happened.
I watched the explosion and all the instant replays. And I sobbed. Uncontrollably. Hives in my throat swelled from the stress. I couldn’t breathe. My mom wasn’t home. She was meeting with her lawyer that day. I was alone. My windpipe constricting, I gasped for air. Several seconds passed. Blue specks and white streamers filled my line of vision. My ears felt heavy. I heard buzzing. The sound in my left ear went out entirely. I was unable to inhale a full breath. I gasped. I was going to pass out. Panicked, I reached for the EpiPen my mother had left in my room in anticipation of such an event. She had explained how to use the clunky penlike contraption when she first diagnosed me with hives.
“The EpiPen is filled with 0.3 milligrams of epinephrine, a dose sufficient to halt a grown man’s anaphylaxic reaction. The syringe is spring-loaded and automatic. Just press the tip of the pen to your outer thigh until you hear it click. Count to thirty. It’ll inject on its own,” she’d lectured with a slight glimmer in her eye.
The hives were visibly worsening. Dizzy, my hands
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