It Needs a Name

Chapter 6

I don't know what time it is when I come to. I can't even remember when I slipped away, when my body and mind gave out, going limp against the old holiday sweaters and quilts I was perched on. My body aches, my toes scream at me for not being more careful and threaten to stage a rebellion if I don't start watching where I put my fucking feet.

I pull the blanket off of my head slowly, I become a deer, tasting the air for danger. My ears swivel and twitch, my nose takes in the scents that are riding on the stale air. I take my first hesitant steps from my safe haven, rising off my nest and making my way to the door. When I get to the door I am faced with a now obvious problem: how to open the door? I have no thumbs, not even hands to turn the knob, or clear the stacks of boxes away. Clearly, I hadn't thought my transformation through. 

I lean froward and sniff at the boxes, inhaling small bits of dust. I feel my nose start to wrinkle and before I can stop it, it happens. I sneeze. I sneeze and bam I'm back to my human form. Note to self: don't smell anything ever again. 

Now that I'm back to being a man, I clear the boxes from the door, gather my things and open the door. I stick my hand out into the hallway, wiggling my fingers to tempt the badness into coming out of hiding. Nothing, not even a ripple of movement from my enemy. 

The coast is clear. Go, go, go!

I pound up the stairs, nearly tripping on the blanket I'm dragging, not slowing down until I get to the ground level. I stop, take in my surroundings. Judging from the golden sunlight, and the direction it's shinning from, it must be mid-afternoon. Fantastic. Another day spent in hiding...

First thing's first, I must find my mother. I wonder if she's recovered from her late night drinking session or not; and if she hasn't how much puke am I going to end up scrubbing from the tile floor? I shake that thought from my mind, and make my way up the stairs, listening for any signs of over-bearing parental life. The radar sweep, sadly, comes up empty.

Yes, yes I know I bitch about my mother constantly, but I like her better when she's constantly riding my ass than when she's passed out drunk at 11 in the fucking morning. 

She doesn't drink as much as she used to. When it happened she was constantly hammered, she lost her job and spent her days on the couch cuddled up with a bottle of vodka or Jack Daniels, watching shitty day-time TV.

She pulled it together when one of her work friends laid into her one day, going on and on about how I still needed her to be a mother, especially after what had happened. It was like a celebrity roast, the kind you see on Comedy Central. I mean, she really ripped into her, tearing her guts out and shoving them in her face. Said friend even threatened to call Social Services if my mom didn't crawl out of the bottle and start taking care of me again.

I think the Social Services thing was what really snapped her out of her boozy funk. She didn't want to lose me - at least, that's what I like to tell myself - so she cleaned up, got another job and instead of sucking down the juice, she started knitting scarves and stuff. 

I can't tell you how many scarves and sweaters I have shoved in the deep, dark cervices of my closet. More than I'd care to count. Most of them have terrible patterns, colors that don't look right together, or some kind of knot in the middle. But I guess if I ever wanted to measure my mother's love for me, I could always do it in scarves. 

And based on that unit of measure, my mother loved me more than I ever think I'll deserve.