The Choir He Wanted, The LIfe He Had

Sunday, December 14, 1935

That day I decided to go with my father to his office. It wasn't very busy, so I mostly just sat around while my father did other work. It wasn't until almost the end of my father's shift that someone came in.

When she walked in the door, I could immediately recognize Ralph's mother from when I saw her at school a long time ago. When Ralph walked in after her, I could tell that something was wrong.

"Hello," my father said. "Is something wrong?"

Ralph sneezed and I moved as far away from him as possible.

"Are you ill?" my father asked him. Ralph sniffed and nodded.

My father walked over to him and placed his hand on Ralph's forehead.

"You don't feel like you have a fever," my father said. "It's probably just a cold."

It was at this time that the phone rang.

"Jack could you get it please?" my father asked. I stood up from the chair I was sitting in and walked over to the phone. I picked it up and said,

"Hello?"

"Jack?!" There was no mistake in who was on the other end of the line.

"Roger?" I asked.

"Is your dad there?" He asked. There was an edge of panic in his voice that I had never heard before.

"Yeah," I said.

"I need to talk to him," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"I feel something moving under my skin!!" Roger cried.

The thought of what Roger had just said made me flinch. I turned to my father and said,

"It's Roger. He needs to talk to you. He says there's something moving under his skin."

"He said what?" my father asked, walking over to me. He took the phone and began talking to Roger.

After a few seconds, my father hung up the phone. He turned around and said,

"Roger's coming. I think he might have maggots."

"Eww," I said.

"What's that?" Ralph asked.

"They're baby flies," I said. "They look like tiny worms."

"WORMS?!??" Ralph yelled. "Are they inside him?!"

"Yeah," I said. I immediately regretted doing so when he turned extremely pale, then quickly ran to a garbage bin in the room and began vomiting. I knew he was terrified of worms, especially of them being inside him. I also knew that I had just made it worse.

"Thanks, Jack," my father said sarcastically.

"Sorry," I said. When I looked at his mother, she glared at me and I had to look away. I began to feel really bad, but decided it was best just to say nothing. I heard my father talking to Ralph, trying to comfort him, but it didn't seem to be working.

When the door suddenly burst opened several minutes later it made all of us jump. I looked towards the door just in time to see Roger run in. His right hand was bandaged, so I couldn't see much, but by the panicked look on his face, I knew he wasn't okay.

"I need a doctor!" he cried. "They're in my hand!"

"Come over here," my father said. Roger walked over to him and my father led him to a sink in the corner of the room. The sink was close to where Ralph was standing, and so he quickly moved away when Roger came near him. He and I sat on two chairs in the room, and I told him to look away from what was happening with Roger. I did watch what was happening, making sure at the same time to keep Ralph from looking that way.

My father told Roger to hold his hand over the sink, and Roger obeyed. My father then slowly unwrapped the gauze that Roger still had wrapped around his hand.

I nearly vomited when I saw Roger's hand. It was red and swollen, not to mention I could see the little white things coming out of the cut on it. My father looked startled, and I wasn't surprised.

"Oh dear," he said. "This has to be one of the worst cases of this that I've ever seen. It's almost as if you put this cut into a pile of feces."

I'm sure my father meant it as a joke, but when Roger didn't laugh, the tone changed.

"You didn't come into contact with any feces after you got this cut, did you?" my father asked.

"I...cleaned some up," Roger said.

"Did you wash it after?" my father asked.

"There's no running water in my house," Roger replied.

My father sighed and looked down, then looked back at Roger's hand.

"We need to do something to get this cleaned up," he said, "Before they start eating tissue."

"Before they do what?" Ralph said nervously.

"Before they start having issues," I said.

"That doesn't make sense!" Ralph wailed.

"Sure it does," I said.

"How?" Ralph cried.

"I don't know," I said, "But it does."

"That's not what he said!" Ralph cried, "Is it?"

"I don't know," I lied. "I didn't really hear it."

Before Ralph could argue, I looked over at my father, who was beginning to wrap the gauze around Roger's hand again. When he had finished, Roger asked what he should do.

"I'm going to see if there's someone here who can help clean that up," my father replied. Roger nodded, then followed my father as he walked to the door. Before he left, my father turned and said,

"You two can leave if you would like. I'm sure it's just a cold. Some rest should help him feel better."

When my father and Roger left the room, there was silence. Ralph still looked pale, and it wasn't long after that he stood up, walked over to the garbage bin, and began throwing up again. I sighed and stood up as well, then walked over to him and kneeled down next to him.

"Hey," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to worry. The chances of that happening to you are small. Roger's house is...not very clean. Don't be scared of what just happened, okay. It won't happen to you."

Ralph stopped vomiting and looked at me. The color was beginning to return to his face, but there were tears in his eyes. I could tell he was scared, but I didn't know what else to do. I moved away from him, apologized again to his mother, then sat as far away from both of them as I could.

They left a few minutes later without saying anything to me.

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It's my own personal headcanon that Ralph is afraid of worms, there isn't even textual evidence for this I just made it up.