THE NOTHING THAT COMES BACK
Robert Lopez
If I had a television to watch I’m certain I would get better right away. I’m certain it’s the lack of television is what’s wrong with me here. If I had one I would watch boxing and baseball and movies like Charlie and I used to do by ourselves.
I am probably the best in all of downstate Alaska at watching television.
Charlie and I would have contests to see who was better. The rules were you had to watch the television without getting up from the couch. You couldn’t go to the kitchen for sandwiches and coleslaw and you couldn’t go to the bathroom either.
My record was over nine hours which Charlie could never come close to. Charlie would get impatient and leave himself open like always.
Yesterday I drew a tic-tac-toe board on the wall and challenged the doctor to a game. I said whoever wins gets his own air conditioner.
I said I will even let you be X okay.
Should the phone ring I will say the hello how are you and listen to the words that come back if there are words or I will listen to the nothing that comes back if there is nothing but what I won’t do is sound like an MP or security guard anymore. I have had it with security guards and MPs. They are never outside my door patrolling up and down for intruders especially when you need them.
Sometimes I measure myself against a wall like Mother did with Charlie and me when we were kids. Every year Mother would have us stand with our backs to her closet wall and she would mark in chalk how tall we were. She’d mark Charlie in blue chalk and me in yellow and that’s how you could tell us apart.
Charlie was always taller because he was older and not sickly.
So here in this room I am not getting any taller which doesn’t surprise me.
I have always been too short for my own good.
It was always hard for me during our television watching contests because I always had to go to the bathroom too much. It’s the same way here.
I can never spend the whole day drawing like I want to because I always have to interrupt myself to go to the bathroom. What happens is I knock twice on the window and this way they know to come in here and escort me to the bathroom.
They lead me down a dark corridor and into the bathroom and they wait outside the door for me just like Mother. Sometimes they even say are you okay in there and I tell them I’m busy I’ll have to call them back.
They like it when I draw on the walls here. They like the hands especially and how I know this is they never come in here to stop me when I’m drawing.
The only time I tried meditating in here they came in to stop me which proves another point about these people.
What happened was after they brought me my morning pills I made my bed right after taking them. Usually I pick up a piece of chalk and start to draw after taking my pills so they must’ve known something was wrong.
My last drawing had a mother stick figure losing her job because her stick boss was cruel and unusual. How I drew this was I had the stick boss showing his stick situation to the mother stick figure and he says what do you think about this.
What I never do is make my bed in the morning because why bother and also I was never any good at making beds. Mother taught us how to make our own beds and this was probably the only thing Charlie was better at than me.
I had trouble lining up the sheets so that they weren’t hanging over the sides and falling onto the floor. Charlie never had this problem himself but he had his own share of problems because after all this is Charlie we’re talking about.
So I made my bed the best I could and yes the sheets were uneven but at least I tried. What I did next was sit on the bed like I used to on our living room sofa with Charlie whenever we meditated. I sat up straight exactly like Charlie taught me and closed my eyes and listened to the nothing.
I decided I was going to do this until I fell over from hunger or exhaustion or whatever it was that would make me fall over.
I had my eyes closed and listened to the nothing forever that morning and right in the middle of it is when they came in here and stopped me.
How they did this was four of them came in here and picked me up off the bed and sat me down in a chair. Then the doctor came in afterwards and asked me what I was doing and I said to him I was meditating so what’s wrong with that.
He said we don’t want you doing that here and he gave me another pill and the four who picked me up before picked me up again and put me back in bed and tucked me in goodnight.
Should the phone ring it might be camp on the other end. I will say hello camp how are you. Camp will ask to speak to Mother and I will ask to speak to Charlie. I will say what have you done with Charlie camp and why isn’t he getting better. Camp will say put your Mother on the phone and I will tell camp to go fuck itself instead.
The bathroom here is nothing like the bathroom we had at home with Mother.
This bathroom has white tile and white walls and no shower inside it. There is a urinal and toilet and two sinks with hot and cold running water except it takes forever for the hot water to get hot.
We never had this problem at home and we had a shower and bathtub too.
How I take a shower here is they come in and give me a sponge bath instead. What happens is two of them hold me down and another one runs a sponge over my body. I tell them this is cruel and unusual which is probably why they seem to enjoy it.
They do this to me once a month.
I don’t have a calendar or clock in here so I don’t actually know how often they sponge me down.
They never do it how Mother used to when I was sick with fever. Whenever I was sick with fever Mother would sponge my head and chest to cool me off.
She never ran the sponge over my situation which is what they do here whenever they give me a sponge bath. I tell them have you no shame whenever they do this.
Whenever Charlie was away camp is where Mother said he was though I’m not sure it’s true. I think Mother said Charlie was at camp to make me jealous. Otherwise she said it so I would behave more like Charlie myself. She used to say why can’t you be more like your brother Charlie. I forget what I was doing when she would say this.
I was probably holding my situation to show her the chafed parts if I had to guess.
I think if I behaved more like Charlie then I too would be sent away to camp.
Meaning also that if I didn’t chafe like Charlie and if camp was actually where Charlie was in the first place.
Also Mother didn’t like it how allergic I was to the food she cooked for us. This is one of the reasons I was sickly growing up.
Charlie said he wore a special kind of cotton uniform at camp. He said they made everyone wear one whether they wanted to or not because they were all part of a team now. Charlie didn’t like teams which is why he always meditated and boxed instead.
For instance Charlie only joined the baseball team that one summer. He said there wasn’t enough violence in baseball and he didn’t like having coaches and teammates.
Like me Charlie wasn’t a good second basemen. Charlie wasn’t afraid of the ball killing him like I was but you wouldn’t know that from the way he played. It was like he was trying to field a live grenade half the time.
The only time I wasn’t embarrassed of Charlie as a second basemen was when he got beaned and charged the mound. First he threw the bat at the pitcher and then his helmet but both the bat and helmet missed because Charlie threw like a girl. This was another reason I was embarrassed to call him my brother.
So there’s Charlie charging the mound and I’m yelling from the bleachers keep your goddamned left up this time Charlie.
That was the end of his baseball career and we both said good riddance to that on the way home.
But like me again Charlie looked especially handsome in his baseball uniform so we always had that to fall back on.
Charlie called his camp uniform a jumpsuit and he said it was the kind Chinese karate fighters would wear in the movies. I asked him once what color belt he was and he said they wouldn’t let anyone wear belts so it didn’t matter. I asked him how he kept his pants from falling down and he said that’s why they make us wear jumpsuits instead.
Charlie didn’t say if he sweated in that suit and I didn’t ask because Charlie didn’t like to talk about sweat. I asked him about sweat one time and he smacked me across the nose and said you shouldn’t ask questions like that about people. So I don’t know if he did sweat in that jumpsuit and if he did did he chafe too.
If he did chafe it was probably the counselors who brought him powder.
I can see Charlie holding his situation while some counselor in a white coat and clipboard applied the powder for him.
Charlie looking like he did on the canvas after a vicious knockout.
Charlie and I would watch karate movies whenever there weren’t any boxing or bullfighting movies on for us. Charlie liked it how I could sound like one of those Chinese karate fighters because of my great ear. He was on the floor whenever I did a Chinese karate fighter for him. How I did this is I would bow to Charlie first and then rise up into a fancy karate move where I would kick with my right leg and land on my left all the while chopping the air with my bare hands. Then I would move my lips around fast and say something like asshole you have disgraced my sister’s honor. The sister was always a peasant girl from a fishing village and the Chinese karate fighter was her older brother.
On the floor Charlie told me they didn’t call each other asshole instead they said ah so you have disgraced my sister’s honor.
He said he liked his jumpsuit because this way he didn’t have to decide what to wear everyday. He said it was comfortable and good for meditating in though he didn’t meditate anymore. When I asked him why not he said it was none of my business.
Charlie would say it was none of my business right before going into his room to masturbate so I always knew what he meant by that.
This morning I drew a stick Charlie inside the ring with a stick Muhammed Ali. How you can tell it’s Charlie is he is scared to death and how you can tell it’s Muhammed Ali is he isn’t.
I had Muhammed Ali dance rings around Charlie and then Charlie gets impatient like always and Ali knocks him out with a wicked combination. The next drawing has Charlie on the canvas and there’s Ali dancing over him. He is taunting Charlie and who could blame him.
If you look off to the corner you can see stick me climbing through the ropes to wake Charlie up. I have a stick water bottle in my hand and I’m about to squirt Charlie and tell him he’s lucky to be alive.