Tom´s Story Read online

  Cats were not especially friendly to water, and much less to cologne.

  But in the end, they always managed to find Chumy unprepared and bathed him in cologne. Chumy leapt, dizzy, and disappeared at the next corner, showing as he pulled away a pair of big black balls that reminded them that mating time would soon come, which was an ordeal.

  Chumy was capable of spend twenty-four hours meowing unremittingly until someone threw a shoe at him. Then, he was silent for a minute or two. After this time, Chumy continued his meows elsewhere.

  His meows imposed on the darkness of the night.

  Samantha opened the can of Chumy's food by pulling on a ring, since it was the easy open type, and poured a part of it into Chumy's plate. He rushed at his plate, licking it with disproportionate anxiety.

  "It was hungry as fuck" Samantha said, putting the can on the table.

  Louis walked over to the refrigerator, probably expecting it to be empty, and it was when he opened the huge white door on one side of it. It had two doors and a small faucet in one of them, inside some sort of open window. But what Louis really wanted to check is that it worked. And it worked. As he opened the door on the right side, a faint light lit his face, forward and curious. He showed a smile to the inside of the empty fridge when he found that it really worked, with a slight purr from the back.

  "My dear, the fridge is working properly" Louis announced, still in the fridge. His voice sounded hollow and cracked.

  "Why shouldn't it work?" Eillen was surprised. She had already made the eggs and was about to throw it on three plates.

  "You know. They don't always leave things working properly."

  "Come now. Sit where you can and have breakfast. A long and hard day's work awaits us." She glanced at all the boxes on the floor and on the table. She glanced over her shoulder and watched as more and more boxes and furniture covered the linoleum of the living room.

  Louis closed the refrigerator door and returned to the side of the table, rubbing his hands together.

  "Scrambled eggs. It's not much, but hunger isn't better" he said as he removed a box from the top of a chair.

  "I have to locate a grocery store before noon" Eillen explained.

  "Of course you do" Samantha said. "I'm starving."

  "Meanwhile, you and dad fix this a bit. I'll take Tony and look for the grocery store."

  "Good!" Tony exclaimed, raising his hands.

  Chumy was licking the bottom of his plate. He lifted his head and looked at Samantha with green eyes. Then, he leaped into her lap.

  "Chumy, get out of here. I'm having breakfast."

  Chumy jumped to the ground and began to inspect the house. There were boxes everywhere. Furniture and pieces of these rested on the wall, others were lying on the floor. There were documents. And blocking the street door was a wooden slat to prevent the door from closing.

  Neither Louis nor Eillen nor anyone else would have noticed it the night before. They were exhausted and had spent most of their time preparing the mattresses upstairs in the rooms. And Chumy was with them, so everything was supposed to be fine.

  That night, they had gone to bed without supper.

  Next morning, Chumy slipped through the doorway, and when he came face to face with the sun that July morning, his eyes narrowed and his pupils turned into a petty vertical crack.

  He went out into the street and started down the neglected garden towards Tom's house.

  15

  When Tom adopted Charlie's identity, anything could happen, from burning a trashcan to nailing a cat to the door with a large, sharp kitchen knife, not caring if the police could take his fingerprints. Tom was the last suspect, because no one could believe he did such a thing. But they did not know Charlie, his thirteen-year-old hooligan identity.

  The psychiatrist's tirade would be repeated, but Tom showed no identity even though she knew he was suffering from this disease. Although he was diagnosed with a dissociative identity disorder, she had failed to see him adopt any of his personalities at all, either complete or partial. And she could only know what he thought in view of the personality disorders he had, such as schizotypal, bipolar or delusional, among others. Too many disorders for a person who suffered a slight mental retardation or so big to reduce him to a bundle locked in his room, talking like a frightened, restless and at the same time rebellious boy who sometimes talked to himself. If there was anything worse in him, it was all those awful disorders. And them, who did not leave him in peace, those who came to seek him, groping the window.

  Purple arms and hands with bony fingers

  Tom saw them and did not need to adopt any personality for it. That was the worst of it. And though everyone in Road House gossiped about Tom's unleashed madness, which set him as a moron, nobody knew anything about his real problem. His mother had dropped, by her clumsy tongue, some facts when she went to the store "Everything for your house of Mr. Mulder" to buy eggs and bacon, on a binge so hard she could not stand without grabbing a street lamp for support. All the usual customers from the shop, with a surprisingly long name-they called it Mulder for short-they knew. She was an old crazy woman, alcoholic and religious in equal parts. Without a husband, let that be clear. Did anyone talk about her husband?

  One day he left for tobacco. It was better than saying that he died of cancer.

  Meanwhile, a cat appeared nailed on the door of one of the houses, two blocks below where he lived.

  16

  After showering, badly by the way since water hardly reached him because he was afraid of it, Tom had put back on the same green pants and the same T-shirt with Tom and Jerry smiling on his chest.

  He had returned to his room again.

  Momma was downstairs doing something in the kitchen, mainly boozing. In a moment, she would go out the door, eaten by time, and get lost in the street to the cross with Balfour Avenue, to get more provisions and Bourbon in the grocery store next door. Well, it was actually two blocks away.

  Then, Tom would be alone at home as was customary every day.

  He leaned against the windowpane with both hands, hoping to see his new neighbor lying on the mattress and those two things emerging from her chest.

  ...These two broad, pointy masses had aroused in Tom an irrelevant interest.

  But she was no longer there.

  Tom stepped away from the window and put a finger in his nose.

  "She not there" he muttered under her breath as he pulled out a long, sticky snot. He stared at it for a while, then pressed it on the window. "Don't move."

  He plunged into his limited thoughts, remembering the two bundles of his new neighbor. When he remembered it, a thrill filled him.

  17

  To what extent did his slight mental retardation affect Tom's life? Or was it a great mental retardation? Amelia knew him very well in that respect, and she knew just how far Tom could go and how its influence was on him. Bad people called him a moron, but are not there more crazy people outside than inside? Every morning in the newspaper you could read that a man had killed and maimed his wife. This man did not have a criminal record or previous complaints of abuse. This man had simply got up one sunny morning and decided it was best to kill her. There were also men who were armed to the teeth and took the life of anyone who crossed their path, randomly, without any connection with those humble people. There were worse people, even mothers who decided to drown their children in the bathtub because they said they were going through depression. And all those ex-husbands who could not stand jealousy and waited for their ex-wives, crouched in the corner with a can of acid...

  Amelia knew that Tom was not like that, or at least she assumed it, since she did not know Tom well. Well, she did know about his mental retardation limits, but she did not know much about his identities. She had heard about the latter in a conversation at home, but she did not care. Tom would tell her some things later. Amelia loved Tom; she loved him as her own brother, and so she cared for him whenever she could. She always did unt
il Stella the slut forbid her to enter their house. Then, she started using the computer. Tom had one and knew how to use it. He had a Facebook profile and constantly wrote about his moods and posted more or less innocent things. One day, he started writing about his neighbor. Nobody read that post, not even his cousin Amelia. It was so innocent that it almost felt clueless. However, one day he also wrote strange things, strange behaviors, and he began to upload stranger and even frightening pictures. Nobody saw that either. Amelia began to worry a little and began to call him more often to ask how he was. Or was it the other way around? Was it Tom who told him things he remembered, vague things, almost nonexistent? Tom knew how to handle high-tech devices and how to read and write, except that he did not quite understand everything he read and obviously wrote poorly. But that did not matter. Was Tom okay? Hell, no. The eighteen-year-old man was still a child. In short, he was a man trapped in the mind of a child. The stuttering was caused by medication. Until the new identities issue.

  The psychiatrist had diagnosed him a slight degree of mental retardation. It is also measured in degrees, and Tom had all the help and all the attention of a psychiatrist.

  "The degrees or levels of retardation such as your child suffers are classified by the ICD-10 as follows" the psychiatrist explained to Stella. "Mild mental retardation is assessed between fifty to sixty-nine on the IQ scale" he emphasized 'IQ.' "The value set from thirty-five to forty-nine is considered as moderate mental retardation. Severe mental retardation is set from twenty to thirty four. Deep mental retardation gives values smaller than twenty, Mrs. Stella, and your son is within the first values."

  Stella remembered the psychiatrist's tirade, which was not far from hers. She opened her eyes wider and pressed her lips together in an act of evident weakness.

  "What is mild mental retardation?" The psychiatrist asked, and before Stella shrugged, he continued. “What your child has is also known as mental weakness, mild mental sub normality, mild oligophrenia, delay."

  "Oh!"

  "Patients who show the problem of your son are patients who acquire language late, although they are able to maintain a conversation and, therefore, to express themselves in everyday life."

  "Oh!"

  "A great part of these patients achieves independence for personal care, like eating, washing, dressing, and sphincters control. Greatest difficulties arise in school activities, especially in reading and writing. This type of mild mental retardation allows patients to perform in practical tasks, more frequently in semi-skilled manual work."

  "Like what?" Stella asked, slipping into the chair.

  "For example, handling a mobile phone, playing a video game, or using a computer."

  "Oh!"

  "Besides, what your child suffers may affect his cultural and social adaptation, in addition to having physical deformities, which is not the case of your son" the psychiatrist showed a smile from ear to ear.

  "My son has all his fingers and his face in place" Stella teased, smiling.

  "Patients as your son can communicate using speech both orally and in writing, although they will present specific deficits or problems, such as dyslalias ..."

  "Dys... what?" Stella frowned in the petty light of the office.

  The psychiatrist did not answer her question and continued with his verbiage.

  "With appropriate support, they can reach vocational or even high school education."

  "My son doesn't go to school. Everyone makes fun of him" Stella explained as she settled back into the chair.

  "That's bad" the psychiatrist said, raising his hand and adding. "As for aspects of personality, they are often stubborn, adamant, often, as a way to react to their limited capacity for analysis and reasoning. Their will may be scarce, and they can be easily manipulated and influenced by other people with few scruples and, therefore, induced to commit hostile acts."

  "Ummm" Stella nodded. Tell me about it, she thought with a bitter taste in her mouth.

  The psychiatrist finally finished his lecture.

  "These patients, as they feel rejected like your son Tom, often prefer to relate to younger ones they can control. Those with a higher intellectual level, being more aware of their limitations, feel self-conscious, sad, and sullen."

  Stella rose from the chair.

  "Thank you, Mr...." Stella did not know the name of the psychiatrist and was silent for his reply.

  "Mr. Donald."

  "Thank you, Mr. Donald" she reached out to shake his hand. Again, she felt she needed a drink. Those harangues, released like an enormous stream of water, left her worse than she was when she entered the office.

  But Amelia did understand this part of Tom. The one she knew. However, she was not aware of the personality and identity disorder. Tom’s ability to adopt multiple personalities. No, she did not know about that.

  18

  Chumy was there.

  In the garden of house No. 3 on Culver Street. Sneaking and slowly advancing with his tail pointing to the sky.

  Stella had left the door open, and Chumy came in through it.

  Another fucking accident.

  But destiny chooses the facts and characters of its new play, about to begin.

  He crossed the room and went up the stairs as if he had always been there. He stopped in the hallway.

  From a corner of Tom's room, little eyes stared at the cat with disgusted disdain.

  Chumy sniffed the air. Maybe he smelled danger. Maybe he just smelled Tom, who stank considerably from one end of his room.

  Tom moved slowly toward the cat.

  "Cat. Cat..." he whispered as he came toward him, sliding on the floor like a lizard with his heavy body that creaked on the linoleum.

  This alerted Chumy and he turned his head. Tom was relatively too close. Maybe close enough to catch him. But his clumsiness and slowness allowed Chumy to jump down two steps at once. Tom hit his face on the ground with a thud, and pain filled in his brain.

  "Auuuuuuch. Cat. Buh... bad cat."

  Tom stood awkwardly, his mouth twisted in a wince. Barefoot, he slid over the linoleum and started down the stairs heavily.

  Chumy came down the stairs with ease and stopped in the living room, turning to Tom, who was slow and moaning down the stairs, snorting like a beast.

  "Buuh... bad cat."

  When he finally reached the living room, Chumy had hidden among the sofas. Tom whistled a couple of times as he searched it with innocent and mischievous eyes.

  "Buuuh... bad, bad, bad cat."

  He walked over to him, and Chumy jumped on the couch.

  "Guh... got you" Tom lunged at him, and all he could do was collapse onto the couch. Chumy had disappeared in a jump two seconds earlier, very easily. In a way, Chumy, in the depths of his mysterious mind, would know that Tom was clumsy and slow, and that he did not pose any harm, even though he had evil intentions.

  Naughty intentions, of course.

  But his craze for nailing cats to the doors had nothing funny about it. It should be noted that he did not do it when he was Tom, but another identity, Charlie.

  Chumy jumped on him and licked his ear. Tom raised his hand, intending to grab him, and hit his face as Chumy pulled away in time.

  "Caaaat..."

  An eternity later, Tom got up from the sofa and saw that Chumy was watching him with his green eyes from one end of the room.

  Tom smiled and moved toward him.

  19

  Needless to say, Chumy escaped a good one. Charlie's identity, the thug teenager, had not manifested in Tom when the cat stared at him with his deep green eyes. Fortunately for the cat, life was still going on for the moment, and Charlie had not grabbed him by the neck, stabbed him with a knife, and nailed him on the flat wood of his new neighbor's door.

  That was called animal abuse and it was horrible. But Charlie had clear ideas, and his great hobby was to destroy, to break, and to kill. He was like the teenager of Jack's identity. Both strangely manifested gratuitous violence and
an obsession for destruction and, what was worse, death. He liked to look at death face to face and to experience how someone got out of the body and exhaled for the last time. In a human being, it was a vague whistle. In a cat, it was a tired, husky, slow rumble that disappeared into nowhere.

  But the most terrifying identity was about to surface and complete. Justin. Tom continued with his life in the meantime.

  20

  "Where's Chumy?" Samantha asked in surprise.

  "He must be in some box. With all the mess around here" Eillen said as she opened a box.

  "We would have seen him" Samantha said again in surprise. "Chumy is noted. I haven't heard any noise for a while. Remember last night how he was with the boxes."

  "Yes" Eillen admitted. "The mess he made with the paper."

  "Exactly!" Samantha cried. Then, she noticed that the front door was ajar. "Did you open the door?"

  "Not yet."

  "Is dad out there?"

  "No, he's upstairs. He has insisted that the first thing he will mount is our bedroom."

  "Where's Tony?" Samantha asked in alarm, fearing the worst.

  "Upstairs, with your father."

  "So the door has been open all night?"

  Eillen looked up in surprise and, after a long silence, nodded.

  "Ooooh, Chumy!" Samantha ran to the door.

  21

  "Why do you do aberrant things to cats?" The psychiatrist asked him with tight lips.

  Tom looked surprised. Had he done anything? What did the psychiatrist mean about cats? Did he understand anything about those harangues that were blowing in his brain? Who had told him? His mother, of course.

  I saw you with blood stained hands the morning the cat appeared nailed on...

  Remember, Tom, if you have ever acted as someone else; tell me.

  "I don't nuh... know what you're tuh... talking about" Tom said slowly, before his mother's stunned gaze.