Jimmy, how he wants a piece of sun folded in his hands

This day, Jimmy’s father, he gets away from himself, pins his own arms away from his sides and can’t stop raising his voice, until it lifts the roof off their house and his lungs, Jimmy’s, from listening deafly to so many words, they explode.

Jimmy and his father, this way, the way that they live.

Jimmy’s mother, Jimmy’s father’s wife, when she was here and the words they went up like this, the shingles on the top of their house creaking, betraying a sudden movement, the lifting about to come, she would touch both of their arms, the father’s raised biceps, the flex of him, and Jimmy’s, his boyhood, the soft of his skin. She would lay hands on them, and Jimmy and Jimmy’s father, they would both stop, fade to silence, and walk in opposite directions.

Jimmy’s mother, Jimmy’s father’s wife.

The road to their house it is lined sometimes with parked cars and that means that someone has been born, or turned another year older, or someone, like Jimmy knows, has died. These are the only things that bring cars like this, in all these lines, to the sides of their streets, tot their neighbor’s houses, to this town. Jimmy’s town. Jimmy’s father’s town. The place where Jimmy’s mother, she used to live.

When it is a baby, the people they look happy and some of them glowing and the presents come in pastel colors and white ribbons, giant bows, square boxes and sometimes bags with cards, puffing out like proud chests.

Jimmy, he doesn’t remember when he was born, how it all came out, him, like this, like how Jimmy is and his father, braying like cattle in the fields.

And when it is a birthday, when someone is one year older, it is presents too or just cards and people, they hold hands and whisper as they walk up the drive. And the people who come they come in spurts and drives, like unsteady rain. With babies it is always all at once and for days sometimes. With birthdays, like this, stragglers and light coming going.

The hearing, in Jimmy’s ears, it is like that, waves moving, the tide growing and then loosening, erasing their castles in sand.

Or when someone has died, and this is what people are coming for, to hold the persons who have lost another of their persons, they bring usually nothing or, if they bring anything, it is a tray of food, cold meats curved over on themselves, cheese and crackers, sometimes a vine of grapes on a white plate. And all of these people, they wear black and don’t say anything as they walk up the sidewalk, through the open front door, into the arms of people who are still here.

Jimmy hugs himself by wrapping one arm over the other, onto his back, so that from behind it looks like Jimmy might actually have someone to hold on to.

When his mother died, his father, he locked their door and wouldn’t let anyone in. So the family, the people that Jimmy didn’t know but who came from other towns, far away from their town, those people ate the cold meat and cheese and crackers out on the driveway, holding candles and crying, their tears coming not like rain but like a slow leak of air, when the tire is going to be flat but isn’t yet. And Jimmy, he watched them, unsure about why his father had locked them out, wondering if they had grapes, thinking it was too hot to make snowmen.

The sun, it shines, and Jimmy, he feels it burning on his neck.

When his father, Jimmy’s father, he gets out of hand, the sentences line up and become soldiers, soldiering down Jimmy’s throat, into his stomach, his head, until Jimmy, he makes the sound of choking, and his father, he backs away, up the stairs and into that cold room, where the bed is too big for just one person and the sheets they are trimmed in ice, even in this heat, this kind of summer.

Jimmy, he would make snowmen all year if he could, taking turns putting objects into their faces, turning sticks and rocks into eyes, making an army of men and snow on their white lawn.

He wanted to open the door, Jimmy, on the day that his mother died, when all those heels and dress shoes came rumbling to their front door, but Jimmy’s father, he said nothing and the look in his eyes was the greatest lock Jimmy had ever known, and it bound his wrists and his feet, it held together his lips and sealed their speaking, the day Jimmy started to go deaf.

And from then on, when people talk to him, to Jimmy, sometimes he hears and sometimes he doesn’t. The sound, it goes in like a car, vibrating and nearly rattling apart, and if Jimmy really listens, he will hear some of the words at least that all these people they say. Words of his teacher, the kids at school, the people he passes on their town sidewalk, past all the windows where Jimmy’s reflection is skewed and misperceived, like how Jimmy feels most days, all days if not most.

And this day, when Jimmy’s father he got away from himself, he said something about their dead mother, his dead wife, and Jimmy, his ears went out again, and all that came was a thunder of water, a river, Jimmy behind his eyes fishing for a fish that might be his mother. His father he yelled and screamed but their hands never touched, he never took Jimmy’s arm, he never bent down to make it level.

His voice came out in a wind, winding through Jimmy’s hollow ears.

And his father, he used his voice until his eyes, Jimmy’s father’s, they went blurry and then white, snowed into his head.

This is the new way they part, the new directions they take, when the world comes up at them and they are lunging into each other’s heads, they go deaf and blind, the house silent and dark for another day, another night, the doors locked to the outside world and the cars, all the lines out on the street, they eventually go away, leave this town like it was for them, for Jimmy and his father, forever penning their own constant march.