Chapter 123

The sound of Jimmy crying had become such a part of Elliott’s existence the last six months, he hardly even noticed it anymore. When he woke up in the morning, Jimmy was crying. When he ate his breakfast, lunch if he was lucky, and maybe some dinner (or tore through the cupboards and found whatever was edible once his mom and Bob were passed out) Jimmy was crying. When he crawled under his thin, moth-eaten blanket at night, Jimmy was crying. The noise had become the background music of his life, much like the old records he’d once heard his grandfather play on the Victrola when they’d visited his big house in Tulsa three Christmases ago.
But now, he realized Jimmy’s crying probably wasn’t supposed to sound so shrill or be so constant. He wasn’t even sure if he’d be able to reach over the top of the crib, but he scurried into the bedroom Mom shared with Bob—well, had shared with him anyhow—to check on his baby brother.
A big black bug with long antennas climbed the side of a bottle on the dresser, the same one Elliott had seen his mom put there last Tuesday. Jimmy’s screeching was even louder in here. The dim nightlight across the room illuminated the crib, and he could see Jimmy had shit himself something awful. It covered his pajamas and stained the clown sheets on his mattress. The baby blanket the lady from the donation place had brought for him was kicked down to the end of the bed, but it looked like it had not escaped the shit storm.
“Jesus, Jimmy,” Elliott muttered, gagging from the smell. “What happened?”
Jimmy’s only answer was to continue to shriek.
“Mommy, he pooped! A lot!” Elliott shouted.
“Then change his goddamn diaper!” came her slurred response.
Elliott had never changed a diaper before, and something told him he’d have to do more than just change Jimmy’s diaper under the circumstances, but his mother wasn’t going to be any help. Muttering under his breath about how gross this situation was, Elliott reached into the bed and found his fingertips couldn’t quite reach the wiggling, red-faced baby. He said that word he’d gotten in trouble for saying before, quietly enough he knew his mom couldn’t hear, and looked around for a solution.
His mom’s stool, the one she sat on to put her makeup on every day, whether she was going out or not, seemed like a viable option, so he dragged it across the room and climbed on top of it. Carefully, he reached into the bed and plucked the baby up, holding him at arm’s length. Jimmy’s head flopped backward slightly, but then he began to scream again, and his body became so rigid, it came back forward.
“Why you gotta scream all the time?” Elliott asked, taking his baby brother over to his mom’s unmade bed and laying him down on the sheets, shit and all. Once his hands were empty, he inspected them, grossed out that some of the poop had gotten on his thumb. He looked around and saw one of the cloths his mom used to wipe the baby whenever she did this herself and scraped the offensive goo off on it. Then, he grabbed a clean diaper and some pins from where his mom kept them and set about changing the baby’s diaper.
It took him several minutes just to get the old nappy off, to clean his brother up the best he could without leaving to get water, and to get a new diaper on him. Several pokes in his thumb had taught him how not to use the pins. Elliott had been hopeful that changing the diaper would’ve gotten the child to stop screaming, but that was not the case. Putting him in new clothes hadn’t helped either.
By the time Jimmy was cleaned and dressed, Elliott was about out of ideas. He looked around the room and spied the bottle. The bug was long gone, so he thought maybe that might make Jimmy feel better. Elliott went to pick it up, but it stuck slightly to the dresser, and he had to pull it off.
Remembering what his grandpa had told him about spoiled milk, he took a whiff of it and nearly threw up. This bottle wasn’t going to work. “I’ll be right back, Jimmy,” Elliott said, looking at the squirmy baby on the bed. Realizing he was managing to work his way close to the edge, he went over and scooted the baby back to the middle of the bed and then took the stinky bottle into the kitchen.
His mom was still sitting on the floor next to the broken picture, which she was clutching to her chest and sobbing. He knew she’d been really sad when his grandma had died a few years ago, and now that grandpa couldn’t really remember his daughter’s name anymore, they didn’t go and visit. Elliott’s mom looked less scary and more like a broken porcelain doll as blood dripped from her foot onto the orange carpet. She was twisting the ring on her finger, the special one her mother had given her. It was gold with a pink flower on it, and she wore it all the time.
Careful of the glass, Elliott dropped to his knees next to her for a minute, the worn knees of his flannel pajama protecting him against any tiny bits he may not have seen. “Mommy?” he asked quietly, “is there anything I can do?”
Arlene Harold didn’t say anything, only continued to cry.
After a moment, Elliott patted her lovingly on the arm, took the stinky bottle into the kitchen, and tried to remember how to make a new one. Even though the lights were on when he walked in, there was a scurry of those same black and brown bugs across the counters when he entered the room, and Elliott shouted at them to, “Get!”
He’d seen his mom make bottles lots of times, but he wasn’t sure how much water to put in and how much of Jimmy’s special milk. He wished he knew how to read so he could look at the can, but since he couldn’t, the words on the label didn’t help. He did his best to mix it so it looked the same as he remembered it. Turning on the stove to heat it wasn’t easy because the gas in the burner didn’t always catch. His mom cursed the burner almost as much as she cursed her children. It finally caught, though, and he poured the liquid in. He remembered you had to stir it the whole time. The one time Bob had made a bottle, his mom had screamed, “God dammit, Bob, you have to stir it, or it’ll burn!” So Elliott stirred the whole time until the milk seemed warm.
Then, he had to find a clean bottle. The sink was full of bottles, but none of them were clean. He checked the cupboards but couldn’t find any there. With a sigh, he turned the water on in the sink, and holding his breath, he dumped the lumpy contents of the bottle he’d carried in with him into the sink. It smelled rancid, and the scent made him gag again, but he didn’t throw up, and for once he felt lucky there was nothing in his stomach. He used some soap and the bottle brush to clean out the bottle the best he could, but like the shit, there was only so much he could do. Once it was clean-ish, he carried it back over to the stove and poured the warm milk in.
He’d watched his mom burn her arm lots of times checking to see if the milk was too hot. He really didn’t want to do that since it seemed to hurt, but he also didn’t want Jimmy to burn his mouth. Hopefully, cleaning the bottle had given it enough time to cool down. Scrunching up his face and peering at his wrist with one eye open, he shook a little bit of milk onto his arm. It was warm, but it didn’t hurt. Satisfied with his work, he double checked he’d turned the burner off and headed to the bedroom.
How anyone could scream as much as his baby brother without losing their voice was beyond Elliott, but Jimmy was still screeching when he entered the room. He had worked his way back over to the edge of the bed, and one of his scrawny legs had kicked over the side. “Just in time, Jimbo,” the little boy muttered. Careful to avoid the shit spot on the sheets, Elliott, skootched the baby back toward the middle of the bed, which was big enough for two full grown people, even though the springs poked through in a few places, and popped the bottle into Jimmy’s mouth.
The baby began to suck furiously on the nipple, as if he hadn’t eaten in years. “Good grief, Brother!” Elliott muttered. “You’re skinny now, but you keep eating like that, you’ll be a little piggy soon. Mommy will be calling you chunky, too.”
Jimmy’s only answer was to suck down more of the milk. With one hand on the bottle, Elliott tucked his other arm under his head and let out a loud yawn. He couldn’t hear the sounds of his mom crying from the living room anymore and thought she might’ve passed out again. Elliott didn’t know what he would do when Jimmy needed another bottle or a clean diaper, but he thought he would probably be the one to figure it out. His head was full of worry as his eyelashes flickered down over his weary eyes a few times, and he finally nodded off, still grasping the bottle for his baby brother.