Eduardo
Eduardo got fired today. Eduardo volunteered at a daycare and the kids loved Eduardo. He’s sitting on the couch, holding a beer and staring into the holes of the pull tab, his fourth one in an hour. We haven’t talked about the details since I picked him up this evening.
I’m in the kitchen of our studio apartment, walking through the living area only to grab a plate off the table and set it in the sink as I wash the dishes. Eduardo’s got basketball on the TV like usual but he’s not looking up from his beer. I’m not gonna ask Eduardo about calling his AA sponsor, Daphne. Things have been tense after last Wednesday night when Eduardo shot a bottle rocket into his own face in the middle of the street. I haven’t asked, but I think it was a suicide attempt. Eduardo hasn’t seen a doctor or any kind of professional about his injury, or about anything ever. Eduardo is a chimpanzee.
I bought Eduardo off Craigslist as a bit five years ago, to the panic of my then-four-roommates, who were game until Eduardo, whimpering inside a rusted cage, was dropped at our front steps. I was the one who fed him, bathed him, played with balls and toys with him before and after classes. That Fourth of July, a fault firework accidentally exploded against the back of his head and the first thing he did when he came to was whisper, “God.”
I don’t even know how Eduardo got the bottle rocket he shot himself with— you have to cross the state border to buy fireworks ‘cause they’re illegal in the city. Eduardo doesn’t have a car or a driver’s license. Eduardo doesn’t have friends besides me. I don’t have friends besides Eduardo, not since he started drinking and getting into fights at parties with anyone who was taller than him, which was most people at parties because Eduardo is less than four feet tall. Eduardo and I were kicked out when the lease was up.
Eduardo’s a good guy when he’s sober. Between AA meetings in the nearby church basement and his volunteer shifts at the daycare, he would just stay in his room— it’s really a closet with a bed and some shelving in our studio— reading a dozen novels a week, working out with my dumbbells in the makeshift gym corner or watching basketball on our couch. He’s a great listener when I’m venting about my coworkers from the library. He’s a chimp of few words.
He’s spacing out into the hole of his beer can, or, I should say, my beer can since I bought those thinking I’d be the only one having them. Was he aggressive with a parent at the daycare? Did one of the teachers offer him a drink on their break? He didn’t smell like alcohol on the car ride home. Was it discrimination of some kind?
Now I’m sitting on the couch next to Eduardo. We watch basketball through live recordings off YouTubeTV— the recording is over, Luka Dončić’s bared teeth frozen in place.
“Who won? Mavs?” I ask.
Eduardo’s index finger is tracing the top of his beer can. After a long silence, Eduardo clears his throat and says:
“I threw my shit at a fucking kid, man. I don’t know why— I just fucking did it.” After a moment, he adds, “and I love that fucking kid.”
Eduardo looks up at me. The scar from last week’s bottle rocket sits right under his left eye, shaped like a Jolly Rancher— a dark rectangle with cracks of burnt tissue poking from the sides. Eduardo breaks into tears when our eyes meet, but there are no tears, only pained sounds while his lips contort. I think he’s seen me cry so many times with all my ups and downs that he’s trying to cry, too, but he biologically can’t.
“You’re a chimp, Eduardo.”
He blinks.
“Like, like you’re a chimp,” I continue. “And chimps, you know, you—”
“What do you mean, I’m a chimp?”
“I mean, it’s not your fault, Eduardo.”
“No, tell me. What do you mean, I’m a chimp? What’s that supposed to mean? I’m, like, a monkey? What the fuck are you talking about? What does that—”
“Yes, okay, I mean, you’re a chimpanzee.”
“Fuck you!”
Eduardo’s standing on the couch, whooping between breaths. He hasn’t been like this in years. It’s like he doesn’t even see me, he’s just staring down some threat. I lean back but my foot knocks a half-empty beer onto the floor and when I move to pick it up, Eduardo’s got the same face Dončić has got on the TV, except Eduardo’s canines are massive and hot with spit and inches away from me.
An ice cream truck’s distorted song dances in through an open window. It’s been playing but now it’s close. Now it stops and Eduardo stops. He curls onto the floor, feet in the puddle of beer, hands over his face.
“God,” I hear him say. “Ah, Christ.”
I walk outside and line up behind a mom and child to buy Eduardo his favorite, the Bananaberry Freeze Cup, trying not to think of him shooting fire into himself at this same spot. When I come back in, the beer is cleaned from the floor, the TV is off and Eduardo is in bed, pretending to be asleep. He snores when he’s actually sleeping.
In the kitchen, there’s a couple of forks and knives in the sink that I’ll clean tomorrow before work. I leave Eduardo’s ice cream in the freezer then open the fridge to grab myself a beer but there’s none left. Just the hint of a brown shit streak on the cold, glass shelf.
Julián Martinez (he/him) is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants and is from Waukegan, IL. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Hooligan Mag, Little Engines, The Sonora Review and elsewhere. His chapbook, This Place Is Covered Head to Toe In Shit, will be released in August 2024 with Ghost City Press. Find him online at www.martinezfjulian.com or @martinezfjulian, or find him IRL in Chicago.