Chapter 8-Filling Up WIth Stones

Black and white snapshot of Osmani naked wearing his bath towel like a superhero cape.
Osmani ran ahead and crawled through the hole Jimmy had cut into the fence and into the abandoned parking lot that had wilded and become their private park. “Already an expert at staying away from adults about to explode into a fight.” Jimmy laughed. “So you're joking?” Marina reached for his hand. She was glad to make up but as she took his hand she remembered the Sunday school story from her childhood. Each time the girl who had a temper had a rage she tossed a stone into the lake. Even after the ripples disappeared into the shore, the stone stayed. She watched Jimmy kneel by the fence, take out his wire cutter pliers and remove several rows of the metal grid for her. The way his forehead creased and his jaw was set she could see that the stones from her raging were beginning to fill him up.
“I don't want to hurt you ever. I feel ashamed every time I do that. Like a hangover.”
He interrupted. “It's me. All me. Ask Marlen.”
Yes, it was true, the stones from his drinking were filling her up. And her own rage drunks were giving her hangovers.
Jimmy strode ahead to catch up with Osmani who knelt by a pile of stones. He squatted beside him and together they turned over one of the stones. Underneath, nestled in black mud, was a small salamander. Marina loved Jimmy in that moment. He saw. He could see. He showed her things she didn't know existed. He knew life was good even after all he'd been through. Osmani had come with a jar and a spoon. Jimmy watched him scoop up mud and drop it into the jar and then lift the salamander and gently slide it onto the mud.
Back in the apartment Marina watched father and son lift the wooden lid on the old fish tank Jimmy rescued from the trash outside the building and set up on a low table under the loft bed, right by Osmani's cot. Osmany's terrarium had a big fat branch that over the months had sprouted moss and hatched bugs, and plants he and Jimmy had gathered in the dock wilderness and transplanted. Osmani looked up at Marina. “My first salamander.”
After Osmani fell asleep on his little bed under theirs Marina climbed into the loft bed and lay there wondering if Jimmy would join her or go out to the Waterhole for the night. She was utterly awake longing to be held by Jimmy. She could call him but she wanted him to come to her on his own. When Jimmy peeked over the stairs looking to see if she was awake she saw that he was crying. She felt him crawl to her side and lay on his back. He said nothing until she took his hand and then he let out a sob and turned to face her.
“I got laid off today.”
She said nothing, just stayed quiet to make room for him to say more.
“Manuel can't afford me. You got out at the right time. It's clear cut. Do the math. There's no unemployment insurance from working off the books in Manuel's kitchen. What in the fuck will I do?” He turned away from her and she spooned him. She wanted to keep him with her, keep him from the Waterhole, keep him from oppression, protect him. She felt him sit up and when she tugged on his arm he looked at her and said. “If you want to be with me nothing's stopping you from coming with me.”
“Nothing but your son sleeping underneath.” She was about to add, 'nothing except tomorrow I have work.' She didn't. How could she ever keep him away from the Waterhole when there was so much rage, terror, pain and powerlessness he didn't want to feel and drinking was the anesthetic?
She was still awake when he came home and clomped his heavy drunken tread to the other room. She climbed down from the loft bed and walked to the living room where he stood by the small couch he'd built from scrap wood. He looked childlike and helpless, so pathetic that pity overwhelmed her urge to scream at him. She could see he was looking at her but couldn't see her. “There's no way I'm not going to lose you.” He turned away and threw himself onto the couch. Just before he dropped into black sleep, he looked at her with terror on his face. “I'm turning into my father.” She sat by him and stared straight ahead. The avocado plant on the sill filled most of the window. Jimmy had sprouted the pit, propped it with toothpicks in a jar, and it had become a small tree. The oval leaves were illuminated now by the streetlight. She didn't want to see that he was right, that much as she wanted to, there was probably no way that she would be able to keep loving Jimmy very long, or that the love would suffice to build a life. She let the tears come.