^Homunculus^

Ricky felt the darkness start to peel back in thin crisp layers like the brown skin of an onion, or the sun-burnt skin of a man. He could see, blurry at first, the gentle red light from the numbers of the old alarm clock on the dresser next to Nora’s side of the bed. Her face was turned towards the numbers, pink and orange hues reflecting on the cheeks he fell in love with more than two decades ago. There wasn’t any sound, none at all, but Ricky noticed the little flutter of her nose and the parting of her lips that let him know she was snoring. Cute little puppy snores. That’s what they called them. Cute little puppy snores.

He wondered how the boys were doing, and without seeing how it happened, the darkness parted again, layer by layer, until they were there - only a few feet to the right of Nora maybe. Hector was bright yellow in the faded glow of a Pikachu nightlight while Mattie was barely visible at all. That old digital watch he insisted on wearing to bed was right next to his face, but all Ricky saw was the nose he, and his father, had passed on to the unfortunate kid. Still, it was enough to recognize him anywhere. Poor guy. Middle school was gonna be rough on the little dude. Not the first time for that worry. Ah well. Ricky had made it - he was sure Mattie would too.

Like some sort of cheesy-ass Christmas photo, his whole family was shining in little ovals of light floating in a vast backdrop of black. They breathed, they stirred, Hector even rolled over, but they all stayed asleep. What would Hallmark have titled this scene? Dreaming of Sugar Plums...And You!... On Christmas. Something stupid like that. He’d have to check the greeting card aisle during his next shift at HEB. Who knew, maybe they had one just like it. Hell, if they did he was probably the one who authorized the purchase. 

When all of a sudden, what should Ricky hear but a strange clacking sound far behind him and growing closer. Hooves on a roof?

“Well damn. If Santa really is coming, I’m asking for the biggest fucking present on the planet.” 

The sound paused for his words then continued.

“If it’s the Three Kings then triple the prize. Sounds fair, right?”

“Sounds fair to me, Ricky.” 

Ricky tried to look over his shoulder at the voice but he felt nailed in place. His entire body shivered and shook like he was giving a speech naked. He tried to breathe but nothing seemed to happen.

“Hold up, let me come around. Don’t try to turn around yet. Sorry, I probably should have come sooner. Hold up.”

The clacking returned and this time Ricky instantly recognized it for what it was as he looked down and to his left to check - soccer cleats on concrete. The shoes came into view, black bodies with white stitching, and sliding into them were a mismatched pair of long athletic socks. One was navy blue with gold stripes, the other white with navy blue stripes, and there was only two idiots in the entire city who wore those stupid mixed up socks like that. Ricky looked up to see the benign smiling face of Guillermo Ramos looking right back at him. His friend walked serenely until he was more or less right in the middle of Ricky’s floating collage of a family portrait. 

“Hey Ricky.”

“Hey Memo. Why are you wearing your full kit? Next match isn’t until the twelfth.”

“You never know when you’ll find a game. Gotta stay ready, man.”

“Well you look like an idiot. So…”

“So?”

“So whatever. Whatever….” Ricky trailed off as he shifted his gaze back to Nora’s face. Still snoring it seemed. “Hey man. What...like what...what is this y’know? Like what the fucking fuck is this?”

Memo turned a bit and stepped back so that he could see all three floating ovals of sleeping family and Ricky’s face at the same time. “Pretty sure that’s your family, bro.”

“Shut the...Yeah dude. Yeah. Awesome. You’re the best. Great job.”

“Hey ask a stupid question - “

“-get your stupid ass to make a joke. Can you be serious for a second? Can you? I’m watching my family fucking sleep in a bunch of little...windows or what the fuck...and it’s fucking...it’s fucking...it’s fucking..”

“Whoa, Ricky. Breathe man. Breathe. You sound like a broken NWA record. Just chill out man. Chill.”

Short sputtering breaths made Ricky’s chest hurt as he tried to calm down. His chest hurt all over now that he thought about it. It was like there was a belt being tightened across his ribs, and someone was shoving a straightened coat hanger into his armpit. Another coat hanger was being shoved up his neck. Goddammit. 

“Hey Ricky. You got this man. You got this. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in…”

Memo was an idiot, no doubt. But that actually helped. A bit. “Thanks. Yeah. I got it. I got it.” A few seconds later, as Memo didn’t stop repeating his little breathing mantra, Ricky added, “I GOT it. Okay. We good, man. We good. Just shut up.”

“Shutting up.”

Unlike Nora or the boys, Ricky could see that Memo’s face wasn’t really being lit by anything. His cleats, his soccer uniform, all the way up to that phony-ass mini-pompadour of a haircut was simply visible. Like the man was painted in 2D on that deep infinite blackness that enveloped everything. Even the little step of concrete that Memo’s cleats were resting on seemed unreal. It stayed unreal-seeming even as Ricky could see all the tiny pits and scars. Those same scars defined the sidewalks that lead from the parking lots to the soccer pitches where he and Memo played at least once a week. Sometimes they’d drop into an early evening pick up game if they had time. If Nora agreed to put the boys to bed. 

“Did I die during a match, man?”

“Naw, Ricky.”

“But I did die, right?”

“Not yet, old man.”

“Old man? Every single fucking time with you.” Ricky’s chest pain was forgotten as he started to lay into Memo. “Listen to me for the fifteenth billionth millionth of a time and try to squeeze this through your greasy ass head - I am two years older than you. Two fucking years, moron. And y’know what? I wish I was an old man, ‘cause even with all the cheap shots you’d still be taking at my shriveled up sack maybe you’d actually listen to me when I tell you DON’T WEAR YOUR GODDAMN CLEATS ON THE SIDEWALK. What the hell for real, man? Are you ten? You know you have to be dumber than that because even Mattie knows that clopping around on the sidewalk like some kind of dumbass donkey is going to ruin the damn things. No wonder you go through pairs like twice a season. It’s a waste of money, pendejo!”

“Hey, but I save a ton by wearing the same socks.” Memo’s smirk transformed Ricky’s wrath into a cold bitter blizzard of a glare. 

“The socks. Dude, had I known you were going to turn it into some kind of fruity-ass tradition to wear the things I would have never, NEVER, lent you a single fucking one.”

“But you did.”

“And God, the Virgin Mary, and all the Saints have cursed me with your friendship ever since. You are a goddamn plague upon humanity. What the fuck is it? A pox. You are a pox, Memo. Deal with that!”

“Eh. I’m trying, man. I’m trying. But we keep winning when we wear them.”

“We win because I am the Almighty’s hand-picked keeper with the skills of a legend and the balls of a bull. Not because of some stupid socks.”

“Then why do you keep wearing the other set, eh?”

It had happened about two, maybe three months after Ricky and Memo had been placed on the same team in a randomly assigned league for players thirty-five and up. The “Senior” league as Memo infuriatingly referred to it. There was a game that their team had won on forfeit because the other side was short on players. Everyone agreed to sign off on the W but play a pick up game because...well, they had paid the city for it, right? Even the ref agreed to stick around. It was a good match - Ricky didn’t allow a single goal, and Memo even cherry picked one from mid field. Might have been a great match, but it wasn’t an official one. So Ricky booked out a bit early to surprise Nora with a bunch of roses. You had to do little shit like that if you wanted a happy marriage. Ricky Sr. had taught him that. Best damn advice the hardass had ever given his son. But yeah, Ricky headed out early and he wasn’t an idiot so he took his cleats and socks off before slipping on some sandals and walking to his car. Only, the thing was, he was already thinking about how happy Nora was gonna be, maybe even happy enough to...yeah, whatever, he had left the socks that was the thing. And Memo, like some sort of over-eager new hire had picked them up, taken them home and washed them. Brought the cleats and the socks to the next game. No big deal. 

Only Memo left his socks and cleats (and most of his kit) at the next game because he was changing for a date and rushed off. So Ricky returned the favor. Shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it kept happening back and forth all season. Every other game or so. Maybe more? But it shouldn’t have been a thing. It was only a thing because when they made it to the playoffs Memo realized that every time they had helped each other out it just so happened to be after they had won. Two dates, one set of flowers, one sick kid vomiting at home, some sort of disaster at Memo’s work, a broken freezer over at HEB, some other stuff… all big Ws on the scorecard. And it was the playoffs so they had to harness that mojo somehow. It’d be dumb not to. So they decided to switch socks. Or just one. Ricky had forgotten why just one. Something about them both getting to take the socks home to wash for like, extra luck? It was dumb. So dumb. But how could they ignore the signs? They couldn’t. That would be like, dumber, or whatever. 

They won. They won the whole goddamn playoffs for the city’s over 35 league. Then they won the exhibition game against the younger 30-to-35 league champions. That was glorious. 3-0, and Ricky had so many saves they started calling him ‘El Doctor’. It was a bloodbath against those smug assholes who had started the match by asking if they were the 35+ league or the 55+ league. Served them fucking right. Not too old to kick your asses, bro! It was a Sunday game, too, still early enough in the Summer for school not to have started. Nora brought the kids. Hector was, what, maybe three back then? He had been so happy whenever the little crowd of family friends clapped. He clapped along and beamed from ear to ear. And when the game was over, Mattie gave his father a hug without any suggestion from Nora at all. Ricky had made eye contact with her, Mattie squeezing his legs, Hector smiling in her arms, and they both knew. Those were the moments they had hoped for. The ones that got them through all the wet beds and midnight Lego landmines. His whole little family had seen him that day. 

And here they were, years later, floating silently as he watched.

“I don’t know, man. I just wear them.”

“Yeah.” Memo paused, eyes connecting with Ricky’s.  “Me too.”

Whatever. Ricky didn’t have time for all the nostalgia, and the ovals of his family were nice but not what he - was there something behind him? There had a been a movement, something small but he could probably catch it out of the corner of his eye if he turned - 

Waves of nausea crashed together and brought Ricky to his knees. There was a sound,  like someone drowning, these aching wet gasps that set his hair on end. They wouldn’t stop as his gut tightened up into a knot and his face slammed down into that endless blackness. After an eternity of discomfort and pain Ricky realized the gasps were his own. He had been vomiting, or trying too. Dry heaves or whatever they were called. Jesus, they had been so loud. Every part of him was shaky. But not cold. That black stuff, the floor and ceiling and fucking walls of his new stupid fucking world, they were warm as the inside of a mouth. Shoulders and face rested against a warm, thankfully dry, nothingness. 

“Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.”

“Yeah yeah.” Ricky’s voice was hoarse and burned his throat. “Thanks, bro. You’re a real medical wiz-kid.”

“Hey, you’re El Doctor, old man.”

“Come closer for a second, Memo. I need to tell you something.”

“Yeah, I heard that one already. Come on, let me help you up.”

“Yeah…okay.” Memo’s hands half-lifted half-guided Ricky to his feet. He really did feel like an old man for a moment. Just for a moment. His legs and feet tingled. At least some part of him got to sleep. “Hey, Memo, man. I...Bro, I need you to be straight with me. Okay? Like, this whole thing -” his arm swept in front of his teammate’s face before continuing on to the sleeping images of Nora and the boys “this dream I’m in or whatever. Look, I know we give each other shit and stuff, but this shit has me off my game y’know?” The voice coming out of his lips refused to calm down, refused to man up. “I need to know, Memo. I need to know if...I need to know if I’m in Hell, man.”

Memo stared Ricky straight in the eyes without blinking. His arm slowly raised, a lone finger pointed directly to his heart. The younger man’s head lolled backwards as his jaw dropped slack. “Sinner...sinner...SINNER!”  The finger waggled maniacally in Ricky’s face until it suddenly stopped and flicked him on the nose. “Sinner with an ugly nose...nose...NOSE!”

The breath that Ricky didn’t know he was holding exploded out of him for a split second before roaring back as he inhaled and then unleashed upon his friend. “You fuckin’ asshole. You GODDAMN ASSHOLE! Jesus Christ I hate you. You’re gonna make fun of me now? Now, when I’m floating around in a goddamn blackhole Hallmark card. Did your Mama drop you on your head or did you just eat too much fuckin’ glue as a kid? Goddammit, Memo. Fuck you. For real. I almost had a heart attack you stupid fuck.”

“Nah, man. Nah. That happened earlier.” Memo’s face scrunched up and he looked away - somewhere towards Hector and Mattie. “Sorry, Ricky. I’m being serious. I’m sorry, but you did have a heart attack.”

“Wait, for serious?”

“For serious, bro.” He kept looking toward the boys. “For real, man. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.”

There wasn’t much to say beyond that. Not really. The doctors, the real doctors, kept telling him to lose the beer gut. Too much Modelo, not enough greens. Too much sugar too. He was pre-diabetic. Sure that didn’t help. Barely in his forties and a heart attack. Damn. “I thought I’d make it at least as long as my old man.”

“How old was he?”

“58? Yeah, he passed two months before his birthday. He, uh, he had the first attack earlier though, I think. Like 55? We weren’t talking much then.”

“He play?”

“When he was my age? Nah. Not since high school, I think. He’d watch the games though. Would stay up all night when I was a kid and we'd meet up with his cousin with one of those giant-ass 80s satellite dishes. I remember the first UNAM match he let me watch. It was super late and on a school night. I could barely keep my eyes open the next day, but I was the coolest kid in class.”

“For a day, I bet.”

“Yeah, fucker. Just for a day.”

Knowing that he had a heart attack, knowing why he was in this weird dream thing, it calmed him down a lot. He could feel his breath returning, slow and steady. The coat hangers in his arm and neck were long gone. Guess there were advantages to accepting you were dead - 

“Hey wait a minute. You said I wasn’t dead.”

“You’re not.”

“You said I had a heart attack!”

“Dude, you had a heart attack. Doesn’t mean you’re dead yet. Calm down, old man. You might outlive Ricky Sr yet.”

“What? Bro, how do you know any of this? Huh? How do you know I had a heart attack? How do you know I didn’t die? How, bro? HOW? How do you know I’m not a dead man?”

“Takes one to know one, bro.” 

That little smirk crossed Memo’s face before evaporating into the black aether. He started to say something else but stopped as Ricky’s hand cautiously reached out and landed on his shoulder. The two men stared at each other for a long moment, neither exactly knowing how to continue. Finally, Memo continued, “hell, at least Cindy’ll be happy, right?”

That was his baby-mama, Ricky knew. Never mentioned at a game, never discussed until well into celebrating a victory over too many micheladas. She’d taken their two girls out of state for a while, then brought them back. When Memo had moved to be closer to them in San Antonio she’d jumped ship and went out of state again. He had to beg for his job back so he could return to Austin. Something had gone down when they were together. Cheating probably, knowing how much the other man liked his dates. Or maybe not. They’d never discussed it exactly. But that woman really hated him. Which made it something of a miracle that somehow Memo had convinced Cindy to move back. Not too close, the girls were in school in New Braunfels, but close enough he could go visit from time to time. Once, when the beers had magically transformed into shots of tequila, Ricky learned that unbeknownst to anyone else, Memo had a YouTube channel just for his girls. He’d record videos of his life  - hours and hours of them - and he’d share them with his kids. Ricky had seen a few. Memo mostly walked around the greenbelt, or demonstrated how he did the woodwork for the guitars he made. There was even one of their games in there. The girls weren’t allowed to share anything back.

“Hey, give her some credit. She won’t be like that.”

“Yeah...bro, she’ll be ecstatic. Trust me. I got her brother drunk and he got crushed in a wreck on the way home. She’s been wishing I died in his place for years. She’ll be happy.”

Well that answered that. Ricky squared his shoulders, trying to think of something to say. Maybe - there it was again! Right over his left shoulder and past where Memo was standing. Ricky forced his eyes to stare straight ahead and to ignore his peripheral vision. It was there. Something big. Something moving. “You seeing this, Memo?”

Memo was still lost in his thoughts.

“Yo. Buh-roh. Are you seeing this thing?”

Without the least bit of hesitation, Memo turned and looked behind Ricky, at whatever the thing was, and then turned back. “Yeah, man. I see it. Whoa! Whoa! Don’t turn your head or nothing. Okay? You gotta ease into it. Just stare at me for now.”

“What is that thing, man? Why is that fuckin’ thing behind me?”

“Don’t freak out.”

“Don’t say that! That’s freaking me out you saying that.”

A long sigh escaped Memo’s lips and he ran his long thin fingers through his perfectly coiffed hair. He stared directly at Ricky for a moment. “Hey. Breathe. Remember the breathe thing? Start with that, man. Then we’ll work on getting you to see it. It’s just like a 2-on-1 drill, right? You can’t give away your plan with your eyes. Just breathe so we can play it smart.”

Dutifully, eyes still locked so he could barely see the slightest glimmer of movement from the corner of his vision, Ricky took his time and kept breathing. “2 on 1. Man, keepers are usually on the other side of that shit.”

“Uh-huh. Well if you wanna make this save you’re gonna have to play it cool. So breathe.”

“I’m breathing. I’m breathing.” And he was. Deep slow breaths that seemed to drift on forever. From the other corner of his vision he could see Nora breathing too. Slow and steady snores. They had always been in sync like that. Ever since she took pity on him and asked him out so he’d stop stuttering at her after they clocked out from work. Twenty two years ago. Twenty years and two kids ago. She asked him out, he croaked out a yes, and they’d been in harmony ever since. He had started at HEB a few months before that, so his name tag always had the same number of years as he’d known Nora. Anyone asks how long they’d been together he could just point. He needed a little 10 and 6 on there for the boys.

Breathing like that - slow and steady - it put him into his game mode. He was calm and ready, noticing all the little details. Hector had turned away from Pikachu, Mattie had rolled his face right onto his watch. Nora’s hair had fallen into her mouth a bit. Sometimes she’d chew it like that when she wanted him. 

“Hey. You feeling it now? Zen master in full effect?”

“Yeah.” Ricky was feeling the zen, definitely. “Yeah, man. Let’s do this thing. What’s next?”

“Next is you staring at me. Total focus. And then next after that is you keep staring while I walk behind you. Slowly though. We gotta do this slow.”

“Okay”. And they did. Ricky kept his eyes locked on the midfielder like he was going to transform into a striker and come racing to the goal. Much slower than that, much slower than Hector used to crawl, Memo walked behind him. Without questioning, Ricky turned to follow, eyes never leaving the other man’s face. He couldn’t see what the thing was -it was out of focus because Memo was so close. And this thing was far away. And huge. So huge. Staring at Memo’s eyes, the thing took up all other bits of Ricky’s vision. There was nothing but Memo and the thing. “I miss Nora.”

“Ha. Mother fucking keeper but you never stop scoring brownie points. Okay, man. You still zen?”

“Think so, bro.”

“Well then, all you got to do is step back. Keep breathing. Keep staring at me. Just step back a little bit. Tell me what you see.”

As he stepped back, more of the thing came into focus. Enough that Ricky started to gasp again. He could feel his stomach churning.

“Come back, come back. We’re taking it slow remember? Fucking Ussain Bolt over here. Slow, man. Slow.”

Over the next few minutes, maybe longer - there wasn’t exactly a clock anywhere and Mattie’s watch was now completely behind him, Ricky did a little dance. Like a cumbia. Back and forth. Back and forth. Breaths coming in and out. In and out. The details of what he was seeing started to dawn in his mind, searing his thoughts with impossibilities. “It’s alive, man. It’s goddamn alive. I can see the head man. And the feet. There are veins and shit. This thing…”

“Homunculus.”

“What?”

“It’s called a homunculus, Ricky.”

“Call it fuckin’ Quasimodo, this thing’s insane looking. The mouth, man. The mouth…” Too late, Ricky realized he had taken his eyes off of Memo and he was staring directly at the homunculus’ face. Huge lips flared to the side and then peeled back like the grinning jaws of a crocodile. The top of the lips were swollen and bloated. It reminded him of an opossum he’d seen in a creek when he was kid. The body had been rotting in the sun for days, swelling with the heat and gas inside. His friend Jonny had poked the carcass with a stick and it had melted into the water like bloody snot in a bathtub. This thing was worse. Much worse. Everything was swollen. Everything was bloated. Everything was struggling to burst out of the taut skin that squeezed it all together into a monstrous shape. The eyes...they eyes stared at him. They saw him. They knew him. “Memo. Memo, move my head, man. Please, Memo. Move my eyes, I can’t.”

“Breathe Ricky. You got this. In and out.”

“I can’t, man. Please.”

“You can. Breathe. Breathe.”

The air fell in and out of his lungs, but Ricky felt completely out of control. Every time he tried to catch his breath he could see the homunculus swell outwards, threatening to come crashing into the two men. He tried to breathe out but the thing’s mouth bent forward, impossibly swollen lips gaping towards him, wind smashing into his face. The wind picked up as Ricky struggled to calm down and get his shit together. Wracking winds that blew back and forth like a hurricane His eyes watered and he could feel his knees start to give even as he threw everything he had into just breathing. He could barely even see Memo although he was in arms reach. All Ricky could focus on, all there was in this whole black abyss was him and the thing. He breathed out - it blasted him with a storm. He breathed in and it tried to suck him into that gaping hell of a mouth. He tried to shout, but the storm only grew stronger. All he could do was breathe. Breathe out to the storm. Breathe in as he was pulled. Breathe out to the storm. Into the pull. Out, storm. In, pull. Out...storm. In…

The homunculus was breathing with him. On a scale he couldn’t even understand, it was breathing. A thing like that could breathe. Could breathe with him. Ricky felt the terror that had paralyzed him melt. The cold wave started like a block of ice on his head and it cascaded down his arms and chest. By the time it reached his toes Ricky was staring straight into the eyes of the homunculus. For the first time that night he felt truly at peace.

Memo moved then. He just kind of shuffled to the side and turned to face in the same direction as his friend. Both men were locked in the gaze of the giant beast. Only it wasn’t a beast. Memo said it even as he figured it out. “Kind of weird to think that’s what you look like, huh?”

“I don’t understand. You said it was a monster.”

“No man. A homunculus isn’t a monster. It’s just you. Or how you see yourself, I guess. It’s complicated.”

“Well I’m listening, bro. Don’t leave me hanging.”

“Speaking of hanging...you notice it freeballing down there?”

Ricky glanced down and couldn’t stop from bursting out in great exploding laughs of absurdity that turned into real explosions coming from the giant. Somehow he stayed unphased. “Holy shit! I guess this thing really is me. Look at the size of it! Fuck that’s like the weinermobile for real tho! Oh man. Holy shit. Dude, I’m gonna say it. I’m actually a lot bigger than that. Like, sorry bro, but you’re friends with a dude with a fuckin’ jetliner for a dick.”

“Poor Nora.”

“Poor everybody. Damn, dude. I could fuck the ocean with that thing.”

“Don’t do that, bro. That’s how you get crabs.”

“Ay, pendejo. That was cheesy. Fuckin’ get of here with that.”

The two began to laugh and the homunculus joined in. The enormous belly surged out and in - like the whole sky had turned into a drum - and its eyes squinted with joy. Ricky could see more of it now. The hands and the feet were so oversized - so comically misproportioned that he hadn’t even known that’s what they were at first. But the body was barely there. “It’s like Pop-eye y’know? Skinny arms and legs, huge mitts. Holy hell, Memo. Just what the fuck, man.”

“That’s the way it works, I think. It’s you, but it’s like how your body feels you? It’s the nervous system man. That’s your nerves and shit - how they see you. Huge lips and feet and hands because that’s where all the feeling is...and those feelings made it so sorry for you that it decided to give you a big dick as a consolation prize.”

“Shut up, fool. There’s a buncha nerves in the dick just like the hands and lips and shit, that’s why. I get it. It’s like a map or something, only it’s alive.”

“Something like that.” Memo pointed to the head “it’s in your brain, kinda. The reason they call it a homunculus is that old school wizards used to think there was like a little man inside you and that when you knocked a woman up, you planted that dude in her and that’s how you got a baby.”

“Wait. So that’s a sperm?”

“No, nah. Sorry. Medieval scientists didn’t know shit. But that’s where the word comes from. That thing,” Memo gestured to the entire body before pointing back towards the head “is in your head and it’s like a little map of a man so they call it a homunculus.”

“It’s not little, bro.”

“It is though! For real! Like, it’s only huge because…” his arms started sweeping farther and taking in the blackness that surrounded them and was still visible at the edges of the homunculus’ gigantic form, “because all of this is in your head too. Like, you right now are like a tiny homunculus staring up at the real homunculus that’s always in your brain.”

“So what, that’s what my body feels like in my brain?”

“More or less, I think. At least, that’s what I understand about it. I read a thing on the internet once and I had a ton of time to look at mine. Days I guess. Figured some stuff out. I think. There’s not exactly a bunch of guide books around…” Memo gestured broadly “...this place.”

“Yeah, speaking of that.” Ricky idly rubbed his fingertips together and watched the homunculus do the same. “I don’t wanna get into your business or nothing, man, but I just talked to you on Sunday. When did you, uh, you know...when did you - “

“Accidentally get Cindy a once-in-a-lifetime present?”

“Dark, bro, dark. ...But yeah.”

“That night. I had gone to bed kind of early cause I felt super tired. A couple of hours in - baam - some sort of brain aneurysm or stroke or something. Blood wasn’t moving right, and there was like a bunch of damaged nerves around this big pool of it on my brain. Not really sure what that’s called.”

“Stroke, I think. I mean, that sounds like a stroke thing. The blood in the brain.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think too but like I know aneurysms are like a thing too?”

“Yeah, maybe that too. Dunno.”

“Dunno. But yeah, I looked pretty thoroughly through things.” Memo’s eyes popped up from the homunculus’ toes where they had drifted. “Shit. I forgot to tell you that. You can kind of look differently and then you can see inside a bit too. It’s low-res though. Blurry, y’know.”

“I can see inside that thing? Huh. Well sure, fuck not. Wait, how do I ‘look differently’?”

“Breathe in, breathe out, but…” Memo’s gaze once again drifted across the homunculus before centering back on Ricky “Breathe in, breathe out but you focus on the pressure in your eyes. Almost like you’re gonna breathe through them.” Ricky dutifully kept focusing as he breathed and soon enough, he could feel his eyes being squeezed by his own thoughts. The homunculus shifted in his vision. First the outside seemed to get thin and the veins started to bulge through it. Soon he could see the outlines of his own guts - a bunch of angry-red tubes leaking fluids and rumbling as they worked. Above them, high enough that Ricky felt the skin of his neck pinch behind him he saw what Memo must have seen before he arrived. The huge heart was shuddering, heaving out and in. A whale trying to breathe on a beach.

“My heart, Memo. Aw, fuck. It’s really crapped out, huh?” Something wet on his face distracted him as he wiped it away. “Jeeeez-zus. Nora’s gonna be so fuckin’ mad at me, bro.”

“Lucky you.”

“Oh? Oh, yeah. Sorry, bro. Who knows, maybe she’ll be happy too.”

“Nah, you guys still got it good. You don’t have to hide it on my account.”

“You’re right. You’re right. Damn….just damn, man. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do with THAT?” Ricky pointed to a pulsing dark spot right on the corner of the humonculus’ galaxy-sized heart. His heart. Or the map to it, maybe.

“Yeah. That’s a tough one, bro.” Out of nowhere, Memo started laughing. Really laughing. He snorted a bit and that set Ricky off, too. 

“Super tough, bro.”

“Such a bummer, bro.”

“Really sucks, bro.”

“I know, bro.”

“Bro.”

“Buh-roh.” 

Both men were half bent over, blown back and forth in the colossal gale of laughter issuing from the enormous mouth before them. Being rocked in the hurricane somehow only made it all more absurd. More hilarious. The hurricane blew them both over as they fell into fits.It felt good to have the storm blowing over him start with them cracking wise. On a whim Ricky craned his head back to see if Nora was somehow joining in. Maybe she heard in her sleep or something? 

She and the kids were gone.

“Yo, Memo! Memo, man, help me! I lost her! I lost the kids -”

“Dude, calmate, vato. Chill out. Calm the fuck down. They’re not gone.” Memo had raced around and was putting his hands out like Ricky was a nervous dog. Maybe he was, he hadn’t even noticed he had turned his whole body around. “They’re not gone, you just stopped thinking about them so the screens went away. Jeezus, how you make it through a game I’ll never know.”

Without replying Ricky starting working to bring Nora and the kids back. It happened even quicker than the first time. First Nora’s little oval opened up and he saw she was sweating a bit - they needed to get a better comforter, it didn’t breathe - and her hair was getting matted on her face. Mattie and Hector appeared almost at the same time, dull glows of night lights and watches dutifully returning as they continued their never ending tossing and turning in bed. Damn kids, can’t even stop wiggling when they’re asleep. Stupid kids, getting him worried like that. They always did that. Nora too sometimes. He just needed them to chill out and be safe, y’know? They just needed to be safer. 

“You look chill now, you feeling better?”

“Yeah…sorry. I got worried. I, uh, I got worried y’know. That they were gone or…”

Memo was staring at the boys but Ricky could tell his friends thoughts were thinking of his own girls. Probably sleeping the same endlessly tossing sleep. The midfielder’s face looked like he had taken a line drive to the gut. His eyes were focused on a town that had always been very near by but now, in this place, farther away than the stars. Ricky started to reach out his hand towards Memo’s shoulder for the second time that night but pulled it back while the thought was still just a twitch in his arm. 

“Hey, man. What, uh, what did you mean by screens just then? Like you called the ovals screens? Or something?”

“Ovals?” Memo broke his gaze from the kids and turned back. “Wait a moment, you see them in ovals? Like little shapes? Not screens like on your phone or something?”

“Phone? Dude, they’re right there. It’s ovals, man, look” Ricky’s hand lanced out towards Nora’s face and he could feel the gale of wind from the homunculus sweeping in from behind them. At the moment the air died down, a new expression dawned on Memo’s face. A smile started to break out. A mischievous little smirk that meant the footballer saw a play the other guys didn’t. 

“Hold up. Be straight with me, Ricky. You see Nora and the boys in…ovals. Not oval screens on a phone, or oval windows on a computer screen. Like just plain ovals.”

“Yeah, like in math class or whatever. They’re just floating there. Or like a Hallmark card, you know, with little windows into the back page or something.”

“Shit.”

“What?”

“You really are an old man. Like super old and stuck in the 50s - “

“Pendejo my foot is about to be stuck in your ass - “

“Sorry, sorry. Sorry. I mean it. For real, that  was cheap. I’ll make up for it, though. I will. Sorry, got distracted scoring on your ass.”

“You wish you could score a shot on me, payaso.”

An even broader smile broke out on Memo’s face, and he started to bounce a bit. Damn idiot. This was gonna be some helluva play, Ricky could tell. He didn’t know whether to stay angry at that stupid joking jackass or get excited for whatever kind of bullshit genius maneuver he was dreaming up. It didn’t happen often, but Memo did that sometimes. A few whispers to the strikers, some smartass shouts and taunts to the other side and then *boom* they’d be jumping around and celebrating like assholes after they’d found a break in the defense and made the shot. He never let Ricky forget those points either. Even if the keeper had a perfect game, and Memo didn’t even have a touch in ‘his’ moment of glory. Memo would still gloat about his ‘secret play’ he dreamed up. Secret play. Stupid kid shit. Stupid kid shit but Ricky could feel his hands tighten in anticipation. “Okay, chief. Give it to me. Tell me whatever crazy idea is popping around in your head. You clearly think it’s something out of this world smart so spill it.”

“Oh, I don’t know, man. Maybe you don’t want to hear it.” The smirk deepened.

“Stop teasing, man, just give it to me.”

“That’s what she -”

“Fuck you, what’s the damn play?”

“Okay, okay. I don’t see ovals man. I see screens. Like when I’m making a video for…you know, a video, and it’s on YouTube. It’s not even ovals for me, bro, it’s a rectangle. 16 to 9 aspect ratio and all that.”

“Okay, so you’re a hipster. Good for you. I could have told your pompadour ass that when you showed up.”

“Don’t bad mouth the hair, Ricky. This hair gets ‘em to swipe right 100% of the time.”

“I don’t even know what the fuck that means, pendejo.”

The ever so slightly - barely even a bit younger - man’s smile started to beam as he continued to bounce from foot to foot. The same little ankle warm ups Ricky saw him do every week. “But I’m in your house, bro, and it’s still YouTube for me? You get it? I’m in your head, but I’m still in charge of me. That’s potential, Ricky, and I got a plan to get your sorry ass out of this mess.”

“Wait, for real? Like, no heart attack?” The excitement started to get to him. Really dig into his palms and the back of his legs. All the little hairs on his arms were standing up, ready for battle. Something felt really right. “Okay, you’re not fucking with me on this? Cause I’m not forgiving that shit if you are.”

“Straight shooting on this one, baby.” The uniform of the other man bobbed left and right as he took a few steps back. “Draw up a box, but no posts or net. Just the lines.” Memo moved farther back, pacing out a path. He was under Nora and the boys now. Somehow they were bigger, but higher and much more distant than they had been a moment before. Ricky realized the ovals were almost like jumbo-trons at a UNAM game. Shit. This place had its perks. “Hey, old man, where’s the box? Stop dreaming and get your head in the game!”

“My head? Fuckin’ - Dude how many times I say that exact same shit to you?!”

“Too many times, old man. C’mon pendejo. You want this plan to work, you gotta block all these shots I’m gonna take.” 

“Easy as your mama, asshole. C’mon then. I’m getting the box set up.” As he said it, bold bright white lines began to trace themselves along the infinite and yet solid black backdrop that enveloped everything in this place. The lines shown with the glare of an early morning, sunlight coming in like a hawk diving to the ground, bouncing straight into your eyes as you squint against it. Ricky was king here. He was the sun, the hawk, the lines, the whole damn field. This was his house, as much as the little bungalow he and Nora had scrimped and saved for. Memo wanted to take a few shots against the ‘old man’. Fuckin’ hell. This was gonna be cake. “Okay, mister genius. Let’s see how your plan is gonna get off the ground if this is step one. You ain’t scoring shit.”

Memo had backed himself into the abyss until he looked as if he was on the actual center line. Midfield. His territory. Fine then. It still wouldn’t matter, he could take as much of a run-up as he wanted. Ricky had the confidence of youth and the wisdom of age. Damn he felt so good. Why had he been so worried before. All he had to do was block some shots to get to this golden plan? “Hey, I think you’re in El Paso by now, chuco. You wanna take your shot or not?”

“Gotta get my ball, Doc.” It was too small to see, that far out. Not clearly. But Memo had bent down and done something. Was he rubbing grass on it or…taking something from out of his uniform next to his chest? Motherfucker had a lump of mud or putty or something. Dirty cheat. That’s the plan? Idiot. He had grown up playing dirty ball with all his cousins and their spitting, fart attacks, pants pulling, and other horseshit. 

“Bring it then! Get your little balls and your little dick in hand and see how hard I punch that crap out of here. C’mon!” The beautiful black and white ball had dark streaks on it. He wouldn’t actually put shit…naw this was something else but it didn’t matter in any case. Smear the ball in the porta-potty. Didn’t matter at all. Not at all. “Ready! Where you at?!”

“Ready! Coming in, old man doctor pendejo limp-dick, brace yourself!” And Memo raced like the seasoned player he was. Tracing a steady arc, mixing up the steps to keep Ricky guessing, moving towards a spot he must have marked out on his way out. The ball spun on the black…but it wasn’t black. The ball was on a little patch of grass that moved with it and never appeared anywhere else. That was it? He was gonna use the field? All right, all right…he could match that. Grass sprung up along the white lines too. Even grass. No hidden bumps to make the ball take a bad hop. Even terms. See if the ‘young man’ was expecting that. Memo kept coming in moving towards a point about a third of the way along the box, maybe sixty feet out, but coming in fast. Ricky felt his legs move even before he could think, but then - pow! - a ripper from the off leg. The ball took this nasty curve towards the other side of the box far away from the original target Ricky had guessed. Mother fuckin’ sneak shot – but the keeper was already in motion before the complaint formed in his head. He was moving on instinct, hands up, fist closing… punch! The ball went flying off into forever.

“Yeah, baby!” The words were a crackle of thunder and a shock of wind. A whole stadium of cheers erupted out of the homunculus as Ricky shouted in triumph. “How’s that now? Eh? How was that, Memo?”

“Perfect, El Doctor. Perfect.” The man’s smirk was plain as day even from forty feet away. “But I said shots. Not shot. Let’s see if your luck holds up.”

“Luck? Oh man, I am gonna show you luck. C’mon. Bring it then!” Ricky waved his arms and got a wind going from behind him. He started a little stadium chant and relished in pride as the homunculus transmuted his whispers into a roaring gale of thunderous support. “C’mon!”

For moments that must have extended into hours but passed without pause or memory, Ricky kept knocking away shot after shot. He was at that exposition match again. Sticking it to the young assholes, ruling from on high as keeper. Memo tried every trick in the book. Struck from every angle. The ball flashed like lightning again and again, but Ricky was the storm and the fuckin’ thunder. Black and white leather panels were becoming stained with green grass, and after a while Ricky noticed some little streaks of blood too. His knuckles must have been bleeding from all the punches. It felt great. Open hand slaps without gloves on got his palms stung to hell and it didn’t matter. By the time Memo relented in his assaults and sat catching his breath at midfield, Ricky was certain he was wielding stumps more than hands. And it didn’t matter at all. Nora and the boys were up there, and even if they were asleep he knew - he knew - they were watching. And he was glorious. 

“One more, Ricky. Last one.”

“Yeah, this plan ain’t working out, Memo. But I stopped caring a million saves ago. I’m so good at this. I just - “ Laughter rang out from his lips and from the cave of a mouth standing miles above and behind him. “Last shot, bro. Make it count. You ain’t gotta chance, but you gotta take ‘em, to make ‘em, eh?”

“Yeah, Ricky.” The other man’s voice was quiet and steady. Thoughtful. “Gotta take ‘em to make ‘em.” Memo paused and stared up at the jumbo-tron ovals and Ricky’s adoring fans sleeping inside. “Good to see you still got it, brother. It’s good to see you like this.” The smirk started to shine again. “…Sorry I’m gonna have to break your heart with this next one, tho.”

“Ha, pendejo, it’s already broken. C’mon, I’m ready. Ready!”

“If you say so, man. If you say so. Ready!” 

He came in slower this time. Almost lazily, as he putted the ball easily from foot to foot. Man that ball was really torn up. Bloody and mudded. Red and blue, seams bulging like it was about to pop. Maybe it would, too. That would be a good way to end it, just punch that veiny-looking thing into oblivion and laugh about it with Memo. Maybe they cold dream up some micheladas in this place and catch a game on a cosmic soul satellite or something. Yeah. That’d be good. Here it came -  Memo still taking it slow, pushing the discolored ball a few feet farther out, leg rearing back for a power kick not too far down the field. Those sidewalk-eaten cleats came forward with all the speed of molasses. Ricky heard a little pop as the shot came at him…it was going wide and high. Too high. Ah well. Still a good ending, maybe. The ball sailed slowly and steadily up and wide, it would’ve missed the top post by a mile and it still climbed. He turned around to watch it soar up behind him, watched as it flew higher and higher. Like the hawk. Like the sun. Climbing and climbing. Man, Memo must have gotten tired. So far off like that. Higher and higher. Ricky reached out his hands. Maybe that homunculus of his could catch it. That’d be something. He smiled as his mountainous doppleganger smiled back. Hands outstretched, the ball was miraculously still visible as it drifted towards the giant, driving at the speed of a dream straight for the misproportioned but still incredibly enormous chest. He reached out and from that point of view it almost seemed like he could touch the beast’s hands with his own. The whole world was silent as the ball, ruddy and now shaped almost like a fist, collided high in the center of the chest of Ricky’s monstrous reflection. 

The black of the world around him started to rise and the homunculus tilted away. It was falling back and so was Ricky. He could feel gravity give way as he fell back, back, back. He was spinning one tiny bit at a time - a drop of honey falling from the hive. Nora came into view, her stadium-sized oval drifting up, up, and away. SuperNora, savior of Metropolis. Mattie, Hector, drifting up and away. He was falling so slow. Everything…everything was so slow. Slow. He..He was Ricky. He was. That’s who he was. He was a homunculus drifting into nothing, and he was Ricky. He was alone in the black. The dark was all there was. Why was he alone? Where was the other guy…the homunc…the humuck…the hum…no…the other guy. Where was that other…

*****

Nora had been good since the funeral. Good at the funeral too. Good before. Damn, she had been so good to him. She didn’t ask when he woke up all crazy that night. Screaming and crying like some damn fool. Checking his phone. Texting with shaking hands. Acting the fool and shaking and not able to say a word. He had been a dumb, stupid, foolish mess. But Nora, oh god he loved her so much, she didn’t ask, she waited and rubbed his back. And got him tissues. She made sure the kids got to school and she gently made him text the Unit Manager so they knew he’d be late getting in that morning. Really late. That girl who had pity on him so many years ago, man where did all that pity come from? How did she know when to poke and when not to poke. How did she know when to laugh and when not to laugh when he described his ‘dream’. He was so lucky. He knew that. He needed to get her something, maybe? Damn, he needed to get her a new car at least. But no. No. All Ricky had to do was talk to her, that was always as good as gold for some reason. She always talked back, too. Shared things he hadn’t known. They would hold each other and whisper their thoughts like they were in the back of a church during the homily. Whispers and holding each other and he always learned so much about her. Her own dreams.

His whole ‘dream’ had spilled out that morning. More came later. How much he missed his friend. How hard it was to see those empty chairs at the funeral. Fuckin’ Cindy. How could she? How could she keep those girls away from their own daddy’s…

He had missed most of his own old man’s funeral too. His tías as well. Those ladies. Ricky Senior…stupid stuff. Stupid choices. He should have talked more. The old man shoulda talked more too. Why didn’t he? The world needed fathers and sons that listened and talked to each other. Ricky told that to a confused Mattie when they got back from the funeral. Surprisingly he and Hector didn’t hate the poorly sized black coats and clip-on ties. Maybe Nora took care of that too. It was all a jumble. Now, a week after the funeral, two weeks and change since…

Now. Ricky was here now. Sitting again on the edge of his bed, staring miles away at the phone sitting in his hand. He had watched all the YouTube videos intended for those girls. He could see the ‘views’ or whatever. They’d seen every one. Guitars. Walks. Life lessons. That stupid hair, and that stupid smirk, and that stupid relentless carefree attitude. See where that got you, pendejo? Eh? See where that got you? Stupid idiot dead and now some other stupid idiot staring at his phone trying to think of what he was going to say. What he could possibly say in the comments so those girls understood how much they were loved, how much their daddy loved everyone. How much their father loved… Ricky raised his head and looked over his shoulder to the family photo resting on the nightstand. His eyes imagined little ovals wrapping around the faces of his boys and his beautiful soulmate. Little ovals. Not like the stupid empty screen in his hands. He just didn’t know what to say. What could he possibly say in the end?

In the end, Memo…

Memo made the shot.