I try not to think about Teddy, because by rights he should be dead by now.
It pains me that the horrible people are horrible, including my Sofia and including Tanya, and I think what can I do. I am a man, after all, and I am surrounded on all sides, helpless, and all I can do is keep to myself, which I do most of the time because were I to say this out loud for anyone to hear, for anyone to take the wrong way, misinterpret, because that’s what horrible people do the world over, in big cities and small towns and quiet villages and hamlets and rural prairie places with all of the grain waving and grandstanding, then what will become of me then?
I often think about what will become of me.
I think about what will become of my Sofia, too, wherever she may be, who is, or rather was, when I knew her, as anyone might imagine, horrible.
I do not think about what will become of Tanya because of her misguided ideas.
The few people still left in town have always taken things the wrong way, have always talked about me and my private affairs, what went on between me and my Sofia and Tanya, for instance.
This is how these people were raised. You can tell by how they look at you out of the corner of their faces, hissing, snickering. They were taught to behave like this, to take things the wrong way, to talk about other people’s private affairs.
People always want to tear down their betters.
My Sofia and Tanya are twin sisters, or rather, were twin sisters, because one or both might be dead now. I’m not sure if you remain twins after death.
So many people are dead now or might be, including members of my own family.
My family did everything they could for me. They never allowed me to work on the farm, for instance. This perhaps wasn’t best in the long run, but they didn’t know better and I do not blame them entirely.
My Sofia was always dying.
I would feed my Sofia painkillers and sleeping pills because I wanted to help. I always had good intentions when it came to my Sofia. I didn’t enjoy seeing her suffer like that, though some claim otherwise. Some claim that I only got involved with my Sofia so I could get close to Tanya. Others that I was trying my best to kill my Sofia, keep her sickly, weak. This is yet another example of how horrible people are horrible, that they can even imagine this sort of thing, which is a particularly craven way of looking at the vicissitudes of love.
I don’t know what that means, but it seems right to me.
When I say some claim what they claimed about me and my Sofia in regards to Tanya I’m talking about Teddy the cripple, my best friend, most of all. Teddy would claim this all the time, both to my face and to everyone we knew in common.
Everyone recognized the peculiar perfection of my face, the way I carried myself, some said like a king or Jesus.
There was always scuttlebutt, hearsay, innuendo.
I was famous.
I would see her next to me in the mirror, my Sofia, in the morning, looking the way she looked, and I’d open the medicine cabinet and pull however many pills from the pillboxes and say, Take these.
She would choke them down all at once, look up at me, and say, So now what?
I never had an answer for her, but we would go back to bed and take advantage of each other for the rest of the day.
These were glorious times.
I never once thought of Tanya while in the middle of my Sofia.
Teddy was crippled anew every few years, but it started with what his parents did to him as a boy. They would have him work all day on the farm even though he wasn’t strong enough to do it. Teddy was born with scoliosis and a clubfoot and had no more business out there in the field than me or my Sofia.
When Teddy was finished in the fields, he would come in and they’d feed him some stew if they weren’t in the middle of themselves. Teddy said he’d come into the house sometimes and catch his parents tangled up in the living room. Sometimes they would ask him to take pictures. He never showed me the pictures, but I saw them one time over at his place. They were next to his bed, hidden behind a stack of books and papers.
I think maybe Teddy was in the fields while I was in his room looking at the pictures, doing whatever he had to do out there.
Maybe you can’t blame Teddy entirely for what happened with my Sofia.
So much of my time is spent trying to assign blame to those who deserve it most.
For instance, my Sofia. I haven’t seen her in years. I don’t know where in the world she might be hiding herself.
My Sofia used to hide from me all the time. I would come out of class and look for her in the hallways, in the playground, on the streets, in the meadow. She was always nowhere.
Now I think she was with Teddy half the time. They were probably getting tangled up with Teddy’s parents in the living room, everyone taking pictures of everyone else. I didn’t think this back then, but I do think it now.
Tanya, though, was never nowhere. Tanya was always exactly where you could easily find her. Out there in the middle of everything, prancing around in the sundresses she always wore, regardless of the season.
When I look into the mirror and want to kiss myself, I want to do so for many reasons. Not the least of which is who wouldn’t except for Tanya, and goddammit if only God knows why sometimes.
Tanya and my Sofia were identical twins who didn’t look like each other.
Teddy thought my Sofia was prettier than Tanya, which tells you all you need to know about Teddy.
I would always refer to Sofia as my Sofia and never once said that about Tanya. I would say things like, My Sofia is spending a month at the sanitarium, or I would say, No one can dance a tarantella like my Sofia.
What I would say about Tanya was, Did you see Tanya in that sundress this morning?
I would say this to my school chums, particularly Teddy, who was my best friend, even though he was as horrible as the rest of them and a cripple to boot.
Teddy would make some comment about Sofia’s figure, he would call her voluptuous or an hourglass. He would tell me what he would like to do to her and how often. I would tell him to calm himself down, that he would only be disappointed, that hourglasses break and then it’s sand all over your shoe.
Every morning when I wake is a disappointment. I look around the room and everything is the same. My Sofia is nowhere next to me in bed and she isn’t hiding in the bathroom. Years ago I would wake up to find my Sofia in the bathroom with the door locked. I never knew what it was she did in there and I never asked.
There is a table next to my bed where I keep a clock and various necessities. I will not list the necessities because I am often ridiculed for having them, for thinking them necessary.
My Sofia was merciless in this regard.
There are the humidifiers, which keep me breathing through the night. The doctors told me were I not to run the humidifiers I would end up dead.
This was also true of my Sofia, who always had a terrible time breathing. There was something wrong with her lungs, throat, and nose. Actually, there wasn’t a single part of her body that wasn’t part of the problem.
There’s a chance my Sofia is dead, though I perish the thought and God should forbid it. She wasn’t a well woman when I knew her and I doubt she’s improved. People almost never get better, especially the horrible ones. If such is the case, if my Sofia is indeed dead, then I can see myself not filling the humidifiers up with water anytime soon.
My family always made sure my humidifiers were filled with water. They made sure I was propped up under enough pillows to allow for easy breathing. Those people loved me dearly and it’s a shame what happened to them.