When Malcolm stepped off the bus that afternoon the weather had become a bit more cheerful. His disposition, however, had not.
He slumped home. He didn’t care enough to avoid the puddles.
“Malcolm? Is that you?” His mom called when he walked in the front door. Without waiting for a response she peered around the corner and frowned. “Look at you! You’re a mess! Have you been playing in the mud again?”
“No mom.” He grumbled. He hadn’t played in the mud in years, but for some reason she took any flaw in his appearance as a willful act on his part, as if he were still a child and purposely dove into any puddle he could find.
“Well go right upstairs and get a shower, then get to studying. Lori’s coming home this weekend and you want to impress her, right?”
Malcolm thought of the shelves full of trophies, the walls of awards, the scholarships, the test scores…Her shadow stretched far beyond anything he could ever escape. Somehow he doubted he’d ever be able to impress her.
But he didn’t argue. There wasn’t any point.
“Sure mom.” He agreed before slumping upstairs.
He slumped to the bathroom, removed his wet clothes, then slumped into the bathtub.
He let the water rise around him…Warm…Reassuring…But like all comforts in life it soon disappeared. He watched the water circling around the drain, leaving him forever. Clouds began to form in his psyche and threatened a storm far worse than the one he’d encountered earlier that day. Puddles? Nothing compared to the stains left in his mind by his mental grief.
He heard his phone buzz and suddenly found himself being drawn back into the real world. The psychic storm began to dissipate as he reached for the device.
He carefully dried his hand then tapped the screen…A text message from Jericho.
‘Dude I did it.’
Malcolm sighed, sunk back into the water, then doing his best to keep the screen from getting too wet, typed back an answer.
‘Wat?’
‘I’ve got proof my brother’s a clone. Come over.’
Malcolm closed his eyes. More of this?
‘I can’t. I’ve got to study.’
‘Then I’ll be over there.’
‘No. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
But Jericho didn’t respond.
‘Did you get my last message?’
Again, no response.
Frustrated, Malcolm even tried calling his friend, but the phone went right to voice mail.
“Fuck.”
He got out of the bath and dressed in clean clothes, then walked to his room and did his best to study.
He opened one of the workbooks.
He looked at the first problem.
“Using Snell’s law, show that a beam of light entering a medium with a refractive value of…”
He trailed off. More science.
Disheartened, he reached for his trapper and pulled out his latest physics test. There, at the top of the page in bold red ink, declaring his mediocrity to the world, was a large ’62’.
’62.’
’62.’
He thought of his sister and all the acclaim she’d earned. She’d never been burdened with a 62. She got 100s. She kicked ass in high school, and now she was breezing through university.
Tears swam in his vision. She was destined for greatness, and all he could achieve was substandard scores…62. He would never be a 100. He’d always live in his sister’s shadow; never living up to her and forever disappointing his parents.
62.
He heard a commotion downstairs and wiped his eyes before Jericho entered the room.
“Dude!” He panted. “Dude! I did it!”
“I thought I told you I was studying?”
“Yeah, that’s what your mom told me, but I promised I’d be quick-” Jericho glanced at the paper in Malcolm’s hands. “What’s that?”
Malcolm passed him the test, but after a few moments Jerry passed it back with a confused expression on his face.
“You’re upset about that? Dude, a sixty-two is passing.”
“Barely.”
“I made a forty-eight.”
“Yeah, but…” How could he explain to his friend that being an Ericson carried far greater expectations? How could he complain about the struggles found among a comfortable life when his friend had so few familial comforts of his own?
“Anyway, what were you going to show me?” Malcolm eventually asked.
“Dude, check it out.” Jericho reached into his pocket, withdrew something, then held his closed fist outward. “Feast your eyes on this!”
He opened his hand and Malcolm stared down at…
…A finger.
A severed finger.
A small, pale, severed finger.
A small, pale, severed human finger.
“What the f-”
“I got it off him today!” Jericho beamed. “While in the kitchen! I grabbed a knife and cut off his finger!”
Malcolm didn’t know how to respond.
He closed his eyes.
He tried to think. Suddenly the 62 seemed a far smaller problem than it had.
His heart beat.
His friend, always tenuously dangling at the end of reality’s chain, had finally released his grip and fallen into clear, unquestionable insanity.
He had done it…He was now a danger.
Malcolm wasn’t sure how to react. Should he call the cops? An ambulance? Maybe they could make it seem like an accident.
“You cut off your brother’s finger?” Malcolm asked slowly, hoping he didn’t entirely understand the situation.
“Of course not.” Jericho answered.
Malcolm felt a wave of relief wash over him.
“I told you, he’s not my brother. I cut the finger off my brother’s clone.”
The relief receded just as quickly as it had arrived.
“You cut off your brother-…The clone’s finger?”
Jericho nodded.
Malcolm could hear his voice shaking. “And what does this prove, exactly?”
“What does it prove? Think! We can take it to a DNA place and have it tested! They can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my brother’s been replaced!”
A thousand thoughts continued rolling through Malcolm’s mind; none of them concerned with brother-replacing clones.
His friend needed help.
His friend’s brother needed even more help.
What did his dad think? Did he even know?
What is someone supposed to do when their best friend has become so dangerously delusional?
Eventually he decided that he needed to go over to the Sanders house and make sure…Just confirm that everything was okay. If it wasn’t he could call the police, but there was no point…Not until…Not if…
He looked down at the finger again. It certainly looked real.
“Can we go to your house?” Malcolm asked gravely, though he did his best to keep his voice stable and clear.
Jericho nodded.
The pair headed downstairs.
“Hey mom! Going on a quick walk!” Malcolm called.
“You most certainly are not!” His mom hissed, appearing from the kitchen. She flashed a false smile at Jericho “Thank you for stopping by, but Malcolm is very busy.” Her smile faltered when her eyes met her son’s gaze, “And you…Get upstairs and hit the books. Do you think your sister screwed around like this when she was your age?”
Dejected, the boys parted ways. Jericho disappeared down the street. Malcolm returned to his room.
But he couldn’t study…Not that he’d ever been able to effectively study before, but how could he after being burdened with such knowledge? His best friend might’ve just committed a felony-level assault.
He couldn’t concentrate, and even if he somehow managed to force himself to focus on the words swimming around the page, what good would that do?
He’d always be a 62.
…
Jericho was absent from school the next day, so when Malcolm got off the bus, he quickly made his way to his best frioend’s place. A lifetime of being tightly controlled by his mom meant that every step he took came with added guilt for not getting permission first…But he had to know…He just had to know…
The Sun beat down on his back…He didn’t care.
He felt himself getting winded…Again, he didn’t care. He jogged and galloped and pushed his strained stamina to its limit.
He had to know.
He rounded the streets, cut through yards and fields, made his way to the right street…The right address…He rushed to the front door and tried his best to make his knocks sound far less desperate than he felt.
Malcolm was taken aback when James answered the door.
“Hey Malcolm! How’s it going?” James smiled.
“Uhhh…” He counted the fingers…All ten were visible.
“Jericho’s upstairs.”
“What? Oh…Oh yeah.”
Malcolm slowly made his way upstairs to his friend’s room, where he found Jericho busy playing an old, outdated shooting game.
“Dude, where did you get that finger?”
“I told you.” Jericho said without looking up. “I cut it off my brother’s clone.”
“I just saw him, and he’s still got all ten.”
“Then he must’ve regrown a new one, or maybe the first clone was replaced with a brand new one.” He shrugged. “Either way, that should prove what I’ve been saying.”
Malcolm remained silent. Far from proving clones were running amuck, Jericho’s words only inspired worry.
“If that’s the case, what happened to the original clone?”
Jericho shrugged. “No clue. It could be he’s still the original clone and just regrew the finger. I’m hoping to figure that out sometime this week.”
A muffled crash rang up from the ground floor, followed by Mr. Sanders swearing. Jericho reached for the remote and instinctively turned the TV down to nearly the lowest volume.
“You’d better go.” He said in a rather casual voice. “Dad sounds like he’s hitting the bottle early, and if he sees you here then he’s going to take it out on me when you do leave.”
There was so much Malcolm wanted to say and find out, but he’d known his friend long enough to learn the dysfunctional dynamics of the Sanders family.
“We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay?”
Jericho nodded.
Malcolm frowned, turned, and snuck past his friend’s drunken father and back outside.
He was so lost in thought that by the time his conscious mind regained control he was already walking up his own driveway.
It was later than usual, so he tried his best to sneak up to his room.
“Malcolm? Is that you?”
“Huh? Oh yeah…Just heading upstairs to-”
“Look at you, you’re all sweaty and dirty! Where have you been? You’ve been jumping in puddles again, haven’t you?”
“Me? I just went on a walk.”
He could feel his face reddening.
“You’re lying. You’re a terrible liar. Why would you lie to your mother? Do you hate me?”
“No!”
“You think I’m dumb!”
“No! Mom, that’s not-”
“You don’t respect me…Your sister respects me! She calls me every night, you know! I’ll bet when you leave you’ll never call!”
She was right that he was a terrible liar, and decided not to try and convince her he’d frequently call her.
“I do respect-”
“-Then you’d tell me where you went!”
Malcolm sighed. “I just went over to Jerry’s for a bit. He’s been-”
“Malcolm, sweetheart, I love you and respect your choices, but you need to stop hanging out with him. He’s not exactly Harvard-bound, and he always seems like he has a few screws loose.”
“That’s because his mom left them and his dad’s an abusive drunk.” Malcolm blurted out.
Far from treating this news as any sort of revelation, his mom simply shrugged. “More of a reason not to hang out with him.”
“He needs me.” He didn’t admit the need was a two-way street.
“You aren’t driven enough to take on charity cases like him. Now go! I want you to get upstairs, get a shower, then hit those books!”
Malcolm was halfway up the stairs when she stopped him.
“Oh, Malcolm?”
He froze in place. “Yes mom?”
“Did you ever get that physics test back?”
A cold shiver ran up his spine. In his mind’s eye he could see the number 62 hanging like a noose over him.
“Not yet.” He lied.
His mom frowned. “Well when you do, make sure you let me know, okay?”
“Yes mom.”
He got a shower, changed clothes, and began trying to study.
‘According to the poem, what did the narrator-‘ Where did that finger come from? Could he have gotten it off a dead body? Maybe he found it in medical waste? His dad might’ve gotten it through seedy dealings… ‘Did the narrator clarify their position? Please give evidence to support your-‘ A sixty-two. A sixty-two. A sixty…Two…His eyes darted over to his trapper keeper. What would his mom say when he presented such an abysmal test score to her? What would his father do? His father would probably give him a disappointed frown, but his mother!? He didn’t want to think about it. He’d have to change the grade…Print out a whole new sheet, fill it out with the correct answers, put a fake score on the top of the page…’In your opinion was the narrator better served in using the first person omniscient point of view, or would a different point of view have made the story more effective? Give evidence-‘ and to make matters worse, his sister would be here in a few days. She’d prance around and brag about her accomplishments, leaving him to deal with the horrible reality that he was a less perfect version of her.
He wanted to rip out his hair, rip out his brain, fling it against the wall and stomp the useless organ into the ground. He hated himself, he hated his life…And yet Jericho’s life was certainly worse, which made him feel guilty about his own complaints.
He threw his book against the wall.
“Malcolm? What was that?” His mom shouted.
“You alright, son?” His dad shouted.
He stared at the book. No, he wasn’t alright and never would be. He wanted to die. He wanted to end his joke of a life.
“Yeah.” He lied. “I’m fine.”
Somehow, it was the only lie his parents never seemed to discover.
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