109 CHARLES YU One-Eye, Two-Eyes, Three-Eyes • When a child stays needy until he is fifty— oh mother-eye, oh mother-eye, crush me in— the parent is as strong as a telephone pole. —Anne Sexton, “One-Eye, Two-Eyes, Three-Eyes” e moves back in, a week shy of his fortieth, eighteen years to the day since he moved out. In between, they’d had three divorces (two hers, one his), two bankruptcies (one a piece), two stays in rehab (both his), and one thousand, three hundred and thirteen phone calls. She opens the door, her face expectant. He doesn’t return her look, can’t bear it. He steps into the small living room, his prom picture still angled on the mantle between a jade frog and a porcelain rose. He turns to see, on the opposite wall, a handmade sign she’s taped up: welcome home! Please take that down, he says. She asks if she can make him a plate of food. He doesn’t answer. Goes straight for the cabinet, grabs the first handle. Splashes three fingers of room-temperature gin into a mug. Okay, he says. There are going to be some rules. Yes. His mother laughs. Mine. She takes the mug from him, drains it in one easy gulp. You are not to touch this, she tells him. Not even a drop. Or what? he asks. This time it is her turn to not answer. She tells him to get some rest. He’ll need it. A blanket, folded on the couch. His old pillowcase. He looks out the window. Was that a new tree? He didn’t remember. But it looked like it had been there since before the house even. It looked ancient. ‘ h 110 He wakes in the night. His stomach, empty. He finds bread and meat and cheese, slaps it together. He eats the sandwich in four rough bites while staring through the window. A cold wet wind blows against the tree, the house. The white bread sticks in his throat, unmoving. He cups his hand under the faucet and slurps a few times, forces it down. Full now, or at least no longer hungry, he finds the whiskey, fills his mother ’s mug almost to the top. In her bedroom, he hears her stirring. She calls out to him. You okay? she asks. Go back to sleep, he says. He takes his mug to the window. She’d always been overprotective. Always hovering. Still doing it. Driving him to this. Middle-aged, alone, the sum total of his possessions in the hatchback parked on the street. The wind shifts, the clouds part, and moonlight reveals two men standing by the tree. He freezes. Were they there before? Are they looking at him? They walk toward the window. His head pounding, his stomach heavy and warm, his breath damp and sour. They are at the door. They don’t knock, but he can see them standing there. They are large, tall enough that he can see the tops of their heads through the transom. He stands still, unable to move. From behind him, footsteps. Told you not to drink, his mother says, suddenly in the doorway of her bedroom. There are men outside, he says, his voice small. Get in my room, she tells him. What are you going to do? Never mind that, she says, and she pushes him inside, closes the door. He hears sounds, voices, but everything is carried away in the wind blowing through the front door. ‘ He wakes in the morning to find his mother asleep on the couch. Her hands covered in dried earth, her arms scratched and bleeding. They’re gone, she tells him. Who were they? he asks. 111 I had two sisters. Each of them had a son. Each born with one eye. That sucks, he says. They thought so, too. So they tried to kill you when you were a baby. For my eyes? Yes. What did you do? I told them they couldn’t have them because you would need them. Because one day you would do something with your two eyes that would bring them...
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Jan 1, 2023
Raymond E Floyd 
Open Access