I do not own American Horror Story: FreakShow.
And I really have no friggin' clue what's going to happen next. And I really love that.
Just People
No More Liquor For Jimmy
Uuuuuuughhhhhh . . .
He was dying. There was just no other explanation for it.
Dying.
And he'd never see his beautiful girl again. Never hear her lilting voice again. Never kiss her luscious lips again. Never feel her naked body pressed deliciously to his again.
What a stupid waste.
He tried to sit up but was completely thwarted by the blanket draped over him, entrapping his clumsy, feeble body in its suffocating fibers.
Then his brains exploded out of his pulsating eye sockets.
Uuuuuuughhhhhh . . .
Through the second heartbeat throbbing in his miserable head, distantly heard quiet movement.
Strong, familiar hands pulled him, against his will, up into a sitting position.
Aaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhh, mufffaaackeerrrr . . .
He peered through swollen slits of thick, gummy flesh at the figure before him.
And wished he had already died.
Heavyset female body. Neatly brushed thin gray hair. Wiry brown beard.
Ma.
He slouched back against the wall of his bunk, vaguely wondering how a room so dark could still be so bright and piercing.
Like spearing, slicing shards of light.
She never said a word, his Ma, just handed him a partially filled cup.
He sniffed it.
Nothing.
Sipped it.
Water. Tepid.
Grimaced as it made his teeth ache like he was gnawing on iron filings.
Swallowed thickly, feeling it slide down his parched throat.
And lunged forward, retching sickly through sore, aching, shredded muscles.
Right into the bucket Ma'd strategically placed for just this exact reaction.
When he finally leaned back to resume his previous, wretched position with renewed agony coursing through his body, she pressed a damp, cool cloth to his mouth, wiping the remaining sour moisture away.
Her slate blue eyes nailed his putrid carcass right to the trailer wall.
And her thinly held mouth never spoke a word.
Not a single word.
He tried to think of something to say.
Anything at all.
An excuse. A reason. A quip.
Oh it ain't so bad. I'm fine. I'm a man now. And men, men drink, Ma!
No.
Well, I was trying to take care of it, like I said I would. Just got a little . . . sidetracked is all.
No.
I . . . I . . . just wanted a father, Ma. Even if he is a rotten, violent, lying bastard.
Closer to the truth. But still no.
They stayed there for a while. Him, trying not to die. And her, patiently waiting his sickness out.
Never saying a word. Never leaving.
Somehow that was the worst part. It would be better if she'd just leave him alone to die.
It was what he deserved anyway.
Finally, he stopped sweating and puking and trembling so much.
Drank more water and even kept it down.
She doled out crackers slowly, one after the other.
He held them in his mouth carefully then tentatively chewed. No salt. Just little squares of dry cardboard, really.
Finally finishing no less than a dozen crackers and an entire cup of tepid water and keeping it all down, Ma seemed somewhat solemnly satisfied with her inebriated son's progress.
And Jimmy, Jimmy Darling with his pounding headache and wrung out, rattling insides, was completely exhausted.
His head drooped. His eyes slipped closed.
Until he felt himself slowly tilting sideways.
Rousing slightly, he saw Ma, still there, still silent, easing him back down onto the mattress. Covered him over again with the blanket.
His cement laden eyes rolled up and closed again.
Right before he fell gratefully unconscious again, he felt her thick, strong, gentle fingers brushing through his sweat filthy, grimy hair. Soothing it down, comforting his hot clammy flesh.
I'm sorry, Ma. I just, I just wanted . . . just for once . . . huzzzzzzzzzz . . .
The second time he woke up he was alone.
His head still felt like a swollen, throbbing sack of pus.
But he was no longer dying.
Probably. Most likely. Maybe.
But he still wasn't going to chance moving much yet.
Oh, man what did I do?
He mentally furrowed his brow, as physically furrowing it might have killed him.
Then finally, through the fog of pounding sickness, it came back to him.
Going to talk to Dell, that's what he'd been going to do.
Man to man. Kick him to the curb. Sayonara, jerk.
It hadn't gone exactly according to plan.
The liquid fire Dell'd insisted upon had tasted like poison, gasoline. For about the first six shots.
He'd been trying to talk to Dell. Stay good 'n mad. Lay it on the line that the guy had to scram.
And that's where he'd gone wrong.
Talking.
About himself.
About not wanting to drink. 'Cause of Ma. And his fear of becoming what she had once been.
And good ole' Dell. Giving that guy to guy camaraderie, with his reasonable sounding excuses, brushing the truth under the rug. Pressuring him into drinking with all that 'men drink' and 'mama's boy' . . .
Hey, I love my mama . . .
. . . crap like they were kids on a schoolyard . . .
Not that I ever got that experience, nope not the Lobster Boy . . .
. . . or something . . .
But it sure had worked, hadn't it?
Yep, sure had.
And then of course, there was that other thing. That feeling that he was there, finally there, sitting next to . . .
Jimmy grimaced even more from that thought than the pounding in his head, cradling the pulsating blob of his head in his deformed hands.
Things'd started going to fuzzy around the edges then. He'd started warming up and relaxing.
He'd even told the story about his hands and the snow and Ma Petite and the rabbit and the gloves.
Jimmy sighed. You didn't tell heartwarming life stories to the guy you hated and were trying to get rid of. You just didn't.
Unless you're a dumbass like me, I guess.
And Dell'd made him take off his gloves and said . . .
He made me care. He made me feel like he cared.
And Jimmy'd smart mouthed off something funny and they laughed loud and happy.
The rush of feeling like family and drunken warmth and belly jostling laughter had sent his overloaded system over the edge.
His face'd gone doughy and numb and his guts'd burned and churned acid lava and he'd known he had to run for it.
He'd heaved up something vile in the alley and the realization that . . .
Oh god, I've gone and done it. I'm drunk and Ma's gonna be furious and I was only trying to help and be a man and it's so hard to do that when you'd never had one to look up to and it's all because of this awful, rotten loser over here . . .
. . . contributed greatly to the utter disintegration of his self-control.
Jimmy Darling lay in his bed and closed his eyes, groaning throughout his shambled wreck of a body.
Oh, man, I cried. Ugh, like a baby.
Because suddenly it had become the most important thing in the entire world to hear the man say it, just once. Nothing trumped that card, not Amazon Eve, not crazy Elsa, not even Ma.
Just that once, he wanted, he needed to hear it.
And so he'd blabbed his slobbery, fool mouth about his hands and the Famous Toledo Lobster Clan.
He'd whined and cried and begged and spilled his pitiful, stupid guts, everything that had been pent up his whole life, until the shocked, staring man'd accepted him.
Finally accepted him.
As his son.
And then . . . and then . . .
Oh jeez, no . . .
He'd hugged him. Jimmy'd hugged him.
And it had felt so good.
Just to be hugged.
By his dad.
Who'd hugged him right back.
Jimmy reached up to the sideboard and clumsily fished a cracker from the bowl Ma'd left. He put it in his mouth, decided it just took too much effort and pain to chew, and let it sit there on his bile soaked tongue.
After he hugged his father to the unimportant clunking sound of something falling to the concrete, things had gotten kinda hazy.
He'd meant for Dell to go.
Finally got a Dad, now I gotta send him away . . .
And Dell, Dad, had said something figuring things out and about home.
Going home.
Getting Jimmy home.
His hazy, tangled thoughts trailed off.
As Jimmy Darling, with his dry mouth full of damp, tasteless cracker, fell asleep.
When he woke the third time, he managed to sit up all by himself and stay that way. Shamble to the tiny table.
And sit there like an empty husk, lobster hands limply in his lap.
It was still quiet.
But it sure hadn't been earlier.
Earlier there had been singing. He remembered that. Really loud, boisterous singing.
Him and Dell.
Dad.
Hanging onto one another like the best of friends. Close as brothers. Or, more truthfully, father and son.
And singing.
About a strongman and debutantes.
Or something.
Elsa sure hadn't liked it. Her in her silky nightgown and robe.
Arrgh, put those away, you crazy German broad! They're old! Nobody wants to see 'em! Ha!
And then there'd been Desiree, sounding for all the world like his mother.
Or a really pretty, three boobied aunt that he'd once felt up.
Until she bled on me anyway. That's a mood killer for sure.
Big Daddy Dell Toledo bellowing that Jimmy was his son. And he, Jimmy, feeling on top of the world and sooo proud, had shouted it too.
Condescending Elsa, snarking away at Dell's proud declarations.
Knowledge. Dell imparting some really important knowledge on him. Man knowledge.
Something about his balls. Keepin' 'em. Or holdin' em. Or something.
And Jimmy'd yelled, yelled . . .
Oh crap . . .
. . . right at Elsa, right in front of anybody who wanted to see, to hear, about . . .
Something. I definitely was yelling about something important. Oh yeah . . .
Bulls. And balls. Balls and bulls.
Pitching forward and faceplanting the ground.
Laying there like a limp, rotten noodle 'cause he'd up and lost all his bones when they'd melted right out of his skin.
And through the air woofed out of him, yelling for, demanding, another song from Dell.
And at the silent, glowering Elsa to be quiet.
Oh, he'd felt so good. So young and strong and virile.
Invincible, yeah.
After that . . . after that . . .
Well, he couldn't remembered anymore after that.
Jimmy Darling sat alone in the quiet dimness of his dingy trailer and chugged more of the tepid water Ma'd left for him.
He was so thirsty. Never before in his entire life, had he ever been so thirsty. He was like an arid, empty desert, he was so thirsty.
But he still couldn't remember what he'd said last.
There's no telling. Maybe it wasn't too embarrassing.
He groaned deep in his weary chest, slumping forward until his forehead came to a rest on the scarred tabletop, thumping softly down.
Probably was though.
He groaned again, pressing his forehead into the unrelenting surface until the outside ached worse than the in.
Belligerent, that's what he'd been.
And Jimmy Darling was not belligerent.
Or a drunk.
Jimmy Darling was a good guy.
Or had been.
Then the trailer door opened.
And in walked Ma.
I both laughed and cried and facepalmed myself silly at the whole drinking/drunk/screaming at Elsa bit of the ep.
And resolved once again to never drink. Never have, never will. The end.
So anyway, here's my original chapter of what I think happened next.
Thanks to a-turtle-shell and Jurana Keri for your continued reading, reviewing, and support.
Thanks to goodnight-to-the-morning for adding your support to this tale as well.