Harpo

“This is Hor-Hay. He’s my favorite. He’s fourteen but looks about seven, doesn’t he?”

Ty’s favorite was presently vomiting in the backwoods of the orphanage. Ty stroked Jorge’s little head and spoke to me nonchalantly, rightfully confident that the kid had no idea what we were talking about.

Jorge was a small black boy with no body fat. I couldn’t fathom that he had anything to heave but innards.

Actually, the puke did begin to resemble intestines as it collected on the ground. Ty looked repulsed, but I couldn’t detach my eyes from the strange buildup. Was he actually losing his intestines?

“Bichos,” mumbled Jorge between heaves.

We all became transfixed with the pile. The intestines were beginning to wriggle on the grass. Fucking. Wriggling.

Jorge was sick for an entire week. A small indigenous orphan named Tito—after I bribed him with American lollipops for an interview—told me that Jorge drank from the tap the day he got sick. So he vomited live worms. Apparently it happens all the time.

#856: American Vomit is Often Stationery.

The newspaper never printed my story. I wish I could say that the article would have caused uproar, but I think it went unpublished only because of my poor grammar. I also never spoke to any official water people to hear the counterpoint tale.

That night Ty and I slept in bunk beds in his private room. He had the top bunk and his own mosquito net from California. I was on the bottom and completely vulnerable to the elements. The place reeked of rotting wood and bug spray, and periodically something nipped me under my clothes.

“Ah! Fucking fuckhead motherfucking bugs!”

“Makes you miss Quito, doesn’t it?”

“Hell no.”

I could hear Ty fondling the crucifix around his neck. He was a fairly devout Episcopalian which must be one of the lenient denominations. Not that I know religion. We had had several simplified theological discussions that frustrated the hell out of him. It turned his mind inside out to fathom my agnosticism.

“How can you live everyday without believing in an afterlife?”

“Umm…I don’t know. I guess I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

“So you didn’t adopt any religious ideals at all from your upbringing?”

“Eh, we got presents at Chanukah. Besides, Jews don’t have an afterlife.”

“WHAT?!”