A History of My Thumb

This monkey’s gone to heaven,
This monkey’s gone to heaven,
This monkey’s gone to heaven…

Christmas Eve, 1979, McGregor, Texas
My cousin and I are dressed as shepherds. Tiny, tired, uncomfortable shepherds. We are awaiting our turn to leave the staging room, through which we can see the excited parents sitting comfortably in their pews. My cousin, two years younger than me, unfolds a metal chair and sits down, unable to stand any longer. Jake, one of the big kids, pushes me and laughs, “Your cousin’s a baby!”

Almost on cue, my cousin begins to snore.

Thanksgiving, 1998, Cedar Bluff State Park, Kansas
At the sign for the Barbed Wire Museum, I know to take a right. I realize we’ve driven too far, but the road atlas makes me do crazy things. The little red squares turn my stomach into Gordian Knots, and I drive miles out of my way to touch these little mysteries. And Kansas is full of little red mysterious atlas squares: the World’s Largest Hand Dug Well, the Geographical Center of the Continental United States, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, the Dalton Gang Hideout.

But we’re headed to Cedar Bluff to build a fire, and I must put my travels on hold.

Christmas Eve, 1979, McGregor, Texas
Jake comes into the room and splashes water onto my cousin’s face, waking him. I realize with some horror that Jake has splattered him with holy water from the font.
‘I bet Jesus doesn’t love you.’
‘What did you say?’
I hadn’t realized I had said it aloud. It’s so late.
In solidarity with my cousin, I open up a metal folding chair and sit next to him. But in doing so, I catch my fingers between the iron legs and crush my thumb as I sit.

I jump in pain and thrust my thumb into my mouth.

Thanksgiving, 1998, Cedar Bluff State Park, Kansas
I reach for the log and pick it up for the fire. Almost immediately, I throw it to the ground in pain, a splinter seemingly piercing all the way to bone.
“What is it?”
“A splinter.”
“That bad?”

I nod in pain, my thumb in my mouth.

Christmas Eve, 1979, McGregor, Texas
“He’s sucking like a baby!” mocks Jake.
He’s right of course, I’m like an eager lamb at an empty teat. But the pain overwhelms me. The suckling keeps the pain at bay, it keeps me from crying. But Jake keeps up the pressure.
“Stop sucking your thumb, you baby!”
He’s no longer just making fun of me. He looks angry. It’s clear that watching me, another boy, suck his thumb offends him. It’s clear to me now that both Jake and I were facing a dilemma. I pull my thumb from my mouth.

Almost immediately, my vision fills with television snow and I pass out.

Thanksgiving, 1998, Cedar Bluff State Park, Kansas
I look at my thumb, feeling the splinter still there, growing in fact. Nothing. I hold my thumb closer to my eyes, in the light, removing my glasses as any nearsighted person knows how. Nothing. No splinter. No mark at all. But I can feel it, working its way down even further, looking for a route to the rest of my hand. I kick the log over, now instinctively looking. There. Tiny. Right out of The Pearl, out of all those warnings you receive growing up in Texas, 1,000 miles away from this place, warnings about emptying your shoes in the morning before putting them on. The little red scorpion, slow from the cold weather, ambles away.

I cut the top off a beer can, pouring the remaining drops onto my invisible wound and scoop up my new pet.

Christmas Eve, 1979, McGregor, Texas
I wake up, and Father Conrad is holding me in his lap. Father Conrad, whose death years later marks only the second time I ever see my grandmother cry, perhaps the most gentle man I have ever known, Father Conrad, who holds such a high esteem in the eyes of our community, speaks to me and comforts me. I look up at him in awe on this Christmas Eve, in particular awe, because he has never spoken directly to me before. I feel so important. I feel overwhelmed. I feel sick.

I throw up on Father Conrad when he asks me if I can stand.

Thanksgiving, 1998, Cedar Bluff State Park, Kansas
I come in from the outdoor shed.
“How’s Jake?”
“He’s dead.”
“Thank god. That thing was disgusting.”
I recite, “The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp ‘Why?’
Replies the scorpion: ‘Its my nature...’”
“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Just some story I heard as a kid.”