Hole in Chest

By Casey Wiley

The day Manuel fit two fingers in the hole in my chest was the day he told me he was going to leave soon and take me with him. See, the hole used to not even be there. I swear it wasn’t there when I was born. Now, someone could reach right through me up to the elbow, take a cup off the shelf. I can’t sleep; it’s getting harder to breathe. And I’ve tried stuffing everything I have in it. Garbage, crumpled paper, waiting room magazines, toast, socks, even an old doll I found in a hospital parking lot. Some poor kid missing it. Hospital bills, junk mail. But it just falls out the back like a little path of where I’ve been. When I find that junk trailing me, I stuff it back in, only for it to fall out again.

Again and again.

Infomercials, metallic tubes of paint, books from the library about birds, stuffing those in there, a dead bird, even. A wig I found on a park bench. Mop head, words, those little green plastic soldiers kids play with—or used to. I’ve even hurt myself? Sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve said that, not really hurting, you can’t fit hurt in a hole in your chest. 

Maybe hurting.

But listen, are you listening? Crying? Screaming? What is that? Terrible sounds are coming from the hole. I swear, lean close.

I’ve even clamped earmuffs on my head. Bought these industrial ones, real noise-cancelers. But they only make the sound louder.

Handfuls of cotton swabs from the doctor’s office, sweater arm, tears, worry, the earmuffs, stuffing those in.

Sometimes, finally quiet. Then I sleep for days.

***

One day, Manuel did see the hole, just a thimble size then. I was just a kid, seven or eight, changing in my room that was basically a large closet. He came in with a book. Hatchet, I think. I used to love that book. He fit two fingers in. Okay, it was already bigger than a thimble. He said, watching me, Does that hurt? I said, Don’t tell Dad. He’d somehow blame me for it like how he blamed us for everything. So, I hid away under my bed, reading the same comics over and over. I never knew my mom. What was she like? I often asked Manuel. She left when he was ten. I was just a baby. 

Manuel was the only adult I ever trusted.

The sounds are changing. They happen more often, sometimes for hours at a time, and what am I to do? They’re so specific. Moose wandering into demolition derby. Bus scraping mall. Bunch of farm animal sounds blasted through jet engine. 

Faint crying. 

Manuel had these little gaps in his teeth. But he’d fold his lips down over them like he was the child.

He’d lie on my bed and read to me, book after book, us facing each other, those little gaps up close. There was never a better time in the world for a kid. Did I hear the sounds then? If I had, I didn’t tell anybody, not even Manuel. I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell him. I’d clutch a pillow to my chest while he read. Even when I could read, I’d tell him I couldn’t read. He knew I was lying. Sometimes he’d shut the door to his room to keep my dad out, or try, but it was like shutting the door on me and in the end, it was shut all the time.

I didn’t care where he’d take me, I just wanted to be with him. I had a little box packed under my bed. Wrote “Toys” on it, like that would throw dad off. While reading to me in bed, Manuel would talk about where we’d go. He wasn’t always home, but he usually was. Or enough. Not enough, but around. He’d be gone for a day or two, but he’d always come back. I could count on that. He never told me where he went, but all I cared about was us pressed together. Promising me. He smelled like some kind of hair balm, a man’s item, older than he was … But those gaps in his teeth. I’d try to fit my nail into them.

I was just a kid. Everything only those gaps, and at first, he didn’t let me fit my nail in, hissing at me, pushing my hand away, and then he did let me, saying it would be okay, that everything would be okay, and then one day he said he’d be right back.

Screwdriver gouging chalkboard. Sledgehammer crushing cement block.

***

I cried under my bed for days, sounds crashing nonstop—jackhammer in a dumpster, cymbal dropped in hospital cafeteria, semi-truck crashing off overpass, pig squeal in jail cell, weight bench tumbling in cement mixer, crane tipping into glass truck. Pillow stuffed to my head. Then I found his hair balm under the sink and used it till it was gone. Dad barely reacted to his absence. He said I smelled like a used car salesman. He’d been playing Christmas music in the apartment nonstop, decorated like it was Christmas Eve. It was July. I was so young. I told tell myself Manuel was just trying to get away from dad. (In the third grade, dad tonked me so hard side of the head with his boot, my eye broke justlikethat.) 

Once in a while? I swear, it feels like the hole gets smaller. I watch it shrink. Like everything’s okay and nothing can fall out? Like I can breathe okay. Like I can sleep. Of course, later that night, it grows back to what it was. Sometimes bigger; I feel it warm, burning, those terrible sounds returning. Elephant shriek in port-a-potty. Soon I won’t be anything. How does dad not hear them? Toilet tossed down basement stairs.

Here, lean close. Do you hear it? Why can’t you hear it? 

Maybe if I grow bigger, all of me, I’ll grow faster than this hole. I’ll be bigger than everyone. I’ll shriek, I’ll wail, I throw great items from skyscrapers.

But sometimes, I let myself wonder if it’s him. You know, the one making the sounds. 

Just talk to me, I say, bending my head down to the hole in my chest.

Screaming monkey into camp counselor bullhorn. Mega church preacher shouting “Jesus! Jesus!”

I’m here, I say. It’s okay. I’m not mad you left.

Wolf attacking hot dog stand.

Okay, maybe a little mad, but. I’m trying not to lie anymore, okay? Furious. Or was. Now? I’m trying not to … hurt. Just talk to me.

Grocery store loudspeaker feedback.

I don’t have much time, I say. Soon, there won’t be anything left of me. You’ve seen it.

…

Sneaker dropped to floor.

…

Door closing quietly.

Sometimes, I just listen. Why fight it? 

…

Thank you for always reading to me, I whisper to the hole in my chest, curled under my bed. Everything else quiet.

…

What is the sound of those two fingers sliding into the hole? The sound of hug or a hand holding another. Little breaths between those gaps in his teeth. There’s sound there, infinitesimal. You have to lean close to hear it.

It’s okay, I whisper.

And the sounds continue.

About the Author

Casey Wiley’s work has been published, or is forthcoming, in Passages North, Salamander, Hunger Mountain, Hobart, Ep;phany, Barrellhouse, Gulf Stream, Salt Hill, The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. A recent story was selected as a finalist for the Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction. In addition to teaching writing at Penn State, he loves gardening and exploring Pennsylvania with his family.