The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria Read Online Free Page B

grips her thighs for support. Huffs and swallows. “He’s awake,” she manages. “He just opened his eyes.”
    Angela forgets she has children. She runs.

    “What’s wrong with Daddy’s head?” asks Lucy.
    “Shut up, Lucy,” says Greg Jr. He hits her, she starts crying, there is a scene. But it’s Bonnie who must broker a truce. Angela is bedside, watching Greg. Chase, dead-faced, watches Angela.
    Angela is so close to Greg’s face she can see his vacant eyes saccade. He smells like he smells when he comes home from work, before his evening shower, after all the colognes and deodorants have died away. His own animal self.
    The robber’s knife went all the way through his head; its point poked out from his palate like a shark tooth. It’s a miracle he didn’t die instantly. It’s a miracle he didn’t die during the operation to remove it. It’s a miracle his eyes are open and saccading.
    The arc of skull they removed during the operation is 110 mm longby 40 mm wide by 25 mm deep. Where once was skull there is now a cream-colored computer. It bulges like a Mohawk from his head.
    An eneural, it’s called. Angela has heard of them, passingly. There was a report on
60 Minutes
a few months back: on the one hand, real people, who would otherwise be heads of cauliflower, leading normal lives thanks to eneurals; on the other, reports that crooked governments—including, allegedly, the U.S.!—are using them to control people’s minds. So are eneurals good or bad? You decide.
    The eneural is now Greg’s corpus callosum. It will perform thalamic functions, will take over for damaged parts of his diencephalon. Without the eneural, he will never fall asleep again. Were it removed while he was asleep, he would not wake.
    Everyone loves Chase because he has big eyes. Those eyes are locked onto his mother. He says “Mommy?” every once in a while, yanks on Angela’s sleeve. To no avail. After today, he will trust the word “Mommy” a little less.

    Greg’s eyes had locked onto Angela’s an hour ago. She put her hand on his cheek in response and nodded and raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Go ahead, Greg. Tell me.” Then, twenty minutes ago, his bottom jaw started moving, like a dummy’s. She watched him and cried as quietly as she could. She cried so quietly Lucy could hear her tears strike the bedsheet.
    And now Greg, hoarse and dehydrated, blinks and says, “Hey you.”
    “Hey,” says Angela.

    Greg’s knees and elbows don’t work. He has to kick his whole leg forward when he walks. He can operate his fingers only in unison. Physical therapy is helping, but it’s slow going. The other day the staff applauded him for picking up a pencil.
    One night at dinner—he must eat with a bib now—he pushes himself free of the table and moans and stands and sticks out his arms and starts making his stumbling way toward Chase.
    He and Chase used to love to play Frankenstein. Greg thinks it’s one thing he can still do. Hell, maybe his condition will even improve his impersonation.
    Greg Jr. instantly understands what his dad is doing and feels humiliated. He hates that bib more than anything. Lucy, who’d been stirring her food rather than eating it, starts barking out fake, forced laughter. Angela launches herself out of the chair and follows Greg with mincing steps. “Are you okay?” she subvocalizes in his ear. She doesn’t know what is happening. She has read all the conspiracy theories surrounding eneurals she could Google and is only 99% convinced there’s nothing to them.
    Chase used to run howling from the table and hide, giggling loudly, behind the sofa. But now, with big, inscrutable eyes, he just licks mashed potatoes off his spoon and watches Greg approach. Greg pauses in front of him, arms outstretched. Chase’s eyes don’t meethis. Instead, they are looking at his head. At the eneural.

    Four months, and Greg completes physical therapy. Everyone is amazed by his progress.
    A month more, and