The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernández Page B

mad if she found out.
    8.
    I wasn’t supposed to call New Hope by myself, because calls from the space station were very expensive. But I didn’t like that my dad had put one of my mom’s dresses on one of the cadavers.
    Lance Jr.’s big kikface appeared on the monitor. “You’re in trouble, Randy,” he said. “You’re not supposed to call.”
    “You’re in trouble too,” I said back. “You’re not supposed to answer.”
    “There’s no one else around to answer. Aunt Lois went out for groceries.”
    “Where’s Mom?”
    Lance Jr. looked at me totally dunkaballs. “She’s with you, stupid.”
    “No she’s not, fragbag. She’s with you.”
    “Since when? Is she coming home?”
    “She’s always been home. You’re not funny.”
    “I’m not trying to be funny, dickhead.” And then he kind of squinted and said, “You haven’t seen Mom?”
    And then I saw my mom walk right behind him on the monitor. I pointed behind him and shouted, “See, skratbreath, she’s right there! Liar!”
    Lance Jr. turned around, then turned back to the phone. “Man are you dumb. That’s just an asiMom.” He turned around again and said “Come here,” to my mom and my mom walked over in the exact same way an asiMom walks. Then Lance Jr. said “Increase praise.” And my mom put a hand on his head and said, “Sorry, but praise level is already set to maximum.” Lance Jr. kind of shrugged at me and said, “I learn best from positive reinforcement.”
    9.
    That night during dinner, Dad got a call from Dr. Malloy. “We’re having a little bit of a problem here,” he said, “but it’s nothing we can’t handle, Lance.” My dad said, “I’ll be right over,” and then, when the speaker was off, he said, “This place would fall apart without me.” And then he headed out of the door.
    My asiMom cleared the dishes, and my asiBro asked me if I wanted to play a game. I told him to go fragbag himself. He said, “I don’t know what ‘fragbag’ means. Would you like to add the word to my dictionary?” So I told him to go recharge himself instead. And then I watched the clock for exactly five minutes. Then I got up and followed my dad.
    You need an I.D. to swipe to get into the Macrobe Lab, so I stopped at Maria Centas’ room and took hers. She was having dinner with the other post-docs in the mess and she never locked her door.
    I swiped her card and went in the lab. I crawled on the floor and peeked around incubators to find my dad. The floor was cold and really clean.
    Dad was shaking hands with Dr. Malloy. “I know I say this every night,” my dad said, “but thanks.”
    Dr. Malloy just gave him a few pats on the back and said, “You take care of yourself, okay? For your sake, and your sons’.” And then he started walking toward me, so I had to duck behind a different incubator and hide there until he left the lab.
    Once Dr. Malloy was gone, I peeked around the incubator to watch my dad again. He had opened one of the incubators, the one with the cadaver that had on my mom’s dress. He just looked at that dead lady for a long time. Then he put his arm under her and kind of propped her up until she almost looked like she was sitting. He moved the hair out of the dead lady’s face and he said, “Hi, Cathy.” My mom’s name is Catherine.
    And then he took out the biggest syringe with the longest needle I’ve ever seen in my life and stuck it in the dead lady’s ear. All the way. I almost screamed. It took a long time to push all of the medicine into the dead lady’s brain. When he was done, he put the syringe on the tray and then held the dead lady with both arms, just looking at her and waiting for something to happen.
    The dead lady’s head sat up like only her neck had come back to life. Then she opened her eyes, then closed them, then practiced opening and closing them. She opened and closed her mouth next,in exactly the same way. She stuck out her tongue then sucked it back into her face and