The Patron Saint of Butterflies(12)

After that I began to poke around downstairs. There wasn’t much to look at, since Winky’s entire room consisted of a dresser with four drawers, a single bed (unmade and wrinkled), and a chair covered with a green corduroy material. The items on top of his dresser consisted only of a blue hairbrush (minus half its bristles), a clock, and three other books about butterflies. But his bed was messy. I liked that. My bedspread upstairs, stretched taut the way Christine had taught me, was just another reminder of the “strive for perfection” rule we had to follow, which, in my book anyway, is complete crap. Who in their right mind seriously thinks that a human being can go through life without making a mistake? It’s impossible! I’m constantly trying to get this through Agnes’s head, but she just won’t listen. She doesn’t listen when I point out some of the other inconsistencies of the Big Four either, especially the one about tempting not lest you be tempted, which is supposed to explain why there are no TVs or magazines or radios anywhere on the grounds. But why is it, I’ve asked her, that Emmanuel himself—and now Veronica—is exempt from this rule? Why is Emmanuel’s room full of material things like stereo equipment, a baby grand piano, expensive wines, and that enormous color television? Agnes says that Emmanuel is entitled to these things, since he has achieved a “plateau higher than temptation.” Like she even knows whatever the hell that means.

Anyway, for this reason alone, Winky’s unmade bed made me happy. It was the first time I had ever come across anyone who dared dismiss Emmanuel’s rules, however trivial. I sat down on the edge of his soft mattress and swung my legs and wondered what other rules he broke.

It wasn’t long before I found out. One night, after hearing strange noises coming from downstairs, I crept to the top of my stairs and peeked over the railing. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw Winky sitting in his green chair staring at a tiny black-and-white TV. The screen was no larger than a piece of loose-leaf paper and the picture, which at times skit-tered up and down, was fuzzy at best. Guys in rimmed hats and black-and-white-striped uniforms stood around a gigantic baseball field, and a crowd roared every time one of them hit the ball. When someone got up to bat, Winky shifted restlessly in his seat and grunted. I sat still as snow and watched the rest of the game from the stairs. When it ended, Winky stood up, burped, unplugged the television, and pushed it back under his bed. I crept back to my own bed, listening to my heart pound in the dark as Winky’s snores filled the house. Segregated or not, the Milk House was starting to feel like home.

Now I tiptoe around to the back of the house. Winky is on his knees in the middle of the garden, tamping down soft dirt around the pepper bushes in the back row. Perfect. I back up slowly and sneak into the house. Moving as quietly as possible, I angle the tiny TV out from under Winky’s bed, set it on the orange milk crate next to his slippers, and plug it in. Days of Our Lives is nearly over, but I watch the last ten minutes of it breathlessly, trying to figure out what I missed. I think someone may be plotting to kill Hope, but I’m not sure. It’s just a hunch. I keep an eye on Winky, peeking out the window every few minutes. He once caught me watching this show and flipped his lid. He doesn’t care if I watch baseball with him, but he thinks everything else is trash and he doesn’t want to be responsible for me watching it. My mouth waters as a Coke commercial comes on. I wonder what a Coke would taste like. Too soon, the credits start to roll and when the hourglass appears on the screen, I flick the television off and shove it back in its hiding spot. Then I stroll out to the garden.

“Hey!” I squat down next to Winky, watching as he pours a bucket of water over the pepper bush. He grunts in response but doesn’t look up. “I was afraid you might not be here. How’d you get out of Ascension duties today?”

Winky reaches under his robe and removes a small pair of garden shears from his back pocket. “I was peeling potatoes, but Beatrice said I was too slow. She told me to go away.” He struggles to get the words around his tongue, which lolls heavily against his lower lip.

“Oh, Beatrice is an idiot,” I say, sitting down carefully on the grass. “She thinks she can boss everyone around because Veronica put her in charge of the Ascension dinner this year. She’s impossible. Don’t take it personally.”

Winky begins snipping off the dead leaves from the pepper bushes. “I don’t think she likes looking at me. She gets scared. She always tells me to go.” His left eye, which spasms uncontrollably as he talks (and is the reason for his unusual nickname), is moving so fast that I wonder if there is a small engine underneath the lid.

“Well, that’s her problem. I can’t think of too many people who like looking at her, either, especially with that big ugly mole on her chin.” I stand back up. It hurts way too much to sit right now. Plus, while it’s nothing new, I still get agitated when I hear about people brushing Winky off, as if he were some kind of subhuman species. It’s not his fault that he can’t think as quickly as they do, or that his weird older brother who arrived with him ten years ago decided to leave to “pursue other avenues”—without his handicapped younger brother. Most people at Mount Blessing barely give Winky the time of day, and if they do, it’s usually because they’re complaining about something he didn’t do or scolding him for doing it wrong. I know they just take their cues from Emmanuel, who has never bothered to have an actual conversation with Winky about anything, let alone acknowledged his presence. I know for a fact he’s never gotten a copy of The Saints’ Way, and while we’ve never talked about it, I’d bet my life he’s never seen the inside of the Regulation Room. I’m not sure he even knows it exists. Emmanuel would never waste his time trying to “retrain” someone like Winky, who is still “broken.” Winky’s just … here. Kind of like me.