Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Destiny's Child - "Bug-A-Boo"

There was some man yelling hoarsely in Spanish, but I couldn’t initially tell from where. I hadn’t seen or heard from her in thirteen, maybe fifteen years. Between his shouts, she was whimpering and growling, like a beaten dog. Or a bitch in heat.

I wasn’t the violent type. Not when I knew her before, not when I knew her then. But the rock was there and his head was awfully loud and she’s in trouble and you must protect her because maybe her being here is that sign you’ve been waiting for, looking for, I told myself.

I would’ve called the authorities, but she was always impatient and he was bleeding slowly enough that it would look like he was just sleeping for at least another fifteen minutes. And who knows, maybe he was.

She didn’t recognize me at first, or maybe I just didn’t recognize the way she used to recognize me. After I bought her lunch, though, we shared the moments of awkwardness that should’ve been our reintroduction. She still drank carbonated water, I noted. I was still a pescatarian, she noted. We held hands on the way to my car.

Enid Heights? Really? It took all that I had to balance my incredulity and embarrassment into some fashion of polite discourse as I drove her home. Even as humbled and humiliated as I was by her infidelity, I’d found solace (hospice?) in the notion that I’d be more successful than her. I’d fall in more love, I’d make more money, and I’d forget more about her. Her house was enormous and white and her husband was out of town on international business.

We were both out of shape, aged. The sex was better than it had ever been before.

I didn’t particularly enjoy sneaking around and sharing her, but I lusted for the lingering iota of vivacity she came to represent in my life. Subconsciously, of course – I wasn’t the masochistic type. Her husband was a fine man – wealthy, polite, caring, and compassionate. He donated to tax-deductable charities, but not so much that his worth didn’t divide into a very healthy quotient when she divorced him.

That money, plus the little I’d saved up, was enough to secure us a nice new condo in the city. She said she’d missed the bustle.

The wedding was fine, and most of our relatives had forgotten we’d ever dated before, so little explanation was necessary. And they hadn’t started showing, so she was able to fit into the dress she wanted and look as pretty as a recycled bride could hope to. She’d been worried about that.

Of course we didn’t notice anything wrong, not having scrutinized countless before, but the doctor found the ultrasound quite perplexing. He wouldn’t tell us why, but assured us they were growing healthily and insisted that we return for “another peek” in two weeks. He repeated this every successive visit until they were a month out. We were then recommended a specialist.

She lived further out into the country than I’d really ever cared to explore, and her practice seemed more than a log cabin with a collection of dated medical supplies than a respectable clinic. But it was all new to us, what did we know.

Even under different circumstances, I cannot possibly imagine birth having been something beautiful or otherwise not disturbing. Sweating, screaming, bleeding. Sweating, screaming, bleeding. Sweating, hissing, bleeding.

They confused me before they terrified me, probably because of how thoroughly mollified I was by their twenty-three minute preamble. It wasn’t until all three of them were heaped on the table in front of me that I gagged and lost my.. composure.

The doctor, she cleaned them and blanketed them and left me in the room with them. My wife, their mother, had fainted of exhaustion before seeing them.

Oddly, the first thing I noticed was their wiry black hair – babies, as best I could remember, were not typically born covered in an intermittent fuzz. Their large, large eyes like mesh screens; ovals oriented perpendicular those of a human. The humming, hissing, buzzing noises they were making came from syphon-like extensions that twitched and convulsed, hanging off their faces like hoses on gasmasks. I didn’t count their rigid, skin-stretched limbs.

We had brought a pink duffle of blankets, toys, and disposable cameras, which I placed on the bed by her feet as I cradled their trembling forms into the bag. I felt guilty trying to comfort them through the canvas as their buzzing and writhing increased. She was still asleep when I kissed her forehead and left.

I had to move the baby seat to make room for them in the car.

At first, I had no idea where to go. I just drove. They must’ve been getting hungry, and might’ve been doing some kind of crying, so I turned the radio up. I considered the hospital, the shelter, the police station. Eventually deciding I wouldn’t be able to talk my way out of things, especially not knowing what “things” were, I ran the tank dry on my way to the bluffs.

I had to write her the letter first; I felt like it’d ensure that what I said was done would actually get done. I don’t blame you, I said, please don’t blame me, I said. They’ve been taken care of, they’re all gone, I said, and you won’t have to worry about them. I hope the doctor didn’t tell you anything. I’m sorry, I said, but I don’t want a wrong life.

I wasn’t the cruel type. Not when I knew her before, not when I knew her then. I made sure the zipper and snaps were securely fastened so the two lumps in the bag wouldn’t have faces when I dropped them or when they were falling or when the rocks broke their frail skeletons.

I haven’t seen or heard from her in thirteen, maybe fifteen years. He’s learning about the birds and the bees; he wants to meet his mother.