When the Pirate Prays. James B. Johnson
becoming special friends,” I said defensively.
“DamndamndamndamnJesuspizzus!”
“Billy!” an imperative from Mary Lynn, but I knew Sandy had a while yet.
I looked at my gloved hands held in front of me and noticed they were kind of gunky. Well, I still had a dozen more inside. “Got to go.” Then I stopped and turned. “Remember that other freezer that Silas Smith didn’t want us to put Henry B. in?”
“I’ll go make me a sandwich,” Tapes nodded, pocketing the tape measure. “Want anything?”
“Nah. I’ll be busy for a while. Besides, it ain’t polite to eat in front of sick women.”
When I got back inside, I washed up again and pulled on another pair of gloves.
“It’s about time,” said Angie Maple.
“You ever have any children?” I asked the old lady.
“Nope.” She looked at me warily.
I shook my head. “Then don’t be so goddamn sure of yourself.”
“Well!”
I shook my head again. “A room full of women and not one knows anything about childbirth.”
“Damndamndamndamnsonofabitch!”
“That’s right,” I said, “push, slow and steady. Control your breathing.” I glanced at the wall across the room. “You need a focal point. See that picture of a sailboat?” Framed, short waves, some spray, blue background, the obligatory scuttling clouds.
“Nonononono, not that—”
“Whatever turns you on, Sandy. How about—”
“Sandra Dee,” said Angle Maple.
“—that old tapestry on the wall, that crossed thing in the middle?”
“Finefinefinefine, it hurts like bees.” Her eyes were as green as Vermont and as wide as Texas.
“Then push at the right time.” It would still be a while. Her dilation was coming along, but not quite finished.
“I’mumah trying.”
“Your husband is going to be surprised,” I said, positioning a few clean towels.
The immediate and freezing silence told me I’d stuck my foot in my mouth. Was he dead?
Mary Lynn’s face was serious. “Sandra Dee doesn’t have a husband.”
“Oh. Ah. Um. Forgive the intrusion, Sandy.”
She was breathing shallowly as if in fear of another contraction. “It’s okay, Shortcut. You didn’t know damndamn. Obviously God is a man.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“If He were a woman, women wouldn’t have to go through this shit, damndamndamn.”
She had a legitimate point.
Her face scrunched up in pure pain and I wished I had some kind of anesthetic for her. “Who’d want to kill Henry B.?” I asked.
“Not me,” said Angie Maple.
“Darn,” I said.
“What’s that mean?” Angie said, suspicious.
“DAMN!DAMN!DAMN!DAMN!”
“Push harder,” I said, ignoring the old lady.
Sandy’s tummy rippled and I lifted the sheet to top of her stomach.
“Is it time?” asked Mary Lynn.
“Close,” I said, checking and adjusting Sandy’s legs wider. “Each of you help hold one leg apart.” I knelt at the foot of the bed. “This here is what you call your second stage of giving birth.” Sandy’s perineum was bulging out. “Sandy, right now your pelvic muscles are rotating the baby’s head so that her chin is pointing down for the classic delivery position.” I so fervently hoped. If not, Sandy and I were in trouble.
“This cowboy knows some big words,” said Angie tugging on Sandra Dee’s left knee.
“I got a GED.” I paused, thought and to lighten up things, said, “Alexander was talking about Callisthenes when he said, ‘That vain pretense to wisdom I detest/Where a man’s blind to his own interest.’”
Mary Lynn’s blue eye stabbed me with curiosity.
Angie said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind.” I wondered if I wasn’t trying to show off in front of Mary Lynn to disguise the fact I had only a GED. Oh, Shortcut, thy vanity is education.
Mary Lynn was looking at me. “Do you know it’s a girl?”
“Nope. It just figures that a boy would have been on time and not made us all wait.”
“That’s sexist,” accused Angie.
“That’s funny,” said Mary Lynn.
“Damndamndamnitall!”
“Keep pushing at the right time,” I said.
“I am, goddamnit. You want to switch places?”
I drew back dramatically. “Not me.” To divert her, I said, “how’d you come by the name Sandra Dee?”
“Her mother,” said Angie.
“I didn’t ask you.”
Angie glared at me.
“My mom,” said Sandra Dee. “She was a child of the sixties.”
“I guess it’s better than Elvisaria.”
“Sexist, and insulting,” said Angie.
“Diverting,” said Mary Lynn.
I spared Mary Lynn one eye and gave her an imperceptive nod. I could like this woman a lot.
The kid’s head was beginning to show. The perineal tissues were really stretched, I mean stretched.
“Keep ’em wide,” I directed.
“Goddamngoddamngoddamngoddamn.…”
“I think I’d like your mom,” I said. I was still kneeling on the floor and we all scooted Sandy toward me a few inches.
The head stopped moving and I began to panic. The head had not yet emerged, but simply showed a clump of matted hair and gunk.
I started running my fingers around the opening, edging skin and tissue aside. I’d read sometimes the tissue tears of necessity. If the kid didn’t recommence his trip, I hoped that would happen automatically because I sure as hell didn’t know how to cut the tissue, nor was I prepared to do so.
Sandy was breathing rapidly now, retching a bit. Mary Lynn wiped saliva off her mouth. “Mom loved movies and movie stars oh God I feel like they’re wrenching my guts out and she had me after a movie and that’s why she named me ohChrist my guts are ripping out like in that movie Alien when the monster jumps out of a guy’s guts into Sigourney Weaver’s face and ohshitGodhelpme—”
Her stomach actually vibrated and her head jerked up and down and her harsh breathing whistled through her mouth and nose angrily and her feet tattooed the edge of the bed and I had an empathy attack.
I put command into my voice, “Control your breathing and push synchronously.” Was the word “synchronistically” instead? Granny gave me that odd look again. “Her head’s coming out,” I said, relief evident in my voice. When the weight of the world comes off my shoulders, ofttimes I become verbose. “As her head comes out, it will turn back to realign itself with the rest of her body.”
“Didactic is an understatement,”