Another character was Ansel Easter, who would come shifting into a scene carrying a black belt which he offered to C for use on the child. “Bring welts to them,” he would say, “big blue and black ones that will last forever. Make ’em scream. Teach ’em the Bible and everlasting glory. Teach ’em of repentance and damnation. Teach ’em of God and his infinite wisdom. Teach ’em Hell.” And in these movies C would not only be standing, shaking in revulsion at his reborn character, but searching desperately for the projector, wondering why inside his own mind such a thing could go on, seemingly out of his control.
No, he thought. All fathers are not mine. All fathers are not mine. It doesn’t have to be like that . . . things can be different. Someone can be happier than I was, and than I am. It’s possible. It doesn’t have to be like that—like a living worm that everyone catches from their father—and wishes from then on for the darkness and the warmth and the . . .
But C wasn’t sure of this. He wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t happen all over again, and even when he talked to Cell about how their lives would be changed, and how much joy would come into their hearts, he was watching home movies of what he was sure it would be like. And as Cell grew to well over a hundred pounds, these movies became more frequent and more vivid, many times intruding into his dreams and making his body sweat even outside the covers.
C WAITED WITH HIS WIFE IN THE INDIGENT WARD AT THE HOSPITAL—A large room with many beds and many pregnant and very pregnant women. Cell had insisted that he be there, not during the birth (which she didn’t care about because she figured that if it killed her, well, then it wouldn’t matter), but be there when they carried in the baby, in order that he would have to accept some of the blame, in order that she wouldn’t have to show it to him later, in order that they could be together when the blow fell.
C was glad for the large room, the other women, nurses, orderlies, water canisters, the noise, and the activity. It’s better here, he thought, than I imagined. There are witnesses. There are other fathers.
He sat beside her bed and they waited, watching everyone and everything that moved in the room, not ever taking their complete attention away from the two swinging doors through which a nurse would emerge carrying the baby.
“How wonderful it is,” said Cell, “that we have a baby—a baby boy.”
“A boy,” said C. “They told you that? That it would . . . that it is a boy?”
“Yes. Before I came out of the room they told me.”
“I thought it might be a boy.”
“That’s what we wanted. Isn’t that what we wanted, C?”
“Yes,” he said. “I thought you wouldn’t be conscious then—that they put you to sleep . . . because of the pain.”
“No. I think it’s more natural to be awake . . . and I didn’t want to miss anything.”
That takes courage, thought C. “And you didn’t . . . I mean, it must have been so painful. Did you see it?”
“No. No, I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I wanted you to be with me . . . to share.”
“Do you feel like going to sleep? Are you tired?”
“No. I feel fine. I’m too excited to sleep.” Poor C, she thought, he isn’t prepared for what will happen.
“Oh. Well, maybe you should be. Maybe it’s not healthy not to be. Should I call a nurse?”
“No. It’s the best thing to be excited now—because I’m so happy.”
A nurse walked through the doors in the other direction, away from them.
And another nurse, a young nurse, not small, with telephone-black hair, came through the doors into the thirty-bed-capacity room carrying a bundle and looking down into it. She stood casually, resting on one leg, and looked across the ward, from bed to bed. Some of the others looked up from their lying or propped-up positions and then looked away uninterested. Her search carried her easily down one aisle and up the other, rocking her arms so naturally that her limbs seemed to swing in time to her heart, until she found the frail little woman with colorless eyes peering out of her covers like a frightened bird, her husband sitting beside her in a straight-backed chair looking like a passenger in a very fast car that had just taken off. First baby, she thought; people are so odd . . . such a simple thing, having a baby. But these people aren’t even holding on to each other. She needs comfort now. He should be more compassionate. They’re afraid to be kind. And she carried the bundle over to them.
“Mrs. Easter?” she said, in a voice that came sympathetically, automatically, from way down inside her, clear from nursing school.
The colorless eyes did not leave what she was carrying and there was no answer.
“He’ll probably be getting hungry about now,” she said. “He’s a handsome little devil.”
Still the two didn’t speak and she carefully laid the baby down on the bed between Cell’s spread legs. Then she left, feeling slighted, thinking, Stupid people!
Cell looked at it, and it moved. C looked at it and, as though it might be a butterfly bomb, got up from his chair and stalked around the bed, sliding one hand along the metal frame. Cell wiggled one of her feet, then the other, then both. The baby noticed neither. Later, C sat back down on the chair and lit a cigarette.
“No smoking,” snapped the woman in the next bed. C pinched off the lit end and put it in his pocket. Cell reached down toward the baby with an extended finger and touched its right hand.
Nothing happened. As though taking apart an intricate machine, she pulled the wrapping away. One of its legs moved. C came over closer.
“Aren’t the eyes open yet?” asked C.
The eyes! thought Cell; they will . . . oh, my God; but soon then the baby opened its eyes and looked—at least it seemed as if it looked. And then C touched it and it moved again. Then Cell touched it. After a while it opened its mouth and yawned. Then it made a noise and then it cried.
It’s a baby, thought Cell. It’s just a baby . . . look, C, it’s just a baby. “It’s wonderful,” she said, as though listening to the sound she wanted to say.
“It’s wonderful,” said C, trying this also, thinking, It’s alive, it’s something . . . something different from me. It’s all together.
“It’s wonderful,” they said together and began to laugh, tears running down the sides of their faces. “It’s wonderful.” The baby screamed—C coming over to the bed and being close to Cell— she finally picking up the baby, laughing and crying.
“Keep quiet,” snapped the woman in the next bed. “Don’t you know this is a hospital?” But the Easters did not hear her.
The nurse returned with a paper and wrote down numbers and words from the chart hanging on the bed. Cell was rocking the baby back and forth with the motion of her body, smiling, and C, absent-mindedly, not wanting to take his eyes away from his family, said,
“Glove.”
And she wrote it down.
SAM
Sam played mostly three-ball