It's Alive! (4 page)

“The nurse is here for you, Mr. Davis.”

The young nurse in a pale green smock nodded to Frank and motioned for him to follow. They walked down the antiseptic corridor, Frank’s shoes clacking irritatingly on the tiles a step behind the silent ripple-soles of the nurse. She directed him to a small room where she handed him a green wraparound smock similar to hers, and a gauze mask. He donned them dutifully, feeling a bit silly, then was ushered back into the corridor.

A tall, dignified man in similar green hues, with a small green cap and a gauze mask dangling loosely around his neck, came around the corner.

“Ah, Mr. Davis.”

“Hello, Dr. Francis. Is everything . . .”

“Your wife will be going to delivery in a few minutes.” He stuck out his hand and they shook.

“Any problems?”

He smiled mechanically. “It’s going to be quite a large baby. Its growth in the last two weeks has really been amazing.”

“You mean—is there any—well, is everything safe?”

The doctor smiled again and patted Frank on the back as he steered him toward a door. “The next time, Mr. Davis, you really should arrange to be present at the birth. So many men are doing it these days, and it’s quite a rewarding experience. As I said, next time. It must be arranged ahead of time, so that you can be prepared for . . . for the event.”

“You mean, for the blood.”

He smiled again. “Yes, to be candid. It upsets some fathers. You must be ready for it. Next time.”

The doctor shook Frank’s hand heartily, and set off down the corridor. The nurse pushed open the swinging door and held it for Frank to pass through into the labor room.

He went quickly to the bedside of his wife, all covered in white. She was pale, her face pinched in occasional pain. She took his hand. Suddenly she closed her eyes and bared her teeth, her body tensing. She moaned softly through the contraction, then tried to smile as she looked at him.

“I’m not really very brave.”

“Just keep hanging on to my hand.”

She nodded. She would do that for his sake, though for her own she would have held on to her quivering belly with both hands. She couldn’t truly share this time, or this pain, with him. But she knew that he felt better when she held his hand.

When she spoke, it was really to herself. “It’s not like it was with Chris. It’s different. I can’t explain how. I couldn’t make the doctor understand . . .”

“Everything’s fine. I just saw Dr. Francis. Everything’s fine.”

Everything was fine, but different . . . strange. A strange pulse beat through her. She knew what she knew. Frank never had a baby. Dr. Francis never had a baby. Even that polite, virginal nurse never had a baby. And no one, not even she, had ever had
this
baby before.

Her body stiffened again, and she heard herself moaning. She heard—though nobody would understand that either—the baby moaning, felt it writhing for freedom. “You better call the nurse, Frank, please.”

“Okay, okay. I better get Dr. Francis.” He rose quickly.

“No, he’ll be waiting. Just get the nurse please, Frank.”

“Nurse!” Frank swung out the door and called. “Nurse! Will you please hurry up!”

The nurse and an intern scurried soundlessly into the room. The nurse looked briefly at Lenore, then exchanged a glance with the intern, who nodded.

“Sir,” the intern said quietly, “you’ll have to go to the fathers’ room now. We’ll notify you.”

The fathers’ room! Like some child! “Wait a minute.” He bent over his wife. “I love you.”

Lenore stared at the ceiling, her eyes wide. “I’m glad we decided to have this baby after all,” she heard herself saying. “It wouldn’t have been right to stop it. It would have been so easy and legal, but so selfish. It’s right to have the baby . . .”

“Lenore sweetheart,” Frank nuzzled her ear, “don’t even think about that. It’s going to be wonderful. We both want it.”

“. . . I’m going to have it after all, the baby. It won’t tie you down, Frank, I’ll take care of everything . . .”

Frank stared after her as the nurse wheeled her bed out and down the corridor.

He stood watching her wheeled away, until he felt the intern’s impatient stare at the back of his neck. “The fathers’ room. Okay?”

Three other fathers, or potential fathers, sat in the room, smoking cigarettes, staring at the floor and their knees and their hands, shaking their heads from time to time. Frank stood in the middle of the room, gazing blankly out the window into the blackness.

One of the fathers had the hiccups. Frank walked out.

He looked at his watch, lit a cigarette, and blew a smoke ring toward the ceiling. He began walking casually up the corridor in the direction of the maternity viewing room.

“I’m sorry, sir,” called a nurse dulcetly from her station, “but you’ll have to go back in the fathers’ room. The babies are out.”

Frank looked at his watch again without noticing the time, calmly lit another cigarette, shrugged, and went back into the fathers’ room.

The three other fathers were behaving as a team. Now each was filling a Styrofoam coffee cup from the glass pot on a hot plate.

“Is there anything to stir this sugar with?” asked the tallest one.

“Here, use this,” said a sturdy man with a crew cut, handing the other a pencil. “I’ve been using it for the past three hours. After a while, you get to like the taste of lead in your coffee.”

The third—a chubby, balding man who had apparently been summoned from a convocation of some sort, since he was wearing a lapel sticker that announced, “Hi! I’m Dave Bloomgarden”—stared into his steaming coffee. “I suppose you think you’re joking, but there is an overabundance of lead in all the foods we eat nowadays . . .”

Frank sat down in the plastic chair opposite Bloomgarden.

“. . . The fact is, we’re slowly but surely poisoning ourselves, you know that?”

The other two shook their heads as they paced.

“Fine world to bring a kid into,” Frank said, smiling.

“Oh, the buildup of toxic materials in our food substances is frightening,” Bloomgarden went on, fixing his gaze now on Frank. “I could cite you instances of—”

“You don’t have to lecture us,” said the tallest man, who was dressed in a white turtleneck shirt and green slacks. “Just look out the window every day—get a load of that smog. What’s the difference if we breathe it or eat it?” He did not smile.

“Maybe we’ll learn to adapt to it,” said the man with a crew cut. His chin was covered with stubble as was Frank’s. “I’m an exterminator.” He stopped pacing and looked at each of the others. “We service the Beverly Hills and Westwood area. Here’s my card.” He held his business card up to the tall man and Frank, then handed it to Bloomgarden, who studied it. “I’m not trying to drum up business or anything.” Bloomgarden started to put the card into his jacket pocket, but the exterminator snatched it back. “The point is, years back we developed this spray to kill roaches and other household pests. But all it ended up doing was creating a new breed of roaches. Bigger and stronger and harder to kill.” He nodded rapidly at his own words.

“Yeah,” Frank remarked, smiling, “so maybe we’ll all thrive on smog and mercury poisoning and all the rest.” He looked absently at his watch. “Jesus, what’s taking so long?”

The others nodded and shook their heads in chorus.

The exterminator pulled a deck of cards from the inside pocket of his plaid sports jacket. “Anybody want to join in a little game of gin?”

Nobody answered.

“I hope she’s not having any trouble,” Frank said softly. “She gave birth to the last one in about forty minutes. I thought they said the second one came faster.”

“What are you complaining about?” said the exterminator, grinning proudly. “My wife’s been in labor for six hours.”

“Yeah,” the other two nodded.

A baby’s cry sounded down the corridor. They all turned toward the door for a silent moment, then shook their heads.

Bloomgarden stepped over to the cigarette machine in the corner and dropped coins into the slot. He waited, looking nervously around at the others, then back at the machine. He rapped it gently. Nothing came out. He slapped it. Then he pounded it, puffing mightily. “Damn thing,” he whined, “stole my fifty cents!” He looked around at the others. “Stole my fifty cents, just like that.” He seemed near tears.

Frank went over and took him by the shoulders, steering him away from the machine. “Here,” he handed him two quarters, “here’s your money back. And here’s a couple cigarettes. Take it easy. Just sit down and read a magazine.”

Bloomgarden sat down and shook his head.

“This everybody’s first?” Frank asked. The three nodded. “My second. It doesn’t help to get rattled.” He smiled. The others looked grim.

The exterminator dealt a hand of solitaire. “You know what’s the biggest problem in the Beverly Hills area?”

“Money,” Frank said.

“Snails. Slugs and snails. They can wipe out a whole lawn in just a few weeks. The folks feel sorry for them. They’re not your usual pest, not like your ants and roaches. Folks just hate seeing all them cute snails lying on their lawn dead.”

Frank sighed. He walked over and leaned against the door, looking into the corridor. “Isn’t anybody in a happier profession?”

“Siding,” said the tall man. “Aluminum, plastic brick.”

“I am,” said Bloomgarden. “Mortician. My job is bringing a ray of happiness to people who are trying to cope.” He smiled professionally, nodding at the others. “What’s yours?”

“Public relations.”

“Oh? You mean politics?”

“No, no,” Frank continued, looking down the corridor, “businesses, all kinds of businesses. Toys, for example. Kids’ toys.”

“That’s really interesting,” Bloomgarden said. “Why, just think, right here in this room, we represent the care of people from cradle to—”

“Here’s a magazine,” Frank cut in, handing Bloomgarden a copy of
Natural History.
“Why don’t you just read for a while.”

In the delivery room, Dr. Francis worked between the elevated stirrups that held Lenore’s legs. Lenore groaned occasionally, in semi-consciousness. “You’re doing fine,” Francis said. “Just keep breathing evenly. The head’s on its way.”

A nurse patted Lenore’s brow with a towel.

“Soon, Dr. Francis?” Lenore mumbled. “Is it soon?”

“Yes, yes. Just keep pushing, and breathing steadily. Help me, now, if you can. Certainly is a big baby, Mrs. Davis. Do you remember how big Chris was?”

“Seven something. Oooh, it hurts! I’m sorry.”

“Seven?” Dr. Francis glanced around at the nurses and interns assisting him. “This one will be at least ten, maybe eleven, or more.”

He stepped away from Lenore and leaned close to the intern. “Enormous,” he whispered. “Very strange.”

Suddenly Lenore convulsed in a drawn-out moan. “It wants to be
born
, doctor, can’t you
see?
It wants to be born
now!”

Dr. Francis and the intern quickly stepped back to their work. “Head’s coming now, Mrs. Davis, right now. There, I just cut you a little. That wasn’t bad, was it?”

Her head rocked back and forth.

“Now, the head, a little more. I’m putting the forceps on the baby’s head now. Help me a little, one more push . . .”

The intern’s eyes widened, and he stumbled back against the wall, staring . . .

Frank leaned against the fathers’-room door, staring idly down the corridor, at the far end of which he could see the double swinging doors leading to the delivery room.

A scream came from behind those doors. Then another, many. The delivery-room doors swung violently open, and a doctor staggered out. His green uniform and gauze mask were spattered with blood, and he clutched at his throat with his rubber gloves. He lurched several steps, gargling in his own blood, and fell, still clutching his throat.

To the screams from the delivery room were added those of the nurses at their station as they gaped, horrified.

Frank tore down the corridor and dropped to his knees beside the doctor. He carefully pulled down the mask, and saw that it was Dr. Francis. “What, doctor? What?” He sprang to his feet and spun wildly around, looking for help.

More piercing screams came from the delivery room, then crashes of metal and glass.