Scott held my hand and the doctor was busy between my legs and the nitrous oxide didn’t come close to touching the pain but the time had come and gone for the epidural. The baby was twisting my guts into a pretzel. Glancing between my upraised knees I noted dark red blood on the doctor’s nitrile gloves and a look of muted concern in her eyes.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” I asked.
The doctor sneaked another glance at the tattoos hiding my track marks, callused injection sites from my black tar love affair a lifetime ago, the lingering effects of which had supposedly rendered me infertile, did render me infertile, and yet here we were.
“We’ve got a breach,” the doctor said, calm and businesslike, not to me but to the nurses behind her. “Shoulder dystocia.”
Scott was saying, “What the fuck does that mean?” and squeezed my hand until it hurt. The doctor shifted her grip and there was a sensation like my stomach was dropping then sudden relief – hollow relief, empty – and the nurses feverishly untangling the umbilical cord from the baby’s throat.
My baby, little Joey, his skin pale, his lips blue, and I kept thinking he should be crying, but he wasn’t, then came the squeaking wheels of the neonatal crash cart, a nurse unpacking the tiny defibrillator pads, another attempting to slide a needle into Joey’s brachial artery, and I was asking, “Why isn’t he moving?”
Then everyone stopped. Joey opened his eyes and drew breath.
*****
Six months passed. Joey was in and out of the hospital, midnight ER visits and constant trips to the pediatrician. Fevers, blisters on his skin, not gaining enough weight, you name it, he suffered it.
He was sleeping – thankfully – and I was pumping breastmilk into plastic bags while Scott paced the living room, scowling at the floorboard we marked with a big white ‘X.’
“It was a mistake,” he said. “We shouldn’t have done it. It was selfish and the baby’s suffering.”
I ignored him. We knew the stakes. When we did what we did to ensure we could conceive, we knew there could be consequences. We promised we’d endure those consequences together.
“We can undo it,” Scott said, then took a screwdriver from the drawer, looking toward the marked floorboard again.
“Don’t,” I said.
“It’s not fair to Joey,” Scott said.
On the V-Tech monitor, Joey was sleeping in his crib, his little body spread eagle in the grayscale camera feed with Mister Doggy – sprung from a quarter-a-play crane machine outside a Waffle House – nestled loyally beside him.
“Put the screwdriver back,” I said.
Scott stood between me and the floorboard, the screwdriver in his fist, knuckles turning white, before he put the screwdriver back and slammed the drawer shut.
On the V-Tech, Joey remained perfectly still, but he’d opened his eyes, pinpricks twinkling in the camera’s night vision.
“We should call a priest,” Scott said. Since we got clean, Scott leaned hard into his faith. I didn’t.
“Keep that nonsense out of my house,” I told him.
Scott glared at the white X on the floorboard. “How dare you call it nonsense after what we did?”
I shrugged. “What we did worked. When was the last time you could say that about a prayer?”
*****
Four or five years ago, just after we were married, Scott and I lay in bed, dope rig sitting between us, Scott’s leather belt secured just above my elbow to make sure he could hit a good vein.
My mouth watered at the dope cooking on the spoon, the bite of the needle as Scott pushed it into my arm.
“We should have a baby,” Scott said. “I think it’s just what we need to make sure we stay clean.”
Scott injected the bubbling nectar into my bloodstream and warmed my veins.
*****
Joey’s first birthday. He was standing on his own, taking tentative first steps, a normal, healthy twelve-month-old.
He liked to watch television, but only when there was static on the screen. Static and white noise, dead analog channels. Scott tried to put on Paw Patrol or Bubble Guppies and Joey would scream until Scott relented and switched back to the static.
Joey had a habit of holding Mister Doggy by the throat.
*****
When Scott started hanging Crucifixes around the house, I told him he was out of his mind.
“New parents with troubled children sometimes turn to God for help,” Scott answered.
I took a knife from the kitchen counter, serrated stainless steel. “HE IS NOT TROUBLED,” I said.
I felt a shift inside me, relief and emptiness, that same hollow feeling I experienced the night Joey was born. My blood turned black in my veins. My heartbeat skipped in a musical rhythm, dark music, dark whispers, and I wondered what Scott would look like if he were turned inside out.
Red flashed in my eyes. Scott looked at the knife in my hand and said, “Sasha, this isn’t you.”
“This isn’t real,” I wept.
Scott held me by the waist. “I’m going to figure out what we can do about our boy.”
“Are we real? Are you? Is Joey?”
Scott smiled and took me by the elbow and raised my arm to his lips. He kissed my camouflaged track marks. “I’m going to go now, but I’ll be back. I swear I’ll be back.”
But I didn’t see Scott again for months.
*****
Even as junkies, we managed to live decently. Single home in a nice neighborhood. Two full-time incomes. Student loans, nearly paid off. We just had to wear long-sleeve shirts when we went out, no matter the weather, to hide the needle marks.
But good dope isn’t always easy to find, not when you’re trying to live a halfway normal life. We never hit the dope corners; it was just too risky. We had a guy, though. Billy, some slick-haired aging Gen-Xer, always stunk of body odor and Black and Milds, always had good dope and didn’t mind making house calls.
One night me and Scott were hurting, thirty-six hours deep into a dry stretch, when Billy came through with a bundle. Billy had his eye on me for years – Scott pretended not to notice – but this was the first time Billy saw me this desperate.
“Cash plus a blowjob,” Billy grunted.
I didn’t argue with him and Scott merely left the room so I could do what needed to be done.
From then on, the blowjobs were part of the deal.
*****
At fourteen months, Joey stopped sleeping. Night after night, I watched the V-Tech monitor as Joey stood in the northwest corner of the crib, his back facing the camera, strangling Mister Doggy, standing perfectly upright, sometimes swaying a bit from side to side but never sitting down, never laying down, never sleeping.
I made the mistake of attempting to lay him back down. He screamed so long and so loud and got so feverish I had to place him in a cold bath.
So, I let him stand in his corner. I curled up on the couch with the monitor and watched him until I slept. Come morning, Joey still stood there, except now he faced the camera as he repeatedly slammed Mister Doggy’s head against the crib’s railing.
*****
The dope itch crept back into me. I eased it off by getting drunk on plastic jug vodka. Joey stared at the static on the television. Christ hung on the wall – after Scott hung the crosses, I couldn’t bring myself to take them down – and I took the screwdriver from the drawer and knelt down over the white X on the floorboard.
The floorboard shook, like a fist was pounding underneath it, and the screwdriver turned white-hot in my hand. I threw it aside. My palm blistered and split, oozing melted fat.
*****
Three years and I hadn’t taken so much as an Aspirin, yet there I was at midnight, stuck on the toilet like I had spackle in my colon. I got cold sweats, that feeling like my bones were trying to rip through my skin. I left the V-Tech in the living room – Joey was silent as ever, standing in his crib – and I wept tears of frustrated terror because there was just no way I could be experiencing withdrawal symptoms, not after all this time.
I wiped my ass and flushed and splashed cold water on my face then opened the bathroom door and there was Joey in his onesie, clutching Mister Doggy.
“Joey?”
Down the hallway, in his bedroom, a shadow moved. The bedroom door slammed shut. I scooped Joey into my arms and rushed downstairs fumbling for my cell phone to call the police but realized I was only holding Mister Doggy, and when I checked the V-Tech monitor there was Joey, standing in his crib.
I took the knife from the kitchen – the very same serrated stainless steel – and scrambled up to Joey’s room, whispering, “Scott?”
But Joey was alone. When I took him from his crib he bit me, those little stubby toddler teeth crunching my nose, Joey’s head ripping back and forth like a rabid dog death-shaking a stray, leaving a mess of ribboned flesh and blood and broken cartilage.
*****
I sat on the couch, drunk and dopesick, wondering if I was real or not. Joey stood in front of the television screen, watching the static. I had my burned hand wrapped in old bandages, stained yellow with pus, stinking of infection.
Joey came to me, grinning, holding Mister Doggy.
From the television screen, there was a voice: “Mama.”
Something wet and red dripped from Mister Doggy’s belly. Joey handed him to me. Mister Doggy’s midsection had been recently sewn shut. I pulled the stitches apart and a small lump of rotting viscera spilled out.
Joey fell to the floor and shrieked.
From the television, again: “Mama.”
I looked at Christ upon his cross and saw his eyes were bleeding. I grabbed the fleshy lump from the floor – gristly, wet, unidentifiable – and pushed it back into Mister Doggy’s abdominal cavity.
Joey stood back up and patted his belly and said, “Mama.”
*****
I could almost hear him smiling when he answered his phone.
“Sasha, it’s so nice to hear from you,” Billy said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not feeling so great.”
“I can swing by,” he said.
“Bring everything you got.”
“Everything?”
“Everything you got, yeah. I can pay.”
“Same deal as before, just so you know.”
I looked at Joey on the floor, staring up at the television.
“Yeah, I know,” I answered. “Same deal as before.”
*****
I lay Joey down in his crib. He clutched Mister Doggy, wet and red. The room smelled like rot. Flies were buzzing in the corner. A big black fly crawled out of Joey’s left nostril.
“Mama has to talk to her friend,” I told him.
“Mama,” he said.
“I’ll come right back for you, Joey.”
“Dada,” he said, looking toward the flies in the corner.
I kissed him on the forehead then went downstairs just as Billy was pulling up to the house.
*****
Billy recoiled at the front door. “Christ, Sasha, what the hell is that smell?” He got a better look at me, the rotten bandage around my left hand, the gauze taped over my shattered nose. “What the fuck happened?”
I was grabbing at his belt, tugging him inside, the withdrawal gnawing at my bones.
“Just come in,” I insisted.
I pulled him toward the couch. I wanted to get it over with, just wanted to take one shot to the mouth so I could take another in the arm. I had a rig ready – syringe, belt, spoon, lighter, cotton ball – I just needed the dope.
“Sasha, I can’t, not with this goddamn stench,” he said.
I was on my knees in front of him, clawing at the shriveled slug I pulled out of his jeans, but Billy palmed my face and shoved me to the floor.
Billy froze when he saw the white X on the floorboard. He backed away from it, a sheen of sweat on his face. “What is that?”
The floorboard thumped.
“Sasha, what’s under the floor?”
“I need a shot, Billy, please just let me have a shot,” I said, pulling the cash from my pocket.
The floorboard thumped thumped thumped thumped.
Panic in Billy’s eyes. He produced a butterfly knife from his back pocket – silver flash, blade emerging – and thrust it toward the white X.
“Where’s Scott?” Billy whispered.
I wasn’t sure when or how I found the kitchen knife or when the blood began spewing from my womb – deep red blood gushing down my thighs, soaking my pants – and I moved like I was in a dream, moved like I was underwater, knowing only that he had the dope and I had the knife and I couldn’t let him leave.
Billy struck me in the mouth and wrenched the knife from my grip and shouted, “Crazy bitch!” Then upstairs, Joey shrieked.
The floorboard stopped thumping.
“Mama,” came a deep voice from the front door.
Silence then, broken only by the soft trickle coming down Billy’s pant leg, copper-stinking urine pooling at his boots as he looked upon the fetus standing in the entryway. It was seven feet tall, cyanotic Buddha, skin faded blue like a cloudless afternoon sky, its dark hair flecked with meconium and the fleshy rope of the umbilical cord wrapped tight around its neck.
“Mama,” it repeated.
I watched in horror as the fetus grabbed Billy by the throat and lifted him off his feet then bashed-bashed-bashed Billy’s face against the wall until his skull caved in like a broken eggshell.
The bundle of dope fell from Billy’s pocket as the fetus dropped the body to the floor. I took the dope and fled, snagging my rig along the way, then made for the stairs as the fetus waddled after me calling, “Mama.”
I screamed for Joey, clutching the knife, the floorboard once again THUMPING in rhythm with my pulse hammering in my skull. The fetus stumbled as it tried to climb the stairs behind me and I ran to Joey’s room but his crib was empty and the flies surged through the room, buzzing hungrily, and in the northwest corner there sat Scott’s body, rotting, in pieces, bones and flesh strewn about as clumps of maggots wriggled in the ruin.
I sat on the floor and fixed the needle, cooked the dope, tightened the belt around my arm.
Injection. Relief. Submission.
The fetus stepped into the room behind me. “Mama,” it whispered.
I gave myself to the warm opiate glaze and the fetus fell heavily into my lap. I cradled it, hushing it, soothing it until we both slept.
Now, my baby sleeps again.