Baby Love (16 page)

“You know what I always wanted to do?” he says, making a swirling motion on the ice cream with his tongue. “Lick this right off some chick’s fat tit.”

The pork chops are all set to bake. The pie is cooling. Nothing left for Mrs. Ramsay to do but the vegetables. That can wait until they get here.

She is working on that other baby’s duck sweater. The mother seemed like a nice girl. It will be important for Susan to have a friend her age. They will go to Benson’s Animal Farm and the Shriners Circus, when it comes to Manchester this summer.

And to church, of course. That is the first thing, to get Baby baptized. Mrs. Ramsay will take her to prayer meeting and Bible study. They will pray together every night. Susan will need that, born so sinfully. But she will renounce her mother. Her father too. He has been a thankless son. Just last week was Mrs. Ramsay’s birthday. Did Dwight send a card? He used to write her such beautiful little poems and now he does not even send a card. It’s too late for him, he has gone to the devil. But she will have an angel for a daughter.

Right after Boletus urinated in Mrs. Farley’s Alka-Seltzer (his mother never did get around to putting a diaper on him, and, by what Denver said was a really karmic coincidence, her glass was in direct line with his penis)—right after that was when Mrs. Farley told Dakota she was going to put her in the oven and have her for breakfast. Kalima had explained to Dakota that Tara’s mother was only making a funny joke, but since Kalima herself was munching on placenta when she said this, Dakota was not entirely convinced, and began to scream. Denver said this was not good for the introductory earth experience of the new baby, who had just been named Mountain, and took him outside. So he did not see Mrs. Farley pull the somewhat bloody monogrammed towel out from under Kalima, grab the patent leather pocketbook out of Stanley’s hands, point the blow dryer in his ear and say, surprisingly quietly, to Tara, “If these people are not out of here in two minutes I am going to spray this room full of Raid.” Which showed a pretty good understanding of the farm members’ priorities, because if there was anything that could get them to move fast, during a period that is supposed to be very mellow and laid back, it would be the introduction into the birthing atmosphere of a petroleum distillate product.

So they packed up the truck, paid for Dakota’s see-through red panties and Denver’s new bloodstained work pants, hugged Tara and Sunshine, said, “If you’re ever in Georgia,” and left.

Now Mrs. Farley is setting up the ironing board, spilling the pile of Girl Scout uniforms onto the floor beside it, lighting a Kool. Tara can’t believe how quickly everything has gone from incredibly beautiful to incredibly awful. She has to get out of here.

And not just to the Laundromat either. She knows now that very soon she is going to leave this town and never come back.

Greg has been trying to paint the girl all morning. He wants her sitting on the flat rock at the base of the falls, nursing her baby. He can’t get the positions right. It just looks as if she’s holding a doll.

He wishes she were sitting right there in front of him. How was it she held the baby? He feels a rush of love, thinking about her. Carla would say you can’t love someone you don’t know. But he loved
her
right away, didn’t he?

Then the idea comes to him. Find that girl, hire her as a model. She will certainly be able to use the money.

Carla has taken the VW, but he doesn’t care. He can walk into town.

“Looks like someone’s moved in the house over there,” says Mark to Virgil. He has just observed Greg stepping out the door. The two of them watch him disappear down the road.

“Most likely summer people, roughing it,” says Virgil. “They’re probably loaded.” He’s irked because the yard outside that house has always been one of his favorite spots to get laid. He goes toward the house.

“Damn black flies,” says Mark.

“Take a look at this,” Virg calls to him. He’s standing on a rock, staring in the window. From where he stands he can see Greg’s painting of the falls, with him and Mark in it. There sure wasn’t any girl sitting naked on any rock this morning though. What is she supposed to be holding, a bag of groceries?

“That’s us, man,” says Virg. Mark has come over beside him. “Guy didn’t even ask permission.”

“He must have a million albums,” says Mark. Also, a Marantz amplifier and a Technics turntable.

“I bet he’s got dope,” says Virg. The door is open.

“You’re crazy,” says Mark. He is thinking: What I would give for a stereo system like that. Virg has gone ahead on in.

“Must be a chick living here too,” Virgil calls to him. He’s inside the house now, holding a pair of Carla’s black bikini pants. She has never broken the habit of leaving them on the floor, wherever it is she steps out of them.

“I don’t believe it,” says Virgil. He is laughing almost hysterically. “They’ve got a picture of some guy’s prick and balls hanging on the wall. Some people are weird.”

Mark hesitates, steps inside.

“Cup of tea?” says Virgil in a sort of English accent. He’s holding the pot with feet on it. He has hung the black panties on the pouring spout.

Mark is looking at the records. A six-record set of Buddy Holly.
Yesterday and Today
with the original banned photograph of the Beatles dressed as butchers. Every album Dylan ever made, including a bootleg copy of the Basement tapes. Two or three Brian Enos on an obscure label. The original master Audiophile version of
Dark Side of the Moon.
Graham Parker, The Roches, Elvis Costello, old Supremes. Everything’s here. He would like to get to know this guy and ask if he could come over and listen to albums sometime.

Virgil has just found the marijuana in a wooden box with birds painted on the lid. Must be at least a pound. He can’t decide whether to roll a joint now or just take it for later. Might as well have some for the road.

Mark has come to the Linda Ronstadts. They’re all here. That old album when Linda was kind of overweight—not fat, just nice and soft looking, sitting barefoot in some dirt next to a couple of pigs. A couple from back when she was with the Stone Ponies. It takes him a minute to figure out how to work the turntable. Suddenly the music blasts out. He didn’t know it would be so loud.

“Whenever I’m with him/Something inside/Starts to burning/And I’m filled with desire. …”

Virg is squeezing black paint out of a tube onto the window overlooking the falls. “Look at me, I’m creative,” he says. He has to talk very loud because of the music.

“It’s like a heat wave/Burning in my heart. …”

“Fuck you sucker,” he writes in acrylic.

“Virg, we’ve got to get out of here.”

“Don’t talk to me, man. I’m an artist.” He reaches for another tube that’s lying on the floor. Carla’s Koromex. He squeezes out a long stripe. Stuff smells awful.

“Love is like a heat wave/Heat wave. …”

“I’m splitting,” says Mark. He has never done anything like this before. Might as well take some albums, now that he’s here.

“Crummy dope’s giving me a headache,” says Virg. “I’m out of here.” He tosses the bag of grass to Mark, who stuffs it into his pocket. Mark wonders if maybe he should neaten things up a little.

They are just about to walk on home when Virg remembers his trout. Mark says he will wait at the edge of the road. “Hurry up,” he calls.

Virgil clambers down the rocks. His head is splitting. Damn line slips out of his hand. He leans over the water to pick up the fish, puts one boot on a dead birch tree leaning over the brook. Mark sees the tree give under the weight, but it’s too late to do anything about it. His friend is in the water.

Reg’s presents have left Ann feeling sad. It seems to her as if the people who are kind and loving to you are never the same ones you are kind and loving to. She has a neighbor whose hand trembles when she offers him a beer, and he brings her a windmill, and what is she doing? Thinking how she would lie down in front of a train for Rupert, who never even got it straight when her birthday was. And who does Rupert worry about? Trina, whose trip to Disney World should not be interrupted by Ann’s life being wrecked. As for Trina, the only person she might lie down on a train track for is Jaclyn Smith from
Charlie’s Angels.
Ann wonders if there is ever such a thing as two people both loving each other equally and being happy always. To her it feels as if misery is just built into love. Things aren’t meant to work out.

She doesn’t usually fix her Kahlua drink this early in the day. (It’s a few minutes after two.) She’s just so low. She puts on a George Jones record. Nobody else, besides Dolly, can sound so totally hopeless. Then she takes out Rupert’s letters. They were written during the period when she was still unsure about leaving school and moving in with him, and it was Rupert who didn’t think he could live without her. It figures.

She saves these letters for special occasions. She’s afraid if she reads them too often they’ll be used up. So she hasn’t taken them out in a month.

“Take me,” says George Jones. “Take me to your darkest room/Close every window and bolt every door/The very first moment I heard your voice/I’d be in darkness no more.”

She has gotten to the part in Rupert’s first letter where he says how he thought about her while he was having his root canal surgery, and the dentist said he had never seen such a stoic patient. “Just to think about you makes me grin,” he said.

“Take me to your most barren desert,” George Jones sings.

“You say we will end up making each other miserable,” he said. “How can that be? You make my gray old heart fly up.”

She is crying by this time, of course. She gets up to pour another inch of Kahlua and begins to pace the floor, singing along with the record.

“Take me, oh, take me to Siberia.” George Jones is practically moaning.

The Just-like-nu Shop is closed, but Greg decided he will knock on the door anyway. He is just about to leave—he has waited a couple of minutes—when the mother opens the door.

“What now?” There is a bloody dish towel draped over the banister behind her. What’s going on here? She has killed her daughter. Murdered the baby. He just stands there.

“We’re closed.”

“The girl” is all he can say. “The one with the baby.”

“There’s plenty fit that description,” says the woman. “We have girls with babies crawling around all over the place here. They are reproducing faster than rabbits. Aren’t even housebroken.”

“I’m looking for your daughter,” says Greg. “I might have a job for her.”

“I bet.”

He’s wondering if he should call the police.

“Well, she doesn’t tell me much. But you can usually find her over by the Laundromat.”

He doesn’t say good-bye. He just leaves.

Carla and Sandy are on their second pot of tea. Sandy’s telling Carla about the time Mark Junior got constipated and she stuck a little chip of soap up his rear end. Carla seems to be very interested in pregnancy and babies.

“After that it just popped right out,” she says.

“Didn’t you feel scared in the beginning?” Carla asks. “A baby’s so tiny. I’d be afraid I’d break it.”

Sandy says she is always scared of something happening to Mark Junior. “I never had so much to lose before,” she says.

She tells Carla her terrible dream. In this dream she’s making love with Mark and she hears a knock at the door. Mark says never mind, they’ll go away. He keeps kissing her, stroking her, rocking back and forth on top of her, and the knocking keeps on getting louder. Finally Mark is done and she gets up, wraps her robe around herself and opens the door. There’s a little bundle on the doormat. She says, “Oh, look, a birthday present for the baby,” and bends to pick it up. It’s not wrapped in paper, it is bound up, sort of like bandages. She unwinds yards and yards of fabric. It seems to go on forever. Then she sees her son’s face. She unwinds the cloth faster and faster, until he is lying there stiff and naked in her arms. He is cold as stone.

Virgil sits at the edge of the water, cursing. Shit, why did he leave his car back home? Why did he have to go back for that puny fish. Now he’s soaking wet and frozen and it feels like his ankle’s broken. Twenty feet away, on the window of the summer people’s house, he can read the words “Fuck you sucker,” backward. The guy is bound to come home soon. Virg can’t even stand up.

“I think there’s another house up the road,” says Mark. “I’ll go for help.” He will say they were fishing, that’s all.

He stashes the albums under some leaves and heads up the hill.

Tara watches the man walk along Main Street, knowing she has seen him someplace. He has a face like a statue in an art book. She also likes the way he walks. His back is very straight. He doesn’t bounce exactly, but he looks sort of determined. Tara doesn’t walk anything like that.

“This will probably sound odd.” He has stopped right in front of her, outside the Laundromat. Denver and Kalima would say it was karmic.

“My name is Greg. I’ve been looking for you.”

She tosses her hair the way she has seen Wanda and Jill do when a boy talks to them. Not that anyone like this has ever talked to them.

He’s an artist. He wants to paint her. Also Sunshine. He mentions something about paying her, but she doesn’t even concentrate on that. She just knows without having to think about it that he’s going to rescue her.

He says if it’s O.K. with her, then he’ll pick the two of them up tomorrow here at the Laundromat, around noon.

She tells him her name. “Like in
Gone with the Wind
.”

After he leaves she remembers where she saw him, remembers he was buying a dress for his girlfriend. This doesn’t bother her one bit.

Carla wants to know about breast-feeding. Did Sandy try it? Why did she choose the bottle instead?

“Mark didn’t like the idea,” says Sandy. “He said my chest was his.” She wishes she hadn’t told that. Now she’s embarrassed.

“A friend of mine is doing it though,” she adds. “Her baby’s about the same age as Mark Junior.” She glances out the window, thinking she will point Tara out if she’s at her usual spot by the Laundromat.