The Devil Stood Up (2 page)

“In distress? Are you fucking kidding me? Who gives a shit about that fucker? I am in fucking distress! My fucking cunt is ripping open! Now give me something you bunch of fucking assholes!”

The nurses had silenced, cutting their eyes to Carrie’s mother who stood next to Carrie, tears streaming down her face. Carrie’s mother wouldn’t meet the eyes of the nurses. Couldn’t. She shook as she felt the rage coming off her daughter in waves, almost real enough to ripple the air above her and she remembered Carrie even as an infant consumed by this same rage. Her tiny body a stiffening board; head, shoulders and heels the only things touching the blanket in her crib as she bowed up tensely, red-faced and raging.

Afterwards, they’d brought Carrie the thing in a blanket. The nurse had stood next to the bed and pulled back the corner of the baby’s blanket, her face open and expectant, excited to share the joy a young mother felt at the sight of her first born.

Carrie looked.

It was red faced, ugly, its head smooshed on one side, white hair covering its forehead and shoulders, a blister on its puckered asshole of a mouth, tiny veins visible under its thin, pale skin and Carrie had been horrified.

“Ugh, what’s wrong with it? Get it away from me!”

The nurse had drawn back sharply, but Carrie’s mother stepped forward, smiling, and the nurse handed the baby over. Carrie’s mother looked down into the little face so much like Carrie’s had been but full of such a deep peacefulness that Carrie’s mom forgot for a moment where she was and who she was, as she fell in love with her grandson.

“Ma. What’s wrong with it? You can tell me; I can take it,” Carrie said, straightening her shoulders and glancing after the retreating nurse, hoping the nurse had heard what she’d said. Heard how brave she’d been and would tell everyone.

“There’s nothing wrong with him, sweetheart. He’s perfect,” she said and brought the baby back to Carrie. She hesitated for a second before she put the baby in Carrie’s arms–some red flash of caution zoomed across her mind and then was gone.

Carrie’s face shriveled in disgust at what lay in her arms and she shook her head.

“Huh-uh, this does not look right. It doesn’t look like a baby. It’s sick or something. I know it is,” she said.

“Sweetheart, that’s what babies look like when they’re newborns. You’re thinking of a six-month baby all filled out and active. He’ll get there; I promise!”

Carrie’s mother smiled at her, but Carrie didn’t look up to see it. She stared into the baby’s face. Even its eyelids, she saw, were tissue-paper thin. It took a hitching breath and opened its mouth in a gummy yawn. It looked so vulnerable. Then it opened its deep, slate eyes and stared up at Carrie and she felt something shift deep inside herself, and realized that she was more than disgusted by this warm, quiescent bundle her mother had put in her arms, she was furious with it. She wanted to shake it and throw it down on the ground. But she knew that wasn’t allowed. Hurriedly, she shoved it back to her mother.

“Here, take it back. I don’t want to look at it.” She’d rolled over and pulled the thin hospital blanket up over her shoulder and closed her eyes. “Tell them to hurry up getting my damn room ready.” She felt better immediately.

But then the nurses had come in and tried to make her feed it; her mother pushed for this, too, wanting her to whip out her tit in front of everyone and let the little monster latch on. It made her feel sick to her stomach that something was leeching off of her that way. Plus, that’s what the boys she slept with always wanted to do, suck on her, and it was gross that this thing did the same…like it was born a pig.

So she was just as glad when the monster turned its face away from her, mewling piggishly and clenching its little pig hands. Then they let her pump and she was glad because she could do that in private, plus this way she’d still get the fast weight loss like she’d read about in People magazine. How all the stars with babies got super-slimmed down super-quick by sucking themselves dry.

When she got home, it was a little bit better. She had her own television again and was excited because the DVR had filled up with her shows from the last two days. But every time she tried to watch something, someone came over wanting to see the monster. Especially after she’d taken a picture of her and the monster and made sure she was smiling and posted it as her Facebook status and wrote:

“Brian is fiiinnnnallly heeeeeeeer! So so so happy n he is the BEST n sweetst baby! Soooooo happy 2 have my little ‘Bri-Bri’!”

So many people posted on her wall and sent messages. It was really great.

She told her mother to take a picture of her kissing the monster and she posted that one on Facebook and everyone was saying “aaaaawwwwww!” and “bless you both!” and “so happy 4 u he is adorbz!”

She spent hours reading the messages and sending messages back and the monster cried and cried until finally she’d gone into her parents’ room and yelled at it to quit it. And then, of course, her mother had come in with all her “honey, he’s just a baby” nonsense. As if she didn’t realize the pig baby was really just a giant pain in the ass.

It took three years of being stuck with it–being told what to do with it, how to raise it, how to talk to it, how not to talk to it, how to dress and feed it–for her to finally get fed up. The pregnancy had been cool because she got the attention, but now everyone paid attention to the monster. Nobody even hardly acknowledged her birthday, but when the monster had one, they broke the bank to celebrate. It really got on her nerves. It was like she didn’t exist anymore. She was just the monster’s mother.

So, she decided to get rid of it.

* * *

How much time passes on Earth while the Devil sleeps? Is it days or years? Is it relative?

The Litany, bit and chopped at by the musings of the woman-child that wanted to kill her own son kept on and on, the low undercurrent so much like an adjunct to the Devil’s own thoughts that they may as well have been.

The Devil rolled on his bunk, his bony extrusions scraping across his rocky bed of the damned and he waved one dripping fist, thrusting it out as if to push something away, his breath rushing out and igniting the blood that had puddled around him, almost waking, then fading back, falling back into The Litany as the story of Carrie Walsh continued to flow.

* * *

She wasn’t sure how to go about getting rid of it, but she was sure that today was the day because her dad was at work and her mother was at an all-day charity event with the other hospice workers where she volunteered.

She’d just have to figure it out as she went along. How hard could it be to kill one little kid?

She’d dressed it in its favorite blue shorts from Nana and favorite t-shirt with the sailboat appliquéd on the front and pressed its feet–sticky like gross little sticky buns–into the baby sandals. She’d brushed its blond, duck-fluff hair while it smiled at her, toothy and toothless, blue eyed and grinning.

She’d looked in the medicine cabinet in her parent’s bedroom and considered the things she found there. Razors. Pills. Peroxide. Iodine. Would iodine kill the kid? She stood looking at the bottle, considering. Worth a shot. Might only make him sick, but, whatever.

“Brian!” she said, “I have something for you!” She sing-songed her voice the way she knew he liked. The way her mother did it. Lilting and fake. Carrie knew it must be fake when her mother did it, because it felt fake when Carrie did it.

“Bri-Bri, I have a nice surprise-prise!”

He tottered in, tiny toes gripping the front edges of his sandals, his hands going to the appliquéd boat for reassurance, caressing nervously. He was afraid of his mama when they were alone in the house. He preferred nana and pop-pop to be around. He preferred his nana and pop-pop.

“Mama’s gonna give you something yummy, Bri-Bri, you want something yummy in your tummy?” She bent over him, vulturous, a wide smile that showed even her back teeth.

Brian nodded uncertainly, trying to smile back but nervous. He loved his Mama with all his heart, but never really knew what to expect from her. Never knew which Mama would appear.

Carrie imitated her mother, the way her mother had been when the monster had gone through that gross picky stage where it only ate half of what they tried to give it. Food all over its face, neck, hands, chair–revolting.

“Open wide and close your eyes and you will get a big surprise,” she said, advancing on him, unscrewing the cap from the iodine bottle.

Brian recognized the charm his nana had used and knew it meant good things were coming and he relaxed. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, opening his mouth. The golden duck fluff bobbed on his cowlick and he looked for all the world like a hungry baby bird. Carrie’s features twisted in disgust and she tilted the bottle into his pink mouth. It splashed cold and brownish-red over his tongue and she caught a whiff of the iodine–a smell like thin, tinny blood.

Brian swallowed once, reflexively, and twisted his head aside, one hand coming up sharply, connecting with the iodine bottle. Carrie dropped it and it splashed across the bathroom floor, bloodying the rug and walls.

“Goddammit!” she said. “You little fuck look what you did!”

She drew back her hand to strike the monster but he’d bent double, gagging and crying. Her stomach lifted and dropped, a fun roller coaster feeling–it’s dying, it’s dying, her mind shouted exultantly. If I knew it would have been this easy, I would have–but then he heaved and threw up the iodine.

Then he heaved again.

And again.

Carrie looked at the bottle on the floor, the mess on the walls and rug, the biley red vomit the monster had produced. She looked at Brian, lying on his side, screaming, crying, his face red as his chest hitched and hitched again. Then he was beyond making sound, his mouth a ragged red ‘o’ of fear and pain and he couldn’t get his breath at all. A bright spark flickered in her mind again–maybe this is it–but she wasn’t as excited this time and with good reason because look, it pulled in a breath and then continued to cry.

Shit.

Now what?

Now she’d have to clean up, that was fucking what. Why did nothing ever go right for her?

She stripped Brian and set him in the dry tub.

“Sit there,” she said. “Don’t move.”

He sat, muzzy and sick, disoriented.

She cleaned the bathroom, scrubbing at the walls until there were only faint pink rows of dots and dashes to show where the iodine had splashed. She took the rug and threw it in the washer, dumped bleach and soap on top of it and set it to hot. If it didn’t clean up, she’d just toss it. Her mother could get another cheap Wal-Mart bathmat.

She scrubbed the tile, her back to the tub. Brian curled over onto his side, shivering, a thin trickle of iodine and drool descending from the corner of his mouth. She forgot he was there as she scrubbed and her thoughts turned to her unluckiness, how hard everything was for her. She thought her life would have really started by now. She thought she’d be somebody. Now she couldn’t even get a guy cause she’d have to tell them about the monster and then they wouldn’t want anything to do with her anymore no matter how much she had sex with them. She was getting so old, almost twenty-one. She was wasting herself.

Brian whimpered from the tub and Carrie turned.

“Okay, Shitheap, let’s get new clothes on you. Christ, you made a mess,” she lifted him by one arm until he struggled to get his feet under him on the slippery enamel of the tub. “You fucked up your favorite shirt. Nana’s gonna hate your guts for that.”

Brian looked up groggily at the mention of Nana. He wanted his nana so badly right now. He really wanted her and pop-pop. He wished they would come home. His feet slipped out from under him. His logy thoughts were knocked askew by a new blast of pain, fresh and blinding, originating in his shoulder and spreading up his arm and over his chest and back.

Carrie had dislocated his shoulder.

His scream was rough, grinding over his chemical-burned vocal cords. Carrie shook him furiously and he screamed again and something gave way in his throat and then he was choking, choking on a trickle of hot blood.

“Jesus! Just shut up! What the hell is wrong with you?” She shook him again and then noticed the way his shoulder seemed to have grown oddly humped, and how he twisted on his arm, the shoulder blade pinned back at an unnatural angle.

“Oh Christ, you dislocated your shoulder again,” she said. A small trill of fear went though her. He’d done this once before, when he’d been around two. He’d dislocated his shoulder while her mother had been out shopping and her father was watching a ballgame in the back den. They’d given her holy hell for that one, too. She couldn’t let them see this. It didn’t occur to her that her parents wouldn’t care about a dislocated shoulder if Brian were dead. But Carrie couldn’t really think more than five seconds ahead.

“Brian, lay down,” she said, her voice calm and stern and it cut through the hot fog of his pain and he collapsed onto the cold bathroom tiles and pressed his cheek to the numbing coolness. Carrie took his chubby baby arm in both her hands and tried to force his arm down, not really sure how to make it go like they’d done in the hospital. They’d knocked Brian out first and then twisted it somehow and it had kind of snapped back into place.

She twisted as she pushed and the monster’s screams rose in pitch beyond her ability to hear and then the monster’s screams stopped all at once. He had fainted. She twisted his arm this way and that and pushed and pushed–it was a lot easier without all the screaming–but she still couldn’t make it go back in.

Fuck.

Now what?

* * *

While the monster slept, she put fresh clothes on it. The yellow shorts went on easily enough, but the t-shirt was going to be impossible with his shoulder all cockeyed. She found a little tank top with shoulder snaps instead, blue with a friendly green dragon. The dragon was cute. She smiled as she looked at it.

She looked down at the monster. Its hair was stained pinkish red on one side and a scabby looking line of bloodied vomit had dried across its cheek. Its arm jutted oddly. Its belly swelled against the elastic band of its shorts.