Turtleface and Beyond (14 page)

“It's fine, I can go take a walk somewhere.”

“Why would you do that?” he said.

“I think she likes you.”

“I'm with Carla now,” said Richard. “It's out of the question.”

Carla was one of the few people in Richard's circle who was close to his own age. She was a wholesome woman who raised goats on a farm outside of town. She refused to let Richard come live with her even though he had tried to do so on several occasions. Likewise he refused to be faithful to her, so they were stuck at an impasse, as it were.

“Why isn't Carla here now?” I asked him.

“She had to tend to those goats,” he said. “They run her life.”

There was a plunking sound from a pool above us and then a muffled cry. The baby had fallen into the creek. I jumped up and fished him out. He was silent for a moment and then began to scream. I took this as a good sign. He hadn't suffocated. His little felt hat was soaked and useless now, so I pulled it off. I'd never held a baby before and he squirmed around like a wet fish. I grabbed my shirt and dried him off and then wrapped him up inside it.

“Where's Sabrina?” I asked Richard.

“I don't know,” he said. He sighed. “I'll go find her.”

Richard rose up out of the creek, naked of course, and I noticed then how small and skinny his legs were. They looked like they could barely hold the rest of him up. He shook himself and I was reminded then of a collie, the majestic dogs with great manes of hair who look suddenly diminished once they become wet.

“I'll be right back,” said Richard, and he wandered off naked into the forest.

I stood there by the creek with the baby in my arms and marveled at his weird-shaped head. Whoever it was that Sabrina had mated with to produce this child must have possessed even stranger features than she did. He looked more like an ostrich than a human.

I placed him on the ground and watched as he explored the forest floor with his grabby fingers. I got myself dressed while he examined various sticks and clods of dirt. The curiosity of a child! He ripped up a plant and then stuck some of its red berries into his mouth. This happened before I could think to take action. I tried to dislodge them, but he'd already swallowed some of the berries down. I examined the remaining fruit on the plant and couldn't recognize it as anything edible. The berries were round and shiny, with a clear liquid inside. I pictured a guidebook with their image and next to it a warning: “Poisonous, Do Not Eat.”

What had just happened? Was this baby doomed? I listened intently for sounds indicating that Richard and Sabrina were on their way back so that I could transfer this problem to them.

“Richard!” I called out. “Sabrina!”

They couldn't have gone far, but there was no sign of them. I decided to pick up the baby and carry him in the direction I'd seen them going. I called out their names over and over, but Richard and Sabrina either could not or would not respond. I figured they were off having sex somewhere, which annoyed me, but the real issue now was the color of Sabrina's child. His skin had turned a pale green, just a faint tint, but it didn't seem right.

I felt compelled to take action. I went back to the creek and found Richard's pants and fished out his car keys. I looked also for a pen and paper on which to write a note, but there was nothing like that there. I smoothed out a spot of dirt and dug out a message with a stick.

“Went for help,” it said.

I dashed back along the forest path with the baby bouncing around in my arms. He remained calm, though he did spit up once or twice. It occurred to me that vomiting would be helpful in this case, so I tried to encourage more of that. He wouldn't do it when coaxed, however.

Every so often I would stop and listen for Richard and Sabrina. I considered waiting for them, but what if the baby died first? I'd be in terrible trouble then.

When I got to the car I placed the baby on the front seat next to me, revved up the engine, and promptly backed the vehicle into a large ditch.

“Fuck,” I said.

The car was stuck. One of the wheels just spun in midair. I honked the horn several times in frustration but this was unhelpful.

The baby started to scream then, loud annoying cries I could do nothing to subdue. I stepped out of the car and left him inside so that I could think.

I had no good ideas. I could go back to find Richard and Sabrina, but then they'd just be angry about the car, not to mention the poisoned child. I wished that he wasn't crying now because this meant his heart would beat faster and speed up the processes inside him. I grabbed him out of the car and began walking down the dirt road, out of the state forest. It would be a long walk but I saw no other options.

Shortly into our journey we encountered a large truck rumbling our way. I flagged it down and was happy to discover that Carla, Richard's goat-herder girlfriend, was at the wheel.

“Carla,” I said. “I need your help. This baby ate some bad berries.”

The child had quieted down now. In fact, he was half asleep. I was worried he might be slipping away.

“He looks fine to me,” said Carla. She was wearing overalls and looked tan and healthy. She was an attractive woman, though a little rough at the edges. For instance, at that moment she had some kind of food stuck on her tooth, a piece of some leafy organic vegetable, I imagined.

“He's not fine,” I told her.

“Where's Richard?” she asked me. “I heard he came out here with that hippie girl. Does the kid belong to her?”

“Yes,” I said, “but we've got to get him some help. Is there a hospital near here?”

“I was the one who showed Richard where those hot springs are in the first place,” said Carla. She was pretty fired up. “He wouldn't have even known about them if it weren't for me.”

“Listen, Carla,” I said, “Richard's off in the woods somewhere. I need your help with this baby.”

“Did you eat some of Richard's LSD?” asked Carla. “What's your fucking problem anyway? That kid looks fine. Did Richard ask you to babysit while he went off and screwed that hippie bitch in the woods?”

“No. Look, the baby ate some berries. He's turning green.”

Carla paused and looked over the infant.

“He is a little green,” she acknowledged.

“Can we go to a hospital?”

Carla peered up the road and saw Richard's car sitting in the ditch.

“Is that Richard's car?”

“I got it stuck.”

“Get in,” said Carla, shaking her head.

I got inside her big truck and she drove up the hill and plowed into the side of Richard's car, breaking a window and leaving a large unsightly dent in the door.

“That will show him,” she said. Then she backed down the road a ways until she could turn her rig around. Then we drove to the hospital.

It was a fairly long drive and the whole time Carla kept muttering about Richard and what an ass he was. I couldn't disagree, but I was more worried about the baby. He was asleep now and every so often I would hold my fingers up to his nose to make sure he was still breathing.

When we arrived at the hospital Carla pulled up to the emergency entrance and said, “Good luck.”

“You're not coming inside?”

“No, I'm not,” she said.

Just then the baby woke up and vomited all over the inside of Carla's truck.

“Jesus Christ,” she said.

“I'm sorry about that,” I told her. There were a couple of little red berries lying in the puke at my feet. I was glad to see them. I took them as a sign of purging, and validation.

I made a halfhearted attempt to clean up the mess but Carla said, “Just go.”

So I stepped back and let her drive off. She really was a hard woman.

It was evening now and the inside of the hospital was bathed in a cold fluorescent hue. I approached the front desk and the receptionist handed me a clipboard with some paperwork on it.

“I think he ate some bad berries,” I said.

“Fill out the forms,” she told me.

The baby was awake now and looked markedly better. His face had regained some color and he was gurgling contentedly. I struggled for several minutes with the forms and realized I didn't even know Sabrina's last name. I wondered if I might get arrested for bringing the child in here like this. He was dirty and naked and someone handed me a sheet in which to wrap him.

The form was ridiculous. It asked for birth dates and Social Security numbers and insurance information, none of which I had. I looked over this strange child and tried to imagine the life he had in store for himself, a life full of ill-conceived trips to forests, clueless strangers, and unfriendly hospitals.

It was nearly time for me to be at work and I considered abandoning the baby there and letting the authorities deal with him. Perhaps that was the best thing to do, wash my hands of this whole situation. I sat him down on the seat next to me and started to walk away.

The baby began to wail and heads turned to look at me. I returned, scooped him up, and jiggled him, but still he wouldn't be quiet. A hefty woman sitting nearby said to me, “That baby's hungry.”

It was probably true. He hadn't eaten in quite a while. Neither had I.

“Thank you,” I said to the woman, and I walked out of the hospital, still holding the child.

We found a small market where I purchased a banana and some other child-type foods. The baby ate them eagerly as we sat on a bench and I then felt assured that he was no longer in danger of dying.

It was 7:30 p.m., past the hour when I should have been at work, so I got on a bus with the baby and rode down to the hotel. Edna, the clerk on the day shift, was upset with me for being late, but she softened when she saw the child.

“Is he yours?” she asked me.

“No, I'm watching him for a friend,” I said.

“Oh.”

Edna left us there at the front desk and the baby and I watched old comedy shows on the flickering TV set as the hour grew late. I'd grown to like him, at least. Maybe I had judged his froglike facial features too harshly. Perhaps he'd grow handsome, or intriguingly original, and tell stories of his freewheeling childhood when he got older. Maybe his life wouldn't be so bad. There were so many poor choices he had yet to make.

Sometime around dawn, just as the light was turning from black to gray, Richard and Sabrina burst into the small hotel lobby.

“Where the fuck have you been?” said Richard. He was wearing somebody else's pants and a shirt that was too small. Sabrina, distraught and dirty, had been crying. There were little twigs sticking out of her hair.

“I had to be at work,” I said.

Sabrina stepped behind the desk and found her son asleep on the floor, wrapped up in the hospital sheet. She lifted him up and hugged him close.

“Oh, Aiden,” she said.

“He's fine,” I pointed out. “He ate some berries out in the woods. I thought he'd been poisoned.”

“What?” said Richard.

“You just left me there with him,” I said.

“He's poisoned?” said Sabrina.

“No, I don't think so. Not anymore.”

“You wrecked my car,” said Richard.

“No, Carla did that.”

“Carla?”

“She came by while you two were out in the woods.”

“We weren't even together,” said Richard. “I couldn't find her. Not at first.”

“That's not what Carla thought.”

“What did you tell her?” asked Richard. “Did you tell her we weren't even together?”

“I just wanted to get to the hospital.”

“The hospital?” said Sabrina. She began to sob once again.

“Look,” said Richard, “the least you can do is give us a room. Look at us.”

They did look pathetic, standing there all mud-covered and disheveled. Even Richard's dashing eyes seemed to have grown dim. The sun was rising up now and things outside came into view, the passing cars, the sidewalk, and the trees. Soon it would be another hot day.

“Just give us a room,” said Richard. “Please.”

It was nearly the end of my shift and I could have found them an empty room where no one would have noticed. I could have written up the slip so the maids would leave them alone until noon. But instead I shook my head.

“You two need to go home,” I told them. “Go home, both of you, and go to sleep. I'm not watching after your kid anymore.”

Richard stared at me with angry, dull eyes and I swallowed hard.

“I'm serious,” I said.

They turned and walked out of the lobby with the baby and I watched them weave away in Richard's banged-up car. I sat down behind the desk and turned off the television set. Now it was finally quiet and I waited for that new day to begin.

 

BUILD IT UP, KNOCK IT DOWN

 

I was on my way to see Alice, my sometime friend. Earlier that day I'd remembered that she owed me some money, so I decided to walk over there and see how she was doing. I took my dog, Wilfred, with me. Someone else had given her that name, Wilfred, probably without knowing that she was a girl. I usually called her Willy.

Before we arrived at Alice's I tied Willy to a signpost and went into the supermarket, where I bought two six-packs of beer. I'm not much of a drinker myself, but Alice liked beer. I probably could have just bought one six-pack but I got two just to be friendly.

Alice lived on the top floor of a shaky house toward the edge of town. People were always coming and going over there. She had a twelve-year-old son, Marvin, who was both blind and deaf. She communicated with him by drawing letters on the palm of his hand. She was a good mother, but it was hard for her. Sometimes I would watch after Marvin while Alice got away for a few hours. It was one of my jobs, though not a steady one. Alice paid me seven dollars an hour, when she could.

I walked up the stairs to Alice's house, knocked on the door, and then opened it. She wasn't there. Instead a man named Bob was sitting on the couch smoking a cigarette.