..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Thursday, September 25, 2003

"Whenever it was taken outside,
officious persons were always pointing out
that it was in danger of being left behind."
-Edward Gorey, The Beastly Baby

"What is bad? Everything that is born of weakness."
-Nietzche



FICTION:



What's Worst?



Jason drove past a dead baby on the side of the road.

He drove on for a few more seconds, until he slowly realized what he'd seen. His foot eased off the gas and he stared in his rearview mirror, engine revving down. He looked again, there was nothing back there now, except the vanishing point.

He turned down the stereo. Not too much though. He didn't like to turn it down. He tilted his head and wrapped an arm around the headrest on the passenger seat. He crossed the wrong arm in front of his body so his hand could still hover above the gear shift. He was driving slow enough to count the lines on the road between heartbeats now. Jason's head leaned so far over that he could smell the speaker buried in there. The smell was good. Metal, wires, and the scent of an overheated electronic burn. He thought about when he put the speakers in. It was three summers ago when he performed the operation, when he was finally tired of driving alone.

The balance of the music in Jason's car was always all the way to the right, and all the way to the front. Not just because he had only one speaker that worked. Because it was the only speaker that he needed. When Jason first got the car, he wanted to install speakers in the headrests. He did it by himself, and that was probably a mistake. He gutted the cushions like an angry child who couldn't find a girl to play doctor. One who walked off alone, head down and pouting, then found a willing teddy-bear to play surgeon instead. He made the speakers fit even though they really didn't, then he black-taped everything tight. With the speakers inside the cushions were too hard, and they had too many sharp corners for him to ever rest his head on again. They were loud though, magnets that close to the skull made even his small speakers thump and buzz enough for Jason to think it was worth all the effort, the wasted time, the summer night sweat and all the mosquitoes drawn to his dome light and his neck while he worked.

How often would I ever need to rest my head? I don't drive that far at once, never in a straight line. And how often do I sleep in the car? he shrugged. Might even save my life one night if I ever drive too long.

Then, one night after a good song, the driver's side blew. Now, with one speaker ruptured, the music was popping and sparking so much he had to switch the balance all the way to one side. One would be enough though. He didn't have enough money to replace them, and he couldn't see ever cutting them open again even if he did.

Jason had wrapped at least seven rolls of black tape around those headrests.

That meant forever.

And after a year of driving around his slowly widening spiral, with no one, nothing to do and nowhere to go, he got used to the music over there on the one side. Vibrating under his arm. It felt comforting. It was warm and good. One more year and he was even talking to it. Nothing crazy, just thinking out loud really. That's what he told the noises coming out of the speaker.

"Was that really a dead baby back there? No freaking way." He titled his head, rolling it around on his shoulders until it cracked, then he leaned over again to the speaker. His eyes never left the rearview mirror. He was down to about 10 mph. No cars.

"A dead baby. Not just something pink. I know that's what I saw. Please, let that be what I saw." He said that last part almost to himself for once. He leaned over even more, the fuzz on his ear tickling the seat. "I should go back, huh? I know it wasn't an animal. There was no blood, no fur. Nothing red, just pink. That means no one threw the baby out of a car. I'd be driving next to it for miles, if that was the case. What the hell? Should I go back?" A couple seconds went by, about ten white lines sliding under the car while he thought about it. He leaned
over again and explained.

"You know, there's something to be said about someone who sees something horrible like that and just keeps on driving. Doesn't even phase him enough to go back. I know what you're thinking, it's not that I don't want to touch it or see it up close or something. I just don't give three shits."

He turned the stereo off. It was stuck in the static between stations anyway. Sometimes he left that on, even turned it up. He enjoyed the soothing vibrations of a song in the crook of his elbow, and sometimes the static felt just as good. Now his head was straight again, foot ready to bury the gas and forget what he thought he saw. Then he thought of something else. Suddenly he had both hands on the wheel, both arms locked, both feet on the brake, radio back on.

What if someone else sees it too? What if someone thinks they found it first? Jason went back for the baby - fast - without even turning the car around.

When he got to it, he opened the passenger door, stretched across the seat on his stomach and stared with the car rumbling under his body. The music had drifted into static again where he'd stopped. He wanted a song, only he couldn't move the car forward to find one. It was right there, right by his tire. He stared with his head in his palms, shaking slightly (he told himself it was the low idle from the car). It was a baby.

No flies, no blood, no smell, nothing. he thought. Just dead.

"No bugs. No red. No rot. Nothing bad. Just dead." Jason mumbled.

He thought about rolling it over to see if it was a boy or a girl. Then he decided he liked not knowing. He looked at the smooth pink head and suddenly thought about drawing three lines on the back of its scalp. Then he'd never have to turn it over. Three lines, two eyes and a mouth and he could pretend he found an alien instead. Now that was a dilemma, he thought. What would I rather find on the side of the road? A dead baby or a dead alien? Alien. Live baby or a dead alien? Live baby. I'd be hero. Dead alien and I might end up right next to it, in a lab in Area 54. Wait, it was Studio 54 and Area 51. . .

Still, I wish it was an alien, Jason told himself. I won't turn it over.

He picked it up fast (even though his hands were quick, he noticed the weight and thought of stuffed toys left outside to soak up rain) and dropped it hard into the next seat.

"Damn it's heavy. That must be how it died," he explained to the static. "First, someone lost it, maybe while they were changing a tire, and when it got left alone, there was no one around to stop it from putting things in its mouth. And everyone knows a baby on the road will eat rocks all night if no one is around to stop it . . . "

He trailed off as he noticed something else in the gravel as he was closing the door. He leaned out, reaching out slow so his back could crack. It was a toy. Or it was a toy once. It was smashed now, run over, and Jason couldn't figure out what it had been. He knew what it was supposed to do. Rattle. Babies liked things that rattled. It was a toy that rattled, burst open, all the popcorn kernels that had made the noises scattered in a star pattern around it. He thought maybe it was homemade, sewn together from some old stuffed animals, Jason couldn't understand what animal it was now. Too many eyes, too many ears, he thought. Something tightened in Jason's chest, something about the toy was affecting him in a way the baby didn't. Jason shook his head hard, like a dog that got thrown in the pool, and slammed his car door. He figured the chest pain was just from being down there at exhaust level, fumes getting him sick or something.

He clicked the volume knob off, then reached over and strapped the baby in while the hiss of the static faded away again. He didn't want it rolling over on his side of the car when he took a hard turn (he still remembered how important it was to stay on your side when two boys were on a long drive). When he clicked the seatbelt he noticed that he'd sat it down in the seat the right way, carefully, like any child. Must have been distracted by the toy, he thought. He didn't mean to do that. Right before he pulled back onto the road, his eyes had taken a snapshot of it before he could stop. It was a boy.

"So what?" Jason played with the rearview until the road was gone and only the sky was visible, then he drove on. He wanted it to get darker and it never did. Jason tried to decide what to do. Even though the radio was off, he was still thinking out loud. It was too quiet if he didn't. He leaned down and kept whispering to the dead speaker.

"Hey, here's an old one, what's easier to unload? A truck full of bowling balls? Or a truck full of dead babies? Don't know? Dead babies. You can use a pitchfork." Jason sighed, feeling satisfied. He imagined how jaded he would sound to someone who was in the car with them, watching and listening. Again, he wished that it was dark outside. "That's sooo nasty . . . "

He leaned down closer, past the speaker, but tilted his head so he still wasn't looking at it. He'd squint and see the toy instead, whenever that snapshot of it came back. His shoulder strained at that angle, then cracked loud. He'd never leaned down that far when he was thinking out loud. And the cracks shouldn't hurt.

"Where did you come from? No one threw you out of the car. You'd have been a little red comet if that had happened. You run away? Someone have you, right there? No, there's no cord. You imagine that? Some girl pulls over to have a baby and leave it behind, only she forgets about the cord. Then, miles later, she gets pulled over cause the cops see the baby bouncing behind the car. That's a worse ticket than not having it in the car seat, ain't it?" Jason's smile dropped a little. "I should take you to the cops now."

An hour later and Jason was still driving. He was in no hurry to give it up. He told himself that he'd done nothing wrong. He just wanted to carry it in to somewhere, and have someone take it to a lab, cut it in half, count the rings, and wonder what the hell he was doing with it for so long. He wanted someone to scratch their head and ask him why he'd been driving around with a dead baby. He wondered if he'd get on TV, symbolizing detached youth everywhere or some shit. This was right up there with leaving a baby in the garbage. No, this was worse. Nobody ever did what he was doing. He'd be the boy who drove around with a dead baby, telling it dead baby jokes.

The radio was still off, and he was still leaning down to it, sometimes just cracking his neck slowly from side to side, sometimes thinking out loud:

"What's worse? Killing a baby, or just driving around with a dead one like it's nothing? Hey, yeah, what's worse?!? Remember those jokes? The "what's worse" jokes? Okay, what's worse, fifty dead babies in a garbage can? Or one dead baby in fifty garbage cans? That's a tough one, ain't it? I wonder what someone would say if they heard me right now?" Jason's eyes got wide. "Holy shit! I wonder what someone would say if I took you to a movie! It would have to be a drive-in though. I'd get in trouble if I carried you into a theater, especially if it was rated 'R' . . . " He tilted the rearview, not to see if anyone was in the backseat listening to him, but so he could pretend someone was. "Hey! What's worse than finding a dead baby in the backseat of your car? Realizing you fucked it!"

He wished for a train or a red light and he couldn't find one. Something so he'd have to slam on the brakes just once. He leaned down and unhooked it's seatbelt without looking. He wanted to hit the brakes while he was talking to it, then act shocked when it bounced off the dashboard. He thought that would be funny . . . as . . . shit. He drove on.

There were no cars. No one, nothing. He wondered if it was the end of the world. He pushed that thought away and clicked its seat belt back across its body. He couldn't imagine finding a dead baby, then having no one to show it to. He had another idea. What if the cops found out he went through a car wash before he brought it in? They would be confused, suspicious as hell. Maybe they'd think I was washing blood off my car? Jason drove faster, looking for a car wash.

He needed one, and he wished so hard . . . he found one.

It was one of those crazy car washes where you drove through the mouth of a monster clown or something sinister, then came out between the teeth of something else. A dragon or a dinosaur, whatever the graffiti artists that worked there came up with between cars. He was still outside of town when he found it, and that made the mechanical gorilla out front even more bizarre. It was painted green, holding a bunch of old sunken Valentine's Day balloons with the number five and a dollar sign written on each one in black marker, spinning around and tilting and creaking on a rotten cable spool where you could see the wires running out the gorilla's toes.

It stood there grinning through green teeth, waving you in. There were no cars going in or coming out. No cars.

Car washes were scary enough when you were little, Jason thought. Children must shit their pants every time in this freakshow.

He looked around as he pulled in, he didn't see the gang of boys that were supposed to be wiping the cars dry and he was disappointed. He wanted someone to look down into his car, ask him a question or two. He found a box for the money at the opening and put a five dollar bill in the slot. The slot was painted up as another clown, and the money slot was the tongue. When Jason slammed it into the box the noises it started making caused his heart to jump. Then a handful of quarters were rattling into a metal bowl the clown's hands were holding. There was a
sign below it:

"Five dollar wash and wax. Old arcade change machine. Leave the quarters or we won't let you out! Sorry, they're ours now."

The garage door rolled up and when the huge tongue retracted all the way, a flashing green light beckoned him inside. Jason crept forward into the mouth.

"Now, I know babies get scared in car washes," Jason whispered soothingly. "I used to. Sorry, I'm not going to close your eyes though. I heard that dogs go bonkers inside these things too. Hey, that reminds me, what do you give a dead baby for its birthday? A dead puppy!"

There was a jerk as the wheels found the right spot in the tracks and the machines took over. There was another thump under the car and the green light turned red. Water started trickling down as the mouth closed behind him and the car was pulled the rest of the way inside.

"Did you like the movie? Other babies were screaming in there. Not you! You weren't scared. Candy made you sick though. Now we got to wash the car. We'll do the outside first."

Jason stifled a laugh, some of it made it out his nose. "Taking a dead baby to a movie. That would be some funny shit. Car wash is good enough though. And dead baby jokes to a dead baby?! That's nuts. I'm hardcore." He leaned down to it and raised his voice to be heard. The water was pounding full force now.

"You ever wonder where dead baby jokes come from? Or where dead babies come from! Just teasing. Anyway, who comes up with all those jokes? Maybe you really need a dead baby around to get the ideas going. So you're not worrying what a dead baby is really like. I'll try that.

Hey! Why did the dead baby cross the road? Don’t know? Cause it was nailed to the chicken! Yeah, I know. I said I'll try to come up with my own joke later. Remind me, Junior."

The car lurched and he sat back up straight. Then he stopped completely. There was a wet slap as an octopus of purple fingers came down on his windshield. They squirmed there for a second, then lazily dragged themselves up and over the car, leaving a steaming white trail behind them. When two huge green scrubbers started slowly moving up and down his doors, his heart skipped and he panicked, bringing both feet down hard on the brake. He sighed and scratched himself hard behind the ear in disgust. He'd done that before. For some reason, whenever those scrubbers moved past the car, he always thought he was moving, instead of the machines. Every time it happened he hit the brake like a dumb shit. He cracked every knuckle that he could, happy no one saw him do that.

The soap started spraying from somewhere. Jason looked down at his arms, watching the pattern change as foam and water marbled the light across his skin. He moved the rearview again, to see how that light looked on his face, his eyes. Then he saw the toy again. Before he could try to imagine what animal the rattle had been, there was the blur of a tire flashing over it, the popcorn kernels bursting, dancing, then rolling away. Another tire through his mind and the popcorn on the road danced again. Then another tire. He blinked his eyes hard to make it go away. Something didn't sound right outside in the wash. Something rattled that didn't rattle before. He looked out each window until he found it. The antenna on his car was getting hammered by an angry green scrubber. It was bouncing back and forth too hard, bending too far, wiggling dangerously fast. Jason sighed; he'd forgotten to unscrew it before he went in. And even though he hadn't seen the sign, he knew neither the clown nor the gorilla would be "responsible for anything lost or broken." He wondered what they would say if he rolled down the window after he drove out and said, "Your goddamn evil-clown car wash scared my baby to death! You owe me a new antenna. At least!"

The scrubbers were up and spinning on the windows now, pounding away at the glass and filling the car with flickering light and vibrations. He never saw them move up to get the windows like that before, never that high. And the sounds of the wash seemed too loud all of the sudden. He clicked on the radio and put his arm around the speaker in the headrest. All white noise and static. He searched for a song and stopped tuning when he heard the beat of some music trying to get through. He turned it up and leaned over again, eyes on the assault on his antenna so he wouldn't be tempted to look at the baby.

"You know, I remember more jokes about killing babies, instead of jokes about dead babies. Here's one. What's red and squirms in the corner?" The scrubbers surrounded his car, he hadn't counted them, but he was sure there was more of them now. The antenna was stuck between two of them. "A baby playing with a razor. What's blue and squirms in the corner?"

The antenna was being slapped around even harder. A third one came over to spin against it. The antenna was making a new noise now, a whine under the splashing and the rattle. The beat was barely audible on the radio, static was taking over again. "A baby playing with a garbage bag. What's green and doesn't squirm in the corner?" The antenna shook and wiggled so fast, it disappeared into a chaotic blur of chrome, water and suds.

The metal was screaming. Jason thought he heard the sound coming through the speaker too. “Same baby! Three weeks later!"

It snapped.

Dead air on his radio. And now the static sounded wrong, like AM instead of FM. Seconds passed. Then minutes. His car wasn't moving. It was still being washed though, more than five bucks worth. He'd been inside too long. He played with the knob, even though he knew he was cut off and nothing would come in without that antenna. Jason was worried that the beat he'd heard before it snapped was just the sounds of the wash. He worried that the music had been replaced with the beat of these machines without him realizing it, and that's what he'd been tapping a foot to the whole time he was inside. Maybe even earlier, miles away, when he first found the song.

Is it possible to hear a car wash through your radio? he thought. Why not? If it was loud enough, maybe. I swear I heard a hockey game once that wasn't being broadcast. No one believed me though. So how did I know it went to a shoot-out and had six fights? And how did I hear a fight in the parking lot after the game? Cause it was loud enough, that's why. It was angry enough for my antenna to hear. What if a new one won't do that?

He found some static that sounded okay to him and left it there. Then he turned it up to a roar. He stretched his right arm behind his head to pop a joint and crack his elbow, then he wrapped it back around the headrest. He leaned down to talk to the speaker, instead of the baby, only to jerk his arm back as if he'd been burned. Jason had heard something strange. He crawled into the backseat and squinted through the foam to see if someone was working on getting the tracks on the wash moving again. Maybe they've been busy fixing something, loading soap, blowing up balloons, feeding the robot monkey, hosing the geek, some kind of carnival maintenance outside, like when you're stuck at the top of the Ferris wheel forever, he thought.

The car started shaking violently. He wiped the fog and checked every window. He couldn't see anyone outside. He climbed back into the driver's seat and looked into one of his side mirrors, adjusting it so he could see the scrubbers down beating on his wheel. He wondered if they would blow his tires if they scrubbed in the same place long enough. He figured anything could cut through anything if it tried long enough. He remembered a picture he saw once after a tornado. A sock monkey had been stuck half in and half out of tree trunk, it's soft head buried in
the wood. He couldn't figure out how a stuffed animal could put a hole in a tree.

Maybe if something was spinning fast enough, he decided.

That's what's going on in here . . . anything could happen then.

He leaned back over, not sure whether he was talking to the static or the baby.

"What's worse than running over a baby with your car? Getting it out of your treads."

Jason glanced around, sure he'd heard someone whispering over the thump of the machines and the blast of the static. He ran his hands through his hair, feeling the sweat slick it back behind his ears. He scratched his scalp hard in frustration. "Don't like that one? Okay, why do babies have soft spots on their heads? Don't know? So you can carry them ten at a time. You know what?" He squeezed the speaker in his arm. "I don't like those kinds of jokes. I think the 'what's worst' ones are best. I mean worse."

A strange smell made him glance down before he could stop himself. Someone's baby needs changed, Jason giggled. Then he thought he saw it staring at him before he could close his eyes. Mouth open too. He jumped back and put both hands on his window, pressing his nose against the glass. He wished he would have looked right away, back there on the road, then he would have shut the mouth and the eyes, or saw if they were open. Then he'd know if anything on the baby had changed.

He tried to distract himself by wondering which he'd rather have shut, if it had to be one or the other. What would be worse? he wondered. Open eyes or open mouth? At first he thought the eyes. Now he wasn't so sure. He was thinking that the open mouth was where the smell was coming from. What about the sound?

He looked at the numbers glowing green on the dashboard. He couldn't remember what time he'd entered the car wash. He didn't know how long he'd been inside. Something about all those machines might be affecting the clock. Or maybe it was the heat and moisture and pressure of the water, like a storm over the Devil's Triangle. He figured it wasn't just UFOs that screwed up all those instruments. He was sure that it was too long though. How long could you be stuck in a car wash without someone noticing, he thought. Is there anyone out there? He wiped away the steam of his breath and squinted out through the water and bubbles again. He thought the washing stage should be done by now, at least. He thought it should be time for different machines to come crawling over, he knew they were out there, he could hear them. He crawled into the backseat and looked out the back window. Between the rhythm and spin of the scrubbing wheel bouncing up and down his trunk, Jason could see some light, and then, past that, the road.

He thought the clown's mouth had closed behind him. He had to keep wiping away his breath to see, and he told himself that maybe a car was going by outside the same instant his hand cleared the glass. Still, no one, no cars, nothing.

Back in the driver's seat, he closed his eyes and sucked in his breath and held it, as if he was decompressing a spaceship. Then he pulled up on his door handle and cracked it open. Hot needles of white water peppered his arm. He started to lean out when one of the green scrub-wheels suddenly lurched towards him and slammed his door shut. He laughed and tried to open it again, it stopped against the scrubbing wheel and bounced violently under his hand. The noise of the wash was impossibly loud. His head aching with the sounds, he leaned his shoulder against the door and pushed. The door was open only inches now, vibrating so hard he bit his tongue. He put all his weight against it, got a few more centimeters, not even enough for a shoe to hold it open. He pushed so hard he knew his face was changing color at least twice, and he thought for a second that he was going to shit himself. He thought about a video he saw once where a woman was giving birth and defecated on the baby. It had made him sick, made him think of the woman as just some animal. The door slammed shut. He was suddenly worried that fighting the door might mean he'd be found in the car wash with shit in his pants. He stopped pushing and forced himself to relax. All the windows, all the mirrors, even the chrome on the radio knobs were fogged now. He couldn't see the spinning machines surrounding the car anymore. He started working slowing and controlling his breathing, so that all the glass would clear, so he could see a little further, so that he could work on getting out.

"You know what you never hear?!?" Jason screamed to the baby over the static and the bashing force of the wash. "You never hear someone make up a joke. Just like you can smell the skunk on the road and you never see it. Just like you hear the tires squeal and never hear the crash. We know the stork sometimes brings dead babies. Don't you ever wonder where the fuck the jokes come from?!" For the first time Jason forced himself to look directly at it. It's eyes and mouth were looking at him, just like he knew they would be. It was worse that he'd thought. He stared at it, hard, until the baby blurred and faded away. Jason knew that always happened if he stared long enough, but he told himself it was the steam in the car that took the baby away.

"Let's make a dead baby joke! Right here, right now. It'll pass the time until someone sees us. Now, how do jokes usually start?" He blinked and the baby was back in his head, behind his eyelids. He waited until it faded. "Um, a dead baby walks into a bar . . . shit!" Jason slapped himself upside the head and vigorously scratched the back of his neck. So much sweat flew off his face that he stopped scratching and jerked around, thinking the door had come open.

"That won't work will it? Remember, the best ones always start with the words "what's worse". I once heard this little girl telling dead baby jokes and she kept saying the words "what's worst" instead. Perfect. Maybe we should do that too. So, what's worst? Driving over a baby on the road or . . . or . . . getting the baby out of your . . . " Jason stopped. "Fuck, I already did that one! So what! We'll just make it worst!"

Even though the baby stayed blurry, he was seeing the busted toy instead. " . . . or getting the baby off the hood ornament . . . " Jason tried to make the toy go away. He almost crossed his eyes trying not to blink. " . . . or digging the baby out of the grill . . . " The toy was still there. He saw the toy in the road, rattling every time a tire flashed over it. " . . . or running out of baby before you get it with all four wheels . . . or getting it out of the lawnmower blades . . . or having to start the lawnmower again after it stalls . . . or . . . I don't know . . . getting it out of your . . . your . . . your . . . " Jason closed his eyes. He heard a voice trying to break through the hiss of static. At first he thought it was an excited announcer giving the blow-by-blow of a fight in a hockey game somewhere. You never see a fight in overtime. Then he thought it was singing. Then he realized that it wasn't a song. It sounded like crying.

"What's worst? Driving over a baby on the road, and getting it stuck in your grill? Or picking up a baby off the road, and getting it stuck in your head?"

Jason reached out and clicked off the radio. It was time to go.

Jason leaned back in the driver's seat and pulled the gear shift down hard. His foot stabbed the pedal and he straightened his arms, waiting for the crashing and sparks and sunlight as he broke through the mouth and splintered the tongue and bouncing and scraping his car out into the road. Nothing. He pushed the gas down flat, then so hard he felt the peddle start to bend to the curve of his foot. He heard the engine screaming with all the power it had. He wasn't moving. Are my wheels off the ground? Let me the fuck out. I didn't take your fucking quarters.

He tried to remember what had happened when the red light flashed on and the wash first pulled him in. There was no way it could be holding him up with his wheels off the ground. There was something very wrong. He was getting out now. He leaned back in the driver's seat even further, grunting and honking the horn with his sneakers, walking his legs up and over the steering wheel onto the glass. Then Jason started jack-hammering the windshield with his heels. He kicked hard, then harder, then faster, hearing the rubber on his shoes squeaking and watching the crazy patterns they were drawing in the fog. He thought of a kaleidoscope, one that he'd had and loved as a boy, a toy that he just had to break open. Two rolls of black tape couldn't fix it after he finally saw what was inside. Nothing really, nothing like what he seen through the hole. He tried filling it with sand and bugs and screws and apple juice and marbles and even after all that work, it still never worked again. He shook the image out of his head and pushed the muscles in his legs faster and harder.

His feet kick-started a spiderweb of cracks between the steaming bubbles on the glass and his frantic squeaking heels. He imagined a spider on the outside of the windshield, trying to spin a web while he was driving down the road, faster and faster, trying to find enough road without curves to blow it off. In his head he saw a spider still hanging on, while his speed and wind tried to get under it and tear it loose. His ankles ached, one of his shoes slipped and a flailing knee turned the radio back on. Static and voices, singing and crying rose up from the passenger seat and Jason hit the windshield with everything he had left. Finally, his legs locked straight behind the knees and both feet went smashing through the glass.

Breach birth, he thought, as his hands came up to protect himself. Careful nurse. Don't let the cord wrap around it's neck.

A snowstorm of glass cubes splashed his crossed arms and showered his face. The sounds of the wash roared and the hot water dragged the broken glass across his nose and forehead. A sharp corner stung him above an eyebrow, then another under a nostril. He fought the urge to wipe them away, knowing that would make the cuts deeper. He pulled his feet back and tried going through head first, eyes pinched closed, ears getting the worst of it. His shoulders got stuck, and he sliced through his shirt working free, grinding glass into skin as he strained and contorted his body to widen the hole. Eventually it was big enough to squeeze through. And as he stood outside the car, watching the machines dancing and spinning around him, seeming to keep their distance, seeing the pink water pooling on his dashboard under the jagged hole, feeling the blood and foam running down his neck, he never even thought about what that would look like. He didn't care if someone saw him or not. The clown's mouth opened for him and he stepped out into the sun.

Too late, the doctor muttered. Stillbirth. It’s been dead for 9 months. Jason thought. I don’t understand it either. Sometimes they just keep growing, like a dead man’s fingernails

It was only when he saw the boy on the ground outside, gray rags wrapped around his arm, frozen in a yawn, stretched out in the grass-angel he'd worn down, with headphones covering his ears, slowly sitting up on his elbows and realizing what he was seeing, that Jason understood. It was only when he saw the boy squinting and pulling the headphones down to his throat, picking dirt and stones out of the skin on his arms, checking his watch and shrugging with a what-the-fuck? that he knew his car was coming out of the clown's mouth right behind him, safe, on the tracks, windshield shattered, yet shiny clean and on time. It was only then that he knew his car had been in neutral the whole time he was gunning it, trying to get out. That's when he went back for the baby.

This time, when he walked out through the scalding foam and stinging needles of hot wax, with the baby tight against his chest, soft head under Jason's chin, dead skin sticking to his neck, covering the open eyes and mouth with a protecting hand when the blast of the last machine of the car wash came down, feeling the tiny rubber wheels on the hose run down the back of his neck and the hot wind blowing and burning the water off his ears, this time Jason started to feel like himself again when he stepped out into the sun.

What's worst? Finding a dead baby on the side of the road? Or wanting to?

And even if he was only holding a broken toy he'd found on the side of the road, even if it wasn't a dead baby, even if he'd never been stuck inside, Jason imagined how strong he looked. Even if he had only gone back in to get the antenna.


-© 2003 david james keaton

::: david - 8:38 PM [+] :::
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