Brawler

by Neil Connelly

  For the longest time, back when I was a child, I believed. In Mrs. McGinley and the Easter Bunny and saying your prayers at night to Jesus and all the things your parents tell you. I was one of those oddball kids who actually liked going to church.

  I left the park, passing beneath the tattered banner strung across the main entrance — CELEBRATE PARADISE DAYS! — and followed Roosevelt Road into town. I avoided the fractured sidewalks and jogged down the middle of the street, past the courthouse and Jorvik’s Sporting Man’s Store with the plywood nailed over the windows and Killarney’s Antiques and Used Books with its stacks of dusty paperbacks. I passed the cramped offices of the Five Mountains Gazetteer, the local weekly paper where I worked part-time, mostly writing obituaries and pretending I was getting valuable experience for my career as a journalist.

  The road dipped as I neared the bridge, and without breaking stride, I hurdled the guardrail they’d planted across the entrance and passed the signs warning DANGER! NO PEDESTRIAN CROSSING. I shifted to the right and slowed. In the weak moonlight, I couldn’t really see the road beneath my feet. It was like I was running across the open air.

  When I reached the Black Hole, dead center in the middle of the bridge, I slowed even more, enough to peek through to the gurgling rapids below. Fifty feet below me, the river fed into the lake. A chunk of asphalt about the size of a man had fallen away during the great ice storm three years before, and the state engineers had declared that the bridge would have to be torn down and rebuilt. But with the fish gone and Paradise on the decline, funds were tight, so they hung up those warning signs and put the project on perpetual hold. Meanwhile, that hole got bigger and bigger, and by now a car could easily have tumbled through. The safe passage was only a few feet on either side, and I picked my way carefully along the railing.

  Roosevelt Road rises sharply on the west side of the bridge, and I had to lean forward into the incline. Though I was breathing hard, as the ground leveled out I tapped into what Coach Halloran always called my sixth gear, an extra reserve of sweet energy I saved for the end of a race. All through my high school track meets, I was usually in second place coming into the final stretch, but more often than not, my chest was the one snapping the ribbon. The recruiter from Lock Haven University, the same guy I spoke to about deferring my scholarship, told me that was the difference between a good runner and a great one, that ability to finish strong.

  So when I again entered the forest and the road veered south, I was virtually in an all-out sprint, barreling down a long canopy made by the pines. I kept expecting to see the headlights of my mother’s truck appear in the darkness, but they never did. When I finally reached the Abernathys’ property, I didn’t see our truck in the long driveway, and I felt a rush of victory.

  I charged through their side yard, dominated by the towering Grandfather Elm, supposedly huge even before they built this Victorian mansion. But when I rounded that ancient tree, I saw my mother’s pickup, parked crooked halfway into a flower bed, headlights shining, engine running, like she’d crashed into the garden. The truck was empty. I took the porch steps two at a time, shouldered through the double doors, and found myself suddenly inside the darkened house, facing a long wooden staircase. At the top, a dim light glowed. I sprinted up the stairs and then down a hallway toward an open door and the lighted room at the end, and I was going full tilt when I reached the threshold, but what I saw nailed my feet to the floor.

  Directly ahead of me, propped up on her canopy bed, Mrs. Abernathy sat naked from the chest down. The skin of her pregnant belly stretched tight. Blood stained the sheets between her open legs, and even now I don’t think there’s any right way to label what I saw there, but at the time the word that came to me was wound. By nineteen I knew plenty about the pain and bloody burden of being a woman, but in that crazy frozen moment, what I saw seemed foreign and impossible, unnatural.

  I heard my name and turned to my mother, kneeling alongside the bed with Daniel. “Anderson,” my mother repeated. She stared at the hardwood next to her. “Now you see for yourself. Come pray with us.”

  Daniel was much calmer than he’d been in the truck. I studied his face for signs of distress, but found nothing. He looked completely unsurprised by my appearance. “Hey, Andi,” he said with a half smile. “That baby’s coming.”

  In a daze, I wandered closer, looked at the open space meant for me, but I did not kneel. Mr. Abernathy sat on the other side of the bed, cradling his wife’s head. People said she had lost her mind after the death of her second child. For a couple months, she went to stay at a hospital out west, and when she came back, you never saw her without her husband at her side. When she talked to you, her eyes didn’t quite settle on yours. She was always looking over your shoulder, like somebody else was watching.

  From the bathroom, Sylvia Volpe appeared, striding across the room on her long crane legs. Volpe was an outsider, a white-haired writer who had moved to Paradise because she couldn’t get enough of Daniel’s story. Before that, she worked for one of those newspapers sold at the grocery checkout lane with promises of miracle diets and the mysteries of Atlantis revealed. Volpe contributed less fantastic stories now and then to the Gazetteer, but if we ran into each other in the office, we didn’t speak. She handed Mr. Abernathy a wet facecloth, then aimed her sharp chin my way. “You have no place here,” she said.

  “Go get abducted by an alien,” I snapped back.

  My mother sighed. “Stop it, the both of you.”

  Sweat beaded across Mrs. Abernathy’s pale face, and her husband dabbed at it with the cloth. Her eyes were closed and her lips were barely parted. I couldn’t tell if breath was passing through them or not. Mr. Abernathy rubbed the cloth against her neck and whispered, “He’s here now, Grace, just like you wanted. Can you feel him? The boy’s right here with us.”

  Below me, my mother and Daniel bent their heads into the mattress to pray.

  “We should bring Daniel downstairs,” I told my mother. “He shouldn’t be here now.” All I could think of was Mrs. Bundower and the raspy suck of air and the way the skin on her face pulled back so tight it looked like a skull.

  “This is precisely where he belongs,” Volpe said. She straightened her gold-rimmed glasses. “This is the place to which Jesus has called him.” She always sounded like whatever she was saying she had on personal authority from Jesus, like she had a holy private number on her cell phone’s speed dial.

  I put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder and was about to speak, but a low moan from Mrs. Abernathy stopped me. Slowly her fingers gripped the bedsheets, gathering handfuls into tight fists. Her head pressed back into the pillow and her back arched, bent knees trembling in the air, and when her mouth opened wide, the sound that ripped loose was more roar than scream. Her whole body heaved and shook, like someone possessed by a demon. Mr. Abernathy stood and pressed his hands onto her convulsing shoulders. “What’s wrong? This shouldn’t be happening. There’s too much blood, Sylvia. We should do something.”

  But Volpe shook her head. “No. Her spirit’s strong. And Daniel’s here now. We have to believe.” Again she stared at my brother, still kneeling.

  “Daniel,” I said. “Come on with me.” I took a few steps toward the door, hoping he’d just follow. But when I looked back from the doorway, the face he aimed at me over his shoulder was blank. He didn’t look scared or upset. If anything, perhaps he was disappointed.

  “Maybe we better all stay here,” Daniel said.

  Mrs. Abernathy’s convulsions eased, and Volpe extended both her lanky arms over the trembling body. She raised her face to the bed’s white canopy and said, “Join with me now.”

  My mother got off her knees and took one of Daniel’s hands, urging him to his feet, and Mr. Abernathy stood. The four of them joined hands, then Volpe and my mother both offered me their open hands, waiting for me to complete the prayer chain. My mother said, “Please, Ann.” But I stayed where I was and shook my head. Volpe slid her palm into my m
other’s, and they turned from me. Looking heavenward, Volpe said, “Merciful Christ, Father in heaven, giver of life, we place our trust in you. We join together in hope and faith.”

  Mrs. Abernathy’s moans started getting louder, and her lips spread back to reveal her clenched teeth. Mr. Abernathy shouted above her, “Please Jesus!”

  “Thy will!” Volpe shouted. “Deliver us this night. Amen, amen.”

  My mother chanted, “Yes, Lord,” over and over, swaying her body and rolling her head. Daniel still looked okay, but I knew that wouldn’t last. I scanned the room and found a phone on a table by an open window. I crossed behind Volpe, and at the window I could see the lake through the trees.

  When I reached for the receiver, Mr. Abernathy cried out, “Don’t! You can’t!”

  “You need to take Daniel downstairs,” I hollered at my mother. “Like right now.”

  “Put down that phone,” Volpe ordered.

  “It’s not what she’d want,” Mr. Abernathy yelled. “Not after last time.”

  Turning from all of them, I faced the lake and the crescent moon. I dialed 9-1-1. The familiar voice answered on the first ring, and with all the shouting behind me I had to practically scream, “Bert, it’s Andi Grant. We need the ambulance up at the Abernathys’ place. Hurry, Bert.”

  “No!” Mr. Abernathy yelled, and the anger in his voice mixed with Volpe’s prayer and my mother’s rising chant. But somehow in that crash of sounds we all heard Mrs. Abernathy when she whispered, “Don’t need … any doctors.” Mrs. Abernathy’s body stilled and her eyes opened. She turned her weary face to Daniel and said faintly, “Only him.”

  The dial tone sounded in my ear, and I put the phone down. When I looked again, my brother was climbing up onto the bed, leaning back into the pile of pillows with Mrs. Abernathy. Her pale face twitched, as if something were coming alive beneath the skin, and she began panting, slowly at first and then more quickly. Mr. Abernathy, Volpe, and my mother closed the prayer circle and squeezed one another’s hands, a trinity of true believers. Mrs. Abernathy bit her lip and turned her wet red face to my brother.

  Daniel said, “Your tiny girl, she’s afraid.”

  “What?”

  “That baby. She’s afraid to come out. Everybody’s yelling. She’s scared.”

  Mrs. Abernathy laughed but then her face turned serious. “I’m scared too, Daniel. And it hurts. Please. Daniel. Won’t you intercede?”

  Daniel smoothed the sweaty hair from her forehead. “When I was little, my daddy used to sing me a song when I was sad or scared.”

  At the mention of my father, my mother stiffened, but she didn’t look at me and I didn’t look at her.

  Daniel’s head began to nod to a rhythm only he could hear, and then he started to sing, “There was a hole, in the middle of the ground, the prettiest hole, that you ever did see. And the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  Mrs. Abernathy eased her head back into the pillow and stared straight up into the canopy of her bed. Her chest rose and fell as she took one deep breath, then another. I hadn’t heard that song in years, but of course, I remembered it too, in my father’s voice, husky but gentle.

  As Daniel began the second verse, my mother joined in. “And in that hole, there was a tree, the prettiest tree, that you ever did see. And the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  Mrs. Abernathy’s fingers released the bunched-up sheets and worked their way into the hands of her husband on one side and my mother on the other. Now she was a link in the prayer chain. Daniel and my mother sang together, “And in that tree, there was a branch, the prettiest branch, that you ever did see.”

  Mr. Abernathy choked back tears and added his deep, cracking voice to the chorus, “And the branch on the tree and the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  “It’s coming now,” Mrs. Abernathy whispered.

  “Steady her knees,” Volpe said, pulling her hands free of the prayer chain. My mother took hold of Mrs. Abernathy’s one knee and I took hold of the other. The flesh was hot. I tried not to look at the wound.

  Meanwhile, Daniel kept right on singing. “And on that branch, there was a nest, the prettiest nest, that you ever did see.”

  And now all of us, Daniel and Mr. Abernathy and my mother and Volpe and, yes, even me, we all sang. “And the nest on the branch and the branch on the tree and the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  Volpe said, “Push now, Grace. Push!” She held her open hands at the wound, and when I looked down, a hard round shape emerged, a wet stone swirled with hair. Volpe said, “I see the head.”

  Mrs. Abernathy screamed, just once, and Daniel sang gently, “And in the nest, there was an egg, the prettiest egg, that you ever did see.”

  Afraid to stop now, we all sang with him. “And the egg in the nest and the nest on the branch and the branch on the tree and the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  An entire tiny face, purple-gray, slimy and scrunched up, appeared suddenly from the wound. Its little bird eyes were closed, and it made no sound. I knew that when babies are born they’re supposed to be crying, so that silence was awful, the worst thing I ever heard.

  Volpe placed her hands on either side of the baby’s slick head. She whispered, “Please, Jesus. No.”

  The room went totally quiet except for Mrs. Abernathy’s breathing, louder and faster than even my own after a race. Everyone was looking at Volpe, who sat on the stool holding the head of the still child, apparently unsure what to do next. Nobody but me was looking at Daniel. He closed his eyes and dipped his head. I saw his lips moving quick, forming words no one could hear. His face turned a shade whiter and a bead of sweat rolled down one cheek. And I saw his chin begin to quiver and his eyes roll beneath their lids, like a convulsion was about to possess him. I stepped forward to grab my brother, snap him out of this insane fantasy, but he opened his eyes and smiled. I smelled something like vanilla suddenly in the air, and before I could recall where I’d encountered the scent before, Daniel, sweet Daniel, finished his song all by himself. “And in that egg, there was a chick, the prettiest chick, that you ever did see. And the chick in the egg and the egg in the nest and the nest on the branch and the branch on the tree and the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  At the instant Daniel finished, that child blinked its blue eyes twice. And it was like staring into the clearest summer sky, that’s how deep those blue eyes seemed. With a sploosh, the baby squirted from the wound, and Volpe caught it and wrapped it in a green towel. She offered the squirming bundle up to Mrs. Abernathy, whose hands stretched down to take her daughter. “She’s all right?” Mrs. Abernathy asked.

  “Everything’s okay,” Daniel answered. His face looked normal again. And with that the child opened its mouth and its crying echoed off the high walls. It was a healthy wail and everyone in the room except for Daniel began to sniffle, and maybe I cried a little too.

  From the open window, I heard a second wailing, the siren of the ambulance circling the lake on Roosevelt Road. Everyone turned to the sound. The baby’s crying quieted as she nuzzled in to her mom’s neck.

  “Praise Him,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “Praise God for touching Daniel, making him His holy instrument here on earth.”

  Now I was still feeling pretty relieved that the baby had been born okay. But these words, they fell on me like mighty rocks dropped from heaven. I’m not going to pretend I knew then everything that was going to happen. I didn’t. But that bad feeling I’d had lying in my cabin settled again in my gut, and I walked away
from Mrs. Abernathy’s bed over to the open window. Red and white strobing lights flickered through the forest on the far side of Paradise Lake, and behind the distant siren’s cry, I thought I heard something else, slow and deep and rhythmic, like the clanging of some terrible bell.

  My mother left us by ourselves on the first floor of St. Jude’s Regional Medical Center. The visitors’ area was a square box of a room with no windows and a TV hanging precariously from the ceiling in one corner, broadcasting static. Despite the NO SMOKING signs, the gray taste of cigarettes hung in the stale air. For ten minutes I stood on one of the mismatched chairs and tried to tune in something other than fuzz, but finally I gave up and settled down next to Daniel. He was flipping through the same coverless comic book he’d been looking at during the afternoon ride up from Paradise. The comic came from a bundle I’d bought him at a flea market over in Hawley, ten for a dollar. On the page spread across his lap, Superman sat alone in his Fortress of Solitude, an icy castle he hid in at the North Pole when the burden of saving the world got to be too much for him.

  “I need a Crunch bar,” Daniel announced, looking over at the snack machines. This was his third request.

  “You don’t need it. You want it,” I told him.

  “Okay. I want a Crunch bar.”

  “You didn’t have lunch yet,” I said. “Besides, I’m not paying a buck fifty for a candy bar.”

  “But I’m hungry.”

  “You’re only hungry because there’s candy in front of you. Don’t look at it.”

  With an annoyed sigh, he went back to Superman. From the way Daniel was acting, I was pretty sure he didn’t remember the last time we were here, how I found him huddled up in that broom closet after Mrs. Bundower died, squeezing his fat fingers in prayer and sucking back tears. It had been three years ago, after all — half his lifetime.

  While Daniel and I waited, my mother had gone upstairs to check with the Abernathys to see if this was still an okay time to visit with them and the baby, now two days old but still nameless. I felt certain she was up there warning them that I’d come along, which certainly wasn’t part of the agreed-upon plan. Everyone would worry that my heathen presence would somehow infect the innocent child.