Trying the Knot

by Todd Erickson

  “But, it’s not time,” she insisted. “I’m only 6 months along.”

  “Evangelica, did you read the medical literature I gave you? This baby is not going to make it,” Dr. Paull said point blankly.

  Later in the day, Ben left the hospital and went to Evangelica’s apartment, but he swore he could hear her shrill screams from across town. When she hollered at him over the phone that her possessed fetus was hell-bent on hauling its murderous mother to limbo, Ben sped back to the hospital room where she had regained a semblance of composure in front of the TV. But once she learned Pa Ingalls had inoperable cancer, she fell to pieces.

  “He’s like my father, my Pa,” she said through tears.

  “Michael Landon?” Ben asked. This was a new one. He’d never heard this before. “When did this happen, on a Highway to Heaven?”

  “No, not that Michael Landon— Pa, who built the little house on the prairie next to the big woods during the long winter,” she said, sniffling.

  “Little Joe. They’re all one and the same.”

  “Oh, shut up! You insensitive fucking prick! Shut up shut up shut up!” she screamed, rocking and tearing at the hair above her temples. “All I ever wanted was a dad to call me half-pint.” She grabbed a handful of People Magazines and began wailing him. As he cowered from the blows, she tore up the hospital room. Once she was under control, Dr. Paull insinuated she was psychologically unhinged, and he threatened to put her in restraints if she did not behave in a sane fashion.

  Ben wearily remained at her bedside and let her beat on him until he was unable to withstand it. Eventually, he disappeared to her apartment and waited for Dr. Paull to summon him back to the hospital. In the meantime, she reported to the police he was missing, and she stupidly suggested they check her address.

  The police surrounded the building and forced him out of the building at gunpoint. Clad in only his underwear, Ben explained the situation to Deputy Czerwinski, who insisted he search the premises. Invariably, they confiscated her beloved marijuana plant Marley, and they wanted to arrest Evangelica for possession and filing a false report. When the deputy insisted he would have to drive her to the county jail so he could ask her a few questions, Vange yelled the slammer was no place to deliver a dead baby. She fled the bed but crawled underneath it. Deputy Czerwinski acquiesced and decided to issue a stern warning when she refused to rise from her position on the floor. With one arm clutching Ben’s ankle and the other gripping the bed, she beat her head against the floor and insisted she deserved to die.

  “Is this any way for a respectable normal person to act?” Czerwinski asked her.

  “Who here is respectable or normal, buster?” she yelled.

  “You— you’re a child of God, someone’s daughter, and this is no way to act,” Czerwinski counseled, and seconds later he dodged the can of Vernors hurled at his head.

  “My dad’s dying of terminal fucking inoperable brain cancer, you dumb-fucks! I’m nobody’s child,” she screamed at his backside as he fled the hospital room.

  After the police officer left, Evangelica wailed the birthing process would never end, and her Chucky-doll fetus was wreaking its final vengeance. From the floor, Ben scooped her up and threw her on the bed. He told her she was acting worse than a crazed, pre-Annie Sullivan Helen Keller. It was not until an hour later she finally collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

  Just prior to sunup, Ben awoke half on a chair to the sound of groans coming from the bathroom. He found a sweaty defeated Vange rocking on the toilet. He held onto her, rubbed her head and took her weak punches while she sobbed softly. Vange was unable to speak except in hoarse croaks. Distraught, Ben called for a nurse and a doctor was summoned, and she finally delivered her stillborn baby.

  The nurses swaddled the baby tightly, and she made Ben inspect it to ensure it was a whole baby, along with all of its life sustaining parts. Amazingly enough, the baby looked healthy. Due to the horrific medical images they had seared in their minds, they fully expected to encounter a sight of horrific proportions. Ben watched her as she gently rocked the baby and softly hummed a lullaby. Without warning, she switched gears and became the perfect embodiment of a new mother. She was determined to hold onto her baby for as long as it remained warm, which amounted to less than an hour. She rocked the baby until she was unable feel anything more than goodbye. Finally, she asked him politely to take her away.

  “What do I do?”

  “Can’t you put her in a box, and bury her, like you did my cat?” Vange asked hoarsely. Looking as if she had just crawled through hell, she sat in the middle of the hospital bed in her nightgown, wringing wet and battered.

  “This is totally insane,” Ben muttered, awkwardly holding the baby. He remembered only too well the deceased pet kitten that had spurred a marathon bout of depression. The nurse took the baby away and came back later with a birth certificate. She would need to name the baby, but Vange refused.

  “Don’t you want your little girl to have a name?” the nurse asked concerned.

  “She was never mine,” Vange said morosely.

  Reluctantly, Vange agreed to have Baby Girl Whiley cremated. She insisted he one day bury the fetus near the Swamp of Sadness, and Ben insisted she sleep. He needed to leave for the lounge to explain their absence from work and not arouse undue suspicion. Nobody knew where either one of them was, except for the hospital staff and the police. The doctor administered a sedative, and Ben began to think Vange had purposefully become pregnant with a malformed fetus to force him to prove his undying love for her once and for all.

  Several weeks later, Ben asked Jack and Alexa to help him bury the tiny urn, and together they searched for her pet kitten’s eternal resting spot, which was merely in a country ditch next to roadside patch of wetland. She once marked the grave with an intricate popsicle-stick monument.

  In the ditch, Alexa spliced open the ground with a shovel and began digging furiously. Standing over a hole in the soggy earth, she said, “I don’t know why you can’t find a regular sane girlfriend.”

  “You’re one to talk,” Ben said, casting a knowing glance Jack’s way.

  “Vange is a lunatic, and the other one is old enough to be your mother.”

  Ben dropped the urn, and Alexa crossed herself and shoveled loose dirt over it.

  “Is this your kid?” Jack asked.

  “He’s clueless,” Alexa said when Ben shrugged. “We’re doing all this work, and he don’t even know if this kid’s his!” She punctuated the observation by throwing down the shovel.

  “It could’ve been Thad’s baby for all I know.” Ben retrieved the discarded shovel and stuck it in the ground between them.

  “Oh my God.”

  “Yup, this could be your little niece you’re burying,” Ben said cruelly.

  “You’re such an asshole,” Alexa said, knocking the shovel to the ground.

  “Then don’t be such a bitch.”

  “Hey, you guys, just cut it out,” Jack piped in.

  “Oh, shut up, Jerkoff,” they responded in unison. Ben walked to the car, and Jack picked up the shovel.

  Alexa called after him, “She’ll be okay, right?”

  “The doctor seems to think so.”

  “I mean, she’ll be able to have more babies, won’t she?”

  “Why wouldn’t she?” Ben asked. Alexa joined Ben as they awaited Jack to finish burying the shoebox. Together they returned to the Dooley household, and they entered through the back sliding glass door leading into the dust-covered dining room.

  “Will you two ever get married?”

  Ben shook his head, confused by her sudden interest. He went to the kitchen and poured a glass of grapefruit juice and grabbed a sleeve of crackers. Vange was refusing to eat anything but rice cakes and Saltines.

  “You already act like an old married couple,” Alexa said. She attempted to trip him as he made his way to the bedroom.

  “Like hell we do,” he said, sidestepping her reach.

>   “Do so. Isn’t that juice for her?”

  “So, what of it?” Ben asked. “Are you suggesting I’m whipped?”

  “Pussy-whipped,” Alexa taunted. She stuffed a handful of crackers in her mouth and blew the crumbs out at him.

  “Oh, that’s mighty attractive.”

  “You can’t even defend yourself, you’re so whipped.”

  “I plead the Fifth,” Ben said, and he walked away. Entering the master bedroom, he found Evangelica curled up in a ball fast asleep. He set the juice down next to the lava lamp on the dresser, where Ginny stashed her post-sex loot of Milano cookies. Ben lay down next to Vange and she instinctively moved closer before shirking away from him.

  Evangelica felt his fingers running through her thick auburn hair, and she waited forever before whispering, “Maybe it was a bad thing. Maybe I’ve messed up my Karma.” He could not readily comprehend her obsession with all things metaphysical, and he offered her a drink.

  “Pink grapefruit?”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  “Hey, Sport,” she began, and then stopped.

  “Yes, what is it, you know you can tell me anything.”

  “Would you like me better if I were more like Kate?”

  Ben was quiet for a long time, and then he said, “That’s the lamest thing you’ve ever said.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said softly. She pulled the blanket up over her face and slunk further away.

  “Hey.”

  Vange kicked him in the leg and yelled hoarsely, “You fucking asshole. Go be with that prick tease, if it’s what you really want –

  “Who said it’s what I want?”

  “Don’t even kid yourself, she’d never give you the time of day,” Evangelica choked. “You’re delusional.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “You don’t understand, Benny,” she said hopelessly. “I’m not normal.”

  “I know, you’re a freak.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like. To not belong anywhere.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Maybe what I need is a little house on the prairie this summer.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Could you go get me Oreos and a Zero bar?”

  “They’re in the freezer. Just the way you like.”

  From the way her upper body shook, Ben could tell she was sobbing, and he made no immediate effort to satisfy this latest junk food craving. He would wait until she was asleep and surprise her when she awoke. For now, he lay down beside her and wrapped her close, unaware this would be the last time she let him touch her ever again.

  Feeling water droplets pelting his back, Ben rolled over to find Ginny shaking her dripping wet, short blond hair over him. Wearing nude-colored pantyhose and a bra, she leaned down and showered him with lingering wet kisses. He reached out and placed his hand on her ass and massaged gently. He loved her slightly padded, middle-aged rump. She tolerated the few excess pounds, as a preventative measure to keep her face from “looking overly skeletal and gaunt like Jane Fonda.” She offhandedly informed him it was cruel for an aging woman to have to choose one over the other – the derriere or the face. She chose to sacrifice the former to salvage the latter, but he did not mind at all. He grew excited while watching her turn demurely away and tug up her skirt at the foot of the bed.

  When she whirled around to discover his eager erection, Ginny laughed and said, “You’ll have to take a rain-check, baby boy. If you’re good, you can have the honors at The Lounge later tonight.”

  “How ‘bout the walk-in cooler?”

  “Too chilly in there, I’d have to be swept up in throes of passion to consider it.”

  Once in a while he interrupted her slow ritualistic process of getting dressed, and they landed back in the sack making love again. He insisted to see her aglow with satisfaction made him more excited, but she modestly countered he was simply horny all the time. Her silk blouse hung open as she flashed him a lazy contented smile.

  “Hurry up and dress, so you can give me a ride home on that hog of yours,” she said, buttoning her shirt. Seeing him throw on a T-shirt and climb into a pair of tattered black jeans, she thought he resembled an adolescent so much that it almost induced pangs of guilt within her.

  “Your little friend isn’t here, is he?” she asked, referring to Jack. “The last thing I need is my dishwasher catching me in a compromising situation. He might get the wrong idea.”

  Ben said of the permanent fixture in the Dooley household. “No, I think Jack’s with his sorta girlfriend.”

  “Who might that be?”

  “Alexa Feldpausch.”

  “Isn’t she his sort of cousin?”

  “Well, since his last girl friend died on him, I don’t think he can afford to be too choosy,” Ben said, and she screwed up her face at his distasteful remark. “She’s adopted,” he explained, as if that alone explained away their incestuous relationship. “She and Thad both.”

  “Thad was the slowest dishwasher I ever had – employed that is,” Ginny said, applying a light shade of pink lipstick. She adjusted her bra strap. “His sister is a rather big girl, isn’t she?”

  “I guess so.”

  “But Jack’s taller than you.”

  “Not really.”

  Ginny smiled and held out her outstretched arms. Her kisses reassured him just because he was short did not mean she was unsatisfied. “Why don’t you give Chelsea a call while she’s on break from law school.”

  “It’s kind of strange, you’re always encouraging me to date your daughter.”

  “Why not – the name is Ms. Norris, not Mrs. Robinson,” Ginny said, slipping into her heels. “You have my blessings to work your magic on Chelsea, then maybe she wouldn’t be in such a bad mood all the time. It’s law school. She’s just like her father – always stressed out.”

  “As of this morning, your daughter hated my guts and plans to drop out of school and run away to California or someplace,” Ben updated her. He struggled to scratch his back, and she relieved him of the aggravating itch.

  Ginny’s manicured nails scratched away under his t-shirt. “That’s too bad, you’d make a swell couple.”

  “You think?”

  “Of course. She’ll need a handsome man to mix up an after work martini,” Ginny concluded. “But if she plans on quitting law school, maybe she needs something else altogether to make her happy.”

  “Maybe she’s incapable of happiness.”

  “Personally, I think she’ll end up the caretaker of a lighthouse, along with her magical husband. It’ll be overrun with their sweaty, barefoot kids.”

  Ben never pictured Chelsea in such a natural state of domestic bliss, and it agreed with him. He let his imagination run wild with possibilities until Ginny forced him to shelve his fantasies for later by guiding him by his hoop earring out the door.

  With Ginny on the back of his bike, Ben cruised the long way to her house. Clutching him from behind, she basked in the concealment the helmet provided. It was as if the bevy of expectations that came along with being Ginny Norris ceased to exist, and she was set free to be whomever she wanted. Ben always dropped her off feeling rejuvenated and full of life. It was as if he were her day-spa treatment.

  They pulled in the driveway, and Chelsea let a crate slip from her hands. From the boxes scattered across the lawn, it appeared as if she was loading her car for a move across country. Still upset over their spat over breakfast, she turned her nose up at Ben and disappeared into the house. Before pressing her lips against the back of his left ear, Ginny whispered, “I guess you weren’t kidding about her hating your guts and running away.”

  The senior Ms. Norris climbed off the motorcycle, and she handed him his helmet and walked away wit barely a wave good-bye. As she made her way along the sidewalk, she looked up to face Chelsea, who was curiously watching her from the kitchen window. Ginny flashed a beaming smile, and Chelsea responded by raising a glass of water as if to
asting her mother.

  Ginny glanced over at the lounge and rolled her eyes exasperated. She preferred hassle-free ordinary business nights to the troublesome family dysfunctions her well-meaning patrons plagued her with. In her opinion, a night out should be a romantic affair, not an occasion to subject the world to familial drudgery. As she stopped to deadhead flowers from her cottage garden, Ginny heard the blaring of the telephone. It annoyed her that Chelsea paid no interest in answering the phone, and so she jogged into the house to retrieve it.

  Chelsea met her mother at the backdoor and held out the cordless phone, “It’s for you.”

  “Well, who is it?”

  “The love of your life.”

  “My mortician?”

  “No, your lawyer, your ex-husband.”

  “Well –

  “He doesn’t want to talk to me, he specifically asked for you,” Chelsea said.

  Taking the phone, Ginny regretfully watched her daughter grab her water and quickly descend the backstairs leading outside. Chelsea let the door slam behind her, and she collapsed against her old Malibu. Her father insisted when he bought her the car it was a classic from her childhood. She didn’t think anything from the 1970s could be considered worthy enough to be considered a classic, nothing except maybe her less than ideal upbringing. Surrounded by boxes littering the lawn, Chelsea realized she had gone overboard packing for her road trip out west. In a few short hours, she had boxed up the entirety of her worldly possessions. Certainly, she would have to start over if she planned on driving away after the wedding ceremony tomorrow.

  Along the road in front of the house, Alexa and Jack whizzed by. She was on roller blades while he was riding a BMX bike. The cousins looked like young lovers, and Chelsea wondered what it was like to be young and in love. That’s what she would be reduced to if she stayed in Portnorth – incest, she thought. Why didn’t she have any cousins? It was enough to make her wish she were related to anyone within the city limits besides her mother.