Poor Your Soul

by Mira Ptacin

  Un-shapes. This is what I picture while Andrew describes what’s coming to me. The rods, the cervix, dilation, and the labor? Not real. Whatever he is reading about is not me. When this is all supposedly happening, I’ll be asleep. Anesthetized and numb, and it won’t be real. And if I don’t see it and never can recall it, it will never have really happened.

  “Some species are referred to by the common name ‘Devil’s apron,’ due to their shape,” Andrew says in a slow voice and I snap back.

  “Stop that!”

  “Stop what?”

  “Just stop reading. Just stop reading about this,” I say bitterly.

  I cross my arms and look through the barred window of our apartment. August in New York: clammy and oppressive. In the lot next to our building, the sun-drunk summer school kids are out for recess. Their arms and legs are wrapped around a primary-colored jungle gym, limbs stretched across poles and posts like little monkeys at the zoo. The playground attendant blows his whistle and the little monkeys unlatch, drop onto the rubber below them, then quickly scramble into a cockamamie row.

  “When I blow my whistle,” the attendant says sharply, “you are going to run.”

  The kids shift their weight.

  “And when I blow my whistle again, you are going to stop.”

  The lineup wiggles.

  “Are we clear on this?” the attendant shouts, his tone insufferably cold. “I said, do I make myself clear? ”

  “Just look up the procedure and tell me what it says,” I tell Andrew, and he types into the search engine, hits the enter key.

  “All right, here’s one,” he says. “But it’s pretty blunt.”

  “It’s fine. Just go,” I say, still watching the playground.

  “Okay: The first step is to dilate the cervix, usually done a few hours before the surgery,” he reads from the screen. “The woman is usually put under general anesthesia before the procedure begins.”

  The recess attendant blows the whistle and when its shrill sound pierces the air, the kids take off, scrambling around the pavement like electric sparks.

  “The procedure involves the removal of uterine contents using a curette.”

  “What’s a curette?” I ask and close the window so I can turn on the air conditioner, half of which is covered in pigeon shit.

  “A curette is a surgical instrument designed for scraping biological tissue or debris in a biopsy, excision, or cleaning procedure. At the tip of the curette is a small scoop, hook, or gouge—”

  “Did you say gouge?” I ask as our roommate walks into the kitchen and then immediately turns around and goes into her room, quietly shutting the door behind her. “Medicaid really covers this?”

  “Do you want me to stop?” Andrew asks. “Or keep going?”

  “Keep on going.”

  I look at the back of Andrew’s skull. His dark hair is short and spikes straight up, and lately more and more gray hairs have begun to appear along the side of his head, lining his temples like a silver Greek laurel wreath. I stroke his crown with my fingers and exhale fully. How did we arrive at this place? I wonder. How did I let myself end up here?

  Lately, a lot of questions have been brewing in my mind. Lots of strange questions and thoughts. Am I really worthy of this decision? How do the doctors know the baby won’t feel a thing? And once I hear myself asking the questions, I quickly press my answers down; I dunk my reactions before I can become fully aware of what I have to say for myself.

  But they don’t all stay down, and they definitely don’t disappear. They never do. The ones that I drown will ferment. And if they wiggle loose and bob back, I collect all the floating thoughts, questions, and ideas, make a pile of them, then cover it with a hefty wool blanket and walk away. But they’re still there.

  I look down at my stomach. Who did this to you? I ask it, and look back at Andrew’s head. Did he? Is this his fault? Did you even want to have sex the night you ended up getting pregnant? Stop. You can’t say that. You can’t place the blame on someone else. That is malicious, selfish. Stop.

  Then what about you? Are you sure this isn’t your fault? You weren’t really that happy about the pregnancy in the first place. What if you willed this to happen? What if you did this with your mind?

  I can just see it: Pregnant woman eliminates unborn child by telekinesis. A baby killer.

  Or maybe your body is broken. Maybe your organs don’t work. Maybe you will never be given this chance again and never have children. Maybe this is punishment for something you did years ago. Maybe you are just a bad person. Maybe this is your entire fault. Stop.

  “It says here that the cervical canal is widened using a metal rod, and a curette is passed through the opening into the uterus cavity,” Andrew says. “The curette is used to gently scrape the lining of the uterus and remove the tissue in the uterus.”

  “Okay, okay, enough! I don’t need to hear it,” I say and sit down next to him. “Scoot over. I can do this myself,” I say and start banging away at the computer, typing words into the keyboard and navigating to a new site.

  . . . it has developed into a focal point of the abortion debate. In the United States, it was made illegal in most circumstances . . .

  “Here,” I say, aiming at the text, “read this line.”

  . . . was signed into law by President Bush on November 5, 2003 . . .

  I feel my cheeks get hot and pale at the same time. “What the hell?” I ask no one in particular, and my eyes, welded to the screen, continue skimming the page.

  . . . relying deferentially on Congress’s findings that a partial-birth abortion is never needed to protect the health of a pregnant woman.

  Exhausted, I get up and walk away from the computer and head to bed, taking off my clothes and leaving them on the floor, then climb into bed and pull the covers over my head, bracing myself for the next three days of the procedure I’ve decided to have.

  Day One. Union Square. A dizzy, hot, hard day. A narrow clinic, everyone running behind schedule. A waiting room climbing with toddlers, women with round bellies and swollen ankles, women with flat stomachs and gray rings beneath their eyes, the entire room smelling like the chain-store coffee next door. Next, a small examining room with bright lights. A glass jar of Q-tips, tongue depressors, a box of tissues, and Latex gloves. A white sheet of paper rolled over a teal-blue examining table. The cold linoleum floor. A knock on the door and the remark of a medical resident (“Hey, I have that T-shirt, too!”) after the doctor introduces us and informs me that the resident will be observing my case and the surgery.

  I remember the sight of the dried laminaria rods, the seaweed, as the doctor laid them across the paper towel on a stainless-steel tray. To me, they looked like the rawhide bones I give my dog whenever I need to quiet her down. I remember leaning back, feet in stirrups, knees parted, wondering if the medical resident would ask herself how this girl could’ve let her pubic hair grow so out of control. And I remember thinking how this was a dumb thing to wonder, but still. She was my age. She might have thought it.

  I remember the emptiness of not knowing, having no reference point and nothing to compare it to, to relate to—the vacant feeling of holding my knees in the air. I remember a nurse giving me a painkiller the size of an M&M, which was an insignificant amount. I remember Andrew asking if this would hurt me, and the tepid response of “She’ll feel a little cramping, similar to menstrual cramps,” which was an understatement.

  I remember taking Andrew’s hand once the surgeon said “Here we go,” and how it felt after she slid in the thin, cool metal of the speculum; a black-magic periscope. And after, she began inserting each laminaria rod into my cervix, one by one. It felt like nothing I had ever experienced. It burned, cramped. The rigid sticks scraped my insides, felt like a switchblade, or the lip of a spade scraping off cartilage from my pelvis. Nails on a chalkboard.

>   Something pushed and pressed and it did not feel right, so I gripped Andrew’s fingers tight as he rubbed the spot between my eyebrows with the thumb of his other hand. I couldn’t register the sensation I was having or identify it as pain. All I could do was stare at his face.

  “We have half of them in,” the resident announced, and in between breaths, I asked Andrew to help me to breathe, to keep breathing. I had to discipline myself to respire. With each inhale, I commanded my lungs to draw in oxygen, then restrained myself to exhale slowly. In—pull. Out—ahhh. I remember how difficult it was to stay still on that table, to not get up and run away.

  At the end of day one, I am somewhat able to walk. We go home, and Andrew’s sister, Kerri, is on the couch, watching the Summer Olympics on the blurry television screen. Kerri is visiting us from Southern Illinois. She bought her ticket a month ago, planning on coming to visit us, get acquainted with her new sister-in-law and her future niece. I was planning on showing my future sister-in-law around the city, taking her to Chinatown to buy fake designer purses and eat expensive cupcakes from a famous bakery. Andrew told her about the situation. I wasn’t around when they talked. She said she was coming anyway. I don’t know why. I didn’t question it, barely thought about it. I barely know her.

  Kerri offers me orange juice and Andrew calls my dad on the phone, not to talk about their feelings but to talk about the facts. My mother gets on the phone and asks to talk to me.

  A week ago, my mom suggested that she come to New York to be with me, but I told her it was okay, that I’d be okay. I didn’t want to make it a bigger deal than it already was. Now, over the phone, she asks how I feel and I tell her it hurts really bad. I won’t remember what she says back. My mother really wanted to be with me, but I told her I didn’t need her. It was a mistake. I do. She has been trying to be strong for me and I’ve been trying to be strong for everyone else—especially them, especially Andrew.

  Later that night, Andrew, Kerri, and I try to go to dinner at a new BBQ restaurant near our apartment, as if it’s a prize. As if I’ve lost a tooth, or something like that. It is awkward and fake. I know they are trying to cheer me up, but I act like I don’t need any cheering up. The joint is buzzing. The wood is shiny. The waitresses are wearing short shorts and lots of makeup and the dining room is loud, with electric dance music playing over speakers broadcasting sports games on flat-screen TVs. Our server has on perfume that smells like phony peaches and rubbing alcohol. When she flirts with our table, I order a pulled-pork sandwich and a root beer. People are drinking yellow pilsners and throwing their peanut shells onto the floor, and when I try to eat the cornbread and drink my pop with appreciation, I can’t. I can barely sit on my bottom. The seaweed inside me is swelling and the M&Ms aren’t helping to dull the pain. The laminaria sticks have been gathering moisture all afternoon and, bit by bit, they are expanding, pushing the walls of my cervix apart like jaws of life. And when my pulled-pork sandwich finally comes, all I can do is stare at it. The meat stares back up at me and it looks dead. Fleshy, flaccid, and dead, and it is going to make me throw up. All I want to do is go home, I need to go home, so Andrew puts the money down on the table, hoists me up over his shoulder, and carries me all the way home to 32nd Street, phones my father again, and asks him to call in a prescription for Vicodin.

  Day Two. It’s 6:45 in the morning and we’re waiting in a dark space for the nurse, doctor, and medical resident to arrive. We’re in the very same room at Beth Israel where, less than two weeks ago, the ultrasound was performed.

  The room is quietly reverberating with invisible memories, like a theater after the show has ended, after the audience has gone home, the stage swept and the lights turned off. Andrew is wearing my panties on his head and is looking groggy. He appears to be conquered. Today is his thirty-second birthday, August 14. Soon, Andrew will have to split. After we leave this appointment, I will go back to our apartment and he will have to go back to work on 14th Street and sit in his cubicle. He’ll send emails about building permits and make long-distance calls about backlogged orders from factories in China, and then around 3:30 in the afternoon, Andrew’s coworkers will sneak up to his desk and surprise him with pastel-colored cupcakes. They’ll clap and sing “Happy Birthday,” and it’ll make him feel just a little bit good.

  But first, a knock on the door. Enter nurse, medical resident, and surgeon. I yank my underwear off Andrew’s head and recline on the table. Legs spread, braced for the pain. After the doctor removes the first batch of seaweed sticks, she inserts the second batch, and my cervix is cracked open to a whole new level.

  We begin: the powdered rubber gloves snapped on, the speculum, the widening. Then the removal of yesterday’s swollen laminaria rods. Each stick is clamped, pulled out slowly, then tossed into a garbage can. I wince, rub Andrew’s ear. We’re halfway there.

  I squeeze his hand, trying hard to breathe, trying hard to focus on my breath, to focus on something. The pale-colored print on the wall. Two windows on my right. The shades drawn. Ivory-colored and dusty. I know that if I stare at an object long enough, time will go by faster. Or time will freeze, I can’t remember. A black television set up in the corner. I hate this room.

  This room and I are becoming well acquainted. We’ve been through some tough times together in the past few weeks. We’ve built some memories.

  “Okay, Mira, we’re going to begin inserting the last set. Are you ready?”

  I hate this room.

  The sticks go in, one by one, this time larger, jabbing, this time the pain just as bad, maybe even worse. I dig my nails into Andrew’s wrist, and I draw blood. It’s harder to breathe today than it was yesterday, but I try. I count each breath. And the next and the next, and then, they’re in. The seaweed is set.

  “It burns,” I say, squeezing Andrew’s fingers, and he tells me to think about Maybe. Think about her little tail wagging, he says.

  I think about Maybe. The feeling of cuddling in bed with her. Baby Maybe. That’s what I call her.

  I remember two months ago, when we couldn’t foresee things getting worse, how I caught the bedspread on fire. It was inadvertent. I had really just wanted to make something sweet, show Andrew some affection, but instead I almost burned our lives down to a pile of charcoal and ash.

  Right before the fire and right after, Andrew and I and Maybe climbed into bed and closed our eyes, the music started. Billboard hits from 1976. The Eagles. Through the wall, the lyrics of “Life in the Fast Lane” blasted out of Segundo’s stereo and floated into our bedroom. Segundo had the song on repeat.

  Andrew rolled his head across his pillow and smirked at me.

  “Looks like someone is makin’ sweet love to a hooker,” he said.

  I planted earplugs into my ears and tried to ignore the vibrations, but after the song’s third or forth loop, I couldn’t take it any more. I nudged Andrew with my elbow. “Can you please ask him to turn it down?” I begged.

  Dutifully, Andrew pulled his blue jeans over his naked lower half and walked barefoot up the stairs, out into the hallway, and banged on Segundo’s door, but to no avail. The track started up again, He was a hard-headed man, he was brutally handsome.

  While Andrew proceeded to pound, I thought about how it’d be nice to thank him for taking such good care of me. I realized that ever since I got the results of the pregnancy test, I hadn’t once initiated sex with Andrew, and I knew he was frustrated. Neither one of us would be falling asleep anytime soon, I thought, so why not thank him with a little affection?

  I lit a match and touched the flame to the wicks of a couple of tea-light candles next to the bedpost. Then I pulled the dog into my lap, between my thighs, and waited. As the song hammered on, I rubbed the silky spot behind Maybe’s black, velvet ears with the tip of my forefinger and thumb and watched my dog sleep.

  I had always believed I made a far better owner to a dog than I ever would a mothe
r to a child. To me, it seemed hardly believable that a person so maladroit and inelegant as myself would succeed in carrying, delivering, and rearing a thing so delicate, so vulnerable, and valuable as a human baby. The world had always been my china shop. But with my dog, I could do no wrong.

  When I met Andrew, I met Maybe and became her Superwoman. She quickly became my furry little sidekick. She was like my child—she needed my care and protection. She was an orphan, she needed my love. And so the three of us—Andrew, Maybe, and I—became a perfect triangle. To me, it was as good as it could get. I didn’t need a thing more. But then more came.

  A baby? How could I handle anything other than a boyfriend and a canine? A baby? I already had a baby. Maybe was my baby. How was it possible for me to be responsible for and care for anyone beyond that?

  Maybe had flipped onto her back and her mouth slid open a little ways. Her rubbery paws were resting on top of her pink belly, right above her ribs, and she was completely still. She almost looked dead. I watched the arc of her stomach until it rose up, just to make sure she was breathing and not dead—then suddenly, the knocking in the hallway stopped. About ten seconds later, the volume of the music lowered and then disappeared, and a few seconds after that, I smelled smoke. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the golden flame flicker.

  The blanket was on fire. I quickly scooped Maybe out from my lap, gently set her on the fourth or fifth step of the staircase, and shooed her up and away. “Go!” I told her, but she refused to leave me. The flame was starting to spread, so I grabbed a musty towel from the laundry heap beside our bed as the fire spread quickly to one pillow, then another. I threw the towel onto the blaze, smothering the blanket and pillows and extinguishing the fire before it spread even further and before Andrew came back downstairs and realized what I had done.

  When he did come back, it was ridiculous to think I could possibly hide it. I had ruined the comforter. The room smelled terrible. I had wanted to make love, but instead I had caught the bed on fire. When Andrew reached the last step to our basement bedroom, here was the scene: me, naked and pregnant, basking under fluorescent lights, holding a scorched towel under one arm and a frightened puppy in the other, and spread out at my feet was our bed—as burnt as a marshmallow; the whole sorry scene set against the backdrop of a smoky, shrunken, now music-less, subterranean vault.