Born of Greed

by Baroni, J. T.

  “Jesus Christ Maggie! I think you’re right. I can see his head!” Although they did not know the sex of the baby, they always referred to it as a ‘he.’ Mostly due to how big Maggie was, and both of them hoped she would have a son; to help work the farm, and eventually inherit the two hundred and fifty acres, keeping the estate in the Trotter name.

  “What should I do Maggie, boil some water?” Thomas brought many farm animals into the world, but he never delivered a baby. Especially not one from a screaming, hysterical woman. Something was drastically wrong, and Thomas, who had no clue of what to do, was on the verge of shitting the proverbial fucking brick when he saw the amount of bright red blood. He knew there was supposed to be a darker red blood, similar to menstrual blood, while giving birth; but not this bright red blood that was oozing from her vagina, all around the baby’s head. The baby was literally tearing Maggie apart. Moreover, Thomas knew the situation was only going to go from bad—to worse, and all too soon.

  “Nooo…Carry me to the truck…Moron…drive…hospital,” Maggie ordered. These were the only words Maggie was able to speak between the painful moans and her heavy panting. Not only was the woman fighting for both her life and her unborn baby’s life; was she going to have to take control of the situation and do his thinking too? Never in her eleven years of marriage did Maggie ever call her husband a name, or show him any disrespect; or else he would unleash a barrage of swear words that would make her cower in fear of his getting physical. Although he never hit her, she knew he had the temper in him to do so; she wouldn’t dare talk back to him. Calling him a ‘moron’ felt good, real good. After she realized what she had said, she half chuckled to herself, but covered it up with a grunt of pain. Thomas had no idea of what had just transpired.

  He managed to get her into the pickup and they started the fifty-seven mile trip to the Des Moines hospital. “Easy over the bumps,” Maggie demanded, as she leaned back in the seat, with both hands clasped together under her huge belly, pulling up, trying to prevent the baby from entering the world in a beat up pickup truck on a desolate backcountry road.

  Thomas obeyed and slowed down. “Go faster…he’s coming out,” his wife then ordered, leaning back even further, bracing her feet on the dashboard.

  “Make up your mind, woman. Fast or slow?” Thomas complained as he automatically reached to his shirt pocket for a smoke.

  But then he uttered, “Oh, shit!” when he realized that in all the confusion of getting Maggie to the truck, his cigarettes and Zippo lighter were let behind on the kitchen table. The trip was, no doubt about it, going to be a long and miserable ride, for both of them now.

  “Just…get me there,” Maggie pleaded. Thomas drove as fast as he safely could, swerving to miss the bumps and potholes on the back roads leading to the new highway. Once the tires had the freshly paved asphalt of Route Thirty-Two under them, he pushed the pedal to the floor as far as possible and held it there. Only forty-five more miles to their destination. Thomas, having a nicotine fit, frantically searched the ashtray for any cigarette butts.

  “Thank you Sweet Jesus!” he praised the Lord when he found three butts grounded out in the truck’s ashtray. He kept his eyes on the road and brought both hands up to the top of the steering wheel, holding the longest one of the butts. This allowed him to watch the road, and fix the crumpled butt. After he got the stale thing straightened out and stuck between his lips, he pushed the dashboard cigarette lighter in; what seemed like an eternity, the lighter finally popped out. He brought the cherry red glowing lighter up to the butt, being careful not to burn his lips while he inhaled, lighting the less than half of a cigarette.

  At least now, the ride wasn’t going to be quite as miserable for one of the howling truck’s riders, as the old Ford topped out at seventy-five miles per hour. She flat out wouldn’t go any faster. He glanced over at his wife; she was panting even harder than his new hunting dog, Duke, after chasing a prairie dog for hours in the blistering Iowa sun.

  The letter ‘M’ in the brightly illuminated red emergency sign was buzzing and flickering as Thomas wheeled the boiling over Ford up to the emergency doors; he took one more drag and flicked the last of the three butts out the window. The engine shuddered violently for a few long seconds, then shut down. He noticed the temperature gauge had been pegged for the last ten miles and he could smell the burnt antifreeze. As unreligious as he was, he actually found himself praying they would make it the rest of the way.

  Thomas jumped out and ran through a cloud of steam, over to Maggie’s door to help her out. “Just…get…somebody,” she ordered, knowing there was absolutely no way she was able to walk in on her own.

  The nurse at the reception desk looked up from her crossword puzzle, apparently tonight was another one of those slow and uneventful nights, until she heard a man running toward her, hollering something about his wife having a baby. Thomas ran to her desk and leaned against it with both arms supporting his weight. Covered in blood, obviously frazzled, and emotionally drained; he reeked of sweat and cigarette smoke. “The baby’s head is coming out,” he panted to the huge, old battle-axe of a nurse.

  He was trying to catch his breathe when Nurse Klein punched a button on her phone. “We need an intern and a gurney to ER. Pronto!” Her voice bellowed through every hall in the hospital.

  Apparently the cigarettes and dust were catching up to Thomas; he was still gasping thirty seconds later when a young intern pushing a bed on wheels raced down the hall, flew past him and the big busted German nurse and headed for the double doors leading outside.

  Heat radiated from the hissing pickup truck, steam spouted from the grille, both doors hung wide open, as a puddle of antifreeze began pooling on the ground under the boiling engine. Maggie, stretched across the seat, had her head under the steering wheel. She had both feet on the seat with her legs spread wide apart. Her bloody nightgown rolled half way up her enormous abdomen, exposing her entire bottom. She was still pulling up on her belly.

  “Good Lord!” The tall skinny intern cried out in amazement after he spotted the bloody, watery mess on the seat, and part of the baby’s head with the top of one ear protruding from Maggie. He wheeled the bed alongside the truck, and locked the brake.

  Thomas ran to the driver’s side, supported Maggie under her shoulder blades while the intern eased his hands under the semi-unconscious woman’s buttocks; the exhausted woman was panting like a steam locomotive. “On three,” the intern instructed Thomas. “One, two, three.” They worked as a team and slid Maggie toward the passenger side. Once there, Nurse Klein and the intern hastily, but gently, picked her up and placed her on the gurney.

  “Straight to the OR!” The nurse pointed, ordering the young man. He immediately unlocked the brake and raced back inside, past the reception area and waiting room, down the hall and burst through two more double doors with a sign above, ‘authorized personnel only.’

  “You can’t go any further,” Nurse Klein informed Thomas, as the intern wheeled his wife through yet another set of doors into the sterilized operating room. Thomas watched as two more nurses rushed in and proceeded to hang IV bottles on a stand, took her pulse and blood pressure. They secured her legs in stirrups, placed absorbent pads under her butt, and pushed a stainless steel cart holding various kinds of medical instruments to the foot of the gurney; their movements were synchronized.

  “Prep her for a C section!” Nurse Klein instructed the two younger nurses, as she came back out of the OR.

  “I’ll need to get some information from you, sir.” She turned to face Thomas and directed him back to her desk. She asked numerous questions; half of which Thomas could not answer. He had no idea what medication his wife took on a regular basis, or what allergies she had. He even had to think for a minute what her middle name was.

  “I’ll just ask your wife for all the pertinent information in the morning, Mr. Trotter. There’s a men’s room right outside the waiting area if you need to wash up,” Nurse Klein said,
holding back her disgust.

  Thomas thanked her, and headed straight for the Men’s room; he had to piss like a stallion. Christ, does this water get hot, he thought, as he washed his hands. He then glanced in the mirror. Staring back was a man with dried blood smeared over his face, across his shirt and pants, along with pieces of placenta and streaks of mucous. He looked down at his shoes; they matched the rest of him.

  He did his best to clean off using paper towels and anti-bacterial soap from the chromed dispenser. Nevertheless, he was still a frightful, stinking mess.

  Walking into the waiting room, Thomas spied the biggest sofa he had ever seen in all his life; he sat down and closed his eyes. Almost asleep, his head snapped upright when he heard Nurse Klein bellow from her desk a minute later, “Mr. Trotter.”

  He rose from the sofa, and stuck his head out the door. “You have to move your truck, Mr. Trotter; it’s blocking the emergency ramp, and we might get more patients.” Thomas nodded, and shuffled outside.

  Most of the hissing had stopped by now. Thomas figured the radiator was bone dry, and he had better not try starting the engine, which could cause more damage. He closed the passenger side door, slid in behind the wheel, put the shifter in neutral, took his foot off the brake and let the truck roll backwards down the ramp, steering it close to the curb. When the truck came to a stop twenty feet from the entrance ramp, he put it back in gear, rolled the window half way up, and fell into a very deep sleep.

  What seemed like only thirty minutes gone by, someone knocked on his window, startling him. “Good morning. You must be Mr. Trotter.”

  Thomas shielded the bright morning sun with his left hand, squinted, and peered into a round, oriental, smiling face. The man wore very thick glasses which made his eyes look very large; his thin, jet-black hair was combed straight back. “I am Dr. Jack Chang.” He looked exhausted.

  Thomas opened the door, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and automatically reached to his shirt pocket for his morning smoke; the disgusted look on his face told Dr. Chang that Thomas was a smoker, but had none. “You need smoke?” The kind doctor asked, then said, “Me too.” He pulled a pack of Marlboros from his white scrubs pants pocket, gave one to Thomas, and put one in his own lips. Thomas tore the filter off his, and put the smooth factory end in his lips.

  The doctor gave them both a light, and said; “I hear you had quite an ordeal last night.”

  Thomas nodded while deeply inhaling and replied, “Yeah, last night was pretty scary.”

  “You can relax now. Your wife and son are both doing well. They are in very capable hands. The nurses here at Des Moines General are the finest I ever work with.” Dr. Chang spoke in short choppy sentences, but he always got right to the point and never sugar coated anything. He was one of the first Asian doctors to practice in America.

  “I bring many babies into world. I be doctor for forty years. Your son is biggest baby I ever deliver. Your wife is so tiny. There was much damage. She lost awful lot of blood. Too many complications. We had to do complete hysterectomy after caesarian. So many stitches. That’s why take so long. She needs lots of recuperation time. However, she is doing fine, now. Let’s get cup of coffee, shall we? Then we visit her.”

  “Thanks for the smoke, Doc. Now, I sure could go for a cup of Joe.”

  * * * *

  Two men sat perched on the top porch step eating sandwiches when Thomas pulled up in his old Ford pickup. He got out, put his hands on his hips, and in a pissed off tone, asked, “Why ain’t you two numbskulls out workin’ the fields? Is this what goes on when I’m not around?”

  “It’s lunchtime, Boss,” Leroy, all tanned, extremely tall and lanky, answered defensively, then took another big bite of his ham sandwich, followed up with a huge gulp of iced tea.

  “Yeah, Boss, we get hungry too, ya know.” Dale, the much shorter but very husky man who could pass as Thomas’s brother, added, then asked, “But a better question yet is…when did you become a doctor? Next thing you know…the Japs are going to invade Iowa!” Dale could not hold back his laughter building up deep inside. Even to the point of keeping his lips puckered tightly together, his cheeks quickly filled with air; his deep boisterous laugh had nowhere to go but out. He erupted.

  Dale’s laughing, the remark about Japs invading Iowa, and the fact their boss was standing in front of them wearing a white, surgical outfit, was way too much for Leroy. He erupted, also. Iced tea hurled from his nose. He had to toss his sandwich onto his plate, stand up and grab the railing leading up the three steps to the porch. Laughing and choking at the same time as he struggled to catch his breath. That in turn caused Dale to laugh all that much more; both men had tears streaming down their cheeks.

  Then Thomas remembered the nurses not allowing him, with his blood soaked clothes, to see Maggie; instead, they demanded he went to the men’s room to change into their white, sterile hospital garb. Except for his shoes, everything else was “heading straight to the incinerator” Nurse Klein informed him, “And, don’t forget to put these disposable slippers on; we pride ourselves on being a staph free hospital.”

  “Fuck both you clowns! You’re both fired!” Thomas hollered. Dale and Leroy stopped laughing. Then they looked at each other with surprised looks on their faces. Then they burst into even a louder fit of uncontrollable, hysterical laughter. Over the years, Thomas had fired Dale and Leroy hundreds of times. However, in all actuality, he relied on these two men to keep the farm out of the red. They were both damn hard workers, and Thomas knew he could trust them and depend on them. He did not mind if they blew off a little steam now and again. With Thomas being their employer though, he usually ended up bearing the brunt of their jokes and being at the center of their harmless shenanigans.

  “Idiots!” Thomas snarled, as he slammed the truck door with a violent thud. Then he stormed up the steps; his left foot came down on Leroy’s sandwich, causing him to lose his balance and slide half way across the porch; the plate acted like one of those saucers kids use to slide down a snow covered hill. By now, the two hired hands were howling with laughter, coughing, choking, snorting, wiping tears from their eyes, pointing at Thomas, and slapping their knees.

  When Thomas regained his balance and walked into the house, he saw the trail of blood leading up the stairway. He didn’t want to think about last night’s events; he just wanted to get back into the routine of running his farm. Stepping over the larger drops; he made his way to their bedroom; and changed into his work clothes.

  Thank God, Maggie had insisted he set up the spare bed next to theirs, so his tossing and turning would not disturb her sleep. Her bed looked as though a Collie dog had a litter of pups in it. Thomas hoped Maggie’s younger sister, Emily, would stop by today; so he could inform her Maggie was in the hospital, and she had delivered a baby boy. Hoping also, Emily would clean this mess, because he surely was not about to do it.

  He grabbed his Zippo and small tin box of hand rolled Five Brothers tobacco cigarettes from the kitchen table and went back outside for more heckling.

  “You can’t do any operations in bibs, Thomas.” Dale poked fun at his boss, who was now dressed in his work overalls. Their laughter had finally simmered down to a few chuckles; they knew how far they could push Thomas. Moreover, they knew when to be serious; it was time to wind the fun and games down now.

  “Woo boy, Thomas. I tell ya I haven’t laughed that hard since Dale went and cut his finger off in the baler,” Leroy said.

  “That was not funny, Leroy,” Dale snapped back at Leroy, while pointing his stub of an index finger at him. “Why don’t you just keep your big pie hole shut, ya big goon?”

  Dale then shifted the conversation to Thomas. “Where’s Maggie? Did she have the baby last night? Scarecrow an’ me seen the blood. We figgered since your truck was gone, she went into labor early, and you took her over to Doc Wilson’s place. Is that where she is now?”

  Leroy did resemble a six and a half foot tall scarecrow, especially when he wo
re his straw hat and smoked his corncob pipe; hence, the nickname.

  Thomas lit a smoke, took a deep inhale, and exhaled slowly. “Ain’t nothin’ like good ol’ Five Brothers,” then he went on, “No. She’s not at Doc Wilson’s. I had to take her the whole way to Des Moines. Doc Wilson’s been tellin’ us all along he wouldn’t be able to deliver this baby on the account of Maggie’s past history of miscarriages, and this baby was too big for him to handle. He said the only way this baby was coming into the world was by a C-section operation, something he ain’t never done.”

  He took another drag. “The nurses said Maggie’s baby set a county record, an’ he probably would’ve set a state record too, if he hadn’t been two months premature. An’ then there was this Chinese doctor who told me that Maggie would have died if she would have lost two more drops of blood.”

  “Honest to Christ!” Dale exclaimed while packing a giant sized wad of Mail Pouch in his cheek. “A Chinese doctor? Before ya know it, they’ll be runnin’ our country, an’ we’re all gonna’ be eatin’ rice with chopsticks.” He used his tongue to position the tobacco against his cheek.

  “That’s the Japanese we’re fighting, not the Chinese. You stupid ass!” Leroy corrected his co-worker, and with his pipe clenched firmly between his teeth, he reached his long arm over and lit a kitchen match off Dale’s suspenders.

  “How many times do I hafta tell ya not to do that, ya big goon?” Dale hollered at Leroy.