I didn’t know how to respond to that. She had some fucked up shit rolling around in her head for sure. You can't be mad at somebody for that, though. I told her, “Our baby isn't a fucking puzzle. And she isn't incomplete. She's really neat, and I just wish you could see that.” She wasn't listening. She was already asleep. Not that it would have mattered.
I thought it would be a good idea to try to initiate some sort of bonding exercises. Something that didn't directly involve the baby. So far the longest she had been in contact with her was early on when she had attempted to breast-feed. The baby wouldn't take the nipple. The whole experience ended with The Song Of The Wind sort of furiously milking herself over the little hole in the top of the baby. Just dribbling milk all down the front of her. She never touched the kid again after that.
So maybe direct contact was out of the question.
We'd have to work up to it.
One day, I left the baby on the living room rug, and went into our room to ask The Song Of The Wind if she had any suggestions for names.
“I don't care what you call it,” she said.
“Don't be like that. Don't force a child to go through life without a name. Without an identity. What if your parents hadn't named you?”
She got indignant. “I'm pretty sure my parents had to name me, because I'm an actual human being.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You think our daughter isn't human?”
“I think what I mean is, one of the discerning factors that makes you a human being is having a fucking head.”
Now it was my turn to be indignant, “Oh, so just because someone is only nine-tenths there they aren't human? Is that what you're saying? What about African-Americans? They're only three-fifths of a person, according to the Constitution, and that only counts for men.”
“African-Americans all have brains, speech capability... forward-facing eyes. You know? On their heads.”
I was getting frustrated. I had to dial it back. “Okay. Your thoughts on the kid's humanity are duly noted. But irregardless, she's going to have to have a name. And I just thought it might be nice if we could think of one we both like. Something that represents her, like an animal, or maybe a famous historical figure.”
She thought a minute, “You want a name? How about Anne Boleyn, or Jayne Mansfield.”
“Really funny smart-ass but you just disproved your whole theory about headless people being human.” I smiled, self-satisfied.
The song of the wind shook her head, “No, they were human. Then their heads came off and they were just sacks of meat. Like that thing you left in the living room. It doesn't eat. It doesn't shit, it doesn't cry. The other day I stuck my thumb over its hole, just to see if it would react. Nothing. I held it there for like a minute. It doesn’t even breathe, Cornfield. That thing doesn't even breathe.”
I was livid, “You tried to murder our child?!”
“What? No, I just wanted to see what would happen.”
“Holy shit, you're making me curious to see what would happen to you if you stopped breathing for awhile. What do you say, The Song of The wind, what do you think would happen, Huh?” I screamed. I punched my fist through the drywall for emphasis.
She'd never seen me display this kind of aggression before. She just stared at me, speechless.
And then something happened that made us both stop.
A tiny sound from the living room; a high-pitched whistle, like a kettle boiling on a stove top.
I ran into the living room with The Song of the Wind behind me.
“What the fuck is that sound?” She asked.
My eyes moved to the baby lying on the floor. “The baby. I think it's crying.” I went to my knees where she lay, and picked her up. “It's okay. Shh... it's okay.” I said, trying to soothe her. And then I saw the deluge of thin gray liquid trickling out of her hole, spilling down her chest and back. The liquid was irritating her skin, making it red and raw-looking.
The Song Of The Wind leaned over us. “What is that shit”
“I'm not sure,” I said, taking the baby to the sink and holding her under the faucet.
“Whatever it is, it's burning her,” she said. “Do you think... I don't know, like maybe it's stomach acid? Because you left her lying on the floor like that? Like it just sort of ran out of her?”
The whistling died down to a faint wheeze before stopping. I dried her off with a dish towel. “No, I've left her like that before, and she was fine.”
“If it's not stomach acid then, what is it?”
“I really don't know. Unless...” And then it hit me, “Yeah. Fuck yeah! Oh shit, don't you see? It's like, how she communicates. She heard us arguing. She heard me punch the wall. She was upset, and this is how she reacted. This is amazing!”
“Oh my god.” The Song Of The Wind gasped.
“I know, this is really amazing. She could be like emitting pheromones or some shit we aren't even aware of. Like bees!”
“No, look at the floor. The carpet fibers are all melted together where that shit spilled on it.”
The bond forming between Cinnabar Hawk Owlet and myself grew stronger with each passing day. We spent the hours unseperated. I would take her for long walks in the nearby wilderness, strapped to my chest in a bjorn so she could experience nature, or I would read to her from the Qur’an, or explain the tenets of Kwanzaa. We would lie motionless on the lawn, and let the sun warm our skin for hours.
But however strong the bond between Cinnabar Hawk Owlet and myself became, it was in direct opposition to whatever tenuous and rotting threads of obligation or routine still bound The Song Of The Wind to me. She was seldom seen, hiding in her room or leaving for days at a time unannounced and with no explanation when she returned.
I missed her. On the nights when she was present, she was cold and without affection. I would slide into bed next to her and run my hands through the thick tangle of her dreadlocks, or kiss the back of her shoulders. If I was feeling less subtle, I would grind my erection against her ass, which seemed to bother her a lot less than the kissing. But my advances would always end with her pushing me away. This level of rejection was foreign to me, and it grew into a powerful resentment.
I knew it wasn't me she was rejecting. It wasn't my physicality or my sex. It was my seed. I knew she could no longer look at me without seeing our child. The defective, headless child I had pissed into her womb and forced her to carry for those long months. She was disgusted by it. She was disgusted by me.
Void of my partner's emotion, I devoted myself to Cinnabar Hawk Owlet. Without The Song Of The Wind I had little else. But I know I will always have love inside me, unwavering and needing nothing more than a subject to focus on, and it will shine.
The Song Of The Wind stuck around less and less. The time she spent missing expanded from days to weeks. I stopped staying awake at night, waiting to hear the front door open. I stopped missing her.
She was moving on. I would just have to accept it.
But change is hard, and I'm a petty man.
I knew that she found few things as offensive as the eating of flesh, so, during her frequent absences, I began passive-aggressively eating fast food hamburgers. They would make me queasy, and I would usually break out in a sweat, forcing bite after bite of hot, greasy meat down my throat. But it was worth it. At night, when I would lie down and cradle my swollen stomach in my arms, as acid reflux dissolved my esophagus, and the oily trickle of vomit crept up my throat, I would feel no small comfort knowing I was turning The Song Of The Wind's Hindu god to shit inside me.
One day I returned from a fast food restaurant, the burgers still hot in their carry out bag from the long walk in the afternoon heat. I unstrapped Cinnabar Hawk Owlet from the bjorn and sat her on the counter while I rifled through the bag. I pulled out burger after burger, huge stacks of sweaty beef and cheese in between uniformly baked lumps of bleached flour. My stomach churned.
I emptied the bag onto the counter. Somethi
ng was wrong. I stared in disbelief at the pile of foil-wrapped hamburger sandwiches, napkins, drinking straws, individual salt and pepper packets. “They forgot the fucking ketchup!” I screamed. “They always forget the ketchup!” I began cursing and I attacked the refrigerator, knocking huge dents into the door with my foot.
I had become strangely aggressive since The Song Of The Wind left. I thought it possibly had something to do with the hormone and steroid-laden beef I had been consuming.
I unwrapped the first burger and brought it to my mouth. I noticed Cinnabar Hawk Owlet, sitting on the counter facing me. I put the burger down and turned her away from me. I didn't want her to pick up my bad habits; both the eating of meat and the misplaced sense of vengeance it brought me.
I picked the burger back up and shoved it into my mouth.
“What the fuck are you doing?” A voice screeched from behind me.
I was stunned. My jaw dropped open and a half-chewed wad of beef rolled out and hit the counter with a wet smack. That voice, that accusatory tone had instantly transformed me from a man, to a cowering child.
The Song Of The Wind had returned.
I turned to her figure standing in the doorway. “I didn't think you were ever coming back.”
“Why wouldn't I come back? This is my house.”
“It's your home.”
“No,” her voice took on a patronizing tone, “my daddy paid for this place. It's my house.” She let her bags fall to the floor. She looked to the pulpy wad of meat on the counter. “I see you've been keeping the murder trade in steady business. That must be so satisfying, you know, for your soul.” She stepped into the kitchen.
I looked down at the hamburgers, shamefully. “Maybe I was driven to it. Maybe you did this to me. Let this murder be on your head!” I bellowed theatrically.
“What are you talking about, Jerry? I didn't force you to do anything.”
“Don't you call me by my fucking slave name! And yes, you did force me into this,” I brandished the half-eaten burger and squashed it in my fist. Grease ran down my forearm and The Song Of The Wind turned away. “You left us. You left me. I didn't have any other choice. And now you're back. Well, look upon the perversion your absence has invited. Stare in revulsion as the cannibal feasts!”
I crammed the squished remains of the burger into my mouth defiantly. The Song Of The Wind leaped across the counter and tried to pry the last vestiges of burger from my grasp. Both of her skinny arms locked around mine and I pulled away from her. She flung herself at me again and we became an awkward tangle of knees and elbows clashing together. She raked my face and came away with chunks of bleeding skin beneath her nails. I was sent crashing against the dented refrigerator as she came at me once more. I regained my balance and forced her backward over the counter top. She landed in a heap on the linoleum floor amongst Cinnabar Hawk Owlet and the scattered remains of fast food.
I rushed to the baby and lifted her up into the safety of my arms. Meanwhile, The Song Of The Wind desperately gathered the uneaten hamburgers and clutched them to her breast. “I'm taking these. I'm taking these and I'm going to give them a dignified burial.”
“Go,” I told her, “have a memorial service. Say a prayer for a hamburger. But their spirits won't respect you. Cows take care of their children. You're worse than food.”
“I'll have you know that cows -” Her sentence ended abruptly and she looked alarmed. “Cornfield, look.” She pointed at the baby.
I looked down at Cinnabar Hawk Owlet and saw that there was a stream of something red and viscous flowing from the tiny hole where her neck should be. It was a miniature fountain, oozing out over my forearms and soaking into my shirt
“You're squeezing her,” The Song Of The Wind said. “She'll bleed to death.”
“I'm not squeezing her.”
“You need to make a tourniquet, or put pressure on it or something.”
I smelled the fluid leaking out of her. “I don't think this is blood.”
“But it's something, something internal. She's hemorrhaging from when you knocked her off the counter top.”
I knelt down on the kitchen floor and rummaged through the scattered condiments and plastic ware until I found what I was looking for. A curl of seasoned french fry that had been hiding at the bottom of the bag.
The Song Of The Wind looked on curiously as I took the fry and wiped it across the trickle of crimson leaking from the top of the baby. I popped the fry into my mouth.
“Ketchup,” I grinned.
“Why is there ketchup coming out of our her?” She asked.
“Because she's special. Because she knew I needed it. Because she loves her daddy,” I said to Cinnabar Hawk Owlet, and kissed her sticky, ketchup-covered shoulder.
The Song Of The Wind dropped her arms to her sides and let the burgers fall to the floor. “I don't even know why I asked,” she said. “I don't understand what kind of fucked-up shit is going on here, and I don't think I even want to.” She looked down at the floor, paper napkins and splatters of ketchup everywhere. “You should probably clean this up. Or don't. I don't care what you do anymore.” She walked out the door.
“Wait,” I begged as she left. “I can explain.” The only response I got was the snap of the screen door as it swung back into place.
I cleaned up the mess. It would be one less thing for us to fight about when she came back.
If she came back.
I took the baby to the sink and cleaned her off. “Well, well, we don't need mean mommy around here anyway, do we?” I said to the baby in a sing-song voice. “I think we'll get along just fine on our own.” Cinnabar Hawk Owlet splashed her arms in the warm soapy water in approval. I yawned. Things were going to get better. I pulled the baby out of the sink and dried her off. I was exhausted. I took her to bed and covered us both with a blanket and drifted off to sleep.
I awoke to voices. I stared out the window, for a moment, into the blackness of night. I had slept the entire day. Then suddenly, I panicked. The baby! Where was the baby? And then I heard muffled sounds of laughter coming from the living room. I pushed open the bedroom door and hurried outside.
“Dude,” an unfamiliar male voice, said, laughing, “see if you can make vodka come out of it. Let's get fucked up!”
“Alright, whatever comes out next, you have to drink it!” Another unfamiliar voice said, followed by more laughter.
I came to the end of the hallway and found five strangers sitting in a circle in the living room. A fat man with long, greasy black hair and thick framed glasses was holding Cinnabar Hawk Owlet upside down by her legs while a young guy in a tight, yellow shirt and suspenders held a cup beneath her head-hole. “What, do you gotta shake her or something to get it out?” The fat man wondered to the others
I pushed my way between two women in their mid-thirties wearing matching purple sweatpants, and grabbed Cinnabar Hawk Owlet. “What the fuck are you people doing?” I demanded. “How did you get in here?”
The circle fell silent until one of the sweatpants twins asked, “Uh, like who the fuck are you?”
A skinny girl dressed in black elbowed the sweatpants woman and said, “ Retard, that's Ashley's old man.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I would be Ashley's old man. So, may I ask again, who the fuck are you people, and what are you doing in my house?”
“Hey, relax, man. We're cool. We're Ashley's friends. We came to see the baby. It's cool.” The fat man said and put his palms up to show me how cool everything was.
“No, man, shit is definitely not cool at this moment. I wake up and find a group of assholes in my living room, treating my only child like a bottle of Bushmills. Shit is definitely not cool,” I repeated.
“But, Ashley said-” The younger guy protested.
“I don't care what Ash-, her name's not Ashley, it's The Song Of The Wind, and I don't care what she said. Where the fuck is she, anyway?”
“Look,” the fat man explained, “It's like this: I got
me a place over there,” and he pointed in a general direction, “your old lady, she's cool, she hangs out from time to time. We're neighbors, okay? So we're over there earlier, and we’re drinking and eventually, we run dry. So we're loading up in the car to make a beer run, and she says, 'do you wanna see something?' And we ask what, and she tells us about your kid, and how it don't got a head, but it's like a fountain for whatever you want to come out of it. And the whole time she's talking, I'm thinking bullshit, but she looks like she means it. So we come here, and sure as shit, she shows us the little guy and the next thing I know, its got vino pouring out of it and it's a party again. Only it don't last long, because after a few cups it stops paying out, and all that we're getting out of it is, like powder, borax or something. I actually think your little guy made hisself drunk and forgot what to send out.”
“None of that shit you just told me explains where my wife is,” I said.
“I'm right here, Cornfield.” The Song Of The Wind slurred as she appeared in the doorway, holding a bottle of liquor wrapped in a brown bag. “And I'm so fucking glad you're awake,” her voice drenched in sarcasm. “Did you get a chance to meet my friends? Isn't it nice to have company? You know, no one's been over since it was born. Isn't that what proud mothers do? Invite their friends over to show off their babies?”
“You and your friends,” I said, “ need to get the fuck out of my house, like right now.”
The Song Of The Wind walked over to the circle and sat down. “We're not going anywhere.” She unscrewed the cap and turned the bottle up. She took a long drink and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before passing the bottle off. “This is my house, and me and my friends will stay as long as we want.”
“This isn't your house. You can't stay gone all the time and randomly show up with a gang of strangers and get fucked up in the middle of the night. I'm trying to raise our daughter here. We were supposed to be a family.”
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