Sarah finally had enough and shouted, “Yes I’m a whore. I have a dick in my hand and a dick in my mouth right now and I have one in my ass and then I’m holding one right now beneath my armpit to keep it warm. I’m sucking a million dicks, Scott. A million. I’m even sucking one right now in the middle of this fight.” I told her I hated her and she told me she hated me. Then I hung up on her and I thought about a million dicks. I thought about the million dicks inside my mind.
Right before the divorce date, Sarah and I had to take this child parenting class that was mandated by the state of WV for people who were getting divorced and who had children. The day we showed up, we didn’t even talk about our fight from the night before. Sarah just sat in the middle of the child parenting class doing her crossword puzzle and not really caring that it was a waste of time. I didn’t have any crossword puzzles though and it was sure as hell bothering me. All I had was this old picture of me sitting on the Easter bunny’s lap which I took as a joke for Sarah so long ago. It had just started a fight back then when I left it on her car at work and she thought it was creepy. I said, “Creepy. It’s a grown man sitting on the Easter bunny’s lap. It’s funny. What the fuck you got against the Easter bunny?”
I showed Sarah the picture in the child parenting class now and she just rolled her eyes and said, “Still creepy” and then something about why I’d brought it. Then we both laughed and I put the picture away and I tried not going crazy. “I want to leave,” I said. Sarah kept telling me to shut up. We had to be here. It was just a requirement and it would be over soon. So I shut up and listened to the guy who was teaching the class tell his dumb stories and joke his dumb jokes. “Now I know you think your life is over, but I’m here to tell you it’s not,” he said. “I’m sure you can’t even stop thinking about killing your soon to be ex-spouse right now, but that’ll change with time.” The joke worked and the people in the class laughed. So he kept going. “But there is going to be a time when they’ll just become a mild annoyance in your life and you won’t even think those thoughts.” He paused. “Well you might still think about tripping them and laughing when they fall.”
Sarah looked up from her crossword puzzle and laughed at his dumb joke. And then the rest of the class laughed too. I looked around the room and the class looked like the perfect example of why democracy was such a bad idea. “Good god. It’s people like these who are the reason I’m pro-choice and pro-epidemic diseases,” I said under my breath. I wanted to tell them they were retarded but I knew you couldn’t say retarded anymore. Sarah told me to shush and then she grinned.
Then a woman who worked with Sarah at the hospital and who was sitting in front of me raised her hand and asked the man how long it had been since the guy teaching the class had got divorced. The man didn’t say anything for a moment and got the video ready. Then he said, “Oh, ma’am. I’m sorry. I’ve never been divorced. I’m just following the script they gave us.” The room stopped laughing and people dropped their heads and then the guy bent down and pushed play on the movie he had to show us and we had to sit through. It was a testimonial movie and full of statistics about what not to do with our children now that we were getting a divorce. The video said that there is a 90 percent failure rate of relationships started before, or during a divorce proceeding. Then there were helpful hints about not letting your baby drink carbonated beverages out of bottles. They called it “Mountain Dew mouth” and it led to tooth decay. They reminded us not to do drugs with our children and then in another testimonial a wife told us about an ex-husband who was giving their baby beer in a bottle and what she did about it.
I whispered to Sarah, “I want to party with a baby.”
“Shhh,” Sarah said and went back to her crossword puzzle.
I tried to watch the video some more but I was still bored. I decided to try talking Sarah out of the divorce again so we wouldn’t have to sit through this class. I told her nobody would ever see her like I did and nobody would love her more than I had. I told her she would probably end up divorcing me three or four times in her life before it was all over. Then the people sitting around us started listening to me and they were all laughing at what I was saying. I noticed that the bailiff over in the corner was watching me. I put my head down and said, “I think the bailiff is looking at me.”
Sarah said, “Shh.”
When I sat back up, he was still looking at me. It was like he was listening to what we were saying too. But I kept trying to talk Sarah out of the divorce and get her to change her mind. She was still being stubborn though and the bailiff kept watching us.
Then I noticed that the bailiff was standing up. Now he was walking our way. I said, “O shit” and I dropped my head back down like I was hiding my face from him. I could still see the rest of the class watching the TV screen. I looked out of the corner of my eye and I saw Sarah raise her head up and smile. I saw the bailiff’s legs walk and then heard his shoes go tap tap across the floor. Then he stopped in front of us and put his hand on his holster. He leaned over and asked Sarah, “Mam, is he bothering you?”
I saw Sarah put her crossword puzzle at her side and she said, “Yes sir, he’s been bothering me since I was 24 years old. So you’re about 15 years too late in asking.”
I sat up in my seat and they both smiled and then he said, “Well, do you want me to move him for you?” Sarah looked at me and then she looked at the officer and then she looked at me and then she looked at the officer and she said, “Why yes. I think I would like that.”
The officer motioned for me to stand up, which I did. Then he motioned with his fingers for me to sit on the bench next to the rest of the class and said, “There.” I sat where he said and the rest of the class looked at me and they were all whispering to one another. “What’s going on? What’s happening?” I looked back at Sarah and she was just working on her crossword puzzle and looking like nothing was bothering her. Then she looked at me and stuck her tongue out. And then she smiled. I put my head in my hands and I thought about long ago when we used to make one another laugh. I thought about the children being born. I thought about how I used to sleepwalk and one night wound up in bed with her dad. The next morning she laughed and said she hoped her dad wasn’t going to steal her husband away from her. I thought about how we used to laugh and I then I pulled the Easter Bunny picture out of my pocket again and I looked at it. I thought about when Sarah had her gallbladder removed and when I went to the hospital with her. The admitting nurse was going over her paperwork and said, “And so you’re covered by your husband’s insurance. Yes?”
I immediately looked at Sarah and said, “Wait! You didn’t tell me you were married.”
The admitting nurse looked shocked and Sarah looked shocked and I looked shocked, but then Sarah smiled and I smiled and the admitting nurse smiled and everything was fine. I thought about things like this and I kept my head down. Sarah texted me, “I’m sorry he moved you. I thought he could tell I was just joking.” I texted her back it was okay and then I watched the rest of the video tell me that we shouldn’t fight in front of the children and we shouldn’t use the children in our own personal wars. I listened to the video tell me that we were still a family, but we were just a different family now. The video said that we would still love one another, but we would love one another differently. I thought about how I sang lullabies to Iris and Sam and I imagined these lullabies now. I listened to the video and every now and then I picked my head up and looked back at Sarah. It looked like it didn’t even bother her really. She was still working on her crossword puzzle.
The video played and the video ended. The guy who taught the class came by with a sign-in sheet. Sarah signed the sheet and then the next person and then the next. He walked over to me and said, “Hey troublemaker.” I signed my name and my SS# and my address too. It was the facts of my life, but it didn’t tell them anything. I knew that no one wanted to know anything about anything anyway. So I walked to the back of the courtroom and Sarah waited
for me. She smiled and said she was sorry again and she didn’t think the bailiff was going to move me and I told her it was okay again. And then together we walked.
Sarah asked, “Did you think you’d ever have to sit through a class where someone told you how to raise your children.” I smiled and shook my head and then Sarah smiled and shook her head. So we walked down the stairs and out the courthouse doors. I asked her if she remembered my old love letters where I told her she was the dust on butterfly wings. Sarah said, “There’s only one thing worse than a love letter with the word butterfly in it and that is a butterfly tattoo. Love letter butterflies and tattooed butterflies should both be avoided at all costs.”
I asked her if she remembered the language I created for her in the old love letters that we called the language of Sarah and how my final words one day would come from this language: lipsidipium. Sarah said that no one would know what it means. And I said: “Yes, it’ll be just like our time on earth. It’ll be just like the Buddhist monk’s love letter.”
Then we laughed. And nothing seemed to bother her. I asked her if she finished her crossword puzzle and she said, “Getting there.” Then we stood on the sidewalk for a second. We gave one another a hug and we said goodbye. She walked to her car and I walked to my car. I repeated again, “It doesn’t even bother her.”
I got in my car and pulled out. Then I drove down the ramp of the parking garage and on to the street. I circled around the courthouse building and then I circled again. I knew since we filled out the separation papers and completed the child parenting class a divorce date was coming now. And so this was the end. And it didn’t bother her.
I listened to the CD player and I rolled down the window. I drove to the red light and then I stopped. I looked out the window at the courthouse and then I looked at the street. Then I looked at the red light. Then I looked at the parking lot and I saw something. I saw Sarah’s black Honda CRV. I saw Sarah inside. She had her hands to her face. And she was just sitting in her car and she was weeping. She was wiping away the tears from her face with a wadded up handkerchief and she was trying to stop crying, but still she sobbed. I saw that she wasn’t a rock. She was just a person who I had loved and now she was gone. I was gone too.
So I have decided to include a crossword puzzle inside this book because Sarah would have liked that. But this crossword puzzle is different. This is a crossword puzzle that is the hardest crossword puzzle in the world. And you can try to solve it too.
6 across is the name of your first love.
7 down is the name of the one who broke your heart. You belong to them.
2 across is what we have lost.
And then there are other boxes but no answers to go with them. These are the boxes we leave empty.
5 down is what will change for all of us and 1 down is how we will disappear.
So inside my memory the baby grew inside of her. Then one day Sarah went for a check-up. The baby was almost here. It was just a normal check-up but then she called me crying.
“Scott, they’re taking the baby. They’re taking her today. I’m on my way to the hospital.”
What happened?
The baby wasn’t moving and the baby weight was low.
Sarah was 35 and a high risk mother. So it would be best to induce her. Now. So we waited all day and then we waited half of the evening. Sarah sent me home at nine that night because they had no idea when the baby would come. I sat and drank in secret and then the phone rang. It was Sarah. She said she needed me after all. She said the baby was coming and she said the doctor said she was fully dilated. I was quiet for a second.
Sarah said, “Scott.”
I said, “So a dude had his hand in your vagina?”
I was joking but not really.
Sarah told me this was no time to be jealous and she said she needed me. She needed Bubbies and I was the Bubbies.
I took off and zipped to the hospital and there she was. She was shaking. This wasn’t normal shaking. Her hands were shaking and her arms were shaking and her head was shaking and her feet were shaking and her knees were shaking and her legs were shaking and she was shaking. I looked at her again to make sure I was seeing right. Her hands were shaking and her arms were shaking and her head was shaking and her feet were shaking and her knees were shaking and her legs were shaking and she was shaking.
“Are you cold?” I asked. Sarah smiled and said, “No, Scott. I’m not cold. I’m in pain. I’m in horrible pain.” So Sarah was in pain. Aren’t we all? And so I held her hand and sang “No Woman No Cry.”
And she smiled. “O god no, Scott. Not fucking reggae.”
But it shook me and if I had to tell you about what I know on the nature of birth, it would be this. It would be Sarah McClanahan shaking in the bed and her eyes full of one word. Terror. And then me. Scott McClanahan: The one who was powerless over terror.
The epidural guy came and asked me to leave the room. He explained it was a legal thing, “A liability thing, you know.” So I stood in the hallway and gave Sarah a thumbs up and a silly face. I looked like this:
But then Sarah smiled. She knew that the only education one needed is this. They should watch someone die and then see someone being born. And then we would know the world. And then the man explained to her she could be paralyzed by the epidural.
Then the epidural guy handed Sarah a pen and she tried to sign. Her hand was so shaky that she had to try three different times.
The document was signed. The epidural was too late. The pain of labor was starting. I thought as I waited, “Fuck you, pain.”
And pain said this: Nothing. And rocks said this: Nothing. And rivers said this: Nothing. And the sky said this: Nothing. I said: “I am alive” and then pain said: “This does not create in me a sense of obligation.” And even though pain does not have ears to hear I wanted to say it again.
But in my memory Sarah is not in pain. She is sitting up in bed just like she was that afternoon and she is beautiful. She is beautiful because she has two hearts inside her beating, beating.
But then suddenly she is in pain again and her labor has started. Her face is all scrunched up like a poop face or like a fucking face. And I’m there pushing up one knee to her chest and the nurse has the other knee and is pushing it up to Sarah’s chest.
So hold her hand.
The doctor and the midwife are down the hallway because there’s an emergency. A baby is being born blue and dying with the umbilical cord wrapped around its head. In another room is a premature baby and they’re going back and forth, back and forth with “O shit” faces. And here in this room the nurse is looking over at me and I’m looking over at the nurse.
She has a look on her face like, “Are you ready? We’re gonna deliver this baby, motherfucker.” So my PTSD kicks in and I’m ready for crisis. We’re gonna deliver this baby, motherfucker.
The nurse puts the shit bag beneath Sarah and I say “What’s that?” The nurse says, “That’s the shit bag.” Sarah says all doped up, “That’s the shit bag.” Then the nurse whispers, “It’s for, ya know? The feces and afterbirth.” I’m confused.
The nurse says “Sometimes a woman is pushing so hard that she has put so much pressure on her body that the bowels just give loose. And then of course the afterbirth.”
Now I’m thinking, “Sarah. Don’t crap in front of these people. We don’t know them. It would be rude.” And then it’s like Sarah is reading my mind because she says, “Don’t worry, Bubbies. I gave myself an enema before I came here. That’s one good thing about being induced. You can give yourself an enema.”
And now Sarah is no longer talking about her enema but she’s asking me a question. “What does it look like?” I look down at her dilated vagina and a baby head is pushing out. I answer her like this: “It looks like a wet mole. It looks like you’re holding a wet mole between your legs.”
The nurse turns her back to us and gloves up.
Then Sarah whispers, “No, how does my pussy
look?”
At first I’m thinking, “What a weird question,” but then I get what she’s saying. I look back between her legs again and I say. It looks sort of angry.
“No tearing?” she asks.
Tearing?
I didn’t even know they could tear, but they can. They can tear into one giant tear.
I said, “No, I don’t think.”
“What about my wax?”
What?
“I waxed myself a few days ago knowing I was going to be showing off my stuff. I know how nurses are. Didn’t want anybody talking about my stuff and how it looked like a mop.”
Then she was quiet.
Then Sarah said, “So my pussy looks angry?”
I said, “Yeah, your pussy looks angry.”
But enough about suffering. Back to birth. So Sarah is pushing. Pushing. Pushing. Pushing. And then she breathes. Then she is pushing pushing pushing pushing pushing pushing pushing. And then she rests. And then she is pushing. Pushing. Pushing. Pushing and then there is screaming. A baby is pushing her arm out of the vagina and looking at us with a fucked up baby looking face. She has a look like I’m pushing my way out of a vagina, buddy. What are you looking at? The baby groans eeeeee, and then this happens. There’s a lightning storm outside. It’s smashing and crashing around us and cutting through the dark and the baby girl is pulled from the womb and given to her mother and then there is one more lightning bolt that goes Boom.
We see the baby glowing and flashing and on fire, sparkling like flashers beside a fatal accident. The lights go out and then they come back on, and when they do the little girl has a lightning bolt on her nose. She is crying. Her name is Iris.
The Sarah Book Page 10