by Joe Humphrey
Ten minutes later she stopped walking and stared at something gleaming in the darkness. The sun was gone, but the stars and moon gave her enough light to see by. The skeleton of a mangled coyote was pressed into the tracks ahead. Its skull was intact and resting almost perfectly in the center between the two metal rails, its jagged bone nose pointed at her. She stepped forward then stopped again, a memory flitted through her consciousness. Something sniffing, biting, pulling at her hair. Licking her face, its breath wet with rancid stink. Staring at that skull, she almost had a clear memory and it was the most awful thing she’d ever felt. If what was locked inside her, in that black void, was anything like the feeling of being sniffed and licked by a wild animal, then she knew she was done with it all.
With a lopsided, graceless plop, she sat down between the rails and stared at the skull. It grinned up at her, clumps of ratty hair and flecks of black skin scattered across its otherwise perfectly white surface. A twisted trail of broken white bones that were once its spine and ribs sprawled out behind it. She held the bottle up in a toast and drank the rest of its contents in one long, burning swig. Her body fought it but she forced the evil liquid down, feeling her stomach protest with its spasms and squeezing.
The creature inside her kicked, sending ripples across her belly, and Charlie threw up again. This time it burned as it came out and cascaded down the front of her dress and into her lap. It burned coming out of her nose. It burned her tongue. That sensation didn’t last long, as black curtains closed across her vision and she fell backward onto the train tracks, her legs folded under her awkward, pregnant body.
- 8 -
The ground rumbled beneath her. A train was coming. This was what she wanted and she welcomed it. Her stomach rolled and she thought she might vomit again. The sensation of floating on the vibrating tracks kept her off balance enough that she couldn’t get a handle on how she was lying. It was dark, she knew that much, and the earth was rattling under her. She smiled as she waited for what would come next.
When she was standing at the bridge, she wondered if she could actually go through it. Killing herself. There was only so much a person could endure before the well ran dry. The reserve of willpower it takes to tolerate the constant barrage of shit life throws at you. As the rumbling intensified, she imagined the sound of the train as it approached. The clanking and rattling and chug-chug of the engine. She couldn’t think about the light of the headlamp, because that scared her. She would have to keep her eyes closed. If she saw it coming, she might roll out of the way at the last moment, but if she only listened, there would be no way to know when it was going to hit. The sound would just get louder and louder and louder and then nothing. Death would be instantaneous. The train would roll over her and crush her and mangle her and rip her apart beneath its wheels. It would kill her harder and faster and more thoroughly than any other way she could imagine.
For a moment she felt a pang of regret. Her mother would be devastated. Her mother that forced her to keep this child and that decided for her what the rest of her life would look like. Charlie had no say in it. She had no say in how and when a baby was put inside her, and she had no say in when it would leave her body. She had no say in anything. Except this. This she could take control of. While she regretted the loss her mother would feel once she realized the mistake she’d made, she was confident that it would be better to die than be saddled with this thing forever. This thing that she didn’t love, couldn’t love. That she hated because it was forced on her. In her. This thing that she imagined stabbing with a knife every time one was in her hand.
She went back to Dr. Ballard a week after the appointment, needing someone to talk to, and so far he was the only genuinely sympathetic ear she’d had since leaving the hospital. He refused to see her. The receptionist would only repeat “Dr. Ballard cannot see you, Charlie” until she left. Later that day she put together what he and her mother were arguing about. He had offered to arrange for her to have an abortion. It was illegal and he risked a lot just saying it. Some states allow for the termination of a pregnancy in cases like Charlie’s. Utah was certainly not one of those states, but he had offered it because he understood what carrying this baby meant for her. He’d tended to her wounds after she left the hospital. He'd seen what was done to her.
Rose called him a monster and a murderer and had forbidden Charlie to contact him. So it didn’t surprise her when he refused to see her that afternoon, but that didn’t make it any less devastating. When he’d offered it, they were alone and no one else knew she was pregnant. That was her window and she missed it because she had her head in the sand and let her mother steamroll over her. There were about three minutes when she’d had an option, and she hadn’t even known it. By dragging her out of his office and into the waiting room, her mother had all but placed her on the train tracks herself.
So while she hurt for the fact that Rose was going to lose her daughter and be alone in the world, she also felt justified in going through with it, because it was her mother who had actually killed her. Her mother had snuffed out what little light was left inside of her. Her mother had chosen dogma and the need to control everyone and everything over her daughter’s life.
As Charlie lay there, feeling the rumble build, she wondered if it wasn’t some kind of twisted punishment her mother was inflicting on her. After all, Rose herself had been saddled with a child she couldn’t support and couldn’t walk away from. She hadn’t chosen the life she was bound to. Perhaps this was her way of repaying the favor.
It didn’t matter. Charlie rejected it. She rejected all of it. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. Or in this case, as the joke went, the light was an oncoming train. She could hear the engine and the gentle thump thump thump of the ground moving beneath her.
Wait.
That wasn’t right. The ground wasn’t moving. She was moving. She could feel the vibration but the ground was soft and smooth and cool, not the hard, gravel-covered railroad ties she’d passed out on.
And there was music. Soft, old music. A bouncy organ, somehow sad and manic at the same time. A woman was crooning on a muffled, crackling recording. She might have recognized the song on another night, but her brain was a jumbled mess and she couldn’t pull it. The tone was familiar though. For some reason it reminded her of the trip she’d taken with her mother to Disneyland. It sounded like a tune Snow White or Cinderella might have sung, lamenting some out of reach prince.
It was late summer, 1964. She was eight. She remembered walking down Main Street USA, holding her mother’s hand, the crowd milling about. Laughter and balloons, bouncing on thin white ribbons wrapped around the wrists of exhausted, deliriously happy children. That was a happy time. The Disneyland Band was playing I Wanna Be Like You from The Jungle Book, and the smell of popcorn and asphalt, warmed by the long, hot September day, was in the air.
She could almost smell it there, laying there in the dark, gently rocking with the vibrations rolling up from beneath her. Popcorn and asphalt and something else she couldn’t place. The warm, paternally comforting sound of Walt Disney’s voice, welcoming them to the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy, echoed through her mind.
Why was she thinking about Disneyland? How long had she been lying there listening to that song? Where was she?
Vera Lynn. That’s who was singing on the radio. We’ll Meet Again.
For a brief, insane moment, she imagined that the train had hit her and she was inside it now. Except it wasn’t a dirty freight train, but the E.P. Ripley, the train she and her mother rode at least three times through the park that day, on its circuit through Frontierland, Main Street USA, and Tomorrowland. That’s what she’d loved most about Disneyland. More than the rides and the shows, she loved that last train ride of the day. Exhausted and leaning against her mother, a paper bag of popcorn between her knees, watching the attractions and facades slide by, seeing people laugh and hug each other as they climbed on and off the train. People as their
happiest, best selves.
Maybe she was dead already and this was heaven, sprawled across the polished wooden bench seat of the Disneyland Railroad car, in an endless loop around the park, smelling popcorn and waffle cones. Her happy place. It wasn’t what she expected, but she’d take it.
Charlie attempted to sit up but nausea, fatigue, and a sharp, throbbing pain behind her eyes forced her back down. She saw enough to finally understand what was happening to her — or at least where she was, which was in the backseat of a car. It was a large car with a red interior. The soft white glow of the dashboard silhouetted the driver in shadow, but in the brief moment she was up, she saw tightly quaffed blonde hair and a white-gloved hand on a red steering wheel.
Leather pressed against her body. She rolled her head and looked down at herself. She was covered in a crocheted blanket but was certain that she was naked under it. She could feel the cool seat against her back and butt and thighs. A hot flash flooded her body and she felt herself break out in a sweat. For a moment she was certain she would throw up again. The weight of her belly felt like a brick crushing her.
A voice floated back from the front seat. It was pleasant, almost musical.
“Honey, there’s a bag on the floor in front of you. If you’re going to whoopsy, all I ask is that you aim in that direction. This leather isn’t cheap to get cleaned.”
With the remaining energy she had left in her, Charlie rolled over and saw a paper grocery bag sitting open on the floor, its top neatly folded down. Looking down into that bag, she found that she no longer had the strength to roll back again. All she could do was stare into the emptiness and concentrate on not vomiting. The gentle rocking of the car was dragging her down into sleep again. As she drifted off, staring into that bag, she imagined it was full of popcorn. She could smell it in the car. Popcorn and asphalt and vanilla.
- 9 -
Sunlight crept across the floor of her bedroom. She was awake, though she hadn’t moved in over twenty minutes. She only lay there, watching the dust motes drift and dance around in the light as it moved across the carpet and filled her room. It wouldn’t be long now. That’s what they told her. She just wanted it over. Clear the chessboard and start a new game. Once it was out of her, she could try to put her life back together. Whatever was left of her life anyway. The pieces weren’t the same as they were before this all started and she wasn’t sure how they fit together.
Before she was attacked, she had dreams and plans. They may have been ridiculous plans, naive and childish plans, but she was a child, and that’s what children did. She didn’t feel like a child anymore. She felt like a broken, sad, old woman, like her mother. A woman pulled down and crushed by the weight of an unwanted future dropped on her from out of nowhere, also like her mother.
How could she hate it? She’d never had hate in her heart, but as she lay there watching the sunlight crawl through her room, she hated the child. She hated every kick and every hiccup, every time she had to stop walking and lean against a wall or sit on a bench because of the ache in the small of her back or between her shoulders. The countless times she had to pull herself up off the couch to pee. She wasn’t a person who hated, yet she hated this child that she’d never met.
Now that the arrangements were made, more than anything she just wanted to be through with it. To move on to whatever came after this. Her mother had done that, and she was grateful for it. After the child was born, someone would come and take it away and it would be over. The end of this awful journey and she was alive, for what that was worth. Her guardian angel saved her.
That’s how she’d come to think of the mysterious woman who had apparently scooped her up from the train tracks and taken her home, wrapped in the crocheted blanket she was currently laying under. Left her curled up on the porch swing in front of the house, her soiled dress folded neatly on the ground next to her. That’s where her mother found her, swaying softly in the morning breeze, a fresh coat of dew on her face.
Rose brought her in and put her to bed and Charlie slept for thirteen hours, woke at seven in the evening to pee and drink a glass of water, and then immediately laid back down and slept until the next morning. It was that morning, over coffee and toast, that Rose suggested the idea of adoption. It was the first time they’d actually talked about an option other than teenage motherhood and Charlie was satisfied with the compromise. More than satisfied. It was a finish line and that was worth something. It was worth everything. Before, she’d seen the rest of her life dictated by the needs of a child she didn’t love, but with adoption as a choice, she only had to make it through another month or so — and the delivery of course, which carried its own set of anxieties.
Charlie lay on her bed and concentrated, trying to feel what her body wanted. The last month was significantly easier than the first eight had been. With an actual end in sight, she discovered that she could be a little optimistic about her future. It was clear to her that she needed to leave Nephi. Aside from her mother, nothing was keeping her in Utah. Patrick was done with her, her friends refused to talk to her, and waddling around town had become a humiliating experience. People stared at her as though they’d never seen a pregnant woman before. Sixteen, pregnant and married to a nice Mormon boy was something to celebrate. Sixteen, pregnant and alone was a disease that might spread.
The last time she’d ventured out of town on her own, it left her shattered in the desert with a massive hole in her memory where untold horrors were inflicted upon her. She had no plans to set out alone again. She had no specific plans at all, but she knew she needed to leave.
She would have to convince Rose to move them. It didn’t have to be Los Angeles or even California, it just had to be somewhere else. Somewhere new where she could be a stranger. A stranger who had never been pregnant with a monster’s baby. Where she could just be another sixteen-year-old girl. Her mother had to do that for her. Charlie was doing what was expected of her. She carried this baby she had no choice in conceiving. She carried it and would birth it because that was her mother’s will. That had to have earned her some sort of freedom in this world.
The baby kicked and Charlie rested her hand on the left side of her belly. It liked to kick in the morning when it was hungry. Sometimes it woke her up kicking until it forced her out of bed to stuff a piece of toast and a glass of orange juice in her belly. Usually, that calmed it down. She knew she’d have to get up soon, just to get it to stop reminding her it was there.
Another few minutes. She could have that. Another few minutes to stare at the dust and imagine that each little particle was a floating planet, with its own ecosystem and population of fish and birds and mammals, perhaps some of them intelligent, with philosophical and spiritual questions about the force they felt watching them float through their own space. She would be their god, indifferent and all-powerful. Staring with dull, glassy eyes, Charlie huffed air in the direction of the sunlight and watched the dust motes spin off into the shadows. More dust swirled into the light and Charlie sighed.
The baby kicked again and Charlie rolled over and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Getting to her feet was like propping a watermelon up on chopsticks. She wrapped the crocheted blanket around her shoulders and headed down the hall. She was naked down to her underwear but didn’t care. Rose was at work and Charlie officially stopped going to school two weeks ago. Her mother kept her home 'sick' for a week after her late-night drunken adventure. They ultimately both agreed that there was little to be gained by trying to integrate back into school. She hadn’t even gone back to her locker to retrieve her stuff.
She was alone in the house. Just her and the baby, kicking and tumbling in place and demanding food. Charlie dropped two pieces of white bread in the toaster and opened the fridge. No orange juice, so she poured herself a glass of milk. It was cold and felt substantial spilling down her throat. Healthy. The baby flipped over inside her. It was definitely active. She imagined a chubby little Olympic swimmer, bounding off the side
of the pool that was her uterus and butterfly stroking to the other side. It had to be soon. She didn’t think her stomach could stretch anymore.
The toaster dinged and she pulled the slices out and spread jam across each one with a knife, which clanged when she dropped it in the sink, leaving a purple smear. Ignoring that, she ate the toast standing over the counter, letting crumbs fall everywhere; on the counter, down her front, on her distended belly. She didn’t care. Lately, it was hard to care about much of anything. All she wanted was to be done with this phase of her life. A few crumbs here and there was nothing to her.
With the toast gone, she stood there for a long moment, her eyes closed. She listened to her body. It was something she’d learned to do over the last couple of weeks. Just to stop and listen to what her body wanted. What the baby wanted. It was hard not to think of it as a parasite.
For the moment, it was apparently satisfied with toast and milk. No more kicking or turning. It was blessedly still. She wondered if it was happy. It was a strange thing to wonder, given how much energy she’d put into hating it. Not that she cared if it was happy, but for the moment anyway, she wondered.
It would be happy once it was out of her. Probably anyway. It would go to some nice Mormon family that would bring it up with a bunch of Mormon brothers and sisters and they would have picnics and ride bikes and go on missions to impoverished countries and all the other things Mormon families did. Maybe some couple who couldn’t have kids of their own would get it. Maybe some good could come out of this horrible experience.
Charlie didn’t care about any of that. She just wanted it out of her and away. Far, far away, and gone forever. She managed to move past wanting it dead, she just wanted it out of her body and out of her life. Would she go back and take that offer from Dr. Ballard if she could? In a heartbeat. No question. She would trade this baby’s heartbeat for the last five months of her life back without a second thought. This baby had no business existing. No right to take up space in her belly like a massive tumor. Since its conception, it had brought her nothing but pain and misery.