by E. N. Joy
“My doctor wrote me off work. So I let them fire me, and then I started getting unemployment. When that ran out, I got extensions, but now the extensions have run out.”
“Let me get this straight. You’ve been living here all of this time and not paying your landlord a dime?” I sighed. “I can’t believe they ain’t put your black tail out before now.”
“My landlord has been really cool. I had explained the situation to him, showed him my paperwork and everything.”
“So your landlord has been letting you slide on rent, thinking you were going to get this huge settlement and just pay everything in one lump sum?”
It was as if Dino realized at that moment just how stupid everything sounded, how he’d been living on a hope and a dream that wasn’t guaranteed. That adorable, kind, and loving smile that had attracted me to him in the first place now looked like a big, stupid grin. It was probably that same big, stupid grin that he’d used to convince his landlord to let him get away with not paying rent. I had to give it to Dino: that smile of his had gotten him a long way, but now, as far as I was concerned, it was at a dead end.
“Look, I have to get back to work.” I headed to the door with so much disgust, I couldn’t see straight.
Nana had always told me that if something seemed too good to be true, then it was. Dino was just as broke as Dub had ever been. At least Dub had been real about his destitution. He had never put on a front or pretended he had two nickels to rub together. Dino had been acting like everything was good. He had had me fooled. But at that moment, I knew I wasn’t going to be the fool anymore.
It wasn’t that I was a gold digger or anything, but I’d spent seven or eight years with a man who was broke. Romance without finance was a nuisance whether you were getting beat on or not. I felt that I’d been through so much in my last relationship that I deserved a man who could do all the things the last one couldn’t. I had dreamt of this fairy tale; a fairy tale that consisted of me being wined and dined, taken out on the town, on trips and vacations. You name it. And now Dino had pinched me and woken me from my dream.
Dino didn’t even try to stop me when I walked out his door that day. He could see disappointment written all over my face. When I stepped out his door, I had made up my mind that I wasn’t coming back.
“Pregnant? You’re pregnant?” Dino said with excitement.
I just sat there, looking at him like he was crazy. I’d sworn I’d never set foot in his apartment again, but I had to tell him the news face-to-face. Besides, by now his phone had been turned off.
I did not expect the reaction I got from him. What man in his right mind would be excited about a girl he had picked up at the club and had known for only four months being pregnant? And although usually Dino’s smile and excitement elicited the same type of reaction from me, they certainly didn’t this time.
“I just don’t understand how in the world I let this happen,” I said, burying my face in my hands and shaking my head. “What was I thinking? What were we thinking?”
I knew darn well I wasn’t on the pill. I had stopped taking the pill months ago. I knew I wasn’t going to have sex with Dub anymore, and I had never imagined in a million years I’d ever have sex with another man. That was just how much Dub had made me hate the entire act of sex. I’d vowed that I’d never let a man inside my body again. But somehow I had got caught up in the whirlwind romance with Dino and all of that went out the window, and now here I was, paying the piper.
“Why do you look so sad? I mean, this is a life growing inside of you.” Dino came and sat down next to me on the couch in his living room. “There is a little me or a little you inside there.” He smiled and rubbed my stomach.
For the first time in the four months we had been together, his actions, his happiness, were ticking me off. This was not the time to be happy.
“What’s wrong with you?” I pushed his hand off my stomach and stood up. “Do you really think I’m about to have this baby? You are out of your mind.”
The look on Dino’s face said it all. It was as if he didn’t even recognize me. He’d never witnessed me poppin’ off like this before. “Baby, I know you’re not thinking about doing what I think you are.”
“What else is there to do?” I shot back. “Have a baby by a man who is not my husband? No way, Jose. No more babies out of wedlock for me.” I shook my head.
He jumped up, as if he’d just had the brightest idea he’d ever had in his life. “Then let’s get married.”
Was this dude serious? I mean, he couldn’t be Mr. Do the Right Thing all the time, especially not now. He couldn’t marry me. He had no idea what he’d be getting himself into. But Dino was relentless. He went on and on and on about how we could make this thing work. It was as if I was speaking a foreign language when I reiterated to him that I did not want to keep this baby. The more he pressed, the more I knew I’d have to do something to make him change his mind. I needed him to see the real me. There was no way in the world he’d want to marry the person buried beneath the one I had been pretending to be for the past few months.
“What do I look like marrying, let alone having a baby by, a man who don’t even have a job? I mean, look at you. . . .” And that was when it began. It was like history repeating itself. I began to spew the same type of insults I used to chuck at Dub in the beginning, only now they were directed toward Dino.
My insults continued. “You are only a day in court from being put out on the streets. Then what you gonna do? Come live with me at my nana’s? Negro, please.” I rolled my eyes and sucked my teeth. “What am I going to do with a man who can’t provide for me and the child I already have? I wouldn’t have even given you the time of day in the club that night had I known you were dang near homeless. Heck, we could have skipped the movies, and you could have put it toward your rent.”
Dino just sat there, speechless, as I rambled on, string after string of insulting curse words spilling from my mouth. I was so angry, but truth be told, I wasn’t angry at Dino. I was angry at myself. I was angry for allowing myself to even be in this position. But unfortunately for Dino, when I was mad at myself, I was mad at the world. And so the world would pay.
“I can’t even believe this is you standing here, saying all this stuff to me.” He got up from the couch and walked over to me, as if someone had just punched him in the gut and knocked all the wind out of him. “Helen, baby, it’s me.”
He was acting as if I had been knocked over the head and had lost my memory and he was trying to get me to come to. But I’d already come to my senses. I’d come to my senses a week before, when I’d left his apartment after finding out he was jobless and would soon be homeless.
“Look, just forget I ever came. I don’t know what I was thinking, coming here, anyway. It’s not like you have any money to put on the abortion.”
I grabbed my purse and headed to the door. Unlike the last time, this time Dino stopped me.
“I just want you to know, I do not want you to do this, but since you are set on doing it, I at least want to be there for you.”
“Sure,” I replied nonchalantly. “Let me look into it, and I’ll give you all the details. I’ll let you know the date and time, and you can come pick me up and take me.”
“That’s cool, but . . .” He looked down.
Oh, God, there’s more bad news? I thought.
“My car broke down a couple days ago. The guy who lives a couple doors down from me is a mechanic. He said the car is dead. Engine is shot. So . . .”
“So that means not only are you jobless and homeless, but you’re carless too?” I snapped, shaking my head. “And you wonder why you’re about to be babyless.”
I left Dino’s apartment and went straight home and pulled out the yellow pages. I was going to call and make an appointment at the same place I’d gone when I aborted Dub’s baby, which was an act nobody knew of, not even Dub. I had actually pushed it so far to the back of my mind, I’d often forgotten completely ab
out the incident.
About two years after having Baby D, I had gotten a double ear infection and had to take antibiotics. When I turned up pregnant, I was shocked because I’d been on birth control pills. The doctor concluded that all the antibiotics in my system had decreased the effectiveness of the birth control.
I knew if I had that baby, I would be making a horrible mistake. Plus, I thought there was a chance that since it was Dub’s seed growing inside me, it might turn out to be a monster too. I couldn’t let that happen, so I went to the clinic and got an abortion. I felt so bad as I sat in the waiting room, about to kill my baby. But when I noticed the stomach of the girl next to me, which looked as if it harbored a full-grown baby, one that she was about to abort, I didn’t feel so bad anymore.
I was home free until Dub found a paper from the doctor’s stating that I was pregnant. By then there was no more baby, so I thought fast and told him I’d miscarried. Thinking his unborn child had died tore him up. I told him I knew he’d be hurt, which was why I kept it from him. I didn’t want to hurt him. Lucky for me, he bought it.
Unlucky for me, Dub became hell-bent on trying to get me pregnant again. Whenever my period came, he’d beat me for not being pregnant. So I prepared myself to get a beating at least once a month, because I knew I’d never get pregnant. Unbeknownst to him, I was popping birth control pills left and right. I couldn’t take a chance on ever getting pregnant again by him. I couldn’t risk giving birth to a monster. I’d gotten lucky the first time with Baby D, but who was to say I’d be so lucky the next?
Dino wasn’t a monster, but I couldn’t see myself having his baby, either. I was able to get an appointment the very next day after Dino’s and my talk, during my lunch hour. The visit went nothing like I’d expected. I wanted to get the abortion over with quick, fast, and in a hurry. I couldn’t have been any further than about four weeks along, but I’d been as sick as a dog.
After my appointment, I was so upset, I couldn’t even think straight. They’d told me that because I was only four weeks along, they couldn’t perform the abortion. They said I had to wait until I was six weeks because there was a risk that if they performed the procedure any earlier, they’d miss the baby entirely and I’d remain pregnant, ultimately perhaps giving birth to a deformed baby.
I didn’t care, though; I needed this sickness out of me. One thing they did mention at the clinic was that my insurance might pay for a portion of the abortion bill, so once I got back to work, I called up my insurance company and asked them about it. The insurance company was willing to pay fifty dollars toward the procedure at the clinic I wanted to have it at and $280 toward the procedure if it was done by an in-plan doctor. After doing my research, I learned that the closest in-plan doctor was located all the way in Cincinnati, which was a two-hour drive from Columbus. So a week later, on a Friday afternoon, after I had decided I’d push the date of my missing period back a week so that this place wouldn’t make such a big fuss about me not being six weeks, Dino and I were on the road to Cincinnati, where once again, I’d violate Him, who was in me.
Stone Number Twenty-eight
When Dino and I arrived at the Cincinnati clinic, the protestors were out in full force. Their harmonious chants invaded the stillness that had taken on the role of a backseat passenger for the past two hours. Dino and I succeeded in making our way through the multitude of like-minded individuals who were carrying signs that had gruesome pictures of abortions gone bad. We signed in at the front desk and then waited in the waiting area. Several ladies’ names were called, and they were escorted back to the prep room.
“Amy, Susan, Helen, Felicia, and Tabatha, you can come on back,” the receptionist called out.
It was like a webisode of a bootleg The Price Is Right, where the contestants were told to “Come on down!” Only, there would never be a right price for what was about to take place. And nobody was going to take the grand prize home.
I stood upon hearing my name being called. I was not sure how long it took me to take that first step. I wasn’t having doubts about getting an abortion, just thoughts about keeping the baby. Love in my heart was scarce. I felt as if there was barely enough to go around as it was. It wouldn’t be fair to bring a child into this world if I was able to nourish it with cow’s milk but would starve it of a mother’s love. I took that first step.
This was the part where I had to separate from Dino. I wished he could come back there with me to hold my hand, but I was a big girl, making big girl decisions after making big girl mistakes, something I was terribly perfect at.
The nurse led me and some other women into a room that was as cold as an icebox. I didn’t mind the numbing cold. In fact, I was grateful for the counterfeit anesthetic, praying it would sedate my soul.
In the prep room, the other women and I changed into hospital gowns and sat in a subdivision of identical chairs. Once again, we waited for our names to be called, this time so that we could go into the room where the procedure was going to be performed. The quiet atmosphere was undisturbed until one of the girls next to me molested it with her voice.
“I can’t believe just a few months ago I was one of them,” she said to no one in particular.
“One of who?” I decided to ask. I needed voices to drown out the persistent one in my head that was trying to pick apart and invalidate my reasons for being at the clinic. So I wanted to keep the conversation going.
“Them.” The girl nodded toward the window that kept us estranged from the protestors. “I actually marched in a pro-life rally. I was chanting the same stuff they are chanting against abortion and carrying some of those same signs. Can you believe it?” She chuckled a nervous chuckle. “Funny how different the shoes look when you’re wearing them, and not that girl next to you.”
A woman across the room chimed in. “My husband used to always speak against abortion too.”
All the other ladies wore the same countenance that I did when we looked over at the woman and then down at the wedding ring hugging her finger. For some reason, I just never pictured a married couple choosing to abort their child. I thought it was just mixed-up, unwed chicks like me who subjected their bodies to this act akin to butchering.
“What changed his mind?” I was too curious not to ask.
“The fact that after so many years we are just now able to get our heads above water. I mean, it seems like we had been struggling forever. Just when things are going good, I find out I’m pregnant.” She rubbed her belly. “My husband and I both agree that having this baby will only put us back in the poorhouse.” She looked down at her belly. “God will give us back this same baby someday, when we are ready to have one.”
“You’ll never be ready,” said a heavyset woman, jumping in. She was so big that she could have already been nine months pregnant, for all we knew. “If God sat around waiting until man was ready, we’d never get anywhere.”
No one either concurred or challenged the big girl’s claim. The mere fact that God was being mentioned made everyone stir and feel even more conviction than the protestors had already deposited in us.
Silence revisited and plagued the room as we all sat lined up, waiting to be called into the procedure room one by one, as if we were in a meat factory and were cows waiting to be slaughtered. Finally, the turn was mine.
“Helen Lannden,” the nurse called out.
“Right here,” I replied as I got up. I followed her into a room that was the size of a closet. I looked around the room with my nose turned up. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but I guess it just wasn’t this. I knew it sounded tasteless and callous to be comparing abortion clinics, but the last one was a nice size room. Everything in it was white and nice and clean. This room was dark and dingy, and instead of lying on a table, which I would climb up on, I would have the procedure done while sitting in the kind of chair you might find at the dentist’s.
I nervously mounted the chair, wondering what, if anything, could make this daunting process m
ore comfortable. It wasn’t supposed to be comfortable. This wasn’t a day at the park, where I was about to fly a kite. This was more like a funeral, a death.
The doctor knocked on the door and then entered the room. After fiddling with some instruments, he said, “I’m going to need you to relax while I inject this into you. It’s going to numb your cervix walls.”
I cringed as I looked up and saw the colossal needle dribbling fluid from its tip. I became infuriated with this medical professional for having the audacity to command me to relax.
I recalled this part of the procedure—being injected with the needle—from my last abortion. It hurt. I braced myself for the injection, but before the doctor could inject me, there was a thud on the door and a nurse peeked her head in.
Both the doctor and I gave her a look that said, “Couldn’t this wait until we’ve finished up here?”
“Uh, there is a very angry gentleman out here who insists on seeing the patient,” she told the doctor and then looked at me. “You don’t have to see him.”
In other words, she was telling me I could go ahead and get this abortion done so that they could get their money before the jerk outside tried to talk me out of it.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said, not because I cared that Dino was outside the door, demanding to see me, but because I dreaded having that medical spear pierce me between my legs and I wanted to stall for time.
I got up out of the chair and walked out of the room, wearing nothing but a paper gown. The nurse stayed right there in the doorway, with a look on her face that told Dino that if he tried any mess, she was either going to call 911 or go for the gun she kept under her desk for any pro-life psychos who tried something crazy.
“What’s up?” I asked him, as if we were two teenagers posted up in the school hallway.
“I don’t want you to do this,” he said flat out. “I can’t let you kill my baby.”
What was going on here? On the drive up, Dino had been fine. I figured that even though he hadn’t voiced it, he had finally agreed with me that bringing a child into the world wasn’t the best of ideas, considering I was living with Nana and he was about to be living on the streets. I thought I could rightfully assume this since Dino hadn’t even once tried to talk me out of my decision on the drive to the clinic.