by Jack Kilborn
Tangi was gone.
During the next twenty-four hours, I thought a lot about what I’d done wrong. I should have followed the “less is more” rule, and gone easy on the mustard. If you slather too much on, it just overpowers everything.
I also thought about Tangi for a little bit.
If there were two people any less suited to having a child, I couldn’t name them. She was a criminal who knew how to bump locks and pick pockets. I was an aging, rich bachelor who didn’t want to get tied down. At least, not to a family. I didn’t mind the occasional kinky stuff.
Having a child wasn’t on my list of things to do before I died. A kid would seriously cramp my style. I wouldn’t even make a good weekend father, because my weekends were spent doing something very important to me: sleeping in then drinking beer.
I certainly couldn’t see having any kind of relationship with Tangi. Not when she gave up the punani so quickly. I mean, jeez, easy much?
Like any new expectant father, I played the “can I murder her and get away with it” scenario in my head for a few minutes, smiling at a few of my more outrageous ideas, like feeding her to wild pigs. (Seriously, Thomas Harris, did you have to go there with Hannibal?)
But much as I enjoyed imagining it, murder probably wasn’t very likely.
Needing another perspective on this, I decided to give my sister a call. I used a computer scrambler that ghosted my phone number, because Sis tended not to pick up when she knew the call was from me. I never could figure out why.
“This is Jack Daniels.”
“Jackie! It’s Harry! How’s things?”
Her groan rattled my ear drum. “My back hurts, my feet are swollen, and if I don’t get this kid out of me soon, I’m going to eat my gun.”
Jack also happened to be pregnant.
“Yeah, that’s great,” I said. “But I got a problem and I want your advice.”
“Do you have any chocolate?”
“What?”
“Phin isn’t answering his cell, and I’m too fat to fit behind the wheel of my car. I need chocolate.”
I swear I could hear her drool. “I’m in the city, Sis. You’re in the suburbs. How am I supposed to…”
“I’m hanging up. And I hate it when you call me Sis.”
Christ, were all pregnant women this psycho? Why weren’t they clearly marked with warning labels, like poison or high voltage lines?
“Hold on, let me think.” I rubbed my forehead. “There’s a drug store down the street from you.”
“I’m not going down the street. I’m so fat I don’t think I can even fit through the door. I split a pair of stretch pants. Do you know how fat you have to be to split stretch pants?”
“I’ll call the store, ask them to deliver some chocolate to you.”
“Drugstores don’t deliver.”
“I’ll be persuasive.”
“Do it. When I get the chocolate, I’ll call you back.”
“Wait, I—”
She hung up.
I had to use a combination of my charming personality and good, old-fashioned bribery to get the drugstore to deliver Jack some sugary goodness. Five Snickers bars cost me a hundred bucks. Fucking incredible. For that kind of money, they had better be filled with gold nuggets and cocaine.
When Jack called me back, her mouth was full. “Thabths.”
I assumed that was chocolate-speak for thanks.
I folded myself into my leather couch. “I got a problem, Jack. I knocked someone up.”
“Poor thing. I feel for her.”
“Think about me.”
“I am. That’s why I feel for her.”
“She wants to have it. And she wants me to be involved.”
“And you, since you’re you, want to continue with your solitary, selfish ways, being a blight on society and not doing a single good thing for anyone other than yourself.”
“I love it that you understand me so well.”
“How far along is she?”
I had to think for a moment. “I don’t know. She looks about fifteen months. She’s so big, she has her own gravitational pull.”
“You need to man up, McGlade.”
I frowned. “That’s your advice? Man up?”
“I gotta go. Phin just came home, and I’m so horny I could scream. Call me next month, lemme know how things turned out.”
She hung up the phone.
I didn’t know where Tangi lived. I didn’t even know her last name. But I was a private investigator, and it only took me three days of round-the-clock searching before I realized I still had her number on my cell.
“What do you want, asshole?”
“It’s me. Harry.”
“I know who it is.”
“I’ve been… thinking… about our situation.”
I could practically hear Tangi roll her eyes. “I’ll bet.”
“I’m ready to claim maybe a tiny bit of the responsibility for this. Assuming it’s mine.”
“It’s definitely yours. I had a dry spell for two months before you, because Sal’s goons kept chasing men away. And after you, I decided to become a lesbian.”
“Really? That’s hot.”
“Why did you call, McGlade?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slow. “I want to be a part of this and support any decision you make.”
There was a long pause, and part of me hoped she had hung up.
But, strangely, another part of me didn’t.
“I have an OBGYN appointment today at the Farmview center, on Monroe. Two p.m.”
“Okay. Maybe we can meet sometime afterward.”
“Not afterward, you callous shithead. Meet me there.”
“You want me at the doctor’s office?”
“Yes.”
“At the same time you’re there?”
“Yes.”
“Will I have to look at your enormous, naked body?”
Tangi hung up.
I didn’t like doctors. They always wanted to take something from you, like blood or a kidney, or stick something in you, like a probe or a needle.
As I walked into the waiting room, apprehension crouched on my shoulders and decided to hang out there. Six chairs were all very filled with very pregnant women, many of them appearing ready to pop. It sort of reminded me of the Alps. Never before had I been in a room full of women and been so unaroused.
I did a quick scan of the fatties, didn’t notice Tangi, and then turned around to leave just as she was walking in.
“Hey, babe. You’re looking… uh… pregnant.”
“So you showed up. I didn’t think you would.”
“Yep. Here I am. So you want me to just write you a check, then meet you afterward?”
I noticed all the preggos were listening to us while pretending not to.
“You’re going in,” Tangi said. “With me.”
“And we’re sure this kid is mine? No offense, but you jumped me so fast I felt like just one more guy in the queue. I was surprised you didn’t have one of those deli ticket number dispensers strapped to your back.”
One of the women seated around us made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a huff.
Tangi rolled her eyes. “I’m sure the baby is yours, Harry.”
“Isn’t there some sort of blood test to confirm this?”
“We can do all the blood tests you pay for. But you’re going in there with me today.” Tangi waddled off to check in with the receptionist.
I leaned over and whispered to the beluga whale sitting nearest to me, “I think she did this to trap me into marriage.”
“I doubt that’s the case,” the woman said.
I appraised her. She was big enough to make good money selling shade at the beach.
“Jesus. How many kids you got in there? Twenty?”
“The Lord has blessed me with twins.”
“The Lord? He’s the one who shagged you?”
She gave me a look that was anything bu
t holy, and then Tangi returned.
“I have to go pee in a cup. You’d better still be here when I get back.”
“Sure. Of course, babe. I’ll be right here. Scout’s honor.”
Tangi disappeared into the office, and I tripped over myself bolting for the exit.
“Not a good idea.”
I stopped. Yet another fatty was butting into my personal business. “Excuse me?”
“You leave right now, that woman will never speak to you again. And if that is your kid, you’re going to find that someday down the line, you’ll wish you hadn’t screwed this up.”
I wanted to argue. But the way she stared at me, with those big, pregnant eyes, I knew this wise fat woman was right. Rather than flee, I found myself plopping down in the seat next to her.
“So what’s your story?” I asked. “This another Virgin Birth like the nut job over there?”
The woman showed me the magazine she was reading. Modern Parenthood. The lead story, in block letters over some drooling baby’s grinning face, was “The Importance of Daddy.”
“Children in two-parent households have many more advantages than those of single parents. They wind up forming better social relationships in life, making more money in their careers, living longer, and actually being happier. Let me take a shot—you didn’t grow up with both parents in the picture, did you?”
I was an orphan. I didn’t grow up with any parents in the picture. I only found out Jack was my long-lost sister relatively recently. “What if the child is raised by a single, loving mother, and the single-loving father never visits but sends a buttload of money? Enough to pay for a nanny or a butler or some kind of cool baby-raising robot?”
The wizened preggo gave me a look. “I don’t think that’s the same thing. Do you?”
“What about you? I don’t see your guy sitting here and holding your hand while—”
A guy walked in, sat next to the woman, and held her hand. “Just parked, honey. You check in already?”
She nodded, turning away from me. I mulled over the fatty’s questions, but Tangi walked back into the waiting room with a nurse at her side before I could come up with any answers. “We can go in.”
Feeling a little like I was on my way to the gallows, I tagged behind them, weaving through a carpeted hallway, and winding up in a room with some Star Trekish machines tucked into the corners. It smelled like antiseptic and baby powder. Tangi selfishly took the only stool, leaving me the padded table with the stirrups. I elected to stand.
“So… how’s life?” I asked, mostly to break the uncomfortable silence.
“Every morning I throw up for twenty minutes, all the while cursing the day I met you. I have to sleep sitting up, and I pee my pants when I sneeze. How the fuck do you think my life is?”
I really needed to start using condoms.
I spent a few minutes playing with my cuticles, and then the doctor came in. She was short, thin, Indian. The 7-11 owner kind, not the casino owner kind.
“Hello, Tangi! How are you?” She had a high-pitched, musical voice, and the smile on her face seemed genuine. The smile fell away when she noticed me. “Is this the one who did this to you?”
“Yeah. That’s Harry McGlade.”
She gave me a curt nod. “Hello, Mr. McGlade. I’m Doctor Patel.”
“I notice that every other Indian I meet is named Patel. Is it because there are so many of you in India that you ran out of names? Or did Grandpappy Patel really get around, if you know what I mean? By that, I mean he pumped a lot of poon.”
“You are right,” Dr. Patel said to Tangi. “He is an asshole.”
Dr. Patel showed me her back and began asking Tangi rapid-fire questions about her health. After listening to her heartbeat and checking her temperature and blood pressure, the doctor motioned to the scale along the wall. “Now why don’t we see how much you’ve gained?”
“Is this the only scale you’ve got?” I asked. “I can grab one from another exam room, and we can push them together, one foot on each.”
A frown from Dr. Patel. “Mr. McGlade, if you’re having difficulty showing sympathy, I can give you a shot so your testicles swell up to the size of pumpkins.”
“That would make it tough to find pants.”
“Then perhaps you should restrict your comments to supportive ones.”
Tangi heaved herself off the stool. She waddled over to the scale and stepped on board. The level clanked to one side. Doc Patel slid weight after weight. Finally it evened off.
“About a pound in the last week. That makes for a thirty-four pound gain. Excellent.”
Excellent wasn’t the word I’d use, unless the kid was going to be born weighing thirty-four pounds. But I managed to keep quiet.
“Now please hop up onto the table and we’ll check your cervix. No, not you, Mr. McGlade.”
The doctor handed Tangi a gown that looked as if it was made of paper. Then she pulled a curtain, partitioning off the room. Tangi shimmied out of her sweats and—good lord—gigantic granny panties, which was the unsexiest thing I’d ever seen. At least it was until she got up on the table and put her feet in the stirrups. I never imagined a naked woman in that position could look so… clinical. It was the first vagina I ever looked away from.
The doctor pulled back the curtain and rejoined us. She hunkered down between Tangi’s thighs and stuck a medieval-looking metal device up her hoo-ha. “No dilation yet. Have you had any Braxton Hicks contractions?”
“No.”
“I’m going to do a swab for fetal fibronectin, to check for preterm labor.”
“And I’m going to the men’s room, to check to make sure my penis hasn’t shrunk so small it’s now gone.”
“How would you know the difference?” Tangi asked.
She and Dr. Patel chuckled. However, I wasn’t entirely joking. I did a quick pat down to make sure I was still all there.
“Have you both decided yet on the sex?” Dr. Patel asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “And it was the wrong-ass decision. I may never have sex again.”
“The sex of the baby, Mr. McGlade. Would you like to know if it is a boy or a girl?”
The question pinned me there, and I wasn’t sure how to react. A moment ago, less than a moment ago, this baby was just a thing, a nameless, faceless problem that I didn’t want to deal with. But giving it a sex meant thinking about names, and thinking about names meant thinking about bigger things, like saving up for the right college.
“Uh… um… ah…”
“What do you want to do, Harry?” Tangi asked.
“Why don’t we wait until the kid is a teenager.”
“I think we should find out.”
The doctor slipped the speculum out of Tangi, which looked about as sexy as it sounds. “You can put your legs down.”
I raised my hand. “I’ll second that.”
Tangi took her feet out of the stirrups, and the doctor slid them into the table. Then she walked to one of the scary-looking machines and wheeled it over. After pulling up Tangi’s gown yet again, she grabbed a tube of something from a nearby cupboard. “This might feel a little cold.” She slathered jelly all over the beach ball that was Tangi’s stomach.
I watched, intrigued, as Dr. Patel moved a handheld whatchamacallit across Tangi’s abdomen. She pointed to the machine’s monitor.
I was shocked how clear the child’s features were. “Holy shit! That’s the face.”
“Looks like a little smile there, too,” Dr. Patel said.
Tangi’s hand somehow found mine. I squeezed it back.
The doctor moved the camera around, down the child’s body. “And there are the baby’s shoulders. And there are his hands. And—”
“Oh my God,” I said. “He’s a porn star.”
“That’s the leg, Mr. McGlade. But right there…” Dr. Patel adjusted a knob on the monitor. “That’s his penis.”
“It’s so small,” I said.
“That’s y
our son, all right,” Tangi said. She gripped my hand tighter.
“So… we’re having a boy?” My voice cracked a little.