In This Life

by Leo Sullivan

“I’m sorry, Freddy,” Sasha whispered as her eyes slowly shut.

  “Sash! Sashaaa…” No answer.

  Freddy looked down at the tiny head protruding from her womb and his knees nearly buckled. He was sure that the baby must be drowning in its mother’s blood, so he wiped the blood away from the baby’s face and inadvertently tore the amniotic sac, pinkish fluid suddenly gushing out over his fingertips. Then bursting into tears as his helplessness overcame him. A boy trying to do a man’s job, the sobs wracked his body.

  Freddy grabbed up the phone and told the listening operator what had happened. “She has probably passed out from loss of blood,” the operator responded. “She needs immediate medical attention.”

  Freddy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “No shit!” he shouted.

  “It may take another hour before the rescue unit can make it to your location,” the operator advised.

  “Lady, I can’t wait another hour! He answered, dropping the phone and belting out the door of the apartment.

  In the hallway, he frantically pounded on the door of Ms. Crabapple’s apartment. She opened the door with a startled expression. “Please, ma’am,” he lamented. “Please help me! Sasha and the baby are dying! There’s blood everywhere and I don’t know what to do.”

  The old woman furrowed her brow, eyes slanted with disdain. “Get the hell away from my door! You people need to stay with your own kind.” She slammed the door in his face.

  In a panic, Freddy began to run down the hall, pounding on all the doors, screaming for help. The only response he received was the staccato reports of locks being secured and deadbolts throw, as if his mere presence somehow threatened the lives of the cowering residents.

  In exasperation, Freddy rushed back to the apartment, and much to his relief, found Sasha awake and breathing just like they had taught her in the parenting class. The baby’s shoulders were now exposed and Sasha continued to push with the determination of a mother’s love.

  “Push! He exhorted as he grasped her hand tightly in his own. Her final vociferous effort sent a shiver up his spine as the baby slid from the dark recesses of its mother’s body into a convoluted bloody heap between her legs. Freddy uttered an inarticulate cry of joy, and through Sasha’s painful smile, he thought he saw her wink at him before she once again succumbed to unconsciousness with a sigh. Together, Sasha Jinkins and Freddy Thugstin had overcome nearly insurmountable odds in bringing forth this precious gift of life, but neither of them yet knew the price they would pay.

  Freddy picked the newborn up in his two hands and nestled it against his side as he cleared its nose and mouth of mucus. He then suspended the child by its ankles and slapped it lightly on the rear. His new son cried out in a melodious dirge for its mother’s life.

  “It’s a boy,” Freddy proclaimed as he looked at Sasha’s peaceful face, but she didn’t hear him. All the color had drained from her complexion, and he noticed that blood was still flowing copiously from between her legs.

  He placed the baby down on the bloody bed between her legs and ran to the bathroom, retrieving all the towels he could find. He unfolded one towel and placed it beside Sasha, laying his son on the towel beside her, the umbilical cord trailing from the child across her abdomen and disappearing inside of her. Freddy wadded up the rest of the towels between her legs in an attempt to stop the flow of blood.

  Freddy picked up the phone and announced that it was a boy. For the first time, the operator’s emotions showed themselves as she instructed him on what to do. He had already done it all. She ended the conversation with assurances that help was on the way.

  He returned the phone to its cradle and then picked up his son as he crawled into bed beside Sasha. He cuddled the crying child in his right arm as he hugged Sasha close with his left. Sasha was barely breathing and the towels were all completely saturated with blood. His mind in a daze, Freddy whispered in her ear, “Everything is gonna be alright baby…Everything is gonna be okay,” uncertain of what he was saying.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Three hours later, the medics finally arrived. The door to the apartment stood ajar, so they rushed right in. Stan, the older of the EMT’s, hollered, “Hello? Anybody here?” Silence. He and his young partner, Tony, separated to search the apartment. Stan was investigating the kitchen area when Tony shouted urgently from the bedroom. Alarmed by the stress in his partner’s voice, Stan ran down the hallway, but skidded to a sudden stop when he entered the room. “Oh, Jesus,” he mumbled in shock.

  The bedroom looked like an slaughterhouse with a blood covered man, woman and baby, lying in a bed of gore. The young medic turned quickly away and fell to his knees as he vomited into a corner.

  The man in the bed rocked slightly to and fro as he mumbled quietly. The baby and the woman were encircled in his arms, the newborn’s umbilical still attached to its mother. Bloody sheets hung from the side of the bed and the carpet showed dark footprints going to and from the bathroom. A cloying metallic odor hung heavy in the room.

  “They’re… they’re black,” Tony stuttered as he stood back up, wiping his mouth.

  “Never mind that,” Stan said as he rushed into action. “Let’s get a pulse and pressure reading stat! Son, how long has she been like this?” He asked empathetically. Freddy didn’t respond. He merely rocked back and forth and mumbled unintelligibly. He’s in shock the medic thought to himself. Stan gently removed the baby from the crook of the boy’s arms and laid it to the side in preparation for severing the umbilical.

  “Her pulse is one-forty and weak. Diastole undetectable. Pressure sixty over zero,” the young medic said with a grim expression on his face.

  Stan stood up and quickly pulled a radio from his waist. “Emergency one to base! Emergency one to base!” He barked. With the radio wedged against his shoulder, he began breaking open sealed packets of tubing, needles and tape.

  “Base to Emergency one, go ahead,” the radio responded.

  “I have a Code Red here,” Stan said. Woman, 18 to 20 years of age, severe uterine hemorrhaging due to complications of unassisted childbirth. Pulse forty and fluttering, pressure seventy over 20. Patient is unconscious, skin dry, temperature slightly depressed. Child is alive and stable. I’m starting an VI with 500 cc’s of Ringers. Recommend Life Flight, stat.” His words came rapid-fire as he inserted a needle into the young woman’s arm and attached a bag, containing a clear liquid, to her the tubing coming from the needle. “There is also a male of approximately the same age, apparently in shock, unable to respond verbally. He appears to be uninjured…God, you wouldn’t believe what this place looks like.” The medic’s voice cracked with emotion as he looked at the woman and child. He dared not mention that they were black, for in his mind, he could not help but wonder why he had been dispatched to this scene only thirty minutes ago, when it appeared that this emergency was several hours old. After all, this was Ford City…

  ******

  Within minutes, the Life Flight landed in the street out front, its blades sending dervishes of snow swirling away like small, angry tornadoes.

  Sasha lay strapped to a gurney as they exited the apartment. The hallway was crowded with gawkers. Ms. Crabapple’s mouth hung open in astonishment as the reality of the situation for the first time penetrated her inborn prejudice. Sasha was wheeled past, motionless, seemingly dead. Freddy followed zombie-like, his clothes drenched in blood, the side of his face covered in coagulated gore. Ms Crabapple took a step back as his eyes found her, eyes that looked stunned with incomprehension, eyes that asked why…

  Outside, a small ramp lowered from the rear of the helicopter and Freddy was led through the deafening noise into its interior. In Freddy’s mind, everything moved slowly through numbness and disbelief, the snow swirling surrealistically around him. As the ramp raised into place, the far noise got even more distant and as the chopper strained against gravity, Freddy’s ears popped. He could hear a baby crying in the distance and thought that he could see Sasha, thou
gh only barely, through all the people working frantically around her.

  His view was suddenly cut off by someone directly in front of him, asking meaningless questions. “How old is she? Is she allergic to anything? Do you know her blood-type…?”

  “Maybe he’s a deaf-mute,” a voice derided.”

  “No, he’s in shock,” a genial voice explained.

  Freddy felt someone squeeze his arm and then the prick of a needle. A slow warmth crept over him and he finally let go of the world and his consciousness as he floated high over the false innocence of the snow shrouded city.

  ******

  Hours later, Freddy Thugstin awakened in a hard plastic chair parked in a sterile white and blue alcove off a hallway that he thought he might recognize. It took him a moment to get his bearings, and as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he tasted blood, Sasha’s blood, and like a tsunami, the unbearable memories washed inexorably over him. He looked around desperately, eyes squinted in confusion, heart hammering in the beginnings of panic. Pieces of conversation drifted to him through the foggy haze of his mind as he staggered out into the hallway. “Sasha… Sasha!” he croaked as he stumbled toward a nurse’s station. “Where is Sasha Jinkins?” he demanded of the nurse on duty.’

  “Who?” The nurse asked with a look of disapproval. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she said as she rudely turned her back to him.

  Freddy grabbed her arm. “Where is Sasha Jinkins?” he urgently repeated.

  The nurse pulled away with a look of disbelief on her face. “How dare you put your hands on me!” She protested, nervously reaching for the phone.

  “Mr. Thugstin,” someone called from behind him. A doctor approached from where he had been watching and placed a hand on the nurse’s shoulder, while taking the phone from her with the other hand. “It’s all right, Nurse Brooks, everything is under control,” he said reassuringly. Her further attempt to protest was immediately silenced by the calm look of authority on the doctor’s face. He turned to Freddy. “Mrs. Brooks was not on duty this morning when you and your girlfriend arrived with the baby…”

  “This morning?” Freddy repeated, baffled, running his fingers back through his hair. “Where is Sasha?” He asked again.

  The doctor’s tone softened. “I need to talk to you ab--” The nurse huffed, picked up a clipboard and stormed out of the room. “As I was saying, I need to talk to you about her--”

  “Where is she?” Freddy asked, becoming more agitated by the minute.

  “First, you need to know that Ms. Jinkins suffered a prenatal uterine infection that caused the uterus of her cervix to fail to dilate, resulting in a severe hemorrhage during the delivery of the ba--”

  Freddy didn’t understand a word the doctor was saying. “Where the hell is she, man?”

  The doctor shook his head in frustration and blurted out, “Room 418,” before he realized the mistake.

  Freddy took off running down the hall…406…408…

  410…

  “Please, wait! Mr. Thugstin!” The doctor pleaded behind him.

  When Freddy entered Room 418, he found figure standing beside the bed, dressed in all black, with his back to the door. A weathered, chalk-white face under gray hair turned to reveal itself sitting atop the stiff white collar of a priest, the man’s light-blue eyes somehow giving him a cold, sinister appearance. He hovered over Sasha like a bird of prey, a bible clutched in his vulture claws. He beckoned with ring-encrusted fingers. “Come, my son, let us pray,” he said in a silky voice and with a vulpine glint in his icy eyes.

  On wobbly legs, Freddy stumbled toward the man, looking past him to the bed. “Oh, lawd,” he uttered as he saw Sasha laying there, eyes closed, arms at her sides. There were tubes running from her arms and her nose and her mouth to machines that huffed and pinged and bounced with lines of green light. Sasha seemed entrapped in the web of some bizarre cybernetic organism, part human, part machine.

  Freddy glared at the priest, convinced the man was there to steal her soul. Pointing at the door, he yelled, “Get out!”

  The priest looked at him in astonishment, his face seeming to say, “You can’t possibly be talking to me.”

  “You heard me, get the fuck outta here!” He grabbed the priest by the back of his collar and the seat of his pants and shoved him out the door, slamming it behind him.

  He returned gingerly to the bed, kissing Sasha affectionately on the forehead. “Sasha, I know you can hear me,” he said in a near whisper. He took her limp hand in his. “When you wake up, we’re gonna do like you said,” he assured her, biting his lips to hold his emotions in check. “You can get the job you wanted as a cashier and go to law school at night. I can get a job too and we’ll raise up this son of ours--” He stopped and looked about the room in momentary confusion as if seeing for the first time where he really was. He wiped a lone tear from his cheek with the back of a hand. “Oh, yeah, I’m gonna name the baby Life.” He smiled and added teasingly, “Now girl, don’t be arguin’ with me,” and he laughed out loud. He gently caressed her hair with a trembling hand. “I know you’re sayin’ I ain’t gonna name my baby no Life…” He chuckled and mopped at his now streaming tears with this hand. “Yeah, yeah, we’re goin’ far away from here and I’m gonna give them white folks back all their shit. Remember when I had you stop so I could get that raggedy gun… I also picked up the jewelry and stashed it at the apartment, just in case.” At a loss for word, he adjusted the sheets around Sasha, noticing that she was still wearing the wedding ring that Marilyn had given to her.

  “Remember when I was about eight and I’d call you Big Bird and you’d chase me home and knuckle my bald head? I used to let you catch me… Yes I did,” he said in mock argument, smiling through teary eyes. “Who you callin’ Peanut head?” Tears were streaming down his face. “Sasha, Sasha,” he cried through a suppressed sob, “I don’t want to live in this life without you… I love you Sasha. I love you the way a man is supposed to love his woman, more than life itself.” His voice trembled with emotion. “Sometimes… sometimes I can sense things and see them before they happen… it’s weird. Mama used to call it a gift, but I always knew it was a curse “cuz who want to see bad things? I saw this happenin’ to you before…” He choked on his words, succumbing to the grief.

  He closed his eyes and clasped his hands in prayer. “Oh Lord, Lord, I don’t like it here! Oh God, please wake her up, wake her up. Please God, wake her up for me,” he sobbed, hugging her to him, his head pressed against her bosom, the man-child lost in his pain and helplessness.

  Behind him, a door opened and footsteps approached unnoticed. A gently hand came to rest on his shoulder. He turned to find Sasha’s father staring at him with eyes of bereavement. Freddy stood slowly to face the man that despised him.

  The man embraced him with a hug that he could not reciprocate. “Son, there’s nothing else we can do… She’s going home to the other side. I’m proud of her. She gave her life while she was bringing a life into this world. That is the greatest gift a woman can--”

  “No! No!” Freddy pulled away from him. “Sasha and the baby are coming home with me!” He shouted.

  “Son, I’m afraid that’s not possible. The doctors say Sasha is dead…clinically brain dead--” Freddy took a step back, unwilling to believe or accept what he was hearing. “-- she’s a vegetable…” The man’s large hand suddenly covered his mouth, as if the harsh reality of what he said seized him completely, leaving him powerless to continue.

  ******

  Three days later, Freddy sat at Sasha’s bedside, holding his infant son. He read to them from a book of her favorite poems that he had found in her purse.

  The room took on a sudden chill, and the baby began to cry. Freddy closed his eyes at the monotonous buzz of a heart monitor that had ceased the intermittent beeps of life. He opened his eyes to glare at the machine, not daring to look at Sasha in death, because he had to remember her only in life.

&nbs
p; Freddy stood with the baby nestled in his arms. “Mama’s goin’ to heaven,” he cooed to his crying son. He stood there for a moment looking dazedly at his son; his shoulders slumped, before walking slowly from the room.

  Later that same day, Freddy paid the two thousand dollar hospital bill in cash. This came as quite a surprise to the white folks, especially the nurse with whom he had had the confrontation.

  Bill, Sasha’s father, was there as well, and he took the little baby, Life, home with his wife.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The snowplows had dug much of the city out from under the avalanche of snow. Freddy sat in the backseat of the old Cadillac, immune to Bill’s arguments. Sasha’s father just couldn’t seem to talk any sense into his stubborn head. Freddy was steadfast in his desire to return to Ford City. He felt he owed Sasha that much. Besides, he had some unfinished business there.

  Bill wanted no part of racist Ford City, not even long enough to pickup Sasha’s belongings.

  The car stopped and Freddy kissed his infant son goodbye, conscious of the possibility that he might never see him again. The large Caddy fishtailed in the slick, icy street as it hauled ass out the city. Freddy waved sadly and then turned to trudge wearily through the snow.

  The day was cold and dreary with a dark, overcast sky. As the snow crunched under his feet, Freddy welcomed the quiet, though this time it was accompanied by overwhelming loneliness. He had never felt so all alone in his entire life.

  As he entered the vestibule of the apartment complex, he was assailed by all kinds of conflicting emotions--mostly rage. Even after his slow solemn trek to the front entrance, he still couldn’t shake the anger that was tormenting him. The small metallic click of inserting his key into the lock on Marilyn’s door was joined by the sounds of other locks being surreptitiously unbolted. Freddy turned to see Ms. Crabapple and a veritable gerontocracy of neighbors gawking at him.