Charlie Huston - My Dead Body

Delilah sniffs.

– If you don’t care to embrace your true self, you need not be burdened by myself or the child.

– Hon, that’s not what I.

She raises a hand.

– I’d prefer silence.

Lydia leans into her headrest.

– More craziness.

I rasp my whiskers with my fingernails.

– Price of admission.

• • •

There’s another price to be paid.

– You are so full of shit!

– Delilah, my dear, I was only trying to reassure myself that you were safe.

– Fuck that! I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about all your bullshit about these people!

Ben ducks the pointed finger as it swings his way.

– Baby, I’m not sure that’s the kind of language you mean to be using.

Her finger changes into a flat palm that she shoves an inch from Ben’s nose.

– Ben, baby daddy, shut the fuck up unless you want the remaining romance in this deal to go running down the drain.

Ben shuts up and takes a step back.

She turns to Chubby.

– Have you ever spent any time with these psychos? They. You made it sound like an adventure!

Chubby has his arms extended, showing his palms, fingers pointed down, supplicant.

– I was trying to entertain.

– I was a kid, for fuck sake!

– Entertain a very advanced child with very mature tastes.

– Don’t blame me for this shit.

– I am not. Your mother and I, our business. Of course your own interests were exotic. A bedtime reading of The Cat in the Hat was hardly in order.

She gives him the palm treatment.

– Just. OK. I don’t want to. Because I will just get.

She steps to him and shoves as hard as she can, failing to budge him an inch.

– We almost died! Over and over we almost died! And my baby, they would have killed my baby!

Her shoves turn to slaps, smacking his face side to side.

– You and your bullshit ideas of what being a dad is. Trying to show off. You and your secrets. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!

Slaps turn to fists and Chubby has enough.

Grabs her by the wrists.

– Woman.

Ben steps to, draws a look from Chubby, and steps off.

Chubby pushes his face close to his daughter’s.

– You wanted adventure and romance. I obliged. You showed up with your young man and your predicament, and I gave you my best advice and counsel. Get rid of them both. Boy and baby. Because you are my daughter and I want what is best for you. But you are not a little girl, you are all grown up. Making your own decisions. That you judged reality by your bedtime stories bespeaks your own personal weaknesses. That you chose to indulge a predilection for dramatics, which is excessive to say the least, bespeaks your desire to dodge responsibilities. Now you have seen all this, what would you like me to do? What can I do to make up the past for you? Can I tell you a fresh fairy tale? One with a happy ending for you and Ben? From what I understand, that will not be coming true. We’ll need to hide you both, more than ever. You and your baby. You will be a mother soon. Time to stop worrying about the past. Time to worry about the future.

She twists free, stares at him.

– Hide my baby?

She shakes her head slow to the left.

– Never.

Slow to the right.

– This child is meant for the light.

Chubby’s hands flutter at his sides.

– Delilah, dear, I’m not suggesting you live in a cave.

– Yeah, you are. He looks at Lydia.

She’s leaning against the wall, next to the assault rifle she took from the Cure house.

– You’re telling them they have the love that dare not speak its name. And a baby that’s going to have to learn to pass. And that’s not the way it has to be.

Chubby slips a thumb in the armhole of his vest.

– This is a family matter, Miss Miles.

– Mizz Miles.

She comes away from the door.

– Throw those diminutives around, but don’t slap them on me.

Chubby looks at me.

– Joe?

I shake my head.

– No way, I’m not in this.

Lydia goes to Delilah.

– We can use you.

She puts a hand on Delilah’s belly.

– This baby, whatever it is, this baby says we’re all the same. It says infected and uninfected, we’re all human. It forces them to look at us and see people, not monsters. This baby, it’s not a symbol, it’s a fact. And it, and you, both of you together, if you come with me, you can save lives. Just by being there and letting people see you and see what you made together.

Chubby wipes a hand down his face.

– Madness. Madness.

Lydia stays with Delilah’s eyes.

– It is not safe. It will not be safe. But it isn’t a safe world. All we can do is try and make it better.

Delilah’s eyes are wide and shiny.

She holds her hand open to Ben, he takes it, she pulls him close.

– This is a child of destiny in troubled times.

Chubby throws up his hands and walks away.

– Babbling, incoherent madness.

Delilah puts a hand on her belly.

– I will not hide this light.

She takes a step, pulling Ben along.

– Come, Benjamin, we are not welcome here.

Chubby takes a step after them.

– Delilah. Some small ounce of sense, please.

But she’s turned away, opening the office door.

– Lydia Miles, we will go with you. She will speak to the world, and our child will lead.

Ben glances back at us.

– I.

She pulls at his hand.

He lets himself be pulled.

– I’m a dad, man.

Both disappearing down the hall.

Delilah’s voice raised to declaim.

– We can shine a light. Our baby can be a light.

Chubby stands at the corner of his desk, moves toward the door, has another thought, turns back, stands lost in the middle of the room.

– Impetuous. That has always been her nature. Impetuous, passionate, romantic. Not a patient or a realistic bone in her body.

He looks at Lydia.

– And you encouraged her.

Lydia picks up the assault rifle.

– I just told her the right thing to do, she made up her own mind.

– Yes, a starring role as mother of the messiah baby, how could she resist?

Lydia waves him off.

– I’m guiding a revolution. You, Freeze, you’re trying to make yourself feel better about being a crappy dad.

He moves to a corner, stands there, looking at photos on the wall.

Lydia comes to where I’m slumped on the couch, she puts a hand under my chin and forces my head up and takes a good look into my eyes.

– For a girl. Joe Pitt blows up the world, for a girl.

She shakes her head.

– I wish I knew.

She lets go of my chin and straightens.

– I wish I knew.

She turns and walks away.

– I wish I knew where I could find a girl like that.

I watch her walk, favoring the side where the bullet’s stuck in her, carrying the assault rifle on her shoulder.

Tomorrow she’ll be on TV. Standing with her people around her. Delilah and Ben right up front. Trying to put a human face on what they’re pulling out of that hole in Queens.

And she’ll be lucky to live one more day past that.

I raise my good hand.

– Lydia.

She doesn’t look back at me.

– Save it.

– Just gonna say you can take the Impala.

– I already was.

And walks out the open door.

She does make it through the next couple days without dying or being thrown in a cage, she’ll go back underground. Fighting a new kind of fight. But I don’t need to tell her that.

After all, she kept the gun.

That lady, she wants to find a girl worth blowing up the world for, she should maybe look in the mirror.

– Do you think Delilah will come back?