Michael Smith - Rivers

He spoke like a man who had thought for a long time about what he was saying. Either that or he spoke like a man who had rehearsed. His tone was certain and the air of certainty was in his face and eyes.

“So who are they?” Cohen asked again.

The man raised his arm and held out his hand as if reaching for something, and then he began to wave in slow motion. “They are like me. Like us. They belong here. They are who I take care of. Who I am responsible for. They are for me and I’m for them and we are for you. You came to us and we’ll make a place for you.”

“I didn’t come to nobody and I don’t need a place. I need that girl and some gas.”

“You need a place. We all need a place.”

“Why are they locked up?”

Aggie lowered his hand. Got up and walked a circle around the fire and then sat back down. They were quiet for a while. Cohen’s leg throbbed and the bleeding slowed and they watched the fire dying out. There was no more use in talking, Cohen thought. Not now. Not tomorrow. Talking wasn’t going to get him what he wanted and talking wasn’t going to get him out of here.

The whiskey caught up with Cohen and he felt light and numb. Around them the night was black and still like a painting.

But then the quiet was interrupted by a knocking. Cohen seemed to be the only one to hear it as Aggie didn’t move. It kept on. A patient, consistent knock coming from the trailer closest to them. Cohen looked over and there was the round beam of a flashlight in the window and the knocking kept on, turning into a banging, and then there were the voices of two women calling out. “Aggie, open up. Aggie, come on. She’s ready. It’s ready. Open up.”

Aggie stood. He reached into his pocket and took out a ring of keys, and he turned himself toward Cohen so he could see the revolver stuck in his pants. Then he walked over to the guns and picked them up and opened his door and set them inside, locked the door and turned, then walked over toward the voices. “Get back,” he called out.

“Open the door. She’s ready,” a woman called back.

“I said get back.”

From behind the door, there was a painful moaning.

Cohen got to his feet and stood with his back to the fire. Aggie unlocked and opened the door and one woman held the flashlight on another woman who stepped out. Her face was twisted in pain and she held her hand across her big, round belly and she was wearing two coats, one with a hood pulled over her head. She stepped out of the trailer carefully, as if the ground might crack beneath her. The woman with the flashlight came out behind her and held the pregnant woman by the arm.

Cohen almost didn’t believe it but he had learned that in this land you should believe everything. And not believe everything. Somewhere in the midst of his thoughts, in the middle of this night, the woman’s moaning seemed like the perfect sound. He watched her walk with her back arched and her steps small and her anguished expression, and he momentarily forgot about the pain in his leg as he realized what type of hurt was coming for her. He felt for the knife beneath his coat. In its sheath, tight against his belt. Then he felt for the picture of Elisa folded in his back pocket. And then Aggie reappeared, holding what looked like the medicine bag of an early-century good country doctor.

AVA WALKED WITH AGGIE AND the pregnant woman, holding her arm and hand, asking Aggie what they were going to do as if having this baby in this place was an idea that only moments ago had occurred to any of them. While they walked laps around the fire, Aggie moved away from the circle of trailers and off into the field to a cow trailer with two pieces of plywood laid across the top. He opened up the back of the trailer and the iron groaned from rust and he stepped up and in. Cohen stood still as the women passed him around the fire and they acted as if he wasn’t there until he asked if he could do anything.

They stopped and the pregnant woman shook her head and the other said, “Why don’t you run on down to the hospital and bring back a doctor and a nurse and a grenade to shove up Aggie’s ass.” They were short women and the one who did the talking wore a faded blue bandana tied around her head and the same kind of army coat as Aggie and mismatched gloves. The pregnant woman’s hands were bare and she made fists when she grunted. She pushed her hood back and sweat glistened on her forehead in the dim light of the fire.

Their names were Ava and Lorna. Lorna about to become the mother.

“You need to get some help out here, Aggie,” Ava said. She spoke as if she were unafraid of the man with the keys. “And figure out where the hell we gonna do this.”

“We don’t need any help,” he said and he set the worn black leather bag on the ground. He lit a cigarette and sat down on top of the stack of cinder blocks. “Ain’t no hurry.”

“You don’t know that,” Ava said.

“Holy Lord,” Lorna said, squeezing at Ava’s hand.

“Breathe big and let it go. Breathe big.”

The contraction lasted a long minute. No one spoke as they watched her breathe. When the pain subsided, they walked over to where Aggie sat and he got up and the pregnant woman eased down.

“That your new boyfriend?” Ava asked without looking at the men.

“How long you think it’s gonna be?” Aggie asked.

“Don’t know. Before the night is over.”

Another contraction came on and the woman clenched her jaw and threw back her head.

“This ain’t a good idea,” Cohen said.

Aggie cleared his throat, spit. Took a drag off the cigarette and looked at Cohen and said, “At times I am afraid, I will trust in the Lord.”

“Go tell her that,” Cohen answered.

“Holy Lord, holy Lord,” Lorna cried out. “Holy Lord, here it comes again. Goshdamn it hurts. Holy Lord, holy Lord, holy Lord.” She talked through it, her voice rising and falling with the rise and fall of the contractions, and almost as if summoned by the gods, the sound of her voice and the promise of a new life into this land brought on the spirit of the winds and the sound of thunder.

Cohen looked at her and at all the other women pacing about and then he thought of Elisa. When I’m big and fat people are gonna open doors for me and give up their places in line, she had said. They already do that, he told her. Because you’re so damn pretty. I’m gonna eat and eat some more and you know some women eat dirt and he didn’t believe that but she explained that it was true and then she stuck a pillow under her shirt and patted her belly and said she was gonna get fat and not worry about it and he’d better not, either. And enough with all the sweet talk ’cause you already knocked me up. The work is done. She took the pillow from under her shirt and threw it at him and he said if the work is all done then I’m getting a beer and she didn’t like that, either. Didn’t like that he could drink beer and coffee and smoke a cigarette and she couldn’t and she didn’t like that he didn’t mind doing any of these things right in front of her. Drove her crazy. Made him laugh.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Lorna said, breathing hard as the contraction eased.

Cohen walked around. He remembered being right, though she was certain it was going to be a boy. Told him every day for three weeks before they found out. It’s a boy. I know it’s a boy. Nope, he told her. And I’ll bet you twenty bucks. She laughed and said you don’t have twenty bucks and you’d better hope like hell it’s not a girl anyway. Because you won’t be worth a damn if it is.

“Oh hell, it’s coming again,” Lorna groaned and the intensity returned.

He thought of the twenty dollars she had given him when they got back to the house after the doctor visit and the piggy bank he stuck it in. He thought of his hand on her belly. Her stomach was round now and it all seemed more real than it had before they knew it was a girl. As he walked around the compound and listened to the woman cry out, he held out his hand and tried to feel that round belly again, tried to feel the baby in the only way that he had ever felt her. But his open hand didn’t feel anything but the cold air and his memories of Elisa were chased away by the sounds of the pleading woman and the notion of what Aggie had done to her.