Russell Banks - Continental Drift

In the parking lot by the store, Bob kisses Marguerite softly on the lips, says he loves her more and more every day, and steps from her car. “Wait a second,” he says, closing her car door. “Wait till I make sure I can get my car into gear.” He slides into his car, starts the motor and drops the car into reverse. It makes a clunking noise, but it goes in. “ Okay , it’s fine,” he says happily. “I don’t need you no mo’ for nuthin. Not for nuthin !” he says, laughing.

She smiles out the open window of her car and purses her lips at him. “You will soon, honey. Jus’ wait.” Then she spins the wheel and drives off.

Slowly, Bob draws out a cigarette and lights it, inhaling the smoke the way he inhaled the grass, tamping it down into the furthest recesses of his lungs. Grass is great, he announces to himself. Switching on the radio, he fiddles with the tuner until he finds a country and western station, and for a few seconds he listens to Kenny Rogers and Dottie West sing “Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer.”

Abruptly, he cuts them off and flips the tuner down the band, until he picks up the rumbling, wet voice of Barry White. Then he backs the car, cuts the wheel, and slowly, smoothly, oozing sexy confidence like ol’ Barry himself, Bob Dubois drives onto the highway, turns left and heads on down the road to home.

At eleven-twelve, Bob’s son is born, tiny, cheesy and blue, and because this is the first time Elaine has seen one of her children born — with Ruthie and Emma, she exhausted herself in labor, and the pain grew so great that finally she asked to be knocked out with gas — she believes the baby is born dead, and she starts to sob uncontrollably.

Dr. Beacham grins behind his mask. “You got yourself a baby boy, Miz Dubois,” he says, handing the baby to the nurse. “Now,” he says, patting her still large belly, “let’s see if we can get the rest out as easy as he come out.”

“It’s okay?” she asks in a plaintive voice. “It’s alive?”

“Sure is. Soon’s we get him a little cleaned up, he’s all yours. Now, let’s bear down hard one more time,” he says softly.

“It’s a boy, then,” Elaine says. “And he’s alive!” She wants to see him, to hold him to her breasts, to examine him all over, his mouth, nose, ears and eyes, his tiny fingers and toes, and his penis, oh, especially his penis! It’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened to her — to have a male body, a body with a penis on it, emerge from her female body! It seems beyond belief, almost nonsensical. In a sensible world, females would give birth to females, and males would give birth to males. How can this funny miracle be?

She does what she’s told and pushes her abdomen down and out, and when the placenta is driven from her, it feels like a wonderfully liberating bowel movement, and she almost laughs aloud. Then she reaches her arms toward the nurse, who places the baby boy on Elaine’s stomach with its tiny red face facing hers, and suddenly Elaine is weeping with love for this blind, wet infant, this sweet chaos lying limp as earth on her belly, this incredible, terrifying, godlike innocence.

At eleven-thirty, Bob drives into his yard and parks the car, gets out and strolls slowly in the moonlight across the dew-wet plot between the driveway and the trailer. He hitches up his pants, unlocks the door and walks inside, and stops short in the doorway when he sees Ronnie Skeeter spread out on the couch, the Sony flickering on the coffee table before him. Ronnie’s huge body takes up nearly the whole couch. Though it’s a cool evening, and all he’s wearing is a Dairy Queen tee shirt and Scotch-plaid Bermuda shorts, Ronnie, as usual, is sweating ripely. He’s sprawled from the center of the couch on out to the ends, his meaty arms flung over the back of the couch, his huge beer gut, like a weighty sack of flour, billowing out in front of him and swooping smoothly down to his pinched crotch, where enormous red legs merge like turnpike ramps.

He looks up brightly as Bob enters. “Hidie, Bob!” he says. “Elaine ain’t here. She …”

“What’s going on?” Bob interrupts, sensing disaster. “Where’re the kids?”

“Oh, they’re jus’ fine. Sleepin’ like bugs in a rug.” Ronnie goes back to watching Johnny Carson, his message delivered. With the flat of one hand, he rubs the top of his blond crew cut, patting it affectionately, as if it were a pet.

“Where’s Elaine? What’s going on?”

Ronnie looks back slowly, reluctantly. It’s hard to watch the Johnny Carson show when you keep tuning out. You miss a lot of the jokes because you don’t know exactly who Johnny’s guest is or what Johnny or Ed said last. He tells Bob that his wife Ellen took Bob’s wife Elaine to the hospital.

“ Hospital ! Why?”

“Well, if I was to guess, Bob, I’d say it was so she could have her baby.”

“Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus! Jesus H. Christ! When, Ronnie? When did she go?”

“Couple hours ago. Hey, listen, I hope you don’t mind I drank a couple of your Colt 45’s. I didn’t want to leave the kiddies here alone and get some from home.”

“No, no, fine, fine.” Bob opens the door to leave, then abruptly turns back. “She went to the hospital?”

Ronnie answers without looking away from the TV screen. “Yeah. Couple hours ago.”

“Alone?” Bob feels his blood wash down his body. His face is stiff and white, a hardened plaster mask, and his hands are shaking. Alone? Oh, not alone. Please, not alone. Oh, my sweet Jesus, what an awful thing to happen. That poor woman. Alone.

“Naw. Ellen drove her. She tried to get you, Elaine did. But you was out, I guess.”

“Yeah, right. With a friend. From work. Had a couple of beers. You know.”

“Right. Well, she’s in the hospital….”

Bob turns to leave again. “What hospital? Winter Haven?”

“Yeah, that’d be the closest one. Same as the one you went when the niggers cut you.” Ronnie leans forward, grunting with the effort, and adjusts the sound. His broad forehead is slick with sweat. “You … you oughta get yourself one of them remotes. I got me one, and they’re real nice.”

“Oh, Jesus, what if she already had the baby! I better phone the hospital. Right?”

“Suit yourself.”

That won’t change anything, Bob thinks. What’s done is done. If she’s had the baby, his calling won’t help her; and if she hasn’t had the baby yet, she’s probably stuck away in a room without a phone. “No, I’ll go right over now. If she calls, Ronnie, or if your wife calls, say I’m on my way, okay?”

“Sure enough. Hey, I might tap me a couple more Colts, if it’s all right with you.”

“Sure, sure, help yourself. Take all you want. And thanks for watching the kids. I’ll call you from the hospital, soon’s I know what’s happening.”

“Suit yourself,” he says, working himself free of the couch, his eyes already moving toward the refrigerator. “I’ll just sleep here on the couch till you get back. I don’t have to work till tomorrow noon. Friday’s night’s busy, after the movies let out and all, so I stay late an’ don’t go in till noon.”

Bob doesn’t hear him. He’s already out the door and running for his car. As he runs, he punches his fist against his thigh, curses himself through clenched teeth. If he could beat himself up, he would. If he could slap himself around, punch himself in the stomach, throw himself to the ground and stomp on his back, kick himself in the kidneys, break his ribs, he would. But he can’t. Elaine needs him, so he can’t punish himself yet. But he will, goddammit, he will.

Bob pushes open the door from the hallway and enters the nearly dark room, walks carefully past the other beds, two of them with women sleeping in them, one empty, to the bed at the end, and as Dr. Beacham promised, Elaine is there, all in white, like an angel, or at least a saint, covered with a sheet and wearing a cotton nightie, her face washed and smooth, her damp hair pulled back by a pair of Ruthie’s white plastic barrettes. She’s lying slightly propped on pillows, peacefully asleep.