Miranda July - The First Bad Man

“He comes off the ventilator later today,” she continued. “So we hope he’s a good little breather.”

Clee and I glanced at each other with alarm. Breathing. That was on the top of our list of things we hoped he would be able to do.

“Will you be involved in taking it out?” I said nervously. Please no.

“Yep. We’ll put him on CPAP — continuous air — and see how he adapts.” She winked. It wasn’t a kindly wink, it was a wink that said all the other nurses and all the employees at Open Palm have told me about you, and now — wink — we get our revenge. I looked at her name tag. CARLA. It was too late to buy Carla a gift certificate or a Ninja five-cup smoothie maker. Maybe some candy or a coffee.

She looked at the mark on his arm and made a clicking noise.

“Sometimes when they take the IV out it leaves a mark. But if I’d done it”—she winked again—“there wouldn’t be a mark.”

The wink was a tic. It wasn’t cruel or conspiring, it was just a thing she did. Obviously smoking wasn’t allowed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I watched her arrange the cords around his body so they wouldn’t poke at him. Her fingers were quick, like she’d done this nine hundred times before.

Clee asked what time the ventilator would come out.

“It’s scheduled for four o’clock. You can visit him afterward — he’ll be sedated, but he should be much more comfortable.”

“Thank you, Carla,” I said. “We appreciate everything you’re doing.” It wasn’t enough, it sounded fake and silly.

“You’re welcome.” The nurse smiled with her whole face; she didn’t think it was silly.

“We do,” I repeated vehemently, “we really appreciate everything you’re doing.”

AT FOUR THIRTY WE CALLEDthe NICU from the floor below.

“It’s taking them a little bit longer than expected,” said the receptionist. “The doctor’s still with him. We’ll call you when it’s done.”

“Is it the tall Indian doctor?”

“Yes, Dr. Kulkarni.”

“He’s good, right?”

“He’s the best.”

I hung up.

“He’s with the tall Indian doctor and they said he’s the best.”

“Dr. Kulkarni?”

I asked Clee to recite all the names of the nurses and doctors while I wrote them down. The short, beefy male nurse was Francisco, the toothy Asian one with glasses was Cathy, Tammy was the pig-faced one.

“How do you know all of this?”

“They have name tags.”

The room grew dark and we didn’t turn on the light. We would turn on the light when good news came and if it never came we would live in the dark like this forever.

FIFTEEN MORE MINUTES PASSED. ANDthen another five. I got up from my cot and turned on the fluorescents.

“Let’s name him,” I said.

Clee blinked in the light.

“Did you think about a name?”

She put a finger in the air and took a sip of water. She forgot to think of a name. She’s making one up on the spot. My old disgust for her was just right there.

“I have two names,” she said, and cleared her throat. “The first might seem kind of like it doesn’t fit him right now, but I think it will later.” I felt shame for my disgust. The shame felt like love.

“Okay.”

“I’ll just say it,” she said, hesitating.

“Just say it.”

“Little Fatty.”

I waited with no expression, to see if this was really the name.

“Because”—her eyes suddenly filled with tears, her voice cracked—“he will be fat one day.”

I put my arm around her. “It’s a really nice name. Little Fatty.”

“Little Fatty,” she whispered tearfully.

“I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone named that.” I rubbed her back. “What’s the other name?” I asked nonchalantly, knowing this other name would be his name, no matter what it was.

She took a deep breath and on the exhale said, “Jack.”

AT FIVE THIRTY THEY CALLEDto tell us that the ventilator was out and he was breathing well on CPAP. We hurried upstairs.

He looked completely different without a big tube in his mouth. He was a baby, a cute little baby with a plastic prong in his nostrils.

“Hi, Jack,” whispered Clee.

Jack is your name now , I explained. But Kubelko Bondy will always be the name of your soul. I took a breath and forced myself to add: You will also have a third name, the one Amy and Gary give you. It might be Travis, it might be Braden. We don’t know yet.

We stood on either side of the incubator and each put a hand in. He squeezed Clee’s finger in his right hand and my finger in his left. He thought they were fingers from one person, a person with one old hand and one young hand. We stood like this for twenty-five or thirty minutes. My back ached and my hand was numb. Every once in a while Clee and I would look over the plastic case at each other and my stomach would go tumbling backward. A chaplain came in and began blessing babies. I looked around to see if this was legal. What about the separation of church and state? No one cared. Eventually he paused in front of Jack and before I could shake my head no, Clee nodded. His prayer swept across the three of us; my face tingled and my head spun dizzily. I felt holy, almost married.

As we walked arm in arm back to 209 I became aware that the woman clicking down the hall in front of us was Carrie Spivack. I subtly slowed our gait and waited for her to peel off to the left or right. But of course she did not, because she was headed for our room. It was day three. Up ahead was a fire extinguisher and a window. I chose the window. Speaking was risky so I just gestured, making an expansive motion toward the view. Clee peered down at the parking lot. The couple who’d once blamed each other ambled toward us, stopping with bemused smiles to see what we were looking at. The four of us peered out the window. A middle-aged man was helping an elderly woman out of a wheelchair and into the front seat of a station wagon.

“That’ll be us one day,” said the wife of the couple who’d once blamed each other. “Me and Jay Jay.” Her husband squeezed her shoulder. I guessed Jay Jay was the name of their baby.

The elderly woman’s legs didn’t work at all, so her son was lifting her from the wheelchair to the passenger seat in one prolonged and unwieldy motion. His mother’s hands were clasped around his neck, holding on for dear life. Amy of Amy and Gary would hang on to Jack’s neck like this one day. Right now it was much too tiny but one day he would be a sturdy middle-aged man, maybe even brawny or burly. He would move his mother with a much swifter motion than this man was able to, saying There you go, Ma, lemme buckle you and we’ll be set to go. My jealousy overwhelmed me; I had to look away.

Carrie Spivack straightened up as we approached, sharpening the corners of her smile and swinging our door open like a hostess. Clee walked right in, thinking she was just another nurse wanting to check her blood pressure.

“I’m sure you don’t mind giving us a moment alone,” Carrie Spivack said to me. She’d figured out I wasn’t the grandma. Or anyone. Behind her Clee gave me a confused shrug and a little half smile. The same half smile the passengers on the Titanic gave to their loved ones on the pier as the boat pushed away. Bon voyage, Kitty! Bon voyage, Estelle!

I floated back down the hall to the elevator.

“Going down?” It was a young Latino couple holding a newborn baby. Blue balloons bobbed from the wheelchair handle.

“Okay, I’ll go down.”

The couple was vibrating; this was the most incredible moment of their lives. They were about to take their baby into the world, the real world. The baby had lots of wet-looking black hair and was fatter than Jack. When the doors opened, the young father glanced back at me and I gave him a nod to say, Yep, your life, here it is, go into it . And they went.