Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

“Hurry up, for Christ’s sakes!” Eric shouted.

Nina was startled. She stared at Eric for a long moment, deciding how to react. She frowned, finally, and then brought Luke, now a sobbing wreck, to her monstrous tit. Luke opened his tiny lips, the cavern of his mouth yawned, and somehow, despite being overmatched, he surrounded the giant nipple. Luke clamped on it, hard , sucking madly. His eyes closed with a desperate satisfaction, his puffy cheeks rippling from the suction within.

“Yes, baby,” Nina whispered to Luke. Her hand, fragile and slim in Eric’s grip, encompassed the whole of his son’s skull, forceful and dominant. Luke sighed. The breath of relief shook Luke’s entire body, despair and loneliness trembling out of him like a fever passing. She had drained him of his despair and sorrow, applied balm to his wounded and betrayed soul, with the ease of someone flipping a light switch. All she had to do was bring Luke to her breast.

What could Eric do? Hold that tiny head to his chest? To his hard, hairy breast? What a fucking joke.

Nina looked big, an ocean liner docked on the hospital bed. Luke was quiescent at her breast, hardly longer than half the length of her arm, the dark hair of his head even blacker against her white skin. The gown slipped off her other shoulder. She was nude from the waist up, her beautiful long neck and wide shoulders as balanced, as delicate, and as graceful as a dancer’s. This was a sight that normally would have made Eric hard. Her breasts had always been big and firm: ripe for him. Now they seemed monstrous, the free nipple inflated so that the porous holes were visible, the swollen base of her breasts so free from their origin they might be glued on; they were the exaggerated boobs of a pornographic magazine, of an adolescent boy’s nightmarish wet dream.

Luke, abruptly, pulled away and shrieked.

“Shhh,” she said, and pushed Luke’s head toward her, butting his mouth with her rubbery nipple. His mouth yearned for it instantly, cutting off the scream of pain in mid-note. He jawed at her with unabashed greed, lustful, comically desperate.

“I’m going to check on the market,” Eric said, nervous and irritated. He stood up. And waited.

Nina didn’t look at Eric. She was absorbed by Luke. She stroked his black mess of hair, petting him.

“Okay?” Eric asked.

Now she looked up slowly, her eyes liquid with pleasure. “Sure,” she said in a bedroom voice.

“Want me to get you anything?”

She frowned at him. “Where are you going?”

“To check on the market.”

“Why don’t you use the phone here?” Luke yanked away, angry again, his face protesting, screeching. She shushed him, urging his head back, poking him with her nipple, its magnetism overpowering him once again into intent chewing.

Eric watched, stunned. Absorbed.

“Why don’t you call from here?” she said.

“What? Oh. I want to get myself some coffee. You want anything?”

“I need cigarettes.”

“And you a nursing mother.”

“Give me a break.”

He kept watching. “He seems okay.”

She stroked his head. “He’s perfect.”

“That’s what the nurse said.”

“Did she?” Nina smiled with innocent delight. “Well, she’s right.”

“Good-bye,” he said, and walked out into the hall briskly. Eric passed two Orthodox Jewish women wearing babushkas, shuffling along. Behind them were, he presumed, their husbands, hot in their black suits, their fat, fleshy faces covered with thin, kinky hairs. The men spoke rapidly, their voices gruff and arrogant. The two women were silent and serene together, their duties fulfilled; the two men battered each other with words about business. Eric wanted them all dead.

Downstairs in the lobby he found a quiet, old-fashioned booth and dialed Sammy’s private line. “Hi, how we doing?”

“You fucked up again,” Sammy said, with enthusiasm. “Telecom went into the toilet. Everything got stopped at seven.”

“Fifteen percent. So what? That’s the rule.”

“Yeah, fifteen percent loss, fifteen percent loss, fifteen percent loss, and pretty soon Mrs. Shwartz is actually trying to live on Social Security.”

“What about ITT?”

“Flat! That’s a dog. You should get them out.”

“Do you have any good news?”

“Dad’s play short on the oils netted twenty percent. You were wrong again, bozo.”

“You didn’t tell him I disagreed?”

“Disagreed! You went along with your clients. That’s the only reason you didn’t lose them all today.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Eric sighed. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the accounts. He couldn’t. “Look. I’m gonna take off the rest of this week. I can’t handle things—”

“No commissions on our ideas if you’re not in the office.”

“I know, asshole. Tell your papa. I gotta go.”

“How’s your baby?”

Eric opened his mouth to answer — but what? The great feeling he had for that insensible creature: how to describe that? “He’s perfect.”

“Must have gotten it from his mama.”

“Good-bye,” Eric said, and hung up on Sammy’s laughter. He had no spirit for their competitive banter today. He had been wrong again on the oil stocks. He had been wrong on Telecom. ITT had done nothing. He was a jerk. He had tried hard the last three years, read all the material, taken Joe’s (Sammy’s father and Eric’s boss) principles to heart, but nothing worked. Eric had done better when he went on instinct, buying stocks without any knowledge of their fundamentals.

That baby up there needed money. Needed to be free of the jokes of Sammy, the advice of Joe, and the whimsy of the market. Luke needed money. I have to do better. Go back to daring hunches if necessary. I have to do better. Money, money, money, money. That was the milk he could give Luke to quiet the screeching pain of life.

DIANE HAD INTERVIEWED NINE WOMEN SO FAR, ALL NO good. Her once-clear picture of the ideal nanny to take care of Byron was now blurred by reality’s greasy fingers.

She had begun the search confidently, had set down (in her organized fashion) the qualities she wanted: speak English well (so as not to retard Byron’s language development); forty years old or under (for vigor), either childless or with grown children (Byron should not have to compete for the woman’s heart); reside within fifteen or twenty minutes by subway (in case of emergencies); have references (appearances are deceiving); and look attractive (since appearances are important).

Diane would sit with Byron beside her in an infant seat, a legal notepad listing her requirements in her lap, and question the prospects, checking off how well they met them. Not long into the process she added more things to her list. One woman, eager, like all of them, for the job, chatted nervously and let slip that she supervised her invalid mother’s care. When Diane warned her that the hours might be irregular, considering both her and Peter’s jobs, this woman, unconvincingly, maintained that her sister could always stay with their mother in the evenings. Another said she would be happy to stay late but would need cab fare home, or have to sleep over, because her neighborhood was dangerous. Therefore, flexible hours became another item, along with no responsibilities to anyone else, not even a husband.

Although Diane decided against the woman with the sick mother and the other living in the scary neighborhood, they were the only two whom she had seriously considered. The others were looking for green-card sponsors, Caribbean women in search of American citizenship. Diane was convinced they would quit the moment that glory was achieved. She also distrusted the low wages they were willing to accept. Two hundred and fifty a week was the going rate; some of the illegal aliens would take one fifty. Although that was an incentive to go through the hassle of sponsoring them, nevertheless, “You get what you pay for” was more than a cynical aphorism to Diane; it was observed truth.