Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

“Is he okay?” she screamed.

“Yes, he’s fine.” Byron’s eyes closed, the lids wrinkled and tired. But his jaw worked and a stream of little bubbles running up the bottle showed he was drawing formula. Byron’s legs, emanating heat from the soft material of the stretchy, pushed out with pleasure at the onset of getting liquid. His body, taut with desire moments ago, sighed in Peter’s arms. The weight of Byron’s neck pressed against the crook of Peter’s elbow, and then Byron’s legs sagged at the knees and his plump arms dipped into the air, like idle oars. Peter envied Byron’s pleasure. He admired Byron’s passionate desire — wailing to be fed — and his equally fervent satisfaction — the tiny body absorbed, obsessed, by a single longing.

Once there must have been such lust in himself, an ache which, frustrated, caused rage and despair. Diane had taken to complaining that babies were so selfish, so completely unaware of everyone else’s feelings. How marvelous that very quality seemed to Peter.

Byron fell asleep. His mouth, that pink hole of suction, sagged open, the bottle nipple sliding out. Peter put it back on the shelf, half empty. Byron lay relaxed in his arms, romantically enervated, like Hamlet borne offstage. He touched the puffy jowl. Soft.

Peter carried Byron to the crib. Byron’s body started at being let go, but quickly loosened into unconsciousness again.

“Sometimes,” an exhausted Diane had said over dinner, “I think he looks at me and thinks: food.”

That’s right, Byron, Peter thought to the sleeping figure of his son. Fuck ’em. Get what you can.

ERIC PUSHED the carriage back and forth. Back and forth. A little less far away, then a little less back. Back and forth. He measured the distance by the darker edge of the floorboards at the living room’s doorsill. The white wheels had been crossing them, then they only touched, now they failed to reach.

Luke’s body was still, a hump underneath the baby blue cotton blanket. His head, covered by soft curls of black hair, was on its side, treating Eric to a view of his profile. The eyes were shut — at last. But his back still heaved rapidly, panting. Back and forth on the silent wheels, slower and slower. Eric let his eyes stray to the television, tuned to an idle cable television channel that ran that day’s closing stock market prices. ITT rolled by … 351/2. Fuck.

His options had five days to go. They were still in the money, but each day closer to expiration without a further move up meant an erosion of his profit. Bulls get rich, Bears get rich, Pigs get nothing. He should have taken his profit last week. Now he would barely clear 10 percent. If ITT were unchanged for three more days, even that would be gone. Why the fuck wasn’t there a confirmation on the buyback rumor? It would push the stock by five points. That would quadruple his options; he’d clear a hundred thousand. If something didn’t happen tomorrow morning, he’d have to sell. Couldn’t afford a loss now.

He had lost track of the motion of the carriage. The quiet rubber wheels had shifted, so the hood was pointed at the wall instead of the open doorway. Eric looked away from the television just as he gave a push forward. He saw, only a second before it happened, that he had aimed the carriage and its sleeping occupant into the wall.

“No!” he said, but it was too late. The carriage recoiled from the impact, its springs bouncing. Eric yanked the carriage back. A spasm went through Luke’s body — the legs kicked out, his head jerked. The mouth opened and the groaning squeaks began again. “Dammit.” He rolled the carriage back and forth quickly again. “Pay attention!” he lectured himself. Luke continued to complain, his body tense, fighting the motion. “Come on,” Eric said. “I’m sorry. Forget it happened.” Back — forth — back — forth, fast, the vibrations diminishing Luke’s squalling into musical moans, until finally they subsided into smacking sounds of desperate suction on his pacifier.

Eric looked toward the hallway, wondering if Nina had been disturbed by the wails. She was wrecked. They had been home twelve hours and Luke was still up. Other than momentary lulls, unless he was being fed or rocked, he had cried — horrible, protesting screeches. Like a soldier back from a ghastly war, Luke seemed to be reliving some horror, pained by unseen hurts. They had tried everything. Changed him, fed him, rocked him, played music, walked with him clutched to their bosoms, kissed him, pleaded — nothing really soothed him. Movement made Luke quiet, but not relaxed, or asleep. He couldn’t be set down in the carriage unless they pushed it; he couldn’t be put on the couch or the rug or their bed; he couldn’t even be held in a chair. Unless there was movement, he screamed. And even when there was motion, his mouth still worked on the pacifier, and at the bottom of his heavy-lidded eyes, open slits remained, peep-holes, filled by suspicion, ready to protest any change.

By nightfall Nina couldn’t hold out. She went to bed with instructions to be roused in four hours if Luke was awake. She said Luke could be given two ounces of distilled water in two hours.

Eric stayed on his feet, rocking Luke back and forth for those two hours, sure that his son would fall asleep any minute. Many, many times Luke’s eyes had closed (completely, no hermit peeping out) and his body had lain still. But the moment Eric let go of the carriage handle, the head would bang, the legs kick out, the mouth open, the pacifier sliding away, and a cry — screeching at the world, enraged, betrayed, inconsolable — would splice the silence, tearing Eric in two.

Twice he let Luke bawl for a minute, a minute that cost Eric years from his heart, from his soul. A minute that damned him: passive monster, voyeur of suffering. He accepted the purgatory, thinking that would work (Luke’ll cry for a minute and collapse), but all that strategy accomplished was utter chaos. Luke’s body thrashed, his mouth yawned with complaint, and it would take much longer, much faster rocking to restore the uneasy quiet and suspicious rest of the back-and-forth motion.

Eric got angry. He felt stupid. Incompetent. This tiny thing, this insignificant creature, had only two needs, hunger and rest, to satisfy. Eric could do nothing for him. No effort was enough.

At last the two hours were up. He maneuvered the carriage to where he had put the bottle of distilled water. (He daren’t let go or stop the motion.) It was packed with a metal top, like a hat, no doubt to accommodate the nipple inside. Nina, while passing out on the bed, had said, “You pull off the top, it already has a nipple.” He tried to wedge the bottle under the arm he used to rock the carriage, but of course, the push movement meant it would fall. He tried to think of some way to open the bottle without letting go of the carriage.

With despair, he realized there wasn’t one.

He readied himself. He let go. The bottle was already in his idle hand. The free one grabbed the metal top. Luke screeched. Eric pulled.

Nothing.

Luke banged, kicked, squawked. If he got much louder, Nina might wake up.

Eric pulled. Nothing. He grabbed the top and twisted. He grasped so hard his fingers went white, using enough strength, he knew from experience, to open the stubbornest of jars, with sufficient pressure and strength to bend thin metal. The thick muscles of his arm rippled, tangling under his skin.

Luke screamed, the pacifier loose in his gaping speaker of complaint.

Eric pulled. Nothing. Eric twisted. Nothing.

“Goddammit! Goddammit!” the room yelled. He heard a repeated noise, an object smashing.

“Eric! Eric! Eric!” Nina’s hoarse voice called out.

Eric became aware of himself: he was shouting at the bottle, smashing its metal top against the wall. Even that accomplished little, merely denting the cover. He stopped and took a deep breath. Luke’s cries were out of control again, a relentless staccato of high-pitched meows: a cat being squeezed to death.