Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

Escape!

Baby escaped! Fluid has become flesh. No turning back now. We’ve named it Jasper.

A cause for celebration & fear & trembling. Astrid proud mother- me semiproud. Never been much of a collaborator. Baby was joint project & my personal stamp hard to ascertain.

Today baby on a blanket kicking chubby legs in the air. Told Astrid to keep him off the floor- would be embarrassing if he was eaten by rats. Bent over baby & looked but really wanted to peer into his skull to see if any evil or cruelty or intolerance or sadism or immorality in there. A new human being. Am not impressed it’s mine.

Can’t help thinking that in this baby we’ve forged an absurd monument to our passionless relationship- we’ve created a symbol of something not worth symbolizing: a crazy edifice of flesh that will grow in equal proportion to our dwindling love as it dies.

The smell! The smell!

There’s more feces here than in the Marquis de Sade’s prison cell.

Silence

Baby doesn’t cry. I don’t know anything about babies except that they cry. Ours isn’t crying.

– Why is he so damn quiet? I asked.

– I don’t know.

Astrid sat in the living room all pale staring out the window. Can’t help but look at this baby & see not a child or a new human being but an old one. A sickening idea has taken hold- this baby is me prematurely reincarnated. I loathe this kid- I loathe it because it is me. It is me. It will surpass me. It will overthrow me. It will know what I know, all my mistakes. Other people have children. Not me. I have given birth to something monstrous: to myself.

– I think he’s hungry, I said.

– So?

– So get your tit out.

– He’s sucking me dry.

– OK, OK. Maybe I’ll just give him some normal milk.

– No! That’s no good for him!

– Well, fuck, this is not my field of expertise. All I know is the baby needs some kind of nourishment.

– Why don’t you read to him? she said laughing. Last night she’d caught me reading him passages from Heidegger.

– He doesn’t understand, she’d howled.

– I don’t either! I shouted back. Nobody does!

A very bad situation. Of the three of us, it’s clear whose welfare must be provided for at all costs, who is the most important here.

Me.

I Almost Died Tonight!!!!!!!

The boat’s never on time so we wait & read the newspaper & then it arrives like the four horsemen of the apocalypse on a moonlight cruise. The darkness broken by bobbing lights of the boat heading toward us & as it moors the rigid faces of our employers wedged tightly in the dark.

Tonight Eddie & I were lifting a particularly heavy crate that just wouldn’t budge & I’d only got it a quarter of an inch off the ground when I realized in a panic I wasn’t bending my knees. Fearing for longevity of my spine I lowered the crate & stepped away from it & tho it was too late I bent my knees.

– What are you doing? Eddie asked.

– Let’s have a break, I said & pulled out a book from my back pocket & started to read- a novel I’d bought at one of the stalls next to the Seine: Journey to the End of the Night by Céline.

Didn’t read more than a line- my eye caught dark mass moving toward us, a group of men you’d think were out for a brisk walk if not for guns in their hands.

A shot fired in the air. Our coworkers fled in all directions running up & down the bank of the Seine. It’s funny watching people’s stony indifference disappear when their lives are at stake.

Eddie & I walled in behind a tower of crates. Our only escape route would have been the freezing Seine or the sudden appearance of a golden staircase to the clouds. We ducked down behind crates.

– What have you gotten me into? I asked Eddie eager to assign blame.

Eddie ran forward & untied the ropes mooring us to the bank & pushed with his foot & ran back & joined me behind the crates. The boat slowly drifting.

We listened to the footsteps as they came closer to the boat & we listened to the footsteps as they jumped onto the boat now gliding down the Seine.

– Come out of there, a gruff voice said.

Maybe he’s not talking to us I thought optimistically & was annoyed at Eddie’s automatic compliance. He stood his hands high in the air like he’s done this before.

– You too, the voice said to someone, hopefully not me. Come on, I can see your shadow.

I looked across at my shadow & realized it’s only the head that gives you away. Otherwise crouched down you could be any old sack of potatoes.

I stood hands in air but felt too clichéd so turned palms inward.

Our would-be assailant had a beard that reminded me of an Alaskan husky & was generations past me & it filled me with outrage. I’d always expected to be done in by a young punk- wild & misguided & angry at the world.

He pointed the gun at me. Then he looked up at my hand & tilted his head slightly.

– Journey, he said. I had forgotten I was still holding the book.

– Céline, I said back in a whisper.

– I love that book.

– I’m only halfway through.

– Have you got to the point where-

– Hey, kill me, but don’t tell me the end!

He lowered his gun & said You won’t understand it unless you take it as a whole. It doesn’t work episodically. Who else do you like?

– The Russians.

– Well yeah, the Russians. What about the Americans?

– Hemingway’s OK.

– I like his short stories. Not his novels. You like Henry James?

– Not much. I love his brother though.

– William James! He’s a genius!

– Absolutely.

He put down his gun & said Shit let’s get this boat back.

Eddie & the Alaskan & I started up the boat & drove it back to the riverbank. Saved by a book!

– What’s all this about? I asked him.

– We’re competitors. My boss wants your boss to pack up shop.

– Well, shit, that doesn’t mean you have to go around shooting does it?

– Yeah, it does.

That figures. Most people are killed by their jobs slowly over decades & I had to land one that’s likely to do me in within the week.

Life with Baby

MAJOR problems at home. Astrid sleeps insatiably- her fatigue indefatigable & maybe because of this she treats poor baby as if he’s someone else’s dentures. Her love for me has gone all flabby too. I’m an irritant to her now. Sometimes I find baby on floor, sometimes behind couch, once I came home & he was in the empty bath his head resting on drain.

Other times she takes up her maternal role & lets the baby suck on her nipples her face a big blank. I ask if it hurts & she shakes her head & says Don’t you notice anything, you idiot?

There’s no understanding her.

Just five minutes ago she was on the couch her knees bunched up under her arms. I merely cleared my throat & she let out a scream. What if all relationships are like this behind closed doors?

– It was the only thing I hadn’t done she said. I thought this baby would change something inside me.

– It is a big change.

– I meant deep inside.

– I think you’ve changed.

– I mean right deep down at the bottom of the core of me.

I don’t know what she means. She’s mad. I’m gobsmacked when I think about HER secret minions. What dissent going on in that woman! Total fucking pandemonium! I think she’s suicidal- intestinal wall to intestinal wall crammed tight with treacherous extremists clamoring for the end.

I pick up the baby & comfort him.

I don’t know what to do.

I say to Astrid I’ve heard about this. Postpartum depression.

She laughs loudly at the idea tho it isn’t thatfunny.