Charles Bock - Beautiful Children

The town was open all night and Lincoln made the most of every hour. Without much effort on his part, he was absorbed into the social circle of entry-level casino workers. A lifetime in locker rooms, the ease with which he deflected sarcastic jibes, the good humor he showed in handling teammates who were both joking with him and sizing him up (Lincoln gracefully giving as good as he got; though never going so far as to offend someone or leave them feeling worse about themselves), this translated well to the masculine, vaguely gangsterish backroom atmosphere of Las Vegas. At the same time, Lincoln was square-jawed and athletic and handsome in a way that was reassuring, as opposed to threatening or overtly sexual; a guy self-assured enough to know when to step back and let someone else be the star. This went over well with the corporate regimes that were coming into power. And while Lincoln still may not have been able to watch the World Series, he didn't blink when it came to telling stories about the minors, or giving the skinny on different major leaguers he'd met on their way up. This played equally well with gangsters who enjoyed pretending they were legitimate businessmen and suits who fancied themselves as modern-day Bugsy Siegels. Before Lincoln had fully accepted that Vegas was the place he wanted to settle down, he'd taken a job as a sales representative at the Kubla Khan. Thus his vacation had become something else, and though he wasn't sure what precisely that might have been, he knew the money was good, and the work wasn't too hard, and soon enough he'd spent a year there, then two, and was still enjoying his life in the manner of any twenty-two-year-old sales rep — working the barter system in which so many low-level casino residents were engaged. (On a date Lincoln and his girl might receive a night of drinks. Later the bartender would get comped at a pricey steakhouse where Lincoln brought a lot of business, and was in tight with the headwaiter, who Lincoln might then hook up with a ticket agent….) He tipped big wherever he went, this was good karma, and besides he always wanted to show his appreciation for an honest effort. He knew how to show a woman a good time. More than a few beauties were seen on his arm. Then one in particular.

They'd been going out for half a year or so when Lorraine told him she was pregnant. She hadn't returned his calls for a few days, and then she phoned him at work and said there was something they needed to talk about. She refused to answer his inquiries, but there was a hitch in her voice and she said, See you soon, okay? Lincoln ruminated on that hitch throughout the drive to her place, all the possibilities it contained. He was sure she was breaking up with him and his mind raced for possible reasons, and the lack of anything obvious was that much scarier. The day was a model of climate-controlled perfection, bright as a newly minted penny. Lorraine sat him down. In the manner of a kindly yet displeased schoolteacher, she first told him about her suspicions and then how they'd been confirmed, unfurling the details as if they were happening to friends of hers, as if all this had not just exploded their happy little dating adventure. She had been preparing for this all day, but her nervousness still showed, her composure wavering. She hadn't told him sooner, she said, because she'd wanted to hear first from her doctor, and because she needed to think about things before talking to him. She hadn't made any decisions, but she'd been thinking about it a lot. She went into a hard silence that lasted for an unbearable time, then said: Oh God.

She was all of twenty years old and her combination of looks and dancing ability had provided her with an escape from a large family and a dying small town and the smell of horseshit from a nearby industrial farm. After six months of kicking in the back line of the Rockettes traveling squad, she'd gotten an agent, and had come heartbreakingly close to making the dance squad for a professional basketball team. The chorus line of a Vegas floor show wasn't exactly Lorraine's idea of a dream job — she made no bones about her opinion of the choreography, nor the legions of self-styled cowboys, Donald Trump wannabes, and men who thought wearing loud shirts made them classy. Lincoln had had to convince her to give him her phone number, and during a week of respectful calls, she had been restrained and suspicious; although, when screening, she did pick up and talk to him, and eventually allowed him to take her to dinner after her shows, and did let him walk her to her car to make sure she was safe, and one night, after a few glasses of really good wine, she'd opened up to him enough to admit that, yes, she was learning to enjoy having money in her pocket, and that this city did indeed have its strange charms. Lorraine had let him take her to a candy factory on their first date and not long afterward she had taken two sick days and gone away with him on a camping trip to Zion, during which time they'd used the factory's chocolate syrup on each other. Lincoln and Lorraine had confided in each other, more than once broaching how they felt and agreeing there was more to what they were doing than two people just having fun, and though neither one had gone out on the ledge and used the L word, that ledge was not that far away, it was being approached with hopeful, toddler's steps. In light of which, her pregnancy was particularly devastating, sucking the air out of the apartment. Lorraine collapsed onto the couch, looking not at Lincoln but through him, every so often picking up on or returning to a thought, vocally unpacking the options and angles of her predicament. The obvious thing was to terminate it. She loved kids but wasn't anywhere near ready to be a mom. Nothing she knew about Lincoln remotely showed he was prepared to face fatherhood. Each possible outcome was wholly and specifically terrifying to her and a new thought crossed her eyes like a shadow and she fought back some sort of emotion and her face began to crumple. “But then I think about it and God help me I want one.”

He would look back when things were not going well and wonder if that moment had really just been about winning, about conquering the landscape, the underdog bucking the odds and going for the hard route. After all, he had walked away from baseball because he'd thought about all the work and where it would get him, and in the end, it just hadn't been worth it. That had been the biggest decision of his life, until this point, and Lincoln had made it based on the simple thought: do I really want to do this? He remained convinced that walking away had been the right thing to do. Still, it was a lot to live with, a lot to live down. And the question welled within him again. Its implications hadn't sunk in yet, he still had no idea what the words husband and father entailed. But then again, when you got down to it, he didn't really have to be in touch with the long-term implications. Right then, he didn't need to know what he was getting into.

He picked up her phone, called the travel agent who handled all arrangements for Kubla Khan executives. Lorraine stared at him without comprehension and Lincoln waited on hold and did not tell her what this was about. He did not make a reservation for her to Tijuana, San Diego, or the Scripps Medical Center. Instead he arranged for a pair of families to be able to call the travel office. He arranged for these families to get fixed up with plane reservations for as soon as possible. Lincoln arranged for all charges to go on his own tab, and he told the reservation agent that the only thing was that neither family could know what was going on. Then he asked Lorraine for her parents’ phone number, and repeated the question. Over Lorraine's protestations— Why? What are you doing? — Lincoln dialed the number and introduced himself to Lorraine's father. He said everything was okay, their daughter was more than fine, she was wonderful, better than that. Without so much as a ruffled feather or a hint of his larger intentions, he gave Lorraine's father the number of the ticket agent and told him to make arrangements to get here, the agent was expecting the call. Lincoln then called his own father. In the quiet voice of a grown man talking warmly to his dad, he gave a variation on this theme. Lorraine said she did not know what he was doing, that he was crazy. However, Lincoln could tell she was charmed, maybe even thrilled. I don't know about this, she repeated, her face flush and bright. Lincoln said they better start calling chapels. He asked did she want to go get a ring first.