My Wife is Having a Baby
David and Marsha Everly were having a baby. Both of them agreed that it was the best thing that had ever happened to them. Marsha had wanted to have kids since she had first graduated college and took a job working with young mothers who suffered post-partum depression and neglect on the part of their boyfriends. David often looked with envy upon the fathers and sons who attended the ball games at Yankees Stadium, where he worked as a press officer. Neither had had any reservations about embarking on this intrepid voyage to extend their family; at least not until the day that baby Eric decided to make a bid for freedom.
“It’s the tunnel, Marsh, the goddamn tunnel! How am I supposed to get a reception around here? What do you want me to do; carry you the rest of the way under the river and up the sidewalk 'til we reach Mount Sinai?! What you gotta do is just what they said on the phone and just keep calm, and keep counting your breaths, and I’ll try and count along with you…”
“Count my decibels, you ungrateful pig!”
This particular scream from the back seat might have perforated David’s eardrum, but it was nothing compared to the bellow that followed it, which resonated enough through the cracked passenger window that a passing traffic cop stopped to investigate. Sweating, David yanked at the winder to show his driver’s license and registration, only for the cop to be treated to a third barrage of curses and their associated globs of spittle. The man frowned and wiped a gloved hand across his visor.
“Ma’am, that kind of language is pretty uncalled-for, wouldn’t you say? Now, I can see that there’s some kind of domestic going on over here, and I get that that’s none of my business and all, but I have to warn you that if you persist in making so much noise, you'll be in direct violation of Noise Curfew Regulations for the Brooklyn area…”
“Ooh… don’t you blame me, Uncle Sam! Blame the unborn spawn of Satan chewing on my guts!”
“My wife is having a baby,” David explained, trying to sound reasonable, “And I need to get her to the Emergency Ward at Mount Sinai…”
As the crush of trucks and cabs finally started to clear and David was able to make some progress, he swerved into the outer lane and thumped on the horn. Cars shifted and reformed, angry drivers bellowing out of their respective windows, only to be treated to the ruddy face of Marsha, who bellowed right back. They finally reached the toll booth, and David looked around frantically for loose change.
“Your wife!” the booth attendant cried, pointing.
“Say what?”
“Sir, your wife! She don’t look so hot!”
“You’re not so hot yourself, Cletus! Why don’t you stick your six fingers where the sun don’t shine?!”
“My wife is having a baby,” David explained, still fumbling through the ashtray for quarters, “And I don’t have the right money to hand. Can I just give you a dollar for you to lift the barrier?”
“Sure, you can tip me a dollar, sir, that’s just fine. I can put it towards the therapy I need to recover from the abuse I just suffered. This here barrier only accepts quarters though, I regret to say. And it be more than my job’s worth to go ahead and just lift it…”
After a nearby pastor had given them a quarter in exchange for a promise to get baby Eric baptised, David stamped on the gas pedal, once more careering into the outer lane and sounding his horn. A semi in front of them braked for a turning onto Irving Plaza, and they very nearly ran into the back of it. But after rounding the next block, Manhattan’s notorious one-way system finally spat them out right where they wanted to be. David thanked his lucky stars that he had rehearsed the drive several times over, in case the worst should happen. Perhaps their luck was turning. They swerved into an ambulance bay and pulled up side-on to a set of green double-doors.
“Honey? Honey?! You need to relax! It’s all okay, we’re here now. And ve-ery soon, this is all gonna be over…”
“Excuse me, sir?” A pair of knuckles had rapped on the windshield. David opened his door to find a tall, burly paramedic looming over him, with a look like thunder.
“Excuse me,” he repeated, “But you can’t park here. This bay is for ambulances and hospital vehicles. We have to keep the bay clear in case of emergencies. If you back around to the next block over…”
“My wife is having a baby,” David interjected, now with some desperation, “I think she’s about to pop! If you could get some help… someone with a wheelchair, and our doctor, Dr Muscat, if you can help my wife, I can go move the car, move it somewhere else, no trouble…”
“Sweet Jesus!” the paramedic exclaimed, stooping to examine Marsha, “She’s nearly fully dilated!”
“Dilated? You’re going to die later!”
The paramedic pressed a button on his pager and several colleagues joined him with a wheelchair, into which they helped Marsha from the back seat. Their doctor, Muscat, appeared at the double-doors and coaxed them in, already leaning over to offer some words of reassurance. David watched this spectacle with a kind of detached apathy, before remembering his promise to the paramedic and getting back into his car.
What was plain was that he didn’t have long. He wasn’t entirely certain what ‘dilated’ meant, as he had missed most of their pre-natal classes, but he had seen the expression of shock on the paramedic’s face. Muscat would take care of that now though. He just needed to ditch his car.
He circled Stuyvesant Town for a few minutes before, overwhelmed by frustration, he pulled up on the sidewalk outside a coffee parlour. He got out and went to slam the door. It was some way back to Mount Sinai, and he felt unsteady on his feet after the stressful drive. Yet he would have to run. This was the moment they had waited for; what all the suffering and anguish boiled down to.
A waitress then thrust open the doors of the parlour and opened her mouth to speak, but David beat her to it:
“My wife is having a baby. Do what you like.”
