When the Pirate Prays. James B. Johnson

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      “Is it time?” asked Mary Lynn.

      “Close,” I said, checking and adjusting Sandy’s legs wider. “Each of you help hold one leg apart.” I knelt at the foot of the bed. “This here is what you call your second stage of giving birth.” Sandy’s perineum was bulging out. “Sandy, right now your pelvic muscles are rotating the baby’s head so that her chin is pointing down for the classic delivery position.” I so fervently hoped. If not, Sandy and I were in trouble.

      “This cowboy knows some big words,” said Angie tugging on Sandra Dee’s left knee.

      “I got a GED.” I paused, thought and to lighten up things, said, “Alexander was talking about Callisthenes when he said, ‘That vain pretense to wisdom I detest/Where a man’s blind to his own interest.’”

      Mary Lynn’s blue eye stabbed me with curiosity.

      Angie said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “Never mind.” I wondered if I wasn’t trying to show off in front of Mary Lynn to disguise the fact I had only a GED. Oh, Shortcut, thy vanity is education.

      Mary Lynn was looking at me. “Do you know it’s a girl?”

      “Nope. It just figures that a boy would have been on time and not made us all wait.”

      “That’s sexist,” accused Angie.

      “That’s funny,” said Mary Lynn.

      “Damndamndamnitall!”

      “Keep pushing at the right time,” I said.

      “I am, goddamnit. You want to switch places?”

      I drew back dramatically. “Not me.” To divert her, I said, “how’d you come by the name Sandra Dee?”

      “Her mother,” said Angie.

      “I didn’t ask you.”

      Angie glared at me.

      “My mom,” said Sandra Dee. “She was a child of the sixties.”

      “I guess it’s better than Elvisaria.”

      “Sexist, and insulting,” said Angie.

      “Diverting,” said Mary Lynn.

      I spared Mary Lynn one eye and gave her an imperceptive nod. I could like this woman a lot.

      The kid’s head was beginning to show. The perineal tissues were really stretched, I mean stretched.

      “Keep ’em wide,” I directed.

      “Goddamngoddamngoddamngoddamn.…”

      “I think I’d like your mom,” I said. I was still kneeling on the floor and we all scooted Sandy toward me a few inches.

      The head stopped moving and I began to panic. The head had not yet emerged, but simply showed a clump of matted hair and gunk.

      I started running my fingers around the opening, edging skin and tissue aside. I’d read sometimes the tissue tears of necessity. If the kid didn’t recommence his trip, I hoped that would happen automatically because I sure as hell didn’t know how to cut the tissue, nor was I prepared to do so.

      Sandy was breathing rapidly now, retching a bit. Mary Lynn wiped saliva off her mouth. “Mom loved movies and movie stars oh God I feel like they’re wrenching my guts out and she had me after a movie and that’s why she named me ohChrist my guts are ripping out like in that movie Alien when the monster jumps out of a guy’s guts into Sigourney Weaver’s face and ohshitGodhelpme—”

      Her stomach actually vibrated and her head jerked up and down and her harsh breathing whistled through her mouth and nose angrily and her feet tattooed the edge of the bed and I had an empathy attack.

      I put command into my voice, “Control your breathing and push synchronously.” Was the word “synchronistically” instead? Granny gave me that odd look again. “Her head’s coming out,” I said, relief evident in my voice. When the weight of the world comes off my shoulders, ofttimes I become verbose. “As her head comes out, it will turn back to realign itself with the rest of her body.”

      “Didactic is an understatement,” said Angie.

      “Yet I avoid moral self-righteousness.” That ought to shut her up. I didn’t want to argue with her and this was distracting me.

      My hands were edging and tugging and pushing and helping and the head was emerging and I was trying to help it go back to the right position all the while making the exit easier and get this damn thing over with.

      “You’re doing this like a pro, Sandy.”

      “Damndamndamn.” Her voice was much weaker. “I like the way you say ‘Sandy,’ Billy.”

      “All delivering mothers fall in love with their obstertricicans.”

      “Or whatever,” said Angie.

      “Pushpushpush,” I said.

      “Ihurtohsomuch.” Sandy was leaking sweat.

      “It’ll all be over soon.”

      “Come on, Sandra Dee, you can do it,” said Mary Lynn. “Follow my lead.” Mary Lynn began to breathe in and out in an exaggerated fashion, pausing to push at the right moment. She was a quick learner.

      My hands continued to fly and the damn lights went out.

      Oh, shit, I thought.

      “Oh, shit,” said Mary Lynn.

      “OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod.”

      Angie acted swiftly and soon two flashlight beams pierced the dark. I might not be prepared for in-depth surgery, but the 7-P principle came to my aid. I’d been prepared for power failure.

      “No problem,” I said calmly. “We don’t need power anyway.” The kid’s whole head was emerging. “Thanks, Miss Maple.”

      “Mizz.”

      “Whatever. Sandy, your daughter’s head is turning back into the correct position regarding the rest of her body.”

      Angie snorted. “You can add pedagogic to didactic.”

      “Irregardless of that—” I began.

      “Humpf,” said Angie.

      “Okay, disregardless—”

      “SHE’S COMING DAMNDAMNDAMNDAMN.”

      “Just like in the textbooks,” I continued. “One shoulder at a time within the next few contractions.”

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