When the Pirate Prays. James B. Johnson

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      “You can name your daughter Storm,” I said.

      “Damndamnda.…” Her voice was weary and weak and I could feel her body wanting to give up.

      “Just another minute, hon, hang in there.” I put as much confidence as I could into my words.

      Her body rippled again and the kid surged out into my scrambling hands.

      “OhJesusGoddamn.”

      “Yeah, me, too, Sandy. The kid’s out.” Just in time, for I believed that Sandy was becoming too weak to help and that wouldn’t have helped a bit.

      The most important thing is to get the infant to breathing. I was holding her half upside down and cleaning gunk out of her mouth.

      Nothing.

      In the light of the flashlights, I couldn’t tell if the kid were turning blue or not but I sure as hell imagined it to be so.

      The room was stifling; with the power off, the great paddle fan wasn’t turning and all four of us were sweating like we were on a death march and the kid still wasn’t breathing.

      “Angie! The basting bulb. Now.” Tried to keep my voice calm.

      The lights jiggled and the beams slewed aside.

      Slap, and the basting bulb was in my held-up hand and I stuck it in the baby’s mouth not very delicately and pumped and withdrew it and stuck it back in and pumped and withdrew it and repeated and the kid was breathing like she’d been doing so for years.

      “Nothing to it when you know how.” My voice was lame.

      “They were right,” said Angie. “You are quick.”

      “Not in everything,” I said absently and looked at Mary Lynn who was bending over in the pale light to check the kid.

      Mary Lynn turned her head and stared at me, her special bold look again, shook her head, and looked at the kid again.

      I felt like I’d been through a war. My hands were not shaking—yet.

      I was still holding the baby but turning her around for Mary Lynn.

      “It’s a girl, Sandra Dee, you’ve a daughter.” Mary Lynn’s voice was light, just the right touch.

      “I told you so,” I said unnecessarily.

      “And she has ten of everything,” Mary Lynn went on.

      “Thank God,” whispered Sandy. She was so weak I knew we’d just made it.

      Near the kid’s tummy, I snapped a number 2 Hunt clip onto the kid’s umbilical. We’d got several of the strong metal clamps from the front desk. Mary Lynn had boiled them in the kitchen.

      Then I put the kid on Sandy’s stomach. “For warmth and bonding,” I said.

      I thought Sandy cooed, but it could’ve been an exhausted sigh.

      “We’ve got maybe ten minutes,” I began and my hands started shaking and mercifully Angie moved the light away from us all.

      Mary Lynn must’ve sensed my reaction, for she started talking.

      “You wonder who killed Henry? Check with cuckolded husbands. He’s wealthy, very much so. Or I should say, was wealthy. A womanizer on the grandest scale.”

      “A charmer, Henry was,” agreed Angie, still holding the two flashlights aimlessly pointed at the floor. “One who leaves lives shattered in his wake.” There was a story behind Angie’s words.

      I should be working, but the reaction was still pulsing through me, the shakes still assaulting me.

      “He had it all,” Mary Lynn went on. “Wealth. Looks. Intelligence. Olde local family, don’t you know? Political power. National image.”

      “If you spend too much time polishing your image, you’ll tarnish your character,” I said.

      In the splash of light, Mary Lynn favored me with her brown eye.

      “He had his health, too,” said Angie, “and I suspect he was very happy with himself.”

      “He had to be,” said Mary Lynn. Her voice turned a bit angry. “You have to be somewhat amoral to be a good politician; so, hurting women wouldn’t bother him. Using women didn’t bother him. I doubt much of anything bothered him.”

      I was now controlling my breathing. The reaction was passing. “A tennis racquet bothered him to death.”

      “I believe he died from the fall,” Angie said, returning the flashlights to the proper position.

      It was stifling in here and suddenly this wing of the building shook under a heavy gust and a window somewhere blew out and wind screeched down the corridor and sucked the stifling out the opened transom and the cool breeze made me feel better until someone slammed a door and the breeze died.

      “How is it in there?” came a distinct Florida cracker voice. The lieutenant governor.

      “Fine. The baby is doing well.” Angle’s voice was relieved, too.

      “Let us know if you need anything.”

      Angie didn’t answer.

      I cut the umbilical with a boiled sharp kitchen knife near the office clamp.

      I breathed deeply. We weren’t out of the woods yet. “The third stage of labor takes up to ten minutes.”

      It didn’t. It happened right then.

      “Goddamngoddamngoddamnnotagain!” Voice very weak. I don’t know how women take it, and Sandy was having a difficult time. But she’d live through it.

      “Placenta, Sandy. Push a little. This is natural.” The mess came right out in my hands. Soon, I had it wrapped in a towel and dumped into a plastic garbage bag. Talk about your maggot gaggers.

      Wishing for real lights, I made do with the flashlights. This was critical. While I had several needles ready and threaded, I knew zilch about sewing up vaginal bleeding. I cleaned as well as I could—

      “Sandy?” my voice demanded her attention.

      “Billy?”

      “Relax, hon. Breathe evenly. Think about your daughter, not your pain. Relax.”

      Mary Lynn and Angie had caught my urgency.

      “Another clean cloth,” I said quickly and Angie supplied one.

      I mopped around, Angie moving the lights over my shoulders as I shifted position to keep the light on.

      Mary Lynn hiccupped and wiped Sandy’s brow with a cool wet cloth and spoke softly to her.

      I wasn’t СКАЧАТЬ