Slice

CHATTANOOGA

Chaingang is in his new used car. Legit wheels. Insulated now by the paper trappings of the real straight world that will protect him from the law's curious gaze. The endless need to steal another ride and more disposal problems that often attend such an acquisition have ceased to exist. He is a citizen. He has rights. Papers. A hugely pregnant wife beside him.

“God,” she says, letting out a quiet moan. She has turned into a little whining noise that he keeps tuned out for the most part. It is getting close to the time. The blood had appeared yesterday. Then a watery, colorless gush that finally thinned to a dribble, and not long after that the serious pains began.

“Just take it easy,” he tells her solicitously, but she seems to have tuned out on him the way he has on her. She only lets out a noise, “Mmmm-mmmmm,” a halfhearted whine that has become her shorthand for okay. She is hurting now at regular intervals for the first time. The pains hit every couple of minutes now. He finds a motel and all but carries her into the room.

“This better?” he asks.

“Jesus,” she says as another pain hits. They last half a minute, or so he thinks, watching her. He removes her clothing and pulls a sheet over her and as an afterthought takes one of the big plastic sheets he keeps in the trunk for emergency body bags. He spreads it down and has her lie back down on top of a blanket over the plastic. This figures to be a mess.

“The pain is"—she winces, biting her lower lip, looking like a disco queen in some dance reverie, then she closes her eyes for a minute—"getting kinda bad."

“No problem,” he says. Solicitous. Paternal. Dr. Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski, Doctor of Death in residence here at Motel Pediatric. All the amenities. Hot and Cold Running Water. Unsterilized equipment with all the latest germs. Color TV and the Movie Channel.

His life has changed. His baby is in this cow's gut. He owns a three-piece suit now that he will put on tomorrow for his urban camouflage. He has lost as much as some men weigh. He owns a maroon used car. He is delivering a baby.

“Oooooooooooh, shit,” she says. He goes over and turns up the volume on the TV. There are no cars beside theirs. The motel is doing a flourishing business. Chaingang has read about delivering babies once while in jail and it is still up there in his data bank. The average length of labor from the first contraction to delivery with a first pregnancy is about twelve hours; this being Sissy's second frog it should pop out of the oven after about eight hours from the first contraction time. The frog is overdue.

Dr. Frankenkong feels the cervix through the vagina. He finds the cervix to be thinned out and dilated to a diameter of about four centimeters. The doctor knows there are 2.54 centimeters to an inch. They have been in the motel for almost four hours and the cervix is now completely dilated. About ten centimeters. Sissy is biting on a washcloth to keep from screaming. Daniel says it is now necessary to tape her mouth shut so “they don't get kicked out.” She nods okay.

He also ties her wrists and swollen ankles to the bed. Sissy is spread-eagled, nude under a sheet, eyes closed, moaning in great pain. Mouth duct-taped shut. Now the eyes open wide in terror.

“That's okay,” Daniel rumbles gently. He's enjoying himself immensely now. He reaches down and feels a membrane over the fetal head bulging with fluid and he ruptures it by poking it with a finger the size of a steel Monte Cristo #1. Fluid gushes from the vagina running onto the blanket. He has left her plenty of slack and Sissy's knees are in the air.

“Yes,” he says, watching her push again, and he sees the light-colored pubic hair part slightly and the dark hair of the fetus can be seen within the stretched introitus. He senses blood and then he spots a trickle where there is a slight tearing of the vagina. That is his CHILD in there wanting out, and the bitch's hole is not big enough.

The storage banks tell him what to do next. He sees a word that means cut and he can cut—no problem. He even carries surgical scalpels. Sterilized, more or less, he thinks. He has a scalpel that Sissy cannot see—you know, just in case. So many things can go wrong. What if the placenta accidentally implanted low on the uterine wall, just as an example? What then? What if there is a breech and Danny Junior comes out ass-first? What if the umbilical is wrapped around the head? What if a hundred things? What if the motel air-conditioning freezes the kid, or what if it comes out with its ears on backward? What then?

So if the bitch's HOLE is the problem you just make a slightly larger cut but God it's just too tempting isn't it, taking that scalpel and the stupid cunt is spread out here right in front of you on PLASTIC and the TV is LOUD and your KID is in there wanting air and she's an IDIOT you'd be doing her a favor and enough is enough and this is Dr. Bunkowski making his small incision only whoops it just keeps cutting doesn't it that nice easy pressure very delicate there at the vaginal opening the baby's head is there but then the blade is so sharp and it's her fault the bitch strains and arches up as you cut so how can you help it as the blade just keeps going, making that beautiful red, perfectly straight oh God dont you love the way it looks long and straight and opening her right up with that firm and perfectly held scalpel cutting straight up cutting deeply now through the fatty tissue of the abdomen judging it just so mustn't cut baby and cutting her right in half Jesus cutting straight on up the chest slicing right up there and then one left to right for luck and peel that shit open and take the baby just reach on in there and lift it out of that steaming stinking scarlet shit pile of guts and bile and bloody things and beating heart and screaming awful sudden death and agony and terror beyond any mortal experience, that long, straight, deep, perfect slice up the center of what was Sissy fucking Selkirk. Carving her open from poop chute to Morgan Fairchild chest, and those steel-muscled hands reach out in the sudden, violent ebullition of this bright-red moment and peel her back! god how wonderful it is and Chaingang tenderly clears the newborn's mouth and throat as he ties the umbilical close to the belly lifting it out of the dark, beefy placenta and the amniotic membrane, and oh so gently taps the little dead monkey on the bottom of its tiny feet and it goes “wwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah,” and Chaingang's son is alive. Ten fingers, ten toes, a pair of testicles, and a penis, all orifices clear and with a functioning brain. Dr. Bunkowski, he of the first hundred known heart transplants that didn't take—well, not exactly transplants, open heart surgery we can call it, the good doctor has delivered his own child. The wife, ahhhh, that's another story. She doesn't look like she's going to make it.

That's all she wrote for Sissy, it looks like. It was a weird relationship while it lasted. Poor Sissy-girl walking a kind of razor's edge, never knowing when she'd go too far and her violent madman would have to lash out at her and she'd fall across the blade. When you slide down the banister of life you gotta make sure nobody's hidden anything real sharp in there.