Go back to sleep

The van wasn’t white. It had been white, but not anymore. An inch of dust matted it like a wet cat let out to play. No windows were free of the grime. There was no seeing in or out save through a center patch on the windshield.

This wasn't a commercial vehicle. It had been a van to drive to soccer practices and little league. Camping trips and the beach.

But not anymore.

It swerved first left, then right, then managed the middle of the lane. Always just inside the lines, until this once. Over the outside line. Back down the middle. Left, a long curve, then right.

The van went this way, weaving over and back, for 3 miles down the main highway. Then it stopped. Turn signal on left, and pulling down a dirt lane headed up into the hills. It drove slower now, trying to miss pot holes. Gravel getting up in the undercarriage.

About a half mile up the hill, there was a driveway on the left. A low ranch style house on a slope. The van slid to a stop below the stairs leading to the front door. To the right of those stairs was a basement level. A detached building sitting cold and dark. Damp bins were around it. Plastic tarp on the ground. A cat walked slowly, sniffing the grass, and then turned towards the woods. It disappeared around the corner of the building.

No one got out of the van, not for a long time.

Then the van door opened. The grime parted to reveal a short, stocky man in blue coveralls. He had a cap on his head that said “George's Electrical Services”. He had razor burn in his cheek. His skin had seen sun very infrequently. His shoes were dirty, once-white sneakers two decades old. The laces were broken and tied forever on failed knots.

The trees over the house were too close and too dry. They would be a hazard in a storm. The grass was straggling. The pathway the the stairs was broken by patches of grass that hated lawn.

The man opened the double doors of the basement level and went into the dark. There were sounds like creaking and grinding. There was an abrasive thump, as of something heavy sliding into place. There was a crackling of shop lights flickering on.

The van was silent.

The man came back out. He had an overall-themed apron on. Blue jean blue and hitched up too high on his chest. It was dirty, with a reddish-brown earthen color smudged on it. It might have been paint. It might not have been.

He stood for a long time outside the van’s back doors. Filth all over. The number 503 in black letters at the upper left. That sticker was surprisingly clean.

The man pulled the van’s backside open. There was low pile beige carpet on the floor. Inside was a dark cavern. The van’s interior had no back row seats. Only open cargo space.

The man leaned into the van. He grunted, as if lifting unwieldy weight. Then his head came back into view, and he straightened suddenly with a whiplash motion. The motion threw something over his shoulder. 

In his arms was a long, thick bundle of blue cloth. The bundle had two hands and two feet. The feet were attached to two legs wrapped in black stretchy fabric. The bundle had a brown head of hair at one end. It didn’t seem to have a face.

The bundle was hard to carry. The man stumbled a few times before reaching the doors of the basement.

There was full cool light in that low room now. The room had bare concrete walls and a workbench on one side. The bench was clean old wood. Only a single box sat on the bench. It was red with silver handles and a domed top.

In the center of the room’s back wall was a large dog kennel. It was metal and shiny. It was large enough to hold several dogs. It had an old sticker on a small metal panel. It read “Veteran’s Stable”. This was the name of a large dog and horse rescue ten or twenty minutes up north. It had shut down in the spring. Not enough patronage to keep it open. Too many animals had died.

The man had procured the cage in pieces from an estate sale. The owner had died of a stroke. His two Rottweilers had eaten his torso and face before he had been found. The estate sale agent had told the man this. The man had politely laughed.

The kennel now held a twin mattress covered with pink sheets, a pink bedspread, and a pink pillow. Next to it, on a low wooden box, was a collection of items. An alarm clock. A single white rose on a stem. A stack of paperback novels. A stack of larger, older, hardback books. A bottle of lotion.

There was a pink and white rug next to the bed. There was a camping toilet at the end of the bed.

The cage was just high enough for a 5 foot 7 inch person to stand upright. The height had been important. Not allowing a person to stand up straight for too long was downright cruel.

The man steadied the bundle on his left shoulder. With his right arm he unlatched the kennel and opened the cage door. He walked in and carefully lay the bundle onto the sweet pink bedding. The bundle let out a single sound. A sigh.

The man made sure to lay the bundle face up. The bundle had a face now. It was light skin and snub nose and rosy cheeks and thick lips and dark, straight hair. The eyes were closed and furrowed in a thinking mask.

The woman who was the bundle had a sizable lump at her midsection. It was large and round like a basketball. Once she was on the bed, the lump moved and shifted. Pushing out and to the right.

The man closed the cage doors and secured them with two locks. They were heavy duty locks, said the packaging.

The man hummed and walked to the doors of the room. He closed them and walked to his work bench. He sat on a lone shop stool. He stared at the wall to the left of the cage.

The lights didn’t reach that side fully. The shadows left only a few things visible. One was a rocking chair leg, of curved brown wood. One was the brown hairy leg of a large stuffed animal. The other shapes suggested furniture covered by blankets. Near the edge of the dark lay a long white receipt. The first item on the receipt was “Diapers, newborn, 140 count”.

The man righted the workbench and placed his hands on the red box. Slowly he opened the latches. Then the lid. He gingerly pulled out and arranged items on the workbench surface.

A picture of a small boy, aged 3 or so. Dark brown hair, freckles, a sweet open smile. A squint at the sun. An orange and white infant hairbrush. Two board books: “Nursery time with Jesus” and “Goodnight Moon”. A pair of what looked like scissors but were not scissors. They were used instead to clamp something.

A brown shriveled hard piece of organic material that was so easy to lose. He caressed it and held it to his cheek.

All the items were laid out carefully, like offerings to a jealous god.

The last from the box was a small piece of cloth against thick quilt-backing fabric. The two pieces were held together with a safety pin. The cloth had a print of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. The man ran his fingers along the textured material and whispered to it.

“Soon.” Low, cooing. “You’ll be back soon.”

The man stood, the cloth in his cracked fingers. He walked closer to where the woman lay. He stared at the large basketball of her stomach. He saw movement flash across its surface.

“Two months left.” His voice was all lilt. “Be patient.”

He walked over to the wall near the cage and turned on a heater unit. He checked his watch and walked out of the basement, latching the double doors behind him.

The man walked back to the van. He buried his torso through the back doors. He emerged with a purse. It was black leather with bronze clasps. He dumped out the contents on the floor of the van.

Receipts. Two sanitary pads. A nail clipper. A wallet. A granola bar wrapper. A twice folded packet of papers. “Northwest OBGYN” headed each page. An envelope held a single ultrasound on photo paper.

A phone. It was locked. Three missed messages.

He put the ultrasound and the papers from the doctor in his pocket. He put the rest back into the purse, including the phone.

The man walked past the van into the grass. He reached a small firepit about a hundred yards from the house. The man spent a few minutes building a fire from the wood that lay in a pile nearby. He started the fire with lighter fluid and a long lighter wand. The fire sprang up around large logs. It gave off decent heat.

The man placed the purse on top of the fire. The flames settled down lower into the pile of kindling. Then the fire crackled loudly. The purse gave off the smell of a dying animal’s flatulence as it caught.

The man walked back into the basement room and stopped at the cage doors. The woman was still sleeping, but had started to stir. She made low guttural noises. She had curled up on one side.

The man stared at the woman. The alarm clock recorded 10 minutes while he stood, unmoving, eyes fixed on her face and belly. As if having made a decision, the man nodded. He then walked to the corner of the room and came back with a black zip tie and a roll of duct tape.

He unlocked the cage doors and opened them. He knelt down, knees next to the pink bed. He pulled the woman’s arms behind her back and bound them together with the tie.

Then he shook his head. Pulling from his pocket a small Swiss Army knife, he sliced the tie’s plastic. He threw the used tie across the concrete floor. The woman’s wrists had already sustained an indent from the hard plastic. He rubbed their redness with his thumb.

Then he pulled her hands around to her front, above her belly. He tore off strip after strip from the roll of duct tape. Then he used the strips to bind her hands together at the wrist. He used five layers of tape. He pulled off one more strip, about six inches long.

Then the man hovered his hands over her face. He pressed the tape against her moth and nose at the same time. She struggled, although her eyes remained closed. He removed the tape. He crumpled it up and muttered.

”Stop it,” he said under his breath. “It’ll be fine. It’s going to be fine.”

He lay his weathered hand on the woman’s belly. There was a movement in it again.

The man closed his eyes and began to sing softly.

“Rock a bye baby, on the tree top. When the wind blows a cradle will rock…”

The woman’s eyes fluttered and she shifted.

“When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all.”

At “all” the woman’s eyes opened.

She tried to speak and only a hoarse gasp came out.

Then she tried again. She spoke one word only. The word conveyed fear and doubt and hope in a single syllable. It filled the room and pressed in at them both, jealous of the space they occupied. The word was what the man had been waiting to hear. And he swallowed it whole.

“Dad?”

The man nodded.

“Daddy’s here,” he said. “It’s all right now. Go back to sleep.”

The woman’s eyes closed again and her breathing became heavier.

The man stood up.

He closed and locked the cage. Then he placed the keys in his pocket and walked away.

***

The man played the oldies station on his way back down the hill.

“Under the boardwalk, out of the sun, under the boardwalk, we’ll be having some fun.”

The man put on his left turn signal, then turned onto the highway.

This time he drove straight.