Future Home of the Living God(68)
I thank Hiro and I try to hug him, but he ducks his head, shy or restrained, and only says, “I don’t know how long you’ll be in here.”
“Who’s this mail for?”
“Towns north.”
“Any junk mail?”
“No junk mail anymore.” Hiro grins. “One of the few positives. How are you feeling?” He looks at me, his head inclines, he waits for me to answer, his face beaming as though I am just any lucky pregnant woman.
“Good,” I say. Hiro nods, satisfied. He is wearing a quilted postal employee jacket, but his scarf is a knitted orange and black Halloween scarf.
“Only a week to go,” I say, pointing at the scarf.
“No tricks, just treats, this year,” he says, making friendly, nonsense small talk. “I am not driving, but don’t worry. Chris will get you there before the candy is gone.”
“Who’s Chris?”
“Me,” says a man stepping through the stacks. He’s short, shrewd and boxy, powerful; he’s got a dark goatee and underneath his CAT cap the start of a scroungy mullet.
“Chris will take good care of you,” says Hiro.
“How come you’ve looked after me?” I ask Hiro just as he’s about to go. “How come you found me at the hospital? Brought me the messages?”
Hiro looks surprised at my question, taken aback, as though I should know. “You were on my route,” he says.
We’re settled in our cage, wearing the heavy boots and jackets. Mom folds the movers’ quilts so that they fit inside the hammocks. There are metal hand-and footholds in the walls of the truck so we can climb, catch, roll into the hammocks, and swing free. Mom takes the higher one, and that night, as we swing lightly in the knitted hammocks, the truck moves slowly along. I think how surprising some people are. Hiro has casually risked his life for me because I am on his mail route. Recycling-truck Shawn, with the tragic brown eyes, is devoting himself to the rescue and hiding of pregnant women. Tia’s husband did exactly what they’d agreed, and now they are together.
Slowly, in the dark truck, not a crack of light coming through in any part of the walls, I am lulled to a sleep that goes straight into Orielee’s murder. I resist, choke out a warning to myself. But it seems I have to pass through her death, through her kicking and grunting, through the pupils of her eyes, every time I begin to fall asleep. Once I pass through the murder and Orielee’s legs splay open and Tia falls backward, gasping, onto the floor, I relax into a black unconsciousness. I dive in, submerse, and breathe oblivion, my favorite element.
October 24
Stuck at a weigh station.
Peeing in the covered bucket. Reading by flashlight until Mom stops me, telling me we’ll need the batteries. They are LED batteries and should last for a real long time, but I suppose she’s right. Luckily, a thin gap in the truck’s siding admits a slash of radiance that I can move across the page. It is only about a half inch wide, so I move the notebook forward as I write, then return it to the left edge of my knees, then move it forward again. I’m probably this hungry because you’re adding baby weight—you are supposed to gain about half a pound every week from now on. Seems like a lot, to me, and I wonder if your hiccups have anything to do with how fast you’re growing. I use you as a kind of shelf, resting a cup of tea on you or this book. Your lungs are still fragile, little bits of tissue paper, but your brain is zipping with electric energy and all parts of your brain are lots more mature. To create all these new cells and keep you alive, I’ve made a lot more blood, and my heart’s beating about 20 percent faster than normal. Women often get hemorrhoids around this time, and sad to say, the crummy and erratic food has affected me in just this way. I need green things—roughage, as Sera calls it. Next stop, she’s going to find some, even if she’s got to stew up fallen leaves. It’s so ignoble, really brings me down, humbles me a lot. I just want to cry when I know I have to take a shit—it hurts so much, sweat pops out on my forehead. Mom’s emergency supplies do not include hemorrhoid cream but she thinks that she can score Metamucil. That, dear baby, is what the future’s come down to. My butt’s both numb and painful, and I really don’t want to think about my butt this much, so it’s really good that I am beautiful.
*
I am going to complete the pages of Zeal before we get off, because I can send them back with Chris. I’ll address them to my printer, and maybe even ask them to retrieve my mailing list from the last issue. I can picture those last issues neatly stacked on the shelf just beside my plastic box of stamp rolls and scissors. I wish that I could occupy myself, now, writing the addresses of my three hundred subscribers out on stacks of manila envelopes—if I just had manila envelopes!
Dear subscribers! You mean so much to me!
That is not how I’m going to begin my editor’s note, or introduction to this issue, but that is how I feel. Grateful for their constancy and support. I owe this issue to them and it occurs to me that perhaps—would it make sense? Should I add something personal about my own pregnancy, and tell them how profound the physical experience has been in shaping my views on the Incarnation? It is surely not necessary to include many details about the father—a cursory note will be enough. The more I think of it, the more convinced I am. This pregnancy is nothing short of momentous, and instructive, and I should share whatever truths I’ve gleaned from living through it. If the printers think that there will be trouble, perhaps they can distribute it underground. I don’t know. But I do think it is important that I share with my subscribers the truth.