friend, Lew."
Verne stood, offering her back. Her dress slid easily over shoulders, head and raised arms. Tufts of hair, scissored short
but never shaved, underarm.
Now her head lay in the crook of my shoulder, my hand curled like a snail against her spine. Mozart's bassoon concerto from
the radio. Gentle rain outside. Wind moaned at stray corners and windows of the house where daylight was fading.
"Everything slips away, doesn't it Lew."
"If you don't take notice, it does."
"Even if you do."
What could I say?
Let wind and fading light speak for me?
After a moment she raised her head and met my eyes. Her own eyes glistened. The concerto's second movement began. Aching,
reluctant. As though once these notes were uttered and released they'd be gone forever, forever irretrievable.
"Can you hold me, Lew? Just hold me?"
"I am holding you, V."
"Then can you just go on? Just for now. So /won't slip away."
I could. I did. But I never held her hard enough, or long enough.
To this day I don't know why.
SOME TIME AFTER the shooting, landlocked on Touro's dry continent, sometime in the second month, perhaps, I met the man who
loved dead babies.
Those days I spent a lot of time walking, corridors, hallways, along Prytania just outside, staying close to walls as, still
virtually sighdess, I paced the limits of my world thinking of caged things. Terrible slowness overtaking haste, as poet Cid
Corman put it. Or how Blind Lemon ranged all over Dallas, uptown, Deep Elm, no problem.
One morning, having got off inadvertendy on the wrong floor, no one else on the elevator to guide me, I fetched up outside
the neonatal intensive care unit.
"Baby Girl Teller's gone."
Not at all certain I was being addressed till a hand touched me lightly and withdrew.
"Baby Girl Teller? Shawna."
"I'm sorry?"
"Last night sometime." Rich aroma of coffee from his breath. "I was here till eight, so it had to be sometime after that.
Nurses still in report, I won't know for a while. None of us ever thought she'd last that long, of course. Amazing how hard
these kids struggle, isn't it?"
I realized a hand had been extended. Found and took it. Another pause as he noticed my groping.
"Sorry." Faint suggestion of good bourbon beneath the coffee? "Bob Skinner. Have a restaurant over on Adams coming up on ten
years now. Can't cook a lick myself, I'd be eating fish sticks and Stouffer's most nights otherwise, but from the first, no
reason to it, good people walked in my front door looking for work. They run the place. I have sense enough to get out of
the way and let them."
I told him who I was.
"Notfromhere."
"Not a hell of a lot of us are. Even those of us for whom it's home."
"I know what you mean. I came down twelve years ago for the music. Celebration trip, I told myself: I'd just graduated from
City College with a master's in philosophy. What the hell you gonna do with something like that, a degree in philosophy? Might
as well train to be a shepherd. When the others went back, I stayed on. My Polish grandmother had left me money smuggled out
of Germany. I used it to open the restaurant. Damned thing took off—who'd have ever thought it? You have a son or daughter
in there?"
I shook my head. "Just walking by."
"Feeling your way, so to speak." He must have smiled at that. I know I did. "Baby Girl Teller's the third one to die this
week. Something they call nee. Dead bowel. IC bleeds get a lot of the others. Kind of like a stroke. That's what took Baby
Boy Gutierrez, both the Williams twins, Baby Raincrow. Mario, that's Baby Raincrow, he'd been with us almost three months.
"Top of that, you've got drug babies, chronic hearts, all these syndromes with password names, Down and Tet and the like.
Or short rib syndrome, like what Baby Patel had. Diptak, his name was. Always made me thinlc Tiktok of Oz. Chest wall never
develops past what's there at birth. Just growing up kills you. You squeeze yourself to
Verne stood, offering her back. Her dress slid easily over shoulders, head and raised arms. Tufts of hair, scissored short
but never shaved, underarm.
Now her head lay in the crook of my shoulder, my hand curled like a snail against her spine. Mozart's bassoon concerto from
the radio. Gentle rain outside. Wind moaned at stray corners and windows of the house where daylight was fading.
"Everything slips away, doesn't it Lew."
"If you don't take notice, it does."
"Even if you do."
What could I say?
Let wind and fading light speak for me?
After a moment she raised her head and met my eyes. Her own eyes glistened. The concerto's second movement began. Aching,
reluctant. As though once these notes were uttered and released they'd be gone forever, forever irretrievable.
"Can you hold me, Lew? Just hold me?"
"I am holding you, V."
"Then can you just go on? Just for now. So /won't slip away."
I could. I did. But I never held her hard enough, or long enough.
To this day I don't know why.
SOME TIME AFTER the shooting, landlocked on Touro's dry continent, sometime in the second month, perhaps, I met the man who
loved dead babies.
Those days I spent a lot of time walking, corridors, hallways, along Prytania just outside, staying close to walls as, still
virtually sighdess, I paced the limits of my world thinking of caged things. Terrible slowness overtaking haste, as poet Cid
Corman put it. Or how Blind Lemon ranged all over Dallas, uptown, Deep Elm, no problem.
One morning, having got off inadvertendy on the wrong floor, no one else on the elevator to guide me, I fetched up outside
the neonatal intensive care unit.
"Baby Girl Teller's gone."
Not at all certain I was being addressed till a hand touched me lightly and withdrew.
"Baby Girl Teller? Shawna."
"I'm sorry?"
"Last night sometime." Rich aroma of coffee from his breath. "I was here till eight, so it had to be sometime after that.
Nurses still in report, I won't know for a while. None of us ever thought she'd last that long, of course. Amazing how hard
these kids struggle, isn't it?"
I realized a hand had been extended. Found and took it. Another pause as he noticed my groping.
"Sorry." Faint suggestion of good bourbon beneath the coffee? "Bob Skinner. Have a restaurant over on Adams coming up on ten
years now. Can't cook a lick myself, I'd be eating fish sticks and Stouffer's most nights otherwise, but from the first, no
reason to it, good people walked in my front door looking for work. They run the place. I have sense enough to get out of
the way and let them."
I told him who I was.
"Notfromhere."
"Not a hell of a lot of us are. Even those of us for whom it's home."
"I know what you mean. I came down twelve years ago for the music. Celebration trip, I told myself: I'd just graduated from
City College with a master's in philosophy. What the hell you gonna do with something like that, a degree in philosophy? Might
as well train to be a shepherd. When the others went back, I stayed on. My Polish grandmother had left me money smuggled out
of Germany. I used it to open the restaurant. Damned thing took off—who'd have ever thought it? You have a son or daughter
in there?"
I shook my head. "Just walking by."
"Feeling your way, so to speak." He must have smiled at that. I know I did. "Baby Girl Teller's the third one to die this
week. Something they call nee. Dead bowel. IC bleeds get a lot of the others. Kind of like a stroke. That's what took Baby
Boy Gutierrez, both the Williams twins, Baby Raincrow. Mario, that's Baby Raincrow, he'd been with us almost three months.
"Top of that, you've got drug babies, chronic hearts, all these syndromes with password names, Down and Tet and the like.
Or short rib syndrome, like what Baby Patel had. Diptak, his name was. Always made me thinlc Tiktok of Oz. Chest wall never
develops past what's there at birth. Just growing up kills you. You squeeze yourself to
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