My Baby

The officer told me:

. . .we come over the rise and there it was, black Ford upside down in the ditch, thin woman stumbling this way and that, weeping my baby my baby, I can't find my baby.

We told her that's okay here he is, the boy's leg's cut but we'll stop it m'am, and he's scared but okay.

Poor lady kept saying my baby, my baby, please get my baby, where's my baby.

We got her to sit down and put a blanket on her and the little shaking kid, but she kept going to the car saying my baby. We showed the light in, the car was empty but she just kept saying my baby my baby.

We couldn't get her to leave though we took the kid to town. She went to the car and wouldn't move, holding herself.

Got the truck set up and her outa the way and pulled the car over and oh god, there was the baby all stuck in the mud and white and dirty and oh god Mister. oh god, the baby was dead and we didn't know if it was alive when we truned the car over and if we killed it.

Her baby, oh, your baby, oh god Mister, we're so sorry, we didn't know of two, we thought it was just one.
* * *

So I said no let's not bury him here I wanna take him home, okay honey.

Sam said all right if that's what you want. I want to stay with Josh in St Joes and then I'll be home, you go on with Matt.

So I got the little thing's casket wrapped in a pink frizzy quilt, guess the parson's wife did it, no one had ever left with a dead baby before. Put him tenderly in the truck and took off for Houston feeling pretty spooky and unsure of myself.

But that baby didn't need to go that way and I wanted to get out of that hard town and away from Matt's murderers and the preacher and god those blubbering relatives acting like they knew the baby they didn't.

I got to Houston and then just drove through the night to help get my berings, until I saw more clearly to call Joel and said I got my dead baby in the truck what should I do? Scared the poop outa him I guess but he was a doctor at Baylor Med and figured that nothing was ever new so told me to come get him and talk it over.

No tricks I said, I'm gonna do this my way. He said fine by me, you never done anything any other way.

We rode around a while with him eyeing the pink pile in the back and eyeing me up front.

We went back out to Forest Lawn and walked in cold to say we got a dead baby and can we leave'im here for a while, this was getting hot summer in Houston and we weren't sure if we had a problem.

They said no, so Joel showed his Baylor ID and they said it's up to you Doctor not our responsibility.

We put Matt I guess you could say back in one of the cool rooms still in the pink and went out to eat. Pretty spooky meal with no sure guide on this trip.

Joel studied existentialism at Rice and we thought we knew it all but this was something outa the range, we kidded ourselves.

After a while we went back and got Matt and rode across town way out the other side where the low houses ran out to flat wet fields.

The road ran board straight for twenty miles, not a bend, so we u-turned back toward town and Joel said what now.

I said well I guess putting him in a can is a way to keep him with us so let's do that.

Joel said fine whatever suits you.

We turned off toward the place that does that and went in to the cool office and said to the man we got a dead baby and want to cremate it or whatever it is.

Man said fine what's your name and the baby's name and where's the certificate and can you give a doctor's okay that the body was treated right in moving.

Joel said yep you got it. Fine, the man said, let's get going.

I wanna call Sam, I said, and tell what's up, so Joel said over here's a phone.

Sam, we got it set up to keep Matt with us, she said how and I told her and she said oh, my baby, oh, my baby, do what you want, I want my baby, and she began to cry and cry and I said Joel let's go.

We went out in the sun, boy maybe a hundred, and I got the warm pink thing in my arms and started to shiver.

Joel said lemme help, and I said thanks I got him. Let's go.

We went in to the big place and it was hollow and cool not hot like I expected just some chairs and dim light and a rack kinda thing for moving luggage. The kind man said here put your baby here, he was so kind I almost wept at the soft way he spoke, not like that creepy preacher out west who had a voice that hurt.

I said should the quilt come off and the man said no it doesn't matter just leave things as they are. He said it's all automatic from now own but say a few words before.

Joel said what do you think, what would the smart guys say at a time like this, dasein, neant, l'homme est passione inutile, he knew french like I did, la petite.

So we acted smart to cover our numb and I said go ahead and the kind man pushed the button. Matt scooted off and on his own passed through a flap and the man said come back in about an hour.

We did, got Matt in a can and took off for town feeling kinda spooky with Matt up front like he used to, before the pink sleeping baby was killed and killed maybe twice way out there in the pitch dark ditch of hard West Texas.

Well, Sam and Josh came home a few weeks later and we were all together again, kinda, with Matt in a place of honor up there on the wall, higher than he'd ever been except maybe that part went up as smoke.