“Sure. I’ll give you a ride.”
The Rat pulled up in his sister’s car and tooted the horn.
“Thanks for picking me up.”
“Any time.” She looked at him. If he only knew.
“God, Mark, you’re the nicest guy I know.”
“Just once,” said The Rat, “I want to be dark and mysterious.”
“Okay. You’re dark and mysterious.”
“Thanks,” said The Rat. “Are you going to be needing a ride home?”
“No. I’ll take a bus. It’s all right.”
They rounded the corner onto Broadway Street, passing on their right that big maroon building with FREE CLINIC painted on the side.
“There’s the flea market over there!”
The initial examination took the most time of all. Blood pressure. More urine and blood samples. Flashlights in the eyes. It gave her plenty of time to get more scared. She wanted to scream, Just get it over with!
There were many other girls around, most of them with the same embarrassed look on their faces. Filling out forms. Taking samples. Why didn’t men have to go through this?
Finally she was led to another room—the operating room—and seated on a steel table. Minutes passed. Another nurse came in and told her to wait just five more minutes.
Ten minutes later, the doctor entered the room. He by-passed courtesy greetings. He by-passed conversation completely.
“If you’d like to change your mind, please say so now,” he stated.
“No, thank you.”
The nurse reentered the room. They did not speak to each other. The doctor turned his back and opened a metal cabinet. He selected from it a tube filled with an emerald-colored chemical, then took from the nurse a sealed packet. He ripped the packet open and withdrew the biggest syringe Stacy had ever seen.
She started to panic.
“Will I be able to have a child after this?”
“You should,” said the doctor.
“Is this going to hurt?”
“Have you been taking the pills we gave you?”
“Yes.”
“Well . . . those should help a lot. They’ll reduce swelling and bleeding.”
“But does it hurt a lot?”
“This is your first time, right?”
She nodded.
“Well,” said the doctor, “you’ve felt pain before. It’s over very quickly . . . is your boyfriend out there?”
“Yes,” said Stacy. Out there somewhere, she thought.
The doctor watched as the nurse strapped Stacy’s legs into stirrups. He inserted the syringe into her vagina.
“Squeeze me when you feel pain,” said the nurse.
Stacy shivered as the cold rush of anesthetic swept through her lower torso. “I feel all cold,” she said.
“It’s normal.”
The nurse inserted two metal tubes leading into a large glass jar that had been placed between her legs.
“I’ll be with you after this is over,” said the nurse. Then the suction noise began.
Stacy started to panic again. “Aren’t you going to knock me out?”
“Oh, not for this,” said the doctor. It was as if she was in the dentist’s chair, and he was filling a quick cavity.
“I thought you were going to knock me out . . .”
“It will be over in a moment,” said the doctor. “You’re a good patient.” The words seemed to hold no particular meaning for him.
A huge cramp pulled Stacy’s stomach into a tight knot. Then she felt daggers of pain shooting into her solar plexus. She squeezed the nurse’s hand until it was white.
“It’ll be over in a moment. You’re a good patient.”
In one minute the jar had filled to the top with a purplish bloody membrane. She had most wanted to be knocked out so she wouldn’t have to see . . . it. But it was not even an embryo. It was just a glob.
“Send that to the lab,” the doctor directed. The tubes were withdrawn.
“Is it over?”
“Not yet. We have to do a little scraping.”
“The papers didn’t say anything about . . .”
“Just relax,” the doctor said.
They had inserted two metal scraping devices. The doctor started probing and scratching her deep inside. She was bleeding heavily, all over her white gown.
“This hurts even worse than it looks.”
“It’ll be over in a second. You’re a good patient.”
“I wish men could experience this,” Stacy said.
Her abortion had taken a total of ten minutes. The doctor patted her behind the neck. “You were a good patient,” he said. “Is there anything you need while you’re resting in the next room?”
“A box of tissues.”
The nurse left the room to get the tissues, leaving only Stacy and the doctor.
“I have one question,” said Stacy. “Does it hurt more to have a baby?”
“Yes,” said the doctor. “But you mind it less.”
She emerged from the resting room, her eyes a teary red, and sat down to complete the last of their forms. As she did, a girl and her boyfriend entered the same reception area. This girl was on her way in. Her boyfriend picked up a magazine and leafed through it.
The girl looked at Stacy. For a moment the two caught each other’s eyes and locked in. What passed between them Stacy was not sure about, but she knew she would remember this a long, long time. The tubes. The jar. The doctor. And she would remember the look in that girl’s eyes. They were like a deer’s eyes, caught in headlights.
It was March twenty-first, and she would always remember the date, too, because it was her mother’s birthday. Stacy Hamilton felt a lot older today.
“Nurse,” she said, “I’m going to wait for my boyfriend downstairs.”
The Tribute
Mrs. Paula Benson, the forty-two-year-old cafeteria manager of Ridgemont High School, had come to the end of the line with her job. It was her ninth year with the school, and still the administration hadn’t favored her with a policy change. A decade ago, then Vice-Principal William Gray had decided that the cafeteria was the best training spot for retarded and handicapped students hoping to make an entrance into the mainstream. The idea caught on. For nine years Mrs. Benson had been helping the handicapped help themselves help her.
A next-door neighbor had planted a terrible thought in Mrs. Benson’s head: “Paula, you are the same age now that Elvis Presley was when he died. You take care of yourself.” Mrs. Benson looked in the mirror and saw a woman much older than her years. She decided to quit Ridgemont.
As she explained to Ray Connors on the Friday before Easter vacation, it was not that she minded working with the disabled. She was just tired of all the students, and it was about time that she “started keeping her own house clean.”
Ray Connors took a look at this woman, this quiet soul who had summoned all her courage to make this decision, and rewarded her, typically, with a promotion to area manager. It was a job that involved her traveling to all the local schools and working with all the handicapped students in all the cafeterias. With the promise of a small raise to go along with the new title, a tired and wan Paula Benson reported to her last day at Ridgemont High School.
She had heard the loud screeching noises from as far away as the parking lot. As she drew closer, she realized with no small terror that all the racket was coming from—my God—the cafeteria.
She entered through the side door. It was an incredible sight—there had to be thirty young men in Afro hairdos or wigs, all carrying amplified guitars. Wearing scarves. They looked to her with hope.