You watch him and hold my spot and I’ll bring you back a coffee.
No problem.
When she returns, we drink it down quietly. Feel the warm moving through. Talk about the price of diapers. Secondhand snowsuits. Value Village. They grow so fast. Three pairs of boots last winter, I swear to God. Stupid to get anything new.
My kids pull up at ten to eight. Clean faces and warm hats. Their snow pants have their names written on the tags.
A guy from the back comes forward.
No cutting, he says. Eyes empty and tired. He wants to enforce the lining up law.
I tell him I’ve been holding this spot since four in the morning. The cinnamon roll mom nods her head.
My wife looks in the other direction. Raises an eyebrow at me. Shrugs. The kids are quiet. This has nothing to do with them.
But the cinnamon roll lady won’t back down. Gets up in his face.
Right fucking here since right fucking four, she says. He held the places and I got the coffees. We’ve been here since the beginning.
I tell the guy to relax. This clinic is only for pregnant women and kids under five. The priority groups. Nobody else is getting anything. I’ve been holding this spot since four.
Tough, he says. Doesn’t matter. Back of the line. No cutting.
I am too cold for this. Sick of him already.
You don’t run this show, I say. This is our spot. I have been here since four and we’re not going anywhere.
He steps in close to me. Tight. Smell the stale Tim Horton’s on his breath. He whispers it in my ear.
Listen you little faggot, I got my own kid back there. She’s freezing and now your guys are cutting in.
I know what it looks like, but it’s not how it is.
It is how it is. No cutting.
The doors open and a nurse comes out, spots us instantly and understands. Must happen every morning. Ten times a day.
The guy tells her I’m trying to move my kids to the front.
I have been here since four.
She touches my arm and touches his arm at the same time. The voice is flat. No eye contact. Bureaucracy flows through her fluorescent bib. A performance of order no one can argue with.
There will be plenty for everyone, she says.
Lines that must come from a handbook.
Everyone will please return to their original spots. There will be plenty of vaccine. The staff of this clinic understand this is a stressful period for all families. We thank you in advance for your patience.
Henry IV’s coronation in 1399. Most famous moment in the history of lice. The Archbishop, holding the crown in his hands, ready to set it on Henry’s head. The granting of supreme power. Sees them, hundreds of lice, moving in the King’s hair. Scared now to even touch him. Drops the crown and recoils. It nearly hits the floor. He backs away. Disgusted. Blessings extended from a distance. Lice in the palace, Henry spreads it through the entire court. Centuries of evasive tactics, but they cannot get away. Powdered wigs. Shaved heads underneath. Revolutions in hygiene. Zinsser tracks them all.
Dates and times printed out on small white cards. Where we need to be and when. Appointments and consultations. The doctors count our cells. Blood tests and urine tests. Semen samples. Vaginal discharge. What they tell us. There will never be kids. Impossible under these conditions. Levels bad on both sides. Figures that do not add up. Incompatible. A test we fail every month. Wait for it not to come, but the period arrives on time. Both know the expected day. She comes out of the bathroom. Closes the door. Shakes her head.
Twenty-six months of trying. More than two years. Like a wet fog, soaking through everything else. Folic acid supplements. Prenatal vitamins. No caffeine. The best odds diet. Cut down on the booze. Save yourself for when you are needed. A hidden calendar charts internal temperatures. Days with red X’s and green X’s. Ovulating. This is the window. Good cervical mucus is stretchy. Look at it, she says. A translucent elastic she pulls out of her body.
We go all the different ways. On the top and on the bottom. Pillow under the small of her back. Hands and knees. Standing up. Sitting down. Calculate angle and thrust. Deep and deep and deep. Hydraulics of life. Pressure and lubrication. Sweat dripping off the tip of my nose. Tears in her eyes. Salt water.
Desired outcomes. What we want is when we want it. No way to connect where we are and where we were. This is the opposite of everything we have ever done before. Sugar pills, place savers, in the circle dispenser. Click, click, click. Be sure to pull out. Blow your load. Days sprawling. Three years to finish the thesis. No rush. Smeared towels. Breakfast at three in the afternoon. Our first real bed, the mattress raised up off the ground. First place. Tall ceilings. Candles melting in the necks of wine bottles. Sticky cast off T-shirts. Summer humidity. Sun dresses and tank tops. Thin tan lines rolling over her shoulder. Freckles. Crusty Kleenex. A rubber swirling down the bowl. Ribbed for her pleasure. Random Wednesday afternoon. Lazy like you do not know.
How much do you think? she asks me once.
Blazing sunlight. Grey hand-job puddle in her palm. Devious, joking smile.
She holds it out. Slime on her fingers.
How much do you think? In one lifetime? How much can one guy produce? A pint of it? A gallon of splooge? No way. Think about that: a gallon, a milk jug in just one person? So, so, so gross.
What we will or will not do. She spits. It’s like a spoonful of salty, spicy snot.
THEY PROVIDE US with choices. Second options. Back door solutions. Science and witch doctor stuff. In vitro. Voodoo remedies. Test tubes. Special teas. Surrogates. Yoga. Deep breathing. Are you too hot down there? Too tight? Forms to fill out for adoption. Somebody else’s trip back from a Chinese orphanage. Maybe it will be just ourselves. And can you please tell me what would be so wrong with that? A clean house. Newspapers read cover to cover. Film festivals. Money. We might have money. Maybe just ourselves. Think about that for a second. Could we stay like this all the way through?
No, she says. No.
Twenty-six months of trying. But only twenty-six. Positive test result. Nobody can tell us why. Sometimes these things happen, they say. Sometimes. Zygote. Meiosis. Change. A series of diagrams I remember from a high-school Biology test. Still with me. Chromosomes pulling to the side, dividing on their own. Hold that stick directly in the stream of your urine. Wait for it. A mark emerging from the white background. Plus sign.
Zinsser. My crazed epidemiologist. How much I like him: “But the louse seems indefinitely committed to the materialistic existence, as long as lousy people exist. Each newborn child is a possible virgin continent, which will keep the louse a pioneer — ever deaf to the exhortations to better evaluate his values. If lice can dread, the nightmare of their lives is the fear of some day inhabiting an infected human being.”
The night off. Home for Christmas and everybody else in bed. The baby goes down easy. Nervous energy from the road. Hit The Bridge with my brothers. Bring it on. Pitchers of draft and over-salted stale popcorn. There is never enough. Stay through to close. Rush to pay. This is on me. The next pitcher and a round of shots. Deep swallows and sour faces. Accept all obvious consequences for our actions. See the future. What is going to happen to us: Stagger back home, compete for couches. Sleep on the floor for two or three hours. Wake to the same hard morning. The world starting up again. My brain and your brain and your brain. Same hangover beating in every head. Know you will throw-up hours before you actually do.
Talk about nothing. Talk only for the voices, the sounds they make. The way they hold the table together. A good topic is all you need. Best nickname in the history of the Pistons.