“Wonder what’s goin’ on?” he muttered to himself as he climbed out of the cab. He hoped it wasn’t some sort of disaster or other. Happening on Christmas-that sure would be a shame.
The hospital’s front entrance and main waiting area were all a-tangle with people, quite a few of them carrying video cameras, the rest standing around drinking coffee out of plastic cups and looking out-of-sorts. Several of them kind of stared at Jimmy Joe when he walked in, which was a reminder to him that it had been a couple of days since he’d showered and shaved. He was glad he’d put on a clean shirt and his good boots and changed his trucker’s vest for his fleece-lined Levi’s jacket, but he knew from the glimpse.he’d caught of himself in the glass doors coming in, with his two-day beard and bloodshot eyes, that he was no prize. On the other hand, it was Mirabella he’d come to see, not a bunch of strangers, and he had an idea she would forgive him if he looked a little rough around the edges.
He eased his way through the crowd with a few “Beg your pardons” and “‘Scuse me, ma’ams” and made it up to the reception desk, where a sweet-faced, gray-haired lady wearing a pink pinafore was trying her best to ignore all the hustle and bustle.
She flicked him.a glance. and said, “May I help you?” in a tone of voice that warned him she would rather not.
He cleared his throat and leaned as close to her as he could across the countertop so he wouldn’t have to shout his business to the whole world over the noise. “Uh…yes, ma‘am, I’m lookin’ for the maternity department?”
The lady in pink folded her hands together as if she was about to say her prayers and gave him a look that wasn’t much warmer than the temperature outside. “Of course you are. And the patient’s name?”
“Uh…yes, ma’am. That’d be Mirabella…” Damnation, what was it? “Uh, Waskowitz. She and her baby were brought in this morning.”
“Yes, sir, and are you a member of the family?”
Whew, thought Jimmy Joe, if that voice had been any colder it would have given him frostbite. A moment later, when he thought about it, he knew what he should have done was lie-just say, “Yes, ma’am, I’m her brother,” or something like that, and be done with it. But the habit of honesty was so ingrained in him, by the time the inspiration came to him, he’d already blurted out the truth.
“No, ma’am, I’m not. I guess you could say I’m a friend.” He saw right away that wasn’t going to get him anywhere, so he shuffled around and cleared his throat some more, and then jumped back in with, “But I know she’ll want to see me. My name’s Jimmy Joe Starr, and, uh,… Well, see, I was with her when she bad her baby. In fact, she, uh, had it in my truck. And…well, I promised her I’d come by and see her, soon as I could. Just to say hi, you know, make sure she’s okay…”
Somewhere along in there, it came to him that the people around him had gotten real quiet. In fact, he figured he could have heard a pin drop. He kept lowering his voice and leaning closer to the lady in pink, trying his best to keep his business private, but when he did that, it seemed to him that everyone in the place sort of leaned with him.
Then all of a sudden it was like a dam had burst. The whole roomful of people surged in around him, everybody trying to push everybody else out of the way, people shoving microphones and video cameras in his face and shouting questions at him, all talking at once.
“Mr. Starr-Mr. Starr!”
“Over here-”
“How did it feet-”
“Are you the trucker-”
“What do you think about being called a Good Samaritan?”
“When did you know you were going to-”
“Had you ever delivered a baby before, Mr. Starr?”
“Mr. Starr-Mr. Starr!”
“How does it feel to be a hero, Mr. Starr?”
Oh, man. Once when he was a kid, Jimmy Joe remembered, he and his oldest brother Troy had hooked a hornets’ nest while they were fishing. That was pretty much the way he felt right now, like he wanted to cover his head and make for deep water.
But they had him cornered, and it looked like there wasn’t much hope he was going to be able to make a run for it. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the lady in pink making her escape; all he could hope was that maybe she’d gone for reinforcements.
In the meantime, he had to try and make the best of it. And one thing he wasn’t going to try to do was outshout everybody. Neither was he going to shuffle his feet and look like some dumb Cracker-his mama had taught him better than that. In fact, it was his mama’s methods he called on, particularly the one she used to always use to get the attention of a classroom-or a kitchen-full of kids all squabbling and hollering at once. He raised one hand, bowed his head, closed his eyes, and then…just waited. He waited until everybody got quiet again, which didn’t take as long as a person might think. When he wasn’t hearing anything except some rustling around and nervous coughing, he opened his eyes. And it seemed like everybody drew in a big breath and held it.
He pointed to a woman standing right in front of him, with sleek dark hair pulled back in a French twist and a familiar look about her, although he couldn’t place her. He took a breath, hesitated a moment, then let it out in a rush and said, “Who are you people?”
Then everybody laughed, and it seemed like he’d made a whole roomful of new friends.
The woman he’d pointed to waved her microphone but this time remembered her manners and didn’t poke it in his face. She said, “I guess you’ve been a little out of touch, Mr. Starr. This is a great story-Good Samaritan trucker delivering a baby on a snowbound interstate, on Christmas Day. It’s a wonderful story. The whole country’s been following it, ever since word started coming in last night. It seems you’ve become quite a hero. What do you think of that?”
Jimmy Joe looked at. all those microphones and video cameras pointed at him-at a respectful distance, now-and for a few moments he didn’t say anything. He was thinking about Mirabella. Remembering…so many things. Like the images in a kaleidoscope, fragmented and rearranged into images of unimaginable beauty.
Terrified eyes, shivering voice… “I think I’m having my baby…”
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”
“Can’t…make a mess!”
Furiously… “Can’t you understand English?”
“I ca-an’t!”
The imprint of her fingers on his arm… the feel of her mouth.
“Too many mountains… more mountains…”
“If you say that one more time, I’ll kill you!”
“Amy… her name is Amy.”
“I’ve never made love before…”
“Please…come with me!”
“Don’t leave me…”
He had to cough, clear his throat and take a couple of deep breaths before he could speak, and when he did his voice was still so raspy it didn’t even sound like him.
“Well, first off, I’m no Good Samaritan, and, uh…I’m sure not a hero. What I did wasn’t any more’n any other person I know of woulda done, under the same circumstances. The only hero here is that lady lying up there in that hospital bed. She‘s-” And then he had to stop and cough some more. “Well, she’s just about the bravest person I ever saw, is all. And, uh…well, that’s all I’ve got to say. Now, if y’all will excuse me…”
He turned blindly, thinking he knew how a trapped wolf felt just before he started gnawing his leg off, and there was a big burly fellow in a rent-a-cop uniform reaching out to him and saying in that quiet, no-argument cop way, “Sir, you want to come with me, please? Right this way.”