I fell in with an older fellow named Richard who lived with his elderly aunt and manufactured high-grade LSD in her basement. Richard was forty-five and preferred to hang around with people half his age. I was twenty-four and worked as a hotel clerk on the night shift, from 11:00 p.m. until 7:00 in the morning. It was an inexpensive hotel and sometimes couples came in and rented a room for the night but only stayed a few hours. Richard would occasionally bring his dates back there and convince me to allow them into one of the unused rooms without any charge. It was a risky thing for me to do and I told him it made me uncomfortable.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said to me. “I’ve got a plan.”
He didn’t explain to me what this plan was until one Saturday morning when he showed up at my apartment, waking me up.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“Today is the day,” he told me.
“The day for what?”
“My plan has come to fruition.”
Richard’s plan was that we would drive out to the state forest and sample a batch of LSD he had recently completed. Together we would enjoy the sunny day and expand our minds underneath the big trees.
“I don’t know about that,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I just went to bed a few hours ago. I’m still sleeping.”
“You’re not sleeping,” said Richard. “You’re standing up.”
“I’m tired,” I said.
“We’ll get you some coffee. Come on, it’s a beautiful day. I told you I had something planned for us. I want to show my appreciation.”
He was making me feel guilty for not allowing him to pay back the favors I’d done him. It was a good ploy.
“All right,” I said. “Let me get dressed.”
“Excellent,” said Richard, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll be outside.”
I put on some clothes and when I walked out to Richard’s car I saw that there was a plump young woman named Sabrina sitting in the front passenger seat.
“Hey, Georgie,” she said to me.
“Hi, Sabrina,” I said.
I’d only met Sabrina a few times before, once at a friend’s house where she’d been sleeping on the floor, and another time at a barbeque where she had danced too close to the fire and her long skirt went up in flames. It had taken her a while to notice the fire and several people tackled her to the ground and smothered the burning skirt, averting a more serious incident.
“Is she coming with us?” I asked Richard.
“Sure,” said Richard, “if that’s all right.”
“It’s fine,” I said, and I got into the backseat of the car.
Sabrina looked back at me and smiled. She was an earthy sort of girl, with long, unkempt hair, large eyes, and a silver ring through her left nostril. Her breasts spilled out the sides of her thin cotton shirt.
Richard stopped at the gas station to get me some coffee and before he handed the cup to me he said, “You want sugar in it?”
“No, thanks,” I said.
He dropped a sugar cube in there anyway. As I drank the coffee I watched Richard pop another sugar cube into his mouth and then Sabrina stuck out her tongue and he placed one there also. There was LSD in those cubes.
At the edge of town we pulled up to a low-slung brick house with an overgrown lawn and Sabrina said, “I’ll be right back.”
She trotted inside the house, leaving me and Richard alone.
“Is this where she lives?” I asked him.
“Her grandmother lives here,” said Richard.
He tapped his fingers on the wheel of his car and stared out at the weeds in the lawn. Richard was a good-looking man, for his age. He had a full head of hair and a set of light blue eyes that girls inevitably commented upon. I often thought those eyes were his downfall. They allowed him to succeed in a world most of his peers had long ago abandoned.
There was country music playing on the car radio.
“You want to hear different music?” Richard asked me.
“Yes,” I said. “Something better.”
Richard changed the station and then Sabrina walked out carrying a half-dressed infant on her hip.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s her son,” said Richard. “She has a son.”
“A baby?”
Richard said, “Don’t sweat it, Georgie,” and Sabrina got into the car.
“His name is Aiden,” she told us.
He was wearing only a diaper and a felt hat. His chest was wet with drool. A baby! Sabrina sat him on her lap and we sped away from the town, out toward the state forest.
“Are we dropping that kid off somewhere?” I asked. “Is he coming with us?”
“Yes,” said Sabrina.
“Yes, what?”
“He’s coming with us,” said Richard.
The boy fell asleep on Sabrina’s lap, lulled into complacency by the vibrations of the car. Richard had been right about the day. The weather was beautiful. The coffee he’d bought for me tasted like rusty tin, and Sabrina and her child cast an uncertain hue on things, but there was no denying the splendor of the sun and the sky that morning. When we reached the state forest Richard pulled onto a dirt road and drove along until it got too rough to proceed.
“We’ll park it here,” he said.
As soon as the engine stopped the baby woke up. Sabrina stepped out and nursed him while sitting on a stump. I watched this happen and began to feel Richard’s LSD take effect. Things moved by in stuttering frames and my tongue grew larger in my mouth. I wasn’t sure if I could be around that kid any longer. He had a somewhat mashed-in face and his eyes were bulbous and glassy, like a frog’s.
Richard stretched out his arms and said, “Ah, yessiree.”
I thought of a medical question. I asked Sabrina, “Is that baby going to get high from your milk? Is the acid going to get passed through you?”
“No, I doubt it,” she said.
“It’s pure, no additives,” said Richard, as if that explained everything. He took off his shirt and said, “Let’s take a walk.”
Sabrina hoisted her son onto her hip and joined Richard along the path, one milky breast still hanging out of her shirt. I followed them into the woods.
“These trees are incredible!” shouted Richard. “Look at them! Look!”
Sabrina nodded her head and we walked for nearly a mile before coming to a small creek. There was steam rising from the surface of one of the pools.
“This is it,” said Richard. “Hot springs.”
He removed all of his clothes and slipped into the water with a relaxed sigh. Sabrina set her son down on a patch of moss and did the same thing. I felt a little awkward then and paced about in a circle, gazing up at the trees.
“Get in, Georgie,” said Richard. “It’s rejuvenating.”
The baby kept making these grunting noises. I said to Sabrina, “I think your baby shit his pants.”
Sabrina emerged from the creek like a sea creature, water running in tiny rivers down her belly and over her fuzzy legs.
“Oh, Aiden,” she said.
She removed his diaper, rolled it up, and tossed it into the woods. Then she washed him off in the creek and put him back down on the moss. She rejoined Richard in their hot pool and the baby began sticking bits of moss in his mouth.
“Is it okay if he eats that?” I asked.
“Relax,” said Richard. “Get in the water.”
So finally I got undressed as well and entered the creek. It was only lukewarm, not hot, but it did feel good. Our presence there had stirred up the brown algae that grew on the rocks below, so the water was murky. Richard began to rub Sabrina’s shoulders and she shut her eyes, leaning against him.
“I think I’m going to shave my head,” she told us.
“Don’t do that,” said Richard.
I tried to picture Sabrina with a shaved head and couldn’t quite do it. She’d look like an alien, or some enlarged version of that curious infant crawling around in the moss. Several minutes passed in uncomfortable silence and then Sabrina said, “I’ve got to pee.”
For a moment I thought she was just telling us this and was now going to relieve herself in our pool, but then she hopped out and went off to find a spot in the woods. Richard and I watched her dimpled ass bounce away.
“You want me to leave you two alone?” I asked him.
“No. No, of course not,” he said to me.
“It’s fine, I can go take a walk somewhere.”
“Why would you do that?” he said.
“I think she likes you.”
“I’m with Carla now,” said Richard. “It’s out of the question.”
Carla was one of the few people in Richard’s circle who was close to his own age. She was a wholesome woman who raised goats on a farm outside of town. She refused to let Richard come live with her even though he had tried to do so on several occasions. Likewise he refused to be faithful to her, so they were stuck at an impasse, as it were.
“Why isn’t Carla here now?” I asked him.
“She had to tend to those goats,” he said. “They run her life.”
There was a plunking sound from a pool above us and then a muffled cry. The baby had fallen into the creek. I jumped up and fished him out. He was silent for a moment and then began to scream. I took this as a good sign. He hadn’t suffocated. His little felt hat was soaked and useless now, so I pulled it off. I’d never held a baby before and he squirmed around like a wet fish. I grabbed my shirt and dried him off and then wrapped him up inside it.
“Where’s Sabrina?” I asked Richard.
“I don’t know,” he said. He sighed. “I’ll go find her.”
Richard rose up out of the creek, naked of course, and I noticed then how small and skinny his legs were. They looked like they could barely hold the rest of him up. He shook himself and I was reminded then of a collie, the majestic dogs with great manes of hair who look suddenly diminished once they become wet.
“I’ll be right back,” said Richard, and he wandered off naked into the forest.
I stood there by the creek with the baby in my arms and marveled at his weird-shaped head. Whoever it was that Sabrina had mated with to produce this child must have possessed even stranger features than she did. He looked more like an ostrich than a human.
I placed him on the ground and watched as he explored the forest floor with his grabby fingers. I got myself dressed while he examined various sticks and clods of dirt. The curiosity of a child! He ripped up a plant and then stuck some of its red berries into his mouth. This happened before I could think to take action. I tried to dislodge them, but he’d already swallowed some of the berries down. I examined the remaining fruit on the plant and couldn’t recognize it as anything edible. The berries were round and shiny, with a clear liquid inside. I pictured a guidebook with their image and next to it a warning: “Poisonous, Do Not Eat.”
What had just happened? Was this baby doomed? I listened intently for sounds indicating that Richard and Sabrina were on their way back so that I could transfer this problem to them.
“Richard!” I called out. “Sabrina!”
They couldn’t have gone far, but there was no sign of them. I decided to pick up the baby and carry him in the direction I’d seen them going. I called out their names over and over, but Richard and Sabrina either could not or would not respond. I figured they were off having sex somewhere, which annoyed me, but the real issue now was the color of Sabrina’s child. His skin had turned a pale green, just a faint tint, but it didn’t seem right.
I felt compelled to take action. I went back to the creek and found Richard’s pants and fished out his car keys. I looked also for a pen and paper on which to write a note, but there was nothing like that there. I smoothed out a spot of dirt and dug out a message with a stick.
“Went for help,” it said.
I dashed back along the forest path with the baby bouncing around in my arms. He remained calm, though he did spit up once or twice. It occurred to me that vomiting would be helpful in this case, so I tried to encourage more of that. He wouldn’t do it when coaxed, however.
Every so often I would stop and listen for Richard and Sabrina. I considered waiting for them, but what if the baby died first? I’d be in terrible trouble then.
When I got to the car I placed the baby on the front seat next to me, revved up the engine, and promptly backed the vehicle into a large ditch.
“Fuck,” I said.
The car was stuck. One of the wheels just spun in midair. I honked the horn several times in frustration but this was unhelpful.
The baby started to scream then, loud annoying cries I could do nothing to subdue. I stepped out of the car and left him inside so that I could think.
I had no good ideas. I could go back to find Richard and Sabrina, but then they’d just be angry about the car, not to mention the poisoned child. I wished that he wasn’t crying now because this meant his heart would beat faster and speed up the processes inside him. I grabbed him out of the car and began walking down the dirt road, out of the state forest. It would be a long walk but I saw no other options.
Shortly into our journey we encountered a large truck rumbling our way. I flagged it down and was happy to discover that Carla, Richard’s goat-herder girlfriend, was at the wheel.
“Carla,” I said. “I need your help. This baby ate some bad berries.”
The child had quieted down now. In fact, he was half asleep. I was worried he might be slipping away.
“He looks fine to me,” said Carla. She was wearing overalls and looked tan and healthy. She was an attractive woman, though a little rough at the edges. For instance, at that moment she had some kind of food stuck on her tooth, a piece of some leafy organic vegetable, I imagined.
“He’s not fine,” I told her.
“Where’s Richard?” she asked me. “I heard he came out here with that hippie girl. Does the kid belong to her?”
“Yes,” I said, “but we’ve got to get him some help. Is there a hospital near here?”
“I was the one who showed Richard where those hot springs are in the first place,” said Carla. She was pretty fired up. “He wouldn’t have even known about them if it weren’t for me.”
“Listen, Carla,” I said, “Richard’s off in the woods somewhere. I need your help with this baby.”
“Did you eat some of Richard’s LSD?” asked Carla. “What’s your fucking problem anyway? That kid looks fine. Did Richard ask you to babysit while he went off and screwed that hippie bitch in the woods?”
“No. Look, the baby ate some berries. He’s turning green.”
Carla paused and looked over the infant.
“He is a little green,” she acknowledged.
“Can we go to a hospital?”
Carla peered up the road and saw Richard’s car sitting in the ditch.
“Is that Richard’s car?”
“I got it stuck.”
“Get in,” said Carla, shaking her head.
I got inside her big truck and she drove up the hill and plowed into the side of Richard’s car, breaking a window and leaving a large unsightly dent in the door.
“That will show him,” she said. Then she backed down the road a ways until she could turn her rig around. Then we drove to the hospital.
It was a fairly long drive and the whole time Carla kept muttering about Richard and what an ass he was. I couldn’t disagree, but I was more worried about the baby. He was asleep now and every so often I would hold my fingers up to his nose to make sure he was still breathing.
When we arrived at the hospital Carla pulled up to the emergency entrance and said, “Good luck.”
“You’re not coming inside?”
“No, I’m not,” she said.
Just then the baby woke up and vomited all over the inside of Carla’s truck.
“Jesus Christ,” she said.
“I’m sorry about that,” I told her. There were a couple of little red berries lying in the puke at my feet. I was glad to see them. I took them as a sign of purging, and validation.
I made a halfhearted attempt to clean up the mess but Carla said, “Just go.”
So I stepped back and let her drive off. She really was a hard woman.
It was evening now and the inside of the hospital was bathed in a cold fluorescent hue. I approached the front desk and the receptionist handed me a clipboard with some paperwork on it.
“I think he ate some bad berries,” I said.
“Fill out the forms,” she told me.
The baby was awake now and looked markedly better. His face had regained some color and he was gurgling contentedly. I struggled for several minutes with the forms and realized I didn’t even know Sabrina’s last name. I wondered if I might get arrested for bringing the child in here like this. He was dirty and naked and someone handed me a sheet in which to wrap him.
The form was ridiculous. It asked for birth dates and Social Security numbers and insurance information, none of which I had. I looked over this strange child and tried to imagine the life he had in store for himself, a life full of ill-conceived trips to forests, clueless strangers, and unfriendly hospitals.
It was nearly time for me to be at work and I considered abandoning the baby there and letting the authorities deal with him. Perhaps that was the best thing to do, wash my hands of this whole situation. I sat him down on the seat next to me and started to walk away.
The baby began to wail and heads turned to look at me. I returned, scooped him up, and jiggled him, but still he wouldn’t be quiet. A hefty woman sitting nearby said to me, “That baby’s hungry.”
It was probably true. He hadn’t eaten in quite a while. Neither had I.
“Thank you,” I said to the woman, and I walked out of the hospital, still holding the child.
We found a small market where I purchased a banana and some other child-type foods. The baby ate them eagerly as we sat on a bench and I then felt assured that he was no longer in danger of dying.
It was 7:30 p.m., past the hour when I should have been at work, so I got on a bus with the baby and rode down to the hotel. Edna, the clerk on the day shift, was upset with me for being late, but she softened when she saw the child.
“Is he yours?” she asked me.
“No, I’m watching him for a friend,” I said.
“Oh.”
Edna left us there at the front desk and the baby and I watched old comedy shows on the flickering TV set as the hour grew late. I’d grown to like him, at least. Maybe I had judged his froglike facial features too harshly. Perhaps he’d grow handsome, or intriguingly original, and tell stories of his freewheeling childhood when he got older. Maybe his life wouldn’t be so bad. There were so many poor choices he had yet to make.
Sometime around dawn, just as the light was turning from black to gray, Richard and Sabrina burst into the small hotel lobby.
“Where the fuck have you been?” said Richard. He was wearing somebody else’s pants and a shirt that was too small. Sabrina, distraught and dirty, had been crying. There were little twigs sticking out of her hair.
“I had to be at work,” I said.
Sabrina stepped behind the desk and found her son asleep on the floor, wrapped up in the hospital sheet. She lifted him up and hugged him close.
“Oh, Aiden,” she said.
“He’s fine,” I pointed out. “He ate some berries out in the woods. I thought he’d been poisoned.”
“What?” said Richard.
“You just left me there with him,” I said.
“He’s poisoned?” said Sabrina.
“No, I don’t think so. Not anymore.”
“You wrecked my car,” said Richard.
“No, Carla did that.”
“Carla?”
“She came by while you two were out in the woods.”
“We weren’t even together,” said Richard. “I couldn’t find her. Not at first.”
“That’s not what Carla thought.”
“What did you tell her?” asked Richard. “Did you tell her we weren’t even together?”
“I just wanted to get to the hospital.”
“The hospital?” said Sabrina. She began to sob once again.
“Look,” said Richard, “the least you can do is give us a room. Look at us.”
They did look pathetic, standing there all mud-covered and disheveled. Even Richard’s dashing eyes seemed to have grown dim. The sun was rising up now and things outside came into view, the passing cars, the sidewalk, and the trees. Soon it would be another hot day.
“Just give us a room,” said Richard. “Please.”
It was nearly the end of my shift and I could have found them an empty room where no one would have noticed. I could have written up the slip so the maids would leave them alone until noon. But instead I shook my head.
“You two need to go home,” I told them. “Go home, both of you, and go to sleep. I’m not watching after your kid anymore.”
Richard stared at me with angry, dull eyes and I swallowed hard.
“I’m serious,” I said.
They turned and walked out of the lobby with the baby and I watched them weave away in Richard’s banged-up car. I sat down behind the desk and turned off the television set. Now it was finally quiet and I waited for that new day to begin.