A TALK-SHOW HOST NAMED DAVE LETTERMAN PULLED OVER AT A rest stop on his way home, turned off the radio, and heaved a deep sigh. A week before, as he was leaving his home, he had been approached by a man he knew a little bit, a fellow named Robert, who said to him viciously:
“Wait a second! I’ll have your hide for going after interns and assistants. Don’t be surprised if a baby shows up unannounced one of these days. How will you explain that to your wife?”
Robert demanded that Dave should put money into the bank in his name. Dave hurried away. In the car, on the way home at the rest stop, a week later, he sighed again and reproached himself for the momentary infatuation which had caused him so much worry and misery.
When he reached his home, he sat down to rest on the doorstep. It was almost nine o’clock, and a bit of the moon peeped out from behind the clouds. He was nearly alone; his wife and his son were at a school play, and most of the staff was off for the night. Dave heard a noise that sounded faintly like the cry of a bird. He got up and walked around the house. There, in a basket, he saw something that sent his face into a look of horror as if it were a snake coiling to strike. In a small heated patio at the side of the house lay a bundle. Something oblong in shape was wrapped up in something else—judging by the feel of it, a wadded quilt. One end of the bundle was a little open, and Dave, putting in his hand, felt something damp and warm. He leaped to his feet in horror and looked about him like a criminal trying to escape from a cell.
“He has left it!” he muttered through his teeth, clenching his fists. “Here it lies, my transgression! Holy God!”
He was numb with terror, anger, and shame. What was he to do now? What would his wife, Regina, say if she found out? What would people at the show say? Maybe Biff would dig him in the ribs, guffaw, and say: “I congratulate you! Though your hair is gone, your nerve is still there in full. You are a rogue!” Universities would know his secret now, and probably the intern-placement programs would shut their doors to him. Such incidents always get into the papers, and Dave would be dragged through it over and over again.
Dave went inside and sat. After a minute he went back to the patio and brought the bundle with him. He put it in a corner of the room. At the sound of a car outside, he hurried into a chair and took a newspaper for his lap. He distinctly heard the voice of his wife and son. His son slammed the car door, and he flinched. The baby had only to wake up and begin to cry, and the secret would be discovered. Dave was conscious of an overwhelming desire to run.
“Maybe I can take it somewhere else,” he told himself. “To a hospital? To a friend’s house? I’ll get it in the car before anyone else sees it.”
Dave swept up the bundle and quietly went out the side door. His car was blocked in by his wife, so he went down the driveway, toward the road, where another car was parked.
“Awful, awful!” he told himself, trying to assume an air of unconcern. “A talk-show host walking down the driveway with a baby! If anyone sees me, I am through. Where am I going with this baby, anyway? I can’t just leave it anywhere. Come to think of it, I don’t even know what woman it belongs to. Maybe I’d better take it to a friend’s house until I sort this all out. Maybe I’ll go over to Martha Stewart’s. She’s got a soft spot for babies. I’ll just leave it there and that’ll buy me time.”
And Dave made up his mind to take the baby to Martha Stewart’s house, which was a short drive away, maybe fifteen minutes.
I hope the baby doesn’t scream, he thought as he came alongside the car. Isn’t this something? Here I am carrying a human being as though it were a bag of groceries. A human being, alive, with a soul, with feelings like anyone else. Maybe Martha Stewart will find a home for it. Maybe this baby will turn out to be a prominent educator or a musician or a statesman. Now it’s under my arm like a package. I don’t even have a baby seat. Can I just buckle it in?
As Dave was putting the child into the backseat, he looked up at the sky, which was nearly dark now, with darker patches where the trees were, and it suddenly struck him that he was doing something very cruel and criminal.
I can’t do this! he thought. I can’t bear it. All I am doing is shifting this poor baby from door to door. It’s not its fault that it’s been born. It’s done me no harm. And what was my role in this? The villain’s role. I took my pleasure and the innocent has to pay the penalty. What if I put it at Martha Stewart’s door and she sends it to an orphanage, and it grows up among strangers, without love, and it becomes a criminal, or a drunk, or a ne’er do well? I could provide for this child easily. I have money. It is, after all, my flesh and blood.
Dave got in the backseat with the bundle, left the door open so the overhead lamp was illuminated, and opened the bundle. The baby was asleep.
“Asleep!” he murmured. “You little thing. Look, you’ve got your father’s hair: it’s like the Isthmus of Panama up there. And he’s just sleeping, with no knowledge that it’s his own father looking at him! Forgive me for what I am about to do.”
Dave blinked and felt a spasm in his cheeks. He wrapped the baby, started the car, and drove away.
If I were a decent, honest man, he thought, I should damn everything, go with this baby to Regina, fall on my knees before her and say: “Forgive me! I have sinned! Torture me, but don’t ruin an innocent child. Let’s adopt him!” She’s a good woman, she’d consent. . . . And then my child would be with me!
He reached Martha Stewart’s house before he knew it and sat in the car, still hesitating. His phone was ringing but he didn’t answer it. It was probably Regina, wanting to know where he had gone. He imagined himself at home, sitting reading the newspaper while a little boy climbed up on his lap. It had happened before—it could happen again. Or could it? There were reporters, lawyers. Dave took the baby out and got ready to carry it up to Martha Stewart’s door. Again he felt his face twitch. “Forgive me,” he said. “Don’t remember me like this.”
He stepped toward the house, but immediately returned back toward the car.
“Damn it all!” he said. “I’ll take him, and let people say what they like!”
Dave took the baby and strode rapidly back toward the car.
Let them say what they like, he thought. I’ll go at once, fall on my knees and say: “Regina!” She is a good sort, she’ll understand. And we’ll bring him up. If it’s a boy we’ll call him Gerard, and if it’s a girl we’ll call her Dorothy. Harry will love a playmate in the house, and it will be another comfort in our old age.
And he did as he determined. Faint with shame and terror, full of hope and vague rapture, he drove home, walked in the front door, went right to Regina, and set the bundle before her.
“Here!” he said with a sob. “Hear me before you punish. The devil drove me to it.”
He jumped up without waiting for an answer and ran away as if he had been burned. He was on the side patio where he had first found the baby.
I’ll stay here outside till she calls me, he thought. I’ll give her time to recover and to think it over.
He was there still a few minutes later when he saw Steve Martin walking along the edge of the house. Dave tried to ignore him, but Steve Martin waved heartily and opened the side door to the patio.
“Hey there,” Steve Martin said. “I have the craziest story. Kenny, this guy who does your tree trimming, does some for me too. He was over at my place right before dinner. All of a sudden he started screaming. I thought he had cut himself. But he said that his baby was with him this afternoon and that he had left it here. It totally did him in. He was in no shape to come back over, couldn’t even drive, so I said I’d do it. I’ve been calling you.”
“What? What are you saying?” said Dave.
“I know,” Steve Martin said. “I thought Kenny was gay too. Turns out that he got a girl from your house staff pregnant. I forget her name. Anyway, that’s why he got his head all turned around and left the baby here.”
Glancing at Dave’s eyes, which were glaring at him with anger and astonishment, Steve Martin cleared his throat guiltily and went on: “Gee, maybe Kenny didn’t want me to say anything. I know you have a strict policy about staff fraternizing with other staff. But maybe he couldn’t help it.”
“Damn it!” Dave shouted, and he went back into the house.
Regina, amazed and wrathful, was sitting as before, her tearstained eyes fixed on the baby.
“There! there!” Dave muttered with a pale face, twisting his lips into a smile. “It was a joke. It’s not my baby. Of course it’s not. It’s Kenny’s. I was joking. Steve Martin is here to pick it up and take it back to its father.”