Before Knowing Remembers
She wasn’t sure what kind of -pathy he met her with those days, and as she walked towards his shop she became aware that she was desperate for a sliver of sympathy. Even a vague undercurrent of antipathy or apathy Herbie sometimes carried would drown her that day, though he seemed to have softened since The Baby entered the picture.
His mercurial nature was heavily molded by things such as: a missed penalty kick by the UGA football team (you’re a damned good dog until you give up those extra points), a summer storm three days out but that he felt from his sitting bone up to his right molar, a special on neapolitan ice cream at the Piggly Wiggly only to find out he was overcharged 25 cents (believe you me, he drove back for that quarter on principle alone, very aware he spent more than that amount on gas to get back and home again), a waft of strong whiskey that reminded him of his daddy’s angry fists, that first fall night when the humidity finally broke and the air smelled clear and free, lightning bugs playing tag between the dark and musty pines, the unexpected memory of his long-dead dog that occasionally hit him like a ferocious tornado rising up out of nowhere on a clear day, the taste of okra and tomatoes that always made him think of his mama (his one and only time leaving the South was to travel to France for The Great War, and there he heard of Proust and his cakes- so yes, he knew what was happening as he dipped is cornbread into the stew and brought it to his lips, thank you very much). Small happenstances pressed upon his temperament like heavy boots imprinting the red Georgia clay, the very dirt folks like him seemed to have just risen up out of, no mama or daddy necessary.
Alone in his pawnshop, Herbie was the warm-blooded eye of that cold hurricane. It was a man made tempest of electronics, glass, ceramics, shiny metals- objects stacked and cascading, each carrying a clandestine story of grief, desperation, seduction, anguish, anger, death, thievery, revenge, or indifference. It was all there, every human story ever written. But their secrets were silent, and he looked forward to visits from people like her, the mama of The Baby. To paraphrase Ms. McCullers- lonely hearts make lonely hunters.
She whirled into the shop that day, a chubby baby thrust on one hip, her beloved Stradivarius on her other as if she had birthed fraternal twins. She had to do this thing that had to be done before she came to her senses. The Baby was crying, and all she wished at that moment was that she could hold onto the inanimate object in her left arm and be done with the overly animate one in her right. Motherhood had been lighter fluid on the maelstrom of unregulated emotions inside of her, doubly so as it was not planned, triply so as The Baby’s father evaporated. The loneliness was an acid, eating her away from the inside out, as real as anything she could see or touch.
She slung the violin onto the counter, and he peered at her with grey eyes that were baked into sun-leathered skin. Pity and kindness swiftly spread out across his face, loosening the knotted micro-muscles that ran around his eyes and mouth; today, his subconscious gift to her would be empathy. She wasn’t the first one he had seen in this position, and she wouldn’t be the last. There was an everflowing stream of those that must sacrifice beloved objects out of the desperate necessity for a small, instant, but very real stack of cash- always had been, always would be. It’s just how the world works, he would tell himself, his inner faulty narrator attempting to soothe the guilt and shame he would feel every so often. This was not the first time she had been in, but this time… this time it was different. And they both knew it.
“How much for this?” The question was blurted out quickly as she tried to keep the hot tears locked in, but the truth escaped on her breaking voice.
Before he could answer, his eyes shifted to the now silent Baby. “Susan”, he whispered, and she turned her face down towards the heavy bundle she had hoisted upon her jutting right hip. The Baby was turning an odd shade of white. Or was it indigo? Her brain froze in confusion and awe as it tried to comprehend the strange color. She was snapped back into fatal reality by a feral wail that escaped The Baby’s lips, high-pitched and inhuman. They had just come from the pediatrician down the street where The Baby was fine. Totally fine. More than fine- perfect… except for the mild ear infection.
“Oh, God. The penicillin.”
She had never run that fast before. She had never felt that way before. Books and movies often depicted panic and overwrought emotions when a mother must save her child, and she had always assumed it would be an unbearable chaos. It wasn’t so. No thoughts raced through her mind. There was simply a calm inside while a force of nature drove her body. Maternal instinct superseded all else.
She jumped into her blue Subaru, The Baby in her lap, and took off toward the doctor. Two blocks away and they hit an insurmountable traffic jam, a complete halt, too far to run. The Baby’s blue eyes were turning glassy. She counted in her head, “We are now at 2 minutes.” As she began CPR, her right hand dug into her purse until it found the Swiss Army Knife she always kept with her. She unlocked her lips and raised her head to look at The Baby cradled on her legs, her conscious mind one step behind and lost as to where this train was headed.
But then her gaze found The Baby’s neck. It was just rings of baby fat- plump, perfect. Her fingers traced the spot. And now the tears came, the gasps of air as she knew what she must do. A flash of a childhood memory flew into her mind. It was one of her kind-hearted daddy cutting a small hole in the throat of a suffocating rabbit they had come across in the woods. “It will heal”, he had said gently.
She leaned down to do this thing she knew she had to do. The hard, cold metal of the knife pressed into the soft, cooling skin in the notch above The Baby’s trachea.
It was then she spotted it: a McDonald’s straw on the passenger floor, still in its white paper wrapper. Balancing The Baby with her legs, she swiftly bent over to grab it with one hand and dug into her jeans pocket for her Chapstick with the other. Quicker than she ever thought she could possibly move, she unwrapped the straw, covered it in the lip balm, said a prayer to the god she didn’t believe in, and eased the straw into The Baby’s mouth and down her tiny throat. She began to blow gently, looking The Baby in her eyes, feeling a love she had never known until that moment.
The colors started to change. Blue faded, pink returned. Traffic moved. She drove with one hand on the wheel and held The Baby up with the other as she continued her jury-rigged CPR, the magnificent force of adrenaline combined with maternal drive allowed for this feat.
Back at the pawn shop, Herbie knew from his days in battle that action was the only thing that mattered at times like these. He had raced to the payphone across the parking lot to ring the pediatrician’s office. The doctor had put his waiting room packed with sniffly children and drained parents on hold, and paced anxiously outside the office. He ran to the car as he saw it approaching, his white coat flapping backward in the wind. He didn’t wait for the car to stop as he opened the passenger side door and leaned his tall frame inside to administer the lifesaving shot of epinephrine.
The Baby, her baby, would live. It was in that moment that she remembered- suddenly, swiftly, urgently- the love that she had always known in her heart.
