6.27.2004
July
I was in college over the summer. I worked in the computer lab, and I lived in the dorms that summer. My answering machine spoke the words of an angel in great sadness. I knew the song of sorrow she sang. She was pregnant and I was the father.
I remember the night it happened as if it were yesterday. We were drinking with a friend of mine from school. He favored “E & J” Brandy. Despite having many years as a sailor living all over the world, I had not developed a strong tolerance for brandy. I don’t plan to ever drink it again.
Afterwards, a stumble, fumbling walk to my dorm room barely awoke me. My girlfriend and I were free to “find knowledge” of each other for the entire weekend. But I was only partially erect from drinking all those straight brandies. The condom did not fit correctly. Our love became heated and I remember the sensation becoming magnificent and not realizing why, because the next moment, I spent.
Moments passed. I felt myself breathe, I heard her breathe, and then I noticed my penis was wet, not the condom, but directly from the woman naked next to me; the woman who would become my wife.
The next day, we were meeting her mother at a restaurant not far from us. I looked at her, driving the car, and I knew. I can’t say what it was. I can only explain that I knew she was pregnant, and it happened the night before because of me. I knew.
Mid-June to Mid-July. She knew I wasn’t in my room. She left a message on my answering machine anyway. It sounded frightened and uncharacteristically upset from the tone I had come to know, both passionately, and affectionately.
I had known the day it happened. She was afraid I would abandon her. I did no such thing. I held her. I cried with her. We had taken precautions and they had failed. I was about to become a father, and she, a mother. I was in my Junior year of college. I was making plans to join the Coal Barges on the local river. My personal history was poised to repeat itself: if math and time be correct, then a bastard I am. I was conceived before (the reason) my parents wed.
My existence is powerful. My existence redirected the course of a man and a woman. Because they were becoming adults in the 1960’s, they were young adults by the end of that decade. They were innocent and immature, but my very existence drove them to become very much more worldly and grown up. I was not really the catalyst. My parents’ lust was. I am nothing but the product of young and inexperienced lust given expression.
Do I despair my existence as much as the preceding paragraph indicates? No. I am here. I exist. Regardless of my impact on my parents. I happened, they chose to try and stay together because of this. Before they chose to part, they chose to create an amazing baby girl who would become my sister.
By the time I was 8, my parents had drifted out of each others’ orbits. My father had reached the age where he knew how to charm and please a woman without trying, and he could not help himself. My mother caught him in the company of his mistress in a restaurant and gave him the ultimatum: “Come now with me and the kids, or stay here and we’re done.” He made his bed. He never wanted to sleep for years after that.
I remained loyal to my father despite evidence to the contrary. As far as I was concerned, he was a god. Not even my mother (the goddess) could convince me otherwise.
I defended him and resented my step-father despite the truth: My stepfather taught me how to be a man, not my father. It would take years for me to really realize the truth of that sentence. I still haven’t told him that. Perhaps he wouldn’t believe me. I’ll be sending this to both my father and stepfather. What they make of it is their business.
History repeating itself. This young, frightened woman 7 days younger than me was devastated. She had the burden of years of hard work to provide and please those who watched over her. She could not prove unworthy of that burden to anyone, even someone who stood by her like I did. Yet here she was, at the dawn of motherhood, convinced I would leave her to face the day alone. It took me a while to convince her that I was willing to hold the days and nights in my hands, and count them as if they were the first gulp of water after 100 days in the desert heat. Despite this deep and moving metaphor, she brought the pregnancy test she had peed on and showed it to me. I was more impressed by the yellow “splotch pattern.” than the “symbol” that confirmed my status.
If you remember far enough back, I already knew. I knew the night it happened. I told her she was “glowing” that very day and why she seemed that way. She had taken my seed, and her sacred “Garden of Eden” had begun to blossom. I was in awe of her, as she unknowingly took on all the attributes of the “Goddess” who once carried me beneath her heart.
I was ready. When she realized and explained that we were not ready. I knew we had to take action. We made plans to go down town to Pittsburgh, to the clinic, and “take care” of this.
Before we could do this, we had to get through the last week of Summer Camp...not as one of the kids, but as counselors. She was able to keep things even in the day, but every night, she collapsed in my arms in a shivering, sobbing, desperate, lost-little girl. Whatever it took to dry those tears and stop those heaves, I was going to go through hell and back to make it come true.
She was bleeding. She was complaining of horrific cramps. She was pregnant. I didn’t hesitate. I got her into the car and took her 20 miles away, so we could use an “assumed name” without anyone knowing. She was hemorrhaging. She was taken back into the back by herself. She told them I was her husband, she used my name. She wasn’t afraid to use it, I wasn’t as afraid of hearing her say it. That was the beginning of my thoughts to marry this woman, because come Hell or High Water, the “next one” was “for keeps!” She was miscarrying. Neither of us would ever know our child. It was blood soaked into “super absorbance.”
We celebrated the miscarriage. We went all over the place, including to the closest Borders Book Shop in our area. Who should we meet? My mother. We both blanched at the thought of the previous few hours. The walk through the tall sentinels of grey and glass. We were greeted at the door: “Mom, Dad, and Think about what you’re doing!” The woman who would be my wife burst into tears. Then she whimpered. She cried. I held her, clenching my teeth and fists, I held her.
They came and called her back. There was some sort of music coming from the protesters down below. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it had the sound of “righteousness” and I knew it was anti-choice advocates, offering their self-important prayers and pity. It was saddening to see another human being, who had no experience, or right, to judge another being who shit the same as he did, who pissed the same as he did, and had the same desires as he did. I angered over anyone who acted moralistic and uttered any kind of egotistical superiority over women from that day forward. I was angry at Christianity for the crimes of a few brainwashed morons.
I fell asleep for the first time in four days. I slept fitfully the whole time she was gone. It felt like an eternity. There was no way I was going to leave that clinic without this amazing woman.
She came out with a smile that felt out of place. She wasn’t pregnant! She had miscarried the week before. They refunded our money. We left, hand-in-hand. We would marry less than three years later, our relationship having “cemented” several summers before.
(I still have the bullet I chewed in half from those days if you’re interested).
J.S.Brown
Written after our Fifth Wedding Anniversary, and nearly Seven years since “July.”
© 2004, J.S.Brown
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I remember the night it happened as if it were yesterday. We were drinking with a friend of mine from school. He favored “E & J” Brandy. Despite having many years as a sailor living all over the world, I had not developed a strong tolerance for brandy. I don’t plan to ever drink it again.
Afterwards, a stumble, fumbling walk to my dorm room barely awoke me. My girlfriend and I were free to “find knowledge” of each other for the entire weekend. But I was only partially erect from drinking all those straight brandies. The condom did not fit correctly. Our love became heated and I remember the sensation becoming magnificent and not realizing why, because the next moment, I spent.
Moments passed. I felt myself breathe, I heard her breathe, and then I noticed my penis was wet, not the condom, but directly from the woman naked next to me; the woman who would become my wife.
The next day, we were meeting her mother at a restaurant not far from us. I looked at her, driving the car, and I knew. I can’t say what it was. I can only explain that I knew she was pregnant, and it happened the night before because of me. I knew.
Mid-June to Mid-July. She knew I wasn’t in my room. She left a message on my answering machine anyway. It sounded frightened and uncharacteristically upset from the tone I had come to know, both passionately, and affectionately.
I had known the day it happened. She was afraid I would abandon her. I did no such thing. I held her. I cried with her. We had taken precautions and they had failed. I was about to become a father, and she, a mother. I was in my Junior year of college. I was making plans to join the Coal Barges on the local river. My personal history was poised to repeat itself: if math and time be correct, then a bastard I am. I was conceived before (the reason) my parents wed.
My existence is powerful. My existence redirected the course of a man and a woman. Because they were becoming adults in the 1960’s, they were young adults by the end of that decade. They were innocent and immature, but my very existence drove them to become very much more worldly and grown up. I was not really the catalyst. My parents’ lust was. I am nothing but the product of young and inexperienced lust given expression.
Do I despair my existence as much as the preceding paragraph indicates? No. I am here. I exist. Regardless of my impact on my parents. I happened, they chose to try and stay together because of this. Before they chose to part, they chose to create an amazing baby girl who would become my sister.
By the time I was 8, my parents had drifted out of each others’ orbits. My father had reached the age where he knew how to charm and please a woman without trying, and he could not help himself. My mother caught him in the company of his mistress in a restaurant and gave him the ultimatum: “Come now with me and the kids, or stay here and we’re done.” He made his bed. He never wanted to sleep for years after that.
I remained loyal to my father despite evidence to the contrary. As far as I was concerned, he was a god. Not even my mother (the goddess) could convince me otherwise.
I defended him and resented my step-father despite the truth: My stepfather taught me how to be a man, not my father. It would take years for me to really realize the truth of that sentence. I still haven’t told him that. Perhaps he wouldn’t believe me. I’ll be sending this to both my father and stepfather. What they make of it is their business.
History repeating itself. This young, frightened woman 7 days younger than me was devastated. She had the burden of years of hard work to provide and please those who watched over her. She could not prove unworthy of that burden to anyone, even someone who stood by her like I did. Yet here she was, at the dawn of motherhood, convinced I would leave her to face the day alone. It took me a while to convince her that I was willing to hold the days and nights in my hands, and count them as if they were the first gulp of water after 100 days in the desert heat. Despite this deep and moving metaphor, she brought the pregnancy test she had peed on and showed it to me. I was more impressed by the yellow “splotch pattern.” than the “symbol” that confirmed my status.
If you remember far enough back, I already knew. I knew the night it happened. I told her she was “glowing” that very day and why she seemed that way. She had taken my seed, and her sacred “Garden of Eden” had begun to blossom. I was in awe of her, as she unknowingly took on all the attributes of the “Goddess” who once carried me beneath her heart.
I was ready. When she realized and explained that we were not ready. I knew we had to take action. We made plans to go down town to Pittsburgh, to the clinic, and “take care” of this.
Before we could do this, we had to get through the last week of Summer Camp...not as one of the kids, but as counselors. She was able to keep things even in the day, but every night, she collapsed in my arms in a shivering, sobbing, desperate, lost-little girl. Whatever it took to dry those tears and stop those heaves, I was going to go through hell and back to make it come true.
She was bleeding. She was complaining of horrific cramps. She was pregnant. I didn’t hesitate. I got her into the car and took her 20 miles away, so we could use an “assumed name” without anyone knowing. She was hemorrhaging. She was taken back into the back by herself. She told them I was her husband, she used my name. She wasn’t afraid to use it, I wasn’t as afraid of hearing her say it. That was the beginning of my thoughts to marry this woman, because come Hell or High Water, the “next one” was “for keeps!” She was miscarrying. Neither of us would ever know our child. It was blood soaked into “super absorbance.”
We celebrated the miscarriage. We went all over the place, including to the closest Borders Book Shop in our area. Who should we meet? My mother. We both blanched at the thought of the previous few hours. The walk through the tall sentinels of grey and glass. We were greeted at the door: “Mom, Dad, and Think about what you’re doing!” The woman who would be my wife burst into tears. Then she whimpered. She cried. I held her, clenching my teeth and fists, I held her.
They came and called her back. There was some sort of music coming from the protesters down below. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it had the sound of “righteousness” and I knew it was anti-choice advocates, offering their self-important prayers and pity. It was saddening to see another human being, who had no experience, or right, to judge another being who shit the same as he did, who pissed the same as he did, and had the same desires as he did. I angered over anyone who acted moralistic and uttered any kind of egotistical superiority over women from that day forward. I was angry at Christianity for the crimes of a few brainwashed morons.
I fell asleep for the first time in four days. I slept fitfully the whole time she was gone. It felt like an eternity. There was no way I was going to leave that clinic without this amazing woman.
She came out with a smile that felt out of place. She wasn’t pregnant! She had miscarried the week before. They refunded our money. We left, hand-in-hand. We would marry less than three years later, our relationship having “cemented” several summers before.
(I still have the bullet I chewed in half from those days if you’re interested).
J.S.Brown
Written after our Fifth Wedding Anniversary, and nearly Seven years since “July.”
TANSTAAFL!
© 2004, J.S.Brown
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