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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/book “Shining” cc&d, v284 (the June 2018 25-year anniversary issue) Order this as a 6"x9" paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book Across the Wall the cc&d May-Aug. 2018 issues & chapbooks collection book		get the 372 page May-Aug. 2018 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN#035; paperback book:

The Baby
and it’s coming fast...

Greg G. Zaino

    I had just gotten off the phone with Emily, an old friend I met at the Arts department in my senior year at Auburn. We were making plans for a reunion with a few other classmates and planned on meeting up, possibly in the Big Apple. After hanging up the phone I started thinking about those days, and a memory came to mind of an almost surreal and twisted night after leaving a party in the old dorm.
    With pooled money I left the celebration of our coming graduation; sent on a mission to pick up some powder to keep the party rolling. Being the only one there who knew where to go, I was elected because I could score. I’d been to this dealer’s twice before. My friend Chris called me a cab; I was too gassed to drive. The cab arrived 20 minutes later. It was around 11:00pm. To a little more than a shack on the outskirts of the city was my destination. I had to make the run alone and get back quick.
    Once telling him my destination I sat back and started to think this was a bad idea. I didn’t have a friend for backup, and I’d only been to this house during daylight hours. The curly, white haired black cabby had no conversation for me on the drive. There were two pine tree air fresheners hanging from a cracked rear view mirror trying to cover the scent of cigar smoke. I’ve always hated the smell of cigar smoke- reminded me of a son of a bitch, old bastard from my neighborhood as a kid. Those fucking pine air fresheners were just as bad. The two smells in combination was nauseating. I opened my window.
    The taxi driver pulled out front of the dingy, unlit house. There were a couple of dark figures standing off the right side of the place. They looked like they were smoking as I saw a flame of a lighter erupt and the glow of what looked like a cigarette. My cabby wouldn’t pull in the driveway. I told him to wait. He demanded payment first. Did that, told him it would only take a second. He said he’d wait ten minutes, and if I didn’t make it, he’d be history.
    I didn’t waste time and walked up to the front door, knocked twice and walked through the kitchen door. The only source of light was a fat white candle sitting on the table and one on the counter by the sink. The two windows over the sink had cardboard duct taped over their broken glass. I saw a huge cockroach running its ass off across the counter top.
    I looked around- all eyes turned to me. I felt their mistrust. Someone at the table spat it out. “What dat white mutha fucka doin’ here?” I cringed inside. A skinny black chick in a turban spoke her paranoia. “He da mutha fuckin’ po-leece!” A big man; fearsome looking, so black he looked purple, with beads of sweat on his wide brow responded, “He look like Five-O to me too...” Scary fucking house, I was out of my element, the only white guy there.
    I’d witnessed this scene before. Half a dozen crack heads seated at the kitchen table. All were anxious, bug eyed; “sucking the devil’s dick” as I’d heard it said. Thankfully I’d met a guy sitting there before. I smiled and feeling stupid, flipped him the peace sign- he nodded to me and mumbled. “He all right- S’up Z man?” Everyone went back to the business at hand.
    ...Bic lighters flared- glass pipes glowed red- followed by inhaling a white stream of obsession, holding it in, to exhale a cloud of heaven.
    One chick, weird as bat shit, had a fucked up facial thing going on, repeatedly pulling her left shoulder up and down followed by a quick twist of the head then stretched her mouth open wide. She repeated the bizarre shit but no one seemed to notice but me. Like I said, this place was weird as hell and I was uneasy. In little more than a whisper, she said to the guy next to her, “Come’on baby, pass that bitch ova here. Why you be keepin’ that shit all to yo-self?” Another guy was on his hands and knees searching the floor for crumbs of rock.
    As much as I wanted to turn around and head back out the door, I was on a mission and had to follow through. The party back at school was waiting on me and I needed to make this fast. I saw Benny come out of the back room and he spotted me. He was the old black guy I was looking for. Benny was alright by me. Met him a year back at a swank dive in the city, a bar called Moe’s. He cooked the crack and sold powder, and would let folks stay to smoke, always ready to sell more until all their money was gone, then he’d boot their lame asses out. Pulling him aside I told him what I needed and that a cab was waiting.
    Benny walked me into a back bedroom; one behind a doorway covered with a blanket. This room, like the kitchen, was also creepy as shit. My gut told me it was a trap, to turn around and get the fuck out of there, but that wasn’t happening. The alcohol gave me the balls I needed to stay. I paid Benny, he handed me two grams of coke, told me I needed to go. No problem.
    Sassy, a young black, teen hooker staggered from the bathroom holding her belly like her guts were leaking through her fingers. She was fifteen or sixteen years old and a crack whore. She survived without a conscience and prostituted with no protection in this shanty ghetto neighborhood; an ominous section of the city of shotgun houses dubbed, “New Town” She was agonizing and cried out, “It’s comin’, just like the last time!” For her, the pregnancy was no more than a temporary inconvenience. Sassy thought of one thing, to be free of the parasite inside her. She made a pitiful sound.
    I made a quick decision- told her I had a cab out front. I may have felt little compassion for her, more like disgust, as there was no remorse in her, but she needed help. I’d heard a little of her history from Benny and just couldn’t leave without offering help. She was about to deliver a baby with no more care for the experience than she had for her fucked up on bootleg liquor daddy’s beatings and the other despicable shit I’d heard he’d done to her and her sister.
    I ran out front, handed the cabby a twenty, told him I needed to get someone to the hospital, went back inside for Sassy, came out guiding her up the driveway and helping her into the car. She was going to the hospital, but might get jail time when they found out about her crack use and resultant pregnancy; an attempted murder charge in that state. The cabby headed to Jackson Hospital. We three drove the 6 or so miles to get there.
    “Ma belly feelin’ awful as a mutha fucka...” she moaned. Enveloped in the stink of cigar smoke, the silent cabby wheeled through traffic. Her water broke in the back seat. She screamed. The cabby raged at her, slamming the steering wheel with both fists. “Bitch, you gots’ta be kiddin’me! Fuckin’ my shit up! Look at all that stinkin’ mess I gots’ta clean up now! You jus’nigga trash is what you is!”
    The hospital was looming in the distance, could see the neon letters two blocks away above the building’s top floor. Cabby stopped at the ER door and she was out in of the car as fast as her legs allowed, bent over, holding her stomach with her right hand left raised reaching to push open the door. She was trailing blood. I thanked the driver, tipped him 10 bucks. He said nothing. I turned and trotted into the waiting room.
    Sassy was already through the door and had staggered forward towards check-in desk. There was blood running down the inside of her thighs and onto the tiled floor around her feet. She was hunched and moaning. A red headed nurse standing by scurried away to grab a wheelchair then reappeared followed by another nurse on the run. Straight to the exam room they all went and pulled curtains.
    Her child was coming fast. Sassy’s strangled words, “Fuck this shit- get it outa me!” was the last I heard. I felt sober, like a shot of adrenaline hit me, and moved in a hurry to get away. There I left her- didn’t want to answer any questions. I found a phone near the front entrance. I called another cab and walked to the boulevard to wait.
    Back to the dorm I went- didn’t feel much like partying anymore. Everyone was on my ass for taking so long. I kept my mouth shut to everybody except Chris. I told him the entire story later on. They didn’t need to know all that went down. I’d never do that run again. Not at night anyway.
    I found out more of Sassy’s tale months later while at Moe’s having a beer with Chris. That’s when I saw Benny. He told me that after I left his house; the following morning, Sassy had given a false name, miscarried twins then escaped her room at the hospital. No doubt she did that for fear of being arrested. But the experience didn’t stop her.
    She went back to her stomping grounds- back on the pipe, and back on the street selling her ass for chump change and crack rock. I just shook my head, but inside my skull I screamed, wanting to put down each and every crack dealer in the city. “Bang - Bang- You’re All Dead!”
    But that’s just how it was.

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