On the way to his car, Jacquie said they should go to her house first, she had a Hasselblad & a Leica there, & film too, but Albie always traveled with his Rolleiflex in the trunk, he was a hobbyist, the impulse purchase of the Rolleiflex being one he regretted because it was so much money. He kept it wrapped in a towel wedged next to the spare, all they needed was to buy film. He asked if she was familiar with it & when she said yes, “very,” he said, Of course you are, sorry, don’t mind me, I’m an idiot, & she said no no, there were lots of cameras she didn’t know but a Rollei was her 1st, a gift from the father of her 1stborn (Jerry Jr.), the (squirrely, tho) not so nutty Professor.
The nurses were leaving the new mom and dad alone, so the door remained shut & they didn’t need to hassle intrusions and interruptions. Natural light. Albie was going to leave but Ginger told him to stay, & he hung back. O — natural light — the staggering sad beauty of it, the gruesome wondrous marvel & miracle, the outlandishness, the Babylandishness, this mother had no tears in her at this beatitudinous moment, just stared not even with longing at that tiny expired thing, no longing at this moment because she had her, the little girl was in her arms, so what was there to long for? — she was like a superhero whose special power was a serene unhurried unrushed unbroken smile that could bring the bedrapéd dead back to life. Jacquie stared a while, not morbidly but taking in the scene before she began, the artist’s prerogative. She wanted to take a respectful moment, plus she was curious, she’d never seen a dead baby, well who had, & the mom had yes a beatific smile as if in a tender sacramental state of show&tell, & knowing that a fellow mother might be curious, well who wouldn’t be, & generously wishing to help sate it, such communal impulse in such a case was unnaturally natural. Jacquie smiled as she looked at the thing, its eyes were kind of open, she became aware of tears rising from a deep deep well but forced them down, an actual labor, reverse of child labor, she remembered once the Professor telling her (while he was schooling her in all things) that the sound of Bach’s partitas were the sound of human tears. . afterall the moment wasn’t about her, it was about the pietà of mother & child, the mother and child reunion & the mother wasn’t crying, so how dare Jacquie?
She got very close to it, the closer she got, the more the mom seemed to open up, her smile grew larger & her eyes watery, her big breasts exposed. The closer she got to the dead baby the more intimate was the two women’s fleeting bond. The tiny girl’s vulva was enormous, almost the size of a grown-up’s, Jerilynn’s had looked the same, swollen from the mother’s hormones. For a few seconds, it looked roaringly healthy, thick rubber bumpers bracketing a deep decubitus ulcer, it looked like the thing that may have killed her.
The agitated husband didn’t know what to do next little darling of mine smoke another cigarette or throw himself from the window. The wife beckoned him in that calm understated tender way and he couldn’t refuse her, he said he’d get in the picture if he could keep smoking his cigarette. She said “smoke your cigarette sweetheart” & he did, squinting, smoke hung in the natural light, sirens in the distance, sound of Albie muffling his fag tears somewhere behind her — did the door open & close? Did Albie leave? It didn’t matter, nothing mattered but the little family, & Daniel the husband, who was handsome as hell, quashed the cigarette on the floor & climbed deeper into the bed, he wasn’t about to look at their babygirl, only a motion away, but he’d surrendered to the camera, & his wife’s wishes.
She went through one roll of film, & then it was done.
EXPLICIT [Reeyonna]
I Am A Camera
ReeRee
was panicking. Kind of. She was trying (failing) to turn the rage toward her mother into something useful, an engine that could power her into a trajectory, any kind of momentum, momentum of a life.
She needed money — she & Rikki did — her brother gave her $400 but that was 10 days ago & he was so fucked up he was scaring her. Kind of.
She was a prisoner held captive like Rapunzel in Tangled. Rikki had his crappy Craig’slist motorcycle but was only with her 3 or 4 times a week, his fostermom was hospitalized for depression & he needed to be there for Jim his dad. Which was sweet, pure Rikki. It’s what is going to make him a great dad. But still, tho——what about me. What about fucking me what about me and your BABY. You have time to do your little auditions but what about me with my throw-up. She seemed to be having her morning sickness now, all these months later. They took his bike for chores&fun when he was there but when he wasn’t all she could do was ride the bus which she hated because all the sad, scary people looked like dull mean ghosts patiently biding their time to lay claim to her. One day she would get on the bus & never get off & nobody would even notice, sucked into the whorl of their grimy nowhere worlds.
Rikki said she should just come stay with him at his house, he talked to Dawn & Jim (well, to Jim) & they were totally cool, of course they were, they were kind, it was so much better to have kind fosters than a thieving bloodmother or faraway idiot uncaring bloodfather, they gently lobbied Rikki to lobby ReeRee to come home, their home, her home, her 2nd home, a clean safe stressless environment because an expectant mom should not be wandering rootless, an expectant mom should be going to birth classes & cultivating friendships with other expectant moms through the affiliation of new parents and parents-to-be, an expectant mom needs to be going to the doctor regularly, an expectant mom needs to be close to her doctor’s hospital when the baby came, or before if something went wrong, an expectant mom & the husband or partner & the whole extended family needed to have a relationship with a doctor. Rikki said that Jim wanted him to tell her that he knew she was having problems with her mom but to put that aside and come stay with them. If the proximity to her mom was the thing that was stopping her. They would take her to the doctor visits, they would take her to buy things for the baby (a stroller, a crib, there were so many things), she was having a baby, their adopted son’s (soon) baby, she was giving them the divine gift of a grandson or granddaughter, they weren’t pushy, she knew they weren’t, the mom was nice, a little distant, but the dad especially wasn’t pushy, he was always kind and gentle, a good man, Please Ree, said Rikki, please just won’t you just come? Cause this shit is getting crazy she knew a portion of his ardor, of exerting his/their influence, was a measure of how far he was outside his comfort zone, he’d been freaked out about the baby thing from the beginning & now the moving away had freaked him out further plus Reeyonna knew that for some reason he felt guilty, he still felt the baby & all were somewhere in there behind his foster mom’s depression, & she knew he thought a baby would cheer her up when/if she ever got home, cheer his dad up too (which it would), which was sweet, Rikki couldn’t help himself, and ReeRee even felt a little bad for being so stubborn about just staying where she was but her new mother’s instincts bade her be selfish, bade her be protective, bade her keep as far away from that thieving cunt as she possibly could, but what about me, Rikki, what about me & our fucking baby. I mean who’s having this baby, Dawn & Jim?