Chapter 5

Did you know that babies cry? I mean, not just cry, but cry? This, gut-wrenching wail that sounds as if they are being throttled to death; this loud, piercing scream that sends a chill down your spine and haunts you in your nightmares. Or at least, that was the type of crying I got from the baby I happened to be in the company of.

And everything had been going so well. I had fallen asleep with a belly full of Heiniken, all cozy and warm snuggled down into the sofa when suddenly, I heard it. My eyes shot straight open and I stood up, screaming, “What the fuck!?” At the top of my lungs. I’d half expected the sound to stop when I looked at her. But it didn’t.

She was writhing in her basket, her mouth was opened fucking wider than I thought was possible for an infant and her face was all flushed. That’s when I panicked. I mean I really fucking lost it. I grabbed my half finished beer bottle from the edge of the coffee table, it’d left a ring, which drives me fucking mad (which is strange as I’m the biggest slob you’ll ever meet) but I was way too freaked out to care.

I took one huge gulp of the sutff, swallowing it down with a grunt. Then I looked at the baby again. She was still crying, and I thought I might just die. You have to understand, I was so tired. It felt like I hadn’t gotten proper sleep in about a week. I looked at the door, and for a half second, considered just walking out and never returning and letting the little bugger fend for herself. But, then, I looked down at her angel face, into her little, beady blue eyes, and my heart melted for the second fucking time.

“Bottle, bottle, bottle…” I muttered, and set about fixing her a warm bottle of milk. I did everything fucking perfectly too, just as Ronnie’s mother had taught me. I even tested the temperture out on the inside of my wrist. Though, there was a crisis in which I wasn’t completely sure whether it was the inside of the wrist, the outside, or the palm I should be trying it out on.

Well, finally I sorted the whole thing out, and picked her up, and brought the nipple of the bottle to her mouth. For one glorious minute, she stopped. My eyes lit up. Deliverance.

“Waaahgurwaaaaaaaahga!!!” Aw, fuck. She spat the damn thing out and nearly killed me with her wail of dissaproval.

“Alright, alright,” I muttered, picking her up. What did she want? My eyes averted themselves to the dusky gray bag that’d been left with her in the basket, where I’d found her bottles and nappies and such. Perhaps there were some toys in there I could amuse her with? No. There were not. Abso-fucking-lutely brilliant. I fished around in my pockets and found my car keys. Babies like shiny objects, right? I positioned her on my lap, smiled, and jingled the keys in front of her little face like there would be no tomorrow.

She stared at me for all of two seconds in a very, “Are you fucking mad?” manner and resumed screaming her pretty little head off. I looked at the clock hung up on the wall. It was nearing midnight. I needed sleep. That was it. Fuck my pride, fuck my dislike for know-it-alls/bitchy woman. I rang Jeanie. The dreaded ex-girlfriend. The dreaded ex-girlfriend who’d left me for the ex-best friend. The dreaded ex-girlfriend who I’d wasted four years on…That one.

“Hmfuhello?” Somebody croaked on the other end of the line, it was hard to hear them, partly because my telephone was fucked, and partly because the baby was making it hard to hear anything at all.

“Jeanie? Jeanie, it’s me.”

“Connor? What the fuck is going on down there? Do you know what time it is? Are you drunk? Did you forget where you live again? I fucking told you---”

“Shut up. Look, I’ve got a baby here---”

“A baby?”

“Yes, a baby. An infant, if you will. I’m sort of babysitting. Any-fucking-who she’s been crying all night, and I don’t know how to stop it. I’ve tried feeding her, playing with her---”

“Did you sing to her?”

“No---”

“Oh, thank shit! Even modern psychology couldn’t erase those emotional scars….Damnit, Connor, I was asleep!”

“Yes, I’m aware. Look, what do I do?” I think at that point I saw a large pink bunny rabbit dart from behind the television set into the kitchen. I swear. Or perhaps sleep deprivation plus almost an hour of nonstop baby-shrieking makes you hallucinate? Fuckin’ trippy, man.

I heard a loud, muffled yawn in the background, and someone say, “Who is it? Is it those fucking telemarketers again? I’ll fucking kill---” Then a hasty intake of breath from Jeanie, “No, no Andy. It’s just Connor. Go back to sleep.” Don’t you love the way she said “just” Connor? As if I didn’t mean a flying flip to her? She knew I could hear everything, of course. She wanted me to sting.

“Hello? Connor? Are you still there?” Yeah, pretend, bitch.

“Of course.” I replied wistfully, “Where else would I be?….” I looked at the little thing in my arms with worry, she was almost whimpering along with her wails now, as if she were in some serious pain. I hoped she wasn’t sick. That would suck. “How’s Andy doing?”

“Erm. Fine. Look, since you say she isn’t hungry, try burping her, see what happens. Idiot.”

I decided to ignore the idiot comment, I was too tired and too desperate to care, “Right. How would I do that?”

She sighed that “oh you dumbass” sort of sigh, the one that’s withering and superior and makes a person feel like a real fucktard. “You just hold her, see, with her head over your shoulder a bit, and tap her gently on the back. Gently. Don’t fucking pat her to death now---”

“I know, I know.”

“Well I’m just saying. Sometimes you don’t know your own fucking strength. Do you remember that one time in the bathroom at Eden? God that baby needs to shut up…Anyway you nearly broke my back, Connor I---” Hung up on her then. Firstly, I didn’t want her to be talking about our previous escapades as if we were still together, especially with her husband sleeping right beside her. Also because just the thought of that night got me horny and I had more important things to think about at the moment.

“Alright, Baby,” I cooed, standing up and bringing her along with me. I positioned her just as Jeanie had said, (I must say I didn’t appreciate her voice so very close to my ear), and tapped. Gently. Nothing happened. I think my knees got wobbly, pondering the prospect of having to deal with this for another hour or so. If that was possible. I mean, she couldn’t cry forever, could she?

…Could she??!!

I didn’t want to find out.

I tapped again. Gently, but at the same time more forceful, if that oxy of a moron makes sense. Nothing. Then I just started patting like a fucking madman, patting till I felt her squirm in my arms and her crying died down. “Flurc.” I marveled at how she’d managed to make a burp sound cute.

“Thank you,” I mouthed, looking up at the ceiling and whoever might be looking down on me.

Then, I dragged myself to my bedroom, not bothering to clean up the mess I had created, holding the little thing as if she were a porcelain doll. I laid her down on my bed. I almost wanted to just curl up and snuggle with her then, but suddenly I got terrifying visions of rolling over her multiple times during the course of the night.

I finally decided to make a little bed for her at the foot of my own, far away from my potential baby-killing limbs. I positioned a few pillows around her, and laid her down on a folded blanket, then kissed her lightly on the cheek and hoped to fuck that she’d fall asleep and not wake up again.

She did, if you’re wondering. But that’s enough of that. Onward.