Hot Dog Buns Make Great Pillows
Hot Dog Buns Make Great Pillows
By Arlene Somerton Smith
Jackie Stirling peered at the words “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” scrawled in black marker on the Shea Stadium bathroom wall. The graffiti artist, who had dotted each i with a circle, had also scattered a constellation of lopsided baseball diamonds around the song title. The stars, the circles, and her entire wretched situation made Jackie want to spew all over again.
“This can’t be happening … this can’t be happening,” she repeated between heaves. Vomit-clumped strands of hair stuck to her cheek, and her legs trembled. Another contraction squeezed in. She scrunched up her face and sat back with her knees raised against her pregnant belly.
“You okay in there?” The woman in the next stall asked the question in the way of someone regretting the timing of their bathroom visit.
“Yeah. Just pregnant.”
“Ah, yes. I remember.” The door of the woman’s stall banged, and water splashed in the sink. Soon the main bathroom door shooshed open and closed, and Jackie was left alone with her ebbing contractions and frustrations. Why had she thought this trip to New York was a good idea? She should have known not to travel in the eighth month of pregnancy. She should have known that anything she tried to do to please her mother would not work out.
Jackie’s mother was Bobbie “Bombshell” Truelove, a former superstar catcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. For three summers, Bombshell Truelove blew fans away with her wicked throwing arm and athletic good looks. She was one of the few Canadian girls paid to play baseball, and those three summers were her glory days. They grounded Bobbie’s life in baseball. She even named her daughter after Jackie Mitchell in the hopes that her child would grow up to be a professional pitcher.
That was the first expectation that Jackie didn’t meet. There had been many more, and this would be another for the list.
Over the previous winter, her mother had talked about little else but the new Montreal Expos team. “A Canadian team in the majors! Someday I’ll find a way to get to a game,” she’d said. Or, “They’ve got Rusty Staub! I’d give anything to watch him play.”
When The London Free Press printed the team schedule, her mother had jabbed a finger at the page. “The Expos play the Mets at Shea on their Opening Day. What I wouldn’t give to be there.”
That had led to the plan. A trip to New York would be fun, Jackie had thought. One last hurrah before the baby came. Sure, she’d have to go to a baseball game, but after that, they could go shopping, visit Central Park, and poke around all the museums, especially the Museum of Modern Art.
But things hadn’t worked out that way. Jackie hadn’t even seen the first pitch. While her mother was choking back tears over the first singing of the Canadian anthem at a major league game, Jackie had felt a twinge. At “glorious and free” she bolted—and fast—to a toilet.
Twenty minutes later, after purging her body, Jackie tried to find the strength to stand. This is not how this is supposed to go, she told herself. No one said anything about vomiting during labor. She was supposed to stroll into a labor and delivery room, glowing with a sheen of light sweat on her brow, and quietly and with great dignity deliver a child.
But no matter what, she had to get back to her mother. Still trembling, she braced herself with one hand against the metal wall and found the strength to stand.
The stadium steps looked as daunting as Kilimanjaro, but Jackie took one step at a time. She stumbled and put a hand down to steady herself. Her hand landed in spilled Coke, and bile threatened at the back of her throat. Swallowing it down, she continued.
The crack of a bat echoed. The New York Mets fans groaned.
Jackie didn’t care about what was happening at home plate. A contraction tightened across her abdomen and squeezed with such intensity that she grimaced and clutched the railing.
Her mother did care about what was happening at home plate. Bobbie Truelove didn’t want to miss a second of the Montreal Expos’ first-ever runs. “Take that, Tom Seaver,” she yelled. “That’s what we do with your fastball.” In a section full of New York fans, she was the only one standing.
Across the aisle, a man in a Mets cap scowled. That same man had ogled her mother earlier, as if he believed that Bobbie might find a man with a beer gut the same size as Jackie’s pregnant belly attractive.
“Mom!” Jackie had stopped three rows below their seats. She couldn’t climb anymore.
“Oh, no,” Bobbie said when she turned toward her daughter, sweat-smeared and reeking of vomit. “It can’t be. Not now. You’re only eight months, and it’s only the first inning.”
Jackie panted. “I know.”
“It can’t be happening this fast? I was in labor for twenty-seven hours with you.”
Another contraction squeezed in. Her face contorted and she sat down with her elbows behind her on the dirty steps, facing the field. She arched her back and let out a strange gurgling sound.
“Jesus, lady.” A man in the aisle seat recoiled.
The organ player pounded out a jaunty “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
Bobbie reached for Jackie, helping her to her feet after the contraction passed. Together they slowly descended. When they reached the bottom step, another contraction hit. Jackie slid down the orange wall and hugged her stomach.
“Again? So soon?” Bobbie said. “We’ve got to get you to a taxi.”
Jackie struggled to her feet and tried walking, but the pain was too much. She sank back down and rocked back and forth. A stream of people passed her on the way to buy drinks or visit the bathroom during the inning break. She rested and waited. When she tried to walk again, she made it as far as a hot dog concession.
“Can I help you?” A teenage boy greeted them from behind his counter with first-day-on-the-job enthusiasm. His spotless white apron still had creases in it.
Jackie placed both hands flat on the counter and bent in half, letting her belly hang. “Mom, I think I need to push.”
“What?” Hot Dog Boy’s mouth fell open.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You can’t yet,” Bobbie said.
“This baby’s coming,” Jackie said. “It feels like it’s going to fall out.”
“Everyone says that. But for God’s sake, you can’t have a baby here.” Bobbie pulled her arm. “Come on. We’ll get a taxi.”
“I can’t walk. And the baby’s coming. Right now.”
All blood drained from Hot Dog Boy’s face. He croaked out, “Oh my God.” He rubbed his hands up and down his legs then grabbed the hem of his apron and scrunched it into a ball. “OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod.”
A murmur rose from the crowd in the stadium and the organ guy played “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover.” Another contraction gripped Jackie. Following an instinct she didn’t understand, she squatted. “I’ve got to take off my underwear.”
“OOOOOOOOOOOHmyGod,” Hot Dog Boy said.
“Not on the dirty floor,” Bobbie said. “Give that to me.” She pointed to Hot Dog Boy’s apron.
He passed the loop over his head. “I just got it today,” he said. “It’s new.”
Bobbie ignored him, spread the apron out, and helped her daughter to lie down as she keened through a contraction.
More people flowed into the corridor. Some took one look and scurried in the other direction. Others stopped and stared. A silver-haired man took off his suit jacket, covered his eyes, and walked sideways toward them, holding the jacket at arm’s length. “Cover her up.”
“My back is killing me,” Jackie said. “I need something under my back. Anything.”
Hot Dog Boy rallied. He looked around and grabbed the first thing his eyes landed on—packages of hot dog buns. He tossed them one after another to Bobbie who made a mounded bed under Jackie’s head and lower back. Jackie fell back onto those soft cushions with relief. “Hot dog buns make great pillows,” she said.
The next contraction started, and Jackie scrunched up her face and pushed.
“I see the head,” Bobbie said. “You’re almost there.”
The words spurred Jackie on. Her face purpled with the strain.
“Keep pushing. That’s my girl.”
With a roar, Jackie bore down, and the baby slid out onto Hot Dog Boy’s apron.
“It’s a girl!” Bobbie said.
“It’s a girl!” Hot Dog Boy yelled, as if the onlookers needed a translator.
The organist began to play “Charge!” The crowd yelled “Charge!”
Bobbie picked the baby up from the bloodied apron and laid her on Jackie’s chest. She covered them both with the only thing available—the silver-haired gentleman’s suit jacket.
“I think you’ll have your hands full with that one.” He had to yell because he was keeping himself at a distance.
Two first aid attendants rushed down the concourse. One was large with dark hair plastered into a helmet. A smaller man scurried beside him. In the delirium of exhaustion, Jackie thought of Batman and Robin.
Batman surveyed the impromptu delivery room. “What’s the status?”
“The baby’s fine, but we’ll need to cut the cord,” Bobbie said.
Robin dug into his bag for scissors. He handed them to Bobbie. “Do you want to do the honors?”
After Bobbie had sawed the tough cord, she lifted away the blood-spattered suit jacket.
The silver-haired gentleman took another step back. “You can keep that.”
Still cradling the baby, Jackie put an elbow on the cement and tried to sit up. Afterbirth gushed out onto Hot Dog Boy’s apron.
“You can keep that,” he said.
Bobbie picked up the baby and wrapped her in the man’s suit jacket so that the lapels framed her face. “This is my granddaughter.”
Robin leaned in for a closer look at the baby who would grow up to be a powerful businesswoman, the kind of businesswoman who could orchestrate the return of a 21st-century version of the Montreal Expos to the diamonds. As an adult, she’d plan the Opening Day of the reborn team.
“Quite an Opening Day for her,” he said.
The shock of the rapid birth, the violent way it had commandeered her body, made Jackie’s knees knock together. Her arms shook, but she held out her arms for her baby. Bobbie handed her back and Jackie held her close and breathed in her scent in the feral way of a mother lion. “Hello Lucy,” she said.
“Hey! That’s my dog’s name!” Hot Dog Boy said.
“Lucy?” Bobbie’s eyebrows rose. “Where’d that come from? I thought you were going to call a girl Maggie.”
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” Jackie said. She lay her head back against her hot dog bun pillow.
Arlene Somerton Smith is a freelance writer who specializes in video scripts, speeches, and plain language web content. Her short stories have been published in the Blood Is Thicker anthology (Iguana Books), DESCANT, and a Writer’s Digest compilation. Other short stories have won or been short-listed in writing contests.
Jason David Córdova lives in Puerto Rico as an illustrator and painter. Some of his art can be seen on Instagram at @jasoni72. You can visit his shop on Red Bubble.
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