Originally posted on April 13, 2003.
Off we headed to the next town, little did I know that the next town wasn’t to be for quite some distance (Canada is huge!). It was nice to have someone to share a portion of my trip with though, someone to talk to. I formally introduced myself and told her of my plans to visit Jack in Michigan. She seemed pleasantly surprised that I was an American and said that her name was Marlena. Marlena was an attractive woman who looked to be about 25-years old. When I asked her what she was doing out here on the side of the road, she silently looked at me making it clear that she didn’t want to talk about it.
I offered her some food and water, she took only the water. We drove on in silence for another hour, when she turned to me with those damned eyes and said, “Thank you for stopping.” I don’t know why, but I felt like hugging her and telling her that everything was going to be OK. Another hour went by filled with nothing but the sound of the Beatles on the radio; seems it was an all-Beatles weekend on the only radio station I could pick up.
Laughing at my horrible singing along with John, Paul, George, and Ringo, her silence was finally broken.
“How far along?” I asked.
“Any day now,” she answered.
The fear that immediately coursed through my veins must have registered on my face because she quickly added, “Don’t worry, not yet.” I wasn’t convinced and slowly eased my foot a little further on the accelerator so as to get to the elusive next town as soon as freakin’ possible.
It was beginning to get chilly so I turned on the heat. Jeeps may not afford the most comfortable of rides, however, their heaters work famously. She flashed those green eyes and said, “Thank you.” After another few awkward moments of silence I was about to demand to know her story, when she very matter of factly volunteered, “My boyfriend dumped me on the side of the road this morning.” I bit my tongue refraining from offering any opinion. “The baby isn’t his,” she continued looking down at her feet.
I replied, “Are you all right?” Again the eyes answered for her telling me that I had responded perfectly and that yes, she was all right, or was going to be.
Not ten minutes later all hell broke loose. Marlena suddenly went into some kind of fit, breathing heavy, yelling at me to “Stop the cursed Jeep,” as she held on to the oh shit bar on the dash in front of her with a death grip. “Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!” I thought, “She’s having the baby, now!” I pulled over to the side of the road into a small clearing. Taking out my sleeping bag, I unrolled it on top of a bed of pine needles, and gently laid her on it. I knew nothing about delivering babies so I asked her if she did, to which she said that she did not.
“Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!” If that wasn’t good enough, it started to rain. I looked up to the heavens after the first drop hit me on the head as if to say, “What are you doing to me?” when the next raindrop hit me in the eye (how’s that for an answer?). That’s when I started to laugh much to Marlena’s dismay.
“What the hell is so funny!” she snapped.
I made sure that she was as comfortable as a woman about to have a baby in the middle of nowhere could be, and went to the Jeep pulling out my little tent and began setting it up. Within minutes I got her inside just before the first flash of lightning and crack of thunder- the first of many. The wind picked up and the deluge hit, making me glad that I had set the tent up. I spent the next six or eight or ten hours holding her hand and listening to her hate filled opinions of men, while thanking me for being so kind in between outbursts. Not taking any of her expletives personally, I kept trying to listen for a car, preferably a police car, hoping it would pull up and save me, save us, to no avail. Those green eyes flashed again, this time making it painfully clear that the baby was coming, NOW!
Marlena gave birth to a healthy baby boy that was, I thought, destined to be a rock singer given the way he screamed, and without me having to spank his bottom. I’ve seen enough episodes of Rescue 911 to know that I needed to clean the baby and mother. Luckily I had a tub of Baby-Wipes packed in my rucksack that I always take camping with me.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I watched the bond form between mother and child, a bond that started with an umbilical cord some months ago, and now they finally meet, face to face (or face to breast). It was just after midnight when I thought to ask Marlena if she felt up to traveling, but she had fallen asleep with baby in arms. I carefully took the boy, wrapped him in a blanket, and laid him next to his mom.
“I don’t know your mother’s story little guy,” I said, “but I do know that she will need you to take care of her one day, can you do that for her?” As if understanding me, he launched into a fit of crying that took me all of thirty minutes (believe it or not my rendition of “Hey Jude” did it) to calm; all the while Marlena slept from exhaustion. I felt pretty good just then, though I too was exhausted. Life can be so fucking incredible sometimes!
In the morning Marlena woke and while she fed her son I packed everything up after making coffee on my little propane stove. The three of us climbed into the Jeep and continued our journey to the next town. Mother and child spent the bulk of the trip getting to know each other; I spent the bulk of the trip contemplating the meaning of life (answers to which will be published at a later date). Upon our arrival at the hospital, Marlena said that she wanted to name her son “Hook” but that she could not because coincidentally the boy’s father’s name was Hook (figure the odds) and she hated him and didn’t want to attach that stigma to her son.
She said, “So would you name him for me Hook?” Looking into those incredibly beautiful eyes, mine again welled, and I answered, “How about ‘Jack’ after my grandfather and brother?”
“Jack it is,” she happily declared.
That was the last I ever saw of Marlena and little Jack.
I finally arrived at my brother’s house, a couple of days late. Not feeling like getting into the whole story in answering his question as to why it took me so long to get there, smiling I replied, “I picked up a pregnant hitchhiker who gave birth to a baby boy on the side of the road in my tent whom she named ‘Jack’ after you.”
“You are so full of shit,” he said handing me a beer and laughing, “You probably hooked up with some hot waitress along the way and spent a couple of nights with her.”
I chuckled and then thought, “Well, she did call me honey.”
Sgt Hook out.
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