Clarice, a pregnant, one-armed white girl in her early teens, lays in the hospital bed. Her remaining arm is heavily tattooed with the curlicues of a faux-tribal design. Her missing arm has been removed just below the shoulder, and there is a white bandage wrapped around the end of the stump. It is a recent loss.
The pregnant girl is surrounded by a gaggle of female nurses, all of whom gather around one particular status monitor, blocking its on-screen readout from Clarice’s view. They murmur to each other, and every couple of minutes, a few nurses glance at Clarice with a mixture of wonder and fear.
“Um, excuse me,” the girl says, her voice rough and full like whiskey slush, “Excuse me?” she says, “Do you realize…?”
One nurse, her eyes still glued to the monitor, reaches out to pat Clarice’s arm, but she’s on the girl’s wrong side, and so her searching hand finds only air. The nurse, a blonde woman only a few years older than Clarice, turns to look, and her blue eyes go wide, horrified at what she’s doing.
“Yeah,” Clarice says, “It’s not there. Don’t worry though, you’re being very supportive.”
The nurse smiles lamely and turns back to the monitor.
This pattern—Clarice starting to ask a question and the nurses either ignoring her or stealing glances of fear and wonder—continues for a while. An older nurse, with short, curly hair and a face as cold and gray as a November day, turns and opens her mouth to answer Clarice, but just at she does, a harsh alarm screeches from all four corners of the delivery room, a continuous, constant, piercing alarm. Most of the nurses freeze for a moment, but one—the blonde-haired nurse from earlier—bolts out the door. Through the swinging door, Clarice hears the alarm ringing in the hallway.
Whatever it is, the emergency is not in the delivery room.
The door swings shut, and its movement is like a call to action for the other nurses. They rip power cords from the walls. They slam monitors and tools atop emergency carts. Above it all, the single piercing screech of the alarm. The scene is a form of controlled chaos like nothing Clarice has witnessed before. Then, with everything gathered, all the nurses rush out of the room, taking the equipment with them and leaving the young girl is alone.
And that’s when her next contraction starts. The screeching alarm overwhelms her cry, but the contraction grips her face, grips her hands, and grips her down deep in her pelvis. The screams of her body are loud enough to see.
The contraction passes, and Clarice lays back, spent. The alarm is oppressing, grating; it blocks out all other sounds.
A black man, Jagger, kicks through the delivery room door. He is a tall, overweight, middle-aged biker. He wears a leather jacket and his eyes carries with them the terror-filled joy that comes from crushing a person’s nose with a quick, blunt blow of the forehead. Brandishing a gleaming silver six-shooter, he struts into the room like the Pumpkin King on Halloween morning.
Jagger smiles at Clarice and says something, but she can’t hear him over the alarm. He frowns, the vision of a man puzzling over a problem. He taps the gun against his outer thigh, as if thinking about the square root of a communication breakdown. His eyes search the ceiling, and then he smiles: he’s solved the equation. He aims and fires a bullet at one corner of the ceiling. The alarm gets a 25% quieter. With the confidence of a kid who’s memorized the Pythagorean theorem, Jagger repeats the shot to each corner of the room. When he’s done, the alarm is soft and muffled, the noise coming from out in the hospital proper, nothing more than a background irritation.
“Hey kid,” he says, refilling the chamber of the six-shooter. He has a deep voice and his words come out slowly, as if each one has to pass through a rigorous screening process before exiting his mouth.
“Hey Jagger,” Clarice responds, still tired from the contractions.
“You know if there’s a bathroom around here?”
Clarice has heard this question from him a hundred times. “There’s one through there,” she says, her head nodding towards the only other door in room, “What’s going on Jagger?”
“Great. Thanks kid,” he says. He walks toward the bathroom door, but then stops. “I need something to read,” he says, “Any newspapers around?”
“What’s the alarm all about, Jagger?” Clarice says.
“That’s just like you,” he answers, annoyed. He opens the bathroom door, and continues, “If an alarm goes off, it must be Jagger’s fault. How come you never…” Then another thought intrudes. She can see its arrival in the way he raises his eyebrows. Jagger shuts the bathroom door. “Hey,” he says, “Is there a newspaper at the nurse’s station?”
Clarice is patient. “Why is the alarm going off, Jagger?”
Jagger is not so patient. “Seriously kid, if I don’t shit now, I’m not gonna be able to. And I mean like, ever.”
“Jagger,” she says again, “The alarm.”
He quickly raises the gun and fires a bullet into the wall behind her head. Clarice barely registers the shot, let alone where the bullet went.
“Kid,” he says, “Newspaper. Seriously.”
“Will you tell me about the alarm when you get back?”
The question catches him off guard. He smiles and walks toward Clarice. “You want me to come back?”
“My roommate in the other room was reading a newspaper,” she says. “Go left out the door, and about six rooms down, I think.”
“You been in labor?” he asks, “How’s our little angel doing? Ready to fly?”
“Ready to do something,” she says.
Jagger stands by her side now. She can smell the smoke from his gun, the sweat under his armpits, the rot in his teeth, the motor-oil on his leather jacket.
“We’re all so proud of you,” he says, “everybody down there. We’ve got balloons and everything. I’ve never seen such…what’s the word…gaiety.”
“Suck it, Jagger.”
His smile drops. “Fuck you too, Clarice.” Not one to hold a grudge, he asks, “Go left, you say?”
“Yeah, go left.”
“I’ll be right back.” The biker turns, and his massive frame lumbers toward the door.
“Don’t take all day,” she says to his back.
Jagger exits the delivery room. From out in the hallway, three gunshots go off. Clarice hears several people scream, and then her next contraction hits. Her body is gripped with it. It’s as if she’s being electrocuted. A long primal scream tears out of the girl’s throat, a scream that only stops when her throat muscles close up around it, and even then, it still trickles out, scraggly and weak, but still polluted with so much pain.
When she can, the child tells herself (weakly) to breathe, and she does.
Time passes. The alarm drones on and on, soft and muffled and distant. In the hallway, a man tries to cry out, but a gun shot cuts him short.
Jagger walks nonchalantly into the delivery room, his steps bouncing, lighter than before. He has a newspaper tucked under one arm, and he’s reloading his pistol. Clarice barely turns her head to acknowledge his presence. “Found a bathroom in the hallway,” Jagger says.
“They’re going to kill you, you know.”
“It was pretty messy,” he says. “Must have been the burrito.” The huge man walks toward Clarice. “How you doing?” he asks. “He still in there?”
Clarice turns away from Jagger. “Something’s still in there.” With her lone remaining arm, she wipes sweat off her forehead. “This place needs a window.”
“You want I should get a fan or something?” Jagger asks, his voice warm and soft like a shot of peppermint schnapps.
“A fan would be nice.”
Like a little boy, Jagger beams at the prospect of a mission. He slaps the newspaper on top of her belly. “Good Op-Ed in there on contemporary morality,” he says. “If you’ve got some time, you might want to check it out. I’ll be back with a fan.”
Jagger all but scampers out of the delivery room, his muscular thighs skipping him bowlegged through the door. Rapidly, more gun shots from the hallway, this time from several guns. The shots overlap each other, a firefight between half a dozen people. Then, abruptly, the guns go silent.
Through the window in the door, Clarice sees the shapes of several heads run past and what sounds like half-a-dozen men all screaming, “Let her go!” and “Drop your weapon!” and “Put it down!” and “We’ll shoot!” and “Stop moving!” and “Drop your weapon!” and “Freeze!” and “Let her go!” and “Stop!” and “Don’t go in there!” and “Drop your weapon!” and “Freeze!” and “Don’t go in there!”
Clarice begins humming and rubbing her swollen belly. She hums the melody of a tune by The Flaming Lips. The hum turns to song, a tired rendition. “Do you realize,” she sings, “that you have the most beautiful face?” She has a smoky singing voice, the voice of a fourteen-year-old girl whose parents have abandoned her, whose teachers have given up on her, and whose neighbors have forbidden their daughters and sons from seeing her; a voice that’s never sung anything but the blues.
“Do you realize,” she continues, “that we’re floating in space?”
She has the voice of a woman whose been tied to the kitchen table by her thirty-seven-year old biker boyfriend and watched as he undid his black leather belt, tied it around the top of her arm, and then, smiling a sweet, genuine smile, raised a hacksaw over her thin, little bicep; a voice that doesn’t know what gospel music even sounds like.
Her song continues, “Do you realize—that happiness makes you cry? Do you realize—that everyone—you know—some day— will die?”
On the other side of the delivery room door, the policemen start screaming again. They scream the same words as before—“Let her go!,” “Drop your weapon!,” etc.—but there is a new line sung by their chorus: “Lady, drop the fan!”
Despite the uproar in the hallway, Clarice continues singing, the words picking up a bit in a tempo, but her voice still exhausted, like remaindered ice cubes in an empty whiskey glass. She sings, “And instead of saying all of your goodbyes—let them know you realize that life goes fast. It’s hard to make the good things last. You realize the sun dudn’t go down, it’s just an illusion—caused by the world spinning around. Do you realize—oh, oh, oh!” Her singing turns back to humming.
Out in the hallway, the policemen still yell. “Drop your weapon!” they yell, and “Don’t go in there!” and “Lady, drop it!” and “Freeze!” and “Put down the gun!” and “Drop the fan!” and “Don’t go in there!” and “Leave the gurney!” and “Stop!”
Jagger slams ass first through the door. He’s crouched over, with one arm around the neck of Lucia, an elderly Hispanic woman in a hospital gown, Clarice’s roommate from earlier. She’s a foot and a half shorter than Jagger, and he’s using her as a human shield, holding the gun to her temple. He mouths something soft in her ear, something gentle, something to encourage her, to give her confidence, keep her sane. Lucia drags a gurney along with her, and there is a small table fan on top of it. She is crying, frightened, and shaking.
The police in the hallway keep yelling, louder and angrier than before. Jagger drags the woman and the gurney all the way into the room, and the door swings shut again. The police fall silent, and Jagger yells out, “If I see one person peep through these windows, I’ll kill them both! I don’t want to, so don’t make me!”
The biker drags Lucia and the gurney out of range of the windows, and then lets the woman go — he doesn’t push her away, just lets her go. Still crouched to stay below the window, Jagger takes the fan off the gurney, scoots over to Clarice, finds a nearby outlet, plugs in the fan, and turns it on.
Clarice doesn’t even notice.
Jagger turns, scoots back to the gurney, flips it on its side, and pushes it up against the door. With his back against the gurney, Jagger reloads his pistol. That done, he gets in a crouching position. His eyes stare down at the floor. He’s thinking.
Lucia cries in the corner.
Jagger’s face screws up for a moment. He’s struggling with a new thought. His body clenches, as if it’s trying to push something out. His face becomes determined.
He’s decided.
The biker scoots a few steps back from the gurney, flips it back onto its wheels, and then moves it away from the door. He scoots back to Clarice, grabs the newspaper from where it has fallen beneath her bed, reaches up with his lips, and kisses the girl’s forehead.
“Better safe than sorry,” he says .“Right?”
He tucks the newspaper under his armpit, scoots back to Lucia, grabs her by the neck again, and presses the gun back against her temple.
She screams, “No, señor!”
He says in a very American accent, “Un momento, por favor,” then kicks the door open and bursts back out into the hallway.
Clarice says weakly, “There’s a bathroom in here, Jagger,” but he can’t hear the girl over the overlapping screams of the policemen: “Don’t move!,” “Drop your weapon!,” and all the other things they yell.
But this time, Jagger yells back. “There’s a bomb in that room! If anyone goes in there, I’ll blow us all to hell!”
The policemen keep yelling. “Freeze! Let her go! Don’t go in there!” Then they all fall back into silence.
The soft, muffled alarm continues to drone in the hallway.
Clarice has another contraction. This one is stronger than her previous ones. A silent scream grips her. Spots of blood appear on the bandage wrapped around her stump. Her body is wracked with pain. It’s as if she is living through an unstoppable chain of single and excruciating deaths, with each new second bringing with it an unbearable new agony. The contraction reaches its peak, and it’s as if someone has finally turned turned up the volume on her scream. It carries the terror and dread of an uncertain and cursed birth. The scream lasts a long time, but at its end, it is nothing more than a whimper.
Clarice whimpers her way out of consciousness.
Then, like a record coming back on after the power goes out, the police again scream in the hallway. “Put it down!” and “Let her go!” and all the same things, over and over, and then, almost like a replay from earlier, Jagger bursts ass first through the door, his arm around Lucia’s throat, his gun to the side of her head. He says over his shoulder to Clarice, “I think I got it all out that time.”
Again, he flips over the gurney.
“I hope those cops don’t go in there for a while,” he says with a smile. “They’ll think less of me.”
Again he stays low.
“You,” he says to Lucia, “Sit down.”
Lucia doesn’t. She stares at the spot where the doors meet the floor. She shakes, sniffles, rubs her arm.
Jagger touches her gently on the small of her back.
They make eye contact.
Clarice begins to stir.
“It’s okay,” Jagger says gently. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“No kill?” Lucia says.
“No kill.”
He directs her to the gurney. With one hand on her elbow, he helps her sit on the ground.
Lucia leans back against the gurney.
Jagger says to Clarice, “You got an extra pillow over there?”
The teenager sings, weaker than ever, “Do you realize—that everyone—you know—some day—will die?”
“Hey,” Jagger says, louder now, “Clarice? Pillow? You got one?”
“Do you realize?” she sings.
Jagger scoots to Clarice’s side. He tugs on a pillow, but it won’t budge from beneath her head.
Clarice looks over at him. “What are you doing down there,” she asks. “You want my other arm too?”
Jagger is stung. “She needs a pillow,” he says.
“Who?” Clarice asks.
He points with his head to Lucia. “Her.”
Lucia has pulled her knees to her chest, and Clarice can see beneath the woman’s hospital gown. There is a tiny puddle of pee on the floor beneath her. Clarice smiles at Lucia, weakly. Lucia forces a smile back, then Clarice is wracked by another contraction. Her good arm darts out and she grabs Jagger by his long, black, curly hair and pulls hard. The big man’s body writhes in pain. He tries to pull her wrist away, but the girl is too strong for the massive man.
“It’s coming!” she screams, “It’s coming!”
Lucia adjusts so she can see up Clarice’s gown. Clarice continues to scream and moan.
“La cabeza!” Lucia yells. “La cabeza! Dios mio! The head! La cabeza! Baby!”
“Push!” Jagger yells. “Push Clarice! Push!”
Clarice tries to communicate through the pain, “Do….you….realize…?”
Lucia struggles to get up from the floor, but the elderly woman can’t do it by herself. She gives up and crawls over to Clarice’s feet. “Is okay, lady,” she says .“Respira! Respira!”
“Do…you…realize…?”
“Breathe, kid,” Jagger says, wiping sweat from the girl’s forehead, “Breathe.”
“Empuja!” Lucia yells.
“Push!” Jagger translates.
Clarice gives one last primal scream and the baby is born. She collapses back to the bed, completely spent.
The child is not crying.
Lucia swings the baby out from under Clarice’s gown, but once she sees it in the light, the old woman almost drops the child to the floor. While not dropping it, she does it put it down roughly, quickly, as if she’s doesn’t want it to contaminate her. “Dios mio,” she whispers.
“What’s the matter,” Jagger says. His hair is no longer in Clarice’s grip, but he stays at the head of the bed.
“El Diablo!” Lucia says with wide eyes, and then she spits on the ground.
Jagger races to the foot of the bed and looks down at the baby.
“Do you realize,” Clarice sings weakly, “that you have the most beautiful face?”
Jagger calmly raises the pistol. He calmly aims at the baby’s face. He calmly pulls the trigger. Lucia screams. He lifts his arm and shoots the elderly woman in the forehead.
“Do you realize,” Clarice continues, “that everyone…”
A bullet bursts through the door’s window and hits Jagger in the shoulder.
“…you know….”
The biker stumbles. He’ still alive. He points his gun at the door and fires three aimless shots.
“…someday…”
Another bullet flies through the window and penetrates Jagger’s head. Blood splatters across the wall behind him and onto Lucia’s hospital gown. Her body lies lifeless at his feet. His body collapses on top of her.
“…will die?”
The police shove against the door, trying to break through, but the gurney doesn’t move easily.
“Do you realize?” Clarice sings.