The Problem with Mrs. P
by Michael Shay
First problem: nobody was home to help. Not her two daughters, off to school. Not her husband Robbie, who hadn’t been home for weeks, probably right this minute at that whore Gloria’s house.
Second problem: she was seven months pregnant and bleeding like crazy. She pressed a cream-colored towel against her crotch; it bloomed with a red chrysanthemum of her own blood. She stood in the bathroom doorway, eyes sparking, knees shaking.
Third problem: her damn husband had the car. Not that she was in any shape to make the seven-mile drive into Cheyenne, ten if you factored in the hospital which was downtown.
Fourth problem: the telephone was dead, thanks to Robbie not paying the bills like he was supposed to. She had her own prepaid cell phone with a few minutes still left on it. But it was downstairs on the kitchen table. Just the thought of negotiating the stairs brought a throbbing to her abdomen. Fifth problem, or maybe it was the first: she and her baby boy might be dying.
She tried to bite back the tears, but they came anyway, raining down on her nightie, the blood-soaked towel, the tiled bathroom floor. It was all so ridiculous. Why had this happened? She should have known better than to let him back into her life, even if it had only been two weeks. He came back to her, all humble and lovey-dovey. She took him back into her bed and then he was gone again and there she was, pregnant again, standing in the doorway, bleeding to death.
Her main problem was getting down the stairs to the phone. Clinging to the wall, she made her way out of the bathroom and down the carpeted hallway. To the left was her daughter Kelly’s room. She grabbed the doorknob of the hall closet as she slowly passed. There were only twelve stairs but it looked like a million. Maybe if she just sat on the top step, and bumped her way down….She sat, a good thing since a swoon was coming on. She waited for her head to clear, then carefully slipped down the carpet onto the second step, then the third one.
On the next one, her left foot caught the hem of her wool nightgown. She fell back, then felt herself slipping down the stairway; her feet, her butt, her shoulders bumping with each step; wincing in pain as the vibrations traveled to her belly.
When she came to a stop, she noticed the quiet of the house. There was some sort of noise coming from outside the front door. She didn’t know what it was but she stood and, after letting her head clear momentarily, stepped slowly through the sparsely furnished living room toward the door.
Which led to the morning’s sixth problem: she passed out, sliding to the floor like a wet sack.
* * *
Mrs. P! Mrs. P!
She opened her eyes. A big hairy head swam in front of her. Maybe she was dreaming.
Mrs. P! Mrs. P!
It was the big head’s voice. For a minute she thought it was Robbie but her husband was thin and had a buzzcut in keeping with his role as a punk musician on the make. Who was it? And where was she? For a minute, she hoped she was safe in bed. But then she felt the rough carpet under her, the stickiness between her legs. There was a big hand on her shoulder, shaking gently.
Mrs. P!
The hairy head’s voice again. She wanted to say: My name is Liz, short for Elizabeth, and not Mrs. P, short for Politazzaro, Robbie’s last name which he had hung on her, presumably forever, and which everyone seemed to want to use in the abbreviated form, making her seem old before her time. She could see the man now. It was Big Ed, her landlord’s goofy son. The Retard, Robbie called him, as if he had a right to call anybody that. Big Ed was a lumbering overgrown kid, slow, who probably had a birth defect or something. But, last summer, he had been dedicated to mowing the weeds that passed for their lawn. That winter, he had pursued the snow with a vengeance. He unclogged toilets and hauled the trash.
The girls had been afraid of him at first. Six-foot-five if he was an inch, and built like one of those no-neck linemen you see on NFL football. And that hair, a mass of wavy red curls that framed that moon face of his. But one summer afternoon he came over driving the tractor with the haywagon attached. He asked the girls if they wanted a ride and they said yes and they tooled around the property as she watched from the kitchen window. A few hours later the girls came in screaming, waving something that looked like a rope above their heads. Snake! Snake! they yelled, then told her how Big Ed had whacked the head off a rattler with a hoe and skinned it right there on the spot. He gave the girls the skin and the rattles. This is one big freakin’ snake, Mommy, said Kelly, the youngest, sounding just like her father, New York accent and all.
Mrs. P?
What are you doing here, Ed?
Heard you yellin’ while I was shoveling the snow.
Was I yelling?
He looked puzzled. Somebody was.
Call the hospital, Big Ed, she said weakly. I’m bleeding to death.
Hospital, Big Ed muttered. It was strange voice that blended a kid’s cadence with the huskiness of a man. She felt his arms slide under her and, next thing she knew, she was being transported through the living room and out into the cold bright winter day.
You’re light, he said, pressing her in his arms.
Get my towel, Ed, she said. And I need the phone.
Don’t have a phone, he replied. Big Jim took it away. Said it was costin’ him an arm and a leg.
Big Jim was his father, their landlord, a big fat guy who seemed eternally pissed off at his slow son.
Get my cell, she said, motioning back to the house. It’s on the kitchen table. And the towel, Ed, for the blood.
I know where the hospital is, he said. I drove Big Jim there. Remember that time the tractor rolled over on him?
She didn’t remember and it didn’t matter anyway. Big Ed had plans and there was nothing she could do. Die on the bathroom floor. Die on the way to the hospital. She opened her eyes and saw ice crystals glinting in a blue-drenched sky. She heard the crunch of Big Ed’s boots in the snow. The wind slapped her bare, bloody legs. I’m cold, Ed.
Get you in the van and warm it up, he said.
They stopped. Ed’s right arm shifted and she heard a door being pulled open.
Crud, he said. Gotta move some things around.
She could feel his indecision. This might be too much for him. We can still call 9-1-1 on my phone.
No need, he said briskly.
She felt a tug, then Ed was arranging something on the ground. He put her down on something cold and plastic, then placed a covering over her.
Tarp and sleeping bag, he said. My camping stuff. I keep it in the van.
Camping? Well, she was getting warm on the snowy ground. She could see Big Ed shove his body in the van’s side door. His shoulders moved like a machine. She had seen this van dozens of times. Usually she heard it first as it came down the county road and into the dusty drive, its rackety Volkswagen clatter floating in the window across the open Wyoming prairie. She had often wondered why he had this old hippie van and not a huge mud-spattered pick-up like his dad.
Ed, I can sit up front, she said. We do need to get to the hospital.
Take a minute, he said. Got a mattress in here and everything.
She wanted to laugh. There was a racket of shifting and moving. Then she was up again, fitting neatly through the van’s open door. She was on the mattress, which was comfortable and didn’t smell, which surprised her. She looked up and saw Big Ed smile as he covered her with the sleeping bag.
Hurry, Ed, she said. Please. A look of concern flashed across his face as he slammed the door shut.
Another door opened, and she felt the van shift to the driver’s side. Big Ed was on the bus, taking her to the hospital. They would be there soon and all would be well. She wouldn’t die and the baby would be born and she would call him anything except for Robbie and maybe she would get a divorce and go back to work at a grocery store where she used to make pretty good money.
Crud. That was Big Ed.
What’s the matter?
Van won’t start. Don’t worry. I know what’s wrong.
So she was going to die?
Don’t worry, Mrs. P. This happens all the time.
She heard him fumbling around in the front, obviously looking for something. Then he said Ah-ha and she looked up to see him brandishing a foot-long screwdriver. The sun glinted off its metal shaft, giving it the look of a knife. Go ahead, she thought, plunge it right into my heart and get it over with.
The van leaped up as it lightened its load. She heard his boots crunch the snow, then a couple of grunts. The van shifted slightly, and she figured he was underneath, groping for some gizmo or another. Then came the dreaded word again—Crud— and after a few grunts and groans, he was back with his head shoved into the driver’s side.
Got a problem, he said. Need you to turn the key as I do this.
Do what?
Bridge the solenoid.
What the hell, Ed, she said. I’m bleeding to death here.
Hospital, he said. Gotta get the van started.
She breathed deeply. She had a tom cat for a husband. Her father abandoned her decades ago. Now her life depended on this dimwit? Men were such worthless creatures. And she was going to give birth to another one? It didn’t make any sense but she would be damned and damned again if she would stay here and die. She wanted to be with her girls. She wanted to be anywhere but here. Mrs. P pushed herself off the mattress. Fireflies danced in front of her eyes. Her big bloated body felt as if it belonged to someone else, or something else, like an African elephant or one of those strange looking sea lions she had seen at the zoo when she was a kid. But she moved, slowly, inching her way out of the van and onto her bare feet in the snow.
Where you goin’? asked Big Ed.
Inside to call the ambulance. Or walk to town. Anything but this.
You can’t.
I can.
She still was bleeding, that was a fact, but she knew from experience that she wasn’t in labor, which was good, because the last thing she wanted to do was deliver this baby two months early in the snowy yard with only Big Ed for assistance. Although she hadn’t felt any of the baby’s trademark kicks this morning, intuition told her that he still was alive. The house was a hundred feet away and if she could just reach the door and get inside, she could get to her cell phone, call the ambulance, and then take her chances. But those chances were better than the ones she had now. She walked five steps—she was counting each one— before a whole flock of fireflies filled her vision and the house kicked up at a strange angle, flying off into space, leaving her on her side in the snow.
* * *
She was nineteen —that wasn’t even ten years ago—and home from college for Christmas break when she had met Robbie. He was bass guitarist for the group that was playing at the local bar on New Year’s Eve. She was with her high school girlfriends. They all thought the band guys were hot so they hung around after midnight and bought the band some drinks and at 5 a.m. they found themselves at some dumpy house in Jericho, she and her girlfriends making out with the band guys. Robbie was a good kisser. He wanted more, of course, but she wasn’t that looped and she liked him when he didn’t press her. He even gave her a ride home in the band’s van, startling her mother when she sashayed into the kitchen, carrying her shoes in her hand. I’m in love, she said, which surprised her and made Mom cry. The tear ducts really opened once she learned that Robbie was a rocker with pierced lip and nose. She shared that last part with her mother, just to see if the response would measure up to her expectations. It did.
She was two months pregnant when they got married that June. Nobody knew yet, except her mom and maybe one or two of her closest friends. Robbie’s band, The Spectral Losers, played at the reception. The honeymoon was short. Robbie was awake all night banging away at her, even when she was dozing off from the champagne. She shouldn’t have been drinking. Her mom told her to cool it a couple times. She promised that she would quit right after the reception, which she did, except for a couple little sips of wine now and again. The morning after she puked her guts out with morning sickness while Robbie snored away in the motel’s vibrating queen-sized bed.
Not a terrific start to their marriage.
She and Robbie were split up when Katie was born. She was living with her parents and her mom took care of Katie when she went back to work a few weeks later. She was just getting back on her feet when Robbie came back into her life and she turned up pregnant again. That’s when her mother kicked her out. She and Robbie found an apartment closer to the city, so Robbie could go in nights and play at the clubs and not come home until dawn. She could not believe they were in that apartment for three years. Robbie brought home most of his pay. She was working, although a good chunk of it went to daycare for Katie and Kelly. Still, they were making it. Taking the pill helped put a damper on any more baby-making.
Then Robbie came home one day and announced they were moving to Wyoming. She about hit the ceiling. One of Robbie’s friends owned a music store in Cheyenne. He liked the idea of going West. So they had moved cross-country and here she was, bleeding in the snow like some pioneer woman from the olden days.
But she wasn’t in the snow anymore. She was moving along on some vehicle that wasn’t the van. She shifted her body and felt the crunch and crackle of something underneath. She opened her eyes to the bright sunlight.
Hey! It was Ed’s voice.
She pushed up on her elbow. She was stuffed in a sleeping bag, surrounded by a tangle of hay stalks. Weathered gray boards marked the wagon’s periphery. She craned her neck to the front to see the massive frame of big Ed bouncing on the seat of a green tractor. The tractor’s engine had a throaty roar that actually sounded good to her. At least they were moving.
Got your cell phone, he yelled.
What?
Phone. Big Ed jerked a thumb over his right shoulder.
She looked down and saw the cheapo black cell phone resting on the dark-green sleeping bag. Her mother had sent her a gift certificate and she had used it to buy this pre-paid cell phone which she kept hidden from Robbie, especially after the regular phone service was cut off. She picked it up.
The plastic phone was cold in her hand. She dialed 9-11. It rang twice before a mechanical voice said from somewhere very far away: Your Celluphone pre-paid calling service has expired.
Shit, she said. Had there been more minutes on her phone? Or had she just imagined it?
What? yelled Big Ed.
The computerized female voice said: Dial one if you want to add minutes to your service with your credit card.
Fat chance, she muttered.
Dial two if you wish to talk to a customer service representative to renew your service. She punched two. A few clicks followed. Then she heard a new voice: All our customer service representatives are busy. Please hold on and one will be with you shortly. Canned music came on the line.
She felt like heaving the phone into the prairie. She imagined it sailing over the barbed wire fence and falling into a patch of snow-whipped weeds, right at the feet on those blankeyed black cows she always saw wandering the open fields.
But not today. She liked the little phone. It was her only link to the outside world, which was very remote. She suddenly realized why Robbie had moved them so far away from town. She and the girls were isolated, dependent on him. He had the car 90 percent of the time. Got a gig, babe, he would say, then be gone for a week. They would be down to their last crust of bread when he would magically arrive laden with grocery sacks. Junk food, mostly, heavy on donuts and ice cream and chips. His idea of dinner was warming up some macaroni and cheese, maybe cutting up some hot dogs, mixing them in. She got queasy just thinking about it. Dinner would be over and Robbie would be off again to a gig or recording session or God knows where or, maybe, she did know where.
You okay? shouted Big Ed.
Just fine, she said. Just dandy, using one of the westernisms she’d learned since coming to Wyoming. She was not going to cry, no matter what. I am not going to cry, she said out loud. I am not going to cry.
What? called Big Ed.
Nothing, Ed.
What?
They moved slowly down the rural road, but she felt each bump. The clouds were traveling faster than they were. Any increase in velocity and she might go flying from the haywagon.
A man’s voice finally came on the other end of the phone. Thanks for calling Celluphone, he said cheerily. How may I assist you today?
She almost laughed at that. Assist? Hah! Get me off this wagon and into the nearest hospital.
Hello, said the voice.
Hi, she said weakly. I’m here.
I see that I am talking to a Mrs. Politazzaro of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Yes, she said.
Nice Irish name, he said.
Listen….
Call me Mark, he said. Mark Aloysius Kincannon is my full name, but they tell you to use only your first just in case we piss people off.
Listen, Mark, I’m in a bit of a fix here….
We have a variety of payment plans to fit your needs.
A wind gust rocked the wagon. Mark, are you reading that?
They give us a script, if that’s what you mean.
Where are you, Mark?
Denver, he said, in a little airless, windowless room in the basement of a gray building.
Guess where I am, Mark?
In a cozy kitchen baking cookies?
Don’t hang up, she said. Please. I got a real problem here and I’m asking for your help.
There was another pause. This is real, isn’t it? His voice had changed, serious now.
It’s real. She gave him a condensed version of the morning’s events.
A haywagon? he said. Riding to the hospital in a haywagon?
Down a nice country road, she said. Nice winter day.
Can you go faster?
It’s an old tractor, Mark.
Are you passing any houses? You could stop at one and get some help.
Nice suggestion, but Big Ed won’t stop. He’s determined to get me to the hospital.
He’s a little slow, in the head. Is that what you mean?
That’s right.
You’re not going to make it.
That’s right, she said, trying to imagine, for the first time, what Mark might look like.
Okay, said Mark, suddenly businesslike. Give me your position and I’ll call it in.
Promise?
Promise. Now, where are you?
On a country road north of town.
Which one?
What do you mean, which one?
Listen, uh, what’s your name anyway?
Mrs. Pol………
Your first name.
Liz.
Listen, Liz, there’s got to be more than one road north of town. What’s its number?
She raised her head and looked for a sign along the side of the road. Nothing but fence posts.
Hey Ed! she yelled, taking the phone away from her ear.
What? he said, turning to her. His shaggy red hair billowed like a wind-whipped fire.
What road is this? She could not see Ed’s face, but she imagined it scrunched up in some sort of thoughtful look. But this thought was taking its time and she was running out of it. Ed! she barked.
Some call it the Old Chugwater Road.
The Old Chugwater Road, she repeated into the phone.
What about a number?
She cursed under her breath. Does it have a number, Ed?
Don’t know a number.
No number, she told Mark.
She heard chatter on the other end. Look, said Mark, coming back on the line. I’ve got another CSR on the phone to the Sheriff’s Department and the dispatcher says there are two Old Chugwater Roads.
Two?
Yeah, one still goes to Chugwater and the other doesn’t. Which one are you on?
It’s north of town, she said brusquely. It’s where you go out north on Yellowstone Road and it turns into a two-lane and you come to a stop sign and you keep going out that rural road another five miles or so. Our little farmhouse is just before you come to that big curve….
Hold on, Liz, Mark said. More chatter on the other end. County Road 237?
If you say so.
We should tell the ambulance to look for a tractor pulling a haywagon, right?
Can’t miss us, she said. Green tractor, with Big Ed driving. Me bleeding to death in the haywagon in the back.
He laughed.
Not so funny, Mark.
Right. I’m sorry. More chatter on the far end on the line in Denver. The ambulance is on its way, Mark said, almost breathlessly.
No joke?
No joke.
Stay on the line and talk to me.
Okay, sure, I’ll talk to you. Then he was so quiet she thought the line had gone dead.
Got a family, Mark? she said weakly.
Got a five-year-old boy who lives with my ex-wife.
That’s nice, she said.
Think we’ll get our names in the paper?
Ha ha, she said. Names in the paper. She removed the phone from her ear. Ed!
What! Big Ed answered.
Ambulance on its way.
What? At least that’s what she thought he said. The wind shredded the words on their way from his mouth to her ears.
Waaa, it sounded like. Then wawa, just like the word the girls used for water when they were toddlers. We want wawa Mommy, and she would get them water in those little paper cups she kept by the kitchen sink. The girls would spill it and there would be wawa everywhere.
Wawa, she said to the wind, the sky, the wagon. She was so thirsty. Her head ached. The cold crept through the folds of the sleeping bag. She heard a voice and didn’t know if it was Ed’s or Mark’s or the lowing of a cow or something she had never heard before.
Waaaaa! she heard, wondering if it was just in her head or maybe, just maybe, was the distant wail of an ambulance.
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I wrote “The Problem with Mrs. P” for my first collection, The Weight of a Body (Ghost Road Press, 2006). It was included in a 2010 Coffee House Press anthology, Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams. It’s about a real event that happened to a friend. I transformed it into a short ction with invented characters. It’s set during winter in Wyoming, a season for adventures and misadventures. When I read it in public, I like that it elicits both laughter and gasps.
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MICHAEL SHAY writes short stories and essays. His work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies including Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams from Coffee House Press. His first book of short stories is The Weight of the Body. He recently completed an historical novel set in 1919 Colorado with the working title Zeppelins over Denver.