Something was the matter with Mama’s tummy. It moved. It rolled. It got round and then flat. It went this way, then that way, up then down. Sometimes it poked Mama inside her and she said ow! and scrunched up her face like she wanted to cry.
“Little sonofabitch kicks,” she said.
I’d been watching Mama’s tummy. I couldn’t help it. Mama had given me my blue car to play with, and I’d made a bridge with wood blocks on the coffee table to roll it under. But her tummy—it was moving, and that—thing—inside her was hurting her, and I couldn’t stop looking at that. What had she called it?
“Some-bit?” I asked, pointing to her tummy.
Mama turned her head and looked mean at me, the way she did when she smelled poop in my pants. “You’d just better watch your mouth, mister,” she said, “or I’ll wash it out with soap for you.”
I looked at her. I wasn’t sure just what to say, but some-bit was definitely a no-no. I didn’t want my mouth washed out with soap. I remembered tasting it once in the bathtub. It was yucky.
I went back to playing with my car for a while. Vrrooom! Vrrooom! But I still wanted to know about the some-bit. I waited until her tummy moved again, then stuck a finger toward it. “What’s that?” I said.
Mama took a deep breath and let it out, pssshhh! “It’s a baby,” she said finally. She shut her eyes and took more deep breaths, making her mouth into a little ‘o’ and blowing the air out, the way she sometimes did when she smoked a cigarette. “A little person,” she went on. “Like you, only smaller. Smaller than Debbie even.”
I tried to picture a tiny me or my baby sister Debbie swimming around inside Mama’s tummy, but I couldn’t.
“But how did a baby get in your tummy?” I asked. “Did you eat it?”
Mama rolled her eyes under her eyelids. “No, I didn’t eat it,” she said. She took another big breath and let it pssshhh out again. She thought some more. Then she said: “It was God. God put the baby seed inside me, while I was asleep.”
I remembered what Mama had said about God. He was a giant, invisible man, and he stood on the Earth like it was a little ball. He burned up people who did bad things or thought bad thoughts. He could kill anyone he wanted, just by thinking about it. He was the biggest, oldest, smartest man ever. And he was always watching us, even more than Santa Claus. So we had to be extra careful to do things right all the time.
I didn’t want to be with God. He was scary. And he hurt Mama by putting seeds into her that grew into pointy things that moved and poked her.
Mama opened her eyes and looked at me. “Come here,” she said, “give me your hand.”
Mama reached for me with one hand, and raised up her big blouse with the other. Her tummy looked like she’d eaten a basketball, except this basketball was rolling around her insides all by itself. I knew she wanted me to touch it. But I couldn’t. There was something too—alive about it. Mama frowned. “Come here this minute!” she said.When I got close she grabbed my hand and pulled it hard and put it on her tummy. I couldn’t help it: I screamed and jerked it away again.
Mama’s eyes got big. “You idiot!” she yelled. “It’s not going to bite you!” Something inside me grabbed my throat and squeezed; I heard my car fall to the floor, and then I was just standing there, crying. Mama’s eyes snapped shut again. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Just go. Get out of my sight. Leave me alone.” Now I was crying even harder. I ran out the open front door to our yard, while Mama lay there on the couch with her eyes closed and that thing moving inside her.
It was hot outside. Even the pokey yellow grass with the little stickers was hot on my bare feet. But it wasn’t long before I stopped crying. I wanted someone to play with. I remembered a black mutt-dog named Sparky who lived next door, but I didn’t see him. Maybe he was inside, I thought; maybe it was too hot outside for dogs. I went to the wood fence at the front of the yard and looked up and down the street. I couldn’t see anyone, anywhere. Funny-looking waves came off the black streets, floating up into the sky. The back of my neck was getting hot. Finally I went back to the front porch and sat in the shade. I wished I were playing with my toy car again. I wished I hadn’t even thought of asking what that thing was in Mama’s tummy.
I saw a flock of big black birds in the shade tree at the side of the house. They were jumping around in the branches, squawking and trying to bite each other. Inside the house, Mama yelled again, “Ow!” Then I saw bright, puffy clouds like giant pillows floating in the sky, way over by the brown mountains. I thought I saw God sitting in them, looking down on us all, just waiting to burn someone up.