Stephanie Says - Chapter 4

I c-can't believe this"

Hank Halibut sat hunched over in a kitchen chair, his furry paws covering his face. Donna stood in the frame of the kitchen door, arms crossed, sipping from a mug that ironically read "World's Best Mom." It was ten after twelve on a Tuesday evening. A kettle boiled on the stove and patches of frost crystallized on the windows. The baby monitor that Hank had assembled sat quietly on the counter. Stephanie's steady breathing hummed through the speaker.

"Honey..." she started, feigning concern to the best of her ability. He raised a hand to stop her from continuing.

"Isn't this what you wanted?"With this, he looked up, enraged at his wife's display of ignorance.

"Bipolar, manic depressant, allergic to her own scent...Christ, Donna, do you think I willed it this way? Are you out of your fucking mind?"

She was taken a back and paused a little longer before speaking again.

"A child, I meant, you wanted a child."

"Yes...I wanted a child, a girl a boy, it didn't matter...but I didn't want a little girl who will grow up with a split personality, or with a mood that switches quicker than a fuckin light switch...what she'll have to endure Donna..."

She's supposed to see the doctor again tomorrow...nothing is for sure Hank, all they said was that there's a chance she will be mentally unstable...there will be some signs early on, but most of this stuff won't be visible till she's older".

Donna's apathy for her newborn child was not on full display during this late night vis-a-vis with her husband. Not that it mattered. He knew she hadn't wanted another kid. The physical and emotional toll that Eric had caused the family was bad enough. A stoner for a son and an emotional train wreck for a daughter. Other people couldn't empathize. Donna Halibut's indifference for bearing children stemmed from the context of her environment. The results of her attempts at procreation were so unrewarding. Yet Hank had persisted.
He had gotten down on his knees, that fuckin pussy. Another fuck up to cavort around the house and shower with toys and praise. Less pleasure for her and far more pain. Where was the compromise in that? And she was expected to adopt the attitude of a compassionate mother for a being that she had been duped into producing?
By all accounts, hadn't the means justified the ends for Hank Halibut? Hank who had crafted this clandestine operation to impregnate her? Hank who would have taken her to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade if she, his own wife, had wanted an abortion? He deserved it, she did not. And she now had maternal duties to fulfill which she never voluntary entered into.
******
Eric Halibut occupied a precarious position amongst social circles at Magruder High. As the self-professed drug king, Eric had garnered plenty of publicity. It was a title he relished. Everyone bought from Eric Halibut. If you weren't buying from him, you were getting probably getting cheated. For his congenial and carefree attitude, he had earned the nickname Eazy-E. But his nonchalant character was also the source of great trouble. There had long been speculation amongst the faculty and administrative officials that Eric Halibut engaged in an illicit trade of sorts.

It was early Friday afternoon. Eric and his boys, J-Bone and Big Slick Boyd, sat near the rear of the school parking lot. On Eric's orders, they had all excused themselves from classes for the rest of the day. An "early dismissal" he termed it. The security guard, Proctor, watched them vigilantly from across the parking lot. Proctor was an immense figure, a bald black man with a goatee and a formidable frame. He dressed in all black and carried a .44 magnum in a holster on his waist. His military boots, also black, were laced tightly and prepared to deliver a swift kick to the face if any fool tried to step.

"Look at that crazy nigga maan. Reminds me of Samuel Jackson in Shaft" J-Bone proceeded to mimick Proctor, drawing hysterics from Big Slick and a slight chuckle from Eric.

J-Bone had been raised in Forrestville, a predominantly black area in Prince George's County. Ironically, he was one hundred percent white. As his great grandfather, a former member of the Third Reich, had told him: "You are of the Aryan race son, a pure bred." These words of praise had come on J-Bone's seventh birthday, at which time his feeble grandfather mustered what little strength he had and shoved a copy of Mein Kampf into his gullet, instructing him to read it at all costs. His mother had promptly taken the book and used it as firewood that evening.

"Waz good for tonight, E?" Big Slick Boyd was super senior, a 21 year old high-schooler. Born to a single mother, Big Slick had been forced to take on the role of a man of the house, a duty that he neglected in favor of amphetamines, acid, and a slew of other illicit substances. At twelve, he had become accustomed to a diet of weed and his mother's painkillers. Ocassionally, he would steal Robitussin from the People's pharamacy down the street and spend the next week on a high known ironically as "robotrippin." He had done several unfruitful stints in rehab over the past two years, squandering what was left of his mom's savings.

"We got T.J.'s thing goin tonight. I'm sayin we roll through, see if anyone's tryin to score. If its dope, we can hang around."

J-Bone and Big Slick nodded in assent. Though they were a crew, Eric wielded the most influence. In short time, he had become a demigod of the drug trade. In reality though, he was only a part-time dealer, turning a nice profit that he used to finance his own appetites.

"Ay E, it cool if I crash at your place tonight?"

"No can do man...my pops is nuts, told me to get my shit together."

"What the fuck is his deal, bruh?

"Fuck if I know, issuin these ultimatums and shit. I'm movin out after this year anyway."

"What about that sister of yours, ain't you supposed to be a role model, settin a good example and shit?"

"Who are you man, the United Way? When you get so soft, huh?"

Eric jokingly sucker punched J-Bone in the stomach, drawing laughter from Big Slick and a nod of disapproval from Proctor. As the security guard lumbered in their direction, the bell shrilled and the hordes emerged from all directions of the school. Eric grinned.

"Open shop boys, open shop."

Stephanie Says - Chapter 3(Smorgasborg)

Tuesdays were another bleak and unwelcomed chapter in Donna Halibut's miserly life. She awoke to the cacophonous shrill of the baby's voice, threw herself under the scalding water of the shower, and dragged the little bitch to the doctor's.

The process lasted three or so hours. There were screenings performed, immunizations administered, etc. An abortion wouldn't have been asking much. All the while, this thought recurred in her head. Ironically, she had been a staunch pro-life advocate in her college years, participating in campus protests, and reveling in her status as a radical teen. Things change when you take a billy club to the head, and Donna had certainly earned it when she halked a viscous lugee at a cop's face.

"Mrs. Halibut, right this way please". Karen was a 30 something nurse with a svelte frame and small breasts. Donna managed a smile and carried little Stephanie into the back where Dr. Eichmann waited.

"Mrs. Halibut, how ar' you? Good to see you again, and how's the little booger?" Eichmann was from a family of Orthodox Jews. He had grown up on Manhattan's east side, the youngest of seven siblings. After earning his PHD from Hopkins, he had decided to settle down in Washington, DC and open a private practice.

"Dr. Eichmann, good to see you, doing well, pretty well." There was no effort at enthusiasm, no signs of vigor or excitement that was so prevalent in the mother of a newly born child. Donna spoke in a monotone and wore a plastic smile.

"Well..." he continued. "We are going to run a brain scan today, the focus of which will be on the neurotransmitters".

Donna showed no signs of competence, as would be expected of someone with little medical education. Dr. Eichmann, realizing the need for a translation, quickly followed with:

"I got a little ahead of myself, I'm sorry. In laymen's terms, we are performing a simple analysis on Stephanie's brain today, looking for any chemical imbalances or abnormalities."

Donna shrugged indifferently. "Sounds good, Doc." With that, she handed off Stephanie to the closest nurse and sauntered back into the waiting room, ensconscing herself in a chair and beginning to peruse through a stack of outdated issues of Cosmopolitan and O.
***

Hank Halibut kicked off his mud-caked Timberlands and threw his feet up on the desk. He adjusted the blinds in the trailer, which served as his makeshift office. Five years prior, Hank had taken over his father's contracting business. He had orchestrated several major deals since the takeover and had turned Halibut Contracting Services into a lucrative enterprise. Just last week, Hank had secured the rights to build a new Safeway Superstore in Chevy Chase, an affluent neighborhood on the outskirts of D.C. The deal would bring in an estimated 4.6 million in revenue. After factoring in costs and taxes, Hank's share of the pie would amount to half a million. Not a bad chunk of change for a college dropout.

"Betsy...?"

"Yes Mr. Halibut". Betsy, the plump forty something secretary lumbered into his little office, struggling to squeeze her robust frame through the narrow door.

"Could you order me a Reueben from Woodside?"

"Of course Mr. Halibut, anything specific on the sandwich?"

"Light on the oil on vinegar, and tell them to load on the hot peppers. I'm feeling hot today!"

Betsy's boisterous laugh nearly shook the trailer.

"Yes sir...oh and Mr. Halibut, your wife called too...said it was urgent"

With that, she hobbled out of the room and back to her desk. Hank picked up yesterday's paper and scanned the front page. Disinterested, he picked up the phone and dialed his wife's cell. Three rings followed by a frantic and distraught voice on the other end.

"HANK, OH HANK, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO HANK, HANK HANK!"

"I'M HERE HONEY, CALM DOWN, TAKE IT DOWN A NOTCH WOULD YOU. WHAT HAPPENED, IS STEPHY ALRIGHT?"

"SHE'S FINE FOR THE MOMENT, BUT HANK, HANK, THE DOCTOR TOLD ME SHE COULD BE SCHIZOPHRENIC, AND BIPOLAR, AND...I DONT FUCKING KNOW, WHAT'S HAPPENING HANK? WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR CHILD? THIS IS YOU, THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED!"

With that he slammed down the receiver and jumped up from his chair. A month ago, he could not have envisioned such madness. What the hell was happening. Had his seed produced some dysfunctional child. Or was it Donna? Was it that scheming, no good, dirty wife of his? She never wanted this child. Did she throw herself down the stairs, stick a coat hanger up her cunt? Try to give herself a self-administered abortion?

He grabbed his jacket off the chair and started for the door, nearly knocking down Betsy in the process.

"Mr. Halibut, is everything alright...what about your Reuben?" She shrilled.

"Eat it Betsy, feed it to the dogs, do whatever the fuck you want with it".

He jumped in his pickup and floored it through the construction sight, leaving an ominous storm of sand in his wake.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Stephanie Says - Chapter 2(Disillusioned Benthamite)

"There's only one thing I love more than pot in this world..." Eric orated to his stoner friends.

"Wuz that man?"

"Fresh pussy". Raucous laughter ensued. Tommy Carbonell laughed in the midst of a bong hit, spewing smoke and falling into a coughing fit.

"But I'm not talking about that old washed up, potato-salad shit..." He continued.

"I'm talkin about that fresh-to-death, professionally manicured, well-maintained shit with the slight aroma of a dead fish."

Laughter ensued. Such was the content of discussions held in the unfurnished basement of the Halibut household. Eric Halibut and his cronies would fire up the bong and talk pseudo-ethical bullshit. For all the brain cells he had lost, Eric still retained a mild level of competence. Though he remebered virtually none of what he was taught in high-school, he still possessed an adept, yet distorted, understanding of Jeremy Bentham. As a self-professed Benthamite, Eric claimed to have developed a more modern hedonistic calculus. Marijuana was regarded as the benchmark for all other pleasures, exceeded only by "fresh pussy".

In an upstairs room, Stephanie Halibut slept tranquilly, oblivious to the lewd forum being held in the basement. Donna Halibut, her mother, lay morosely on her California-king size bed. Oprah was blaring on the television. She perused her email on an Apple laptop, sorting through the array of congralutatory letters she had received. Her first experience with child labor had been strenuous enough, not to mention that it had bequeathed her a stoner son with no admirable qualities, unless you counted high intake of illegal substances as a laudable trait.

As if one failure wasn't enough, she was deceived, quite unscrupuously, by her husband into having another child. He had switched her birth control pills with Claritin and ejaculated a population of little Halibuts into her body...and so came Stephanie. Nine months of extra baggage, morning sickness and dry heaving. Her stomach had expanded to the size of a watermelon and her thighs inherited a flabby layer of cottage cheese cellulite. Maybe it was karma. Could her husband have known about the epheremal affair with Ed Sandler? Unlikely. It had lasted a week and she had done a sufficient job at hiding the hickeys that he had plastered on her neck.

In the nursery, Stephanie's cries became increasingly audible. The baby monitor droned out Oprah's cackle and Donna groaned discontently. She had petitioned to her husband, begging for a wet nurse to tend to Stephanie. He had ignored her pleas, adopting the traditional 60's era stance about social norms.

"I'm the bread winner honey. You are supposed to stay home, tend to the kids, and have dinner ready when I get home".

Maybe he was half-joking, but Donna Halibut found no humor in his quip. She would have hired a divorce lawyer in a heartbeat but prenup left her in a catch-22. A divorce settlement would yield little money. She was past her prime too and the aftermath of pregnancy had not looked kindly on her. Suitors would be sparse.
As Stephanie's cries droned on, Donna Halibut lay there morosely, in a half-way vegetative state, weighing her options. If we are to define pleasure as what equates the most overall good, then the scales were tilting heavily against a continued existence...

Stephanie Says - Chapter 1 (Hallelujah)

Stephanie Halibut was delivered via Cesarean section on a brisk evening in early March. Her father was ecstatic ,her mother was disenchanted with the whole process, and her brother Eric was in a quasi-comatose state in the aftermath of the bong hits he had taken earlier.

She came out of the womb covered in film of mucus and filth, her alabaster white complexion gleaming under the light. She looked like a baby polar bear covered in snot. Her father stood there like a paralytic, overtaken by the fusion of emotions. Her mother writhed in agony begging the nurse to hook her up to the morphine drip or for Vicodins or Percocets. Doctor Balkam refused her incessant demands, insisting that administering any pain medication ran counter to medical protocol.

"MY CUNT JUST EXPANDED THE SIZE OF A FRISBEE, I NEED SOME FUCKING MEDICATION"

Her profanity-laced tirade continued intermittently over the next hour, ceasing briefly during the placenta's exit from her vagina.

Grandma and Grandpa Halibut made the trip from Greensboro, North Carolina. They drove six hours along Interstate 64, stopping along the way at fruit markets and rest stops. Grandpa Halibut had a perpetual urinary tract infection that required him to wear diapers and pee every hour on the hour. Stephanie's father escorted his in-laws through the hospital's maternity wing to where their daughter had just finished her labor.

"Donna sweetie, how are you? OH MY MERCY-SHE'S BEAUTIFUL".

Tears began to flow profusely. Beads of her mascara raced down her cheeks. She looked like an aged goth. Grandpa Halibut beamed at his new granddaughter. Unable to contain the wave of elation that swept over him, he soiled his pants repeatedly. The nurses had to change diaper for him. Eric sat morosely in the corner, trying to process the last hour's events. His cotton mouth had become so arid that he had briefly considered chugging the entrails of the morphine drip.

"Snap out of it you fuckin' stoner". Eric's head jolted in a slight pang of displeasure. His father stood over him, backhand extended, searching his son's bloodshot eyes for an indication of competence.

"Sorry bruh, I'm just groggy from the nap I took earlier"

"I'm not tolerating your pothead shit any more. You have a fuckin baby sister now. Set a good example or get the fuck out of my house".

His father delivered this jarring invective in a hushed monotone so as not to arouse his already distraught wife. For the next two hours, the doctor and nurses performed the routine post-birth procedures. Vital signs were checked, weight and height were recorded, and a blood sugar test was conducted. An effervescent mood swept up the room. For the first time in a long time, everyone was in high-spirits. Even Donna Halibut, who had just hours before verbally assaulted the doctors, had quieted down considerably. All was well in Washington on the early morning of March 19, 1991.