Gypsy Tales

Chap. 9 “Rose dear, I have asked you not to use the word elder, it upsets me. My breasts have always hung a bit because I have such big ones. At twelve, I was a tall skinny kid with D cups. Tits on a string bean! That’s what some of the boys called me. My nipples were large even then. Can you imagine what that was like? I was so ashamed and tried to cover up. My mother made a garment for me, wrapping my chest to flatten it out as much as possible. I felt such guilt having them!” She pulled a joint out and lit it with several thumb strokes to the wheel of her lighter. “Damn thing, I just filled!” Throwing it to the table, she toked hard. “I made up for all of that shit a few years later when I found out how crippling it is to a mans mind when he sees a nice set of jugs on a woman.” Exhaling as she talked. “It delivers a blow to his reasoning! Then the little head starts to lead the big head. Their prick takes charge of everything, the whole ship! He becomes the fucking Captain!” Stoking the weed with a giant toke, a long hot ash fell to the table. She exhaled right in my face. “All that shit happened after she passed away. I had no father, what the fuck! I grew up quick. I lied about my age and became a dancer at sixteen. I did look much older, but I don’t think they gave a shit anyway.” She shrieked. “All the fuck they wanted was to date my tits!” Excerpt chap 6 We arrived home chilled from the rain. I slurped my soup, holding the warm bowl to my lips, when we heard the sounding of a car horn. It repeated a few more times rapidly. Rosemarie, pausing and listening, then got up to see who it was. The door slammed, she began speaking loudly to someone in Spanish. I ladled more soup to my bowl. “Dutch!” She called with a sense of urgency. I ran to the porch. “There is a lady in that car and she is about to have a baby. Get me a pan of hot water and some clean towels in the cabinet by the kitchen door. Hurry!” “Don’t you want to bring her inside?” “There is no time, the baby is coming now! Hurry Dutch!” I ran to the car, the woman had her right leg locked over the seat backrest and the other on the dash. Rose was knelt before her with her hands gently cradling and coaxing the little shoulders and head of the baby. The woman groaned deeply. This is the first time I saw a woman’s legs wide open and it frightened the shit out of me! Men seldom think about that chamber as having a two-way door! The scene was filled with electricity. Gripping the steering wheel, the woman’s knuckles whitened. I felt helpless; I’m glad Rose was here, I don’t know what I would have done if alone. “Push, now push! Hold her hand Dutch!” In a final contraction, the child shot out! Rose’s hands were confident; she was in perfect control until suddenly she spoke loudly with alarm. “Quick Dutch, your knife! You do have one don’t you?” “Yes I do.” “Piss on the blade and rinse it in the water.” Her eyes darted at me. What? Holy shit, I can’t piss! I stood holding my urinator in one hand and the open knife in the other. Juan appeared through the foliage walking hurriedly to me, he began to run. Holding his hands up, he shouted. “What the hell are you doing Dutch? You will only be half a man without it! Don’t do it!” “Father he is sanitizing the blade!” I let-out a roaring laugh. Juan stopped in his tracks holding a hand over his mouth, gagging. “Boy’s! Give me the knife and stop playing, this baby is in trouble!” The woman’s face was filled with fear, she tried to rise up and look, Juan spoke to her and she lay back down. Slipping two fingers under the coiled cord at the neck, Rose placed the knife blade between them and pulled it through with the skill of a surgeon. The infant coughed as it breathed the first breath of its life! Lifting it by its feet and spanking it to a cry, we sounded a cheer of relief! An account of the event was sketched on Roses lavender dress. Relieved of the tense moments when the child was choked with umbilical cord, her face softened with a smile, soaked with sweat, rain, and hanging hair. Brushing it back with a crimson forearm, she highlighted the event with yet another stroke to the canvas. With a tilted head, she chortled softly looking to the sky; her hands extended behind, arching her back and stretching. “I think this is the seventh baby I have delivered.” She paused for a moment. “It might be a calling I did not answer. I was eleven the first time. It was my teacher at school. Right there on the desk! It was so funny, the kids all wanted to hold the baby or at least touch the tiny hands and feet as they clamored with excitement standing in a circle around me reaching over each other. Another teacher walked into the room to see what all the commotion was about. When he saw me standing at the desk between her legs holding a prune-faced, pointy headed gift, still roped to the mother, he passed out cold!”