Christopher Moore - A Dirty Job: A Novel

What you seek, you shall never find.

For when the Gods made man,

They kept immortality for themselves.

Fill your belly.

Day and night make merry,

Let Days be full of joy.

Love the child that holds your hand.

Let your wife delight in your embrace.

For these alone are the concerns of man.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

C harlie Asher walked the earth like an ant walks on the surface of water, as if the slightest misstep might send him plummeting through the surface to be sucked to the depths below. Blessed with the Beta Male imagination, he spent much of his life squinting into the future so he might spot ways in which the world was conspiring to kill himhim; his wife, Rachel; and now, newborn Sophie. But despite his attention, his paranoia, his ceaseless fretting from the moment Rachel peed a blue stripe on the pregnancy stick to the time they wheeled her into recovery at St. Francis Memorial, Death slipped in.

Shes not breathing, Charlie said.

Shes breathing fine, Rachel said, patting the babys back. Do you want to hold her?

Charlie had held baby Sophie for a few seconds earlier in the day, and had handed her quickly to a nurse insisting that someone more qualified than he do some finger and toe counting. Hed done it twice and kept coming up with twenty-one.

They act like thats all there is to it. Like if the kid has the minimum ten fingers and ten toes its all going to be fine. What if there are extras? Huh? Extra-credit fingers? What if the kid has a tail? (Charlie was sure hed spotted a tail in the six-month sonogram. Umbilical indeed! Hed kept a hard copy.)

She doesnt have a tail, Mr. Asher, the nurse explained. And its ten and ten, weve all checked. Perhaps you should go home and get some rest.

Ill still love her, even with her extra finger.

Shes perfectly normal.

Or toe.

We really do know what were doing, Mr. Asher. Shes a beautiful, healthy baby girl.

Or a tail.

The nurse sighed. She was short, wide, and had a tattoo of a snake up her right calf that showed through her white nurse stockings. She spent four hours of every workday massaging preemie babies, her hands threaded through ports in a Lucite incubator, like she was handling a radioactive spark in there. She talked to them, coaxed them, told them how special they were, and felt their hearts fluttering in chests no bigger than a balled-up pair of sweat socks. She cried over every one, and believed that her tears and touch poured a bit of her own life into the tiny bodies, which was just fine with her. She could spare it. She had been a neonatal nurse for twenty years and had never so much as raised her voice to a new father.

Theres no goddamn tail, you doofus! Look! She pulled down the blanket and aimed baby Sophies bottom at him like she might unleash a fusillade of weapons-grade poopage such as the guileless Beta Male had never seen.

Charlie jumped backa lean and nimble thirty, he wasthen, once he realized that the baby wasnt loaded, he straightened the lapels on his tweed jacket in a gesture of righteous indignation. You could have removed her tail in the delivery room and wed never know. He didnt know. Hed been asked to leave the delivery room, first by the ob-gyn and finally by Rachel. (Him or me, Rachel said. One of us has to go.)

In Rachels room, Charlie said: If they removed her tail, I want it. Shell want it when she gets older.

Sophie, your Papa isnt really insane. He just hasnt slept for a couple of days.

Shes looking at me, Charlie said. Shes looking at me like I blew her college money at the track and now shes going to have to turn tricks to get her MBA.

Rachel took his hand. Honey, I dont think her eyes can even focus this early, and besides, shes a little young to start worrying about her turning tricks to get her MFA.

MBA, Charlie corrected. They start very young these days. By the time I figure out how to get to the track, she could be old enough. God, your parents are going to hate me.

And that would be different how?

New reasons, thats how. Now Ive made their granddaughter a shiksa.

Shes not a shiksa, Charlie. Weve been through this. Shes my daughter, so shes as Jewish as I am.

Charlie went down on one knee next to the bed and took one of Sophies tiny hands between his fingers. Daddys sorry he made you a shiksa. He put his head down, buried his face in the crook where the baby met Rachels side. Rachel traced his hairline with her fingernail, describing a tight U-turn around his narrow forehead.

You need to go home and get some sleep.

Charlie mumbled something into the covers. When he looked up there were tears in his eyes. She feels warm.

She is warm. Shes supposed to be. Its a mammal thing. Goes with the breast-feeding. Why are you crying?

You guys are so beautiful. He began arranging Rachels dark hair across the pillow, brought a long lock down over Sophies head, and started styling it into a baby hairpiece.

It will be okay if she cant grow hair. There was that angry Irish singer who didnt have any hair and she was attractive. If we had her tail we could transplant plugs from that.

Charlie! Go home!

Your parents will blame me. Their bald shiksa granddaughter turning tricks and getting a business degreeit will be all my fault.

Rachel grabbed the buzzer from the blanket and held it up like it was wired to a bomb. Charlie, if you dont go home and get some sleep right now, I swear Ill buzz the nurse and have her throw you out.

She sounded stern, but she was smiling. Charlie liked looking at her smile, always had; it felt like approval and permission at the same time. Permission to be Charlie Asher.

Okay, Ill go. He reached to feel her forehead. Do you have a fever? You look tired.

I just gave birth, you squirrel!

Im just concerned about you. He was not a squirrel. She was blaming him for Sophies tail, thats why shed said squirrel, and not doofus like everyone else.

Sweetie, go. Now. So I can get some rest.

Charlie fluffed her pillows, checked her water pitcher, tucked in the blankets, kissed her forehead, kissed the babys head, fluffed the baby, then started to rearrange the flowers that his mother had sent, moving the big stargazer lily in the front, accenting it with a spray of babys breath

Charlie!

Im going. Jeez. He checked the room, one last time, then backed toward the door.

Can I bring you anything from home?

Ill be fine. The ready kit you packed covered everything, I think. In fact, I may not even need the fire extinguisher.

Better to have it and not need it, than to need it

Go! Ill get some rest, the doctor will check Sophie out, and well take her home in the morning.

That seems soon.

Its standard.

Should I bring more propane for the camp stove?

Well try to make it last.

But

Rachel held up the buzzer, as if her demands were not met, the consequences could be dire. Love you, she said.

Love you, too, Charlie said. Both of you.

Bye, Daddy. Rachel puppeted Sophies little hand in a wave.

Charlie felt a lump rising in his throat. No one had ever called him Daddy before, not even a puppet. (He had once asked Rachel, Whos your daddy? during sex, to which she had replied, Saul Goldstein, thus rendering him impotent for a week and raising all kinds of issues that he didnt really like to think about.)

He backed out of the room, palming the door shut as he went, then headed down the hall and past the desk where the neonatal nurse with the snake tattoo gave him a sideways smile as he went by.