Dogland | Page 4

with a gleaming stethoscope around his neck and a black leather bag at his side.
"I know 'bout birthin' babies," said a fat black woman with oak leaves sticking to her hair and her long green dress.
"Oh, thank Jesus," said the taxi driver.
"I do, too," said a scrawny, bare-chested white man with goat horns at his temples and shaggy trousers covering his legs. "I know to get everyone out of the way."
"Yes, sir. That's right. That's a fine idea." The driver and the goat man began hustling people away from the cab. I listened to Ma's breathing, and I felt myself getting more and more scared. Ma smiled and kept saying it was okay, but she was sweating and red and gasping.
"You chil'en wait outside the cab," said the woman with oak leaves. "Your mama won't have no trouble at all, now."
"Ma?" said Little Bit.
Ma smiled more easily, and her breathing grew deeper, slower, and more even. "Go on, you two. I did all right with you, didn't I? Stay--" She gasped, then smiled again. "--by the car, okay?"
The tree woman glared at the people clustered around us. "Y'all turn your backs and give this poor woman some privacy, hear!"
The watchers, white and black, young and old, rich and poor, all nodded and obeyed. In the middle of a street packed tight with bodies, under a bright midday sun, Ma had more privacy than she would in any delivery room.
The taxi driver lifted Little Bit onto the hood of the car. They played pattycake while the Mardi Gras crowds surged around Ma's shielding ring of people. Everyone ignored me, which comforted me; it meant there was nothing I was supposed to worry about. I couldn't see Ma, and I could only see the back of the tree woman, which wasn't that interesting, so I studied the hairy man.
Every kid knows about Halloween suits made of crinkly cloth in colors unknown to nature. The hair on the man's legs was dark brown and matted with beer or sweat. His hooves were muddy, and one was chipped. His horns stuck out from the curly hair on his head, which was the color of the hair covering his legs. The horns were small and dull black and didn't quite match. He smelled like a dog that'd been in the rain.
The hairy man put his fists on his flanks and said, "What you lookin' at, son?"
"You," I said, because Pa had taught me to answer adults, and then, "Sir," because Pa had taught me to be polite.
The hairy man nodded, then belched. I smelled something like Grandma Bette's breath after she drank port -- soda pop for grown-ups, only stronger. Then the man laughed. "Think you see good, son?"
I had never thought about how well I saw. Ma and Pa both wore glasses, and Little Bit and I didn't, so I nodded.
The hairy man laughed again. "You ain't seen a thing till you've seen it straight on an' out the corner of your eye, both. Near any fool can do one or the other."
As an approaching band broke into "When the Saints Go Marching In," the tree woman said, loud enough that I could hear over the noise of the parade and the crowd, "You got a son, ma'm. A beautiful son, and he's doing just fine. You rest easy now, hear?"
A white policeman -- a real policeman with a real pistol on his hip, not someone in a costume -- had joined the ring of people standing around the cab. Someone began to cheer, and others joined in, even people far away in the parade who couldn't have known what was going on. The cries -- "She had a son!" and "A boy's been born!" and "Hallelujah!" -- rippled up and down Bourbon Street.
"She wants her chil'en," the tree woman said. A few leaves fell from her hair as she brushed against the roof of the cab. One dropped into my hand. It seemed fresh and green, as if the woman had plucked the finishing touches for her costume only minutes before.
"Where's her children?" the policeman asked.
"Ma!" I yelled, suddenly frightened. "Ma, I'm here!" I lunged between the adults' legs, between hairy legs in Bermuda shorts, smooth legs in dresses, blue trousers that belonged to the policeman, blue jeans that belonged to farmers, black cotton trousers that belonged to jazz musicians, baggy red-and-white striped breeches belonging to pirates, rough leather chaps belonging to cowboys, fringed brown trousers belonging to Indians, tight white pedal-pushers belonging to motion picture starlets. "I'm here, Ma! I'm here!"
The tree woman grinned at me as she stepped away from the open taxi door. Her gold tooth reflected sunlight, and I was blinded by the sight of her and my mother and the baby. When my sight returned, I saw Ma