Gestation

Short Fiction

Durbman had a memory like a school of fish in a boat wake; large, dark and scattered.

He remembered the eggs.

Three: Light green, medium blue, and orange like the sunset behind the refinery.

“Watch the eggs, Walls, they’re gonna hatch. Go get Mrs.Bruneau if they hatch.”

If he drank Grand Marnier, he’d get melancholy and tell the egg story.

One time he cried. 

The girl, she came from the service where you could get two girls if you wanted, she was real nice.

She was at the door of the Viking, keys and pepper spray in her hand, saying goodbye, and Durbman started to cry telling the story.

She walked back in and knelt on the bed and gave him a backrub while he cried.

Swore off Grand Marnier for three years after that. Well, almost three.

He’d tell his momma now if he could, that she should have called him Walter.

 He was too young to read a birth certificate, really thought Walls was his name. Every time someone said the word, especially on TV, he got confused.

Started a lifetime of confusion and doubt.

The alone part, that was bad, he hated alone, always had the TV on now for someone to talk to. TV was easier for him now that he was an adult and he knew his name was Walter. 

Besides, everyone at the produce terminal called him Durbman and he never heard anyone say that name on TV

Bought a date twice a week, three times on his birthday week.

He didn’t always tell the egg story. 

But the eggs, that part was terrible.

Momma would say “Watch the eggs, Walls, they might hatch,” and he watched those damn eggs, wanting so bad for them to hatch, and baby birds to come out, while Momma was off “keeping a roof over their head”. 

Durbman was so young when she first said it, he took it literally and got confused because then she’d walk out the back door and cut through the alley toward the refinery carrying a huge bag and wearing shorts that didn’t all the way cover her butt.

And Durbman, Momma’s little “Walls,” would stare at those eggs, waiting for them to hatch.

Hours and hours over days and years, asking Momma where the bird who laid the eggs was, even after his Aunt Casey said it must be a ceramic bird he wanted them to hatch, to make all that time alone worth it.

He couldn’t remember what he did after he finally learned the eggs weren’t gonna hatch, but he still stayed home mostly, because Momma asked him to, and he couldn’t remember where he was headed when Momma told him it was ok to play outside, but he could remember wandering over to Claire’s Diner across the street from the refinery and seeing Momma get in a truck.

Durbman remembered calling out to her instead of running to her because he was scared of all the big trucks on Schaefer Avenue and remembered Momma looking back, but not at him.

And he remembered Andor Boros’s mother shooing him out of the yard swinging a rosary calling Momma a Lot Lizard.

Durbman didn’t remember what he did for months after that, but he remembered when he learned what a Lot Lizard was he ran straight over to Boro’s Danube Cafe and hit Andor Boros’s mother with a piece of brick.

Durbman remembered juvenile detention, but not really.

He just remembered visiting days, and how sometimes Momma didn’t show up.

And how one day she never showed up.

He waited and waited.

And on his eighteenth birthday they let him out, and a man took him to a job they gave him at the produce terminal, loading trucks.

And he remembered Chin and Donaldo and Ghost at the terminal teaching him how to call for a date, and he remembered them laughing at him when he asked if his date could wear a dress because he didn’t think it was proper for a girl to show her butt.

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