Blaze

“You a fighter?” Blaze asked. “You a fighter, little man?”

One of Joe’s thumbs crept into his mouth and he began to suck it. At first Blaze thought he might want a bottle (and he hadn’t figured out the Playtex Nurser gadget yet), but for the time being the kid seemed content with his thumb. His cheeks were still flushed, not with crying now but from his trip through the night.

His lids began to droop, and the corners of his eyes lost that fierce upward tilt. But still he peered at this man, this six-foot-seven stubbled giant with the crazed and scarecrowed brown hair who stood over him. Then the eyes closed. His thumb dropped out of his mouth. He slept.

Blaze straightened up and his back popped. He turned away from the basket and started for the bedroom.

“Hey dinkleballs,” George said from the bathroom. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To bed.”

“The hell you are. You’re going to figure out that bottle gadget and fix the kid four or five, for when he wakes up.”

“The milk might go sour.”

“Not if you put it in the fridge. You warm it up when you need it.”

“Oh.”

Blaze got the Playtex Nurser kit and read the instructions. He read them twice. It took him half an hour. He didn’t understand hardly anything the first time and even less the second.

“I can’t, George,” he said at last.

“Sure you can. Throw those instructions away and just roll.”

So Blaze threw the instructions into the stove and then just fooled with the gadget, the way you did with a carb that wasn’t set quite right. Eventually, he figured out that you fitted the plastic liner over the gadget’s nozzle and then plunged it into the bottle shell. Bingo. Pretty slick. He prepared four bottles, filled them with canned milk, and put them away in the fridge.

“Can I go to bed now, George?” he asked.

No answer.

Blaze went to bed.

Joe woke him in the first gray light of morning. Blaze stumbled out of bed and went into the kitchen. He had left the baby in the basket, and now the basket was rocking back and forth on the table with the force of Joe’s anger.

Blaze picked him up and laid him against his shoulder. He saw part of the problem right away. The kid was soaked through.

Blaze took him into the bedroom and laid him on his bed. He looked amazingly small, lying there in the indentation of Blaze’s body. He was wearing blue pj’s, and he kicked his feet indignantly.

Blaze took off his pajamas and the rubber pants beneath. He put a hand on Joe’s belly to hold him still. Then he bent close to observe the way the diapers were pinned together. He took them off and threw them in the corner.

He observed Joe’s penis and felt instant delight. Not much longer than his thumbnail, but standing straight up. Pretty cute.

“That’s quite a rod you got there, skinner,” he said.

Joe left off crying to stare up at Blaze with wide, surprised eyes.

“I said that’s quite a rod you got on you.”

Joe smiled.

“Goo-goo,” Blaze said. He felt an unwilling idiot grin tug the corners of his mouth.

Joe gurgled.

“Goo-goo-baby,” Blaze said.

Joe laughed aloud.

“Goo-goo-bayyy-beee,” Blaze said, delighted.

Joe pissed in his face.

The Pampers were another struggle. At least they didn’t have pins, just tapes, and they seemed to have their own built-in rubber pants — plastic, actually — but he wrecked two before he finally got one on like the picture on the box. When the job was done, Joe was wide awake and chewing on the ends of his fingers. Blaze supposed he wanted something to eat, and thought a bottle might be best.

He was heating it under the hot water faucet in the kitchen, turning it around and around, when George said: “Did you dilute it the way the broad in the store said to?”

Blaze looked at the bottle. “Huh?”

“That’s straight canned milk, isn’t it?”

“Sure, right out of the can. Is it spoiled, George?”

“No, it isn’t spoiled. But if you don’t take off the cap and put in some water, he’ll puke.”

“Oh.”

Blaze used his fingernails to pull the top off the Playtex Nurser and poured about a quarter of the bottle down the sink. He added enough water to fill it back up, stirred it with a spoon, and put the nipple back on.

“Blaze.” George didn’t sound mad, but he sounded awful tired.

“What?”

“You gotta get a baby book. Somethin that tells you how to take care of him. Like the manual to a car. Because you keep forgetting things.”

“Okay, George.”

“You better get a newspaper, too. Only don’t buy them too close to here. Buy them someplace bigger.”

“George?”

“What?”

“Who’s gonna take care of the kid while I’m gone?”

There was a long pause, one so long Blaze thought George had gone away again. Then he said: “I will.”

Blaze frowned. “You can’t, George. You’re —”

“I said I will. Now get your ass in there and feed ‘im!”

“But…if the kid gets in trouble…chokes, or some thin and I’m gone —”

“Feed him, goddammit!”

“Okay, George, sure.”