Every person who spent time at our house on Eagle Street impacted us in one way or another. There were the relatives, friends and customers who visited frequently. But also important were the firefighters or cops who showed up only once. Each encounter, whether good or bad, taught us kids something that we could take with us into adulthood. This is why I write about all our visitors. Because each event that taught me something about life deserves to be remembered and shared.
It was the early 70s. Brother Skippy, the lifelong career criminal and drug addict (read Skippy, July 20, 2018) had recently gone through yet another vocational rehabilitation training program. This time, the program found him a job at the county hospital. County hospital, now known as UCSD Medical Center, was located just across the canyon from our house. They used to have a mental lockup there, and Skippy had been taken there in a straightjacket on more than one occasion. Now, though, he was going there voluntarily, in a white lab coat with a name tag, doing some sort of orderly work. He didn't keep the job for very long, of course. I don't think he lasted even a month.
One day, Skippy dropped by after getting off work. He was carrying a brown paper grocery bag. I figured he had gone to Food Basket and was going to make some fried pork wontons, which was the only thing I had ever seen him cook. Instead of heading to the kitchen, however, he stayed in the living room, where Mom sat in her La-Z-Boy recliner watching TV and drinking a Tab. He pulled a large glass jar out of the paper bag and said, "Look what I found at work."
In the jar, floating in a clear liquid, was a perfectly formed tiny human baby.
Mom took the jar and looked closely at the specimen. "Never seen anything like this before," she said. "What are you gonna do with it?"
Skippy always had a motive. "I don't know," he replied. "Wanna buy it off of me?"
Mom reached into her pocket and pulled out five dollars. "This good enough?"
Skippy was fine with it, and he quickly pocketed the money. "Go on and put it up on the mantle by the clock," Mom instructed him. Skippy put the jar with the baby in it above the fireplace next to the anniversary clock. And then, with five dollars burning in his pocket, he quickly left the house.
This happened around the same time the Roe Vs Wade was in the news. I hadn't given much thought to the whole issue because I was a just a kid and was obsessed with my dogs and my grooming business. But I also had a great curiosity about diseases and liked to read medical encyclopedias, so this hospital specimen attracted me immediately. I went over to look at it. There was a label on the jar, which identified the baby with a number. The tiny human was about the length of a banana, with perfect hands and feet. It was a little boy. He was thin, in the fetal position, and his eyes were closed.
My piano had been moved into the living room, just to the east of the mantle. Everyday, when I did my hour of piano practice, my eyes wandered over to the baby on the mantle. And my mind wandered as I played. How did he end up in the jar? How long has he been in there? Did he ever have a real name lined up for him? Who were his parents? His siblings? Do they know what happened to him? Are they sad about it? I have always hated open ended stories and in his case, I knew his mysteries would never be revealed.
Mom decided to use a little rude humor to give him a story. "That's the boy my daughter miscarried," she told visitors, a few weeks after the baby came to be on our mantle. I knew that was a big lie, and it was a hurtful and kind of horrifying thing to say.
I chose not to try to guess his story. And I didn't think it was right to make something up. I never gave him a name, just in case he already had one. To me, that tiny naked baby, who would float forever in his formaldehyde-filled jar, could now have a story as part of our family. I wanted him to experience Christmas, so I put some tinsel and ornaments around his jar. The Christmas carols we kids sang as I played the piano were for not only for us but also for him.
We had the baby in the jar for months. He quietly slept next to the Anniversary Clock. His presence in our living room was a constant reminder that some people, for whatever reason, don't get a chance to live.
One day, Mom was in an agitated and panicked state. I don't know what had made her so nervous, but she decided that the baby had to go. Skippy by now had been fired from the hospital job and was back to stealing and selling the stuff to Mom. One day when he was at the house begging for money to buy smokes, she threw him a wad of cash and said, "Take that damn jar with you too. I want that thing out of my house, now!" She went to the mantle and roughly grabbed the jar, turning it on its side. The baby bounced and bobbed against the sides and the liquid rolled back and forth. She shoved the jar in a paper bag and thrust it at Skippy. "I don't care what the hell you do with it, but get it out of here," she growled at him.
Skippy took the bag, walked out the door, and just like that, our silent visitor was gone.
