Away in a Trailer

God drove down the two-lane highway past a small, outside mall where over half the stores appeared empty. We next came upon a restaurant and a tractor mart. After a few minutes the town began to disappear behind us. It had left us faster than it arrived. The sun set long ago and we were driving into darkness. None of us knew exactly where we were going. Mom and I placed our faith in God. He was, after all, in the driver’s seat.

As we left the streetlights of the town the world closed into a quiet tunnel. Outside of the dimly lit cab I could see the road and about ten feet on each side that was illuminated by the truck’s lights. Nobody was talking and the radio was off. The lights showed us tall, brown grass waving in the wind, patches of snow and little more.

I looked at God. He looked nervous. He taught me that it was okay not to know what lay around the next bend as long as you believed in yourself and kept going.

As the truck moved along with all of us waiting for something, a break appeared in the long grass before us. We came upon a road that jutted off the main highway like a small branch might from a tree. The road was not paved like the highway we were already on, and seemed to lead off into a world of nothingness.

God took it.

“Where are you going?” Mom asked. It seemed as if we were moving farther and farther from civilization. She may not have wanted to have her baby at a rest stop but I bet she’d prefer that to a dirt road.

I looked at her eyes expecting to see fear but only saw hope. She had placed her faith in a man I could not at the time understand. Mom rubbed at her belly with her right hand. Mom was not moaning as much as before and her voice had become calm. It was almost as if she had accepted her fate. She was willing the baby to stay put a few minutes longer.

After a long silence God said, “That sign read ‘Christmas Lane’ and that’s supposed to be the road where the midwife lives.”

“Midwife,” Mom repeated with muted surprise. Dad didn’t respond.

We traveled down the dirt road and I looked into the rearview mirror to watch the dust fan out into a red mist behind us. The road was straight with an occasional bump. It seemed as though we were driving straight out into darkness. And then ahead of us on the left, way off in the distance, I could see a faint light.

The light began as a tiny, white glow like the moon breaking through a night covering of thick clouds. As our truck sped closer the light began to grow and soon it broke up into reds, yellows, oranges, blues and greens. Colorful Christmas bulbs hanging everywhere marked our arrival.

The house we approached was made from metal and it was much longer than it was wide. Hard, dry dirt surrounded the home along with patches of tall, yellow grass. The dirt had been built up into rolling mounds and dug down into craters to look more like snowdrifts.

Multi-colored lights sprung up out from everywhere. There were Christmas lights strung underneath the house’s roof and lights covering all three of the outside trees like raindrops after a heavy storm. There were lights along the driveway making it look like some kind of miniature runway. Lights adorned the rails around the house and there were even lights on the rocks. There were lit up plastic elves, angels, wooden reindeers that moved stiffly and cardboard children playing on sleds and building a snowman. Everything was a glow. As we neared the home it was the flashing road sign that really stood out.

The sign pronounced “JESUS IS COMING” in large, three-foot tall, bold, black letters against a solid yellow background.

Well, he was coming sooner than these people thought.

God pulled the truck right up to the front porch and we all jumped out. Mom, despite her condition, was the first to the door and she lifted her hand to knock but then reached back down to hold her stomach. Dad rapped on the door and immediately it opened. Before us, stood a woman who appeared to be older than Mom, but younger than Grandmother. She smiled to reveal few teeth that went out at odd angles. Her hair was long, stringy and tied back with a thick, green, rubber band. The rubber band reminded me of one that might come on the Sunday paper. The woman wore a red dress that had white fringe around the neck and sleeves.

“Merry Christmas, can I help you?” she asked in a friendly manner. Before God could reply she took a good look at mom and opened the screen door wide ushering us all into her living room.

The house was small. A kitchen in the back hooked onto the one main room, which obviously served as the living, dining and delivery room. The main room had scarred paneling hanging on the walls. There were crucifixes, statues of my Great, Great Grandmother, more elves and a nativity scene with a green, glow-in-the-dark Jesus sitting on a bed of straw. There were deer and raccoon heads jutting out of the wall as if the wild outside had been brought inside. Christmas lights hung around their ears and antlers. The lady had an old Zenith television and a record player with Barbara Streisand Christmas songs playing.

“You can sit over there,” the woman directed me to a rocking chair in the corner of the room and I went over and made it my home. I didn’t say a word. There was important adult stuff happening.

God couldn’t be still. He walked around the room picking up things and setting them down in different places. Because the home was mainly decorated with stuffed animals, the real kind not the ones you buy at F.A.O. Swartz, he was picking up Chipmunks, Squirrels and Otters and placing them back down in completely unnatural places. An otter wound up sitting up on an artificial tree branch holding an acorn and a squirrel ended up sawing a fake log in half.

The lady told Mom to be calm and to stop breathing so quickly before she gave everybody in the room a heart attack.

“It’s Lamaze,” Mom said.

“It’s bullshit,” the woman said back. The lady then took some pillows off the sofa and wheeled away a couple pieces. “It’s a sectional,” she explained while preparing the room for the birth of my brother. She placed Mom on the end of the sofa that seemed to stop a little too soon so her bottom hanged off like it was on a cliff. She told Mom to push when she felt the need and Mom began pushing immediately. There was a gush of water and then it wasn’t long before Jesus had popped out and everyone was smiling and singing.

Jesus was brought into the world amidst screams and claps and a little drumming from the midwife’s son who sat in a highchair next to me in the corner. The lady handed my little brother to mom saying, “Here’s your little king.” Then some blood and an ugly plastic bag drained out of mom and I decided there and then that I would never have a baby.

God acted much more comfortable once Jesus was born. He put down the chipmunk that he had been strangling all through the labor. He sang a short little song into Jesus's ear and danced around the room. He ran over to me, still confined to the corner, kissed me on my forehead and called me his little princess Jellybean.

We sat in the living room and the lady told me that my brother would love me very much. She was right. The world was good with Mom, Dad, Jesus and me in it. Mom held Jesus, kissed him and told him that she loved him very much. I could not think of a better way to be welcomed into the world.

God held Mom’s hand and the two glowed as if a halo of light radiated from them. I had never before seen them look closer. Dad looked into mom’s eyes and I saw how much they loved each other. I couldn’t help but think that God was right when he told me that heaven could be found on earth. If only in moments.

A loud crash broke our revelry. There door burst open and three men stumbled in through the door. They were dusty and smelling of something pungent. Their faces were hard and coveed with thick, course hair. One of them still held a beer in his grip. “Well, who have we here?” the apparent leader called out. He wore jean overalls and heavy boots that tracked dirt into the home.

The midwife casually pointed around the room. “That there is Mary. I think they call that one little Mary. This would be God and his son, Jesus. I just delivered him.”

The three men stopped in their tracks. The leader looked at the bloody mess on the floor and the baby in Mom’s arms. “And on Christmas day,” the man at the door smiled to reveal a mouth missing all of its teeth. “I guess that makes us the three wise guys,” he laughed and the two other men joined in with him. Their laughs sound like a symphony of geese.

“I guess that would,” God shrugged his shoulders not feeling too confident in their presence.

The first man walked over to Mom and bent over my little brother. He smiled at the newborn’s pink, naked body. He carried the scent of sweat and beer. “This is for you, little fella,” he said. The man reached up to his right ear and removed a small gold stud. Next, he pinned the earring to the blanket that the midwife had wrapped around my now sleeping, baby brother. “I am sure you will do wonderful things in your life,” the man said, “more than me." The man looked at the smile on my mother's face. "I can already see that you will give more to the world than you take.” He walked away from my brother and into the kitchen where he opened the icebox and grabbed a beer.

The second man walked up and sprinkled some dried leaves that he had pulled from his pocket over Jesus’ head. “My name is Frank and this is a little bouquet for you son,” he said. His voice was dry and rough like the leaves he crumpled. “I have nothing to give you other than a simple blessing from nature to you. I can tell that the world is already a better place because you are in it.” He bowed politely to my mother and walked away. I looked over at Mom and Dad and they both stared on in amazement. The man grabbed a beer as soon as he entered the kitchen and waited for his brother.

The third man walked up and held up his bare hands revealing nothing. “I also have little to give you from this world,” he started then stopped and glanced around the room, “but even the most humble of us have gifts to offer. Words are all I possess.” Next, he bent close to Jesus and whispered “Merv.” I looked at God and he smiled while nodding his head in agreement, never releasing his eyes from the face of Jesus. And that is how Jesus got his middle name. He then walked up to wise guy number two who handed him a Stag beer. The three men popped their cans together and toasted the birth of my brother.

I rocked in my chair, excited by all that had occurred. My baby brother, Jesus, was born into this world. A midwife delivered him in a metal shack in the middle of nowhere. Mom smiled at me, encouraging me to get up from the chair. I walked over to them, not really knowing how to act. I had never had a baby brother before. I looked down at his little, pink body, felt his skin, smoother than velvet, and knew right away that I loved him.

Having Jesus in my life would be good.