Deliriously Happy (18 page)

•  If you look directly at your llama, it will spit in your eyes.

THE CEREMONY

You will awaken at 2 A.M. (it'll be too cold to sleep anyway) and llama it down
Pachatata
and then up
Pachamama
(Earth Mother). We should arrive at the peak between 4:30 and 5:30 A.M., depending on bandits, in time to witness the first light of the
Solstice
, at 5:58. The Incas believe if you stare into the sun as it rises on this day, you will be Reawakened to the Ancient Knowledge and Wisdom of the Cosmos. Hopefully, this will distract you from the sound of the seven llamas being slaughtered. (Some of you will have to walk back. Sorry.) Following a brief sacrifice to the Dragon Fertility Goddess (don't tell Dave!), we will enjoy a traditional breakfast of cooked potatoes and
mate de coca
, which is basically boiled cocaine and which I'm told puts Starbucks to shame.

The ceremony will take place at High Noon, officiated by a
Genuine Quechua Shaman
and, at the insistence of Dave's mom, Father Mulcahy, who has promised to keep his pagan comments to a minimum. First Shaman Klaatu will ritually purify the bride and groom (good luck with that!), followed by some
Catholic Mumbo-Jumbo
, and then we will exchange
Personalized Vows
written by me with input from Dave. In Andean tradition, the marriage will be sealed with
an exchange of shoes
(Luv those Incas!).

Two requests:

•  In honor of the
Emperial Kantuta
, the sacred flower of the Incas, the bridesmaids will be dressed in tomato sateen, with the groomsmen wearing lemon velvet. Please avoid these color/fabric combos in your own ensembles.

•  Our Ceremony was designed as a Spiritual and Romantic Once-in-a-Lifetime Chance for Heartfelt Reflection, and not as an opportunity to crack up Dave.

THE RECEPTION

The reception is scheduled for 4 P.M., or whenever the llamas are done. We ask that after the ceremony you gather as much firewood and wild potatoes as you can. In lieu of champagne, we will be serving
chicha
, made by the island's women, who chew up corn and other things and spit it into an earthenware pot for fermenting. It takes a little getting used to, but consumed in vast quantities, as is the tradition, it can sneak up on you. Accordingly, the Shaman will remain on hand to perform additional marriages as necessary.

Music will be provided by
¡Zamponas!
, a local pan-flute wedding band, playing Indigenous tunes as well as what sound like R&B hits from the '70s. Do not request the “Macarena” unless you want to hear a lot of screaming about
conquistadores sórdidos
.

Unfortunately, Dave and I will have to leave the reception early in order to make our plane to the
Galápagos
. And please: if anybody ties beer cans to the back of our getaway llama, I will cry.

ONE FINAL REQUEST

A lot of hard work and patience and tears and sexual compromise went into making this a Wonderful Celebration of Love. This is the wedding I've dreamt about ever since studying
pre-Columbian civilization
in the fifth grade. If you cannot enjoy and experience it appropriately, I ask that you to strongly consider staying home with the rest of Dave's buddies. (That doesn't apply to
you
, Dave!)

The baby doesn't like his flak jacket. It's Kevlar, the lightest material capable of stopping a large-caliber bullet, but it's awfully hot and it makes it hard for the little guy to sit up. Which is just as well, because
a sitting baby
, the babyproofer says,
is a sitting duck
.

We got our babyproofer through a friend, who came to visit after the baby was born and had a cow.
There are so many dead babies in this house
, she said, her fingers fluttering about. The wife got pretty upset, but this friend—really more my wife's friend—caressed her head, blotted her cheeks, and said the important thing was that our baby wasn't dead yet and there was still a chance we could stop the baby before he could kill himself.

The babyproofer cost seventy-five dollars an hour.

—
There's
a dead baby, he said, not a foot in the door, re: the staircase. Then, in a bouncing gesture along the baseboard:
dead baby, dead baby, dead baby … what is that?

—What, that penny?

—Dead baby.

Our poor baby died so many times during that initial consultation: 187, according to the babyproofer's written assessment; it seemed like more. Dead baby in the toilet. Dead baby down the disposal. Dead baby with my scissors plunged into his carotid artery.

—Just curious, the babyproofer turned to me at one point. Did you
want
to have this baby?

The babyproofer needed a $10,000 retainer.

—For that kind of money, I said, just trying to lighten the mood a little, we could buy a whole new baby.

The wife did not laugh; the babyproofer stood up.

—I haven't lost a baby yet, he said. But who knows, maybe I am a little
overcautious
. Why don't you just buy one of those babyproofing books. They only cost about twenty bucks.

The babyproofer went through the initial ten grand rather quickly. In fairness, a lot of it was materials: 34 ceramic outlet guards @ $19.95 (the plastic ones, my wife agreed, weren't darling and they leached a substance that caused fatty tumors in cancer-prone mice); 62 baby gates @ $39.95; 4 safes (pharmaceuticals, soaps and bath products; cleaning supplies; cooking and eating utensils; and assorted swallowables) @ $195. The Cuisinatal Food Reprocessor alone cost $3,000, but it does puree at twice the FDA's shockingly lax standards and can strain out some of your larger, harmful bacterias. There was some debate in our house as to whether we really needed 6 baby dummies (@ $699 per!), but I suppose the wife is right: if even one of them is stolen it's probably worth it.

Beyond the money, we've had to make a lot of adjustments, to create what the babyproofer calls a survival-friendly environment. Some of it makes sense, like not allowing anyone who has been to Africa, Southeast Asia, or Mexico into the house. But the hospital scrub-down before every diaper change seems excessive; it's so heart-wrenching, with the baby crying the whole time. And I do miss TV—though not enough to come home one day and find my lazy, violent, obese baby with a television set toppled on his head.

The thing I hated most was getting rid of the dog, but what could I do? It kept tasting the baby.

I haven't been sleeping much. I sit up in bed, worrying about all the money we've spent, but also whether we've spent enough. I go through each of the 187 dead babies in my head, running their fatal scenarios against the prophylactic measures we've taken.
Did I remember to spin the combination on the toilet?
I stare at the bedside monitor, waiting for the baby to flatline, which he does five or six times a night. So far it's just been that he's pulled off his wires again, but running in there five or six times a night and fumbling around for those shock paddles, it takes something out of you.

My wife and the babyproofer are driving up to Ojai, for a weekend seminar on antioxidant baby massage at some resort. I forget exactly why they can't take the baby; the spa supplies its own practice infants for insurance reasons, maybe.

So here I am, left holding the baby.

He is so beautiful. I want to lift the polarized visor of his helmet to get a better look; I want to kiss his cheeks, his nose, his forehead, damn the salmonella. But I can't. I know that. I rock the baby gently, in no more than a twenty-degree arc, no more than twenty oscillations per minute, whispering in the five-to-ten-decibel range,
Please don't die, baby. Please don't die. Not on my shift
.

I want to kill the baby. These feelings are perfectly normal, I am told by Jimmy Ray DeHavre in
A Regular Guy's Guide to Rugrats
.

He's monopolizing your wife's funbags,
your
funbags, sucking all the fun out of them (he's already plowed her love canal into the Chunnel); he's done something to your wife's brain, making her a baby slave with no time or inclination to service your needs; he's a crap factory, he's crying every goddam second, and you haven't slept in five days: of course you want to kill him. But don't. It's against the law. (p. 29)

My wife bought the book, though I doubt she has read it. There is much in it with which she would disagree.

I haven't slept in 234 days. According to www.askdrsam.com, I should be experiencing auditory and tactile hallucinations, severe motor and mental impairment, irritability, and death.

But, more likely, you
have
slept. Perhaps you have fallen into
micro-sleep
for periods lasting up to several seconds without noticing. Or perhaps you have fallen asleep and dreamt that you were awake and unable to fall asleep. Nevertheless,
sleep deprivation
can be a dangerous medical condition. If over-the-counter
sleep deprivation
drugs prove ineffective (to buy, click
here
), you should visit a doctor (to make an appointment, enter zip code and click
here
). If your problem persists, you may need to see a psychiatrist (click
here
for a live streaming therapy session). She or he will help you identify the source of your
sleep deprivation
and eliminate it.

She or he told me that every new father goes through this and that my suspicion that the baby is trying to kill me is unfounded and had I ever been institutionalized? Fifty dollars for fifteen minutes.

No point in confiding in the wife. She'll just take the baby's side again. There's definitely something going on between those two.

On day 246, I find myself in Little Italy, not knowing how I got there. I am standing in front of a building that I recognize from a
4news&more
report, the location of a social club reputedly frequented by alleged organized crime figures. I go in.

—I need someone whacked, I announce to no one in particular.

They seem entertained by my boldness. They let me up, and ask, who is it that I would like, how did I so colorfully put it, whacked?

—The baby.

I tell them I am not shitting them. They beat me up pretty bad. I walk into the apartment, a faceful of bad meat, and the wife says, quite concerned, I think the baby has an ear infection.

On the jacket of his book it says:

Jimmy Ray DeHarve has written several Regular Guy books, including
A Regular Guy's Booty Tips, A Regular Guy Wedding Planner
, and
A Regular Guy's Guide to Knocked-Up Wives
. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

Directory assistance says there's a James DeHarve on Carroll Street. I call and ask for Jimmy Ray and there is initially some confusion. Finally Jimmy Ray comes to the phone and I confide to him, regular guy to Regular Guy.

—Jesus fuck, he says, did you even
read
my book? Did you even read the next paragraph?

But trust me, the first time you're walking down the street and he tugs on your arm and says, “Hey, Dad, check out the rack on that one,” you'll know it was all worthwhile.

I call Jimmy Ray back and tell him I can't wait that long; he hangs up on me, but not before advising me that only a “real scumbag” would even think about killing a baby.