Inconceivable!

By Steve Marshall Cohen

How the genetic science of pregnancy helped put a stop to three generations of inconceivable secrets and lies The simple desire of a conflicted young mother, Helene Talos, to know the gender of her unborn sets off an inconceivable chain of events, involving an inconceivable but totally believable cast of characters and revealing three generations of inconceivable secrets and lies. Beginning and ending in New York City, Inconceivable! covers love, pregnancy, family, genetic science, fashion models, homelessness, medical miracles, orphans and little known events of World War II, along with a healthy, red-blooded fascination with the role of breasts in modern America. Inconceivable! is fun to read, right down to the last sentence of the Epilogue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9780990955610

Book preview

Afterword

Welcome to Babyland

To the casual browsers in the ‘Pregnancy and Childcare’ section of the Barnes & Noble bookstore on Fifth Avenue near Rockefeller Center in New York City, the woman in the black Nike track suit and white Asics running shoes appeared high-strung and frantic. With sweat dripping from her temples, she was grabbing every title on ‘Pregnancy’ and filling a shopping cart until it was stacked to its rim. This section of the bookstore usually is an oasis from the hectic pace of midtown Manhattan, but the woman’s nervous energy was causing those near her to veer away, afraid her frenetic behavior was contagious. With one last selection, The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Complete Guide to Pregnancy, she seemed momentarily satisfied and approached the cashier.

Helene Peltze, twenty eight, toned and flexible from years of athletics of all kinds, had determined that morning, via Early Pregnancy Test, that she was pregnant. She suspected so when her Saturday morning, six mile running loop of Central Park was two minutes slower than usual and she felt light-headed at Engineer’s Gate. She bought a test at the local pharmacy, used it after her husband Greco went to work Monday morning, and when it confirmed that she had conceived, she went for a ten mile run along the East River. Sweaty in her track suit, she ran another two miles to the bookstore.

The cashier totaled her selections and smiled, Congratulations! I have four! Are you all right? Can you carry all these?

Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.

But Helene was not fine. She lifted the cumbersome bags and stepped outside. When the muggy air, taxi horns, bright sunshine and tourists encroached, involuntarily she began a from-the-throat moan, her heart racing, tears streaming down her freckled cheeks. Her moaning became louder; she began whirling, her chin pointing to the sky. Books flew from the bags in all directions, some landing on car hoods, others hitting pedestrians and falling to the sidewalk. She fell to her knees, sobbing and heaving.

Typical of a New York Monday morning, no one interrupted her episode. Pedestrians gave her a wide berth on the sidewalk, but otherwise, barely a glance and not an offer of assistance. After two minutes on her knees, Helene stood up, trance-like, and started running. She ran for more than eighty blocks, past the Empire State Building, below Fourteenth Street, across Canal Street and, at West Broadway, at a store with five side-by-side picture windows, she stared in the windows. A moment later, she collapsed on a bench, and fainted. The sign painted on the window in pink and blue letters read, Welcome To Babyland!

A dreadlocked homeless fellow, who frequented this bench, called Nine-One-One from a public phone. A squad car arrived in minutes. The officer had heard radio reports from the Midtown South precinct of a hysterical woman in a black track suit hurling books at taxis and tourists, so he was prepared for a confrontation. Instead, he found an exhausted heap on a bench. He took her vital signs, determined she was not injured or dying, and thus no ambulance was necessary, and with the help of the homeless Rasta who had called it in, lifted her into the backseat of his patrol car. He took the precaution of using handcuffs.

The cop thanked the homeless guy for the call. Yes, Sir, Officer Maloney. I’m Albe he said, like in Albe There, Four Tops.

In the tiny inside pocket of the track pants, Officer Maloney found a credit card, a receipt from B&N and two business cards – hers (Wig Design and Care, with her picture on it), and that of Greco Talos.

A Hairy Tragus

Every morning, after his shower, workday or not, Greco Talos spends thirty minutes or more plucking and tweezing tiny, stiff black hairs off his upper-helix and anti-helix, triangular fossa, concha, tragus and anti-tragus. Then, with the most powerful motorized mini-trimmer he could find, he spends more time plucking and trimming his meatus and lobule.

Greco Talos has the fastest-hair-growing pinna in New York City, perhaps the world, and he hates it. He hates it, and it is the thing in his life he hates more than anything. Greco loves his wife, loves his Manhattan life, loves his friends and expresses his love and gratitude freely. He has a sense of humor that he uses to cut tension at his high tension job as a location scout at an international advertising agency. He’s devoted to his marriage, determined to be a better father to his eventual child than his father was to him, but he hates every spiky hair blanketing his auricle; they’re sinister and they spook him, as if they are not his hairs at all.

No one will laser these offensive thorns off him – he’s visited hair removal places and no one will focus a laser there. The cavum conchae is no place for Nair – he’s tried it with painful, dismal results. All he can do is pluck, tweeze and shave.

It’s strange, too, because elsewhere, he’s average hairy. Not a teddy bear, not an ape, not a Sasquatch – average. He wears no goatee, beard or moustache. He’s got the same spikes on his septum and eyebrows, which he also trims, but the stiffies growing from those places don’t bother him nearly as much as the hair on his lobules. He can’t pinpoint why these hairs disturb him so much, because otherwise he is not a vain man.

Once, in a meeting with a new client, he was unconsciously gathering the hairs from his cymba conchae and twisting them, tugging at them, ripping them out and dropping them onto his yellow notepad. He stopped counting them with a pen point when meeting participants glared at him and one fingered herself, feeling for her own. Greco hates having hairy ears and there seems to be nothing he can do about it.

Monday morning, he was at his desk, fingering the upper helix that he had plucked that morning and damn! – the suckers were growing back already. His colleagues know of his habit of ear-fingering and at the moment he was reaching for a follicle with a fingernail, his friend and colleague, Giuseppe Little Flower Fiore stepped into his office. Little Flower, five feet five, saddle shoes, bow tie, cologne that turns a corner before he does, and a white carnation in the lapel of his Dunhill blazer. Little Flower always wears a little flower.

OK, buddy, who gets the new Heritage Travel account? Harris won it yesterday. It’s got a big budget, super-models, exotic locations to be determined by us, and a client HQ in Dallas, so they won’t be down our backs. It’s me or you and you’ve got a beautiful wife and a full client load, and I have got no life at all, so I guess you want me to take it. OK then, I will. And he turned to leave.

Not so fast, my good friend. You didn’t say ‘Thank you’ that I gave you such a nice account. And I don’t agree with your conclusion that they won’t be down our backs…

Giuseppe plopped into the chair near the window with the midtown view and straightened the crease in his slacks. You’re right. Your career is stagnating. You’re a married man who needs some excitement before he succumbs to the doldrums of middle-age. A few days with super-models on the world’s most beautiful beaches, drinking coconut milk cocktails is just what you need. You’re wife won’t mind a bit. I’ll tell Mr. Seiko-san that we’ve discussed it and you want the assignment. No hair off my nose…

That’s skin off –

Not when I’m talking to you, my friend! OK – I’ll quit the kidding. Can you handle a new assignment like this? You’ve got a full load, and I don’t think this job is for one of your juniors… A glance to the cubicles confirmed this. The juniors were playing ink ball on their desktop computers.

What are you thinking? Hawaii? Cabo? The Baths?

We used The Baths for the cruise line last summer, Little Flower said. Why not Greece – they’ve got nice beaches … you must know all the beaches in Greece?

Actually, I don’t. I’ve never been to Greece. I’ll get there one day. But, all right. It could be months before Heritage is ready to green light locations. Why don’t you take it and enjoy! Build up some airline miles on all the planning trips to Dallas and use them to fly to your timeshare in Aruba. I’ll step in if you need me, but in the meantime, I’ll keep my current client list happy.

You won’t regret this, my good friend. I will send you the daily nip slip pix from the beaches of Costa Rica or wherever we end up.

All righty then. Mark the e-mail No Snow - Fair Weather". They were having a friendly laugh when the NYPD called Greco’s cell phone and told him to come to the 17th precinct station house on East 51st Street to collect his incoherent wife.

Pregnant, Not Criminal

Helene was waiting on a bench at the precinct, handcuffs removed, composure regained, posture erect and a few of the far-flung books back in her possession. New York’s Finest had determined no one would be pressing charges for assault with a deadly reference manual, and so the books recovered from the Fifth Avenue sidewalk, roadway and trashcans were returned to her.

She rushed Greco as soon as he walked in - threw her arms around him and kissed him over and over and over. The police were not impressed. Get a room! one said.

Are you alright? You’ve been crying! Tell me – are you injured? Are you hurt?

Helene took a deep breath. No – I’m not injured. I’m pregnant!

Greco beamed – she could see he was overjoyed. He said, And they arrested you for that?

The desk sergeant, citizens presumed innocent waiting to be processed, the cops in the corridor -- even Helene -- burst out laughing. A sweet, young couple, they thought.

No, silly. I’m not arrested! This kind officer (she motioned to Officer Maloney near the water fountain) rescued me from a bit of an episode, all of my own making. Sit down – I have a story to tell to you.

Shall we thank the officer first? he asked.

Of course. I’ve already done it. Officer Maloney was so gallant – when I calmed down, I gave him a lap dance in the back seat of the squad car!

Maloney glanced at the desk sergeant, She’s kidding - she’s kidding… and then to Helene, You’ve had a difficult day, sweetie. Why don’t you and hubby clear out and talk about it at home?

Yes, Sir, Helene said, And thank you again, very much. She pecked his cheek.

Greco reached for the bag of books. Here, let me carry that.

Clear out they did and cabbed it to their cramped upper-lower East Side apartment, about to get that much smaller.

Do You Know Me?

Of the twenty or so titles Helene had purchased, six had been recovered and returned to her, including How to Raise a Child Prodigy. On the couch in their shoe box of an apartment on the upper - lower East Side, Helene needed to tell Greco about the day’s events. Greco, not used to police station rendezvous, opened a bottle of Retsina, poured for himself and offered to Helene.

I’ve had my last alcohol for nine months. And besides, you are the only person on earth who celebrates with Retsina!

It’s my heritage.

She laughed, Heritage? – You’ve never been to Greece!

I know, but Greece is in my blood. Sit down. I’ll bring you Gatorade. He picked up a title. "You bought this book today? It looks like it has been run over by tanks and troops."

It probably has. I have a story to tell you, my love. Please don’t interrupt me until I’m done.

OK.

Helene, her deep-blue eyes locked onto his, her cheeks puffy from crying, her track suit torn from the collapse onto the pavement, put her palms to her eye sockets and told it like this:

Saturday, on my Central Park loop, I ran 6:45s, instead of my usual 6:30s.

Big deal!

You promised not to interrupt.

Sorry.

"That’s two minutes slower over the loop. And, I felt pale after the finishing sprint to 90th Street. That told me something was wrong with my body. You know how in touch I am with my body? -- Don’t answer! So, I did a home pregnancy test after you went to work. It confirmed I’m pregnant. I’m ecstatic! We’ve been trying for months, ever since the fawn episode and we finally did it!

"Don’t interrupt --!

"Then, something happened. After my morning run, I went to B&N to get some books on pregnancy for us. I say some, but I must have gotten carried away, overwhelmed maybe. I checked out and, as soon as I walked onto Fifth Avenue, I lost all sense of orientation, purpose, identity, meaning or memory. People were passing in all directions, everyone was going somewhere. I broke down – total meltdown. Tears, hysterics – the officer told me I was hurling books into traffic.

"Somehow – I don’t know how, though the Officer Maloney – you met him - told me I must have run the entire way - I ended up in front of Babyland, way downtown. In the window was a father-doll on a playground slide – well, of course he wasn’t sliding, he was positioned there. He had a baby-doll in his lap, and the mommy-doll was waiting to catch them at the bottom of the slide. The whole doll family had red hair and freckles.

I stared into the window, and my identity flooded back into me with a ‘whoosh’. ME began to fill in the spaces in my cells. I felt mysteriously calm – isolated, as if I were in a test tube. The baby on the slide was me, and my mother was waiting for me at the bottom. I remember this exact scene as a kid, with my parents, in a park near our home in Tarrytown. At the instant I had this memory, I fainted dead-away onto a bench.

She paused but Greco didn’t interrupt.

Next thing I know, a homeless guy with seashells in his hair was helping me into the back seat of a squad car and I was being driven to midtown by Officer Maloney.

Another of the books that had been returned to Helene was What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Greco reached for it and thumbed the table of contents for hysteria, anxiety, personality dislocation, nervous breakdown. He wondered if the coming nine months were to be filled with episodes like this one – or others, more long-lasting or devastating. On many occasions, while they were aiming for a bull’s eye, they prayed for a baby who pulled gently at the umbilical cord when it was time to exit. Perhaps, he thought as Helene spoke, it was not going to work out like that. She sensed his distance.

Well, I’m over it now. I’m sure it won’t happen again. I’ll get through this and we’ll have a wonderful, healthy baby and I will be a great mother and you will be a great dad. I might have to be satisfied with 6:30s though, and who knows how much weight I’ll gain. Helene forced a weak smile, waiting for his reaction. You can speak now, she said.

Greco jumped up and lifted Helene in his arms. Lover girl, you may not recognize yourself pregnant, but I do! I love you and I love our baby, and I don’t care if it slows you down on Cat Hill. We’ll have a great pregnancy and we’ll all live happily ever after. More than anything, I want to be a great dad!

They gleamed at each other and hugged tightly – until Helene farted. I can’t help it! All the books say it’s unavoidable!

The baby was already taking the blame formerly pinned on burritos!