Boy Parts, by Chris Reed

Cheryl Braddocks closed her eyes, grit her teeth with determination and pushed. Her husband, Michael, could now see the top of the baby’s head, covered with wet black hair. It was the hair of their first child. Their little boy. Their Hunter.

“Come on, honey,” Michael said. “One more good push and he’ll be out.”

Cheryl gave him a look that said, Why don’t you try squeezing a watermelon out of your asshole, and then you’ll know what this is like! Then she sucked in a deep breath and pushed again, her face red and contorted.

But as Michael predicted, the baby slid out, wide-eyed and caked with cheesy vernix. The doctor used an aspirator to clear the baby’s mouth and nose, and when he wailed, it was the most beautiful sound Michael had ever heard.

His son. His Hunter.

Cheryl didn’t care for the name, calling it too aggressive-sounding. But Michael didn’t give two shits what Cheryl thought. It was his son and he’d name him Shit Head if he felt like it. And he’d told her so.

“Would you like to cut the cord?” the doctor asked, offering Michael a pair of scissors.

“Absolutely,” Michael said. He took the silver shears and severed the rubbery length of flesh just below the set of hemostats that were affixed there.

“Congratulations,” the doctor said. He wrapped the baby in a thick blue towel and handed him to his father. Michael looked into his son’s blue eyes, at the small, cherubic face that looked remarkably like his own. His son, a male replica of himself, the one responsible for carrying on the Braddocks name. Although Hunter was only a few minutes old, Michael could already see himself taking him to hockey games at Joe Louis Arena, weekend fishing trips to Houghton Lake where he and Cheryl owned a cabin, car shows at Cobo Hall. Guy stuff.

Cheryl had wanted a girl, but Michael was firmly opposed. He made it clear they would not be having a girl, no fucking way. If the baby was a girl they would abort and try again for a boy. He didn’t care how long it took them, didn’t care if they had to fill an entire dumpster with aborted fetuses. He was going to have his Hunter, end of story.

But the ultra sound had indeed shown boy parts, and Michael was so excited he actually did a celebratory dance right there in the doctor’s office. The technician had laughed, and Cheryl had been embarrassed, but Michael was too happy to care what anyone else thought. He was getting his little boy. He was getting his Hunter.

“Mr. Braddocks,” one of the nurses said, “we’ll need to take the baby’s measurements now.”

Reluctantly, Michael handed the baby to her and said, “Be careful with my little man.”

“We will,” she assured him.

Michael bent down and kissed Cheryl’s sweaty forehead. “How ya feeling?”

“Tired,” she whispered.

“Close your eyes and rest,” he told her.

“Something’s not right,” she said, her words barely audible. “Something’s…” But before she could finish her sentence, her eyes closed and she was asleep, her chest rhythmically rising and falling beneath the purple and white hospital gown.

“Mr. Braddocks,” the doctor called from across the room, “could you come over here, please?”

Michael hurried across the room to where the nurse was weighing Hunter on a scale. “Yeah, doc?”

“Everything looks normal,” the doctor said as he shuffled through some papers in a manila folder. “We’ll just need to know the baby’s name so we can finish filling out the birth certificate.”

“His name is Hunter,” Michael said proudly. “Hunter Sean Braddocks.”

“Hunter?” the doctor said. “Why, there haven’t been hunters in this country for at least a hundred years, not real ones anyway. That’s what grocery stores are for. No, I’m afraid you’ll have to pick something else.”

Michael stared at the doctor in disbelief. Was this guy crazy? Surely, he had to be joking. Doctors just didn’t tell people what they could or could not name their kids. “His name is Hunter,” Michael said more firmly.

The doctor sighed, like an impatient teacher who is tired of dealing with a disobedient pupil. He reached into the manila folder and took out a sheet of paper. He handed it to Michael and said, “Here. You can choose a name from this list.”

Michael took the paper and examined it. On it were two columns, the one to the right a list of boy names, and the one on the left a list of girl names. Both were in alphabetical order. “What the hell is this?” he asked.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of our hospital’s motto, ‘Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow’s Technology?’ Well, this is the tradition part.”

“This is crazy,” Michael said, still staring at the paper. All the names on the list were traditional from A to Z – names like Arnold, Bradley, and Chris for the boys, Alice, Barbara, and Carol for the girls.

“No,” the doctor said. “This isn’t crazy. What’s crazy are the names that people give their children these days – Parker, Hailey, Gunner… Hunter. Can you believe there was a couple here a few months ago who wanted to name their daughter Cupcake? That’s when we decided to take a stand against this rampant dispensing of distasteful names. That’s when we made this list.”

“But you can’t do this,” Michael said, although the quiver in his voice suggested he feared otherwise.

“Of course we can,” the doctor said, sounding slightly amused. “You signed a form agreeing to it. Remember all those documents you filled out when your wife was admitted?”

“But that’s not fair!” Michael said. “She was going into labor! I didn’t have time to sit there and read all the fine print on those fucking forms!”

The doctor put a slender finger to his lips and said, “Shhhh. Remember, you’re in a hospital. I realize this is a stressful situation, Mr. Braddocks, but if you’ll just pick a name we can get this all over with.”

Michael looked around the room at the nurses. They were all staring at him, waiting impatiently. Not knowing what else to do, Michael consulted the document in his hand again. He scanned down to the H’s and read the names: Harold or Henry. What a choice. They sounded like names that Cheryl would pick for a boy. Then it dawned on him that this must be a trick of hers. Of course it was! She’d put the staff up to it to teach him a lesson. Michael chuckled, relieved that this would all be over soon and they could get back to business. “Good one, honey,” he called to the bed where his wife lay motionless. “You really had me going for a minute, but the joke’s over. Honey?”

“She can’t hear you,” the doctor said. “She’s been sedated. We find it much easier to deal with just one parent when it comes to this part of the birthing process.”

Michael looked from nurse to nurse, and then back to the doctor. None of them were smiling. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

As if on cue, a pair of burly male nurses appeared behind Michael like bouncers in white coats. They each grabbed one of his arms and held him so he couldn’t move.

“You’re going to pick a name from that list, Michael,” the doctor said, removing a scalpel from a tray next to the scale. He then put the blade to the baby’s neck.

Michael’s heart leapt. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I brought your baby into this world, Mr. Braddocks. With the flick of my wrist, I can reverse that.”

Michael thought about all of the other children who had been born here over the past few months and forced himself to ask a question, even though he was terrified to know the answer. The words came out in a sick croak: “What happened to the little girl?”

“What little girl?”

“The one who was going to be named Cupcake.”

“She went home with a broken arm and a respectable name.”

“You broke a baby’s arm?” Michael said, nearly choking on the words.

“Her father was stubborn, and like you, he had to be persuaded. Now I’ll ask you one more time,” he said, pressing the blade of the scalpel against the baby’s soft skin. “What’s it going to be?”

Michael stared at the list, finding it difficult to focus with his hand shaking, his eyes blind with rage, and the mediocre names mocking him. But even as he teetered on the brink of a nervous breakdown, he came up with a plan. “So all I have to do is pick a name from this list and it’ll all be over?” he asked.

“You and your lovely family will be on your way home,” the doctor said.

Michael realized that even though he was being forced to choose a name from the doctor’s list, he could have it changed once they were discharged from this crazy hospital, which is what he figured most of the people who had children here did. But he doubted many of them were smart enough to turn the tables on the doctor the way he was about to.

“Okay,” Michael said, now confident that he would have the last laugh. “His name is Nancy.”

“Nancy?”

“It’s on the list. You didn’t say it had to be a boy’s name.”

“I suppose you’re right,” the doctor said.

“Ha!” Michael shouted. “How’s that for traditional, you crazy fuck? Looks like your little plan backfired!”

“On the contrary,” the doctor said. He put the scalpel down and picked up the pair of scissors Michael had used to cut the umbilical cord. “Nancy is a fine name…for a girl.” He then grabbed the baby by the feet, raised him into the air, and in one quick motion, sheared off his genitals.

Michael thrashed against the nurse’s grip as his son wailed and blood rained to the floor. A burning pain erupted in Michael’s left arm. His head swiveled around to find that one of the nurses had stuck him with a hypodermic needle. He suddenly felt woozy, his legs turning to jelly. He watched, unable to do anything but sob, as a nurse placed a little pink bow in Hunter’s hair, and then rushed him out of the room.

“Where is she taking him?” Michael cried.

“Gender reassignment,” the doctor said, as he returned the scissors to the tray.

“YOU BASTARD!” Michael screamed. With a frantic lunge, he tore away from his captors, only to crash to the floor. He tried to pick himself up, but only made it to one knee before collapsing again. A few feet away, in a puddle of blood, lay Hunter’s penis. Michael reached out, but just before he could rescue his son’s amputated member, the doctor’s shoe came down on his wrist, pinning it to the floor. The doctor kneeled down, and with a pair of tweezers he plucked the tiny nub from the pool of gore. He then placed it in a plastic bag labeled BIOHAZARD and said, “I’m afraid Nancy won’t be needing this.”

“His name… is Hunter,” Michael groaned. “Hunter… Sean…” But before he could finish, he was swallowed by darkness. The doctor sighed. He was about to drop the plastic bag into the yellow biohazard container on the wall when he paused. He suddenly had a better idea.

* * *

“Honey,” Michael heard a voice calling above him. He opened his eyes and found Cheryl standing beside him, cradling a baby in her arms. The infant was dressed in pink, a small pink bow tied to a lock of black hair.

He was lying in a hospital bed, but couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. The last thing he recalled was holding his son. “Where’s Hunter?”

Cheryl looked at him sadly. “Oh, honey, I know how much you wanted a boy, but the ultra sound was wrong. The baby’s a girl.”

“A girl?”

“Don’t you remember? You named her.”

Michael’s head spun, and he was aware of a burning sensation between his legs. “What am I doing in this bed?”

“The doctor said you fainted. He said it was from fatigue. I guess it happens a lot after long labors.”

Michael winced. His crotch felt like someone was poking it with a hot needle. He threw the covers off the bed, pulled up his gown, and found a mound of blood-stained gauze between his legs. His eyes grew wide, mouth went dry, heart raced. With a trembling hand, he peeled the tape off his skin, pulled the gauze away, and gasped at what he saw. His penis and scrotum were gone, replaced by a small, shriveled package of flesh. Hunter’s genitals, the boy parts he’d been so excited to see six months earlier, were now stitched to his crotch, shriveled and sad-looking.

A young couple walked past the room as Michael screamed. The woman, nine months pregnant, clutched her swollen stomach, looked at her husband and said, “All this noise is making Maverick upset.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Reed is the author of more than 50 short stories. His fiction has appeared in a variety of small press publications including Black Ink Horror, Chimeraworld 5, and the Cutting Block Press anthology, Tattered Souls: The Provocative Boundary of Fear, with stories slated to appear in Sex and Murder and OMG! The Book of Awesome Stuff. Aside from writing, he enjoys frozen pizza, Seinfeld reruns, and hockey fights. He lives in Davison, MI, with his photographer wife and their two enigmatic children. Visit his official Web site: www.ChrisReedFiction.com.