I’d been here a year, year and a half, when I first came across him. The city was full of eccentrics and never shut them away like they did back home-actually took pride in them, in fact. Preacher, the Duck Lady, Doo-Wop.
Nineteen or so, strolling innocently along, I glanced into an alleyway as I passed and saw a man kneeling there. Elbows climbed into light and sank. “That’s it, you’re doing fine,” the man said. “Push, push. You’re almost there, Patrice …”
Intrigued, I walked closer. No one else in the alley with him, though arms and hands worked steadily as he dipped and straightened, smiled, frowned with concentration. Under his breath, a subterranean river, ran a steady murmur of numbers, Latin, self-interrogation, misgivings, encouragement.
“Are you okay, sir?”
His face came around quickly, like a cat’s.
“What, four years of college, four more of medical school, not to mention internship and residency, you think I can’t handle this?
“Push. Push, Patrice.
“Well, boy, don’t just stand there,” he told me. Sweat poured off him; he trembled. “Get over here and take this baby while I see to the mother.” The two of us alone in the alley.
Doc’s been around for years, a bartender told me later that day. He’d pop up, trek all over the city delivering make-believe babies in alleyways and vacant lots-duplicating the very scene I’d just witnessed-then drop out of sight. No one knew where he lived, or anything about him.
“Weird,” I said.
“I guess. You want another?” When he brought it, he said, “Guess you’re new in town, huh?”