Fertile

"Nurse, its ok I'm finished."

She slowly opens the door and takes the cup from me. The nurse holds the cup up to her eye, rating the amount semen in the cup. She looks back at me then at the cup and leaves. The doctor enters the room and sits in the stool across from me.

"The results from your test conclude that you have a disease known as Azoospermia. Lets start with any questions you have."

"How did I get it?"

"Genetics. You were born with it." The doctor spins back and forth in his stool. Born with it, born with Azoospermia. I am not to sure how my father could pass infertility onto his son, having somehow gotten the disease from his father.

"What can I do?"

"You and your wife could adopt if you wanted to have kids." We had not yet considered adoption. Saving a child from a ruthless life, picking him off the streets and bringing him into an American home. Then my wife and I would be equal, our son would not belong to either of us. She would still not be a mother and I not a father.

I enter the empty house through the front door and go to my room. I flick on a small lamp light to shed a small pool of light into the room, leaving the corners of the room in darkness. How do I increase sperm count? There is an episode of Seinfeld where they deal with this topic. Boxer Briefs, that is the problem; I am not getting enough air down there. I rush over to the closet and go into my underwear drawer. Under six pairs of boxers is my only pair of briefs. I pick them up and put them in the light of the lamp. This brief has caused all of my strife and is keeping me from having a son. Heading to the kitchen, I reach for our silverware drawer and pull out a Bic Lighter. Lighting the briefs on fire, they only singe; the polyester starts to melt, but does not catch on fire. I try to tear the elastic, the band snaps. Holding the lighter closer to the briefs I let the flame soak into the fabric, a drip of liquid polyester falls onto my hand and solidifies. I put my hand under cold water blisters and white puss forms under the singed skin.

Cold, briefs keep sperm to warm to reproduce; I need to cool down to create sperm. Heading back into my room; I look in the closet for our summer fan. Setting the fan on high I angle the air down towards my crotch. Dropping my pants I put my naked legs into the air and let fan blow towards me.

I hear Lynn come in and start heading for our room. She enters and walks towards the bed.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm hot." I put my legs down, letting them hang over the bed. Lynn goes into the closet and closes the door behind her.

"I am going to get dinner ready." I say

"Don't bother." She opens the door in a sleek black dress. "I'm going out."

"Where?"

"Out." She leaves her room and heads towards our bathroom. I follow behind her and sit down on the toilet. Lynn gets out a box of make-up and starts to put on red lipstick.

"You look beautiful." I say. She doesn't reply. "I love you."

"Yeah." She leaves the bathroom. "Look I'll be back late. You good for dinner?" She walks out the door before I can answer.

Heading back to the room, I turn the fan up, get undressed, and lay naked on top of the covers.

The absence of Lynn wakes me before the morning. Her spot is cold and empty. Water for coffee starts to run, I unplug the machine and leave Lynn's room. I put my brown boots on and tie them tightly. From down the hall I hear gasps for air. One of our empty room's door is cracked open. Lynn is curled up with a Winnie the Pooh stuffed bear in her hands. We got the bear for our daughter. Her arms wrapped around the bear with her head pressed down into it.

"Lynn?" I sit on the bed next to her and put my hand on her back. She lifts her head, her eyes saturated with red veins.

"I just want to be a mom."

"I know."

"All I want is a little girl. A baby, for us."

"I know." I put my arms around her and my legs beside her legs. Slowly we rock on the pink bed. Lynn removes my hands from around her and takes the bear away as she walks to the window in the room.

"I can't do this anymore."

"This?" I ask.

"Us. I can't do us."

Leaving my wife and enter into my son's room. A small rocking horse stands against the room; a shelf is mounted holding a bat and glove. Lynn and I decided to call him John, after Lynn's Grandfather. John would love baseball and play like I did. He wouldn't go pro, but instead become and engineer. My son. I can not be father but Lynn can be a mother. Girls are considered so delicate, something to cherish; men are rough and supposed to be strong. I have nothing to draw my strength from; I am empty, like the rooms and this house.

My keys hang up on the key ring heading out our front door, taking my car key off the ring I set the other back onto the rack. Lynn will get the house and our children's things; in compensation I will get a car, the sterile pheasant, and a coffeemaker. Walking around to the front of the house, I can see into the glass windows, peering through the window into Lynn's house as strangers do.

In the window I picture a small boy running down the hall and into the living room. The child sits under a Christmas tree and holds a box with red ribbon close to his body. I see Lynn and I sitting on the sofa, sipping coffee from our warm mugs. Our child brings the box back to our feet. The man on the sofa is not me, he is taller and stronger; he looks more masculine then I ever could. And the boy isn't mine. He belongs to Lynn, and the stranger. The boy will never belong to me; he will never be ours. I can go where ever I want now; only one part of this life will haunt me. The boy in my dreams will never be mine.