Keep On Livin'!

Chapter 1

July 18, 2001

'Neath the sunshine of a hot day in July, a 90's era Civic is pulled over by a police officer on the far end of Buffalo Bill Avenue, just before the turn onto Leota, North Platte, Nebraska. In the driver's seat is a 25 year-old railroader named Henry Bogg, frantic, anxious, and annoyed by the pig in his rear view mirror. Beside him is his 23 year-old wife June, equally frantic and now falling into labor, her water long broken. The Officer that pulled them over is Officer James B. Whitney, a stocky, unintimidating man with pencil stache and combover.

As he approaches the vehicle, he sees the lady in the passenger seat writhing, wiggling uncomfortably, shifting her seat this way and that. The driver is almost completely still, though Whitney sees inaudible words on his lips, probably trying to calm the passenger down, he thinks, as she squirms with immense discomfort. Officer Whitney walks beside the car, driver side, and knocks on the window with a hairy knuckle. The driver's expression, which for a moment looked on the brink of hysteria, now shifts into one of total conniption.

Henry rolls down the window, its aged machinery slow and squeaky. Officer Combover (as Henry had already begun calling him in his head) reads casual, just another day on the job in his eyes. But as Henry rolls down the window, the bigger picture comes into play for the Officer. Looking now, he sees not a woman potentially in danger, but an immensely pregnant woman edging on terror.

Henry, who was already perspiring, now had a brow shiny and blinding as the sun above them. "Officer," he began--

"No worries," Officer Combover said in a semi-faux sympathetic cadence "do what you gotta do."

Henry, now feeling a trifle bad about calling him Officer Combover, nodded and began to roll his window up now, muttering a quiet "Thank you, sir," albeit grudgingly (he never did care for the cops). He returned his foot to the gas pedal, speeding off once again, turning left on Leota. Officer Whitney stood and watched as they left, combing his mustache with his thumb and index finger.

"He seemed nice," June said, panting. "never thought I'd say that." and with that she managed a slight chuckle. Henry couldn't help but love his wife even more in that moment, but stronger than that love only was his admiration. He looked at her now, going through possibly the worst pain a human could go through, and here she was, cracking wise in the face of torment. They both suspected there was a long few hours ahead of them, perhaps the longest hours they would ever face. But now, for the moment, in spite of the pain, and the anxiety, and the fear of the unknown, they were purely, unabashedly in love.

-=-

April 26, 1997

June Hoffman, not pregnant for the time being, looked in the mirror with piercing objectivity. The clock on the wall behind her read 10:27am, the morning of her nineteenth birthday. Her hair was a nest, shampooed the night before though not thoroughly brushed. Looking at the curly, unwieldy knots, she felt terrible dread for the hour ahead of her, a long and tedious hour of combing and tugging at long and, admittedly, silky hair to the point of farce, all for the sake of absolute perfection. Tonight was going to be a night to remember, she could just feel it. On this beautiful April day, her and her friend Linda were going to try one of the biggest stunts of their relatively sheltered lives.

The day prior, June and Linda were working together at the Beans O' Plenty coffee shop on campus. Linda had approached her as though she had just learned the location of the Holy Grail. Giddy, almost jittery, she couldn't have looked more conspicuous. It was as though she had reverted back to being five years old, like she had just learned a secret that she's just dying to let out. When June interrogated her, however, it turned out that she had.