Birthmates

In Gish Jen's "Birthmates," we see a middle-aged Asian man who goes to a hotel for a business conference in a somewhat rougher part of town. We're not sure entirely what he does, save that it has to do with computers or software.

At the beginning of the story, Art, the main character, seems to constantly be worried about security and even goes as far as to carry around the handset of a telephone to posssibly be used as a weapon in the supposedly crime-ridden neighborhood.

He wanders into the lobby trying to find where he needs to go for the conference and runs into a bunch of kids playing. Apparently, Art is the target of some dare as they try and steal the phone handset from him. They aren't successful at first and Art drifts into and out of memories of his wife and how they were trying to have a baby that was not successful because of infertility. Art also remembers one of his associates, Billy, and how he seems young and "hip" so as to keep up on the latest news of society. This seems to make Art a little jealous.

Later, he gets hit in the head by the phone as one of the kids steals it and he wakes up in a room with a woman who used to be a nurse named Cindy. She takes care of him for a time and he takes off and makes it to the conference. There he continues to debate his existence and that of the people around him. He thinks of how he'd like to have possibly gotten with the nurse woman and even how he was happy about his associate Billy leaving so he might be able to move up in the job market.

The last thought he has is of the baby he and his wife might of had and how...despite it being a hopeful event...that baby would have had a hard time in life because it's bones were very brittle.