Carola Dibbell - The Only Ones

In Elmhurst they have services, the streetlights work. Some of them. Someone could see her. Nobody got that clo Ani and Madhurot supposedlyonse though.

Anyone sees anyone, they pretty much cross the street to the other side. They are worried they could get something. I crossed the street too.

So this is different too. I used to think, if I thought anything, oh, I’m a Powell’s Cove hardy. I’m not going to get anything. Whatever!

I didn’t even used to know I was a Sylvain hardy. If I knew, I would of thought, whatever.

Now I was something else. I was an environmental factor.

I worried now.

When I stopped worrying so much is she alive, or does she breathe, or show, I am so used to worrying, I worry if I don’t worry. So I come up with something else to worry about. Is she regular?

Come on. How regular could she be?

But I would like to see a regular baby. I would just like to see how regular it looks.

One day I saw a pile of springs and broken plexi on Dry Harbor Road. It’s almost like the parts of the tank that Ani grew in. I started to look closer but heard somebody coming, and I left.

I came back next day. The whole street is closed, caution tape’s everywhere, and there was a smell I recognize, like heavy-duty Hygiene spray, antiPatho strength. So someone had got something. I don’t know what. If anyone grew in that tank, I don’t know if they had it.

I don’t know if the Singhs had it. They didn’t come back from the clinic. I sneaked in at night and took their scale. Still three kilos. Still alive.

Still bald.

I saw a sign in a park one night, you could get work mornings as Courier. Next morning I came back to check it out. The park is caution-taped. We just went home.

There is more of that smell around.

I don’t need work anyhow. The credit is coming through. I don’t even need credit. With the Singhs gone, I can just go in the store and help myself. They even got dydees.

At least if I don’t have a job, we don’t deal with anyone. No one will notice if she’s regular or not. Except me.

Like, Ani cries most of the time. She goes crosseyed. She goes ballistic.

I go to the nearest Board to ask Rauden is that regular, but the Board crashes. I walk to the next Board. It has already crashed.

I go so far to find a working Board I have to cross a Zone checkpoint, and this one has crossing guards. And I was really worried now because Ani started to fuss, and we will attract attention, and — oh, shit. A cruiser cop is cruising toward us. “Get it out of here,” one guard shouts at me. “They’re doing quarantine sweeps.” It is a long time since I ran into quarantine sweeps. I almost don’t remember how they work, let alone, with Ani. The guard doesn’t even check our ID.

If you want to get through checkpoints fast, bring a kid. A baby’s even better. They just want to get you out fast. They are afraid it’s going to cry. No one can stand that. Even a guard can’t stand it.

By the time we got through the checkpoint, Ani is going nuts. Wah, wah! Where are we? It could be Middle Village. There is a cemetery. There seem to be a lot of cruiser cops. There is a toilet in the cemetery. I just duck in, like I used to see mothers do. What is it with Ani? Yowl! Yowl! She’s coughing. She’s going red, spitting out the bottle, nothing is working. I’m starting to worry she’s so loud, even from the toilet, a cop could hear.

Then I hear a kind of crackling noise. A stall door opens. A lot of plastic is inside, with something inside that, and it has a bundle. The bundle’s moving.

I just froze where I stood. It’s a mother with a kid.

I could hear the cruiser horn approach.

All I’m thinking is, so this is a regular mother.

She isn’t even the only one. Another mother comes out of the other stall with a smaller bundle and a smaller kid inside.

This other regular mother has a bag. She reaches in the bag, gets out a pin, a safety pin. I am worried she is going to stick Ani, but she just takes the bottle, sticks the pin in the tip, makes the bottle squirt, and sticks it right in Ani’s mouth. Ani sucks it so hard she is, like, panting. Then she conks out.

Then it is really quiet.

And it’s like, in the Queensbridge basement, when she slept, it felt like a party? Like, oh! I have a head. Now it is like, it’s so quiet, I can hear everything, and what I hear is a cruiser horn. Shit! It’s getting louder. I’m not the only one thinking, shit. We all are. Now it’s like that time when Rauden and I were in the truck in the woods, quiet, while the Knights of fucking Life rode by on horses in the dark. Even the kids are quiet. The cruiser’s right outside. Then it is a little less close. Then I’m pretty sure it’s further off than that. When it’s totally gone, these other mothers look at each other and nod. Then they looked at me. You can be sure I looked at them.

I was waiting so long to see a regular mother. So this is a regular mother! I haven’t seen a mother at all, this whole time, regular, nothing. I wanted to see a mother, any mother, just to compare. Here are two.

The first one wears one of those, you know, plastic burkis, like are supposed to keep off germs but they don’t work? The second one just has a plastic raincoat, which also doesn’t work. The first one’s face was sort of red, the second sort of brown, but you couldn’t see much of either one except the face, and how the faces looked was, tired.

So. I had that in common with them.

Their kids seemed pretty young, young enough to bundle up and hold. Still, Ani seemed to be the only baby. The mothers seemed really interested in her. They leaned right over her. I just unwrapped her, so they could see. And I’m thinking, why did I do this? They’re going to notice something. Still, they’re not going to call a cop. Call a cop, they’ll be in quarantine.

Anyhow, they didn’t act like they noticed something. They said she was cute.

So I had that in common with them too. I thought she was cute.

They ask if Ani had her shots and I say I don’t know. So they look at me funny.

The second mother finally says, “It’s ok. Mine didn’t either. Look.” She unwraps the bundle, so you can see her kid’s legs. They hang like, I don’t know, worms. “That’s what happen if they don’t get their shots.”

“Mine did,” the first mother says and unwraps her bundle. The kid was totally gray. “That’s what happens if they do.” It was cute though. Its hair was red.

The other kid wasn’t gray. He had shiny eyes, brown skin, and long curls.

He was cute too.

I really think Ani was the cutest one. I got the feeling they thought so too. She got the little tiny face, the crunch-up ey%L going to ed all the 9Hes and little tiny stickout mouth. She is a regular color now, not red. Still bald though.

The one whose son didn’t have his shots was nice. She didn’t worry what he would get from us. He already got polio. At least he was alive. You know how everybody tells me what I’m doing wrong? This regular mother said, “If your kid’s still alive, you’re doing something right.”

What she had in common with everybody else is, if I did it right or wrong? She knew. They both knew what was right or wrong.

Like, one asked did Ani get the Check Up? Bring her to Pomonok Center, in South Flushing. They have free Check Ups with a regular MD.

The other mother said right, but they give you a hard time about shots. They are not allowed to force the shot but if you refuse, they could say you endanger the kid’s life and are a bad mother. They could Alert the Authority and take your child away. Go to the Myrtle Avenue Center, this mother says, in Ridgewood. They do not make you take the shot and also they give free Process, the green kind, you feed it to your kid by hand.