Carola Dibbell - The Only Ones

EVERY CITY LINE CHILD OF SCHOOL AGE MUST REPORT TO PS 263, 261 stAVENUE, 8:15 SEPTEMBER 5.

And not only that.

IT IS MANDATORY THAT PRIOR TO THAT DATE YOUR CHILD REPORT TO DESIGNATED HEALTH CENTER AT PARSONS BOULEVARD WITH ID FOR COMPLETE HEALTH PROFILE.

Complete Health Profile. Oh, that is really going to work. I just bumped the whole thing off and wheeled Ani around empty houses down the hill and big flat burnt-out lots all the way to the grass and sand at the edge of Little Neck Bay, where I parked the carrier on the grass with Ani conked out. Then I lay down beside her on the grass, just Ani and me.

That’s what it has been all these years — Ani and me. Foraging, exploring Zones, planting potatoes, watching TV. The whole time, just two oldies even knew who we are. No one knew what we are. What if somebody finds out?

She is on her side, flopped in her carrier, breathing. I just watched her breathe, like when she was a newbie.

I was just so worried what will happen. I’m worried they will take her away. I’m just so worried they will give her to someone else.

Then I fell asleep too.

When I woke up, everything looked different. The water looked different. It has lines in it. I got up and walked over to see it up close. No bodies. A barge was paddling past. I haven’t looked at the water this close since the old days on the Mound, when I had a different life.

I looked back at Ani, who is starting to wake up too. She was rubbing her eyes and stretching. She was so cute.

And then I start to think, wait. What about her different life? All she does is spend her time with me. She even watches the same cartoons I watched when I was as young as her. It’s true I went to school myself a little when it was open between Epis till it shut down for good, but it was Catholic School. I never went to regular school. She could learn a skill. She could meet another kid. She could have another goddamn environmental factor besides me!

And come on. It’s not like wer living replica, how is she more special than you? of theWhat doon never took a risk. Fundy vigilantes, quarantines, not to mention it was pretty goddamn risky for her to even be born. I took deep breaths like Rauden said to do. That calmed me down enough to come back to Ani, who is still yawning. Ok, give it a shot. “You want to go to school?”

She blinks. “You want to go to school?”

“Ani, don’t start.”

She goes, “Ani, don’t start.”

Man! I could hardly wait for this Phase to be over. I walked off and took deep breaths till I am calm enough to think of a plan. Then I come back and say, “I’m going to school too.”

She fell for it. “I’m going to school too.”

Me, “We’re going to school,” her, “We’re going to school,” so that’s it, it worked. We’re going to school.

Wait. Do we want to go to school?

Too late now.

It took a month till I got my nerve up and brought Ani for the complete Health Profile all the way at the Parson’s Boulevard Center, and I can tell you, I was so scared I have to breathe deep the whole way. But the scanner didn’t work. So nothing came up. We even came back another time. It still didn’t work. The person gave me a card and a map to find PS 263 and said, “These scanners never work. Just bring your daughter to school as indicated. They will have a scanner there. It probably won’t work, either.”

I start to think we could bring this off.

I start to get excited. Really excited. I start to run around jumping up and down. I’m not the only one excited. Word of the new school spread all over the garden apartments. I think it spread all over the Zone. Alma Cho starts bringing school forage. Backpack. Crayons. Norma Pellicano left a ruler. Lunchbox. Little plaid skirt. Well, look at this. It is Jellies.

Alma Cho brought a regular clock. She shows me how to wind the button so it works. Now Ani won’t be late to school.

Not much chance of that. I lie awake that whole night before September 5 with the clock beside me. When it says seven, I woke Ani up, cleaned her good, put her in the plaid skirt and Jellies, stuffed her in the bubble carrier, put the clock in my pocket, took the card and map and headed out. Alma Cho is standing on the corner, waving. She is smiling but I got the feeling if she didn’t see us on our way to school, she’d turn us in. We waved back.

At 74 thAvenue, I saw two people at a window, waving. We waved back. I had been in this part of City Line northeast before. I never saw so many people out. One oldie is in front of a house that is covered in plastic. She is covered in plastic too. She waved and we waved back.

By the time we got to Union Turnpike, I started to hear a sound. At 259 thStreet, Ani heard it too. The closer we get, the bigger it is. It’s only when we turn the last corner we find out what it is. Kids crying. A big bunch of kids and Parents are standing near an old brick building, under a flag. The Parents are crying too. And watching the whole thing is more people than I saw at once since the Mumbai panics. Some of them are crying too. They just want to look at kids. Some of the Parents hid the children’s faces. Some wore masks. We should of worn a mask too. Then if something showed, no one would guess. No one looked at us funny though. We walked through the door.

The swipe Reader didn’t work! Everyone got through. The scanner for Health Profile didn’ to Hunter’s Point of theWhat doont work. Everyone’s crying so much they just want to get us in fast. We got through!

They put us all in one regular room, with pictures on the walls, and books, and toys, and a teacher, and a smell. I mean, it was all interesting. But the most interesting thing was, kids. I didn’t see so many kids since the Myrtle Avenue Center that gave green Process so long ago. I guess there was fifteen Parent/ kid combos. The kids are in like blankets and shower curtains for Hygiene but after a while the kids got hot and cranky so the Parent took the wrappings off, and inside was, you know, kids — different color kids, brown, pink, tan, gray. Some of them are totally white, like they never even saw daylight. Some of them had a big head. One had a sort of pipe to help her breathe. One wore a helmet. I don’t know why she wore a helmet. All I know is, compared to those kids, we seemed regular. Ani began to cry.

She flung a hand out at the others. I thought she would say, “My,” the way she did with that newbie on the bridge. She just cried. The others cried too. Most had never seen a real child except themself. They were the only ones they knew. The Parents cried too. They wouldn’t even leave the classroom. They wanted to hold their kids. Finally the teacher let us stay in the room, holding our kids. We stayed all day. The next week, we had to wait out in the hall, if the kid would let go of us. We sat on the floor in the hall. You could hear the kids cry through the door. They could hear us cry too.

The teacher found two rooms with a door between and put the kids in one and us in the one beside, so our kid and us could check each other. The rooms are not so big and as far as I could tell Ani did not get lost.

So the next part of our life, this is it. We all come in every morning, pry the kid out of the carrier or off our back, or, you know, peel them off our leg, or sometimes you peel the Parent off the kid, anyhow, once we are pried apart, the Parents go into our room and, you know, wave at the door. It was great. To be on the safe side, two of us took turns watching the other door of the classroom where our kids were, so no one would steal them. Sometimes the kids stopped waving long enough for, I don’t know, meetings. The Parents had a meeting too. So one mother is like, where is the arm guard? She was the only one who cared, the rest are like, everyone knows what is wrong with that. Everyone except me. Everyone knew more than me.