fiction

[ the baby ] [ things i did not tell you; things that are lies ] [ the music ] [ the furher ] [ love will tear us apart again: an extended metaphor of the physical manifestation of a broken heart, or a bloody requiem for the might have been ] [ white space ] [ how to disappear completely ] [ sorry ] [ bus stop ]

quasi-fiction

[ the garbage train ] [ dissertation on the concept of forever starting tonight, explained in the second person, to an ex-lover, a best friend, and the man in the astor place subway station who asked me for a nickel (or a true story that is 43% lies and 0% plot) ] [ breakup vignettes ]

---

Sorry

TJ had run so far ahead that Bobby could just barely see his silhouette against the glare of the setting sun. "Hey!" TJ's shout was faint. "Guys! Come here! Get over here! Right now!" Bobby glanced over at Jared, who was the youngest of the trio, though the tallest. Jared raised his eyebrows a little and shrugged. Bobby started to run to TJ's voice, motioning for Jared to follow. It must be something, Bobby thought, because it didn't take three people to retrieve a baseball.

The air was too hot and too wet, even at this hour. Bobby squinted as he ran towards the sun, stifling a sneeze. He almost tripped over a rock. He hated this field and he hated summer, which was so stifling and awful here in Florida. Sometimes, in bad moods, he even thought he might hate TJ and Jared, who were brothers and who lived across the street from him and one door down, on their street of identical small stucco houses in pastel shades. And TJ and Jared were his best friends.

Jared was losing ground on Bobby. Bobby turned and waited for him, watching him run on his ungainly, long legs that bounced him up and down in the air like the ground was not a field, but a trampoline. Jared had hit his growth spurt early, Bobby's mom had told him, trying to soothe Bobby's imaginary fear of always being very short. Bobby hadn't really considered it. He didn't mind being short any more than he minded having brown hair: it just was.

"What are you doing, Bobby?" Jared had passed him. "Why'd you stop? Come on!"

"Oh." Bobby jumped a little. "Okay!" Bobby started to run again, wondering how it was that he seemed to never notice when things happened. He always got in trouble in school for not paying attention­in fact, it was part of the reason he was going back to fourth grade in the fall instead of onto fifth like everyone else. That, and how he made up stories all the time and couldn't remember if they were true. His mother had shaken her head when she came out of the conference, and smiled the same stiff smile she smiled when she told Bobby that of course she still loved his father. She grasped his shoulder and said that this didn't mean he was stupid, and that everyone knew of course that he was not stupid. His test scores showed that. He just needed some time, that's all. Just some time. Bobby had nodded and blinked at her, smiling, wondering why she was trying to convince him of something he already knew to be true.

"Hurry up! You guys, get over here!" TJ yelled again. He waved his arms in the air back and forth, as though he were on a desert island and signaling to an airplane for help.

"We_re coming TJ!" called Jared, holding his hands to either side of his mouth to make a megaphone. He stumbled a little, almost falling.

"Hurry!"

"We're running as fast as we can! Hold on!" Jared laughed a little, looking over at Bobby.

Bobby usually liked TJ more than Jared. Jared was funny and could always be counted on to do something silly to make everyone laugh, but TJ was the smart one, the one with the ideas. And he was the one Bobby knew the longest. He was also the one who Bobby's mother made a face about whenever he came over, and the one about whom she talked to Aunt Cindy on the phone in hushed tones, saying that she didn't mind the younger Ellis boy "but that older one­oh, hold on."

"Okay, what is it?" Jared said, panting, leaning over with his hands on his knees.

"Look." TJ pointed to an overgrown, weedy bush a few feet away.

"What?" Bobby craned his neck to see. He was starting to suspect he needed glasses.

"Look." TJ stepped towards the bush. "Look under it. Just_ look."

Jared walked over to the bush, got down on his hands and knees, and peered under it in the posture of a puppy looking for a toy. Almost immediately, he recoiled, jumping back and landing in an awkward crabwalk. "Oh my God, TJ, what--?"

"Oh my god what?" TJ crossed his arms and looked sideways at Jared. "You go look, Bobby."

"Tell me what it is first."

"It's a damn baby, that's what it is," Jared said, in the tone of someone who has just said damn in context for the first time.

"A baby?" Bobby was confused. "You mean, a real baby? A human baby?"

"Yeah, a real baby." TJ angled his head towards the bush. "Go look."

"Are you lying?" Bobby asked, looking back and forth between the two brothers. They had played tricks on him before.

"No, we're not you," said TJ, smirking a little. "Come here. Look."

Bobby stalled. "Is it alive?"

"Shut up, Bobby, what is wrong with you. Are you stupid? Of course it's alive. Otherwise I would've said, it's a dead baby."

Bobby didn't say anything. He gingerly walked over to the bush and lifted the bottom-most branches. He leaned over and looked.

Well, it's a baby, he thought. It was in a little carseat-looking thing, tan plastic with flowers on the pillow parts. It wasn't too young of a baby, Bobby concluded, because it was smiling and it had a tooth on the bottom. His sister Tara didn't have a tooth on the bottom until she was almost a full year old. Now she had all her teeth and walked around everywhere too, though she still didn't say a word. Whenever Bobby talked to her, she merely sucked on her thumb and stared at him solemnly, with big brown eyes. This baby's eyes were blue.

"I wonder where it came from," Bobby said quietly, provoking a guffaw from TJ. "I didn't mean like that, TJ."

"It couldn'ta been there so long," said TJ, "because it's alive yet."

"Is it a boy or a girl?" asked Jared, who was standing again and shifting his weight from one leg to another every few seconds.

"I don't know Jared, why don't you check," TJ replied, his sarcasm practiced.

"Should I?"

"No Jared, don't touch it," Bobby said quickly.

"Why not?" TJ had a devilish look. "It's not like we'd get in trouble. Someone put it here because they didn't want it. It's gonna die really soon." He closed his eyes for a moment and then stole a quick glance in Bobby's direction, as though to glean his reaction. There was no reaction to see. TJ brushed his hair out of his face. It was wet with sweat and so dark it was nearly black. Bobby stared at him and remembered the time, the previous summer, when TJ cornered Caitlin Jacobson against the fence at the elementary school playground and forced her to eat six handfuls of dirt and two worms. Bobby had stood behind TJ, supposedly a guard but more an impartial observer. Caitlin had cried a lot, but Bobby didn't have a good view of her face. What Bobby remembered were her legs: every time TJ yelled at her or threatened to hit her, her, legs would kick a little, stirring up the dirt and wedging it inside the folds of her dirty white socks with little red dots on them that might have been embroidered ladybugs. Bobby had been mesmerized with those legs and how they reacted like machines to TJ's every action­so mesmerized, in fact, that he didn't hear the first time TJ told him to turn around and was still watching when TJ pulled off Caitlin's red cotton shorts, holding her down by the neck as she sobbed. Bobby's gasp told TJ that Bobby hadn't turned around yet. Bobby had a sore stomach for a week from TJ's punch. Caitlin ran away without her shorts. TJ still kept them between his mattress and his box spring, along with a collection of cigarette packs he managed to steal from 7-11. Bobby wondered how Caitlin explained her lack of shorts to her mother.

"We can't," said Bobby.

"We can't what?" TJ looked down at Bobby. Though he wasn't as tall as his younger brother, he was a good five inches taller than Bobby.

"Do whatever you were wanting to do to that baby."

"Why not?"

"Because why?"

TJ didn't reply. He stared at Bobby, looking for words. It reminded Bobby of the way his father looked at him on the nights when his mother was too upset to sit at dinner, when she lay on her bed crying so loudly you could hear it outside and even down the street a ways, almost to the corner. Bobby would try to talk to his father, just to drown out the crying, and his father would give him that same look. Bobby's father often gave him looks like that­looks of bemused frustration, looks that demonstrated a keen inability to understand his quiet, day-dreamy son who played no sports and earned strings of D's in school. Bobby wondered if his father thought he was so stupid that he didn't know what those looks meant. Probably.

"What do you want to kill a baby for, anyway, TJ?" Jared said. Bobby smiled. He was glad Jared was his friend now. Before this summer, it was just Bobby and TJ. Jared was a year younger and for his entire life had been nothing to TJ except an annoyance and a victim. Now that Bobby was going to be in Jared's grade instead of TJ's, TJ, in a moment or rare generosity, offered to let his brother tag along sometimes so Bobby could have someone to know in his grade when school started. Sometimes turned into all the time, and Bobby was a little relieved. TJ was his best friend, but he was easier to be with when there was someone else around to help bear him. TJ required bearing.

"Did I say I wanted to kill it? Oh my God Jared, you are so fucking dumb."

"Well what did you want to do, then?"

TJ, forced to find words for whatever his ideas were, was stumped. "_Carry it somewhere," he said finally. "Swing it around. Feed it berries. I dunno."

"We should take it to the hospital or something," said Bobby. "I'll do it if you want." He moved towards the bush again.

"No." TJ stopped him. "Step any closer to that baby and I'll­"

"What? Why?"

"Why can't--?"

"Shut up, Bobby. And, Jared. Get lost. I'm sick of you following me around all the time."

"No." Bobby said this. "He's my friend." He felt bold. "You go." He said this as though he were unafraid of TJ's reaction, even though a certain darkness in TJ's eyes showed that he was starting to be in one of his volatile moods.

TJ stood with his mouth agape. "Fine, whatever." He rolled his eyes, in a big show. "I have better stuff to do than hang out with you losers. I'm leaving. Do whatever you want." He turned to go, then turned back. "Jared, you should come home by eight because Dad's coming home tonight and he'll fucking kill you if you're out without me there." He sauntered off, too cool to run.

Jared picked up the baseball lying next to the bush where the baby was. He held it nervously. "He forgot this. I guess I'll just bring it home later."

"Okay."

"Are you really gonna bring it to the hospital?"

"I think. Or the police station maybe? I'll ask my mom what she thinks."

"Do you know where it is? The hospital? How are you gonna get there? I can help."

"I don't know. Okay." Bobby lifted the branch of the bush again and peered at the baby. It was remarkable that it wasn't crying at all, he thought. When his sister was that small, she cried all the time. The baby looked at him and waved its hands a little. It was wearing a blue jumpsuit that had long sleeves and covered its feet. It must have been so hot, Bobby thought. It had to be 97 degrees out, and it was nearly dusk. "Okay," said Bobby again, thinking. "Jared, you wait here with the baby while I run home and get my mom. I'll tell her about the baby and then she'll drive it somewhere I guess."

"Okay!"

"Seriously, stay here with it."

"I will."

Bobby ran back through the field and up the street, towards his house. He was not a good runner. He was the second slowest boy in his gym class, and always the last to be chosen for any team sport. It was less because of his innate lack of ability than it was because of a certain inattention about him, a certain dreamy apathy about all things competitive, or really, about all things grounded or dirty or demanding. Bobby never understood why it was very important to run towards a goalpost or away from a ball. He went through the motions of caring, but his deep stare into clear space betrayed him.

Bobby ran as fast as he could. He was panting and dripping sweat from his hair by the time he pushed open the screen to the back door of his house. "Mom!" he called, letting the door slam noisily behind him, a crash of rickety aluminum against the just-starting-to-rot wood of the doorframe. "Mom! Come here! There's something in the field. Mom!"

Bobby heard the door to his parents' room creak open. He bounded up the stairs and, upon seeing his mom stand in the doorway of her room, he uncharacteristically ran to her and wrapped his spindly arms around her waist and buried his head under her breasts into her soft, yellow-floral covered abdomen which smelled faintly sour. She stood still and did not say anything, did not stroke Bobby's head, and did not stop him from crying deep, heaving sobs into her stomach.

Her eyes were puffy and her words slurred. Bobby recognized the smell of her breath as the same smell of the basement three New Year's ago, when his parents threw a party so big that the police came and took Uncle Paul away, and Aunt Cindy was so upset she threw up pools and pools of clear liquid on the sofa. Bobby was only six then and was supposed to be put to bed. He woke up though, and slithered into a curl next to his mom in the big purple recliner that broke the next year and asked what was wrong with Aunt Cindy. His mom sighed and rubbed his back, saying that Aunt Cindy was going to be fine and that she was just very sad. Six-year-old Bobby hoped never to be so sad that he vomited his tears instead of crying them the normal way. The basement smelled for six weeks or so.

Bobby's mother hiccoughed. She stroked his arm, feebly, as though she didn't think it was real. "Bobby_"

He looked up at her face, her clear, bright green eyes matching his own in color and in how they were red with tears. "Mom, there's a baby in the field," he said, "in the field where me and TJ and Jared go, not the one behind the school but the other far one. Mom it's a real baby, all by itself in a carseat, and we have to go save it."

"Oh, Bobby, can you­can you just stop today?" She looked down at his earnest, intense little face and Bobby sensed that he made her feel even more tired. "Stop with the stories. Mommy can't do this today. Why don't we go make you a snack." She said this last phrase like a passive afterthought, as though making a snack just happens after a child cries and no one has to do a thing about it.

Bobby hadn't called her Mommy for years, but when she spoke in the third person to him, it was always Mommy this and Mommy that.

"Mom, there really is a baby."

"Bobby, there is not." She sighed and closed her eyes.

"Mom, there is so. I swear I'm not making it up."

"Do you want peanut butter or cheese?" She didn't move from her place in the doorway. She looked at Bobby idly, her eyelids pink and heavy.

Bobby blinked back new tears. "Cheese, I guess," he said, staring at the faded floral pattern distorted by the stretch over his mother's hips and belly.

"Well, it's in the second drawer in the fridge. Bread's in the pantry where it always is." Her voice was so calm and strangely flat that Bobby felt a chill creep over his skin.

"Can't you make it?" Bobby's voice was barely above a whisper.

"Mommy's tired, Bobby. Mommy doesn't feel very good." Behind Bobby's mom, in the bedroom, there was a wail. "And now Tara's up. Bobby, I can't do this right now, okay? Cheer up. It's summertime. Go play."

It was the most mournful "cheer up" Bobby had ever heard. And Bobby had heard quite a few of them. He slowly turned around and walked to the kitchen, the wood floor under his feet creaking a little with every step. He made himself a cheese sandwich more out of a strange penance than hunger, but only ate three bites and left the rest sitting on the white formica kitchen table, without a plate.

By the time Bobby ran back to the field, it was already dark. The mosquitoes were thick in the air and Bobby could feel them stick to his skin, damp with sweat. He imagined the baby being covered with mosquitoes, round red welts deforming its little face into an angry blob of flesh. He ran a little faster. He doubted Jared was still there. It was after eight and he would have had to go home because his father was around. Jared and TJ's father was about the scariest man Bobby had ever met.

Jared wasn't there. Bobby could see the dark silhouette of the bush where TJ had found the baby. He slowed down, as though not to frighten the baby by approaching too quickly. "Jared?" he called, just in case he was present but out of view. No answer.

He walked to the bush. "Shh, shh," he said, even though there was no sound. "Shh, shh" was the most soothing noise Bobby could think of. It was what his mom used to say when he cried as a little boy. He didn't even associate it with "be quiet," though he knew that was what it really meant. No one had ever said "shh" to Bobby meaning for him to be quiet. Bobby was always quiet.

The bush was thick and had thorns. One stuck Bobby deep in the arm as he pulled the branches back to get to the baby. He winced, more because he hated blood than because of the pain. He knelt down and peered into the bush.

The baby was gone.

Bobby didn't move. He didn't know what to do. Of course, he thought, Jared could have gone for help and someone could have taken the baby to a hospital or the police station. Or Jared could have left and someone else could have found the baby. A nice newlywed couple on a walk. They could have found the baby and adopted it. It could be in their house right now, eating that gross-smelling tan babyfood that Tara used to eat, or the better-smelling orange kind that Bobby used to steal tastes of when no one was looking. But Bobby knew of no nice newlywed couples in his neighborhood. He knew that no nice newlywed couple came out to the field and adopted the baby. He knew that no sweet old grandmother did either. He wasn't entirely sure that TJ took the baby away, but he suspected. He strongly suspected.

What would TJ have done with it? TJ wasn't evil. He wouldn't have killed it. Bobby thought so, anyway. He could be mean, but not evil. He probably just moved it to another bush to freak Bobby out. And it worked, but he'd find it! Bobby scrambled to his feet and ran to the next bush, about ten feet away. He pulled the branches aside: nothing. There was nothing under the next bush either, nor the next, nor the next. Nothing in the tall grass down by the canal, and nothing floating in the canal either. No baby and no carseat-thing. Bobby was getting out of breath and starting to feel a strange combination of very hungry and sick to his stomach. He wished he had thought to bring a flashlight. A flashlight would make finding this baby a lot easier. As it was, the moon was only a tiny, sharp scythe blade in the sky and provided no light. The field was set so far back from the nearest street that the neighborhood streetlights didn't help either.

"Baby!" he called, walking in nervous circles. "Baby, where are you!" If only it would cry. But nothing.

It had to be about nine now. Bobby knew his mom would probably start to wonder where he was soon. Maybe even his father would wonder, though he would probably just assume Bobby was over at TJ and Jared's.

He knew there was really no hope for finding the baby now. The baby was gone. There was nothing he could do. But still, Bobby didn't want to go home. He didn't want to go anywhere. He didn't want to leave the field. He didn't know why, since it was hot and dark and the mosquitoes were so thick he could almost feel them in his lungs. But Bobby somehow felt stuck. He sat in the grass, extremely still, and listened, and looked, and waited, coughing every now and then just to make a sound.