The Only Ones (18 page)

Then Janet got depressed too. I don’t know what I got. Ani was ok. It rained all the time.

The winter holiday is almost here. Janet wants us out. Her relatives are coming and they will notice Ani and me. Rauden wants us to stay but settles on taking as much product from me as he could, but when I went to get scraped in Callicoon, Ani flipped out so bad I had to hold her for hours after. She wouldn’t even go to sleep. She wouldn’t even let me leave the room after that. I was starting to wonder how great an environmental factor the Farm was for Ani. She has a predisposition to be me. This could clinch it. Then she ends up making viables which are just like her. And so will they. And so will theirs.

And who would buy any of them? It’s not like buyers are knocking down our doors.

So we went back to Queens, in rain.

They handed out masks at the City Line North, below Yonkers. I fell asleep then all through the Bronx and over the bridge. We got off at Main Street Flushing and headed for the Main Street Board. I had told Rauden I know where I am going but I honestly got no idea.

The Main Street Board was down. We slept on the floor. I didn’t know where else to go. In the morning we went to a church that still is open and they give breakfast if we wear a mask. What is this with the masks? Is Mumbai coming back?

I almost wish it would. At least in quarantine, the expenses are covered. I’m trying to make a plan here but even when I find a working Board, the credit from Rini does not come up. I try a few times. Nada. I don’t even know when it ran out. I was at the Farm for so long I forgot to check and before then was in quarantine. I already missed quarantines. At least they give you bed and meals.

I try to find a listing for some quarantine. They are all out of town. Like, Buffalo still has quarantines. But I don’t think we should go there because of e). Akron, Ohio, has quarantines. I could figure out how to get there but to be honest, the fresh start I had in mind—I was picturing one of those Queens Domes—Maspeth, Jamaica Estates. They are not so fancy like Manhattan but it is a better crowd than Powell’s Cove or even Flushing. Believe me, we’re not going back to Powell’s Cove.

But how could I pay Dome prices even if the credit came through? I don’t know if it’s ever coming through again. All I have is a few coupons Rauden gave me when we left. I already missed the Farm. I’m never going back though. Too bad for Janet and her stupid looks. She’s never seeing us again.

We could squat in the old honeycomb pods in Flushing Meadows. I wrap Ani and me in plastic I found on the street and try to go there in the rain but cannot get a shaw or vehicle of any sort it’s raining so hard. Nobody’s even out except refugees from the City Line Zone, that had been a major Mumbai epicenter, near Creedmoor. It seems they had some new problem, maybe it is just about the toxic antiPatho spray. Whatever it is, there is a major Exodus. People are leaving in droves.

And then it hits me. Exodus? Droves? Nobody wants to stay there? Hello? It is like quarantine all over again. I know how to work this. See which way they flee from. Then head that way with Ani. I turn around and start walking east.

It is raining and raining and raining. We have to keep ducking into a church or Camp or Board shelter to get dry, and in one Camp, in Auburndale, refugees are selling keys to their old abandoned units by the City Line. One refugee, Honey Vitale, just gives me her key free, to what she calls a garden apartment, so deep in the bad area there is no services, nothing. So they have food drops. So I don’t even need credit. This could work. I took a few keys from other refugees and contacted Rauden to let him know my plan before we go, in case the Boards don’t work where we’re heading.

Rauden wants me to come back! He thinks he got some new clients and has a new plan for how it’s going to work. Just come up, get scraped, take shots, and he will draw a lot of my blood. Then he’s going to set up a chip he read about that could translate my blood into hormone messages so the next lot of viables could grow totally without me. I could be in and out in less than two months. It might not work but Rauden thinks we have an Opportunity here. Let’s just see what happens. Well I will tell you what did happen. I answered back, “Decline.” Then I put a jam on my ID so he can’t message me again, wrapped Ani and me in plastic, and headed toward the City Line, in the rain.

Now let me explain, because I want you to understand. I would of liked to see what happens. I would of tried the translator chip. But I just thought, we have an Opportunity here, our-self. In two months it could be lost.

We crossed Bell Boulevard.

Maybe you think that is unfair to the others—the viables back at the Farm who are not even born. All I’m thinking of is Ani’s different life. What about their life? Look, they might end up with a better life themself if it doesn’t start off with this translator chip that between you and me sounds even more cockamamie than the goddamn tank that, for all Ani came out of it alive, nobody else did that great.

I did care about all of them. I still do.

241
^st
Street.

It is just very hard to know what is the right thing to do. It’s hard to be a good mother, but Original is no walk in the goddamn park.

I just know I declined. I kept carrying Ani toward the City Line, on Northern Boulevard, in the rain.

Man, it’s like Projects sideways out here. You could really get lost. It all looked the same.

57
^th
Avenue.

And empty? What are the chances anyone is even here to notice us? Let alone figure us out. I was having trouble figuring myself out. Is Ani me?

251
^st
Street.

I didn’t even know if I was me, these days. I used to be a Subject. I would do anything. Slept in bins, went off in boats with anyone, anywhere. Now it’s all worry this, safe side that. It’s just—

60
^th
Avenue.

—I got a one year, seven month daughter at risk of being me. Well, that is not going to happen. I’m going to goddamn intervene. I will keep her off the Mound. Make her pass school. Here’s a no-brainer—I’m not dying in some goddamn fire. That alone could do the trick. And if it doesn’t?

61
^st
Avenue.

Out here? Who’s even going to know?

So I turned at empty 256
^th
Place and went to Honey Vitale’s empty apartment, in the empty garden, in the rain.

4 T
HE
G
ARDEN
A
PARTMENT

IT’S NOT REALLY A GARDEN. NOT A REGULAR GARden, like where Rauden grew corn on the hill or Janet got flowers outside her house.

It is more like mud. The mud has grass in it. The mud and grass is in a square, and brick goes around that square, what they call, a Walk, with two brick buildings on each side, and they call the whole thing Courtyard 2. Next to Courtyard 2 is Courtyard 3, then 4, then 5—you get the picture. Twenty courtyards total. 16 units in each one. 320 total units. In the whole thing, there could be fifty people still alive. In our own courtyard, we were the only ones.

There used to be a little pool in the garden but it was drained and filled with dirt so it won’t breed something bad. I planted potatoes there when the rain stopped, from garbage I found by the City Line.

And let me say this about the life we started now, in Honey Vitale’s garden apartment. I never had a life like it before. Neither did Ani. I don’t know how that works for Ani’s different life if we both get the same different life. But I can tell you this. These next years, in the garden apartment—Ani’s early years? It’s pretty much the best part of our whole life together, that we had. Ani and me.

We got a two bedroom unit on the first floor of the second building on the left. This unit came with furniture, which was, I don’t know, plaid. Believe me, I never even saw furniture like this, let alone sit on it. Where I generally lived was a mess or picked clean. This place, there was even candy left, in glass dishes, with tops. Tables with glass tops. Mirrors on the walls. Nothing is even broken. They even had TV, the old kind, in a cabinet. It worked. Someone already rigged the TV to a cable from Nassau County, on the other side of the City Line wall. We used to watch TV all the time, if the power worked. If not, we just got into bed all day and hug. I found blankets in a closet.

At that time, after Mumbai, most of Queens was pretty quiet. Believe me, it was quiet out here too. But we saw people sometimes, like when we went to food drops. We never went too far. Ani is getting big to carry, and I was nervous who we will meet. It could be vigilantes. I heard they got vigilantes by the City Line wall. At least I don’t have to worry about Ethics inspectors. Ethics took a bad hit when the Staten Island Dome cracked, from people trying to break in to escape Mumbai. You might see cops once in a while on the Expressway or Northern Boulevard, but generally it was just regular people, and even those are old. I don’t know what oldies are doing still alive out here at the City Line, which was close to Creedmoor and had been a Mumbai epicenter. Maybe they’re hardy oldies. Maybe they’re lucky. Either way, I was pretty sure they were not going to steal Ani, or if they tried, they would move so slow I could catch them. But man, they stared!

Sometimes they follow us. Like, I will look behind us when we walked to a food drop and some oldie is following us. It will be the woman oldie, not the man. At first I ran away. But in a while, I got used to it and would slow down and let them look and they would say she is so cute. I thought she’s cute too. She got hair now and is even cuter than before. Well, I think they would of thought she’s cute no matter how she looked. As far as I could tell, she was the only kid in the garden apartments, and maybe the whole City Line Zone. Supposedly, Mumbai’s over, it’s safe to go out, and in our Zone, some people did. They didn’t bring kids. I would of liked to see another kid. But we’re the only ones I ever came across. I would of liked to see another Parent, how they do it, so their kid gets the kind of different life Ani should have. Most kids in those days, they got no life, period.

They had a program on TV we used to watch—
Gone Too Soon—
just pictures of babies and small kids who died from Mumbai. It was really sad. Ani liked it. I worried is it wrong to show her all these kids who died, but she didn’t know they’re dead or even what that is. And how else are we going to see another kid? I used to look at these pictures of regular kids who died, to compare. Does Ani look like them? I looked at the little clothes they wore. Puffies, stretchies, little caps and Bonnets. One kid even wore a shirt and tie. It was so sad.

One day I heard a knock on our door. I just grabbed Ani so fast and hid with her in a closet till the knocking stopped. Then I come out, open the door very careful, and look around. Well, what is this? It is food. Process, crackers. Water in bottles, which we did not even need—there are already big pots in the courtyard to catch rain. I got all the water I need. I could use the bottles, though.

Well, I start to find little things at the door. Little clothes. Once somebody left dydees and I saw an oldie running off. I think it’s Alma Cho from Courtyard 5. She is really small. Old Norma Pellicano from Courtyard 8 would sometimes leave things too. Sometimes they both did, and I would hear them talk outside our door. They mostly talk about what is wrong with what the other one brought. After a while I start to open the door and let them look at Ani. I didn’t let them touch her.

Well, one day when it is a little warmer, Ani gets a big environmental factor. I hear a noise at my door, and what is this?

It’s one of those bubble carriers you used to see. I think I see Alma Cho scurry away. Man! Where did she find that? I just put Ani in a little sweater and hat one of them had left, set her down in the carrier, wheel her out the Walk, down the street, and here we go. I’m so glad I don’t have to lug her, I didn’t worry about cops or vigilantes or even how it’s raining. I just push the carrier and run and run in the rain—almost to the end of the City Line Zone, past Alley Pond Park till we come to a ramp and up we go till, whoa! The ramp just stopped. A drop went from the edge of the ramp to a big empty road below. I think it is the old Expressway. I think the ramp used to be a bridge that broke. You got a great view from here—Alley Pond, mist, sky, I even think Little Neck Bay. I am so busy with the view, at first I don’t see someone standing on the other side of the Expressway, in a mask. Well, I start to wheel Ani away fast—you never know who is behind those masks. But I look back.

It is just a woman holding a bundle. She’s just standing there, carrying a bundle.

So I turned around, and just stood there a while and so did she, her with the bundle, me with the carrier, each of us on the other side of the Expressway. I really want to see what’s in her bundle. I got the idea she really wants to see what’s in my carrier.

So I opened the carrier and picked Ani up and held her facing out. The woman really stared. Then she took her bundle and, well, she did not unwrap it, but when she held it out, I could see it move. Ani could too. She really stared. What could it be but what it looks like?

Tiny newbie. Still alive.

It started to squirm, the way Ani used to. The woman has to hold it close and bounce it. She has to walk it. It squirmed more. So she shook her head, waved, and walked off down the ramp with the bundle. We watched them go.

Well, here is what happened now. Ani reached her arm out where they had been and starts to cry. I mean she howled. She looked right at me, howling, with tears down her face, and then she did something she never did before. She said, “My.” I never heard her say a word before. I don’t know how she knew it in the first place.

When we got home, I put the TV on for her to watch while I am putting out our things to dry.
Gone Too Soon
comes on. She put her arm out and said, “My.” When the show was over, she said, “My.” She even pointed at the TV when it’s off and said, “My.”

The whole next day, “My! My!” and then the next day, “Mani.” That is me! Man! Where did she get that? Here is something she will say. “Dis.” She will point at something and say, “Dis.” I think it means, like, thing. Sometimes she will say, “Mani, dis.” She wants me to give it to her, the thing. “Mani, dis.” It was very cute.