I hook up the spinning Elmo sprinkler. It does not spin. The Bug is uncertain. However, he is also very into washing cars. He sits on his big wheel. His legs are only long enough for his toes to reach the pedals, so he pushes his feet along the ground, steering toward the cascade of water. Water dots up his legs and belly. The big front wheel gets soaked. The Bug is naked, and tentative. He observes it a long time. He seems to be deciding upon a plan of attack.
A fly lights on my foot and I shriek. It didn't look like a fly at first. Feeling foolish, I mess with Elmo, wrestle with him until he spins like he's supposed to. It's a flimsy, cheap spin, but it means The Bug has to consider all new things.
On Saturdays, men come to my house and take care of my yard. Every four weeks I give the main guy a check. They are thorough and kind. My yard is small and beautifully kept. There is a small white peach tree in the corner. Many of the peaches fell and were worked over slowly by snails and other disgusting creeping things. After three days or so, the rotting things would be only brown seeds. I tried to clean them all up once, but Mister Aran said that was just the way of things. The fruit falls. The bugs eat it. The seeds bust open and grow new trees. I didn't want to think about it.
*
Last night in the car I had a moment. I was feeling fine. A little roughed up from sparring, but fine. I had a vague notion of getting into Mister Aran's pants as we drove home. He was coming home late from work and I knew he was tired.
Halfway there, I thought of abandoned babies. You never know, until you watch from the outside, how much work it is just to grow. Kids are hard workers. Babies have just spent nine months coming from nothing but two microscopic cells. They do it all themselves. Us women are just their house and food. We're not creating their little hearts and things; they are.
I went to Colorado and The Bug got sick. Fevers worse than ever before. He laid on my lap lengthwise, his head on my knees, and fitfully napped. His skin was red and it burned my fingers to touch him. I fed him droppers full of Pedialyte while he slept. His mouth was open, his lips cracked, and he breathed fast. His chest was tiny. His lungs underneath working hard. His whole body fighting. I wept.
In the car last night I thought of the babies. We tend to think of the mothers of the babies, in these instances. How could she do that? we wonder. But last night I thought of what it is, to be enclosed and growing, in the dark, to finally come out into the cold and open your eyes to the fuzzy world, then to be left in a dumpster to die. Your last breaths full of garbage smell. Your body fighting to breathe. Your tiny stomach cramping. Starving to death. Crying at first, then stopping.
I thought, all that work! Last night The Bug took out all our shoes, counting. "One shoe. Two shoes. Three shoes. Four shoes." He lined them all up. He can name Thomas and all his thousand or so friends. For what? It takes so much work just to get to two. So much must be learned. Bones growing whole inches in a few weeks. Brains and relationships developing. So much. For what? For what? It is too easy to die.
*
In my backyard today, The Bug is loved. The kids on my block are loved, as far as I can tell. While I wash my car in the driveway, boys gather to discuss rules to a game that seems to be like tag, but with a ball that has a handle. I think you become "It" when you get bopped with it. But that's where the simplicity ends. The "It" guy can only see his opponents when they move. They can only be still for ten seconds. They count out loud. The game stops often for foul calls and more in-depth discussions of the rules, rule amendments. Then it's game on again.
posted by Samus @ 5:16 PM
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