Baby Shoes

WHAT DO YOU SEE? I see a woman using the public restroom of some department store. She’s locked the door and changing the diaper of a baby wrapped in sheets and newspaper pulled from the trash. The whole time the baby is crying but the woman remains calm, she had done this enough times for her not to react in any other way. The woman herself is dirty, wearing an oversized hoodie and torn skinny jeans. Her face is wrinkled and her hair is falling out, something common for a woman in her older age but, on a woman in her early twenties it looks tragic. Her nose is runny and red and coarse from all of her constant sniffing and rubbing but she treats the crying thing carefully and with love, cooing at the bundle of sheets and smiling at it through yellow teeth as she puts bright red baby shoes on the crying thing’s feet. 

There’s a knock at the door, the handle jiggles and the pile of sheets cries harder. The woman shouts back at the door, “Occupied!” 

The jiggling stops and a stern muffled voice from the other side says, “Ma’am, this restroom is for customers only.” 

“I’m taking a shit!” 

“We’ve gone through this. You’re going to need to leave or I will have to call the police.” 

“Oh Christ,” the woman lets out in frustration and bundles the crying thing in its sheets and newspaper. “No need for that. I’m coming out.” 

The door knob jiggles again. 

“I said hold on! Dumb motherfucker!” 

“Now, ma’am,” the muffled voice from the other side says. 

She coughs out more grief under her breath as she hurries with the crying thing and rests it against her chest before reaching for the door. 

The door swings open and the woman comes out yelling, “Can’t a lady get a little privacy or respect?” 

“What lady,” the muffled voice asks, belonging to a fat bald man in a cheap blue button up and, behind him, a scrawny needle nose with glasses trembles. 

“Fuck you! Fat tub of lard!” The woman says and, immediately, the fat bald man puts a hand on the back of the woman’s neck and guides her to the front entrance of the store. She throws his grip off of her as she shouts, “Get your fat fucking hands off of me!” But the fat bald man puts his hands back on her, gripping her harder, as he rushes the woman and the crying thing out the door. All the while, the woman pushes back and curses as the baby against her chest continues to cry until the fat bald man shoves her out of the front door and into the night air of an empty parking lot.  

“Suck a cock! I hope you choke on all of them!” 

“Stay out of here, psycho! Or I’m calling the cops!” The fat bald man says and then goes back inside. 

“Eat dicks! Faggots!” 

She lifts the crying thing higher to her chest as she sticks her crotch up to the fat bald man as the needle nose with glasses strolls up behind him. The woman mimics splitting the lips of her vagina over her torn skinny jeans as she waggles her tongue at the two men. The doors close and the fat bald man locks it and then shakes his head. Again, she lifts the crying pile of sheets up on her chest, settling the thing, and walks off through the parking lot and down the street.  

Cradling the crying thing all the way to the subway, smiling at the pile of sheets and newspaper on her lap. The passengers toss glimpses at her, the disheveled tattered woman, but quickly turn back to their phones or reading materials. Most just stare at the floor. 

She steps off a city bus near the underpass of a freeway and the thing of sheets against her chest is still crying. The woman shushes and smiles at the thing as she walks across the street and toward a broken wire fence along the on ramp of the freeway. It’s full of tall grass and discarded trash, mattresses, plastic bags and rotting papers, and the hum of cars speeding by on the freeway overhead. She walks down the long stretch until she comes to a dip and the grass falls off into a dirty patch of water that surrounds the concrete legs of a bridge. She walks with the crying thing underneath the bridge into darkness and finds a dry patch of dirt against the concrete walling of the bridge and sits against it and cradles the pile of sheets in her lap, smiling and touching the crying thing with her dirty fingernails as she sings to it. 

“Down the same old tracks, here it rolling? All along the railroad we will go. And the tracks laid ahead they keep on going. Rolling down the railroad is a soul, whose light is made of gold.” 

The crying thing falls silently to sleep. The woman sits the pile of sheets down on the ground next to her as she pulls the belt away from around her waist and sits it on the ground as well. Then she pulls out a small black zipped up bag from out of her oversized hoodie, sets it on her lap and opens it. From the bag she pulls out a kit of spoons, a lighter with the tab torn free, and a reusable syringe, and then ties herself off with the belt. 

She runs the routine and, as she drifts off, the sound of smooches and squeaks echo off the concrete walls from some place below and the pile sheets begins to cry again. Her body floods with good feelings and warmth. The woman sees a light and, in it, a better life. Her, with better skin, healthy teeth, a home, and someone that loves her pulling her into a warm embrace.  

“You smell good,” she says and turns to kiss a strong man with his shirt off next to her. He pulls her closer in by the hips and she wiggles into him and kisses him again. And so, he responds with a thrust, making the woman gasp. 

“Be gentle,” she says. 

“I will,” he says and thrusts again. And, again, she gasps and then giggles. 

“She kicked,” the woman says and caresses her full belly.  

The man jumps back but smiles and also rubs the woman’s swollen belly and the two kiss once more. 

“Oh my God! I can feel her,” he says and his face lights up and so does she, both of them beaming with joy. “Should we stop?” 

“No.” 

“Okay.” 

He pulls her in once more and the two gasp together. Then he picks up speed. 

“Wait,” she says. 

“What? You okay?” 

The woman smiles and turns to him and touches his chest. “I want to do it and float,” she says and pushes her waist and hips back into him. 

“With the baby?” 

“If I like it, she’ll like it,” she says, “you got any?” 

His smile fades, “I don’t know.” 

“Come on, I want to,” she says. 

“I got some from some garbage heads, along with a little George. But, I was going to flip it,” he says and touches her belly again. “I’ll have some quality stuff coming in soon. Let’s hold off until then, huh?” 

“Forget it,” she says and pulls herself away. 

“Don’t be like that,” he says and touches her waist once more but she pulls away again and frustration rushes over his face. “Fine.” 

“I said forget it,” she says. 

The man gets up. He’s naked as he walks over to the dresser and picks up his clothes and rummages through them until he finds two twisted clear baggies, one white with powder and the other a dark reddish brown, and comes back to bed. 

“Here,” he says and dangles the baggies over her shoulder and she takes them. “Hand me my smokes and a magazine.” And so she does. He rolls the tobacco out of the cigarette and onto the magazine and stuffs the tobacco back inside while sprinkling parts of the white and dark reddish-brown powder in as well until the cigarette is full again. The woman stares up at the man, her eyes following his movements in a transfixed state as he repeats the process with another and then splits the two between them after topping off the second, making what is called a ‘flamethrower’. “Okay?” He asks and she takes the flamethrower.  

The man smiles and reaches over her to set the magazine down on the nightstand and returns with a lighter and a pair of bright red baby shoes that he tap dances across the woman’s belly and so she laughs. 

Flick, and the flame ignites. 

She leans in and sucks the fire into the end of her cigarette and, immediately, her body relaxes. The man smiles again as he moves closer behind her and grips the woman by her hips once more. She takes another hit and breathes the smoke out forever, and rubs her belly as the man thrusts into her. He lights his own flamethrower and the two start giggling in ecstasy until he cums and rolls over, and the two lie blissfully, breathing heavy and full heartedly with their eyes closed and so they nod away. 

 When she comes to it’s with confusion and a wave of nausea. Her hands hit the bed around her until she hears the smacking thuds of cold unresponsive flesh. As she manages to get up she sees the naked man lying next to her and shakes him but he doesn’t respond. He is slumped over with his mouth gaping open.  

She stares into his face, “What are you doing? Get up,” and shakes him again. 

When the realization hits her she finds it hard to breathe and goes dizzy. Her head swings back down onto the mattress. Her mouth slacks open and her body jitters like the clicking of a gear. Her legs slip against each other. The woman reaches down between her legs and it’s wet. When she pulls her hand back up she sees blood running down her fingers. That’s when the lights go out. 

What she sees next are red and blue lights, sterile surroundings, all bright and blinding. There are quick voices of people she’s never heard before. They sound as if they’re under water but they speak with deliberate articulation. Still, she can’t understand what they're saying and so she feels for her belly to comfort herself but the strangers push her hands away. 

When she comes to again, she’s lying on a stiff bed in a room she doesn’t recognize. Her wrists have binds holding them to the metal railing of her bed. She tugs and stretches, managing about three inches of clearance. She pulls again but can’t pull any further and so her wrists collapse.  

“Do you understand me,” a voice asks.

The woman looks up and notices an old lady with a sweet face and wounded eyes staring back at her from across the room. She’s wearing a cheap heavy dress all dark with flowers and a plastic badge with her face and name clipped to her collar with ‘S. WORKER’ printed in big black letters at the top. 

“Huh?” the woman asks.

“I’m telling you that there were complications and that we were unable to save the baby.”

“No. She’s right here,” the woman responds, rubbing her swollen belly. “Who are you?”

The old lady smiles a tight smile, “We’re going to hold you here as you recover and then we can… remove the baby. Since she,” the old lady stops and readjusts, “sorry. Since your pregnancy was so close to term you will need a cesarean section.”

“I don’t understand. What happened to my baby?”

The old lady pushes through as the woman’s eyes well up and spill over. “The police will need to speak to you but only after you’re ready, okay?” and then stands up and touches the woman’s bound wrist. The old lady tries to smile as she says, “everything is going to be okay.”  

It’s raining. Water trickles in under the bridge, some of which drips down from the concrete ledge above and sprinkles droplets on top of the woman’s head. There are smooching noises and squeaks of several things echoing off the concrete walls as she opens her eyes and reality greets her with cold, and so she rolls over and tucks her hands into her armpits and closes her eyes again, settling into the dirt. The woman feels something crawl across her feet and kicks out as a reflex and the squeaking and smooching sounds intensify. Something nips at her feet and startles her awake, and so she tucks her feet under her into a ball.

It’s quiet, outside of the rain and the squeaking shifting sounds. The woman sits up, unraveling the belt from around her wrists as she breathes in the cold early morning air. As she wakes up, her senses come back to her. She feels the ground next to her and jumps. The ground responds with a squeak and she looks down to see rats scurrying by, heading toward a twisted mound of crawling dark things. And, beneath it, a pair of bright red baby shoes stick out of the frantic festering heap.  

“No!” She cries, “Get off of her!” 

The rats snap at the woman’s hands as she pushes through them until she is able to clear the heap of rats away from the silent pile of sheets. 

“Baby, please be okay.” 

The rats scurry off into the darkness of the bridge below as the woman opens the bundle of sheets to find lying within is a sleeping baby with black and blue skin.” 

“No!” She screams and picks the silent thing up into her arms. It’s eyes are shut but its lips and ears are chunks of chewed flesh. “Wake up, baby girl. Come on, you’re okay,” but she’s gone and the woman cries over her. 

They dig in the sandbox, swing from the monkey bars, and chase each other across the rich green grass of a field surrounded by trees. Mothers and nannies watch the children play between glances of their phones and conversation. They sit on park benches in the shade of the trees with strollers and big bags of treats and magazines as an ice cream cart pushes by. 

The man pushing the cart rings the bell and children jump up with excitement and surround the ice cream cart. He smiles and laughs as the children yell at their mothers and nannies for money, so the women turn to their purses or change pouches and dish out dollars and cents. And so the children cheer and run around again. And the mothers and nannies laugh and watch them go. In all of the excitement, no one notices the tattered woman in the oversized hoodie and torn skinny jeans watching them from behind the trees, narrowing her sights on a baby carriage. 

“Ma’am, how many times are we going to go over this,” the fat bald man asks.

“I’ll only be a minute,” says the muffled voice of the woman through heavy baby cries from the other side of the door.  

The needle nose with glasses walks up behind the fat bald man, “She back?” 

“Yup.” 

“Some people, huh?” The needle noses asks. 

“Yup.” 

“Just a minute!” She yells back as the handle jiggles and shakes. She is bundling a baby in a pile of sheets and newspaper pulled from the trash. 

“Now, miss!” The fat bald man shouts at her from the other side of the door and jiggles the handle some more.

But the woman pays him no mind. Her eyes are bright and beaming with joy as she fits a pair of bright red baby shoes onto the baby’s feet and sings to the crying thing, “down the same old tracks, feel it rolling? All along the railroad we will go. And the tracks laid ahead they keep on going. Rolling down the railroad is a soul, whose light is made of gold.”