Turns Out I’m an Entire Person!
The Beginning of the End
My mother lost her baby and my father lost his leg. So I tried to be her baby and I tried to be his leg. On both counts, I failed.
“You’re not a very good baby,” my mother said suspiciously. “You’re practically dead, you’re so old.”
“You’re not a very good leg either,” my father said. “On account of the fact that you’re an entire person, and not a leg.”
Still I tried. I let my mother spoon-feed me. I let her buy me Bibles and nightgowns. But I could not make the whole “baby” thing work. Babies are little dummies, and I am no dummy. I could not be a little dummy if I tried, and I did try. My mother would tell me where babies came from and I said “I know better than that.” She told me what would happen after I close my eyes for the final time, which I couldn’t disprove, but didn’t wholly believe and couldn’t fake it. She told me what sort of man to trust and which ones not to—“Never trust a man with dark hair and light eyes,” she said. I said OK, but she could tell I already had had some experience with men. She tried to tell me who to vote for, and that’s where I lost it. “Babies don’t vote,” I said. “Don’t try to make your baby vote. It’s not allowed.” “Why,” she said, “oh, why do you fight with your poor mother? Why can’t you be a real baby who never ever fights?”
I decided to put all my energies into being the leg, then. I held my father up while he pointed his gun at things. But I was too tall, much taller than a leg had any right to be. And, once again, I was no dummy. “Don’t point your gun at that,” I said. “You’re not the boss of me, Leg,” my father said. “Crouch a little so you’re level with the other leg.” I crouched and tucked my head. Now I couldn’t see what he pointed his gun at. But I heard someone crying. “Are you pointing your gun at a baby?” I said, not looking. “Not a real one,” he said. “Not real as in an animal or not real as in me pretending?” I said. “Not real as in, don’t look up, and you’ll never see it.” There was a blast, but the blast could have been the gun, or it could have been anything else that might make a blast sound. It could have been a typewriter. Or a firework. Or the beginning of the end of something.
Illustration by Devan Murphy