The Only Ones (21 page)

And that is one more difference between Ani and me. I could hardly get Ani to leave the courtyard after that.

“Ani. Want to forage?”

She wants to stay in the courtyard and play with dirt.

“Want to go to the food drop, Ani?” She will not even go to the food drop. I have to pick her up to even get her in the bubble carrier, and she is squirming, and when I try to open the bubble trap, she kicks it shut. “Ani!” I say. “We got to go to the food drop.”

She looks up at me and says, “Ani! We got to go to the food drop.”

So what is this?

“Ani, for real.”

“Ani, for real.” So this is the new thing.

Like, when I turn the cartoon tapes on and go, “Don’t you want to learn ABCDE?”

She goes, “Don’t you want to learn ABCDE?”

It made me nervous. Why is she talking like me? Maybe she got too stimulated. Maybe it is a Phase. In one of those pamphlets from Alma Cho, I read about the Phase.

The dirt Phase is still on.

Here is something Ani does with dirt. Digs, builds a heap, then hops one two three to the heap, points one finger at it, and says, “Do she want to touch a fish?”

Man!

Then she hops three two one away. Then she mouths, so you can hardly hear it, “Tank!” What is she thinking? Still alive. That’s the main thing.

And I will tell you this. She’s not the only one. The time when we could walk a half an hour and be the only ones we saw was starting to end. Even by the City Line you saw people on the street sometimes besides oldies, and I’m pretty sure once I saw a kid by a house behind caution tape, off Douglaston. Someone was pulling the kid back inside a door. I definitely saw a kid once when Ani let me go over the Flushing barricade. Nobody stopped us. The kid wore a mask.

Norma Pellicano said lots of new infrastructure finally came back to Queens. Central Dome has been promising it since Mumbai ended. Some schools in other Zones already are working, plus Norma said they are going to open a school out here that been closed since Luzon Second. They got working transportation in some parts. Podtrams, sailtrams, sailbuses, and I think some new kind of regular hybro, with different fuel, that even had a driver. Trikes with bubbles! Trikes without. Skates! Boardies! They had a bubble boardie too.

Well, look at that. It is one of those pigeon fleets, for messages! I guess some pigeons are still alive, even without Larraine’s intervention. They seem to be a little challenged. They just drop message Capsules wherever they are.

Man! She’s already five.

Alma and Norma brought a Princess dress and fixed her hair. Norma even brought a crown but Ani refuses to wear it. To tell the truth, I have to get her out of the courtyard very fast before she pulls the Princess dress right off. I stuff her in the carrier and went up the hill to send Rauden the birthday message. Still alive. I sometimes think I should pull the jam off my ID so he could get back to me, tell me how he’s doing. I’m just afraid he’s still mad, I declined to do the work. Maybe another time. I just left the message and off we go.

I’m going to treat her to a podtram ride. A podtram is a tram with pods, so you are not getting TB or SARS from some other traveler. I really wanted to go to the beach by JFK again, but Ani still hardly got over last time, and I thought she would like this. I just stick a coupon in the podtram Reader, climb in one pod, shut the gate.

A pigeon fleet was dumping message Capsules in Alley Pond behind us when the pod took off. Not that bright. Still alive.

The tram is heading toward Manhattan Dome. I want to show her places on the way where she has been, or I have. I really thought about what that mother with the Donor everything said, about the Heritage.

Here is Kissena Boulevard, where the bus stopped but it wasn’t a regular Stop or bus, and Cissy Fardo climbed on, took me off, and carried me to Corona. I never told Rauden that. I didn’t tell Ani that. I just told her the word as we passed by.
Kissena.

Here is Flushing Meadows, where we had Resettlement.

Here is Elmhurst, where we stayed in the unit with the nylon. I didn’t make a big deal. I just said the word.
Elmhurst.
We passed three big cemeteries, then Sunnyside, where neither of us ever been. We got off at Hunter’s Point and looked across the river at the sun shining on the Manhattan Dome. I didn’t see it so close since Ani was a baby, at Queensbridge. Now she is five years old, and I was so proud. She talks. She walks. She does her business in a goddamn pot. What I’m saying is, ok, Rauden made history with Ani.

You tell me this. Who kept her alive?

By now I was so used to my life with Ani, I didn’t worry all the time. Maybe I should of worried now. Like, why is that pigeon fleet dropping a Capsule in our courtyard when we got back, tired, from our long day? Maybe I should of thought, better hide that Capsule before Ani saw it. But maybe when you see what’s coming it’s just as well I waited to worry. I will have lots of Opportunity to worry, after today.

Ani scrambled from her carrier, grabbed the Capsule, and opened it up. In the Capsule is two little papers. She hands one to me.

REPORT TO DESIGNATED CENTER FOR ID CHECK AND HEALTH PROFILE.

I turned it over.

CHECK LOCAL BOARD FOR DETAILS.

Ok, it is some kind of stupid scam. I bunched it up and put it in my pocket. “It’s a scam, Ani.”

I should of done the same thing with the second paper. I should of bunched it up and hid it. I wish I did. I wish I threw it in a heap of worms. I wish I burnt it. I wish I did anything but read it.

But I did.

On one side it said, CITY LINE BOARD OF ED.

And on the other, PARENT SCHOOL AGE CHILD.

Too late now.

What it is, it’s the end of the time it’s just us two.

iii

Look, I try to be a good mother. I want an Education for my daughter. But, come on. ID check?

In the night, I made a pile of what we will need. Clothes, pots and dishes, blankets, food and water. I think I could fit it all in two really big bags. I still got the bag Janet sent us off with. I will forage for another up past the Little Neck Board. They got some really good forage left in the big houses up the hill.

I wheeled Ani up Little Neck Parkway the next day, after lunch. There is one big house up the hill that got very good forage plus this thing in back called a patio where Ani sometimes liked to play but this big house does not have a big bag and the house beside it just got small ones. Ok, I will have to make do with one big, two small. I will just stuff as much as I could in those. Then move to the beach. “Time to go, Ani,” and she climbed in the carrier and I wheeled her out the door. I was pretty sure they will not have school at the beach.

Ok, I know. I know. This sounds bad.

Here she has an Opportunity I never had in my whole life to get an Education. She could learn something. She could be somebody. And I am moving to the beach?

I wheeled Ani to the sidewalk.

Well you are right of course, but try to see my point of view. What are the chances no one will notice something? We could really get in trouble. Alert the Authority? These guys
are
the Authority. She is a crime against nature. I helped commit it. I just thought it’s better to move to the beach. And that is really going to work.

I sat down on the curb and put my head in my hands. What was I thinking?

Ani did not even like the beach. She hates the beach.

I was just so mixed up.

Ani fell asleep in the sun.

I sat on the curb a long time. Then I got up and pushed the carrier back down to the Board to check out these so-called details. She really outgrew the carrier but for trips this long I just stuff her in and her legs stick out.

HELLO! WELCOME TO CITY LINE BOARD OF ED. Chancellor Hugo Murcia is delighted to inform Parents that the City Line Disaster Fund finally came through after just four years! And guess what?

EVERY CITY LINE CHILD OF SCHOOL AGE MUST REPORT TO PS 263, 261
^st
AVENUE, 8:15 SEPTEMBER 5.

And not only that.

IT IS MANDATORY THAT PRIOR TO THAT DATE YOUR CHILD REPORT TO DESIGNATED HEALTH CENTER AT PARSONS BOULEVARD WITH ID FOR COMPLETE HEALTH PROFILE.

Complete Health Profile. Oh, that is really going to work. I just bumped the whole thing off and wheeled Ani around empty houses down the hill and big flat burnt-out lots all the way to the grass and sand at the edge of Little Neck Bay, where I parked the carrier on the grass with Ani conked out. Then I lay down beside her on the grass, just Ani and me.

That’s what it has been all these years—Ani and me. Foraging, exploring Zones, planting potatoes, watching TV. The whole time, just two oldies even knew who we are. No one knew what we are. What if somebody finds out?

She is on her side, flopped in her carrier, breathing. I just watched her breathe, like when she was a newbie.

I was just so worried what will happen. I’m worried they will take her away. I’m just so worried they will give her to someone else.

Then I fell asleep too.

When I woke up, everything looked different. The water looked different. It has lines in it. I got up and walked over to see it up close. No bodies. A barge was paddling past. I haven’t looked at the water this close since the old days on the Mound, when I had a different life.

I looked back at Ani, who is starting to wake up too. She was rubbing her eyes and stretching. She was so cute.

And then I start to think, wait. What about
her
different life? All she does is spend her time with me. She even watches the same cartoons I watched when I was as young as her. It’s true I went to school myself a little when it was open between Epis till it shut down for good, but it was Catholic School. I never went to regular school. She could learn a skill. She could meet another kid. She could have another goddamn environmental factor besides me!

And come on. It’s not like we never took a risk. Fundy vigilantes, quarantines, not to mention it was pretty goddamn risky for her to even be born. I took deep breaths like Rauden said to do. That calmed me down enough to come back to Ani, who is still yawning. Ok, give it a shot. “You want to go to school?”

She blinks. “You want to go to school?”

“Ani, don’t start.”

She goes, “Ani, don’t start.”

Man! I could hardly wait for this Phase to be over. I walked off and took deep breaths till I am calm enough to think of a plan. Then I come back and say, “I’m going to school too.”

She fell for it. “I’m going to school too.”

Me, “We’re going to school,” her, “We’re going to school,” so that’s it, it worked. We’re going to school.

Wait. Do we want to go to school?

Too late now.

It took a month till I got my nerve up and brought Ani for the complete Health Profile all the way at the Parson’s Boulevard Center, and I can tell you, I was so scared I have to breathe deep the whole way. But the scanner didn’t work. So nothing came up. We even came back another time. It still didn’t work. The person gave me a card and a map to find PS 263 and said, “These scanners never work. Just bring your daughter to school as indicated. They will have a scanner there. It probably won’t work, either.”

I start to think we could bring this off.

I start to get excited. Really excited. I start to run around jumping up and down. I’m not the only one excited. Word of the new school spread all over the garden apartments. I think it spread all over the Zone. Alma Cho starts bringing school forage. Backpack. Crayons. Norma Pellicano left a ruler. Lunchbox. Little plaid skirt. Well, look at this. It is Jellies.

Alma Cho brought a regular clock. She shows me how to wind the button so it works. Now Ani won’t be late to school.

Not much chance of that. I lie awake that whole night before September 5 with the clock beside me. When it says seven, I woke Ani up, cleaned her good, put her in the plaid skirt and Jellies, stuffed her in the bubble carrier, put the clock in my pocket, took the card and map and headed out. Alma Cho is standing on the corner, waving. She is smiling but I got the feeling if she didn’t see us on our way to school, she’d turn us in. We waved back.

At 74
^th
Avenue, I saw two people at a window, waving. We waved back. I had been in this part of City Line northeast before. I never saw so many people out. One oldie is in front of a house that is covered in plastic. She is covered in plastic too. She waved and we waved back.

By the time we got to Union Turnpike, I started to hear a sound. At 259
^th
Street, Ani heard it too. The closer we get, the bigger it is. It’s only when we turn the last corner we find out what it is. Kids crying. A big bunch of kids and Parents are standing near an old brick building, under a flag. The Parents are crying too. And watching the whole thing is more people than I saw at once since the Mumbai panics. Some of them are crying too. They just want to look at kids. Some of the Parents hid the children’s faces. Some wore masks. We should of worn a mask too. Then if something showed, no one would guess. No one looked at us funny though. We walked through the door.

The swipe Reader didn’t work! Everyone got through. The scanner for Health Profile didn’t work. Everyone’s crying so much they just want to get us in fast. We got through!

They put us all in one regular room, with pictures on the walls, and books, and toys, and a teacher, and a smell. I mean, it was all interesting. But the most interesting thing was, kids. I didn’t see so many kids since the Myrtle Avenue Center that gave green Process so long ago. I guess there was fifteen Parent/ kid combos. The kids are in like blankets and shower curtains for Hygiene but after a while the kids got hot and cranky so the Parent took the wrappings off, and inside was, you know, kids—different color kids, brown, pink, tan, gray. Some of them are totally white, like they never even saw daylight. Some of them had a big head. One had a sort of pipe to help her breathe. One wore a helmet. I don’t know why she wore a helmet. All I know is, compared to those kids, we seemed regular. Ani began to cry.

She flung a hand out at the others. I thought she would say, “My,” the way she did with that newbie on the bridge. She just cried. The others cried too. Most had never seen a real child except themself. They were the only ones they knew. The Parents cried too. They wouldn’t even leave the classroom. They wanted to hold their kids. Finally the teacher let us stay in the room, holding our kids. We stayed all day. The next week, we had to wait out in the hall, if the kid would let go of us. We sat on the floor in the hall. You could hear the kids cry through the door. They could hear us cry too.