Curby (2 page)

“Whaa! Whaaa!”

“We have to cut it with something. Find a pair of scissors somewhere.”

Reaching into his pocket, Tommy pulled out his switchblade, flipped it open and proceeded to cut the umbilical cord.

The baby continued to cry.

Valerie spoke softly to him. “Oooo! Okay, baby, don’t cry. Everything is going to be all right. Da-dee take care of boo boo.”

“Whaa! Whaa! Whaa!

“Fuck that Daddy shit. We gotta get rid of it.”

“It’s not an it, Tommy. He’s your son.”

“Hey, cut the crap. I told you a long time ago, we’re getting rid of it.”

“Whaaa!”

“Feed that thing will you?”

It wasn’t easy to sit up on a hard floor right after child birth and hold your baby for breast feeding.

Pacing the floor in front of her, Tommy anxiously ran his fingers through his hair while staring at the boiler, loud and bellowing like a mystical beast.

“We gotta get rid of it.”

A searing chill ran down Valerie’s spine. She looked at him, staring at the boiler and it horrified her. “No! Hell, no!”

The boy rubbed the back of his head while pacing the floor. He punched his fist into the palm of his hand and wiped his face.

“Then we’ll have to leave it somewhere.”

“Oh, Tommy. Can’t we keep him? You don’t have to marry me. You can get a job. We could get an apartment. Please, Tommy?”

“Shut up! It’ll never work. Put that thing down and get dressed. I have someplace I need to go right now.”

“At least let me wash him off, first.”

“So, use the sink! Nobody’s stopping you!”

The once, white porcelain utility sink, stained black like a dirty sidewalk and filled from end to end with spider webs, smelled of dumped oil. She brushed it out with her fingers and ran hot and cold water from the tap. She placed the baby under the tested flow, ignoring his cries as she continued to wipe him down.

Tommy yelled, “Let’s go, already!”

“I’m coming. I need something to dry him off with. Give me your shirt.”

“I’m not giving you ‘nothin’! Use your own!”

She gave him a hard look. “Hold him while I take off my blouse.”

Tommy grimaced. He held the baby away from himself, less some of its after birth should touch his clean shirt. “Hurry up. I can’t wait all day. This thing might pee on me any second, now.”

This was all so wrong. In tears, Valerie said, “Can you at least get me a box to put him in?”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll look.”

“Here, give me the baby.”

In the back room, amid discarded toys, used tires, water hoses and miscellaneous trash, lay several boxes filled with an assortment of items left from more than a few abandoned apartments over the years. He turned one of the boxes upside down and shook it empty, waved the dust away from his face and rushed back inside.

“Was that the best you could do? It’s filthy.”

“So, what do you care? We’re getting rid of him, ain’t we?”

The tears returned. Valerie kissed the baby on the forehead and tilted her head to the side. “He’s really cute. Look, he’s sleeping. He looks like you. Don’t you think so, Tommy?”

“I don’t think anything and I don’t give a shit. There’s a dumpster behind the stores. We can leave the box in there.”

“No…please, Tommy. Why can’t we leave him where someone will find him? You know, maybe give him a new home.”

“Why? Who cares? Out of sight, out of mind, right?”

She placed some of the discarded foam along the bottom of the box and lowered the baby inside where he let out a series of coughs. She blew the dust away. “Okay, baby, Mommy’s here.”

Tommy stared at the two of them with a grimace on his face. He opened the creaking door to the outside and headed up the stone steps with Valerie trailing behind carrying the box.

A block away, he checked both sides of the street and then jerked his finger downward, silently motioning for her to leave the baby on the sidewalk.

“It’s so cruel to leave him here. How about on top of that stoop?”

“What the hell for. Leave him by the garbage cans. That way it’ll look like we’re dumping trash, in case somebody’s looking out of their window.”

Ignoring him, she left the box at the top of the steps by the front entryway. They walked away with Valerie turning back from time to time, muffling her cries in her hands. Leaving her in front of her building, Tommy left for his urgent appointment. But first, there was something he had to do.

Returning to the abandoned baby, still sleeping at the top of the stoop, he picked up the box and stepped down to the garbage cans. He lifted up one of the shiny metal tops, full to the top with packed garbage and closed it back up again. Checking around, he waited for a couple to pass by and make their way up the block.

Today was alternate parking for this side of the street. Soon, cars would come vying for the prime parking spaces and well before the eleven o’clock deadline. Sure that no one was watching, he placed the box gently in the gutter so as not to wake the baby inside; the gutter where he judged a rolling tire would soon be.

There were times when Nick Santinelli found an item in the street that was worth something--not often, but often enough to
keep his eyes open for it. He stopped the street sweeper, put it in park and pulled up on the emergency brake. To keep from slipping off of the metal steps, he climbed down backwards while holding onto the railing.

Looking down at the box, he thought he saw it move; then again, and this time he was sure.

Puppies! I’ll bet somebody left a bunch of puppies out here. Geez, they could have gotten crushed.

Gently, he lifted one of the cardboard lids, and then another.

“Holy Christmas! What the hell!”

He looked up and down the street and behind himself, but no one was standing nearby and the people that were down street seemed oblivious to what had unfolded between his own two feet.

Lifting the box up, he flipped the rest of the lids over the sides and grinned at the baby that was sleeping and making sucking sounds. “You cute little guy. How in the world did you get in there? Don’t tell me some meany abandoned you. My word, I don’t believe some of the people in this city.”

He reached high and opened the steel door to the sweeper. Climbing up the precariously placed steps, he laid the box on the floor on the other side of the seat and sat behind the wheel.

Ecstatic, Nick couldn’t wait to get home to Sandy. Oh, sure, he knew all about the process. After all, this couldn’t go unreported. A police report had to be made out, the rightful owners sought after and all of that, but Sandy would know what to do. Besides, this was an emergency, wasn’t it? Of course, he thought. There was no time to go to a hospital. He could call when he got to the apartment.

And the hell with the route, too. He checked the street ahead.

This part of the route never gets that dirty, anyway. They’ll never even notice…and fortunately for me, it’s almost break time. I’m going to have to make the best of this fifteen minute break.

Their second floor apartment, situated blocks from the route, faced the back yard. Nick climbed the stairs of the stuffy hallway with his heart pounding. He hadn’t been this excited since winning the football pool at work.

“Sandy!” he called out, as soon as he entered the living room.

Her hair, still wet from a shower, his girlfriend sat on the couch drying it. “What are you doing home, Hon?”

“Oh, nothing important…just a baby I found in the street.”

She instantly stopped drying her hair, holding the still pose and replaying what she just heard inside her mind, or what she thought she just heard.

No, that could not have been what he said.

She turned to him with a questioning look. “What did you just say?”

Nick laid the box on the table and opened it up.

“Ohhh! Good gracious…a baby! What the hell is he doing in that nasty old box, and where did you find him?”

“In the gutter! Would you believe some idiot left this baby in the street? I could have swept it up and nobody would have known the difference.”

“Oh, Nick…hurry down to the Drug Store and get some formula. And bottles! Hurry! Oh, and get some dental floss so I can tie off this umbilical cord.”

Feeling her apprehension, Nick rushed for the door. “Wash him up, I’ll be right back.”

Sandy yelled after him. “Don’t wait for a line in there. Tell them it’s an emergency.”

She carried the awakening baby to the bathroom, turned on the tap until it was tepid and gently soaped him up in the sink. She rinsed him off and cradled him in a towel, carrying him back to the couch where she cleaned the umbilical cord with peroxide.

The baby started to make sucking sounds. Held in her left arm, she took a wash cloth out of the linen closet, wet it and held it to the baby’s mouth. The baby immediate sucked on it.

“You little darling, you. You are so cute my little bunny rabbit. I love you, yes I do, pumpkin.”

The line inside the Drug Store was indeed long. Another register was opening, but there were people lining up in front of that one as well, and it was becoming just as long.

Nick held a case of formula over his head and shouted to the cashier as he exited through the doorway. “Hey, Elaine, I got an emergency, I’ll be right back.”

“Wait, you can’t do that,” the cashier yelled back.

Slamming his way through the outside door with his butt, Nick said, “I’ll be right back. I’m not going anywhere.”

He rushed home, running all the way and huffing out of breath. Upon reaching the apartment, he barged through the door.

“Here, I’ll open a can for you.”

“Did you get the bottles like I told you?”

“Damn! I’ll be right back!”

Shaking her head, Sandy heated a little formula in a pan. She tested it on her wrist on the way to the couch. Lifting the baby,
she dipped a clean washcloth in the formula and dabbed some of it on his lips.

Nick returned shortly with the bottles and disposable diapers, bright eyed and eager to hold the baby.

“Calm down, Nick. Give me a second, will you?”

Nick grinned and embraced the new born in his arms, cuddled him warmly and said sweet nothings into his ear.

“If only we could keep this little guy?”

“Here, let me have him,” she said. “You better get to work. It’s almost 9:30. The foreman’s going to see your truck outside and you were supposed to be back on your route by 9:15.”

The last thing Nick wanted was to leave the infant. He hated to, but work was work.

“Let’s give him a name?”

“Nick, will you go, already?”

He kissed the baby on the cheek and then kissed Sandy.

She stared at him.

“Okay, okay…I’m going.”

At the door, on the way out, he poked his head back in. “How about…Curby?”

Nick…will you go before you get into trouble?”

After work, at 2:30, he did a little shopping before going home; Handy Wipes, a red and yellow rattle, a foam football, a mobile made up of cartoon characters, and lastly, a pacifier.

Searching through a local used furniture store, he found a bassinet in the back of the shop. That led to a variety store where he bought two sets of sheets, pillows, soft blankets; one powder blue and the other, tan colored.

At his building, he rushed up the steps with all of the items he bought inside the bassinet.

“I picked up everything I could think of. Oh! I forgot to buy a baby carriage.”

“A baby carriage?”

“Never mind! Let me hold him.”

With the baby in his arms, Nick looked admiringly at the boy. I can’t believe how good he is. He’s so quiet.”

“He just ate. I’m sure he’ll fall asleep.”

“Here, then take him so I can set up the bassinet,” he said.

Everything inside of the bassinet was dumped on the couch. Sandy went through it all, stacking the bedding off to the side.

“A football?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Don’t you think it’s a little early for football?”

“Not for my Curby.”

“Your Curby? What happened to calling the hospital and making out a police report? Isn’t that what you said you were going to do this morning?”

“Yeah, but that was this morning. Aw, honey. Can’t we keep him…just for a little while?”

“I’m not sure if it’s against the law. We could get in trouble for this.”

“Hey, I’ll take full blame. Who’s going to know?” he said.

“Jaime, downstairs, for one.”

“She’s your best friend.”

“What if she gets jealous and reports us?”

“We’ll confide in her.”

“Oh, Nick…I want him as much as you do. I’m afraid, that’s all. Don’t you think somebody in this building already heard the baby crying? Sooner or later, Jaime is going to know.”

“Well…so…I’ll tell them he’s my sister’s baby and she, uh…had a few complications at the hospital. She’ll be there…what…for another few weeks?”

“Nick, honey, I know how much this baby means to you, but your job…you could get into a lot of trouble over this.”

“Why, I’m the one who saved his life? He would’ve been in the landfill by now, crushed and rolled into the ground from one of those tractors out there.”