The Only Ones (24 page)

I really wanted it to be ok for her to be born. What else did she have?

And then I thought, well, no one will goddamn take that from her. I’m going to intervene. Work the system? I will do that. Take another test? Whatever. I’m going back to Queens and make it my Project to get Ani fixed. And when she is fixed, it’s going to be ok for the whole goddamn lot to be born.

So I told Rauden, and he told Suresh. I am ready to do this. Suresh checked Mill Rock out and said it is ok. So that’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to do what we must to make this work.

Henry cleans up our swipes. He updates our codes. And remember, he says, if there is ever a problem, like a pure code Reader could read her as me? Punch some keys he shows me. It will crash the system. Someone could bring it up again, but this will buy time.

Before we left, Rauden brought me down in the basement to look at some new tank he was tinkering with, while Janet Delize took Ani off somewhere to look at rabbits.

The new tank could convert to a mini strap-on unit, which was a great idea because these days most hardy sales are overseas and Transport is an issue. You still couldn’t bring live children across borders without papers, so it had to be viables, like the Santa Sofya ones, and you had to smuggle them, so this mini unit will get strapped to the Courier’s belly, like she is a Host. Make the unit from soft plexi so it won’t set off alarms, and come on, who’s going to go poking around there? If Ani’s anomalies get fixed, and they work out some details, there could be some serious Transport here. If they got any calls. Which so far, they didn’t.

It’s funny, remember how when I declined to come back I was afraid to even talk to Rauden, because I worried he would make me come back to the Farm and do the work? I wanted to do it now. I didn’t want to leave.

It wasn’t only that I wanted to do the work again and try the new tank. The truth is, when Henry took Ani on the wheelchair for a ride? It was the first time in more than four years she had been out of my sight, even at the City Line school. I felt like I been holding my breath for five years. With Henry and Janet to pitch in, I could sometimes take a break. And then, they all understood our real situation, even Janet. They were the only ones in the world who did. Besides me.

But we have to get Ani fixed, and anyhow, she wanted to go home. She liked Henry, and she got used to everybody else. I really would of liked to stay, forever. But Ani hung tough. And maybe it would of been better if we stayed, and maybe not, but either way, we left.

Henry said don’t be strangers, and when we’re getting on the hybro home, Rauden said if it turned out there was any work in the future, maybe I could come back from time to time for that.

And I will tell you, when he said I could come back to do the work? It wasn’t about the money at all. It just made me happy. I’m just saying, how things turned out—well, I’m getting ahead of myself, but when you find out, maybe you will think it was only about the money, but it wasn’t. I just want to say this now, so you could think about it when you see how things turned out. It just made me happy.

v

To get to Mill Rock Special school you got to take a bus. The bus is one of those alt fuel things, they call it cuchifrito. You smell it first. It has dark windows so no one can see in. You got to wait at a Stop on the old Expressway, near some kind of broken wall, at 7 a.m.

The driver is Kurvinder. The bus goes a short way on the old Expressway, then overland to Astoria. You cross maybe three Zones. Door to door, including ferries at the end, it’s about two hours each way. Ani gets the whole trip free. It makes no sense but Suresh said those B of E things never did.

By the time she finished all the tests she got to take to start at Mill Rock, it’s January. They let me come in with her on the bus for two weeks. Then someone named Melanie, who seems to be in charge, says Ani must start coming in alone, like a big girl. Ani just stands there, stiff like wood while Melanie is saying this. And I am stiff too. Because I can tell you, that is not going to happen. She’s never coming here again.

But, remember when I knew what Rauden’s thinking? Melanie knows what I am thinking. She grabs my hand and gives me a long look. “Ani is a very Special kid,” she goes. “But she’s not the only one. These Special kids need to own their lives.”

I don’t even know what it means. But I don’t have to know. Melanie is like Rini Jaffur. She is so nice. Then you end up doing what she says.

Monday morning the cuchifrito bus goes off with Ani alone on it, and I’m just standing by the broken wall, in a freezing wind. And it’s like when I gave her that pill. What did I do? What did I do?

I look to Alley Pond. I look to Little Neck Bay and then the other way, the way she’s going. Flushing, Jackson Heights, Queensbridge, Manhattan Dome.

WHAT DID I DO?

Remember when Ani went to sleep as a newbie and I was like, oh! I have a head. What do I do with my head? Now I’m like, here is an idea. Bang it on the wall till it breaks. I want to break my head. Why would I do that?

Then I won’t feel this way.

Hello?

If I break my head on the wall, who will be waiting when she comes home on the bus?

I went back to the garden apartment and all day I’m like, lie down on Ani’s empty bed. Go out the door and wait on our empty front steps in the cold. Lie down. Go out.

I get to the Stop an hour early and wait in the wind by the wall. The bus is one hour late. I am stiff like ice and it’s already night when I smell the cuchifrito. The lights approach. The bus stops. The doors open. No one gets off.

What did I do?

I tried to give her a different life. Now look. They took her away and lost her. I’m never seeing her again. No one is even on the steps.

Except Ani Fardo.

On the steps.

Six years, eight months old.

And even today, if I close my eyes, I can see her like that. In her little Puffy. On the steps.

She got new mittens! She holds one up to show. Climbs down the steps, shaking. Reaches ground.

We just stood there a minute, in the dark. Then I took her little mitten hand and swing it. We go off in the night, swinging hands until her legs give out. Then I just carry her home in the dark. All the way, I feel her little body through the Puffy, shaking. Still alive.

I was too.

5 T
HE
E
DUCATION

SHE WAS USUALLY ONE HOUR LATE COMING BACK. I was usually half an hour early, waiting. Sometimes I was one hour early. Sometimes she was two hours late.

Maybe one day you will hear the stupid things people say about what we are, Ani and me. Is it ethical? Are we real? Is she me? Like that is all our whole life will ever be about.

Well, at this point, our life is pretty much wake up, get Ani dressed, put food in her, drag her to the cuchifrito bus. Sometimes she’s crying all the way to the bus.

Wave goodbye.

Sometimes I am crying all the way home.

Mill Rock is an Outdoor School, and I mean really outdoor. Most of the rooms do not even have a wall. It’s windy. When you get off the ferry at the dock, that banner, “EVERY CHILD IS SPECIAL!” is flapping so hard it makes a noise.

Well, she has hardly been at the school two months when she climbs off the bus in Queens, still alive, and says, “You do not know what I am.”

So I’m like, oh shit, oh shit. They already figured us out. They will turn us in.

She is just trying to skip away. “You do not know!”

“Stop skipping. Stop skipping.” I’m a Sylvain hardy, I don’t get anything. But I’m getting a heart attack here.

She, like, tries to twirl. It doesn’t work. She just runs back to me, and, remember how she mouthed “tank” when we saw tanks at JFK? She mouths, “I am Special.” And she hands me a Note. Then she tries to skip off. That also doesn’t work, she has to hop. At least she does it forward.

I read the Note. Well, it is just a lot of words about how our kid is Special because every kid is. Whatever it means, it’s like Melanie said. She’s not the only one.

Special is a big deal. They really cannot shut up about it.

All I really wanted for Ani, besides be alive, and not me, was be regular. It turns out every child is a Special child.

But at the Conference that every Parent must attend two times a goddamn year, Melanie does that squeeze my hand thing, like Rini. Then she looks so deep in my eyes I get dizzy. Then she says, “That doesn’t mean Ani isn’t Special too.”

Whoa!

They’re all supposed to think they are Special, whatever they have.

Maybe she is more Special than the others. How would I know?

At April, she is getting off the bus, still alive, and says that, “I am Special” thing. But she waits till we are past the golf course till she pulls me close and tells me why. “I could tie the shoe. Migan cannot.” Then she puts her mouth right to my ear and whispers, “So ha ha ha.” Then she just turns around and tries to skip away. She has a problem skipping, and these new purple boots she took from the Mill Rock Sharing room do not really help. She wears them pretty much day and night.

Well, I have a problem skipping, myself, but I was almost skipping too. They’re going to fix her! She will be ok. She could tie her shoes, Migan cannot, she’s going to have regular Needs, how Special is that?

You could say, well I could tie my own shoes and did not have to ride four hours on a goddamn bus to do it. And that is totally true.

But you could also say, come on. Is this a different life or what?

What’s Special about most of these kids is, they have a wiring problem.

Some have a scam. This one kid, Don Park, he is supposed to be Asperger, what they call, Asperger. It turns out he just tested wrong, he’s Gifted. His Parents said, oh, he already made friends. Let him stay. Melanie is so nice she says Gifted is a Special Need too, but to tell the truth I think it is the Parents’ scam. They come from out of state, this school will not ask questions, he will mainstream out and some really good school in the Dome will let him grandfather in. Maybe the whole family could get a Pass to even live in the Dome. This kid gets brought to school in a skiff. I think they camped out on some other island. They aren’t the only ones. A few families did that on the weekdays so they don’t have to travel so far.

Besides Don Park, there is a real Asperger kid too, who likes to say, “Is this the rehearsal?” So you are supposed to say, “Very good.”

Don’t let them think something is wrong with them. The good part is, the teachers all know something is wrong with them, so when the kids do not do what they say, they are not expelled. Most of the time, the teacher does not even make them do anything.

When I ask Ani, do you do what Melanie says, she doesn’t even know what that means. Melanie usually says, oh! Want to play Nature today? Magnet Alley? Where Is The President? But nobody has to do what Melanie says. I guess that is good because Ani does not do what anyone says anyhow. A lot of these kids don’t. So the teachers do Strategies. This one kid, Tensin, is Oppositional, what they call, Oppositional? To take off her coat you have to say, put on the coat. So then she takes off the coat.

Ani, it doesn’t work either way, but she is not expelled. They know something’s wrong with her. They think they know what it is. Give me a break. What’s wrong with Ani didn’t even cross their mind.

These kids all get lost, so Ani’s not the only one. I really don’t think anyone but her is Special from nuclear Transfer. They just have wiring problems. So the teachers let them play with magnets. The kids put on a Special belt with metal on it, then the teacher has the magnet and the kid does not get lost, he sticks to the magnet. These kids do not know where they belong. Some of them, I think it is a kind of vaccine Syndrome, but also Mumbai messed up whatever infrastructure was even left, and then with the reproductive crisis, Hosts, gene splicing, Donor everything, they could end up with a Boundary problem. This one kid, Itzhak, has so much trouble with Boundaries, he could hear a conversation in Yonkers. He just couldn’t hear what the teacher says. So they are devising a Strategy for Itzhak. Should they have walls?

That’s the big question, walls. This Boundary thing, is the wall going to help or get in the way? It also is a problem because it is an Outdoor School. It is about the Funding. Like they must be an Outdoor School or the Funding goes. As Outdoor School they could have walls if they do not have a roof or the other way around but not both. One mother thinks she could hack Funding and maybe change the Funding rules and we could have both walls and roofs, but so far it didn’t work.

So Melanie finds out they could get away with an awning for rain, but these kids need something to bounce off or they’re going to land in the East River. So they put up a few walls with insulation against injury but some have to wear a helmet anyhow. For Ani this is not the problem. Maybe that is why they think she is so Special. I don’t even know if they really do.

Ani does, though. She thinks she is more Special than me. Remember Rini Jaffur said, if you are gene for gene her living replica, how is she more special than you?

Well, it could be the self-esteem she is learning in school. When I went to school, we didn’t learn that. So it is a difference. Another difference is, she is passing in school. They don’t call it that because of the self-esteem. But she is not expelled. How Special is that?

She already made it to her second year at Mill Rock. She is seven years, five months old and still wearing the purple boots, even though it is warm. She loves those boots. She climbs off the bus, hands me a Note, and says, “You do not know what is a Project.”

I go, “Oh! What is a Project?” Believe me, I know what is a Project. Give me a break here,
she
was a Project. But I go, “Oh! I do not know!” for the self-esteem, and open the Note.

She’s like, “Oh, Ma, you are silly. You don’t know anything! You don’t even know where is the President.”

I go, “Nobody does.”

“Oh, Ma, you are silly. Wichita Dome!”

So that is news to me.