The Only Ones (19 page)

Well, the weather warmed up and the rain stopped. I would push Ani in the carrier to different places. So there is an area with grass they call golf course, where old men and women used to sit on a bench in the sun. So I would sometimes wheel Ani past, and she is like eating a cracker or holding a bottle. The old men used to pretend they would steal her bottle and said, “Gimme dat!” like this was funny. The women did not say it. Ani didn’t think it was so funny. It got so when she even saw some old man on the street she hid the bottle.

One day, I’m wheeling Ani down West Alley Road, and one old man is sitting on the curb. He starts to point one shaky finger at the bottle. Ani stuck the bottle right out at him, like she will hit him with it. She yelled, “My!” She was mad. I got us out of there really fast and turned the corner. She gave me a look I never saw before. She showed me the bottle, said, “My had dis,” and laughed so hard she cried. I thought it was funny too. I didn’t even know what it meant.

Well, one day she comes to me with her arms up and goes, “Pick you up, Mani.” So I thought that is cute too, but I want her to know who is who.

So I go, “No, Ani. Pick
me
up.”

Well, that does not work. She tries.

“No, Ani.” I want her to say it right. I want her to get it right, who is who. I don’t want her to mix us up.

“Pick you up! Pick you up!”

I hit her. I didn’t know what else to do.

I will never forget how she looked—shocked, tears just rolling down her face. I picked her right up and held her. She did not even hit me back, just cried in my neck. I can tell you this. I’m never doing that again. I don’t care who is who or what. I don’t care if I don’t show her who is boss.

I just don’t know how this is supposed to work. One reason I watched TV, I thought I can find some program with kids and Parents in it, get some ideas, how it is supposed to be, the different life I’m going to give her, if I could.

It’s true I also put on
Fresh Start
sometimes, because I hoped it will show that program we watched with Janet Delize that time, about those Parents who were so mad with grief they want to make a new kid the same way Ani was. I want her to have a different life, but to tell the truth, I sometimes want to see someone else with a life like us. We were the only ones I ever heard of.

The News would run stupid stories about the baby crisis and what they call Alt Repro. Someone is always sure there is a booming business in what they call clone factories or nests, which is supposedly so unethical they want to call a raid. They never show a real case. They never show a picture of a real clone. From what I could tell, nobody ever even saw one. Or if they did, they wouldn’t know. Like, Ani and me? If someone saw us, what? I’m going to spill the beans? So there could be others like us, Ani and me, who did not spill the beans. To be honest, I wished there were. Maybe something is wrong with it. Maybe it is a crime against nature. But I wished we weren’t the only ones.

I watched a lot of News. I don’t know how new the News was or if it’s even true. Norma Pellicano says it depends what boat it got transmit from. Alma Cho thought it’s transmit from some Dome. She thought Memphis. Norma said that Dome cracked. A lot of Domes cracked besides Staten Island. The Cincinnati PharmaDome cracked, plus some Process Domes in New Jersey. Moscow and Johannesburg Domes cracked bad. Rio cracked long ago. Beijing Dome still worked. Manhattan too. Sometimes the News said terrorists cracked those Domes. Alma Cho says. “No. It not work.” She means Domes do not work. She talked like that.

The News is mostly still about Mumbai. They would show a map with blue on it where the Pandy had hit or was hitting now. It is still spreading overseas. Some place called Grozny was hit bad. In America, besides Queens and Brooklyn and adjoining areas, St. Paul, Minnesota, still had it, plus Kansas City and San Diego. Buffalo was a mess. I wondered how e) was doing. The baby crisis is global. It was bad for years but now it’s off the charts.

Sometimes I thought the whole clone panic was made up. Like, this is going to get people’s minds off everybody being dead. Like, come on, even with everyone dead, no infrastructure, no kids, even no Ethics, at least in New York, we still have too much ethics to commit crimes against nature like nuclear Transfer.

The Horror show I told you about—
Them?
Where nuclear Transfer works like bingo? That is totally made up. This show was so stupid, I worried Ani might see it and it’s a bad environmental factor. I only watched it if I’m sure she’s asleep. I honestly don’t know why I even watched it myself, it is so stupid. If you believe this show, clones are pale and do things in a group, facing forward, like an army. None of them could think for themself. Twins could though. Look at Rauden and Henry. Well, on this stupid
Them,
clones can’t think for themself, because they are not real, because they’re clones. They cannot even bleed.

Ani did bleed, I guarantee. I mean, when she bleeds, she hit the roof.

How do you prove a person’s real? Like proving was she me? How do you prove either of those things, either way? I really thought about this a lot. As environmental factor, that look from Janet went a long way. Well, I had a lot of time on my hands out in the garden apartment. I don’t even know if it was Ani’s time or mine. I don’t know whose hands it’s on, if you want to put it that way.

We sometimes slept at different times. But what does that prove? Maybe she is just me in a different place. We sometimes disagreed. I mean, once she learned to talk. Like, she didn’t want me to go anywhere without her. I disagreed. I sometimes just want to go somewhere by myself. I mean, a different room. She did not want me in a different room.

Sometimes I carried her to the other bedroom when she’s already asleep. She would wake up and sneak back. I don’t know what that proves. When she stole back, she woke me up. Then I’m awake, even when she goes back to sleep, and once I’m up, I’m up for good, except when she would take a nap. But she would not take a nap. So I can’t take a nap. Who’s going to keep an eye on her? I’m the only one in charge.

Sometimes I worry, does she want to be with me all the time because, you know? But come on, if I’m her, why does she care? If I’m her, I’m there already.

She wants me to carry her too, I mean, all the time. She’s getting so big. She’s almost two years old by now! How do I carry her, if she is me? In the Horror show, clones are always all the same age and size, so it doesn’t come up.

When I used to live with Cissy Fardo, before the baby crisis got really bad, they sometimes had what they call Dramas, that are not scary like Horror but are also not based on fact. In this one Drama I saw with Cissy, someone is adopted, so the only thing they care about was their real background, which meant who their Life product came from. In Dramas where they are not adopted but are regular, it did not come up. They care about their life. If they’re regular, their Life just did not come up. They already knew where it came from—the Parents. At least back then it did.

For myself, it was a little different. I was not exactly what you call adopted, because there are no papers. So I guess it is not a real adoption, even though Cissy Fardo took care of me for ten years, until she died. Her real kids already grew up and I never knew if they were even still alive because they moved out long before the Big One, so as far as being different from her real kids, I didn’t know how real I was because I was the only one around.

Maybe it just proves something is wrong with me, but as a kid I was not that curious about my Life or background or any of that. I was mostly curious if Cissy Fardo would stay alive, and she didn’t.

If Ani is me, or exactly like me, she will not be curious about her background or Life. If she’s not me, it won’t even matter. She’ll be regular. She can think what she wants.

Sometimes I just thought it is too stupid to even worry about. Rauden thought so.

I missed Rauden. But I was afraid to be in touch. I thought he will be angry I declined to come back. I was even afraid he will make me change my mind, and we’ll end up back at the Farm. He was always trying to keep me in his sight. He was as bad as Ani.

But I missed him, and the Farm too.

On Ani’s second birthday, I went to a message Board way up Little Neck Parkway, which worked good, logged into Universal Guest, so no one can reply, and sent Rauden this message: “Still alive.”

ii

She even did her business in a pot.

Sometimes.

Here is something funny Ani did. The sofa in the living room has plaid cushions? So, one cover got loose so you can see the foam inside? She took a big bite of the foam! Here is what she did next. With the big bite in her mouth, she hopped one two three to the mirror and spits the foam out. Man! What was she thinking?

I guarantee I never did that. Cissy Fardo, if I did something like that, she would knock me to kingdom come. So maybe I would of done it if I could.

Here is something else. She got lost. She had trouble finding the door. It happened a lot. She will be like in a chair? Then gets up to go somewhere, then stops. Then she will look around, worried. Then she will walk around again and stop. Then again. Then she will sit down on the floor and cry. If she is outside, well, I could see the problem. Everything looked the same in Courtyard 2. How could you know what is our door? But inside?

I was concerned. I would like her to find the door, of course. Still, that is one more difference between us. I did not get lost. I could find the door.

Maybe I couldn’t when I was her age. Maybe I would of had a problem with a door if we had more than one room. We just had one room in that basement, and Cissy Fardo never let me out. Nobody let their kids out. Maybe I would of got lost too, if Cissy Fardo let me out.

I thought about her a lot, now I was bringing Ani up. I wondered how she even stood it, locked up in the basement with me all that time? Ani and me, we could go anywhere—courtyard, foraging. It still sometimes got on my nerves.

Here is something else I wondered—the time she left the basement door unlocked? And I was heading to the street, in Corona? She got up those stairs so fast. Before, if I thought about that time—I mean, once I knew I was a hardy—I would think, all that for nothing. She could of let me out. I’m a goddamn hardy, I could drink water from a puddle in the street and not get cholera. I could kiss someone with Luzon on the mouth and still not get it. Now I thought a different way about it.

How did she get up the stairs so fast? She was old.

And with those legs. Her legs were so big and swollen they spilled over her slipper. It is like you see in a picture in a book of elephants. They were so big, in the end she couldn’t climb the steps at all. She had to let me out to forage for food. She couldn’t walk at all, even from a fire.

I thought about her legs.

I guess I thought two ways about them. One is, keep an eye on how my legs are doing or I could die in a fire. And there goes Ani’s different life. The other is just Cissy Fardo’s legs, period. It is a really long time since I thought about Cissy Fardo’s legs. I thought about her hands too. How they are white and swollen. How they fixed things. Food. Buttons. How she fixed my hair in the little bunch. I thought about her smell.

It is a really long time since I thought about Cissy Fardo’s smell.

I thought how she took care of me. I thought how I felt when she died and I was just a kid and was like, where is Cissy? Who will take care of me now? And then, what happened next? Well, I’m not even going to tell you about that. It’s bad enough Rauden figured it out. I just don’t want it to happen to Ani. I want her to have a different life, and not even so she won’t be a crime against nature and we’re all in jail. I just don’t want her to feel that way I felt.

She did seem to have a different life. So far.

Two and a half years old. Still alive.

She’s in the courtyard, playing with leaves that fell from one tree that nobody cut down for wood. She is scooping leaves up and pouring them on her head. She is rolling in them. I guarantee I never did that.

Sometimes I got really sick of thinking about it all the time. Sometimes it didn’t even mean that much to me one way or the other is she me or like me or e) or even the Santa Sofya ones, if they were born. They could all be her if they want.

Just let her be the one of her I get to keep.

She got a little jacket Alma left for her. Little tiny jeans and, oh man. Tiny overalls. I wish Rauden could see her in them. She was so cute.

Three years old. Still alive.

Ani is playing with some wood with nails in it I hauled back from the City Line.

“Do not touch! It tetanus.” Alma Cho. Where did she come from? You would look up and there is Alma Cho in the corner of the courtyard. She is really small and bent and wears a blue hat and, like, apron.

I yell back, “Do not butt in. She does not get anything.” Oh, shit. She doesn’t know we are a Sylvain hardy. She will think I’m a bad mother. So I said, “Ani, no. Do not touch.” Then I check back if Alma Cho heard. I think she did.

So maybe it worked. Maybe she thinks I’m not a bad mother.

I don’t even know why I cared. Alma Cho is not going to Alert anybody. She is probably worried someone will Alert somebody about her.

Still, I thought be on the safe side. Once, I had brought some forage back from Douglaston Estates and Ani is playing with some antiPatho spray she found in a box. I looked down the courtyard entrance and here is Alma Cho again, watching. Now, I don’t get sick from the antiPatho spray and Ani neither probably, but Alma Cho does not know that. I’m pretty sure she never heard of Sylvain hardy. So I do the thing again, like, “Be careful, Ani.” I say it loud, so Alma could hear.

A few days later, Alma Cho is right at the door. She got tapes and pamphlet. Do chores for her. She will give us tapes and pamphlet. What do I need that for? What even is a pamphlet? She says, “Ok. Coupon.” She talked that way. Which I enjoyed. She means she will give me coupons if I do chores for her. Go in some units where people died. Get forage. Spray with anti-Patho. Ok, she figured us out, at least the hardy part. She isn’t going to Alert anyone. She just wants us to do her chores. So I got some dishes and chairs for her in Courtyard 4. I did pretend to look out for Ani, be careful, do not touch. I can’t make Ani stay away though. She followed me even in the units.