“Is it true at this store I can buy whatever I could possibly need?” Lenny asked.
“Indeed it is true,” the elderly lady behind the counter responded. “What is it you need?” she asked, as she brought her wrinkled hands together, fingers locked. The tension in her muscles caused purple veins to protrude and Lenny thought he could actually see the thick, slow moving blood passing along them. A hairy mole sitting on the lower knuckle of her middle finger, right hand, shifted as if it were alive. Lenny stared hard at it to see if it actually was.
“I asked a question. Where I come from it’s considered polite to respond,” she said, but smiling. Her thin red lips slicing up into the cavernous landscape of her cheeks. Her lips were so thin they were almost nonexistent — but not quite.
Lenny nodded gently, convincing himself of their decision, his and his wife’s decision. “I would like to buy a baby,” he said as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The elderly woman’s mouth opened wide in delight; as she spoke her breath smelled of licorice. “Indeed, I should have guessed!” she said, grinning those thin lips, exposing teeth so small they probably should have belonged to a small child. As her hands came together, fingers locked upon the counter, Lenny found his eyes again drawn to that mole — that mole that lived independently of the hand from which it grew.
“Why don’t I show you a selection?” she suggested, pointing across the store toward the window. As Lenny watched a hearse slowly moved past, followed by a procession of mourners. It jerked suddenly and stopped as black smoke spiraled from the engine.
Lenny was startled by the lady walking past him and only now noticed she had not just one but two wooden legs. Only, they were just two wooden fence posts with shoes laced up at the bottom. To walk she had to swing her legs just like Pinocchio once had. She stopped above a trap door and stamped upon it with her shoe.
“This way now. Come on, young man I haven’t got all day,” she said, stepping from the trap door and pulling it up. She yelled, “We’re coming down,” and a cat meowed. A light flashed on and she started to descend the steps. Lenny followed close behind, placing his feet down the rungs of the ladder, all the time gazing down upon the lady’s head and the red growth that sat in the center of a bald patch. Didn’t it just move? He asked himself, blinking and staring again. It was like a pumping heart; only it sat upon her head. A spare perhaps?
They reached the bottom and were in a well-lit oval-shaped room in which was a row of what looked like lockers. The ginger cat sat on top. The elderly lady hobbled over to the first and opened it, then slid out the tray on which the baby was upon.
“This one’s nine months old,” she said. “Male...”
“How much?” Lenny asked.
The lady turned and scratched at her ear, something flaked off and floated to the floor like snow. “Two thousand dollars for you,” she said.
Lenny’s heart sank. He had nothing like that amount.
“Do you have a cheaper one?” he asked.
“How much cheaper?” she asked.
“I only have five hundred.”
The lady sighed. As she had the veins of her neck pulsed. They were just as protruded as the veins on her hands and were full and purple, and the blood sludged along inside like mud.
She twisted her head round one way then the other before staring hard upon Lenny. “I do have one for that price,” she said moving in that swinging leg movement over to the far locker. She pulled it open and then in the same swift motion had brought the tray out. Lenny gazed at the little baby, immediately wondering why it was cheaper than the others. Was there something wrong with it? Six fingers? Eight toes?
“I call him the stale baby,” she said covering Lenny in the smell of licorice.
“Stale?”
“Yes, that’s right — at least that’s how I describe his condition. You see, he can’t be exposed to the sun. He’ll go stale. He’ll die.”
Lenny wasn’t sure if his wife would approve but there seemed little choice, as the other babies were far too expensive. He accepted and followed the elderly lady back up the stepladder. She unbuttoned her blouse and placed the baby inside as she climbed the steps. The smell of sour milk filtered into Lenny’s nostrils.
At the top, Lenny glanced out the window and could have sworn he had just seen a man taking a step out of the coffin and shutting the lid. He watched as the pale, thin old man walked from the coffin to where the driver was trying to fix the engine problem. It appeared he was offering advice on how to fix it.
“Would you like him wrapped?” the lady asked. She was holding a big piece of brown paper and a bundle of string.
“No, I’ll carry him,” Lenny said and went over to pay the lady and to collect his present for Helen.
He handed over the cash then took the baby in his hands. As he was leaving the lady called to him. “Remember to keep him out of the sun.”
Lenny nodded and stepped outside. He looked up to the sky. It was dark and cloudy and threatened to rain. He glanced over to the hearse as he heard the engine. He saw a pale arm from within the coffin pull the lid down. Then the baby started to cry so he headed home thinking of possible names.
“Surprise!” Lenny yelled as he pushed open the front door of their caravan. He held the baby out to his wife as she came naked from the bathroom.
“I’ve got a surprise of my own,” she said. “I finally got pregnant, the doctor was wrong!”
“Whose baby is that?” she asked.
As the weeks passed, Helen became ever fonder of the baby Lenny had bought and though they couldn’t afford both it and the one she would in a few months be giving birth to, they decided to try their best.
And as the lady at the store had strongly warned, they had kept him out of the sun. Though both had been tempted to find out what exactly would happen if he were exposed. But they couldn’t risk it: he would go stale, he would die, she had said so herself.
But one day while drinking wine and trying to come up with a name for the new baby, neither had noticed the sun had escaped the clouds and neither had realized the sun was beaming across the cot in which baby Bobby, the stale baby, slept.
Two bottles of wine later, having decided on the name Terry whether it was a boy or girl, Lenny was the first to smell the stench. Just like a rotten road kill that had been bathing in the sun for days and nobody had bothered to scrape it up.
Helen thought she must have been burning the dinner, but hadn’t even remembered buying the ingredients. The oven was empty. Only then did they notice baby Bobby reaching into the sky, into the sun’s rays, his arm a yellow-gray color with patches of white.
“Oh Jesus Christ!” Lenny screamed as he ran over to Bobby. He was lying on his back, his whole body was the yellow-gray shade and he had patches of the white mould over him. And the smell was almost unbearable, even with hands over faces. Lenny picked the baby up, panicking, not knowing what one should do with a stale baby. And the baby was boiling hot: Lenny had to pull his sleeves over his hands so to hold him without burning his fingers. Most of the white blobs of mould had come off upon Lenny’s sweater as he walked backwards and forwards trying to stop Bobby from crying.
Helen picked up the phone and called the store. She shouted down the phone, panic-stricken, then listened, swallowing hard and nodding. She put the phone down. “The fridge, darling. We have to cool him in the fridge!” So they did, holding each other and waiting and hoping it might work. They checked at fifteen-minute intervals but the staleness remained. Maybe not as bad, but it remained nevertheless.
“What are we to do?” Lenny asked holding the phone to his ear.
“I warned you,” the elderly lady said. She had brought her fist down upon her spider on hearing the news of the stale baby having gotten sick. The spider was still living and desperately tried to maneuver its crushed body; two of the legs still trying to walk.
“What else can we do?” Lenny asked. “The freezer, will that work?”
The elderly shop owner thought about it. It was the best shot they had. She shouldn’t ever have sold the baby to them. She should have known it would end in tears.
“Yes, try the freezer,” she said, shaking her head, furious that parents could be so negligent. She slammed the phone down and gazed at the mutilated spider. She brushed it into her hand and was about to eat the remains when she changed her mind and tossed it onto the floor for her cat to eat instead.
Lenny and Helen put the baby in the freezer. Before shutting the door Helen placed a kiss on the baby’s forehead. Bobby looked so small and innocent; his skin so horribly discolored and that horrid white mould still under his fingernails and between his toes.
They waited, as with the fridge, opening the door at fifteen-minute intervals. It seemed to be working, slowly but surely their baby was getting its freshness back.
They took it in turns during the night keeping an eye on the baby while the other slept. As Helen sat in the chair she closed her eyes briefly, shut to rest them, but she thought as long as she kept on thinking she couldn’t fall asleep. And she had at least learnt her lesson from today and would never be so irresponsible again. And then she was asleep...
Helen and Lenny awoke together at 11.47 am with the sun shining upon their faces. They yawned together, they stood together and then they looked together for the baby. Realization hit home and together they opened the freezer door. Baby Bobby was perfectly normal, perfectly peaceful — perfectly dead.
Lenny carried the lifeless baby back to the store. As he entered the elderly lady was already shaking her head. Lenny held the body out to her.
“Please, can’t you do anything?”
She nodded, and held her hands out. Lenny passed her the baby and she stroked the baby’s head. That hairy mole, twice the size it had been, crawled across her knuckles as Lenny watched.
Then the baby was alive and it was smiling at the lady.
“Oh God, thank you!” Lenny said holding his arms out to reclaim the baby.
The elderly lady shook her head again this time smiling with disappointment, her small teeth glistening with saliva.
“No, no, you misunderstand.”
And Lenny felt the hands grasping him. Two policemen had seized him clutching him under the armpits and carrying him out into the sun. And now the hearse was again waiting. Lenny knew what was coming — the slim, pale man was already exiting the coffin as they approached.
He held the lid while the police officers threw Lenny inside. Then the lid was closed and the policemen held it down while the pale man hammered the nails into the wood.
Copyright © 2003 by Stephen Goldsmith
