The Used World (15 page)

“Hey, Claude,” he said. She nodded in greeting.

Edie was wearing a small scooped-neck T-shirt and a pair of white jeans gone gray. She rubbed her arms, said, “You didn’t have to rush right out here.”

Hazel looked around at the cracked plaster walls, the curled and yellowing rock star and motorcycle rally posters stuck up with thumbtacks. “We took our time, actually.” She reached in the garbage bag and pulled out a blue sweatshirt. Edie took it and slipped it on but said nothing.

“Come in the kitchen, I guess,” Edie said, leading the way.

They went through a cold, damp bedroom with a set of bunk beds, a double bed without a frame, and another mattress on the floor; they passed the doorway to a dark bathroom Claudia didn’t even want to consider. A second bedroom was remarkably like the first, and then they were in the kitchen.

There was much more light in this large, south-facing room, which struck Claudia as unfortunate; there was no place safe to look. Dishes and garbage were stacked so high they surely had anthropological value, and the smell in the room was overwhelming—layers of organic decay underlined by more kerosene fumes, these radiating from five-gallon containers scattered around the room. Above the doorway to a collapsed back porch, someone had painted the name Legion inside a circle in black enamel.

Hazel pulled out a rusty metal folding chair, slid a stack of dirty dishes and newspapers from a place at the table, and sat down. She did so without a flicker of distaste, as if she’d made this gesture many times before. “So I see that your friends have discovered the womblike joys of OxyContin. This would be why my garage was robbed two weeks ago, I assume.”

Claudia continued to stand, not at all sure she could touch the debris on the battered Formica table, as Hazel had.

Edie rubbed her nose, pulled out a chair of her own. “Yeah, I guess.”

Hazel straightened her coat, continued to look directly at her sister. “Oh, I expected them. I left an old VCR, a space heater, a couple pieces of estate jewelry out there so they wouldn’t come in my house.”

Edie dug a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out from one of the stacks on the table. “Big of you.”

“Not particularly. Explain to them, please, that it was a one-time gesture, and the next time they show up at my house I’ll end their tenure on the planet.”

Edie sat back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest like a sullen teenager. Like Millie as a teenager, Claudia realized.

“How about you?” Hazel asked. “Is synthetic heroin your rabbit hole these days?”

Her sister shook her head. “Nah, I’m not using. Just a little something to keep my weight down.”

Claudia heard it, a squeak and scrabble that she assumed to be a rodent. She glanced at the dishes on the sink, but nothing moved there.

“So how did this happen?” Hazel asked. “I mean beyond the obvious.”

“I don’t know, Hazel. Jesus.” Edie blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “What difference does it make?”

Claudia’s eyes scanned the room, and when she finally discovered the source of the sound, she took a step backward. In the corner, next to a gold gas stove, was a large cardboard box, partly in shadow. But plainly visible were the head, shoulders, and chest of a pit bull, solid red with a red nose. Her green eyes were so pale they seemed ghostly. A group of puppies, five or six that Claudia could see, were waking as a group and scrambling toward their mother. The dog stared directly at Claudia without moving or blinking. The dog’s forehead was wrinkled, her ears cropped close to her head. Claudia could just make out a constellation of pale scars along the dog’s jawline.

“Do you know the age?” Hazel asked.

Edie drew on her cigarette as if trying not to scream. “I was in jail, Hazel, if you recall.”

Claudia’s heart pounded, and she felt a line of sweat break out over her upper lip. She wanted to take off her parka, but was afraid to move. The dog continued to stare at her, even as the pups nipped at their mother, clawed at her soft belly.

“What about shots, what about food?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t
know.
” Edie was speaking now through a clenched jaw.

“Claudia?” Hazel said. “Would you like to sit down?”

Claudia didn’t answer, but took a step toward the sink, away from the dog and her pups. Through the window above the sink Claudia could see the other dogs, the ones behind the house. There were at least twenty, each one chained to a metal stake planted next to a blue plastic igloo-shaped doghouse. The dogs had run half-circles in the snow, back and forth, down to the frozen dirt. Metal pans were scattered around them, and most were barking so hard they were rising up onto their hind legs, the sound punctuated with small explosions of white breath.

“—the reason you give,” Hazel was saying.

“No, it’s the truth. Really, Hazel.”

To Claudia’s left was a small dark room, probably a pantry of some kind. Next to that doorway was an old refrigerator, its door held closed with bungee cords; taped low on the wall next to the refrigerator was a poster saturated with bright, swirling colors. It said, in the center,
RELAX, MAN.
Propped on the floor in front of the poster was a dirty plastic baby chair.

“Will anyone even notice?” Hazel asked, in a quieter, less provocative tone.

“No. Nobody cares. If there was somebody who did, they’re gone.”

Claudia took a step forward, praying that she was mistaken, that the chair was just another castoff.

“Charlie and me’s got plans, we’re thinking of heading out west for the big New Mexico rally and then staying out there. So you can see I need this took care—”

Claudia took one silent step, then another. She knelt down behind the chair, and slowly turned it to face her. The baby was wide awake, thin, blue-eyed. Claudia was no expert on the ages of infants, but she guessed this child was less than six months old. He (if it was a he) was wearing a one-piece suit, blue pants and a white shirt with blue stripes. The sleeves hit him in the middle of his forearm, the pants halfway up his calf. Tucked beside the baby’s leg was an empty bottle; the streaks inside it were gray and grainy.

She heard Hazel take off her glasses and put them on the table, a sign that she was about to release a deep sigh, then smile—it was a gesture she made when she was victorious, and also when she had lost. “Charlie will enjoy his liberty for less than two weeks, Edna, and then he’ll be back in jail. You’re not going to New Mexico with him, whether or not this problem is solved.”

“For God’s sake, it’s just mean how you say things like that when you don’t know nothing about Charlie nor New Mexico either one.”

The baby stared at Claudia, unmoving, unblinking. She reached out very slowly and took his fist, which lay at his side. He was freezing. She could see that his diaper had soaked through, and the moisture was rising up his clothes to his chest. Now that she was this close she could smell him, too; a sharp, sick, chemical smell.

“Perhaps I don’t,” Hazel said. “There are many times I hope I’m wrong, actually.”

Claudia saw herself, as if she were her own neutral critic, reach down between the baby’s urine-soaked legs and unfasten the harness that held him in the chair. She did this as quietly as possible, glancing up at the two women at the table just as Hazel stood up from her chair and the pit bull in the corner leapt over the side of the cardboard box without a sound. Claudia put one hand behind the baby’s head, which was so small she could completely enclose it, and another hand under his bottom, all the while whispering shhh, shhh, and then she had the baby against her chest and under her parka, and wasn’t it amazing, she was thinking, that she had worn the Carhartt coveralls, which just happened to be waterproof. She was thinking this and not about the fact that she had someone else’s baby under her coat when she saw Hazel move more quickly than Claudia would have imagined possible, the nine-millimeter out of her pocket, where it had been hanging like a lead weight, now pointed directly at the dog that was taking one slow step toward Claudia.

Edie stood up. “Hazel! Bandit! Get back on your bed!”

The dog ignored her, and Edie, in her own moment of heroism, stepped up on her chair, kicked at the clutter on the table until she found a place to stand, then came down in front of the dog, catching her by the collar just as it appeared she was about to spring. “Put that gun away, Hazel!” she hissed, furious. “You pull a gun in this house you’ll get us all killed.”

“You put that dog away, Edie, and come back and walk us to the front door as if nothing has happened. Then I’ll hide the gun.”

Claudia, shaking now, was trying to support the baby and zip up her coat. She finally gave up and pulled the coat closed around the infant. Edie dragged the dog down the hallway to the bathroom and closed her in. Bandit hit the door in a fury, barking not in the high-pitched, almost joyous frenzy as the dogs in the backyard, but in full-throated rage. Someone from the front room yelled, “Shut that bitch up!” which earned him a round of laughter.

Edie came back to the kitchen, her face splotchy and her eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t know you was coming so soon. I don’t know if you should take him after all.”

Claudia reached in her pocket and got out the keys to the Cherokee, tossing them to Hazel, who fumbled but caught them. “You’ll need to drive, Hazel.”

Edie grabbed Claudia by the arm. “Don’t tell nobody where you got that baby, Claudia, I beg you. We’ve got enough problems out here as it is.”

Hazel slipped the gun in her pocket, walked over and looked in the cardboard box. “Want a puppy, too, Claudia?”

Claudia shook her head, dumbfounded. “No, thanks.”

“Edie,” Hazel said, “lead us to the door now. Just act naturally.”

Edie walked ahead of them through the two bedrooms, past the bathroom where Bandit was rioting, through the dim, fume-soaked living room. She opened the front door; Claudia ducked, stepped out onto the porch, and Hazel followed. The air outside was frosty, clear. Claudia took a deep breath, pulled the silent baby closer to her, and headed for the car.

“Well? What now, Hazel?” Claudia said, opening her coat and turning the baby around.

“What do you mean, what now?”

“I mean, what do you intend to do with this baby?”

“He’s your baby.”

Claudia coughed, covering the baby’s exposed ears with her hands. “No, he isn’t,” she whispered. “You’re insane. I don’t want any part of this!”

“Well, it’s too late now.” The Jeep rocked from side to side as Hazel traversed the holes in the lane leading out of Cobb Creek.

“We have to take him to the hospital, or to Child Services—”

“He smells terrible,” Hazel said, grimacing. She was sitting at the edge of the seat, trying to accommodate the twelve-inch height discrepancy between Claudia and herself.

“You can move your seat up, Hazel, you don’t have to drive like you’re ninety-seven.”

“This is identical to the Jumpin’ Bean situation,” Hazel said.

“Wha…” Claudia couldn’t speak the entire word. She gestured to the heavens. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Jumpin’—”

“This is nothing like Jumpin’ Bean, why would you even say such a—”

“How is it different, then?”

Claudia took a deep breath, prayed for patience. “For one thing, Jumpin’ Bean was a
coonhound.
”

“So he was of a different mammalian species. Big deal.”

“AND Ernie Hinshaw didn’t want him, had never wanted him.”

“Exactly the same here.”

“And Jumpin’ Bean started coming around to my house on his own, I didn’t go and just steal him off somebody’s floor. And I’ll remind you he was a dog, Hazel.”

“As I recall, you fed him for three days running, then started letting him sleep at your house, and presto, he was your dog.”

“You are crazy to be making this comparison.”

Hazel turned onto the highway. She wasn’t a great driver, and Claudia pulled the seat belt a little tighter around the baby.

“All I’m saying”—Hazel pointed at the lump under Claudia’s coat—“is feed him for three days and then see what happens.”

“Hazel, I can’t take this baby home. It’s out of the question. I’ll be happy to go to the emergency room with you, or the police department, Family Services, anything. But I can’t take him to my house.”

“And why is that, just tell me why. Tell me why it’s okay to toss that baby, who was obviously born into suffering and has continued to suffer every single day of his godforsaken life, into the jaws of institutional bureaucracy, and what is it exactly that prevents you from rising to the occasion here?”

Claudia stared at Hazel, stunned. “How dare you make this my problem. How
dare
you pass judgment on me because I don’t want to take a stolen baby into my house.”

Hazel glanced at Claudia, raised an eyebrow. “Why did you pick him up, then?”

“Because”—Claudia shook her head—“because I couldn’t leave him there to die.”

“What’s the other reason?”

Claudia let her head fall back against the seat. “There was no other reason.”