I had spent a miserable hour at the Lincoln Park post
office, in a line consisting of nothing but miserable people waiting to be
served by even-more-miserable postal workers, and pushed the exit door hard
enough to rattle it against its frame, grateful to be done and out of there. At
3:15PM, traffic was once again picking up with early-shift workers and school
kids leaving for the day, and I hoped to catch my bus up to Broadway before it
became too full to board at all. Walking to the stop, weaving between shoppers
and strollers and packs of teens giggling and smoking, I came to an alley where
a lot of homeless would stand and ask passersby for money or food. When you
live in a big city, you learn to walk fast and not respond to anyone calling to
you…you just keep moving and look like you know where you are going. Besides,
if I gave money to everyone who asked me every day – often the same people
multiple times in one day – I’d be broke, too, right?
As I hustled by, my ears listening for my bus rolling and rumbling
behind me, my eye caught something and I stopped to look down the alley, which
was littered with fast food bags, bottles, and filthy blankets. A young woman
with long strawberry-blond dreadlocks and wearing an Army jacket two sizes too
large for her was struggling to hold an infant while bending to scoop up the
baby’s bottle that was quickly rolling towards a storm drain. As the baby
slipped lower in her grasp and pitched forward, I gasped, and jogged towards
them.
“Here! Hey! Can I help you?” I instinctively reached out to
grab the baby, and with only a short, surprised glance at my face, the girl
handed me the infant and ran to retrieve the bottle. The baby, a girl about
five or six months old, regarded me quietly with her large
brown eyes, calm and alert. I held her awkwardly, one hand supporting her back
and neck and the other under her bottom, feeling a very full diaper. I looked
back at the young woman, who had picked up the bottle and stood about fifteen feet
away, looking at me. Oh no, I thought, my heart sinking, she can’t be any more
than 15 or 16 years old. Shit.
The girl seemed wary, nervous, rolling the bottle back and
forth in her hands, shifting her feet, but not coming closer. The crowds passed
by on Clark Street in back of me, oblivious, and an ancient passed-out drunk,
wadded up in newspapers and blankets near a dumpster, was equally oblivious.
The baby reached up for my glasses, and I carefully disengaged her tiny fingers
from my frames. I could feel urine from her diaper leaking into my hand and soaking into my
coat. Damn, that’s all I need. I walked a few steps towards the girl and tried
to make small talk, ready to go.
“What’s your baby’s name?”
“Azalea.”
“Oh! How pretty!” I hesitated, then spoke again. “Um…do you
need help? There’s a shelter on Fullerton for women and children. I can give
you bus fare…”
She paused, staring at me hard. “No. Thanks.”
“OK, well, then, I guess…” A familiar sound caused me to
whip my head around towards the street. Damn! There went my bus! Now I will
have to wait at the stop in a baby-piss-covered coat for another one, jamming into
some sweaty jerk, I bet. What a crap day.
And when I turned around, the girl was gone, and the baby
bottle was on the ground.
“Hey!!! HEY!! WAIT!! NO! WAIT!” Panicked, I ran with the
baby clutched to my chest down the alley to the next block, desperately
searching for any sign of the girl. “NO! PLEASE! COME BACK!”
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman