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Heritage First
Heritage First is jam-packed. Teeming. Overrun. To my neighbors this means success. Beach balls bounce over the crowd. Hymn-a-longs erupt in the yards. An unending Summer revival. First Dad and First Mom bless each meal over the loudspeaker mounted on each house before we pass pails of food. If I hadn’t made that piñata or delivered it, I’d be long gone. Joining my parents after ten years. They must think I’m holding a grudge. That I didn’t show on purpose. I pull the wilting train ticket from my pocket today. I tear it to pieces.
It’s not that I wanted to marry Jude. I was sixteen when the crackdown began. It’s how Anne snatched him up when she heard I was barren. Like my womb was the only thing he needed, the only thing I had to offer. She could have left him alone. Of course, he could have refused her proposal. Still, he was sniffing around when I was hanging the piñata. He’s stuck under this tree with me. Small consolation.
Anne’s sister, Louise, and Louise’s husband got stuck in the backyard, at the fence. They have, roughly, sixty Hannahs and Samuels. Some are indoors with Ruths and Aarons. But a bunch are outside. They play on the swing set. Or wait their turn, wedged among a miniature carousel, patio furniture, and giant battle bots. My neighbors used to number each kid’s nape. Anne and Jude lost their branding iron two years ago. I asked him the obvious. What if seven of your Aarons are playing down the street and one sets a dog on fire? Who do you punish? He shrugged. All of them. So when four of your Ruths wander by and one hoses it down, who gets kudos? He shrugged. All of them. Why don’t you borrow an iron? Everyone else has lost theirs, too, he said. It’s a drag, he added. Not counting the kids means we can’t say we have the most and get First Mom’s yard-raised duck. He sighed. We really miss those dinners. Those ducks waddle free now. Motion-sensing tanks fall in line behind the birds. The toys roll along until they hit an object the ducks hop over or until their batteries die. First Mom evicted them when twenty-four newborns caused us to hit critical mass. Those infants now call the duck coop home.
The piñata, pink and toilet-shaped, hangs like mistletoe over my head. At the last second, I sent it spinning around the branch, up and out of the way of the advancing crowd. Such simple construction: flour, water, newspaper. Endless shapes. Vibrancy of color. Combinations of textures: crepe paper, buttons, glitter, sequins, streamers of satin. I drew the mouths, always smiling, silent. Never whimpering. Never emitting that one long bellow into the balmy North Carolina air. Hush, Jude says. You’re safe. It’s night. Snoring fills the yard and street. As pounding as any surf. He slides his arms around me, undetected. Anne got stuck with twelve of their kids up on the front porch. Safe. So far from the truth. But I take the comfort he offers and drift back to sleep. I let my neighbors choose what filled the cavity. Edible rosaries. Pennies. Miniature Old Testaments. I didn’t care. I saw us creating the piñata together. I think they just wanted to bust it open, to see it disgorge the mystery inside.
Rations parachute from grey military jets. Freeze-dried goat rumps and raccoon filets. The pilots aim for the cluttered street, avoiding the snarl of clotheslines crisscrossing our yards. Occasionally, a delivery plane is white with purple wings. It drops pop tarts, juice boxes, McMunchems, diapers, formula. A neighbor must be stuck indoors at a computer, ordering online. Thoughtful.
Word gets out Dr. Henson fishes on the bridge. Our bridge is just a short strip of road at the gate, crossing a piece of the river. Dr. Henson. I smile. He always knows how to work the system. Fishing is what Jesus would do, Anne says. Would Jesus cook the fish over a burn barrel? I ask. That’s the only heat available on the bridge, you know. Would Jesus enjoy trash-flavored bass? He’d make do, she says. He’s not picky. There’s a curious tilt to her head. She’s not opposed to a few carcinogen-laden bites.
Hey! I say. Where were you the day the Hunts had their octuplets and the Langleys had their octuplets and the Garvins had their octuplets? Like it’s a reunion. Here, Alice! Louise says. Since that day, we’ve all been right here! She took my question at face value. Ignored the sarcasm. I’m the girl whose parents ran off. The barren girl. Pitiable. I wish more of my neighbors had been Annes. I wish they had persecuted me instead. Made my secret rebellion impossible. The desire to leave should have plagued me years ago. Like a feather tickling my foot, driving me batshit until I put an end to the laughter.
So many kids under ten. So many piñata parties. My First Yawn. My First Diaper Rash. My First Burp. My First McMunchems. My First Faceplant in the Driveway. My First Pee-Free Night. That’s what my toilet was for. Mold colonizes the pink crepe paper. The lid of the toilet is down. My attempt at staunching the flow. My last piñata. I should have added more papier-mâché. I should have stuffed it with knives, knives, knives.
Anne didn’t want the pee party for her daughter. Jude did. Any excuse to bring me around. She resembles the other mothers of Heritage First. Flabby-limbed. Saggy-breasted. Body like a zit. Always squirting out something. She gets testy at bath time. Gives me the bitch-eye. It’s more of a rinse than a bath. No one has room to disrobe. But Jude holds the water pail for me. I let him cop a feel, hands under my shirt as if helping me clean. Quit tempting my husband! she yells. Andrew, hit her! Jude’s hands turtle so fast my tits jiggle. First Mom and First Dad named Andrew The Protector of the Pre-Born. Faking a birth or causing a miscarriage got a girl sent to a subbasement in his house. Forced to spread ‘em for any man until a blood test confirmed she was preggers. I should have feared Andrew. I still don’t. He stands two Aarons away, among a dozen of his Josephs. He punches me once in the face. I smile when my head hits Jude’s shoulder, when his arms hold me, steadying us both. Thanks for bringing our bodies closer together, Anne.
We have pear trees, protected from deer by our gate and ten foot electrified fence. In the Fall, pails of the fresh fruit bob through the crowd, untethered buoys adrift on our sea of hands.
That crisp edge of winter creeps into the night air. I fall asleep against Jude. He’s taller. I wake up with neck pains. Aarons and Josephs use my hips for pillows. I wake up with back pains. Once, I curl in the grass, snaking my thin body around pairs of feet. Trash leaves rustle through planted legs. I am lost in a forest of legs. Uncanny, unnatural, those limbs forever at rest. I feel out of sorts. A creature exiled from the upright world. A rat scurries through the trash, nibbles at my big toe. I wake choking when someone steps on my throat.
Remember the color-code! I shout this at my neighbors. At the microphones on Jude’s house. First Mom and First Dad should hear this uncleanliness. Blue pails carry water! Green or yellow pails carry food! Red pails, I repeat, red pails only carry human waste! I pass the red pail toward Louise. She is our Dumper. Several times a day she stands on her husband’s shoulders and dumps our waste over the fence. Several kids dip their hands into the red pail, anyway. I decide I will survive on rations. Goat rumps and raccoon filets beat urine-flavored trail mix any day.
I wonder what we look like to the delivery pilots. Man, woman, child—mostly child—pressed shoulder to shoulder to tree to mailbox to rusty and abandoned car to jungle gym to mangled pile of tricycles to half pipe to mound of stuffed animals, misshapen from birds picking fluffy bits for their nests, to burn barrels, spewing flames and stench and smoke twenty four seven. Trash drifts everywhere at our feet. Only the rats and roaches can catalogue that. Garments of all sizes disintegrate on the clotheslines. Tatters sway in the breeze. Pennants for our spectacular decay.
Kids remain in revival mode. Hannahs and Samuels torment their mom when she’s on toilet duty. They tickle her feet, making her squirm with the red pail just to laugh at who gets coated in the spillage. Next door, girls loll in an inflatable pool of colored rubber balls. Boys jump endlessly on a trampoline in the street. Somewhere, a seesaw creaks anciently. It gets warm again. Here and there along the sidewalk adults smear on sunscreen. Hold umbrellas and pass hats. Huddle under sheets or blankets. They hide inside bouncy castles. At least I am stuck in the shade, under this sprawling tree. Thinking positive: bad sign. I’m settling in. Maybe I can get on toilet duty. I’d risk the kids’ cruelty to go over the fence. No sooner do I have this thought than there’s a commotion next door. Their Dumper cries out and falls sideways into the electrified wires at the top of the fence. She and her red pail convulse. The contents splatter the kids. Not her. They stop laughing and begin crying. We hear she blacked out, lost muscle coordination. Punishing the kids is a combined effort. Her husband throws a boy or girl over his shoulder, pins their wrists and ankles. She jerkily spanks the upturned rump. Now, we must dispose of our neighbors’ waste. Now, at meals her husband must help her eat.
So escaping over the fence is out. But there is an inviting gap at the bottom. I could push my legs through, kick them freely around. Reintroduce them to wide open space. They goosebump at the thought. I wonder if I could get my whole body through, if I starved myself. No deaths since the octuplets seems odd. The elements. A frantic neighbor strangling a kid in the night. How about good old fashioned depression? Can’t someone please die? Give us all one more inch of room. No births since the octuplets, either. First Mom and First Dad said whoever has the bigger heritage wins. Wins what? I asked. The civil war. God’s favor. Babies are the brightest stars in his sky. Birth control, Satan’s black curtain across Heaven. So here we are. My neighbors have done their reproductive part. We are immobile with success. We stand fixed like weeds. I look at the faces in the yard. Andrew naps. Anne prays. The kids around me tattoo each other with nubs of colored chalk. Louise squints into the hazy sky. A smoky, unpeopled place. I imagine she wishes a massive beast would appear, tear her free of this yard, chew her to bits, and send her into the emancipating vat of its caustic belly juices.
Word gets out Dr. Henson can no longer fish. Crocodiles have claimed our piece of river. They chow the bass. The civil war must have driven them inland. We’ve never had crocodiles before. I take it as a good sign.
First Dad calls roll. So maybe we’ve been stuck a year. He says our names over the loudspeakers. Maybe he’s at a computer, too, keeping track of us. Keeping count. He doesn’t know about the missing branding irons. His number and ours won’t match. For three sweltering days, though, some of us answer.
First Mom, First Dad. If that wasn’t writing on the wall. I should have fled the day their gleaming bullet of a RV rolled through the gate. My parents said they’d return. Dr. Henson thought they’d be home in a year. Then we heard reports, Lifers and Choicers battling like Alien versus Predator from Georgia to New York. I could only sit tight and hope they stayed alive. Dr. Henson became my hero. I gave him free piñatas loaded with chocolate covered Panamanian habaneros. His favorite. In return, he pronounced me barren. Win win. No fertility shots. No risk of seeing the subbasement in Andrew’s house. I made it ten years—through the being-pregnant-is-a-woman’s-obligation-not-her-choice crackdown—without getting caught. There’s not so much of a crackdown these days. I’m thinking it’s my only way out. Birthing one more of those brightest stars. Karma’s a bitch.
That night I guide Jude’s hand under my skirt. He responds at once, mouth hot and desperate on my neck. People grumble awake. Word gets out we’re doin’ it. Up on the porch Anne rouses the whole street with her verbal attacks. She plays the Andrew card. He turns to me with a here-we-go-again furrow in his brow. I lift my shirt. Look at these. Ever seen such a rockin’ set of cans? His gaze lowers. He relaxes and enjoys the view. Anne makes all the noise. Wailing into the indifferent night. I close my eyes. I follow Jude inside me. There is our friction, our rhythm. My hips and thighs and abdomen and hands united, mind flowing like water through movement. I take it. I give back. A little sob escapes me. My body had forgotten that. Pleasure.
I borrow a red nub of chalk from a Ruth. Mark off the days on my legs. Tell Jude it scares the rats. Until one Fall day I’m sure. Is she touched? a man on the sidewalk asks. Could be the heat, Anne says thoughtfully, staring at me. I haven’t bled in two months, I say. I’m fertile after all. They remain unconvinced. I roll my eyes. Hello, miracle! I gaze up at a microphone on the house. First Mom! First Dad! I’m pregnant! Music erupts over the speakers, a rowdy jazz song, something with a guitar and a horn. Turn it off, Cody! First Mom hisses. Who’s Cody? some Josephs ask. Who’s knocked up? First Dad says, voice moist as if caught mid-sip. Alice! Jude says, proudly. No way, First Dad says. She’s barren. I think it’s true, Anne says. It is a miracle. Alice has the soul glow. Not the reaction I expected from her but I’ll take all the help I can get. I offer it to Heritage First, I say. It can take my place! What do you mean? First Dad says. We have no space, I say. No room for one more. He exhales an airy burp. First Mom and I will discuss it. After the baby is born. You want to leave? Jude asks. I nod. He stares at me, crushed.
I get over being thin. My neighbors get over their disbelief. Awe-filled congratulations pour in from all parts of the neighborhood. When my bulge sticks out of my clothes, Andrew offers his shirt. I button it over myself, appreciatively. My neighbors leave the largest goat rumps and raccoon filets for me. They pass a Lamaze book my way. I get my own dedicated puke pail for morning sickness. Anne worries. She tells me not to stretch my arms over my head. I might rip the fetus in half. She leads the yard in hymns. Music is good for the fetus. She questions my comfort forty times a day. Do I need a blanket? Would I like to be fanned? Am I cramping? I find it overbearing. The biggest perk: Aarons massaging my feet. I raise them, hoof-like, and stretch out my arm, bracing myself on Andrew’s shoulder. My biggest fear: the baby won’t survive. Not the way I’m gestating it. It’ll come out wan, feeble, a grey worm we’ll have to chuck over the fence with my vomit, the feces, and the urine.
The kids use my massive middle for a pillow. They sleep great every night. I imagine shoving them to the grass, suffocating them with my weight. I’m huge. I need more space.
I’ll divorce Anne, Jude says one morning. First Dad can marry us over the PA. She leans over the porch railing, giving him the bitch-eye for once. Are you kidding? You’d abandon the mother of your eighty children? For that hussy? She’ll be a horrible mother! She’s ready to give it up. I bet she’d be glad to see blood in the grass between her feet right now! So much for her support. I guess I’m not surprised. I can’t see my feet, I say. How am I supposed to see between them? Anne has a point, the neighbor on the sidewalk says. You just want to leave Heritage First. You don’t care about adding to God’s army! Anne says. You were never the slightest bit disappointed at being barren. It should have demoralized you. Well, good riddance! You won’t survive the civil war. I reach behind me, push my hand down Jude’s shorts. Hey, Anne, I’m giving your husband a hand job right now, I say. He’s going to fertilize your yard with a million pre-borns— Andrew, stop her! Anne says. Save the babies! He looks at my belly. I might harm her baby, he says. My hand’s pumping. Jude’s enjoying. Aarons and Josephs and Ruths watch, giggling. Has Jude ever used his tongue, Anne? Or his fingers? No thought of conception on his mind? I bet not. Only good for birthing, your vadge. A one-trick pony. A one-trick donkey. You have Eeyore between your legs. Finally, she’s too infuriated for words. When did you become so hateful, Alice, the man on the sidewalk asks. I finish Jude and wipe my hand on my skirt. Then go back to the Lamaze book.
Some one like Mrs. Glasser could volunteer her spot to our child, Jude whispers that night. She can’t be in good health. No one would mind if she prematurely passed. Mrs. Glasser. Tender of burn barrel number five. A widow. Post-menopausal.
I don’t take my eyes off the bare mattress moving across the crowd. My life boat. Ferried on the little and big hands of my neighbors. Towels, a knife, and a blue pail of water rest on top. I had numbers twenty-two, thirty, and fifty-four standing up, Anne says. Andrew and some kids kneel, mattress perched on their backs. Jude takes the towels, water, and knife. I roll onto the mattress and get down to business. Panting, pushing, moaning. Pain like nothing I’ve felt before. But the baby arrives. Breathes its first raspy gasp of post-womb life. The usual. Uneventful. Girl! Jude says. I close my eyes, praying she will be barren. He cuts the cord, swaddles her, and starts cooing. He’s beaming, laying her in my arms. She looks like an elephant, I say before falling exhaustedly asleep.
The PA hums alive. We all look up at the speakers. Alice, First Mom and I have made our decision, First Dad announces. We will not turn our back on gifts from God, whether it be the safe delivery of this little arrow or your sudden fertility. You will stay. Jude will be returned to the Lord. But I was a Most Valuable Breeder, Jude says. He knows this, First Dad says. You will be rewarded in Heaven. Wait, I say. You don’t have to kill Jude, First Dad. I pause, considering I’m not just outing myself with this confession. Dr. Henson’s future could be at stake. I gaze at Jude. Pretty and meek Jude. He doesn’t deserve to die. I’m not a miracle, I say. I faked being barren because I didn’t want children. I didn’t want one, let alone eight. Figures, Anne says. Hussy and a liar. So Dr. Henson helped you, First Dad says. He is a traitor to our cause. A weak and unworthy vessel you exploited. You, Alice, are a snake in our garden. Dr. Henson will return home to the Lord. You will take his place. Atone for his sins, as well. The bridge, Jude says to me, tearfully. So far away. I hand him our daughter. You’ll have little whatshername to keep you company, I say. Not exactly comforting; the best I can do. The bridge. No fish. No shade. What will they do to Dr. Henson? Hands lift me up. I crowd surf into the street. Good riddance! Hannahs and Samuels and a few Josephs say. Gazing up at the dull sky, I imagine I am headed for the gate. Somehow, I’m going over. Taking that first step, blissfully unrestricted. No body next to or behind me. No heads on my shoulders or hips or stomach. No elbows jabbing my back or legs. I see dark river on my left. Heritage First’s gate towers ahead. A gray plume of smoke rises from the burn barrel in the center of the road. A girl with a rag covering her nose and mouth feeds it trash. I am passed to the side of the bridge where Dr. Henson slumps over the stone railing. Already. Just like that. My throat tightens for him. Something sloshes heavily, comfortably into the water below. Now what? a boy says. Another boy lifts the body by the ankles, shoving it off the bridge. I try rolling toward the gate. My neighbors dump me into the vacant spot. I look over the railing. Dr. Henson floats face-up. Then I see the crocodiles. Six on shore. Two drifting in the brackish water. One glides toward the body. The other, black eyes like wet holes, watches me. Death by crocodile versus life in Heritage First. The second crocodile comes on land. It moves silently through vegetation, up the short slope. I look to the end of the bridge, where the stone railing meets the electrified fence. A group of children play with hard plastic dinosaurs. One girl sits frog-like, legs bent out at her sides, foot poking through the gap at the bottom of the fence. I shout no warning. Two crocodiles occupied betters my odds. The animal’s jaws are stealthy, accurate. The girl lets rip one long, high-pitched scream. Alarm spreads through the crowd. I scramble onto the stone railing and jump. When I surface, First Dad is on the PA, asking questions. The crocodile has yanked the girl through the gap. It carries her down the slope into the water. Hope fills the river. I think of finding my parents, of helping them in the civil war. The crocodile takes the girl under. I swim away, followed by the triumphant ripples of that descent.
Cynthia Bernard was born and raised in Florida, lives in Virginia, and recently received her MA in Writing from the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. Her work has appeared at anderbo. She doesn't let a little thing like seasickness stop her from scuba diving.
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