Bastard Child
by Derek Andersen
Perseus Andreas
Brand Specialist
I still remember the pounding of the rain, the howling of the wind, the white-hot flash of lightning that seared through the night as I breathed life into my creation. While my wife slumbered in the other room, I alone bore witness to the birth. A tear ran down my cheek as I crooned its name, those two honey-soaked syllables: Ella. It wasn’t until later that I realized my spawn was a bastard, an abomination. A plague upon humanity.
Q.
It’s a cutthroat business. You’ve got hundreds of brands, all simultaneously screaming at the consumer with gaudy, brightly colored packaging. This creates choice fatigue, sensory overload, the whole shebang. It takes a virtuoso to design some shit that can cut through the noise. Golden Mills knew that. That’s why they hired me.
Q.
I won’t lie—as much as I played the agency veteran card, I was in over my head. And the bosses were breathing down my neck. Fructose Puffs were a solid product—I’m talking tantrum-inducing good. But we were entering a saturated Hinsdale market. For the soft launch to succeed, I had to create a mascot, quote, “So memorable he makes Tony the Tiger look like an off-brand, second-fiddle little bitch.” I mean, talk about pressure. The shit was tectonic. But that’s when I do my best work. You know what pressure makes? Diamonds, baby.
Q.
For a few weeks I was throwing out concepts, but nothing was sticking. Then, one night, I was on the phone with my mom and she started droning on about this story from the old country. It was an ancient Athenian myth about a dude who was half-man, half-anteater. Or half-armadillo? I wasn’t listening—at that point, the idea was already catalyzing in my brain. My mascot would be a hybrid. I’d take the cutest features of all the other mascots, cartoon characters, plush toys, et cetera on the market and combine them into one adorable little shit.
Q.
Right, so we created a few iterations. Got it nice and tight before we presented it to the focus group.
Q.
I mean, it was a warm reception. But that wasn’t enough. This thing needed to be so precious they’d brawl over the paternity rights. We wanted to see some Jerry Springer shit unfold on the other side of that one-way mirror.
Q.
It was the new kid, Landon. He had the idea to run the focus group through a series of MRIs. See what our mascot was doing to them, like, neurologically. So, we hired a few MDs. I’m paraphrasing here, but, according to them, when you encounter something “cute,” it hijacks your orbito something or other…
Q.
Yeah, your pleasure center. Exactly. In evolutionary terms, this, uh, chemical reaction is pretty goddamn crucial. It forges an instant bond between parents and their children.
Q.
It was a simple process. We loaded each participant into the MRI machine and showed them pictures of their children, followed by pictures of our mascot. As the machine clanked and whirred, the MDs recorded the pleasure center activity. We used that data to refine our prototype. The Tweedy Bird eyes weren’t cutting it? We threw in Bambi eyes. Eeyore ears feeling stale? Boom, Dumbo ears. Before we even tested my Ella, I knew she was the one.
Q.
I could just feel it. In fact, we never got to test her. Before we could even load Participant 9 into the MRI machine, Participant 13 came out of nowhere and sucker-punched her. Stole the picture of Ella clean out of her hands and made a break for it. Participant 9 was left with this pink “Class of ’02” scar across her forehead. As far as we were concerned, that was it. We’d performed alchemy.
Q.
In no time at all, Ella was plastered across billboards, stocked floor-to-ceiling in breakfast aisles, merchandised as a best-selling plush toy. Seeing my creation blossom like that… I’ll be honest: it brought me to half-mast.
Q.
My wife bought one of the plushes for us. Sat it down at our dinner table every night. Right across from me, in Aurora’s spot. Well, her old spot. You know, before the diagnosis. Time melted away as we stared into Ella’s eyes. There was only our little family and our pure, unadulterated bliss. We would awaken from our trance in the moonlight of the early morning, finding our food untouched before us.
Q.
Hinsdale was smoldering around us. Every night there was a new report. “Plummeting birth rate,” “Spike in crib deaths,” “Increase in accidents by the I-294 billboard.” But the anchorman’s baritone couldn’t reach us in our little la-la land. Until he told the story of the single mother and the fiery train wreck… That got through to me.
Cecilia Hopkins
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
Some nights, I feel like I’ve moved past it. I allow myself to believe all those years of therapy paid off. And, some nights, in the darkest depths of my REM cycle, I relive that day in an endless, Sisyphean loop. The weak sputter of the ignition… Stevie’s trapped-animal wails… The earth quaking beneath us… The thundering horn drowning out all semblance of thought… After my alarm sounds, I’m conscious but not awake. The trappings of my bedroom somehow feel… untextured, unreal.
Q.
I happened upon it in the toy store. Stevie didn’t beg or whine or in any way catalyze the purchase. I slid it to the cashier myself, while he snored in the stroller. There was something in its little eyes that mesmerized me. That filled me with warmth—with the air of endless possibility I felt on that sunny spring afternoon when Stevie announced himself with a gentle kick.
Q.
I couldn’t just stuff it in the toy chest with the others. No, this one was special. I swaddled it in a blanket and laid it on the fold-out couch in the basement. That night, there was nothing but stale air from the baby monitor. But through the vents, I swear I could hear Ella mewling. I carried her upstairs to my bed, held her to my chest, and plunged into a dreamless slumber.
Q.
No, I wasn’t exactly conscious of “adopting” Ella. It didn’t seem the least bit strange to me, at the time, that my little jelly bean should require her own Huggies, her own Gerber flavor (she preferred Mango), her own car seat—a model that, I’m ashamed to say, had more bells and whistles than Stevie’s. And it didn’t register as at all unusual that she should share my bed, while my son sobbed alone in his crib.
Q.
It was an idyllic fall day in Hinsdale—the crisp blue sky stretching endlessly before us, the auburn foliage swaying gently in the breeze. The drive home was silent, save for the occasional whoosh of a passing car. And then, all at once, Stevie let out an ear-shattering wail. He wanted ice cream. Or maybe it was McDonald’s. Funny how that little detail eludes me when the rest of the day is burned into my memory. To satiate him, I hung a left on Seminary. My detour took us to a railroad crossing. This wasn’t one of those cutting-edge operations with blinking lights and a gate. It was just an “X” on a pole. And I was half-turned, trying to keep the boy’s hands off Ella. Next thing I knew, the engine was stalled out and the earth was trembling. And there the train loomed, a rabid metal beast bearing down on us. Frantically, I twisted my key in the ignition. But I was met only with a weak rasp. I jumped out and threw open the rear door. Now, at that moment, the train couldn’t have been more than fifty feet away. The conductor was leaning on his horn and my heartbeat was pounding through my skull. I only had time to unbuckle one car seat: either Stevie’s or Ella’s. It was a snap-second decision. No thoughts—just instincts. And, well, you know how I chose…
Q.
For a while, I couldn’t live with myself. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. That ruddy, pink face caked in baby-fat. His expression bearing no anger or indignation at my choice. Just pure animal terror. And I couldn’t help but wonder, what if I’d just… I’m sorry. I need a moment.
Q.
No, no. You came all the way here. The least I can do is finish the interview. Just hand me a tissue, would you?
Q.
For a while, everyday tasks felt like Herculean undertakings. Brushing my teeth, tying my shoes, returning text messages… It took enough willpower just to block out the Siren song emanating from my shaving razor. But, over time, I developed a philosophical framework that allowed me to cope.
Q.
It’s a form of determinism.
Q.
In laymen’s terms, we have no free will. Our fates are preordained by our brain chemistry. Every decision we make is the product of our neurological impulses. These impulses are rigid, pre-programmed. Stevie’s neurons signaled that he was craving the ice cream cone. My neurons signaled for me to appease him—to take that left on Seminary. The conductor’s neurons signaled, too late, to pull the brakes. In that split-second, my neurons… well, you know. And, that night, when Perseus flipped on the local news, his neurons signaled for him to abandon his creation in a swamp. You see, our paths are as fixed as the tracks of that Union Pacific train.
Jeff Ploughman
Construction Worker
I didn’t actually think babies came from storks. I wasn’t no dipshit. But after I got my test results, it was easier to pretend they did. Easier than admitting to Darlene that I was shootin’ blanks.
Q.
If you’da asked me a couple years back, I woulda said “no.” I used to be self-conscious. Scared Rusty and Caveman and the rest of them boys would find out and give me hell. But I’ve come to terms with it. You can use my name in your magazine, first and last. Shit, you can put me on the cover and print my sperm count in bold red letters.
Q.
You could feel the humidity out there. It was like the breath of a livin’ creature. I didn’t much care for the work. Puttin’ up condos for rich folks. ’Specially with what it was doing to them wetlands. Used to be what you’d call a “thrivin’ ecosystem.” That was, ’til we pumped it full of gravel and steel.
Q.
At home, well… I was trashin’ that ecosystem too. ’Cept, ’stead of gravel and steel, I was pumping it full of what the marriage counselor called “projection” and “denial.” Honey, it ain’t my fault! It’s the fuckin’ stork’s! That lazy sonabitch ain’t pullin’ his end of the bargain! Every night, I’m thrustin’ ’til my hips give out, and what’s he doin’? Sittin’ on his scruffy fuckin’ tail feathers!
Q.
Like I said before, on, like, an intellectual level, I knew this was bullshit. But this other part of me, deep in my organs, believed it like God’s own truth. Pretty soon, I was sittin’ awake late at night, crushin’ Millers and stewin’ over it. Fantasizin’ ’bout the ways I’d rearrange that bastard’s neck. Grippin’ the bottle so tight my knuckles ached.
Q.
It went that way for a couple months. I’d wake up every mornin’ to a poundin’ headache and an earful from Darlene. And somehow that was his fault too. It was all part of his elaborate plot. Then, outta the blue, what’s he decide to do? Drop by and rub vinegar in the wound. While I was workin’ the backhoe, sweatin’ my balls off, he flew right over me. Now, this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill type of flight. No, there was something smug and uppity ’bout the way he was flappin’ those wings. The sonabitch was mockin’ me.
Q.
As I watched him descend into the swamp, I hatched a plan. On my lunch break, I scrounged up a copper pipe and waded out through them cattails. After a while, the clankin’ of the machinery died down. I could hear the swishin’ of my feet through the water. All around there was this, like, symphony of different insects. Some I’d never heard before. I started to worry that I was out too far. That I wouldn’t be able to find my way back. Just when I was thinkin’ of turnin’ ’round, I caught a glimpse of a slender white body. I crouched down low and tightened my grip around the pipe. Oh, I was ready to let that bastard have it. But when I popped outta the reeds, somethin’ stopped me short.
Q.
No, it wasn’t remorse or a sense of decency. See, the stork was pokin’ at somethin’ with his beak. This lil’ doe-eyed creature. The thing was so goddamn precious, it sucked all the rage right outta me. The pipe dropped from my hands and splashed into the water. Floated away like a distant memory. And, I know it sounds strange, but the stork seemed to offer it to me. He gave me this gesture of, like, encouragement with his neck. So, I crept over real slow. And then I picked up the darlin’ angel. This feelin’ washed over me. It was like a new birth, a second baptism. A chance to make things right.
Q.
Well, Darlene and I picked up right where we left off. I painted the spare bedroom pink and assembled the crib. She read The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline cover-to-cover, takin’ diligent notes on a legal pad. We went to the Kmart and picked out some tiny Velcro shoes. Stopped at the Target and got a stroller. One of those fancy ones that converts to a bassinet. It was chores, but none of it felt like chores. You know what I mean? We were, like, drunk on our happiness. Still are. That’s the beautiful thing about our child. Though we grow old, she never changes. Our nest never empties, our lives never drift apart. We’ll have our precious lil’ baby ’til The Lord calls us home.
Q.
Hinsdale? Never heard of it.
Q.
Whatchu mean “recalled”?
Q.
Now, sir, I’ve been a gracious host. I took your hat, offered you a cold one. Hell, I gave you the best seat in the house and let you quiz me about my fuckin’ sperm count. But I won’t sit here and let you spout lies about my own flesh and blood. You news media folks are all the same: bloodsuckin’ parasites feedin’ off the misery of—Great, now you’ve got the baby cryin’. Strike my name from your dogshit article and get the hell out. I’ve got a child to attend to.
Derek Andersen is an Illinois Wesleyan alum working as a copywriter in Chicago. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrelhouse, Columbia Journal, The Emerson Review, The MacGuffin, and elsewhere. Find him on Twitter @DerekJAnd.
Original photo: Tapio Haaja/Unsplash
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