housed developmentally disabled children, the ones they called “morons” and “imbeciles.” But no longer. This disease Jonny has, the DNA thief, started a decade ago. The initial wave of the stricken didn’t fall ill, so most of them didn’t realize that anything was happening, while the tiny bit of protein that saw them as a universe of meat lodged in their gametes, multiplied itself, changed things. Then, they bore children. Children with something worse than missing limbs, or hydrocephaly or spina bifida or muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy.
These children were born with bizarre defects, like Jonny’s; a head sized and shaped like a great jack-o-lantern covered with patchy hair, extra fingers, extra toes, a spinal deformity that rendered him paraplegic and the ultimate horror, a blind, filmy, goggling third eye.
Then there were the children with no eyes, merely a nose hole and a gaping maw for a mouth. The children with three arms and a tail, with fishy scales and slit-eyes, the ones with fins in place of hands and feet.
And the horrible irony was that most of Sherman’s charges were of normal intelligence. No gravely mentally-disabled among them, these children were born with the ability, though they may not have even had eyes with which to see, of knowing how different they were, and one day perhaps realizing that despite all their pretty names, like “differently-abled,” they were what most people called monsters.
I know the histories of our children, save the few found in dumpsters or on some church doorstep. Most are inner city kids, many of them brown or black or golden under their fur or scales. Jonny is black.
On certain nights, when I wake in a sweat at three in the morning and trudge to the patio for a cigarette, because my wife Monique will not allow me to smoke in the house, I wonder if God forgot all these children, while they grew in the womb. Why did he gift them with these deformities, why not merely with old-fashioned spina bifida or muscular dystrophy or retardation or fetal alcohol syndrome?
This virus, it’s like Blake’s scaly angel of death, coming for the first-born sons of the Egyptians, their parents waking to find their beloved children dead. Blake’s angel, drawing his foul gossamer wings over the lintels of all the parents of all the children of Sherman.
It’s the poison in our lives leaking out, I think, as I drive home to Monique and my lovely girl Karen, who is fifteen and blossoming and perfect in every way; fierce poison leaching from the evil that is our modern lives, destroying and twisting genes, changing babies into monsters. It’s the vile despair of the inner city, the hopelessness, the cruelty, the poverty, writing itself large and making itself manifest, opening itself to the cruel, blind dance of proteins, amino acids.
I’ve left Sherman, and I’m pulling into the pizza place, to bring home a treat for Karen. We like pizza. Monique is on a diet again, and if I don’t bring something home, Karen and I will be stuck with pot pies, and I can’t bear the thought of that.
I’m still thinking about Jonny and his absent grandmother as I park. I don’t notice the guy in the lurid pink minitruck backing out. He squeals to a stop a few inches from my bumper, gives me the finger and yells something ugly. I ignore him. It’s not safe these days, getting into something, even in this bright minimall in my well-to-do neighborhood. The stink of his screeching tires stings my nostrils as I get out of the car. It smells like gunpowder. It smells like death.
* * * *
Karen gobbles a piece of pizza, then kisses me on my cheek, before rushing out the door with one of her friends, Gina or Gia, I can’t remember which.
“Cheerleader practice, Dad,” she says, by way of explanation.
So, I’m left with Monique, who has settled in with her nail polish and a romance novel. I watch the news until it sickens me, then try to read some mystery novel that Monique had purchased and tired of.
I’d hoped I could talk with Karen about Jonny. Karen had always shown an interest in the children, even when she herself was a young child. She’s such a bright girl, so sensitive. But, I thought, she’s growing up. She’s out more often than in. My friends tell me all teenagers are like this.
Monique’s face is porcelain smooth as she reads her book. It’s as if nothing has touched her over the years. I’ve put on more pounds than I care to count. My face is lined, my moustache peppered depressingly with gray, and I wear what we used to charitably call “old man pants,” yet Monique looks barely different than the day we married. There’s no point in talking to her about Jonny. She doesn’t even remember his name.
Monique has closed the book and is filing her nails. “Karen’s at cheerleader practice,” I say.
She nods and murmurs something. I can’t quite hear her.
“Tomorrow the Governor’s wife is visiting with some people,” I say. I hadn’t meant to tell Monique about this, but something is pressing me to talk to her this evening.
Monique puts the nail file down and looks up. “Really?” Her cold blue eyes brighten.
“They’re coming at eleven. We’ve got a musical program planned.”
“Oh, I’d love to come! Can I just show up?”
“Sure.” I wonder why I haven’t said something earlier. Everyone has invited their relatives, at least those who are interested in the Governor’s wife. Monique should be there. It would look strange if she wasn’t.
“That’s so exciting. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Monique is pouting. Several lifetimes ago, I found that expression fascinating.
“It’s been so hectic. I forgot, I guess.”
Monique shakes her head. She picks up her book.
“Jonny made another ornament for his grandmother today. He’s expecting her for Christmas,” I say, then I open my book.
Monique pushes her hair back and smiles. “Hed, what should I wear? Do you think the cream suit, or the red jacket, for Christmas? What do you think the Governor’s wife will wear?”
I pretend to read. I think I tell Monique to wear the cream suit, and a holiday pin. It doesn’t matter. She’ll look fine. She always looks fine. Everyone tells me what a beautiful wife I have. I’m glad she wants to see the Governor’s wife. Monique is very lovely. She sits in her high-backed, beautiful chair and the light falls across her face, highlighting its delicate planes and perfect features. Her lips curl in a tiny smile.
I can’t imagine ever touching her again.
* * * *
I’m color-blind. That’s why I had so much trouble recognizing Jonny’s holiday gift. One of the only colors I can truly see is yellow. Perhaps that’s why I love Sherman’s auditorium. We painted it in shades of yellow and orange, to mirror the Southern California sun.
Monique walks beside me in her cream suit as I lead the Governor’s wife and her entourage on a tour of Sherman.
After the first dorm, the Governor’s wife’s smile looks forced, as if she’d set her face that way and now couldn’t change. She’s not a young woman. The lines in her forehead deepen with each child we visit.
A tiny vein in her neck starts throbbing when we visit Dorm B. We see the twins, Kyle and Kieran, getting their daily moisturizing bath. It’s important for the boys’ skin to be kept moist. Their scales flake away and leave large raw patches
