Nice Big American Baby

She and twelve others hide in the hold. It’s dank, dark, cramped, but the gentle motion of the boat soothes her; this is what it must feel like for her son, she thinks.

Her son is very still. She worries that he is dead, but she tells herself that it’s only because he’s grown too big, has no room to move. Just a little longer, she thinks, and then you can come out and begin your new life. Some people told her America’s territory extends from its coastline, fifty miles into the ocean. Others have said five miles. She wants to wait for solid land to be absolutely sure.

But they’re stopped almost immediately. She and the others are sought out with flashlights, led up to the deck, and lowered into a smaller boat that speeds them back to the harbor. She would have tried to run, to hide, if not for her son. Any violent motion, she fears, will bring him tumbling out. If she jumped in the water, he might swim right out of her to play in the familiar element.

“My goodness,” the Hopper man says when he sees her. “Are you having twins?”

“Your boat people are bad,” she says furiously. “They told the border people we were there.”

“You don’t say! I certainly won’t be using their services anymore.”

“I think the border people pay them money to turn us in. A price for each person.”

“What makes you think that?”

She has heard people arguing, pointing at her and arguing over whether she should bring the price of one or two.

“We’ll get you over there,” the man says. “I give you my promise. Three’s the charm.”

The next time, she rides in a hiding place built between the backseat and trunk of a small car. They have trouble shutting her in; her belly gets in the way. It seems luxurious, after the first two trips. She has the space to herself. A man and woman sit in the front. On the backseat, inches from her, a baby coos in a car seat. She doesn’t know if it’s their baby or someone else’s, a borrowed prop. Her son shifts irritably, probably sensing the other baby, probably thinking, Now that’s the way to travel.

At the border they’re stopped, the trunk is opened. The panel is ripped away, and for the third time she’s blinking in bright light. She imagines her son beating his fists against the sides of her womb.

Not yet, she thinks, not yet, my son. Just a little longer.

She’s now nearing the end of her tenth month. Her belly is strained to the breaking point, her back aches, her knees buckle. But she’s more determined than ever. And her son seems to be as stubborn as she is.

“Now it looks like quadruplets,” Hopper says.

“He’s going to be an American baby,” she says, through gritted teeth. “Babies are bigger there. A nice big healthy American baby.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“He’s not going to come out until we get there,” she says.

“I’ll do what I can,” he says. “No guarantees.”

She’s been told there are places where you can climb over the fence. There are places where there is no fence, only guards in towers who sometimes look the other way. She’s going to take her chances on her own. Enough of his gambles.

“I wish you the best,” he says, tipping his fishing hat.

She can barely walk; she stumbles, lurching and weaving. Other people look at her and say, “There’s no way. It’s impossible.” She ignores them.

She walks, through scrub brush and rocks and burning sand and stagnant, stinking water. She walks and walks, thinking: American baby. Nice big American baby.

She hears a sound echoing from far away: dogs yelping, frenzied. She can almost hear them calling to one another: There she is, there she is, get her.

They burst over a rise and she can see them, a mob of dark insects growing rapidly bigger, a man with a gun trailing far behind. Has she crossed the border already? It’s impossible to tell.

The first dog runs straight at her. She stands still and waits. It seems nearly as big as she is, a small horse. At the last minute it veers away and circles. All the dogs swarm around her. But they do not touch her. They keep their heads lowered abjectly to the ground. They seem in awe of her big belly.

The fat sweating guard who comes puffing up behind them is not impressed. Soon she’s sitting in a familiar van, heading back.

She’s been carrying her son for over a year now, with no intention of letting him go.

“Now, that can’t possibly be good for him, little mama,” Hopper says. “You should let the little feller out.”

“He’s going to be an American baby,” she says, slowly, as if talking to a child.

“Let me help you,” he says. “I know a man—”

“No,” she says.

“We’ll try another way. I can get you a fake passport.”

“No,” she says. She hobbles back to the border, is stopped by a fence, and begins tunneling under it, clawing the dirt with her fingernails. She’s crawling through, nearly breaking the surface on the other side, when her son shifts, or perhaps instantaneously grows a fraction of an inch, and suddenly she’s stuck. Border guards come and drag her out by her heels. They don’t seem surprised, they seem as if they’ve been expecting her. They look bored, almost disappointed, as if they’d expected her to have a little more originality.

“Why won’t you let me help you?” Hopper says.

She doesn’t answer.

“Free of charge.”

“Why are you being so generous?”

“I don’t know. Out of the goodness of my heart?”

Today he’s wearing a bolo tie, a snakeskin vest. He is wearing rings on every finger, like a king, like a pirate. Like a pirate king.

“Please,” he says. “I want to. I insist.”

She realizes something she should have seen months ago. He’s been tipping off the border guards. He takes money from people for helping them cross; then he takes money from the guards for telling them when and where to expect visitors. She’s been making money for him with each of her trips.

“You are a bad man,” she says.

“Oh, come now,” he says. “You can’t blame me. It’s a game of chance.”

“An evil man. When my son gets big he’ll come back and kill you.”

“Your son’s already big,” he says. “And I don’t see him doing anything.”

She is determined. She flings herself at the border again and again. She travels in cars, trucks, buses. She walks on blistered feet. She travels in a fishing boat, an inflatable raft. She wears disguises, buys false papers. Each time the border repulses her, spits her back.

Big American baby, she tells herself. She sees his size as proof of his American-ness. Only American babies could be so big, so healthy. She has convinced herself that he has always been American, that she is merely a vehicle, a shell, a seed casing meant to protect him until he can be planted in his rightful home.

She carries him for two years. She constructs a sort of sling for herself, with shoulder straps and a strip of webbing, to balance the weight. She uses a cane. She looks like a spider, round fat body, limbs like sticks.

Her son is alive; she can feel the pulse of his heartbeat, feel the pressure as he strains to stretch a finger, an eyelid.