Child for Sale: $500 obo

Her name is Natasha. It is eleven o’clock in the morning, and she has been awake for three hours. One of my shirts hangs toga-like from her tiny frame. Like a ship sail cut loose on a slender mast. She is hungry, unwashed, and looking for attention. She stands hidden to one side of the doorway that leads into the kitchen. A small animal seeking shelter from an encroaching predator. She is five years old. She is my sister’s step-daughter. She is my niece. This is the first time I have ever met her.

“Are you hungry, pal?” My inquiry startles her. She draws further behind the doorway, but her head bobs up and down enthusiastically. Humans are not so very different from dogs. Enough hunger will make either approach a complete stranger for aid. Her fingers crawl into her mouth, as though to fill it with the words she cannot say. In a few moments, the stove burner is on; I have a carton of eggs on the table, a pan full of bacon strips, and half of a bagel in the toaster. My niece slowly begins to come out of hiding like a turtle trying to determine if the world outside of its shell has become safe enough for free movement. Smiling brightly, I have been asking her yes or no questions for the past five minutes, letting her shakes and nods make up for words. Although I do not particularly care for the company of adults, I have an affinity with children that makes communication especially natural.

As soon as she nods to affirm that she is in fact attending pre-school, she steps forward. I have succeeded in helping her to feel comfortable. “Can I stir the eggs?” My smile is aimed to further ease her anxiety.

“Sure thing, short-stuff.” I point cartoonishly with a spatula across the counter-top. Natasha giggles before she can catch herself. “Drag a stool over here so you can reach the pan.” The combination of her attire, small frame, and the act of dragging the stool makes her look small and pitiful, but it accomplishes two things. When she is done it gives her a sense of achievement, and by doing what I have told her to do I have established the boundaries of our relationship. She is the child. I am the adult. We are not so very different from dogs.

When she is up on the stool, stirring her eggs with a wooden spoon in primitive loops, I put a paper towel under her nose. “Blow like you’re sneezing out the devil.” She obliges and I throw away a wad of snot. Her sinuses sound congested. I instruct her to blow her nose anytime she feels like she can’t breathe. She nods as though this is a novel concept, and she is happy to have my permission to be self-sufficient.

“Where are your clothes, Natasha?” She claims she doesn’t have any. It has been years since my little brother and sister were so small, but I find myself slipping into the roll of care-giver quite naturally. A television set crackles into life upstairs. Rachel is awake. The sounds of foot-steps do not follow. From previous experience I know Rachel will come downstairs ten minutes before my father returns from work, so that she can relate to him how trying a labor it is to watch a small child. I set a plate for Natasha, place her up on a stool at the counter, and tell her to eat quietly while I am putting her old clothes in the laundry. Luckily, they have already been washed and only need to be dried before they are ready. When I go back to the counter, Natasha is eating happily. “This is better than my tv-dinners.” While I personally don’t spend a lot of time worrying about my nutritional intake, I cannot help but grimace at the every-day tone in which she announces this.

We talk about her school lessons. She sings the alphabet. I tell her she did a very good job. She tries to count to ten but struggles when she has to go above six. As she eats I draw a set of flashcards on the back of some old raffle tickets next to the phone. I quiz her while she eats, and since nothing in my demeanor reveals that this is anything other than a fun activity, Natasha enjoys herself. We take a break only so I can show her how to properly put away her breakfast plate, and then spend another hour working on the numbers one through. I make a series of dots on another ten raffle tickets and ask Natasha to trace out the numbers. She focuses her hand into steadiness, and writes ten legible characters. To show her the value of her work I write a “+10/10”on the top of her paper, as well as a bright red star. She asks if we can put these in her coat pocket so she can show her mother later. I consent and the task is quickly done.

I show Natasha into the bathroom, and ask her to tell me when the water coming from the bathtub faucet feels right. She prefers it to be somewhere only slightly above luke-warm. When I start to leave she asks me where I am going. Instead of saying, “I’m going to give Rachel some negative reinforcement about having children of her own” I explain, “I’m going to go get Rachel to bathe you. Don’t get into the bath until I have come back.”

When I knock at Rachel’s bedroom door I hear annoyed groaning sounds. “What do you want?” I hear distinctly male groans as well but I know no voice will manifest itself. In the month since their marriage, Rachel’s husband has said exactly one sentence to me. A week prior he had knocked at my door twice, come in on the third vocalized allowance and with the over-eagerness of a first time actor delivering a bit line had said “Rachel’s car broke down. Bottom of hill. Need you to jump it.” Clipped, like a telegraph.

“Natasha needs you to give her a bath.”

“Her clothes aren’t even out of the laundry yet, and I’m tired.” Not working has had an exhaustive effect on Rachel’s physical state. I push the door open a crack. Approximately half of the house’s kitchen ware lays in a hollow under her bed as well as a month’s worth of half eaten microwavable meals. The room smells like rotted arm pit.

“It’s half past noon, Rachel. She needs a bath.” A crumpled sock is thrown at my feet.

“Then you do it.” I leave the door wide open on my way out, so a bar of bright light falls across Rachel’s face, and annoys her into full wakefulness. She snarls like a vampire pulled out of its coffin, and yells obscenities at me as I lumber noisily down the stairs. Her “mother-fuckers, assholes, and shit-heads” sound like the songs of angels to my accustomed ears.

When I hear loud uncoordinated footsteps and the slamming of a door, I murmur “I love myself,” and whistle a short tune as I stroll back to the bathroom. At the appearance of an adult, Natasha eagerly pulls off her shirt toga and jumps into the bathtub still wearing a single sock. I hand her a brand new bar of “Irish Springs” and tell her to lather and rinse herself while I’m in the kitchen putting away dishes. “Call me when you’re ready to have your hair washed, and I’ll come back.” Her blue eyes are already locked delightedly on the clear water in which she is immersed.

Although I am far from the world’s cleanest person, I try to set an example in the presence of children. Therefore, as I set about cleaning the kitchen I sang such wonderful songs as “Dance with Me” by

Orleans, “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Just to See You Smile” by Tim McGraw. Often times I accidentally on purpose shouted these songs at full volume directly into the vent that leads into Rachel’s room. By complete chance these also happen to be three of Rachel’s most hated songs. Every so often I smile when I hear the word “fuck” muttered into a pillow elevated ten feet above me. I am half way into my ad-libbed chorus of “I can Show you the World” when Natasha announces that she is ready to have her hair washed.

Determined to make as much noise as possible, I do a loud impersonation of Jonathan from “Blow Out” exclaiming as I massaged Natasha’s golden locks that, “All I care about is hair!” until a distant echo bounces into the bathroom causing three increasingly softer iterations of the word “cock knocker.” Once rinsed, Natasha takes a very short amount of time to get dressed, eager to play a game of “Chutes and Ladders” I had promised in between shouts of my passion for hair.

“Chutes and Ladders” provides an opportunity to reinforce the social contract, by showing Natasha the importance of playing by the rules. As the game is strictly a matter of chance and involves no real strategy, we each win and lose an approximately equal number of games. We play games for an hour, then with the flash cards again. Natasha doesn’t know it, but she’s learning the beginnings of addition and subtraction. Some people train horses. Some people train dogs. I train kids. I’m good at it.

At approximately ten till four, Rachel comes downstairs, picking at her crotch through a pair of pajama pants. An unlit cigarette is clasped loosely between the index and middle finger of her right hand. She extends her arms wide, and Natasha runs and jumps into them. Just like that, I can see all the work I have done for the past five hours going to waste. Natasha is no longer reserved and well-mannered. She’s wild and expectant. She knows if she cries loud enough she can get anything she wants. “Have you been having fun down here?” Rachel cheerily questions, holding Natasha uncomfortably by the arm pits so that the poor child is positioned directly in front of her face.

“I want some Nerds,” Natasha announces.

Rachel sets the girl down with a groan. “I don’t want to look for them right now.”

Natasha steps forward and pinches Rachel’s hand. Rachel pulls back shocked at the effrontery. “Ouch! That hurt!”

I walk toward them quickly, and lay a firm hand on Natasha’s shoulder. “Apologize for that or you’re going to have to go into time out.”

“Time out!?!” Rachel exclaims incredulously. “Screw that! I’m pinching her back!”

My father arrives home just in time to see the debacle. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Natasha’s been on my nerves all day, can I have $20 so I can buy her dinner at the gas station?” In the past five years Rachel has been employed only once, for a period of little longer than a single month. In the seven years since her sixteenth birthday she has totaled five cars, once by steering directly into the front of an oncoming bus, wrecked several vehicles which did not belong to her, and required roadside assistance no less than ten times. Each and every time she has needed money my father has readily dropped a wad of bills into her waiting hands.

“Actually, I’m going to go to the store so I can make Natasha some ravioli and garlic bread.” My dad snorts at me as if I am also asking him for money. He places the car keys in Rachel’s hands. Her last major accident was less than a week ago at a gas station. For some unknown reason the front tire on the passenger side of her car caved in without warning. It only makes sense she should be the one to drive us.

Ten minutes, and four near-misses later I am at the local Safeway. My father let Rachel do the grocery shopping last week, and she neglected to buy bread or milk… or anything that did not come instant made out of a cardboard box. Rachel rings up her purchases in the adjacent lane. They include a microwavable burrito, and three different kinds of chocolate bars.

Once home, I put away the food I purchased out of my own pocket and begin boiling some water to make the ravioli. Natasha begins to cry that she is hungry so I give her a piece of garlic bread. She leaves this on the table in favor of the king sized bar of chocolate Rachel has just handed her. Half an hour later the meal I prepared for her is untouched at the kitchen table and Natasha feels sick. Knowing that no one in the house will back me up if I say anything, I go upstairs and imagine if it’s possible to build a gun that sterilizes people with a single shot.

The next day I wake up, Natasha is still here. She is still here the day after that, until it is now today. I ask where her mother is, confused that the girl has gone unmissed after so long. Rachel explains it to me.

It would seem Rachel and her husband purchased full custody of Natasha from her mother for $500. If they pay $700 more they can get her clothes, toys, and other personal effects. There are worse toys Rachel could spend $1200 on. I just pray she doesn’t get tired of her new toy and dump it off in yet another strange new house. It may be acceptable for a dog. But it’s not acceptable for a human being.