Waterbaby
Introduction:
The
hardest thing for writers to do is take
ourselves out of our own culture and put
ourselves into another. Li-fi writers don't
have to do that—in fact, they consider
it their job, in part, to document their
own culture in their fiction. But we sci-fi
writers, by definition, move into alien
worlds and alternate realities.
At
best we only partly succeed. Anyone who
has read even the best sci-fi of the fifties,
sixties, or seventies can easily see how,
without realizing it, in the midst of inventive
and strange fiction, the cultural biases
of the writer's own time still reveal themselves.
Well,
if I thought getting into an alien culture
was hard, it was child's play compared to
shifting into an existing, contemporary
culture that I'm not part of! For the past
couple of years, I've been preparing myself
to write a novel set in a contemporary middle
class African-American community. Now, I
know what happens whenever non-Mormons try
to write about Mormon culture – they
never, never get it right. And in writing
stories within the African-American community,
my biggest hurdle was to get rid of the
images and stereotypes of African-Americans
that contemporary American culture bombards
us with.
Let's
face it. I've watched too much TV, which
gives us either Cliff Huxtable or a gang-banger,
pimp, or drug lord. What our culture keeps
stressing, these days, is how different
European-Americans are from
African-Americans. But in my reading and
conversations, what I've gradually learned
is that the "American" part of
those hyphenates is at least as strong as
the "European" and "African"
parts. And the unmentioned "human"
part is far stronger than either.
So
... here is the first story to emerge from
these years of work. The family in this
story is African-American. But the story
is not purporting to be "about"
their Africanness, or even their Americanness.
The story is about them as human beings,
struggling to deal with the impossible,
ready to pay the price of a miracle.
--Orson
Scott Card
http://www.hatrack.com
http://www.frescopix.com
Orson
Scott Card: Waterbaby
First
off you got to know about Tamika, how it
was with her and water. First time she got
into a pool, she was only two, we had those
tube things around her arms to hold her
up and me and Sondra, we were both there
in the water, she was our baby and no way
she was going to be out of our sight for
a second, so we were both there kind of
holding her up and making sure those air
things really kept her from sinking. So
Sondra was kind of holding her on one side
and me on the other and Tamika just laughed
and shrieked and we could feel how she was
kicking and wiggling her arms and it sort
of came to me how maybe by holding onto
her I was holding her back, and so I let
go, figuring Sondra had her on the other
side anyway, so she'd be safe. Only later
on Sondra tells me she had the same thought
at the same moment and she let go and right
away, Tamika starts moving forward through
the water, kicking her legs, pulling with
her arms, smiling and keeping her head above
water and there was no mistake about it,
she was swimming. By the end of that day
we had those tubes off her arms and never
looked back. She was born for the water,
she was born to swim.
It's
been like that ever since. We just couldn't
keep her away from swimming pools. We called
her our waterbaby, she'd catch sight of
a pool and one way or another, in five seconds
she'd be in the water. We took to dressing
her all summer in a swimsuit instead of
underwear cause if we didn't, she'd go in
fully dressed or stark naked, but she was
going in, right now. Anybody with a pool,
they were Tamika's best friends whether
Sondra and me liked them or not. At three
years old she'd head on out the front door
to go over to a house with a pool. We had
to put locks high up on the door to keep
her in. Sometimes it was scary, she loved
the water so much, but we were proud, too,
because that girl could swim, your honor.
You had to see her. She'd go underwater
quick as a fish, move like a blur, pop up
so far from where she went under you'd be
sure there had to be a second kid, nobody
could move that fast. When she dove off
the board — she was never afraid of
heights as long as there was water under
her — she was like a bird, but even
so, when she slipped into the water it's
like there wasn't even a splash, the water
opened up to take her in. I can hardly think
of her except soaking wet, drops glistening
on her brown skin like jewels in the sunlight,
smiling all the time, she was so beautiful,
she was so happy.
Tamika
said it all the time. "Oh, Daddy, oh
Mama, I wish I didn't ever have to come
out of the water. I wish I was a fish and
I could live in the water." And Sondra
would always say, "You're no fish,
Tamika, you're just our own little waterbaby,
we found you in a rain puddle and fished
you out and took you home and dried you
off and your Daddy wanted to name you Tunafish
but I said, No, she's Tamika." Said
that all the time when Tamika was three
and four. By the time Tamika was six, she'd
say, "Oh, Mama, not that again,"
but she still loved to hear it.
Sondra
and me, our dream was to make enough money
to get a house with a pool so she didn't
always have to go somewhere else to swim.
But you know how it is, that wasn't going
to happen. We used to joke that the closest
thing to a swimming pool we'd ever have
was the waterbed me and Sondra slept on.
My parents thought we were crazy when we
bought that bed. "Black people don't
sleep on waterbeds," my daddy told
me. "Black people have more sense with
their dollars." I wish to Jesus I'd
listened to my daddy.
It was a hot summer night, you know how
it gets here in LA late in August, you got
the ceiling fan going full blast and no
covers on top of you but you still got sweat
dripping all along your body like rain and
your pajamas are soaked and you toss and
turn all night and you're half the time
dreaming and half the time thinking about
work and problems and worries and you can't
even tell where one leaves off and the other
begins. And so that's why I thought it was
a dream at first. I was there on the waterbed
only something was moving under me. The
bed was rocking a little and I thought that
meant Sondra had gotten up or just lain
back down or something, only it kept rocking
and I could hear her breathing and she was
asleep, and then I felt something bump into
me. From below.
Like
a fish in the water, a big fish, it bumped
me hard. I was awake right away, only I
wasn't sure I was awake, you know? How you're
thinking that you're dreaming that you're
awake, only maybe you are awake, only you
know that it's still part of the dream?
I felt something start pummeling me from
below. Like fists punching straight up at
me, pounding on my back from inside the
waterbed. Hard enough to almost hurt. Little
fists. And I got this picture in my mind
of a mermaid trapped inside the waterbed,
pounding on me to get me to get off and
that's when I woke up, or anyway that's
when I rolled over and got off the bed,
and I was thinking, This dream's too much
for me. I got up and went to the bathroom
and took a piss and got a drink and I was
kind of shaking from the dream, it was so
real, and then I thought, I gotta look in
on the kids, and I knew it was dumb but
whenever I felt afraid from a dream or a
noise in the night, even if I knew it was
nothing, I still had to look at the kids
and make sure they were all right.
The
boys were fine, the four-year-old, the two-year-old,
breathing steady and soft in their beds.
And from the door of Tamika's room she looked
fine, too, in a jumble of covers, only then
I thought, how can she stand to have so
much blanket on her in this heat? So I went
over to see if she was maybe sweating too
much and I ought to pull off the covers
and she wasn't there. Just her pillow and
the covers all wadded up where she must
have kicked them in the night and a damp
area on the sheets where she'd been sweating
and dreaming just like the rest of us.
She
must have gotten up to go to the bathroom,
I thought.
Only
I knew it wasn't that at all. I knew right
then that I hadn't been dreaming. All the
times Tamika had wished she was a fish in
the water, tonight somehow she'd dreamed
her way or wished her way into the only
pool of water in the house that was big
enough to hold her and she had somehow realized
where she was and knew it was me sleeping
right above her and she'd pounded on me
to wake up and save her and what was I doing
still standing here in her room feeling
the sheet when she was drowning?
I
knew I was crazy — that's why I started
calling her name, just shouting it, even
though I knew it would wake up the boys
and wake up Sondra, because I was still
hoping I was wrong, that she'd hear me and
she'd call out to me from the bathroom or
from the kitchen, "I'm in here, Daddy,
what's wrong?" only she didn't make
a sound but I keep on yelling her name so
maybe there in the water she can hear me
and she'll know I'm coming. I run into the
kitchen and open the high cupboard where
we keep the sharp knives and I get the big
heavy meat-chopping knife cause I know I
can get that one through the rubber of the
waterbed and then I'm heading back to my
bedroom and Sondra sees me coming with this
big knife shouting Tamika's name and I don't
know what she's thinking but she grabs me
and tries to stop me and I just flung her
away, that's why she had that cut on her
head, I didn't hit her, I was only thinking,
don't slow me down, my baby's in that water
and I've got to get her out.
So
the boys are crying and Sondra's crying
but all I know is, Tamika's been under there
too long, the whole time I was peeing and
getting a drink and looking at the boys
and checking her bed and getting this knife,
she's been under there alone in the dark
scared to death and trying to hold her breath.
She could hold her breath a long time, but
who knows how much air she had in her when
she found herself under there? It's not
like diving in when you can take a deep
breath.
That
was all going through my mind while I'm
pulling off the sheet and the pad and I
raise up the knife and I think, I can't
just jab down into this waterbed, I don't
know where Tamika is, I don't want this
knife to go right on through into my baby.
So I press down on the corner and make sure
she's not under there and then I jab with
the knife, and that mattress skin is tough,
it just shies away under the knife, it's
not till the third time that I get that
knife through and the water starts gushing
out and I'm pulling the blade through the
mattress, ripping through and now it cuts
real smooth and Sondra isn't crying anymore,
she's saying, "Where's Tamika? Where's
Tamika?" Well I cut about a five-foot
slice along my side of the waterbed and
there's water sloshing around, a real stink
from the algae and the chemicals, it's like
the filthiest industrial pond and I'm thinking,
My baby's in that muck, I've got to get
her out. So I plunge in my arms up to my
neck, some of that stuff sloshes right into
my mouth and I spit it out but I can't feel
her under there and my first thought is,
Thank the Lord, it was just a dream.
But
I know it's not a dream. I yell to Sondra,
"Push her over here," and Sondra
knows what I'm talking about by now, she
knows Tamika didn't answer me when I called,
so she doesn't ask me what I'm talking about,
she just gets on her side of the bed and
pushes straight down onto the mattress and
she cries out cause she felt Tamika under
the water and Sondra says, "I pushed
her!" and right then I feel her bump
up against my hands there in the dark water,
and I grab onto her ankle and I start pulling
and then with my left hand I find her arm
and I pull now with both arms and she just
comes sloshing right out, water all over
everything, but I got my baby out of there.
No,
I'm not thinking about how she got in there,
all I'm thinking is, how long was she under?
Is she breathing? And no, she wasn't breathing.
And I start yelling to Sondra, "Call
911!" And she grabs the phone and I
hear her calling while I'm pressing on Tamika's
chest and water whooshes out of her mouth
and then I go back and forth between pressing
on her and blowing air into her little mouth
and I'm still doing that when the paramedics
come and pull me out of the way and they
take over and get her on oxygen and you
already heard them testify about how they
saved her life.
Or
partly saved her, anyway. There was brain
damage from being without air so long, and
so she doesn't walk right and she has a
hard time talking and she's forgotten how
to read but that's still our little Tamika
in there, we know she's there, our little
waterbaby, she's just got to learn how to
do all those things again.
As
for what that social worker said, I didn't
confess to anything, but I did say what
she said I said. Because she was explaining
to us how our little girl wasn't coming
home till they could find out what really
happened that night, and I knew she didn't
believe us because who would? Who could
believe this story? How does a little girl
who's having dreams on a hot night suddenly
get inside a waterbed mattress? She's dreaming,
she's wishing she was in the water, and
suddenly her wish comes true? If I hadn't
cut into that waterbed myself, if I hadn't
felt her fists pounding me from inside it,
I would never have believed it. But Sondra
saw that there wasn't no cut in that mattress
till the cut she saw me make, and she pushed
our baby over to me, she felt it, she knows
what's true, and we were the only ones there,
and if I was making up some lie to tell
you, don't you think I'd make up a better
one than this?
My
lawyer, he as much as told me to make up
something better. He says to me, You got
to realize that it isn't what's true that
matters, it's what a jury can actually believe,
and nobody's going to believe what you're
telling me. And he starts telling me all
these maybes, like Maybe you dropped a ring
into the waterbed so you cut into it to
try to get it out and maybe your daughter
thought she could help you find it and when
your back was turned she went into the water
to look for the ring and you didn't realize
she was trapped under there until too late.
But
I said to him, When I put my hand on God's
word and promise the Lord God that I'll
tell the truth, that's what I'll do, even
if it means I lose my baby, even if it means
I go to jail, because my family needs the
Lord now more than ever, more than they
need me, so I'm not going to spit in the
eye of Jesus. I will tell it the way it
happened. And as for that so-called confession,
all I ever said was, "Lay it all on
me. I'll move out of the house so you'll
know Tamika will be safe, but you let her
go home to her mama and her brothers."
I didn't confess to nothing, but I took
all their suspicions on myself so that when
I left the house they'd let her go back
home. And I kept my word, I haven't come
near the house this whole time, Sondra and
I talk on the phone and I've talked to Tamika
on the phone cause even though she doesn't
talk so good she can still hear me and I
can tell her how much I love her. And no
matter how this trial comes out, I know
that my baby said to me, one time on the
phone she said, "Thank you Daddy,"
and I knew she was thanking me for waking
up when she pounded on me and for getting
her out of the water.
If
I hadn't believed in the impossible then
I would never have cut into that waterbed.
I would have stripped off the sheet and
seen there was no break in the mattress
and I would've known there's no way she
could be in there, and we would have searched
the whole house and yard for Tamika and
called the cops and woke the neighbors and
after a while somebody would have realized
there was some big lump inside the waterbed
and if we'd got one of the cops to cut into
the mattress or a paramedic or even a neighbor,
with a bunch of witnesses, then I wouldn't
be on trial, it'd just be some story in
Weekly World News and I wouldn't be trying
to make some jury believe the impossible.
But
my baby would be dead.
So
I'm glad I'm here and I'm glad I'm on trial,
because I'd rather go to jail and never
see my baby again, as long as I know she's
alive and she's with her Mama and her brothers
and she's got a chance to be herself again.
But I'd rather be with her. My boys need
me, and she needs me. I'm a good father
to my family, I never raised a hand against
them, I work hard and I make a fair living.
Put me in jail and that's all gone, Sondra
has to go to work or live off welfare or
what her family and my family can spare.
But whatever we go through, that's fine,
we thank Jesus all the same, because our
baby's alive.
And
maybe I do deserve to go to jail. Cause
I'm not the one who put her in the water,
but I am the one who pulled her out too
late.
