Member-only story
No Good Deed
“Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.”– Hunter S. Thompson
This story orignally appeared in New Plains Review
Jogging in place as she waited for the light to change, Janey blinked into the sunlight. By the time she crossed the street, the toddler had pulled itself to its feet and staggered behind the shrubbery. Just last weekend, after the final six-pack at Melanie’s place, she’d blown out a tire when she grazed the curb because she thought she saw a baby crossing Cahuenga. It was 1 a.m., and a baby was dragging its little white blanket across a busy Hollywood street all by itself. Except it wasn’t a baby. It was a midget or a dwarf — or whatever the hell people were supposed to call them nowadays. A little person. A grown man with a white plastic grocery sack coming from the 24-hour Ralph’s. What the hell? So maybe this wasn’t a baby either.
But it was.
“Yup, you’re a baby,” Janey said, leaping over the sidewalk toward the hedge. The baby was shuddering when she picked him up. Tears had etched streaks of clean through the grime on his cheeks, and snot snaked onto his upper lip. “Poor little man!” Janey said, still thinking of the dwarf as she teetered between revulsion and sympathy. The baby’s bottom half felt like a towel that had just been pulled from a washing machine.
