Sanitation Department

“Don’t go near that!” yelled a fearful young mother. She scurried as quickly as possible to her child, swatting its hand before he could touch what she feared most. Her peroxide blonde hair billowed in the gale force wind of her trot.

‘That’ was a homeless human being, a man so underprivileged by her terms that he was no longer a human. He was a thing, a ‘that,’ to her. The boots donning his feet were eventually replaced by old scraps and bundled newspaper cords attached to soles that flip-flopped when he walked. Anyone could tell that his pants were meant to be khaki and worn to work, but they had an acquired taste for the city’s filth. Plaid was made for him, judging by the three shirts he wore. He had unbuttoned them all, revealing a white shirt that had lost the war against bodily functions. The olive-green trench coat survived underneath the years of salvaging in dumpsters and living under crawlspaces. His matted dusty blonde mane, combed by gritty, calloused fingers, was at the mercy of the wind that blew around the play area. The discarded action figure of God’s toy box leaned back on the bench, useless to entertaining the world.

Everything about her appearance clashed with the tainted atmosphere of the bum. Her pink argyle sweater, crisp starched white button down and creased denim jeans made it aware that someone was out of place. It wasn’t her. She snatched the child up like a runaway orange from a grocery bag. She had spent an hour dressing the three year-old in his designer three-piece sweater outfit. Only a famous fashion designer could assemble such a configuration of colors and patterns. This bum, that thing, lounging on the park bench was no famous designer. Her hand fumbled for a wet-napkin in her purse. Her eyes carefully scanned the park bench for any movement from the filthy miscreant. Her skin paled even further than the sunless, blinding, milky gleam she already possessed. She shook the moistened towelette until it had unfolded into a surrendering flag of cleanliness.

“You don’t touch homeless people,” she lectured the child as she openly bathed him in aloe and lanolin freshness. “They’re filthy and carry nasty, nasty germs. You’ll get sick if you touch those dirty people.” The toddler looked at his mother with excited gray eyes, giggling vibrantly.

She proceeded to wipe any infiltrating germ that may have been transferred to her little one. She unraveled another moist napkin and went along the blond hairline of her prized one. With the bath complete, she stood, picking up her child in a safety net of pink argyle. She turned her nose up while her eyes looked down at the disgusting being on the bench. She rolled her eyes and marched back to the stroller, evacuating the premises to load the all-terrain stroller into a gigantic sport-utility vehicle.

She snapped her child into the huge, plush child safety seat. The toddler’s eyes were barely visible over the puffy lap bar. He playfully banged his fist on the cloth-covered foam bar as he repeated ‘I love you. You love me.’ She smiled at her precious son. She placed a pastel gingham teddy bear between the lap bar and the toddler. He proceeded with attempting to pluck the button eyes off of the adorable bear.

Then she heard it. It was the voices of two people. She turned to see two Hispanic people walking towards her. One of them wore a kerchief wrapped around his head. She thought to herself, “Oh my God, gang members, here!”

Her body tensed, but soon reacted. She closed the humongous transport’s door to protect her son from the gang leaders with the window’s dark UV tint. She fumbled with her own door’s handle. It finally relinquished its hold and let her in. Her pink sandaled foot stepped on the floorboard. Her left hand grabbed the inside handle. Her right hand grabbed the side of the seat. She pulled herself up into the massive vehicle. She quickly adjusted herself under the steering wheel, closed the door and pushed the ‘Door Lock’ button. All of the locks on the tank-like sport utility vehicle obeyed and jumped into locking action. The ‘gang members’ casually walked towards the tank, staring at her while they walked around her safety zone. They kept going, talking. She knew they were planning their next victim since they were unable to penetrate her mobile fortress of solitude. She now had to find something for her clean, germ-free prince to eat.

The fall sun followed the young mother and her sanitized son from the park to the grocery store. She emerged clutching the immaculate toddler from the three-point safety harness in the car seat. The grocery store was not full as it usually was. She carried the child on her hip as she single-handedly pushed the shopping cart. There were no troubles navigating the minivan-shopping cart through the aisles. There were no cares as the cart rolled around neatly stacked displays. There were no worries as it was parked in the middle of the aisle. The mother and child could not have asked for a quieter shopping moment. She was in no rush. There was nothing to rush from. This store was clean.

The child pointed at several snacks. As a mother, she couldn’t allow her son to eat such processed junk. “No, Honey, those make you sick sick sick.”

The baffled kid looked up at her, then at the cartoon character on the box. “Eat!”

The debutant mother placed her child in the seat of the cart. The mother opened a plastic bag. Her French manicured nails clasped around an apple. She wiped it down with a wet napkin and offered it up as a nutritious sacrifice for her son. The toddler grabbed the fruit and bit into its juicy skin. With a full basket, the WonderMom approached the checkout.

The sterilized boy sat in the seat, swinging his legs and eating the apple. He began waving to a young black woman standing behind them. She was fair in skin, slightly speckled with freckles. Her auburn hair was curly, but neatly pulled into a puffed ponytail of fire. Argyle was the chosen pattern of this neighborhood and the black woman wore it as a lime green vest over her green pinstripe shirt. Her French manicured toes stuck out from under her baggy jeans. The black woman held up her hand to wave back at the cute blond boy. She had more rings than Saturn! This alerted the young mother. She scanned over the black woman, the newest threat to her safety. The mother never got passed the black woman’s face. “Earrings in her eyebrows,” she thought. “How ghetto.”

Her eyebrow furled a little. Her nose pointed into a pristine snob position. The groceries never exited a buggy as fast as the young mother could get them out. She fumbled the milk onto the loaf of bread on the conveyor belt. She couldn’t be concerned with crush multigrain bread. Her son was in danger. She glared at the black woman in lime green argyle.

The black woman smiled at her and then at the child. Her tanned hand waved back, dazzling the kid with her lime green sparkled manicure and gaudy rings. The blond boy reached out to the black woman, who was still smiling. The young mother picked up her angel and clutched him to her chest. Her thin upper lip curled a little. She rolled her eyes and turned away from the black woman.

She stepped further up into the line to look at her total. The child adjusted himself to stare at the mysteriously colored woman. The mother twisted to block his view. The child shifted and peered over his mother’s shoulders to look at the black woman. The mother performed numerous evasive maneuvers to avoid the child looking at the black woman. “This black heifer was trying to kidnap him,” her mind screamed.

The groceries could not be scanned fast enough. When the total was finally read, the new mother ravished her purse to find the money and pay the cashier. She began to hurry along with her cart. She rolled her eyes at the black woman again and exhaled in a muffled sigh, “can’t even wear decent clothes. I swear. They really should go back to their own country.” Her expensive footwear sped her through the sliding doors.

She buckled her son back into the suburban attack vehicle, consistently gazing back at the grocery store. She watched carefully at the black woman, flipping a mental coin on whether to fight or flee if she came out to the parking lot.

The black woman was paying for her small amount of groceries. The black shoplifter looked down at her purse to retrieve her debit card. The black suspect picked up a crumpled piece of paper from the floor. The black kidnapper looked directly at the white suburban mother. The black assailant trotted as fast as she could to the parking lot.

“Ma’am!”

The urban rejecting mother opened the door to her environmentally unfriendly vehicle. She had to hurry up and get the hell out of here. That crazy black heifer was coming for her!

“Miss!”

The young mother turned around to see the black woman waving her fist frantically. She immediately closed the door and started the ignition.

“Miss! You --,” managed the black woman before the monster truck nearly backed out over her. The young, white mother watched the black woman in her rearview mirror. She put her hand down. She shook her head and started trotting back to the store.

Unknown to the fearful, sanitizing white mother, the black woman took her debit card and swiped it. The cashier looked at her.

“What was it?”

The black woman smiled. “Nothing.” She dropped the wrinkled fifty-dollar bill into her purse.

The suburban mother briefly paused at the red light to breathe a sigh of relief for avoiding a confrontation. She looked in her rear-view mirror again to make sure her baby was secure. “Mommy is going to protect you from the bad people of the world.” The toddler chuckled and hurled his stuffed animal to the floor. She drove off to her suburban oblivion, content with her moral missions for the day. She kept her son safe yet again.

Years had passed. The lectures had continued for the young student. Her prince had grown up. It was time to pick him up from school. She never understood his fashion sense. However, she came to understand the trends of his generations. She had read about it once in a copy of Teen Cosmo while waiting in the spa for a facial. She figured she’d never accept the “grunge look” for herself, but as long as her son was happy. She would let him have his fashion trend, just as long as it didn’t go further than that.

She checked her creamy complexion in the rearview mirror. She was still pale, colonial goddess white. She searched the sidewalk sidelines of the high school for her son. She never knew how much it was like finding a needle in a haystack. These teens looked all alike. Threatening. She jerked the truck at times, thinking she had spotted him at first. She knew when she had the right child. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of her son. Her mind tried to cope, “When did that happen?”

He had traded in the plush safety seat long ago for the park bench outside of the highschool. He had switched from the three-piece designer outfit to baggy jeans, oversized shirts and a thrift-store olive-green trench coat. He ran his long knobby fingers through his thick dirty blonde hair, spiraled into a million nappy dreads. The bandana he tied around his head kept the dreads from covering his face. His feet couldn’t keep still. They tapped back and forth in the once expensive tennis shoes his mother had purchased. They were worn down, complete with a hole at the big toe. His gray eyes looked to his feet, the girl next to him and then the curb in circles. His fingers rapped on his thigh nervously.

The slender teen girl next to him had her fluffy black hair tied back into a ponytail. Her striped sweater vest covered a neatly pressed white button down blouse. Long denim legs stretched to the ground to meet her sandaled, manicured toes. The grungy blonde boy tightly grasped the hand of the trim, well-dressed black girl as they sat outside the school, watching his mother slowly pull up in the enormous sport utility vehicle.

(c) Copyright Xcesiv4ce 2006