He ran over the baby in his driveway. It was dark and he had been on his way to the grocery store for some potato chips. He liked having something to munch on while he watched movies late at night. The grocery store closed at eleven and he got into his car at ten forty-five. It was going to be tight, whether or not he made it in time to buy his potato chips.
As he backed onto the road, he heard a squawk followed by a squishing sound. At first, he thought he had run over the neighbour’s cat. But when he got the emergency flashlight out of the trunk, he saw that he had run over a baby. He had run over a baby with his right rear tire.
Panic crawled over his skin like a swarm of fire ants. He wondered if any of the neighbours noticed what he had done. He looked up and down the street, but no one else was outside. Most of them were probably sitting in front of big-screens watching reality TV shows. He wondered if the baby belonged to somebody. Of course it belonged to somebody. Somewhere. But he was more interested in specifics. Did the baby specifically belong to somebody in the neighbourhood? He couldn’t think of anybody in the neighbourhood who had a baby. There was Myrna Mapplethorpe five doors down who engaged in the sort of behaviour that produced babies. But as far as he knew, Myrna hadn’t made any extra babies to leave behind on other people’s driveways.
He found a spade and tarp in the garage and used the spade to scoop the little baby carcass onto the tarp. He carried the tarp into the back yard and there, beneath the rising moon, he dug a hole in the vegetable garden. He dumped the dead baby into the hole and covered it with loose clods. After he was done, he hosed down the tarp and washed all the blood from the driveway. When he shut off the water, it was as if nothing had happened. His wife wondered why his pant cuffs were dirty and wet. He said he had watered the garden before coming inside. She asked for her potato chips. He said he hadn’t made it in time to the grocery store. They would have to settle for microwave popcorn. Together, they watched a movie about zombie attacks from Mars while they munched on their extra buttery microwave popcorn.
On the weekend, while he was weeding the garden, he noticed a woody shoot poking up through the dirt. It looked more like a tree than a weed. Although familiar with a variety of weeds, he had never seen such a plant before. Maybe it wasn’t a weed, but a legitimate plant that had accidentally seeded itself in his garden. He decided to let it grow to see what kind of plant it was.
By the end of the growing season, the shoot was a stalk as tall as a man and as thick as an arm. The next spring, after the snow had melted and it was time to seed the garden, he found that the stalk had sprouted branches with buds. It was a sapling and as tall as the house. It put out leaves and offered a cool shade. The young tree flowered in May and by June a fruit was forming on its branches. He had never seen such a fruit. It wasn’t round, like an apple. And it was more irregular than a pear. In July, his wife remarked upon the strange new fruit tree growing in the garden. She thought the fruit looked like those funny black-and-white images you see of ultrasounds, kind of a peanut, only bigger and hanging from a branch. By August, the features of the fruit were more obviously the features of a foetus. Through autumn, the fruit ripened until the tree was laden with baby fruit. There were twenty-five baby fruits in all.
On a warm Indian summer’s morning, sleeping late with the window flung wide, they heard a great thud on the dirt and a wail that broke their morning peace. He ran to the garden and found that the first baby fruit had fallen from the tree.
It’s a baby, he shouted.
His wife stood in the bedroom window, hands on hips and frowning. Don’t be absurd, she said, everybody knows babies don’t grow on trees.
He held the wailing baby in his arms and rocked it back and forth. Well, he said, if it isn’t a baby, it sure looks like a baby.
Nature’s funny that way, said his wife, one thing pretending to be another.
As they spoke, another baby fell from the tree with a whump and the same wailing rose up from the dirt and sent the neighbour’s dog into fits.
We’re going to have two dozen at least of these things, he shouted. What’ll we do with them all?
Maybe we can cook them, said the wife. They look a bit like eggplant. Aubergine. I expect we could whip up something tasty.
But they’re babies, he shouted.
Don’t be silly, she answered. Bring one inside. Let’s look at it.
They laid the thing on the kitchen table, staring at it from either side. It was screaming now, which made a civil conversation difficult. When he turned it over onto its “stomach,” he noticed a brown paste underneath that looked and smelled like shit.
I think we should buy some diapers, he said.
It’s not a baby, she insisted. But her voice quavered, suggesting to him that she might have doubts about her earlier view of the matter.
Through the open window, they heard another four or five thuds in the dirt. He went back to the garden and, gathering up all the baby fruits, tossed them into the wheelbarrow and carted them around to the side door. They squirmed and waved their “limbs” and made a horrible noise. He went inside again and said he didn’t think he could care for a wheelbarrow full of babies.
His wife yelled: They aren’t babies, goddammit! They’re fruit that look like babies. I’ll prove it.
His wife lifted the baby fruit they had lain on the kitchen table and she slid a cutting board underneath. Taking up a cleaver, she chopped off its “head.”
The wailing stopped.
It’s bleeding, he said. He laid out paper towel to keep the crimson fluid from pouring onto the kitchen floor.
This isn’t blood, she said. This is just the juice like you’d find in any fruit—like tomato juice or grapefruit juice.
I dunno, he said. It sure looks like blood.
I’ll prove it.
Taking up a bread knife, the wife sawed through the middle of the baby fruit. When she was done, she pulled apart the two halves and displayed what looked like a severed spine and intestines and liver.
Still looks like a baby to me, he said.
Not wishing to push things with his wife, he went along with her opinion. He helped her gather up all the rest of the baby fruit and, together, they made a variety of recipes. Some, they chopped up for a stew; some, they peeled and boiled and mashed with cinnamon to make a baby fruit sauce. Some, they stuffed with rice and almonds and raisins and dried cranberries. When they were done, they filled the freezer with dozens of single serving containers that they could take to work for lunch and thaw in the microwave. But after all their work, there were eight baby fruits left in the wheelbarrow. While he washed up the kitchen, his wife worked the baby fruits into the compost in the back corner of the garden.
The following year, their baby tree yielded a crop of thirty fresh baby fruits and they found five new shoots sprouting from the compost. What they learned—and they warned all their neighbours—is that the baby fruit tree, once it takes hold, is a tenacious weed and almost impossible to get rid of. Never let baby fruits anywhere near your property unless you are prepared for a lot of work.