All in a day’s work
I’m not a mean man at heart.
But I believe in the law, and when the law says that people ought to get approval for having babies, I enforce it.
But some people just don’t get the message.
Like the bitch I had to chase down today.
She was gone by the time I reach the apartment on the report of an unauthorized pregnancy.
The neighbors, hating cops of any kid, wouldn’t tell me where she went either.
They’re scared because they probably have a few illegal toddlers in the basement, too.
It’s bad down here in the ghetto where every sort of perversion gets done, a regular hive of illegal apartments, illegal immigrants and illegal babies popping out of sight the moment someone like me comes along.
And it’ll take a fumigator to reach all the hidden like niches these people have.
Down here, people call me “a baby killer” behind my back, seeing me as some kind of grim reaper specializing in the unborn, stealing away people’s prodigy.
I try not to let any of that bother me, or show how much it really hurts.
I don’t like being the one to hunt these babies down, but somebody has to do the dirty jobs.
And where would the world be if we let every ignorant asshole breed freely, popping out another mouth to feed any time they wanted, creating a whole new generation of tax-sucking little brats that become a burden on the state.
While the ghetto isn’t the only place you’ll find thoughtless fools breeding brats for their own self indulgence, this place is a perfect example of how bad conditions in the world would become if we went back to those days when she let every mindless jerk become a parent.
And I know that if I don’t hunt down every woman like this one, we’ll go back to those days when people had to resort to other ways to control the excess population. Better to get them early than to go starting up the ovens again.
So I wander around the neighborhood like a lost dog, sniffing at this door and that with the vain hope I might pick up on the scent. The landscape is thick with rusted burned out cars nearly as worthless as the people who own them.
She could be anywhere in this mess, I think.
She could be watching me from any window and I wouldn’t even know.
Word spreads out before me like a Tsunami, washing dread over the faces of the people in the street, as person talks to person, and everyone eyes me as if I’ve come to kill them.
None of them will answer my questions, giving me grunts or shrugs when I demand to know where the woman went.
All claim they have no knowledge of her or anyone like her when they all know lots of woman with lots of babies the rest of society has to pay for.
No human is immune to such hatred.
Not even baby hunters like me.
Deep down, I feel as badly about it as they do, knowing that we humans must always resort to killing when we can’t control our urges.
Their hatred is so overwhelming, I feel as if I might drown.
Of course, I’m doing the right thing, making this planet livable for those babies the government allows to live: none will get born to drug addicts or sexual perverts. None will have to live with the indignity of being born poor while some other child is born rich. All will have enough to eat, a good education, and a promising future.
I keep thinking that if people only obeyed the law, they wouldn’t have to live in hell holes like this.
Finally, a pharmacy owner tells me where the woman is.
She apparently snatched a bottle of baby formula from his shelf when she could not provide him with a prescription form for it.
He has dealt with her before, has filled out other prescriptions for her, and had intended to call the police except he felt sorry for her.
Still, faced with 20 years for aiding and abetting a fugitive, he gives me her address.
Another patron in the store overheard us and rushes out ahead of me, darting through the crowded and dirty streets to the apartment I am looking for, shouting a warning to the woman to escape.
When I get into the rooms, the woman is gone.
Still, she left behind all she has worked hard to collect over the last nine months, a stockpile of food and clothing, she bought, stole or borrowed in anticipation of the birth.
From these signs I deduce she has not yet delivered, but is very close.
Something aches inside of me when confronted with cases like this.
I have seen the silent screams of the fetus when aborted this close to birth, and sometimes I even cringe.
I force myself to cease thinking such thoughts.
If we let this one live a more legitimate baby might stave.
So I set up my look out post across the street, knowing full well the woman will have to return.
If she is so far gone as that, she will have no time to accumulate more things she needs.
She will have to sneak back and collect some of this.
I pounce on her the moment she appears.
She pleads with me for mercy.
She gets so upset she comes near to miscarriage.
As I thought, she is far gone, and for an instant, I again feel guilty.
I know what such women go through, how they struggle not only to carry the baby for nine months, but all of the convulsions they must go through to keep the fact hidden.
While this place protects people like her to some degree – people here pretending for the most part not to notice the growing bulge -- patrols are frequent, and so are random checks.
If I was less of the man I am, I might have let her go.
I tell her I am doing this for her own good.
Though we both know her crime is serious enough to have her euthanized, too – or at best, the doctors will sterilize her to keep her from making the same mistake twice.
Police officers arrive and help me escort her out of the ghetto.
Everybody is out on the street staring, many with open hate. But I can see doubt in enough faces to know that this sight will teach them the fundamental lesson: crime does not pay and we mean business when it comes to who we will allow to have babies and who we won’t.
But then, it’s all in a day’s work.