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1
The first time I punched a baby in the face I didn’t realize what I’d done until its mother started shrieking. I stood slack-jawed in the middle of a sparsely populated mall in the middle of the afternoon, staring at the mother’s white knuckles gripping the stroller handle. It took a few seconds for my brain to process what the woman was screaming.
“This crazy woman hit my baby!” she bellowed.
She barged around to the front of the stroller − nearly pushing me down in the process − and snatched up her precious bundle of joy. It was then I realized my right hand was poised to strike and my knuckles were stinging. The sound of that little bundle of soft flesh keening its fucking head off was seared into my memory from that moment on. The wail of a crying baby turned into something I craved after hearing it a few times. It was nice to know someone, even if it was an infant, felt the same way I did – miserable.
2
I couldn’t tell you why I did it the first time. I did the only thing I could do when the mother coddled her infant and began to yell for security. I fucking ran. I ran out the door, got in my car, and sped home.
I still remember the trembling adrenaline rush as I checked my rearview mirror a thousand times to make sure the cops weren’t following me. I wish I could live that moment over and over. Nothing is as good as the first time. Like the first fuck with a lover. You’re always so pumped up it’s over before you know it and you hardly remember anything about it but snippets of the other person’s face or the sigh they made when they entered you.
Once I got home my thoughts leading up to the punch came trickling back to me. I remembered watching a young happy couple walking from store to store holding hands and I recalled how jealous I was. At the overripe age of thirty-eight I’d had my fair share of failed relationships. I’d tried marriage twice and found I didn’t make a great wife. Both of my ex-husbands wanted what I couldn’t give them – children. It wasn’t something that could be corrected with a simple surgery or some hormone injections. So instead of accepting me the way I was, or trying for something as simple as adoption, or possibly not having children, they both opted to find someone more fertile to pass on their namesake.
After being forsaken by two assholes for clusters of cells that multiplied and multiplied and turned into wriggling shitting machines, so the wriggling shitting machines could grow up to be raised by the assholes, therefore destined to turn into assholes themselves, I grew to despise children.
All of this happened in my twenties. By the end of my second divorce I was thirty years old. Relationships transcend into a whole different realm once you reach your thirties. My twenties revolved around dreaming, but once I reached my thirties I realized quickly reality sucks and dreams don’t come true. Dating in your thirties is terrible. Most men had already established a firm foothold in life. They had kids. They had multiple kids with different mothers. They had weekend visitations and couldn’t meet for a date unless it was a weekday. If they didn’t have kids they were desperate to get married and start having kids. After a few years of “this is never going to work out” being thrown in my face for circumstances beyond my control, I gave up.
I was thinking over this when I spotted the infant. The irritation of constant rejection morphed into a new rage when another woman approached the stroller. The woman tilted her head with that inquisitive dumb dog look, stared down at the baby, and began prattling on in some stupid gibberish, awed by the little bundle of joy. The mother’s face quickly transformed into a mask of smugness as she sucked up all the attention she and her child were receiving. The woman stood in a bowed position, looked up to the mother, and asked a pointless question. The mother answered her with a pompous expression.
Mind you, I have no idea what the conversation consisted of. I didn’t care. All I saw was the total acceptance and admiration from the woman and self-righteous attitude of the mother. There was something about the way the complete stranger stayed in a bowed stance as she conversed with the mother that got under my skin.
I thought, Here is what I’ll never have. This is what I’ve lost because I’m physically unable to have children. I would never be adored by a total stranger for doing something as easy as lying on my back, spreading my legs, and letting my cunt become a come-catching receptacle. Women had been doing it for millions of years and everyone still acted like it was a fucking miracle each and every time. It all came down to a simple science but the world always acted like the mother was a fucking saint. No admiration for me though. I was defective.
Before I knew it, the admiring woman was walking off to finish her shopping and I was walking toward the mother. The mother started pushing her stroller aimlessly as I made a beeline for her. She fiddled with something in a diaper bag hung on the side of the stroller. She found whatever she was looking for and noticed me walking toward her. I can’t imagine what my expression looked like, but it caused the mother’s face to contort. She looked concerned.
I plastered on a big fake smile as I neared her, tilted my head in the same affectionate way the previous woman had, and bowed down to get a closer look. It was dressed in a ridiculous pink outfit.
I said, “Aw. How cute.”
“Thanks,” the mother said glibly.
I don’t know if my mind warped the tone of her voice or if she intended for the response to sound superficial. It didn’t matter. I didn’t pay attention to her because my mind was racing as I stared at the child.
I thought about how this little product of the simplest and humanly instinctive act was now the embodiment of adoration for doing nothing more than existing. The world would bow down and bend over backward for this eating, shitting, and crying lump of flesh. And the mother? Everyone would congratulate her for letting some man squirt inside her. But me? People felt sorry for me.
I don’t know how many times I’d been apologized to after I was asked how many children I have. I answered them with the standard, “I’m unable to have children.” And the pity ingrained in their automatic and unthoughtful expressions and responses made me die a little inside each time they responded with, “I’m sorry.” They weren’t sorry. They were just glad it wasn’t them.
These were the thoughts racing through my head as I bowed down before the mother and child. Somewhere in that moment the stoic wall I hid behind my whole life exploded. All the pain and anger and frustration and turning of the cheek as I was rejected over and over again surged through me and my fingers began to curl inward. For once in my life I knew exactly what I wanted. And I wanted people to feel as sorry for this mother as they did me.
And it happened. I balled my fist, hiked my arm back, and punched the baby square in the face. I was in a daze afterward. It took me a few hours to piece every thought and event of my life back together before I realized how I ended up at the lowest point.
3
> I’m not a completely heartless bastard. I felt really bad about what I’d done at first. I kept checking out my window for the police. I expected to open my curtains and find the S.W.A.T team on my front lawn with all their guns drawn. I wondered if I’d caused the kid any brain-damage. I checked the news every hour, wanting to know if any information about what I’d done had shown up.
Maybe I was a little heartless. I was more concerned with going to jail than I was about the repercussions of hitting an infant in the head. But no one can deny we live in a world were self-preservation is priority. I didn’t have anyone to look after but myself and it had been that way my whole life.
The only thing the news aired was a few seconds of grainy black and white footage of me striking