My Little Alien

P.S. Monday is my son's 16th birthday. This is an excerpt from my memoir of one routine night I remember most clearly. Happy birthday, Langston.

Boog would unlace my boots before we got off work, and I'd slide my swollen feet into fuzzy pink slippers. The whole section, including the higher-ranked sergeants obligated to enforce the regulation, laughed at the spectacle.

I could have found more appropriate shoes. One female sergeant whispered as much weeks earlier. But I couldn't deny my all-male section their entertainment. They kept a warm Panera Bread toffee-nut cookie and a pack of Lemonheads on my desk, and someone was always ready to put on and take off my boots.

At shift's end, they'd escort me to my car. The entire section peeled out in formation like the opening scene of West Side Story.

Behind the wheel, I let my cravings decide my next stop.

That week: chili dogs and fries. But only Detroit Coney-style. There was a Greek spot an hour away in Baltimore that got it exactly right, but the neighborhood was sketchy at night.

So I pulled into Johnny Rockets inside the Anne Arundel Mall. Two coney dogs. Small chili fries. Large Sprite. Heavy mustard. Extra onions.

I walked the corridor while they prepared my order, passing mannequins dressed for the club. I wondered what Tahirah, Mariah, and Tyana were wearing that night. It was Friday. I hadn't seen them in weeks, but their MySpace showed new photos of them bar-hopping in Fells Point.

I envied them.

My life was moving fast in the opposite direction of my civilian friends still in college and living at home. I was four years into my military career, surrounded by other twenty-one-year-olds already on their second marriages with multiple children.

I didn't know if I was early or late.

I ate dinner on the thirty-two-minute drive west to my two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in King's Contrivance. A tucked-away, tree-lined downstairs flat a quarter mile from Columbia Mall. My wingman, Richie, told me about the place three months earlier. I couldn't believe the price.

I stepped down the three stairs into the undecorated apartment. Kicked off the pink slippers, unbuttoned my uniform blouse, peeled off my pants, and stretched across the sectional.

My food settled in my belly, and I lay on my back, knees in the air, waiting for him to wake up. My stomach was just starting to harden with indentations and crevices like a well-beaten hill. I stared at the mountain and inhaled deep.

Blurb. Slosh.

My eyes lit up at the slow ripple beneath my skin. I placed my hand over the movement, pressing gently, feeling the flutter from inside: a legion of butterflies trapped beneath soft waves.

Hello there.

I lay in awe at the alien-like miracle taking place.

I studied my body like a doctor, separating mine from his.

Where's my spleen? My kidney? My bladder?

Then—the foot? The hand? The face?

I watched somersaults and leaps from one side to the other.

I told him about my day. The ops 1 cafeteria gossip. Who said what. What I ate while I listened. I'd complain about the itching from cholestasis. I'd ask him to be nicer to my bladder at night. He'd kick at every pause.

I'd place both hands on my belly and lift it high to measure his circumference. I'd tell him, You're about the size of a cantaloupe. By the way, I hate cantaloupes—that's old people's fruit.

We'd play catch-a-foot. I marveled at his speed and agility.

I sang softly.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…

One hour. Two. Until he tired himself out.

When the movement slowed, I whispered a prayer to keep him happy and healthy and all to myself a little longer.

Feeling the numbness in my legs, I swung one foot off the couch, then the other, and pushed myself toward the shower. In the mirror, I watched my shirt ride up, exposing the outtie beneath.

I was morphing into Winnie-the-Pooh.

Looking down at the dome, I thought, God is hilarious. We really are extraterrestrials.

I turned off the lights and went to bed.

See you next week. 🥂