Baby Hater

by C.V. Hunt

the car seat she’d have to be directly beside the car.

  “Uh...” I tried to stall and come up with a name. Who was I kidding? This woman looked like she hadn’t seen the inside of a salon in six months. I could make up anything. “I think it’s called the Rose’s Salon.” I winced internally. It was a dumb fictitious name. Verbal improv was a weakness of mine.

  The woman took a small step back. I was losing her.

  She made a confused face and said, “Never heard of it.” She took another step back. “Sorry I couldn’t help.”

  She hiked the slipping toddler up again and started to turn. I knew this was my only chance and I acted quickly. I threw open my car door and darted for her. The woman must have realized what I was about to do. She made a strangled noise, stumbled over her feet trying to get away from me, and fell down. The plastic of the car seat made a loud pop when it hit the asphalt. I made a fist as I approached the car seat. The baby and toddler began wailing simultaneously. The woman swatted at me furiously and screamed, “No!” just as my fist made contact with the baby’s beet red squealing face.

  The woman made a sound like a wounded beast. She regained herself quickly and grabbed at my leg as I turned to run. I stumbled, pulled my leg free, and made it back to my car. The mother slammed into my car door. I put the car into gear just as her fist sailed through my open window and made contact with my temple. The blow broke my sunglasses. My head swam from the impact and I stomped the accelerator.

  “You fucking bitch!” the woman screamed.

  I felt something trickling down the side of my face as I drove home. I examined myself in the mirror at a stoplight. My sunglasses had cut my eyebrow and there was some swelling. The cut bled steadily.

  When I got home I inspected the gash in the bathroom. The cut was deep and wouldn’t stop bleeding. I knew I couldn’t go to the hospital. I would get caught if I did.

  Holding a towel to my cut I searched online for some homemade remedies. The best advice I found was to superglue the wound shut. Luckily I had some. I called in sick for a couple of days until the swelling went down. The cut was located within the hair of my eyebrow and wasn’t extremely noticeable. The bruising was another issue. I became a master of applying makeup concealer.

  The cut was the least of my worries though. The woman who’d hit me apparently had a memory like a steel trap. Not only had she been able to accurately describe me to a police sketch artist, she remembered the make, color, and license number of my car.

  “Shit,” I cursed as I scrolled down the article on the internet.

  This was a huge setback. The sketch of me wasn’t the biggest setback. She’d described me in disguise and those were never the same and never revealing of my true identity. It was the description of the getaway vehicle and the license number that pissed me off. There was no way they could trace it back to me, but it was nearly worthless for its purpose now. I had to get rid of it.

  I went to the hardware store and bought up all of the black spray paint I could find. I painted the car black and stole a license plate off a school bus. I replaced the plate, bought a gas container and filled it up, then drove the car to the shittiest part of town around three o’clock in the morning. I thoroughly soaked the interior and set it on fire to destroy any finger prints or DNA.

  I passed a few questionable people as I walked down the block away from the inferno, but none of them seemed concerned with me, just the car engulfed in flames.

  6

  It took me three months to replace the vehicle. In the meantime I’d grown a crazy amount of fans. Someone started a regular website praising my actions and there was a Facebook page. I became a member of the Facebook page only because it was a private page and I wanted to see what people were saying. Mainly it was a bunch of attention whores claiming they were the Baby Hater. That’s what they were calling me: The Baby Hater. I didn’t think it was very original but what the hell. I guess every superhero needed a name.

  At the beginning of the third month, after I’d obtained a new car and began plotting my next assault, something happened and everything changed.

  A copycat. Yes. A copycat. Some bitch punched a baby in the face and it wasn’t me.

  There was a frenzy of activity on the website and Facebook page. People were questioning whether I’d retired because I hadn’t met my monthly quota or if I’d been arrested for something else since the police were still looking for me. A few intelligent followers pointed out my car was discovered burned and I was probably trying to find a new means of transportation. I wanted to ‘like’ their comments, but I had to stay silent and try not to draw attention to myself.

  I was furious at the copycat. Whoever she was she didn’t have a fucking clue how difficult she’d made it for me. Two people doing it would ensure one of us would get caught. The statistics were uneven now. And she was fucking sloppy. Apparently it was some old hag who punched a baby in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I’m surprised she didn’t get caught. Wal-Mart is too populated and well surveyed for anyone to get away with anything. I would’ve never chosen a Wal-Mart.

  I had to change my strategy. I was stumped about what to do. I couldn’t drive to another city. The thought crossed my mind before, but I kept thinking the chances of my car being recognized were higher the longer I was on the road. I had to keep the assaults relatively close to home, but not too close.

  The solution came to me one night while I was watching TV. A McDonald’s commercial came on. Ronald McDonald and Grimace were dancing around like a couple of fucking lunatics for some shitty hamburgers and roping kids in to join them in their creepy pedophile burger dance.

  “Holy shit,” I said aloud. “That’s it!”

  I ran for my computer and started hitting costume websites hard.

  The police and the public were looking for a lone woman. I had to drop that act. Besides, as sloppy as the copycat was, I was sure she’d get caught soon and take the fall for everything up to this point. Everyone wanted a claim to fame and there were tons of people on Facebook who proclaimed they were the Baby Hater. It was only a matter of time before someone got arrested.

  If I created a different persona the police would think I was a copycat and the old hag was the originator. The line of thinking was faulty at best, but I knew I had to get a better disguise. It had to be something off the wall and unlike my other attempts to conceal my identity. And what better disguise was there than dressing up as a character children loved and adored, and someone the mothers wouldn’t be afraid to take their children around. At least it would work for a few months until I could come up with something else.

  I ordered tons of clown makeup and costumes, along with three mascot outfits. I never knew mascot costumes were so expensive. Most of them cost between a hundred and fifty and two hundred dollars. I stuck with recognizable cartoon characters. And since Christmas was three weeks away, I picked the Grinch for irony.

  7

  The Grinch costume arrived a week later and I couldn’t wait to use it. I went to the store and bought a red candy bucket, a bell, and the materials to make a flimsy A-frame sign.

  The following Friday afternoon I drove to a thrift store. This thrift store was usually busy throughout the year, but since it was close to Christmas there was only about half the normal amount of cars parked in the lot. I figured it would be less busy on the account that people were buying new shit for gifts. The only people who would come to a thrift store this close to Christmas were cheapskates, vindictive assholes, or pranksters looking for presents.

  I didn’t want to set up in front of the thrift store itself. The place was located in a strip and the shop next to it was vacant. It looked like the best place. It was close to the entrance, but not close enough for the employees to blow me shit about soliciting.

  I got out of the car and pulled on my mascot head quickly. The suit was a bitch to drive in, but the head was out of the question. I grabbed my bell, bucket, and sign out of the trunk. I’d written “Toys
For Tots” on the sign because I didn’t want the store to have a canary thinking I was their competition – The Salvation Army. I also assumed a mother would be more willing to donate money to needy brats.

  As I was dragging all my shit to the sidewalk some asshole drove by and honked. I’d barely gotten the sign set up when an elderly woman walked out of the thrift store and laughed.

  She was wearing corrective shoes and using a free-standing cane. She shuffled over to me, holding a single plastic bag and her purse with her free hand. I waved at her like an idiot. I thought mascots were always waving.

  She laughed feebly and sounded like a witch. She raised her cane and pretended to hit me while she said, “You old dirty Grinch! Ha ha. You wanna steal the toys from the tots!”

  I didn’t know what to do so I kept waving like a moron and rang the bell. This seemed to amuse her. She sat her cane down and rummaged through her purse. It felt like it took her five minutes to produce a quarter.

  She held the coin up and said, “Now you make sure this goes to the tots and not in old Grinch’s pocket.” She took a few unsteady steps and dropped the coin in my bucket.

  The old woman gathered her cane and took forever getting to her car. I rang the bell and stared at the coin in my bucket. I tried not to laugh at the idea of getting paid