by C.V. Hunt
to punch a baby.
This act went on for nearly six hours. I was freezing my ass off. I had to piss. I was starving. But I managed to collect thirty dollars. My feet were killing me and I was about to call the day a bust when a minivan pulled into the lot.
The side door of the van slid open and three hyper boys between the ages of five and eight tumbled out, along with the sound of a wailing baby.
Bingo.
One of the boys spotted me and yelled to his companions, “Look, the Grinch!”
The other two turned to the sound of my bell and then all three took off running toward me.
One of them yelled, “I’ll punch the Grinch in the balls!”
“Fuck,” I said.
I shielded my crotch when they reached me and all three began punching me. The brats thought I was a guy but that didn’t matter to me. I’d been kicked in the crotch when I was a kid. I can’t tell you if a kick to the clit hurts as bad as a kick to the balls, but I can tell you it really fucking hurts, and I didn’t want these little shitheads to score a direct hit. I lifted my leg to cover my crotch and turned sideways. I took most of the blows in my ribs and legs.
“Boys!” a haggard looking woman inside the van yelled. She held the car seat with the crying baby. “Knock it off or Santa isn’t getting you shit this year! Boys! I mean it! One! Two!”
The brats stopped abruptly. It took everything in my willpower to keep myself from kicking each of the little turds in the fucking head. They stood around me awkwardly as their mother slammed the van door.
The woman stomped toward the store with the screeching baby in tow. She yelled, “Get over here right now!” and punctuated her statement by pointing at the ground with her free hand.
The boys ran to her side and the group disappeared into the store.
I mumbled in my mask, “A ‘I’m sorry my spawn’s from fucking hell’ would’ve been the considerate thing to say, cunt.”
I thought about beating the shit out of the woman and all of her kids as I waited for her to return to her car. My hands and feet were so cold I couldn’t feel them anymore. I rang the bell and waited. I kept getting more amped as I waited, stewing over the bratty kids and their cunt mother. I really wanted to punch this baby in the face. The sun set while they were in the store. After what felt like an eternity, they emerged.
The boys barreled out the door first and sprinted for the car. Each of them carried a bag full of crap. The mother exited the store carrying some bags and the car seat. The baby was quiet now. She yelled at the boys to watch for traffic. I wished a car would hit them.
I grabbed my bucket of money and walked swiftly toward the mother. When I was a few feet from her I rang the bell. She spun toward me quickly with an angry expression.
“I ain’t giving you no fuckin’ money,” she said.
I swung hard knowing my costumed gloves would soften the blow. I punched the baby in the face while still holding the bell and the violent action caused the change in my bucket to jingle. The sound reminded me of a pinball machine. The force of the impact knocked the haggard woman down and she made grunting sounds as she tried to get to her feet.
I ran for my car and spilled half of my money on the ground. I hit the top of my mask on the door frame as I hurried to get in the vehicle. My mask was knocked sideways. I could only see out one of the eye holes as I sped out of the parking lot. I took the mask off as soon as I was on the road. The exhilaration was intoxicating. And although it wasn’t as rewarding as the first time I’d punched a baby, it was damn close.
8
The story of the Grinch punching a baby turned into national news for two reasons. One, I committed a money scam near Christmas, and two, I punched a baby from a needy family. You would’ve thought I’d raped an elderly lady and ate a baby the way the media sensationalized it. Now everyone was leery of Santa and my overzealous purchase of three mascot outfits was a waste of money. I wasn’t going to be able to pull off the friendly cartoon character again for at least six months.
I watched a few videos on YouTube and learned how to make some cheesy balloon animals.
The next month I dressed up as a clown and stood right inside the main entrance of a shopping mall. People at the mall always made my skin crawl. I only visited them to have a place to walk around without getting pummeled by the weather. The type of people who shopped in malls disgusted me, but I figured my resentment for the mother being a mindless consumer would make the act feel more fulfilling and similar to the first time.
I made some crappy balloon animals for some elementary school kids and got hassled by an overweight mall security guard as I waited for someone with an infant to approach me. The guard told me I wasn’t allowed to solicit on mall property. I argued with the asshole for five minutes, telling him I wasn’t selling anything. Eventually he backed off but he lingered around the area and kept giving me the stink eye. I left about an hour later since I wasn’t going to get away with anything with the rent-a-cop breathing down my throat.
Out of pure luck I passed a woman with a baby in a stroller as I walked to my car. I almost missed her because I was too busy being pissed off at the security guard. It happened on a whim and I was unprepared. I noticed her when she was ten feet from me. She was veering the stroller away from me with an uneasy smile and I acted on impulse. I lunged after her and punched the baby. I ran like hell for my car.
When I got home I found the copycat had struck on the same day as me. She’d dressed up in a crappy homemade superhero costume with the letters B and H embroidered on the chest of her shirt and wore an eye mask like the Lone Ranger. Except her eye mask was red. It looked like she’d used a towel for a cape. I imaged the letters stood for Baby Hater. The police were warning people to keep away from anyone who worked with children in a costume. Dressing like a clown again was out of the question. I’d exhausted my disguises.
I checked the Facebook page and people were going nuts over the old hag in the superhero costume. Only a few mentioned the clown at the mall. I noticed the group’s number of members had soared. Most of the new members were teenage girls who left misspelled and almost indecipherable comments. The older members tended to ignore them. Only a few chastised them for the involvement, but mainly they berated them for their bad grammar.
As I read through the comments a new one appeared at the top of the page. The thumbnail photo displayed a grumpy looking old woman with the superhero getup on. Her user name was Baby Hater.
The post read: “I’m the original Baby Hater. Everyone else is a copycat.”
The post infuriated me. People began commenting on the post immediately, but she never responded to any of them.
Hastily, I created a new e-mail address and signed up for a new Facebook account. I used the name The Original Baby Hater and I sent the Baby Hater a private message. I typed the word “LIAR” and sent it.
I kept refreshing the page, waiting for the old bitch to respond. After an hour I took a break from the computer and made something to eat. While I was enjoying my dinner the computer dinged. I bolted to the keyboard and read the reply: “HA HA!”
My fingers flew across the keys.
The Original Baby Hater: 9:15PM: “You’re the fucking copycat you old hag and if I ever catch you in public I’m going to grind your wrinkled ass into the ground! I know what you look like.”
Baby Hater: 9:17PM: “Bring it amateur I’ve been slapping kids around a lot longer than you.”
The Original Baby Hater: 9:17PM: “Name the time and place.”
Baby Hater: 9:19PM: “Let’s make it interesting. I pick the time and place. The first one to punch a baby and get away wins the title. The other has to retire.”
I hesitated with my fingers on the keys and finally typed the word “deal”. She provided me with a time and location for the next month.
9
There was a compulsion to come up with an elaborate disguise for the rendezvous, but with the police and the public on the lookout for
anyone who might be trying to conceal their real identity I thought it better to go as myself.
The old hag picked a courtyard located in an outdoor mall. There was a water fountain with a bench directly in front of a movie theater. I knew the place well. I hadn’t punched a baby there but I had researched the place because it didn’t have any security cameras outside the buildings. A couple of security guards patrolled the vast parking lot which wrapped around the stores. All of the stores were scattered in a hodgepodge maze and they faced each other with the rear of the stores facing the parking area. Mainly people with a good amount of income who wanted to shit it all away shopped there. It was populated with overpriced stores the consumers loved: Aeropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Old Navy, Victoria's Secret, Eddie Bauer, Gap, Ann Taylor, Hollister, Louis Vuitton, Macy’s, Nordstrom and Von Maur. Not to mention the all the restaurants and coffee shops that kept the insatiable consumers on the verge of orgasm: The Cheesecake Factory, Godiva, Cinnabon, Cold Stone Creamery, Starbucks, etc. The stores were filled with entitled teens and the restaurants were packed to the brim with middle-aged women who would make orgasmic sounds as they ate their three thousand calorie meals and talked about the most banal things. I didn’t shop there, but I did frequent the movie theater since it was new and one of the cleanest in the city. The