That’s My Baby in the Echo Chamber. fiction by Dave Nash

That’s My Baby in the Echo Chamber

No. We didn’t pay extra so he could yell the whole plane ride down from Newark to Orlando. We never ceased to be horrified and embarrassed and concerned for him. Since you don’t want to believe me, I’ll tell you a corroborating story.

I was walking him yesterday because that’s the only thing that works. And there’s this traffic light. We’re used to people being distracted because of cell phones and not seeing the light when it changes so we might think it’s a good idea to honk.

It’s not.

A three-hundred-pound woman got out of the car. She yelled that she was on her way home from her mother’s funeral. And she hadn’t spoken to her mom in five years. And now she was dead and so not talking. This lady who must have had a Derringer in her glove compartment because she’d been robbed too many times laid into the honking dude. Then she got back in the car, waited for the light to turn red and took that left.

So, it’s like that.

My son is autistic. You might think I’m lying but I know that lady dressed in her church clothes on a Friday wouldn’t lie about her mom’s death. We didn’t pay extra for the ticket, but we’ve paid extra his whole life: starting with the hospital stays because first he didn’t want to come out and then he wouldn’t nurse so he didn’t poop so they wouldn’t release him, and now he poops all the time but, in his pants, or diaper and I still must wipe his ass. And he has more doctors, medicines, and therapists and that is all extra. Not to mention the food – gluten free, casein free isn’t cheap, or the diapers.  And that doesn’t count getting up in the night, the strain this puts on my relationship with my wife or my ability to hold a demanding job.

So, we´re going to Disney World because we went four years ago with the inheritance my wife got when her father died. And he stood for an hour at the Finding Nemo aquarium and that’s what we do: just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

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Dave Nash listens to jazz music sampled in hip-hop hits while he types. Dave is the Non-Fiction Editor at Five South Magazine and has words that can be found in places like Jake, Atlantic Northeast, Midwestern Heat, Roi Faineant Press, and Boats Against the Current. You can follow him @davenashlit1

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