Harry Guakomoli was barely a year old when he was abandoned on the front steps of St. Hedwig's House For Children. An orderly responded to the door buzzer shortly before dawn. He looked down at the partially unzipped duffel bag. Poking out from the bag was the face of a sleeping infant.
"Shiiiiit."
The orderly picked up the bag and stepped back inside. He walked down a sterile white hallway until he reached a middle aged white woman with thinning gray hair seated at a metal desk eating Mexican food. The man set the bag down on the desk.
"Another God damn abandoned baby," he said in disgust.
"Jesus Christ," the woman said with a mouthful of taco salad. "Open up the bag for identification."
St. Hedwig's was operated by nuns. But none of the elderly sisters were interested in doing God's work after midnight so others were hired to hold down the fort until eight in the morning. None of the overnight staff was particularly religious, and night supervisor Loretta Branson was no exception.She never thought twice about taking The Lord's name in vain and never chastised her underlings for using similar language.
Byron Lawrence, the orderly, did as he was told and pulled The Baby Guak out from the duffel bag. The boy quietly slept in his soiled powder blue onesie. Byron rummaged through the bag only to find a few ratty towels to act as blankets for the infant.
"Nuttin,' Loretta," Byron said.
"What's that on his chest?"
The orderly turned The Baby Guak around so that the two males were face-to-face. The Baby Guak was still sleeping. A saliva bubble began to form out of the one year-old's mouth. Why are white babies so ugly? Byron thought to himself. He looked down to the boy's chest.
"It's a note. It says 'Baby Harry.'"
"Anything else that tells us what the little shit's name is?" asked Loretta. She pushed her dinner aside and took out a manila folder from one of the desk drawers.
"Nope."
Loretta sighed. People had a tendency to dump their unwanted children on the front steps of St. Hedwig's in the dead of night with alarming regularity. In an attempt to curb that trend the sisters always had someone patrolling the grounds, not to mention a strict policy demanding every abandoned child must be identified, first and last name, along with the name of at least one parent. This did not stem the baby tide like the nuns had hoped, but at least the children had names.
The reason this policy was not particularly effective was due to the fact that Loretta often found herself bored and would request, more like demand, the company of the orderly, a post filled by either Byron or Craig. The overnight supervisor and whatever attendant was on duty would usually spend their time together playing cards or checkers or the occasional bout of sex.
Loretta got around this by making up names for the orphanage's new charges if identification could not be found. She hated making up names primarily because she had exhausted her limited imagination some time ago.
"Hmmm," Loretta thought aloud. "We need a last name."
She looked around for inspiration. Lamp, light, desk, pen, paper, folder, man, child. Those were off the list; Loretta had used those before along with countless others.
"What's that stuff on your salad?" asked Byron.
"Huh?" Loretta responded.
"That slimy green shit. What is it?"
"It's guacamole," answered Loretta.
"There you go. There's your last name."
"Brilliant, Byron! I knew there was a reason I liked you. It's definitely not because of your stamina."
Byron scowled as his superior paid him a backhanded compliment. Loretta opened the folder and grabbed a child abandonment form. She picked up a cheap blue pen adorned with the MetroBank logo. It was one of a dozen she had stolen from the branch down the street a few weeks prior. Loretta filled in the blank designated for the abandoned child's first name with "Harry." She was known as a notoriously poor speller so she looked over to the note pinned to The Baby Guak's chest to get it right.
"How do you spell 'guacamole?' G-U-A...is 'C' or 'K?' I always forget."
"Umm..."Byron racked his brain for the answer. His spelling prowess was not much better than that of Loretta. "G-U-A-K-O-M-O-L-I."
Loretta filled in the last name blank exactly as her subordinate and lover spelled it. She examined the results and scrunched her nose.
"This doesn't look right," Loretta criticized.
"That's good, right?" retorted Byron. "If the spelling was good those old penguins might call you on your bullshit."
"Again," Loretta said with a smirk. "It's not because of your stamina."
Loretta filled out the rest of the form. Her brain was already fried due to the little thought she put into the endeavor, and she wanted the whole affair to be done. She scribbled in "unknown" for The Baby Guak's father, and decided to go with "Margareeta" as the mother (this misspelling was not a clever move on her part to conceal her fraud). She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, smug in her handiwork.
"Take the puke upstairs with the rest of them," Loretta ordered Byron. "And when you come back would you rather play Crazy Eights or screw?"
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