Population Zero

by Wrath James White

  "What drugs are you on?"

  "Man, fuck you! We ain't no drug addicts! We ain't got to answer shit for you."

  Todd looked the woman's husband over. His eyes were bloodshot and weepy. He was scratching himself and jittering just as she was. Only, instead of the gap-toothed smile his wife wore, his face was twisted into a disdainful sneer. His wrinkled t-shirt was stained with blood and what looked like vomit and was at least two sizes too large as were his baggy jeans that sagged off of his bony hips. His hair was dyed black and stood up in a spiky tangle off the top of his head. He had a teardrop tattoo in the corner of his left eye and a piercing in his right eyebrow along with one in his lip. A Metallica tattoo wrapped around his neck in two inches letters, and a dragon tattoo wound up his right arm, disappearing under the sleeve of his t-shirt.

  Todd smiled.

  "If you want a dime of government money you'll sit down, shut the fuck up, and answer whatever questions I ask you."

  "Fuck that shit! You can't talk to us like that."

  "Baby! We need this money. Just come sit down."

  Todd smiled warmly.

  "So, what are you on?"

  "Um…well…we both use crack and meth and sometimes heroin when we can get it."

  Todd looked over at her husband who looked away from him.

  "Yeah, what she said and…and I use dust, I mean, PCP, sometimes too."

  "What are your names?"

  "My name's Nicolene De Marco and this is my husband Michael."

  "How old are you two?"

  "I'm 22 and Michael's 25. We're trying to get on welfare. We're expecting our second child."

  "What happened to the first one?"

  "He was born with some mental handicaps and a bad heart. We couldn't afford to take care of a sick baby so we had to give him up for adoption."

  "And now you're having another one?"

  "Yeah, but don't worry. We're both going to kick before the baby's born. Michael's going to get a job as soon as he's well. We're going to be good parents."

  Todd shook his head.

  "No. You won't be good parents and you're not going to get sober."

  "Fuck you, man! You don't know shit about us!"

  Todd leaned forward and stared directly into the eyes of the young drug addict.

  "Do you really believe that? Do you really think that I haven't heard your story a hundred times before? I even know what you apparently don't, how this story ends. Care to hear it? You'll get your welfare check if I'm dumb enough to give it to you. You'll shoot it all into your arm or up your nose until you finally miscarry or else give birth to another kid with birth defects because his mom didn't give enough of a fuck about him to stay off of drugs for even nine months. You'll give this kid up for adoption too because deep down you know what shitty parents you would be. And if by some miracle your kid comes out with nothing more serious than a bad case of withdrawal, you'll take it back to whatever hovel you're living in right now and feed him and change his diapers only when you're sober enough to remember. If he survives repeated infections from bad diaper rashes, malnourishment, neglect, and the physical abuse you'll no doubt subject him to when his crying blows your high, that in itself would be a miracle. But then you'd eventually lose your apartment or get kicked out of whoever's house you're crashing at and since the government can't give you a check without an address to send it to you'll wind up right back on the streets where you'll both go back to selling your ass for a hit of crack. Then one day some pedophile will offer you money for a few hours with your kid and you'll sell his ass too."

  Nicolene's eyes widened. Her bottom lip trembled and she began to cry.

  "I-I wouldn't…I'd never do that to my baby." Her eyes were still rolling around in her head, still unable to focus. Her brow furrowed as she tried to sober up through sheer force of will. She was obviously having trouble thinking clearly.

  "Yes, you would. You'd do all of that and more. That's why the world would be better off, your baby would be better off, if you'd just have an abortion and get yourself fixed so that you can never get pregnant again. Then you can go back to smoking crack and shooting smack until you kill yourselves."

  Nicolene stared across the desk at Todd, her mouth hanging open. She looked as if she were still waiting for the punch line, trying to decide if the tall, skinny redheaded white guy in the yellow polo shirt and khaki pants was really serious.

  Todd's smile never left his face but Nicolene could tell by the look in his eyes that he was completely serious. She was used to tough love. She'd had her fair share of family interventions over the years. But no one had ever spoken to her with this type of brutal, sadistic honesty.

  She hugged herself and began to rock back and forth in the seat. Her husband looked wild-eyed from his wife to Todd.

  His pulse rate was jacking up. He looked like he was about to explode. Todd was expecting the man to jump up and punch him right in the jaw at any second. The guy was just as skinny as he was but Todd was skinny because he ran every day, rode a bicycle to work, and didn't eat meat or dairy products. This guy was skinny because he hardly ate at all and was constantly jacked up on amphetamines. If he was on PCP he might have been able to pull Todd's arms off like the wings of a fly if he got mad enough.

  "But," Nicolene looked over at her husband who was staring back at her blankly, his face betraying his shock and confusion, the rage still boiling there just under the surface, "we don't believe in abortion."

  Todd rolled his eyes and shook his head in exasperation.

  "Obviously you don't believe in birth control either. Look at yourselves. Do you really think you'd be any good to a kid? Do you want your kid's life to be even more fucked up than yours?"

  Michael sprang from his chair and jabbed his finger into Todd's face. Todd winced and prepared for a blow.

  "You son-of-a-bitch! We don't have to listen to this shit! Who the fuck do you think you are?"

  "No. You absolutely do not. You can walk right out that door if you'd like. I'll just stamp rejected on your welfare application and you can go back to turning tricks for drug money."

  Michael sighed and slumped down in his chair.

  "You know damn well we can't do that shit. We're sick, man! We need some cash."

  "Well, even if I approve you now, the most you could get today would be food stamps. You wouldn't see a check for another month."

  "A month!"

  "Six to eight weeks actually."

  "Shit! This is a waste of fucking time!" Michael began to pace the floor, looking lost and desperate.

  "That's okay, baby. We can always sell the food stamps until the check comes."

  "That's if I approve you and why should I? Like I said, I already know how this story is going to end for you and your baby."

  "But-but we need it. We really need this money!"

  "What if we did like you said? I mean, what if we got rid of the baby? If Nicolene had an abortion?"

  "No. No. I can't. I won't!"

  "Do you really still want to be out there two or three months from now, trying to turn tricks when you're seven or eight months pregnant? Come on, you know we ain't never gonna kick. You've probably already fucked that kid up with all the horse you've been shootin' in your arm."

  "She'd have to get her tubes tied as well."

  "Yeah, what if we did all of that?"

  "If you had an abortion and a tubaligation then I'd sign all the papers to make sure you got your monthly check. I'll even put a rush on it, put you down as an emergency hardship case so you can get your check sooner and I might even make a clerical error and put the son you gave up for adoption down as a dependent to get you some more money."

  "But, I don't want to have an abortion."

  Michael took Nicolene's track-marked arm in his hands and tried his best approximation of a sympathetic look.

  "Nicky, we have to do this. You know we wouldn't be good parents anyway. Look at us. We can't bring a child into the world like this. T
his guy is right. This is the best thing for us to do."

  "I'll go get the papers."

  Todd watched as they filled out the paperwork. He reached into his safe and pulled out a book of $100 in food stamps.

  "You'll get the rest in the mail, after you come in here and show me that it's been taken care of. Here's the number of a clinic that will do it all for free."

  Michael and Nicolene De Marco walked out of Todd's cubicle holding hands.

  For the second time that day, Todd felt as if he had truly made a difference, not just in the life of the unborn baby or that fucked up couple or that fat woman and her kids, but in the world.

  Todd left that day feeling like he should skip down the sidewalk. He walked out of the building and into the parking lot with a smile chiseled into his face.

  Chapter Three

  Todd pedaled his ten-speed the six miles to his apartment, stopping at the mailbox on his way into the gated courtyard.

  He tucked the stack of bills under his arm and then tossed the supermarket fliers, dry cleaning coupons, and fast food menus into the trashcan. His two favorite magazines had arrived. Vegan Times and Imperiled Planet. Todd thumbed through the magazines as he walked to his apartment. There was an article on the detoxification and weight loss benefits of raw foods, an article about famous celebrities who ate macrobiotically, and a recipe for vegan pasta made from shredded zucchini. Todd closed the magazine and opened the other one as he fished in his front pocket for his keys.

  All of the positive feelings Todd had about what he had accomplished at work that day dissipated in a flash as he scanned through an article titled Zero Population. It was written by Heimlich Anattoli the head of the environmental activist group that Todd belonged to and it was all about the group and his book of the same name. Todd had read the book last year after it had hit the bestseller's list. The statistics that Heimlich quoted on overpopulation were terrifying and humbling. The kind that makes you feel helpless and doomed, that make all of your efforts feel insignificant. The population was increasing by 76 million people a year, 2,500 every twenty minutes. At that rate of growth, even accounting for a continual decrease in the death rate, the world population would hit ten billion within 50 years. That many people would completely overwhelm the earth, drain it dry of all of its natural resources and leave it a dead husk. Something had to be done.

  Earlier that year he'd watched a documentary on Charles Manson in which Manson had stated that he needed to kill about 2 million people in order to save the planet. Two million people would be a barely a drop in the bucket in terms of overpopulation and the 2 unwanted children whose births he had prevented would not make a difference at all. He needed to do more. He had to find a way to convince more people.

  Todd finally pulled his keys out and opened his front door. He dropped his magazines onto the coffee table and walked into his bedroom. Todd plopped down onto his bed and opened up his laptop. He went to the Zero Population message board. There was a new message from Heimlich. It was almost as if the man had read his mind.

  "I know that many of you are concerned that the task is too big. You think that your efforts are too small to be significant. That there's not much one individual can do to impact an entire planet. Well, let me tell you a story.

  A boy and his grandfather are walking along the beach. There are starfish all along the beach that were stranded there when the tide rolled out. The boy reaches down and picks up a starfish as they pass it and tosses it back into the ocean.

  He does this over and over again as they pass each starfish.

  His grandfather asks him, "Why do you keep picking up those starfish?"

  The boy looks up at his grandfather and answers, "Because they will die if I don't put them back in the water."

  The boy's grandfather looks down the beach and then back at his grandson.

  "There's dozens of miles of beach. What you're doing won't make much of a difference." The boy looks down at the starfish in his hand and then tosses it into the water.

  "It will to this one."

  So before you tell yourself that your efforts couldn't possibly make a difference, I want you to consider that the average human being is responsible for the deaths of 90 to 100 animals a year for food, clothing, and other consumable products and the destruction of more than an acre of trees. That's all just from one person."

  Todd smiled and leaned back on his bed. It was exactly what he needed to hear.

  Zero Population was an environmental group that advocated saving the planet through voluntary sterilization. Todd had had a recent vasectomy himself and had persuaded one of his co-workers to do the same. What he had done today though, was taking it to a whole different level. He had done more than convince someone to not have children. He had convinced those women to kill the babies already inside them. He wished that he could talk to Heimlich. He wanted to see if the man would approve of what he had done. He needed that support. He needed him to condone his actions.

  Todd sat up in bed and pulled the laptop toward him. He scrolled down to the bottom of the message board and hit

  "New Thread". He took a moment to think of exactly what to say, sighed deeply, backed away from the laptop, sighed again then pulled the keyboard towards him and began to type.

  What if you are already pregnant? Would you recommend that a woman have an abortion rather than bring another human into the world?

  Todd's finger hovered over the keyboard as he tried to decide whether or not to hit enter. He could not stand the idea that Heimlich might not agree with what he had done. Heimlich was one of his heroes. He had read both of the man's books, The Human Plague and the bestseller that had gotten him on the front page of Millennium Magazine, the one from which the message board derived its name, Zero Population. Todd had read The Human Plague when he was in junior college and it had been like a revelation to him. It detailed the rapid expansion of the human population over the last two hundred years and its impact on the planet from pollution and greenhouse gases to deforestation and the extinction of hundreds of thousands of plant and animal life. But it was Zero Population that had the greatest impact on Todd.

  This was the book that offered Heimlich's prescription for solving the problem of overpopulation. Heimlich wanted to go one step further than China and rather than limit every couple to one child, he believed that 90% of the world's men and women should be chemically sterilized, meat consumption limited to once per week by law, and the internal combustion engine banned. It was a radical stance and the Republican Right had pounced on him. It wasn't long before Heimlich was on every talk show in the country defending his opinions against government sponsored environmental experts, right-wing politicians, and shock jocks. Heimlich's position had never wavered despite being ridiculed and maligned. Todd had been impressed. He'd looked him up on the internet and tried to contact him. That's how he had discovered his website and the message board. Today, however, was the first time in over a year that he had come out of lurking to post on the board. In minutes, he got his reply.

  There were already eight other replies split right down the middle between people who thought that telling a woman to abort her baby would be taking it too far and would further alienate them from the other environmental groups to those who were adamant that any woman that would bring another child into this world was a traitor to the planet. Todd scrolled all the way down the thread until he reached Heimlich's reply:

  Who knows which child will be the one that finally breaks the camel's back? There is no way of telling how many people this world can accommodate before it gets completely overwhelmed and dies. That child in that woman's belly could be the one that dooms us all. Each human born is another consumer, another drain on the world's resources. If that woman can be persuaded to terminate her pregnancy then that can only help the cause. Who cares about those other environmental groups? This isn't a popularity contest. This is about the future of our planet.

  Todd nodded his head in agreement.
He'd gotten his answer.

  Chapter Four

  Todd was twelve-years-old when his mother had gotten pregnant. It was just one year after his father had taken the puppies to the pound. Todd's mother was doing that awkward squat that pregnant woman do as she lowered herself down onto the couch cushions. Her stomach was the size of a beach ball. Todd couldn't imagine why he hadn't noticed it before. Had she been hiding it? He didn't think his father had noticed either. Raymond Hammerstein worked all day at UPS driving a forklift and then at night as a security guard at the Supermarket. Todd couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen both his mother and father together in the same room.

  The idea of a new brother or sister excited Todd. It meant a possible end to his loneliness. Todd jumped off the bed with a smile bursting onto his face as he pointed at her bulbous stomach. Now, Todd often wondered what his life would have been like if he hadn't noticed.

  "Momma! You're pregnant!"

  Todd could tell by the way she looked at him that he had said something wrong. Maybe she wasn't pregnant. Maybe she had just gained weight and he had somehow insulted her.

  "Go to your room, Toddy."

  Todd wondered what would have happened if he had stayed, if he hadn't turned quietly and stalked off to his room feeling sorry for himself. Maybe his mother would still be alive.

  More than an hour had gone by before Honey had begun barking. Honey never barked. A shock collar had long ago eliminated her urge to express herself. So her sudden outburst had shaken Todd. He knew something bad was happening and he knew that it probably involved his mom. That sad angry look in her eyes when Todd had noticed her swelling belly had warned him that something terrible was on the way. He only hoped that she wasn't going to hurt his dog. He didn't care if she hurt him. He was used to it.