Ron’s birth was unlike any the midwives had seen before. His mother, Verdella, said the contractions felt more like firm hugs instead of bands of barbed wire roping around her abdomen. When the baby crowned, light burst from her vagina. As the birth went on the light grew brighter and brighter until the midwives were unable to bear it, and had to finish the job blindfolded. Instead of the normal birth slime, all babies are covered in, Ron was covered in a clear husk. He squirmed around inside it, finally poking a hole, causing it to fall away. Underneath he was pink and clean and perfect. His umbilical cord fell with the wrapping and when his mother passed the placenta it sprouted legs and scurried out the dog door. It eventually mated with a feral cat that gave birth to a pair of Bengal tigers.
Ron’s birth was also remarkable because Verdella claimed she had never had sex nor even a boyfriend. This would normally be scoffed at but because a midwife student live-streamed the birth on Facebook it became a sensation. When pressured by reporters at a press conference in the days following Ron’s birth she said she believed her pregnancy was due to eating at a Chinese restaurant. Something she had never done before.
Ron was an easy baby. He slept through the night, cooed when hungry and never threw up. He had no food allergies, and never any rashes. When he turned one, he started walking. When he turned two, he toilet-trained himself. By the time he was three he could read, write and speak as fluently as a sober English professor.
The expectations for Ron were immense. There was talk that he might be the second coming of Jesus or that his mother had been visited by a Greek god who took the form of a plate of Kung Pao Chicken. A constant battle roiled on Twitter between believers and skeptics at #miraclebirth, #Ronsavior, #Ronnotsavior, #JesusRon, #Ronfakenewsbaby, #Bengaltigersamok, and #placentasightings.
Ron was a divisive celebrity with representatives from every religion lining up on news panels to argue his legitimacy as a deity. His mother set up a GoFundMe page that was ostensibly for Ron’s college fund but in fact paid for Verdella’s outsized lifestyle. Because of his fame, she had her pick of the best preschools for gifted toddlers. She chose one in Florida due to its lax estate laws. She claimed she wanted privacy for her son so he could grow and develop without the entire world looking over his shoulder. But, in point of fact, she was leaking photos of Ron and his schoolwork to the press via a Chinese troll. She then protested the leaked information, which sparked debates about whether or not the public had a right to know about Ron’s development given his potential importance. Verdella’s efforts kept the story alive and guaranteed a steady flow of GoFundMe donations.
***
The truth about the pregnancy was that Verdella had a boyfriend. He was the assistant manager at the Tire Hut in Verdella’s home town and disappeared as soon as he learned she was with child. It was true she became pregnant the night she had the Kung Pao Chicken. The hormone flux associated with the fertilized egg being implanted in the wall of her uterus reacted with the off-brand MSG the restaurant used. A rare allergic reaction occurred which accounted for the bright light, Ron’s cellulose wrapper, and the sure-footed placenta. Ron’s rapid development as an infant and toddler may have been due to the MSG, but it was not to last.
***
By the age of three-and-a-half, Ron was completely average. To some, his modest demeanor was confirmation of his majesty. Others overinterpreted his finger paintings and macaroni art as the stuff of genius. His mother worked with various shady art dealers to sell Ron’s construction paper art to black market collectors and religious zealots. She also sold his clothes as he outgrew them, along with his castoff toys, haircut trimmings, used popsicle sticks and band-aids. Verdella made millions when she auctioned off his baby teeth.
***
Ron grew up very lonely. His mother kept tight control over his every move and because of his worldwide fame, it was nearly impossible for him to make friends. He attended junior high at a school for famous children, and children of the famous. There he met Bonnie who was the daughter of Rap singer via one of his backup dancers. Her father had little interest in Bonnie but did occasionally use her as a prop when he was accused of dating underage women or driving drunk. She was smarter than Ron and savvy about her place in the world. They bonded through their mutual parental misuse and became close friends. Verdella allowed the friendship as it added an appropriate storyline in Ron’s development. Bonnie’s father fed off the publicity and allowed the paparazzi to photograph them as he took the teens out for ice cream, to the waterpark, or shopping in a store featuring his clothing line.
For his sixteenth birthday, Ron and Bonnie went out to dinner with her father and Verdella. They sat at a booth with high visibility, and as their parents kept busy generating content about the dinner on their various social media platforms, Ron and Bonnie held hands under the table. Verdella chose a Chinese restaurant for the dinner to create a thread back to Ron’s origin story. Ron had never eaten in a Chinese restaurant before and his mother insisted that he have Kung Pao Chicken.
The combination of Ron’s pulsing hormones and the off-brand MSG caused him to start glowing. He grew brighter and brighter causing all the phones and cameras filming him to burn out their photodetectors. His hair began to vibrate and produce a high pitched whine that rattled silverware, water glasses, and teeth. Ron stared helplessly at Bonnie as she tried to shield her eyes and scooted farther and farther away from him. He could see that his shrieking hair was causing her pain.
Suddenly, a tiger leaped through a plate glass window. On its back was what looked like a giant kidney bean with arms and legs. Another tiger followed close behind. The bean pulled Ron out of his seat and carried him out of the restaurant.
“If you want to live, come with me!” The bean said. Ron wanted to stop Bonnie’s suffering so hopped on the back of the tiger and followed the kidney bean out of town and into the woods. They ran toward a ravine and as they approached the edge the bean yelled, “Hang on tight!” The tigers leaped into a thicket of bushes that hid the narrow opening of a cave and finally landed thirty feet underground. “We’ll be safe here.”
Christmas lights dotted the ceiling softly illuminating the furniture scattered around the cave. Area rugs softened the echo. In a distant cavern was the largest litter box Ron had ever seen.
“Who are you?” Ron asked.
“I don’t really have a name, but you can call me Bartholomew. I’m your brother.”
“Brother? You mean …”
“Yes. I’m the placenta that ran out the dog door. The tigers are my offspring.”
“You’ve really grown, but—” Ron stopped himself.
“But I look like a giant kidney bean. Not sure what happened with that. Kung Pao Chicken! Am I right?”
“I guess,” Ron said.
“Look, I’ve seen what Mom’s been doing to you and I want to help. You got the body but I got the brains. This cave complex goes for miles in all directions and I’ve wired the whole thing. It runs off a geothermal generator. Hell, I’ve even got Wi-Fi down here! You’re never going to have a normal life above ground so you’re welcome to live down here with me.”
“How do you survive? How did you get a generator and Wi-Fi?”
“Turns out I have an aptitude for computer engineering and programming. I’m sort of a savant, but without the compulsion to count toothpicks. I make a very nice living without ever having to leave the cave. Amazon, IKEA, and Uber Eats bring me anything I need.”
“Except other …” Ron considered his brother’s appearance and finally said, “people.”
“I don’t think many people are going to want to hang out with a guy who looks like Mr. Peanut.” Bartholomew laughed but Ron wasn’t sure he should join in. “I have lots of friends online, where it doesn’t matter how I look. Your looks are the only normal thing about you. Think about all the celebrity children you’ve ever heard of. Things for them don’t turn out so good. Especially when their mothers use them to make a living.”
Ron was quiet for a long time. He watched the tigers groom themselves. He looked at the Christmas light dotting the ceiling like underground stars. “Can I just try it out for a while?”
“Of course. You can stay as long as you like and leave whenever you want.”
***
Above ground, a massive search was underway. Every news channel and website played an endless loop of Ron’s birthday kidnapping with titles like, “Savior Search,” “Wonder Boy Search and Rescue,” and “Ron’s Gone” with digital clocks tracking the time since he was last seen. Governments around the world offered to aid in the search, prompting Ron’s mother to set up a new GoFundMe site for Ron’s rescue fund.
Bartholomew hacked into police and FBI systems and corrupted their search data. He also hired a team of Norwegian trolls to feed misinformation into the social media stream promoting the idea that Ron never existed and was as fake as the moon landings.
***
As the years passed Ron and Bartholomew remained happily underground. The search for Ron dwindled in intensity but never ended. Verdella returned to her origins, living in a trailer park. She made a little money from the straggling strangers that wanted to touch the hem of her skirt or interview her for a podcast, documentary or news update. Bartholomew helped Ron set up a program so he could keep track of Bonnie. Ron never contacted her and was content to watch her life unfold from a distance. The tigers eventually learned to use the composting toilets which made life underground better for everyone.