The cautious seldom err.
“Huwwo?”
“Hello, who’s this?”
“Huwwo, Dan?”
“Yes. Who’s this, please?”
“This is Larry, Dan.”
“Who?”
“Larry. Your cousin.”
“Whoa, my long-lost cousin Larry?”
“Yes, Dan, that’s a fair description. I deserve that. I take full responsibility for being out of touch.”
“My black-sheep cousin Larry?”
“That’s also apt, as long as you’re simply stating a fact and don’t mean it in a negative way. Where did I reach you?”
“Actually, I’m on a chairlift in the Colorado Rockies, Larry, a couple of miles above sea level.”
“In the middle of summer? I’m somewhat dubious. Not that I’m calling you a liar, necessarily, but people have been known to alter their whereabouts to avoid speaking to people they aren’t necessarily eager to speak to.”
“I’m with my mountain bike, Larry-about fifty feet in the air, overlooking miles of ski trails that double as bike trails in the summer.”
“There, you see? I’m not dubious anymore. A perfectly cogent explanation. Some family members who will go unnamed-except that it’s Cousin Burton-consider me an unreasonable man, but I just object to being lied to, or considered an idiot simply because I dropped out of high school instead of taking the standard family route of going to Harvard or Brown, which you never did.”
“Never did what?”
“Considered me an idiot, at least to my face, which is one of the reasons I always looked up to you, Dan, even though you did go to Brown. Are you alone?”
“I’m here on vacation with my wife and two sons.”
“I heard you got remarried. I’ve been meaning to call you. Congratulations.”
“Well, that’s fourteen years ago now, Larry, but thanks. Where are you?”
“I’m under my blankets in my Florida condo. I haven’t come out for two days.”
“What’re you doing there?”
“I’m [-SQUAWK-]ing, Dan.”
“You’re what? We’re passing over some sort of radio tower or something. What’d you say you were doing?”
“[-SQUAWK-]ing.”
“What?”
“Dying, Dan. I need a favor.”
[Click.] The line goes dead.
The phone rings again twenty seconds later. I scramble to adjust my bike so I can keep one hand free, and there it is again, the lugubrious voice, like that of a funeral director with a slight speech impediment. “Huwwo.”
“Larry, sorry about that. Hold on a second, I’ve got to take these earplugs out. Okay, I can hear you better.”
“What’s with the earplugs? Is it cold?”
“No, nothing. My kids are nine and twelve, is all. It gets kinda noisy. Guys,” I say, securing a couple of fast-moving collars within my fist so they stop ramming their handlebars into each other, “if you don’t stop fooling around, someone’s going to fall right under the-”
“Huwwo?”
“Larry, I’m still here. So what do you mean, dying? Literally or metaphorically?”
“Literally, Dan. Kiddie disease.”
“Kiddie-”
“Kidney, kidney. Consequently, I’m depressed beyond all measure. More than depressed: I’m depressionistic. But first I have to ask: Are you still mad at me?”
“Mad? You mean for ratting me out to the FBI that time, telling them I’d inflated my income on a condo mortgage application, which you specifically advised me to do because you needed the commission?”
“I was upset, Dan. I’m not proud of it.”
“And why were you upset? Because I had the gall to ask for the thousand dollars back that I’d loaned you to spot your latest invention.”
“You’re right, Dan, I regret it.”
“Which as I recall was for wooden neckties.”
“Which you could sponge the gravy stains off of. I still maintain that would have been huge if I’d had the proper financing.”
The chairlift stalls above a grove of majestic pine trees, allowing the boys a momentary calm to see how far they can dangle one of the front wheels off the side. I nearly lose the phone grabbing a tire.
“No, I’m not mad at you anymore, especially since the FBI laughed it off. Besides, who the hell cares about that, if you’re literally dying?”
“Oh, it’s literal all right. Diabetes claimed first one, then bofe my kidneys. For two years I’ve been on a dialysis machine four hours every other day, watching my life ebb away before my eyes. Solution number one is off the table, because I’m not about to ask anyone in the family for their kidney, given how much they dislike my guts, which I assure you is mutual. But solution number two is surprisingly doable: I’ve been researching the Internet from under the blankets, and it turns out China does more kidney transplants than any other nation. And I won’t have to wait on a list seven to ten more years for a cadaver kidney, as my overcautious American doctors are telling me to-we could get a live one fairly quickly, if we make the right connections.”
“Larry, hold on-what do you mean ‘we’?”
“You’re an old China hand, Dan. You used to do that travel column in Esquire-”
“Larry, I haven’t been to China in twenty-five years! I don’t have any more contacts there than you do.”
“At least you know your way around. I’ve hardly ever been out of the States, except for luxury cruises to the Caribbean, which I could maybe fix you up on sometime, because college girls do things on a cruise ship they’d never dream of doing on shore, believe me, you could pass yourself off as a professor-”
[Click.] The line goes dead.
“Huwwo.”
The chairlift is still stalled in the middle of the Rockies, giving me a chance to take in the scenery: azure peaks crosshatched by bicycle spokes. My wife’s provisionally pacified the boys with an emergency Milky Way.
“Larry, I can’t promise we won’t get cut off again. The wind’s kicking up, and we’re swaying like a-”
“This must be eating up your airtime, Dan. I apologize. No, I’ll do better. Send me the bill, you know I’m good for it-in fact, let me buy you a coupla new cell phones, those new ones that work at any attitude? I don’t want to put you out any more than I have to.”
“You’re not putting me out, exactly, Larry, it’s just-”
“We go there, we grab a kidney, we come back. Couldn’t be simpler. Only one glitch, Dan, which honesty bids me report, because I want to start a new slate with you and be on the up-and-up about everything: They’ve made it somewhat illegal.”
“They’ve made what somewhat illegal?”
“Certain select transplants.”
“What are you talking about?” I say. “You’re telling me-”
“Not for everyone! Most of the world can still come to China for transplants, exactly like I said. Everything I told you is correct down to the last letter of the law. It’s just that the Chinese have made it illegal for certain select persons to get a transplant there.”
“Which persons?”
“Western persons.”
The chairlift creaks and moans as a second Milky Way is passed around.
“But, Larry…”
“Yes, Dan…”
“We’re Western persons.”
“Dan, we’re smart Western persons. In the most populous country on earth, don’t you think we’re intelligent enough to find some people with loopholes? And I don’t know about you, but loopholes are my bread and butter.”
“But-”
“Don’t always focus on the negative, Dan. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And word to the wise: Just because you’ve got seniority over me by two years, don’t lord it over me, okay? We’re both in our fifties-big deal. The important thing is to not get off on the wrong foot and shoot the messenger. If it’s one thing I’ve learned in almost nine years of off-and-on therapy, mostly off, it’s that when you get bad news, you respond appropriately. Don’t take it out on me, is all I’m saying. It’s not my fault China has these crazy restrictions.”
“Guys,” I say, now that the sugar’s kicked in and they’re helping the wind make us rock, “if you keep that up, we’re gonna flip right upside-”
“I commiserate with your cold feet, Dan, but I doubt it will be like last time you were there, when you got yourself thrown in jail-”
“Don’t even bring that up, Larry.”
“I’m just saying, anyone would be cowardly after that, but it was only three hours-a harrowing three hours, I know, but you’re more mature now, you won’t be tempted to clown around…”
Pause while the chairlift restarts with a jolt. My wife lunges to seize both boys in the nick-
“Of course, maybe you’ve got more pressing concerns,” Larry says. “I realize you’re in a different league from me. I’m just a lowly worker bee and you don’t necessarily want to get your hands dirty-”
“That’s not it, Larry. Jeez, what a thing to say. I’m really sorry to hear about your condition, but I’m just not prepared to drop everything and-”
“How’s life with the heiress, by the way?”
“That was a couple of wives ago,” I remind him. “She wised up a long time-”
“Well, anyhow, in my humble way I’m just trying to make a clean chest right from the start,” Larry says, “everything out on the table, no hidden agendas.”
“Which reminds me,” I say, “are there any hidden agendas?”
“None I can think of off the top of my head. Except that I’m [-SQUAWK-]-”
“What?”
“I’m getting [-SQUIZAWK-]”
The boys break out of their mom’s body lock to start straddling the rail. “Guys, I’m serious now, someone’s gonna break their neck if you keep-”
“[-SQUAWK-SQUEAK-SQUIZAWKING-]”
“Listen, Larry, this is a terrible connection. You’re feeling merry? What?”
“[-SQUAWK-SQUEEEEEEE-ZAWK-]”
“Whatever, Larry. This is all too sudden. I’d have to run it by my wife, and I gotta warn you, she can be hell on wheels-”
I dodge the playful squirt from my wife’s water bottle. “What, Larry? Someone was harassing me.”
“I said, do what you have to do, Dan, the last thing I want is to pressure you, even though this is a matter of life and death and you do kind of owe me from the time I bailed you out at my bar mitzvah, remember, Dan?” “Uh, not really, Larry, I have to admit your bar mitzvah’s not shining real bright in my mind just at the moment.”
“Well, even more recently, when you graduated college, I set you up renting slum apartments and let you stay in my spare bedroom and even let you steal my Valium, which you said at the time was a lifesaver. Seems like only yesterday, doesn’t it?”
“Actually, no, it seems like a few decades ago. But listen, Larry, this is serious. Can’t you find someone who actually knows what he’s doing?”
“Dan, believe me, I wouldn’t be calling if I had any other options, but it’s not like I have a dime to help defray someone’s expenses. Matter of fact, I keep finding these shady characters in Guam who want ten grand just to track a few unstable connections. There’s very few people you can trust out there, plus most of them work for a living or let’s say have jobs they can’t take with them on a moment’s notice the way a writer can-that’s why I’m handpicking you, Dan. You could think of this as an honor, in a way.”
“Who else do you have left, Larry, after you issued that fatwa against Cousin Burton. How’d you expect the family to react?”
“It wasn’t a fatwa fatwa, exactly. Let’s call it a wake-up call. A rather rude wake-up call, I grant you. But don’t mire us in that again, Dan. I was upset. That’s behind us now.”
“Is it? Is the feud really behind us? I’m glad to hear that. Burton was hiding out in a cheap motel for two weeks.”
“Oh, he’s too high-and-mighty to stay in a cheap motel?” Larry says with some heat. “Just because he’s the biggest brain surgeon in Boston, with his limo and his driver, he can’t hide out in a cheap motel like us little people when we receive a threat?”
“It wasn’t a question of high-and-mighty, Larry,” I say as, mercifully, the chairlift station comes into sight. “He was fearing for his safety!”
“He tried to swindle my mutha, Dan. He made her cry on her deathbed, don’t get me started.”
“That’s still no reason to sic the Motor Men on him, Larry.”
“The Motor Men get a bad rap, Dan. And I’m glad you remember to use their code name, because they don’t like to have their real name dragged through the mud. But some of them are very tender underneath. When I told them about my mutha, a couple had tears in their eyes, they wanted to do the job for free…”
“Larry, can I get back to you on this?” I say. “We’re about to disembark here, and I’ve been promising the kids this vacation for like a year now.”
“Dan, not to be blunt, but it’s almost Labor Day-let’s not play games and pretend the vacation isn’t winding down. You think this is patty-cake we’re playing here? My life’s hanging by a thread, not that I want to intrude.”
“It’s not intruding, exactly, Larry. It’s just, I mean-”
“Take your time, Dan. I’ll work around your schedule, whenever’s good for you. This is you doing me a favor for a change, Dan, it’s not me doing you a favor. So what’s your closest airport? Denver? You’re in luck, there’s a nonstop to Beijing at eight A.M. next Sunday.”
“What, you’ve been Googling the whole time we’ve been talking, Larry?”
“You don’t even have to change planes, Dan.”
“But that gives us no time to plan this thing, Larry!”
“All due respect, Dan, but you suck at planning. You’re a seat-of-the-pants-type guy, as I am. You know as well as I do that ninety percent of the world’s deals get made not because of planning but because you happen to be standing there when the deal goes down. We can plan this to the nth degree, and it won’t be as good as just hopping over there and winging it…”
“Guys! The bar stays down!”
“I’m feeling encouraged now, Dan, I’m crawling out from beneath my blankets. Next Sunday? Next Sunday would be good.”
FIRST FIVE REASONS TO HANG UP THE SECOND YOUR LONG-LOST COUSIN ASKS YOU TO GO WITH HIM TO CHINA
Familially, you and he aren’t that close. You didn’t see each other all that much growing up, and, in fact, have been estranged for two decades.
Morally, what he’s suggesting is murky. C’mon, are we just another couple of arrogant First Worlders who think they can snatch an organ from the Third?
Medically, it’s even murkier. Take him away from his American doctors to find a foreign organ that may or may not be up to snuff?
Legally-let’s not even go there. Even Larry admits it’s illegal.
For all these reasons, and countless more that flood the brain, it’s clearly a fool’s errand.
So, case closed. It’s a few hours later, and the chairlift is shut down for the night. The kids are fast asleep in the darkened hotel room on either side of their sleeping mom in the king-size bed. With a light on in the adjoining bathroom and the door closed, I’m sitting in the empty bathtub Googling the words “transplant,” “kidney,” “cousin,” “death.” Just to satisfy myself that what Larry’s asking is preposterous.
Kidney: The organ that cleans blood, without which the body shuts down and dies.
Dialysis: The procedure to artificially clean blood when kidneys fail. The patient is hooked up to the dialysis machine at least three times a week for at least four hours per session, typically followed by twelve hours of addled sleep.
Transplant, waiting list: A dire situation. In America alone there’s a backlog of seventy-four thousand patients, forty-four hundred of whom died last year while waiting. Average wait is seven to ten years, longer if other medical problems make patient a less desirable recipient.
Transplant, options: Given the dismal prospects, more and more people around the world are crossing international borders to obtain the care they can’t get at home. So-called medical tourism is risky and controversial, but sometimes it’s the only viable option.
Transplant, donation: I’m off the hook, in case there was a question. Our DNA’s so distant it’s doubtful we’d have a match. Larry and I are probably as different in that division as we are in everything else.
Guilt: I don’t need to look that up. I know all about how Larry missed out on the privileges the rest of the family enjoyed. But is that any reason to consider raiding the home piggy bank, especially at a time when my books aren’t exactly feathering the nest? Of course not. No, no, the answer is no.
The tub’s getting crampy. I perform a couple more searches before shutting down the laptop. Oh, here’s a nice one now: kidneys, eaten. Apparently, back in 1968 at the height of the frenzy that was China ’s Cultural Revolution, several accounts report that the bestial Red Guards ate human kidneys as part of their revolutionary zeal. Simmered the corpses of their enemies in large vats, then fried their organs in oil.
Great place he’s asked me to revisit. Typical Larry.
I flick off the bathroom light and make my way across the hotel room by the glow of the moon coming through the curtain. For a minute I watch over the sacred sight that is my family in the moonlight. A vein ticks in each of their necks, blue and tender, right below the surface of the skin. A microscopic image comes to me from my Googling: the tips of two fifteen-gauge needles piercing a blood vessel for the dialysis procedure. Then, just as quickly, I’m into macroscopic mode, picturing the millions of haggard patients languishing on kidney lists around the globe.
Their veins ticking, too.
What was that memory Larry was alluding to? Bailing me out at his bar mitzvah? I have a faint recollection of the tubby thirteen-year-old mumbling his prayers into the microphone, softly impedimented, as though he had strawberries in his mouth. I remember feeling sorry for him. I remember feeling angry for him. But nothing beyond that. Something about a piece of cake…?
And then, more recently, something about Larry going to China alone, pathetically trying to find a kidney without me, dying over there all by himself? Or maybe that’s a memory that’s not supposed to happen?
I watch my wife and boys in the moonlight, pooling their body heat as they sleep. They’re healthy, thank God; Larry’s not. Luck of the draw. But why would I, flawed and fucked-up as I am, why would I desert my darlings to go half-cocked into business where I don’t belong?
Game plan: Why doesn’t my laptop have a link for that? Where’s the Web site to tell me what to do? But what if-being completely crazy here for a minute-what if I promise my family I’ll make it up to them, entrust the boys with feeding the ducks in our pond when they get home to Massachusetts, arrange to meet Larry in Beijing, and buy a round-trip ticket with the return date to be decided later? Then-still speaking theoretically-say we give it one week in China and another week or two in neighboring countries, just long enough to prove that it’s an impossible mission?
I yearn to stay and share in the body heat my family promises. A shiver of cold runs through me, to think how wrenching it would be to thrust myself into the vast beyond. I’d have to force myself to be extra chipper, and chipper is the last thing I feel.
Sleepily, I climb in among the bodies of my family, making four. Soon enough, in the cosmic scheme of things, each of us will end up going our separate ways to points unknown, but for this night we share a king-size bed. “Dad?” cries one of the boys, looking up startled. He takes my hand and curls it with him back to sleep.
I lie awake.