Jeff Jacobson - Sleep Tight

Viktor unbuckled his seat belt. Struggled to his feet. He hoped he could make it to the bathroom before one of the flight attendants tried to stop him. He wasn’t sure what would happen then.

Sweat collected under the illicit cargo hidden carefully along both sides of his chest and stomach. Acutely aware of these small lumps, he knew he had to look truly awful as he found his feet and stood, hitting his head on the overhead bin.

The nice leather jacket, the new jeans, the crisp white shirt were all supposed to convey that he was the lazy son of someone rich. But the new clothes couldn’t hide how he felt. He was tall and underfed, and he lurched up the aisle like a scarecrow running from a storm. Passengers flinched when they saw him.

Viktor made it inside the restroom before any of the flight attendants said anything. He sagged inside the plastic door, trying to slow his breathing. He turned on the light above the mirror and saw that he was much worse than he had feared.

His eyes were red and began to weep in the light. His skin had gotten frighteningly pale. It didn’t make sense. His heart raced; his face should be red from all the blood surging through his body. He fumbled with the buttons to his crisp white shirt, and lifted the heavy T-shirt underneath.

The cargo was still there. Still quiet. Still unmoving.

“Don’t worry. They won’t get loose. No. It’s the squeaks that will get you caught,” Roman had said in his native language. Roman was a man full of nervous laughter and nicotine.

When Viktor stepped into the back room of the vet office outside of Yekaterinburg, he found the tiny cages, each no bigger than a toaster, on the operating table in a neat line. His passport, student visa, two credit cards, a driver’s license, and just over three hundred dollars in U.S. currency had been stacked in the opposite corner. Down there, some of the metal surface was still smeared with congealed blood.

Roman held up a wisp of a vest, made from flesh-colored nylon pantyhose. He laughed. “I know, I know. It looks like something a prostitute would wear.”

Viktor stripped to his underwear and stepped into it. He slid the straps into place, stretching the nylon from underneath his crotch, knotted it together at the hips, and ran it up the sides of his stomach and chest until it ended in a loop around each shoulder. Roman tied these across his shoulders.

“Trust me, they all wear these. I know a man who carried twenty-four lizards and snakes into Los Angeles not four years ago.”

Viktor held up his arms and turned in a slow circle.

Roman said, “These animals? They will have it easier than you, my friend. Nineteen hours without a cigarette! Put on your pants. Walk around. We have . . .” He checked his watch. “Forty-three minutes.”

“Until the flight?” Viktor asked, confused, trying not to let any panic show.

“No. Until we leave this office.” Timing was everything. A difference of an hour in the international flight time could mean life or death for the cargo.

Viktor went to splash water on his face in the cramped airplane bathroom, but the sound of the trickling water wormed into his head and he suddenly spewed bile onto the mirror. His legs buckled and he dropped to his knees, dry-heaving into the metal sink. He hoped the gagging sounds couldn’t be heard outside of the bathroom. Reaching up, he managed to pull one of the paper towels out of the dispenser and laid it on the damp bottom of the sink. Using that, he wiped some of the sweat off his face.

It made no sense. Why was he so sick?

One of the pouches along his left side twitched and squirmed. Another, on the right side, started to move. And yet another.

They were waking up.

He clearly remembered the rest of the preparation in the veterinarian hospital, watching closely as the vet placed a syringe on top of each cage. Each syringe held such little medicine they looked almost empty. The man waited patiently, until Roman, checking his watch, gave him a nod. The vet put a heavy leather glove on his left hand and opened the first cage.

He gave an injection every five minutes. Then they would squeeze each animal into yet another nylon pantyhose, twisting the material to trap it. The ends were then tied to straps in the vest. In the end, Viktor carried six on each side, each lump no bigger than a computer mouse.

“Good! Good! You look good!” Roman said, once Viktor had put his shirt back on. “Turn around. Good!” Viktor walked around the tiny operating room, experimentally swinging his arms.

“Try not to sweat,” Roman offered.

The vet remained still the entire time, until he spotted movement. It was a tiny bug, venturing out of the sixth cage. The thing was no bigger than the head of the eagle on the old American coins they had given Viktor. The vet squashed it with his thumb and flicked it away.

Viktor could remember the ride to the airport, the perfunctory bribe in customs, a quick toast of ice-cold vodka in the airport bar, then the long walk to the plane. He found his seat, flirted unenthusiastically with one of the ugly attendants, and tried not to think about landing in Chicago.

After that, absolutely nothing.

A sharp rap at the door. “Sir! Sir! We are landing very soon. You must take your seat.”

Viktor tried to respond; his voice came out garbled as if his tongue had forgotten how to create words. It must have worked for a moment because the knocking stopped.

He stared at himself in the mirror again. Just land, get through customs, and then outside, where a van is waiting. He sucked in a deep breath and blew it out through his nose.

Everything was going to be fine.

A thin trickle of blood slid out of his left nostril.

Viktor swore and wiped it away. More blood collected on his upper lip. He realized he could use this to his advantage and wound toilet paper around his fist, then pressed it to his nose. He was now just a passenger with a bloody nose because of the dry air in the cabin. That was all.

Something tickled his stomach.

At first, he thought it was just that maddening phantom itch. But this felt different. Something was moving across his skin. He pulled his shirt up, and there, crawling along the sparse black hairs around his belly button, was a tiny bug. Without hesitation, he pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and felt an insignificant, unsatisfying crunch. Examining his fingertips, he found a faint smear of blood.

The attendant knocked on the door again. Louder this time. “Sir! I insist, sir!”

Viktor wiped the remains of the bug on his new jeans, jammed the blood soaked tissue back to his nose, and opened the door. He glared at the attendant over the tissue. The phantom itch crawled across his scalp.

When the plane finally landed, Viktor was afraid he couldn’t stand. He waited in his seat until nearly all the passengers had disembarked, effectively trapping the older woman next to him. She didn’t make a move to get up, gripping her purse in two tight fists, staring unwaveringly at the perky young starlet skipping through warm surf on the cover of the in-flight magazine stuffed in the pouch on the back of the seat in front.

Viktor didn’t care. He wedged his hands under his thighs, anything to hide the shaking. He couldn’t stop licking his lips. The vibrations in his head threatened to spin out of control and he fought against the seizures that echoed throughout his body. The shaking built. His feet thrummed against his carry-on bag. Drool spilled from quivering lips. A distant burst of his heartbeat.

Abruptly, everything slowed down.

He stopped shaking. Wiped his mouth. The sounds of muttered conversations as the passengers filed past and pulled bags out of the overhead compartments seemed to be coming from underwater.