Yannick Murphy - The Call

WHAT THE WIFE SAID WHEN I TOLD HER THE SPACEMAN NEEDED MY KIDNEY:No.

WHAT THE DOCTOR SAID WHEN I CALLED HIM ON THE PHONE:I’m so glad you decided to call. I told him I wanted to schedule a time to talk.

WHAT THE DOCTOR SAID:That’s a wise thing to do.

WHAT I SAID:No, not for me, I mean not for my levels, for my kidney. I’d like a discussion, I said. Is it possible to talk over the phone?

CALL:Jen screaming, telling me there’s a bat in the sink drain. She went into the bathroom to wash her face, and there in the sink was a small bat, nose crammed into the space between the drain and the metal stopper.

ACTION:Called the children to the scene of the emergency. The bat is obviously sick, I said to the children. I sent Sam off to find a plastic container. Tore off a piece of cardboard from a Tampax box and scooped the bat up into a plastic container that Sam brought that once held fancy greens. Told Sarah to fold up toilet paper to put inside the plastic container to keep the bat warm. Sent Sam and Mia off to catch flies in our house. The bat needs food, I said. Sam and Mia were more than happy to go up to the window glass where the cluster flies were clinging and pinch the wings of the flies and put them inside the plastic container. We gave the bat water, but he was too weak to drink.

WHAT THE WIFE SAID:Rabies!

WHAT I SAID:Not everything has rabies. It might be white fungus.

WHAT THE DOCTOR HAD SAID OVER THE PHONE THAT I REPLAYED IN MY HEAD AS I LOOKED AT THE BAT THROUGH THE CLEAR PLASTIC CONTAINER, BREATHING EVER SO SLIGHTLY, HIS HEART IN HIS CHEST MOVING NO MORE NOTICEABLY THAN A VEIN IN A WRIST:You can live just as well with one kidney.

WHERE WE KEPT THE BAT FOR THE NIGHT:In the pantry, on a shelf with a jar of green olives, next to a pipe the hot water ran through and where it was cozy and warm.

WHAT I THOUGHT THE BAT WAS THE SIZE OF:One of my kidneys.

CALL:The children are all calling for me. Jen is sitting on the toilet with the lid down. She is crying. The children have all come running to me to tell me they have found their mother this way.

ACTION:I walk upstairs. I see her sitting on the toilet.

WHAT I SAY:You may want to lift the lid before you pee.

WHAT THE WIFE DOES:She looks up at me. I see the tears streaming down her face, mixing with her hair. Very funny, she says. I put my hand up on the top of the glass shower door to rest it there and look down at her. What’s the matter? I say, feeling how what I’m leaning on is slippery, probably because up high on top of the glass shower door is where I keep my bar of soap so that it doesn’t wash away and disappear while the shower is running.

WHAT THE WIFE SAYS:I don’t think I can do it again. I can’t have someone else in this family in the hospital again. You can’t give your kidney away. You will not give it away. Your children need a healthy father. Your levels might skyrocket after losing a kidney. This kid, this spaceman, you didn’t raise him. You didn’t even know he existed a week ago. This is not about you! she says.

UPDATED LIST OF THINGS MY LEVELS CAN DO:Beg, talk, appreciate food, join a swim team, have common sense, skyrocket.

WHAT I THINK:I wish she were just screaming about the house being dirty, about the dishes in the sink and the clothes on the floor. Then I could just run outside. The kids could join me. We could run to the back field and check on the small trout as small as their hands in the stream. We could check on the brush piles we created last year and look into the dark of them to see if there are any beady pairs of black eyes staring back at us, it being a happy home to some furry creatures.

WHAT THE WIFE SAYS VERY QUIETLY:Please.

WHAT I THINK:That what I’m seeing is already in the past, she has already cried, and maybe the crying is over. Maybe now she has stood and wiped her nose and brushed her hair on the way out of the bathroom. She has made herself presentable. She has pulled down her sweater so that it lies smoothly over her pants. She has checked herself in the mirror. She has checked her eyeliner and with her fingertip she has smeared away any blurring black smudges. She has smiled into the mirror and has checked for telltale signs of food between her teeth.

WHAT THE WIFE IS STILL DOING:Sitting on the toilet with the lid down. She has not risen, she has not arranged herself. The tears still fall. Things that I’m seeing may be in the past, but the past just happened so quickly, it wasn’t long ago at all. Is there a way to make the past longer, or the present further away? I take my hand off the top of the shower wall. Sure enough, there is mucky green deodorant soap on my polar fleece cuff now. I try not to look at it for too long. If I do she will know I am not paying enough attention to her. She will think I am not taking her seriously. I cannot reach for a washcloth and wet it and try to wash the mucky green deodorant soap away now. At best, the only thing I can do is hold my arm out a little to the side, so as not to get the rest of me covered in the mess.

WHAT I SAY:It’s not the same. It won’t be the same as it was with Sam. I’m not going into a coma. Jen interrupts me. Why? Why? Why? She yells and so of course I think for a minute that she wants to know why it won’t be the same, and why I won’t be going into a coma, but I know better. I know she wants to know why I feel I have to do this for some kid who showed up at our door a week ago. I shrug my shoulders. I do this by first bringing my arms in close to myself. Now the mucky green soap is definitely smeared on my side. I shrug again and again. It doesn’t matter now, I have turned into the mucky green soap monster. When I go back down and see my children they will want to know what it is. Is it horse mucus? Is it cow cud? Is it alpaca spit? they will ask. I think I will tell them it is rearranged electrons from space-time travel, and maybe that is what it really is anyway because all of a sudden Jen is standing. She is saying, “Fine, they are your kidneys, do what you want with them,” and she is lifting the lid of the toilet and throwing wadded-up tissues she used to blow her nose into the water in the bowl.

WHAT I SAY:It’s the right thing to do. What that hunter did to Sam, that was the wrong thing to do.

WHAT THE WIFE SAYS:You don’t owe this kid anything. You didn’t shoot him.

WHAT I SAY:I gave him life.

WHAT THE WIFE SAYS:Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, you’re not fucking Jesus, you know.

WHAT I SAY:Okay, it sounded like too much, but I am part of the reason why he’s alive now.

WHAT THE WIFE SAYS:I married an egomaniac.

WHAT I SAY:I’m not. Then Jen says, Oh, sure, and she takes a washcloth and wets it and starts wiping off the mess of the green deodorant soap that is on my sleeve and on my side. She uses such strong strokes to brush the soap off that my body turns to the side with her every downward stroke. When she’s done she wads up the washcloth and throws it down onto the basin of the sink and says, Dinner is ready.

WHAT DINNER IS:Great. It’s breaded pork chops cooked to tenderness in broth and sweet potatoes mashed with butter and cream and maple syrup and green beans sautéed with oil and garlic. I want to tell her how good it is, but I can’t. She will think I am just trying to smooth the waters between us. So at first I am thankful for when Sam starts to say, Mom, this is delish-delish-delish, but I wish he didn’t have signs of slurring when he’s trying to say it because while he’s trying to spit it out the wife looks at me as if to say, And this proves my point, here is an example of how precarious life is, it has left us with our son who still slightly slurs and if you give this space kid a kidney, the aftereffects may be worse. So I say, Delicious, ending Sam’s sentence for him and noticing that the green beans may not be that good after all and they might be somewhat burned and a little bitter tasting.