Daniel Rose - Larry's Kidney, Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China

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What sort of mood will Larry be in this morning? Truculent? Tearful? Or merely mistrustful? I brace myself for the worst, only to enter his room and discover that he’s radiant! Why wouldn’t he be? He’s watching TV while up to his elbows in a bucket of hot wings.

“Catered by KFC!” he trills. “Apparently they deliver for orders over five bucks. Want some?” he asks, offering me a plastic take-out cup that’s more gravy than mashed potatoes. “It’s a little herbier than at home, and the Coke tastes a little cough-syrupy, but at least I’m eating,” he says.

“You’re not dying to give the local dishes a try?” I tease.

“Dan, back in Beijing I asked Mary to translate the room-service menu, and you know what one of the dishes was called? ‘Dog Won’t Eat It.’ Okay? Even the Chinese call it that. Case closed.”

A questionable lullaby warbles from the softspeakers: You’re a grand old flag, you’re a high-flying flag. The A/C is off, and the temperature is to his liking: semi-sweltering. The room’s loamy with the scent of Larry.

“Uh-oh, here we go again,” he says, pushing himself to a more upright sitting position as a gaggle of eight nurses comes giggling in and surrounds Larry in his bed, posing for pictures. “They’re taking turns by floor,” Larry says, his arms around them. “This is the sixth floor, by my count. They’ve been doing it all morning. Apparently I’m some kind of celebrity in here. It’s a fantasy beyond belief.”

One for the family album: Larry in his hospital gown and shades, sitting atop the blankets like an underworld kingpin, hugging the prettiest nurses west of Shanghai. When at last they leave, the reenergized patient turns onto his side and begins pontificating again, a real blue-streak special. Unfortunately, I haven’t mentally cranked up for the onslaught this morning and don’t tune in, but a stray story line filters through, each worth a Movie of the Week: something about a pusher named Midget who used to be chased all over the globe by a ruthless bounty hunter, but now Midget’s son is in trouble with the law and Midget’s hired his old enemy to find his son so together they can help him; something about fixing up ex-Senator Barry Goldwater with a runway model from Milan, and too bad Goldwater kicked the bucket, because he owed Larry big time; at the end of which he says, “Good morning, Dan. As you can see, good food always makes me feel better. I’m feeling so good I even like this new gown with tiny blue sailboats. Makes me feel like a little boy.”

“Good morning,” I reply, even though now I mostly want to go back to the Super 2 and sleep.

Cherry enters the room for a brief check-in. “Patient good today,” she says. “Better than so-so.”

I smile sympathetically, because I can only imagine what she’s been through with him while I was gone, but I have to keep bugging her: “In terms of our anonymity,” I ask, “is it okay that Larry’s becoming such a mascot in here?”

“Is okay,” she assures me.

“But what about leaks to the authorities? If so many people in the hospital are in on the secret, isn’t there a bigger chance someone will tip off the local police?”

“Is not like that.”

“What is it like? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“In China we have an old sentence, ‘Take the dead horse to the live horse.’ This is what we try to do with Larry.”

“I have no idea what that even-”

“You the one need a clam pill, not Larry,” she admonishes with a smile. “Everything clicking like clockwork. Larry a fighter!” she says. “He will punch butt all over town.”

Momentarily alone with Larry, I settle sleepily into the plastic couch in front of the overloud Al Jazeera. “So they make a convert of you yet?” I say, watching an avuncular news anchor narrating a documentary on the American invasion of Iraq to the film sound track of Apocalypse Now.

“Actually, despite my being a capitalist fundamentalist, I have to admit they’re more balanced than some stations I could name,” he says. “If I didn’t know they were commie, I’d think it was Walter Cronkite talking.”

He’s having his pre-dialysis blood pressure read again by the ungainly resident from the other night who looks like she was picked on in high school. Larry’s flirting with her, making the requisite joke about how if there’s a spike in the reading, it’s her fault. She can’t understand a word but giggles anyway.

“I swear I’m getting the VIP treatment,” he tells me. “Back in the States, it’s always ‘Buy me, buy me.’ Here it’s ‘Let us help you.’ Whole different mind-set. I tried to give the janitor a tip, and he wouldn’t hear of it. Watch this, bet this resident won’t take a tip either…”

I redirect. “What accounts for your VIP treatment, do you suppose?” I ask.

“Could have something to do with meeting Dr. X last night.”

“You met Dr. X?” I say, jumping to my feet. “I thought he was gone till the end of the week!?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? He came in at ten P.M., after you left. Dressed very sharp. I’d say basically American style with an Asian twist. Power tie. Power cuff links. He said I have a lot of influential friends in China. That’s apparently what’s motivating him. Not money so much as doing right by our impressive contacts.”

“Antonia!” I breathe. She actually called in a favor for someone she met only once? I’m humbled.

“She must have some kind of muscle, because he said he got a great number of calls and e-mails from people in very high places. And already this morning I was bustled through a battery of tests, no waiting, just wheeled right through.”

“Larry, this is great news!”

His burp sounds like a question mark. “You think so? I do, too,” he says, mopping up the last of some egg yolk with a porous tablet of KFC sausage. “He said he wanted to make me aware of how complicated the situation is, what a ton of red tape he has to jump through to get an exception to the new laws. The gist is, he’s still able to get a few kidneys, not like a year ago when he personally did a hundred and fifty kidneys, but a few. Long story short: Said he doesn’t want to boast, but he’s the right person to pull this off, if anyone can.”

“Larry, this is fantastic.”

The resident removes an IV and instructs him to raise the arm.

“See what a good clotter I am?” he boasts, as no red appears. “Always been an excellent clotter.”

“So was all this conversation with Dr. X through an interpreter, or does he speak-”

“Speaks impeccable.”

“Larry, this is better than I dared hope.”

“I think so, too. He said in America you have to wait for a kidney that’s been sitting in a jar two weeks. Here I get one fresh out of the donor, pop it in with five minutes’ notice. So I’m sitting right here, docile as a lamb.”

“Right,” I say.

As the resident prepares to leave, Larry tells her, “All right, sweetheart, stay out of trouble,” and gives her a buffalo nickel, which she seems to prize. I suddenly realize who she reminds me of-just as suddenly shove the image of Larry’s dead twin, Judy, out of my mind.

“Any mention of the surgery’s price?” I ask.

“That we didn’t discuss,” Larry says. “Nor when it might happen. I didn’t want to push the envelope. I figure this first meeting let’s keep everything friendly, I can always put the hammer to him later.”

“Let’s let it be, then. Don’t breathe another word about it.”

“As you wish, Mr. Bond. I defer to your judgment.”

“And don’t mention that you’ve never actually met Antonia.”

“Roger that. But to expand upon your original question, his English is sometimes good and sometimes not. He’s spent significant time in Great Britain. He has a daughter who’s in college in Miami, but when I asked him which college, he didn’t seem to understand.”