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

On and on go the disquisitions, as relentless as the clouds of ivorygray smog through the hospital window, velvety and choking. I am so powerless that when I occasionally make a sound of protest, I’m shot down with no attempt to control the sarcasm from on high.

Me: You want me to write another letter to Mary’s uncle buttering him up about chinesepridemall.com?

Larry: Yes, Dan, unless you’re suffering writer’s block again.

Me: But if I may, Chinese pride, Emerald Isle pride, all these Web sites you’ve concocted-do you actually believe in any of these things?

Larry: What do my beliefs have to do with it? This is business. Do I believe in Eskimo pride, just because I own a Web site called igloopower. com? Theoretically, sure, why not, but it’s not something I’m emotionally invested in. Am I invested in gay pride? I don’t want to mislead you, so I’ll have to admit: not that much. Nuffing against them, even though I once got stuck behind a gay-pride parade for four hours and had to wonder, do faggots have to be that proud? But Chinese pride could be the biggest haul of all, now that I’ve been here and see what these people require. Mary’s uncle is a man I feel I could work with. He doesn’t say a lot, but he knows where the bodies are buried.

Meanwhile the dictation goes on at any hour, recording the devolution of our life here.

Sept. 25. Dear Colleagues & Godchildren:

A major development took place yesterday that I am most unhappy about. I left the hospital on my own accord for a little stroll but apparently the powers that be thought I was trying to escape and they have insisted that my subordinate Dan pretty much move into the spare room of my suite to keep watch over me. It is true that I did fall in the street and sustained some fairly impressive scabs on my elbows and knees but I am irked that Dan has to now be here even more with me, taking up the good couch and watching every single thing I do with that upper caste accent of his, not that he can help it. If any or all of you would like to write the hospital to petition on my behalf I will not stop you.

Yes, it’s true, I am his hostage, as he is mine. I haven’t checked out of the Super 2, but I spend more time in the hospital suite than anywhere else, frequently crashing on the couch in his spare room, just as I did after college. My life is all Larry, all the time: smelling Larry in my clothes, dreaming Larry in my sleep. By night our heads rest against opposite sides of the same hospital wall, completing the mind meld. By day I sit in my molded-plastic school chair and type.

Sept. 26. Dear Candey Blossoms Candidate AZ418B:

Please be advised that I do not now nor ever did in the past request a romantic dalliance with you. You sound like a nice girl but I am satisfied with the one I got. Plus you are Korean and I am specializing in China right now, even though you point out rather convincingly that Koreans have more advanced fashion sense than China girls. I thank you for your consideration, but please no more mash notes.

As for the elephant in the room, we make no further reference to it. The fatwa’s just there, lighting Larry up from the inside. In odd moments when I believe he’s sleeping I steal a glimpse at the Internet to try to gain perspective on the issue, Googling the history of the Motor Men and/or digging up strangely pertinent definitions.

cozen transitive verb:

1. To cheat; to defraud; to deceive, usually by petty tricks. Perhaps derives from Early Modern French cousiner, “to defraud; literally to treat as if a cousin (hence to claim to be a cousin in order to defraud).”

So much have I become his Mini-Me that I find myself thinking, Maybe there is something sweet about the life of a munitions dealer. After all, isn’t that the profession Rimbaud entered after resigning from poetry at age nineteen-how bad could it be? Larry’s shuffling walk, his stumbling gait, I now view as languid. Even the fatwa now makes a kind of mad sense to me. Larry’s not an evil monster. He’s merely concocted the perfect payback for his disadvantaged life. And it is perfect. Burton was the first golden boy of the overprivileged generation from which Larry was excluded. By screwing Burton, he’s in effect screwing this whole generation of rich snots, including me.

And by roping me in, he’s made me a party to my own screwing.

Only one thing is going to snap me out of this-seeing Jade hop two-footed out of her bullet train from Beijing to visit us.

“Hey there, 24.”

“Hello, 84.”

I’m touched by her smallness when we hug on the platform. Pulling away, I’m amazed by all I’d forgotten or hadn’t sufficiently noticed: those oblong nostrils, the bubbles in her teeth that keep re-creating themselves. She has a delightful thing she does with her tongue when she speaks. Sometimes it licks her bottom lip so it’s as glossy as lipstick, other times it curls beneath her back teeth in an almost impish manner. How had I overlooked this before?

And she’s so happy! “I nudge you,” she says, pushing my shoulder slightly.

“I nudge you, too,” I say, returning the endearment or whatever it’s supposed to be. This makes her happier still, her face both familiar and new, and so animated I can barely keep up with it. But then one last fleeting hug as her face takes a sudden downturn.

“Worried about you and Larry so much!”

So we’re off.

In the cab from the train station, I have a silent conversation. Cool God! You who maketh Situations Splendid! Thank You for the women You alwayssend my way. Where would we men be without them? Women arranged for me to find this hospital, women have been caring for Larry in this hospital, women do everything but pack my lunch and give me milk money! How in the world did You engineer them so fierce and loving? I even got e-mails in the last few days from my old Asian flames, Corazón and Company, who forgive me, of all things…asking what they can do to help! O Lordy Lord I long to praise, who chilleth out the passions of crazy lovers in due time and restoreth order between cousins, where would we be without You?

Per Jade’s request we go directly to see Larry. I usher her into our sheet-darkened cave, kicking Ring Ding wrappers out of the way, closing the door to the bathroom so no vagabond scents might offend her quivering oblongs. Just having someone in my corner to objectify things rouses me from the stupor I’ve been in since the Shabbos Duck. I reclaim myself.

The deposed ayatollah is snoring. Jade looks him over fondly, fretfully, maternally-the hulk reduced to a fetal figure under a blanket that shudders with his breathing.

“You really stay here now?” she whispers. “I thought you joshing me.”

“Oh, ain’t no joshing matter.”

“Why he keep cell phone in Kleenex box?”

“So he won’t lose it, along with his important documents.”

“Why instruction papers taped all over walls?”

“To remind him where the Kleenex box is.”

Jade assesses the situation with a gravity I haven’t seen before. “Oy vay,” she concludes. “What Dr. X say about situation?”

“We haven’t been able to see him.”

“Ma?!” she cries, a hoarse whisper. “But this is the deal, you are here for Dr. X.”

“We’re just playing by their rules.”

Jade takes note of my helpless grimace, makes a decision. “No matter,” she declares. “We find Dr. X now, get the fresh scoop.”

Instantly Larry wakes up. “I’m coming,” he says.

“The patient spying on us!” Jade giggles, giving him a kiss on his cheek. “You overhear all our state secrets.”

“Huwwo, Jade, huwwo, Dan,” he says. Just by the pitch he uses, I can tell, mercifully, that we’re back to our original dynamics. His reign of terror’s over.