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

Bzzzz, bzzzzz! It sounds like a bumblebee caught between window-panes, but it’s my cell phone vibrating angrily on mute. I let my wheels coast to a stop, lazily pick up the phone, and get an earful of screaming.

“DAN, LARRY HORT!”

I reel back from Mary’s voice as from a blast of ammonia.

“LARRY BLOOD!” she screams again, telling me that Larry has escaped the hospital again, only to take another spill.

CRRAAAAAACK!-another thunder blast. The atmosphere feels electrically charged, and when I crank open the leaded window, I see that the afternoon has blackened, at the mercy of a crackling downpour. Down below, the toy-train village of Shi looks defenseless, honking furiously to itself in a state of paralysis, its cogs gummed up by the rain. My cousin’s lying in a street out there somewhere, and in a minute Abu and I have gained the front sidewalk, observing the bottleneck.

“A cab will be quickest, see you later,” I yell to Abu, jumping into the backseat of a gaily decorated vehicle. But it’s a police car: Two frightened-looking officers gape at me from the front seat. “Sorry!” I say, jumping out again.

“Take this,” Abu says, holding out the key to his Vespa. “It will be quicker for only one.”

In a minute I’m racing through wet side streets, away from the bottleneck. It’s all clamoring chaos: Sirens wail, strobe lights flash from the tops of ambulances as their drivers shout for right-of-way. Larry couldn’t have gotten more than a fewblocks from the hospital, I figure; maybe he was heading for a familiar landmark. The duck restaurant! I’m like the worst or best of the Chinese drivers I’ve been marveling at all these weeks, weaving the wrong way down a one-way sidewalk. Half a block from the duck restaurant, around the corner from the hospital, I locate Larry lying in his hospital gown in the middle of the street, flailing like a beetle on its back. Everywhere I turn, Mary’s in my way, blithering idiotically. I place her aside and approach. Not knowing friend from foe, Larry stabs me with his KFC spork. I kneel in a puddle to subdue him, slosh the rain out of his eyes, peer directly into his face till he recognizes me.

“Huwwo, Dan, thank you for coming,” he says, like he’s hosting a craps game in the back of a strip club and is pleased I’m able to make it. “You look buff. Been working out?”

“Larry, what the hell’s going on?”

“I’ve been up since four trying to figure out exactly that. I’m quite baffled. What a night,” he says. “My back is in spasm…”

I use the momentary calm to coax him up. Mistake: It sends him into another frenzy, waving with his plastic weapon, clawing at my legs with his Businessman’s Running Shoes. A piece of paper’s in motion-the nun’s letter from back home. “Help! Someone!” he calls as traffic honks and weaves around us. “VIP in need!”

“Settle down!” I shout, using my weight now to keep him in place. A couple of soldiers approach with faces so blank they’re scary. “No, no, we’ve got it,” I call to them, blocking their approach. They hesitate, unsure whether to take offense or back off. Soon they’re gone.

“Larry,” I say sternly, “it’s dangerous to make a scene like this-”

CRAAAAAACK! The storm’s right on top of us now. The duck restaurant chooses this moment to begin broadcasting Peking Opera from its sidewalk speakers.

“I’m leaving,” he says through gritted teeth. “I can make my own way to the airport.”

With an adrenaline boost, he manages to wiggle out of my grasp, stands bare-assed with tubes coming out of him, the back of his hospital gown soiled.

“Larry, didn’t you put yourself in my hands when we got to this city?”

“Sue me,” he says. “If it’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s-”

He interrupts himself to spit out a tooth. Now there’s even less of him to save;nevertheless, his body seems to be cooperating. His blood’s scabbing up, the color of root beer; his legs are allowing me to assist him down the sidewalk in a daze.

“Larry, promise me you’ll never pull a stunt like this again. Do you know how many germs you could catch outside the hospital in your state?”

“You know how many germs I could catch inside?”

I’m trying to keep him on his feet, hobbling him toward the hospital. His blood, his Brylcreem, it’s all over me.

“Larry, why do you keep fighting me every step of the way?”

“All due respect, you’ve exceeded your authority, it’s my call, case closed. What do you care anyway? I’m not trying to cheat you out of a dime.”

All the ancient paranoias bubbling forth from a bloody mouth, the Old World recriminations…

“…your girlfriend Jade…your boyfriend that raghead…gooks and dinks…”

I shake him, not lightly. “Larry, it’s time to show a little gratitude to everyone who’s put themselves on the line for you.”

“I disagree.”

“It’s not a matter of disagreeing, Larry.”

“I disagree, that’s all,” he says. “I’m doing what you said in the microphone.”

I stop.

“What mike? When? At your bar mitzvah? I thought you didn’t remember what I said.”

“You said fuck everyone there, they were just a bunch of hypocrites and goody-goodies, and you didn’t want anything to do with them. That’s what I’m saying, too. Fuck ’em all.”

I blink at him, aghast. “You think this is junior high, Larry? You’re rebelling against the teachers? This is China with world-class surgeons!” I yell. “We’ve come halfway around the world and jumped in front of God knows how many people to get you a kidney, and you’re fucking up the whole thing!”

“No offense, Dan, but you don’t know what it’s like being me, putting up with what I’ve had to put up with.”

“Larry, better people than you and me are dying all around the world right now because they don’t have the money or the energy to find a kidney, and you dare say fuck ’em all? You know what you are, Larry-you’re an ingrate!”

“Fuck everyone, Dan. I’m just repeating your words.”

“Larry!” I cry, disgusted. “I was fifteen years old, for God’s sake! I grew up! The rest of the world is not the enemy! Yes, life dealt you a bad hand! Get over it! You’re being given a second chance here!”

“Easy for you to say, Dan. You had all the privileges.”

“You’re right!” I say. “I did have all the privileges. That’s part of the reason I came here with you, to even the score a bit. But you know what? It was a mis take.”

We’re at the hospital, and I push away the doorman who wants to give me a hand. Mary’s trailing us weeping hysterically, flailing her arms and shaking more raindrops.

“Keep fighting everyone,” I say to Larry. “Keep your precious feud with Bur ton. I don’t care anymore. Mary, get a wheelchair for him or don’t, I’m done with this fool’s errand. It’s a lost cause and has been from the beginning.”

I leave Mary and Larry in the lobby and split.

Whoa, serious daydream. I must be in major need of escape…

What actually happens is nothing so dramatic. Nor does it need to be dramatic to set me off by this point. All it would take by now is for Larry to look at me sideways and I’d be ready to bail. Larry falls on the street again, that’s all: I get a call in my gym from Mary and agree to meet her at the hospital while he gets cleaned up. But it’s the last straw for me. Abu drives me back in the oppressive brightness-the storm seems to have avoided us-and in a few minutes I’m in the Family Crush Room off the lobby, on the phone with the airlines to schedule my flight home. I’m disgusted with myself as much as with Larry, for my obscene sense of entitlement-that I can just arrive here with nothing and expect a whole country full of people to stop what they’re doing and fetch me a kidney. What a spoiled American. Talk about a sense of privilege. Give me a kidney, world! And to think a kidney would fix him in the first place. Larry’s a mess. The truth is, there’s very little left of him to save. Not enough for me to bother. I’m washing my hands of the whole thing.