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

Because I am.

The longer the night lasts, the more our dreams will be.

It’s 10:00 P.M., and Mary and I are singing Peking Opera in Larry’s hospital room. She’s performing the male roles, and I’m doing the females in falsetto, with much ritualized stomping of feet and syncopated banging of bedpans. Still wiped out from this morning’s dialysis, Larry lies before us on the bed with his eyes closed, showing all the appreciation of a corpse. I do believe, however, that down at frog-decibel level, he may be chuckling in time with the music. It wouldn’t be too much to shoot for a grin, would it-one of Larry’s old-time razzle-dazzlers? “Ha ha, good one,” that’s what I’m aiming to hear, like a grand-slam home run, despite a few missing teeth in the bleachers.

And then at 10:01 P.M., the call comes. It’s Cherry on the phone.

“Now is the time,” she says. “Approval has been granted.”

Whoa, team. I hush Mary in the background and collect myself. “Have all the papers gone through, the signatures from all the parties?”

“All yes, but no time for small talk,” Cherry says. “Tell Larry surgery in two hour, preparation begins right away.”

It’s day forty-two in Shi, our forty-ninth day in China, and we can barely believe it. We’re so pumped-we’re like hostages suddenly being told they’re about to be set free-we go into double time, hurriedly getting things in order as a swarm of white-clad people enter our space and scurry about efficiently. We’ve been poised to go for so many weeks that we’re almost exploding out of the gate. Mary sweeps the latest pistachio shells out of the way so that when the time comes, Larry can be wheeled out smoothly. Larry fumbles with his shoelaces, but he’s so flustered he’s tying them into knots. I take over removing his Businessman’s Running Shoes, freeing him to keep up a running monologue as the Judy-look-alike resident shaves his lower abdomen and crotch.

“I’m not optimistic about this operation,” he says. “I know the stats are on my side, but my hunches are usually good, and I don’t think I’ll make it. There’s going to be a complication, and I won’t pull through. And I’m surprisingly okay with it. My choice to come to China was a sound one. I’m just so tired, tired isn’t the word for it. I can’t fight for my life anymore. Whatever happens, happens. I want to be cremated, just so you know-my ashes buried with my mutha, my futha, and Judy. And to remind you, even if I come out of it and by some miracle it’s a success, I reserve the right to kill myself.”

I’m paying as much attention to these pronouncements as I usually do, preoccupied by glancing sidelong at his crotch. First time I’ve ever seen it. Is that what it boils down to, the nest of his manhood? This tender package, this shy sac, beneath all the hurly-burly of his life? It seems so private and quaint, after all the histrionics of his existence. Eventually I tune back in and find the words he needs to hear.

“Well, I have a great feeling about this,” I reassure him. “Everything’s fallen into place for us. This is just the endgame of a very fortunate series of events.”

But no sooner are the words out of my mouth than I’m seized with a huge charley horse in my thigh. I rarely get charley horses, but this one clutches me for nearly a minute, making me squeeze the bedside for support.

“Dan bad?” Mary asks.

I concentrate on breathing oxygen down to the spasm. Serves me right for sounding overoptimistic. “Give me a sec,” I say at last. Just as an e-mail comes in. It’s the Disapproving Docs demanding an update, “or we cannot vouch for the consequences.”

The phone rings. It’s Cherry again. “Oh, and Daniel, we now have a price for you,” she says.

“Go ahead,” I say, breathing through my spasm.

“Dr. X give you half-price special, like what he give Chinese citizen. Thirty-two thousand American dollar.”

“I see,” I say, not letting the figure sink in right away, not tipping my hand about how pleased its initial sound makes me.

“You can get this now?” Cherry asks.

“Right now, in the middle of the night?” I ask.

“Yes, please, before operation. Is midmorning U.S.A., banks open.”

“Yes, but it may take a while to go through.”

“You tell them to wire and show us document, is okay.”

My spasm subsides as I prepare to tell Larry the news. He’s lying on his bed with his bare feet pointed at me. In most countries this is an insult, but I don’t mind. “Ready for the number, Larry? Thirty-two.”

He seems obscurely gladdened by this, taking the figure in stride. “That includes everything?” he asks tonelessly. “CAT scans, recovery time, post-op care?”

“Thirty-two for everything, Larry. And that’s for a team of four surgeons and an anesthesiologist. I was gearing up to convince you to spring for sixty or eighty.”

“Which I may or may not have done.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“And that’s their asking price,” Larry says. “I bet I can talk them down to twenty-five-”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I caution him. “Thirty-two’s an unbelievable price, considering it costs eight times that much at home for a cadaver kidney-”

“I know, it’s excellent-”

“I can’t believe it!” I crow, finally letting the figure sink in. “Thirty-two! Larry, we’re gonna save your life!”

“Yes,” he says, thoughtfully picking at a hangnail on his big toe. “It may well be…”

But not ten seconds elapse before he’s on to a new subject, slowly excavating his Kleenex storage box. “Next order of business, here’s my passport for safekeeping,” he says, withdrawing the small navy blue booklet and handing it over. He starts plucking cards and papers from his wallet, then lays it belly-up so its contents are exposed.

“Just take the whole wallet, take whatever you need, keep records or not, it doesn’t matter. Reimburse yourself for any hospital payments you’ve paid, buy yourself some good things. I know I’m setting you loose with free money in a city with massage parlors on every corner, but you deserve it, give her a kiss for me.”

“Larry, I’m happily-”

“Did I say you weren’t?”

“But all joking aside, you’re okay with handing over your stuff? Not losing self-respect?”

“That’s a girlie thing,” Larry says dismissively. “But you’ll need my all-purpose password for my various accounts. Ready? 1909VDB-S.”

“Wait a minute, I know that code,” I say. “It’s from the first Lincoln-head penny, designed in 1909 by Victor David Brenner-”

“That’s right, and the S was from the San Francisco mint, the rarest of them all.”

“So wait,” I say as a vague recollection comes to me. “Did you have a penny collection when you were a kid, too?”

“Dan, you been undergoing dialysis, too? Your memory’s not so great. We bofe had them,” he says. “I wanted to have one like my big cousin had. You honestly don’t remember?”

“I remember mine. I never had the 1909 VDB-S, of course. That was the holy grail, but I had a 1943 zinc penny I was pretty proud of-”

“Who do you think traded it to you?” Larry says. “I only got the new Lincoln memorial in exchange, but I didn’t mind.”

“Larry, did I…cheat you?” I ask. “A Lincoln memorial in exchange for a ’43 zinc?”

“In mint condition, but I wanted you to have it,” Larry says.

Suddenly I have access to a whole chronology of memories about Larry as a kid that I didn’t have until this moment. A sweet little Larry being generous to a fault. A sweet little Larry being a good sport about being taken advantage of. A little-less-sweet Larry never wearing gloves in winter, to toughen himself up. A lot-less-sweet Larry being an ace shot with a peashooter. A tough-talking Larry standing up to bullies. A problem-student Larry bringing cherry bombs to school-and defying his teachers to send him home for it. There may also have been something about a scuffle with a guidance counselor, but I can’t stand to think of it, because it’s dawning on me that I may have had something to do with this timeline. Could I have contributed, even in a minor way, to his unsweetening?