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

I’m not sure; it’s something to that effect. But one thing I am sure of is that I didn’t come halfway around the world to talk about me. I tell him so.

“You’re right, Dan. I’m just saying: You’re an inspiration to me. And just between us, I understand it’s stacked against artists in our society; no one can blame a forged signature here and there to help you make your way. (And in case I haven’t said this before, thank you for coming on this trip, and please extend my thanks also to your wife, I appreciate her making this economic and emotional sacrifice so that I can hopefully attain just a fraction of the marital bliss with my wife that you no doubt enjoy with yours.)”

So help me I’m spellbound. At a certain point, and it happened several minutes ago, I don’t even try to resist. I’m held captive by a snake charmer-perhaps the only one in the world who talks with parentheticals. Yet I must admit there’s a certain relief in surrendering to such masterful manipulation. It’s like being very tired of holding your head up straight and then deliciously allowing yourself to relax your neck and fall asleep at last. Concessions are made. Forgiveness is found. Maybe this is the sweet submission that members of a cult feel. God help me, I’m joining the cult of Larry.

“Okay,” I say, rousing myself to speak after a long silence, “so when do I get to meet the bride?”

“You just did. That’s her,” he says, raising his chin to the woman scrubbing the sink.

My head snaps upright, straining a muscle in my neck. I try to find an ounce of delicacy.

“But, Larry,” I manage to say, “she’s not quite the way she described herself.”

“Tell me about it. I’m as surprised as you are. She’s forty-nine if she’s a day, she’s built like a linebacker, she said a hundred and twenty pounds, I judge more like one-sixty, maybe she teaches electronics as a substitute teacher at a rural high school way the hell out in the sticks somewhere near the border with North Korea. I’m still researching that one.” He up-ends a Coke bottle with Chinese squiggles on it and takes a tiny sip. “Oh, and she doesn’t have a six-year-old daughter, cute as a button. She has a twenty-four-year-old mentally endangered son-challenged, threatened, whatever the correct term is. Not that I have anything against retarded people. My beloved sister, Judy, was no great shakes herself in the gray-matter department, rest her soul, though she was surprisingly adept when it came to crossword puzzles. Being shy was mostly her problem. Retiring. Well, you remember, Dan: Did you ever see her make conversation at a family function, other than the time she was so excited about getting accepted into that special program for epileptics?”

“Wait,” I say, trying to shake off the blitz of words. “If Mary’s not the way she described herself, isn’t the deal off? I mean, truth in advertising, right? Doesn’t that nullify the arrangement?”

“Not at all, Dan. I very much respect the fact that she misrepresented herself. It shows a native cunning that I appreciate. Not once in our two years of e-mail correspondence did she tip her hand. Plus which, it’s flattering in a way. She made all that up just to impress me? Well, pardon me, but I am impressed.”

“But she lied, Larry!”

“Yes she did, and I’m putting that in the equation, but on the other hand we have all those things I mentioned in common, plus she has an uncle who I gather is some sort of muckety-muck in the government, at least inasmuch as he is able to put me in touch with a clinic where I can get my dialysis, starting tomorrow. Which is not a minor consideration, given my health and also my desire to make a few business deals on the side, if at all possible. He also threw in a taxi driver free of charge for the week, which I think is a nice gesture. So I am very much against rushing to judgment. Who am I to judge a book by its cover? You’re an author, Dan, you should know what I’m talking about. How would you like it if everyone judged your books by their covers?”

“They do!”

“But don’t you wish they didn’t?”

I know there’s got to be an answer to this, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is. I rub my neck, where I strained it. Finally it comes to me, feebly. “Well, it’s your call, Larry.”

“Yes it is, and I’m glad you remember that,” he replies. “Be careful not to prejudge in life, is all I’m saying, Dan. Didn’t you once tell off a friend’s fiancée on the eve of their wedding, only to regret it when she proved a loyal wife a decade later?”

“I can’t believe I’ve told you my whole life’s story.”

“You don’t want to make that mistake again, Dan, especially with the cross-cultural difference between us and the Chinks. What? What?”

A pause.

“Nothing, Larry. So, do you want to make the introductions or what?”

“Mary?” he calls in the direction of the bathroom. “Mary?”

When she doesn’t respond after his second call, he puts frail fingers in his mouth and executes a brutal, cab-hailing whistle. “Mary, put down that brush like I told you and get in here!”

“Yes, ah, Professor?” she says, scurrying in and slipping onto Larry’s lap, dwarfing her betrothed so I can’t see the face that continues the introductions.

“Dear, this is the man I used to think was James Bond.”

“I was so not.”

“That’s how you appeared to me growing up, Dan, what can I say? The adoring eyes of a younger cousin. You had this savvy fair. I don’t know if it was dumb luck or what, but no matter what kind of jam you got yourself in, you always came out smelling like a horse.”

We shake hands while I crane around Mary to see Larry beaming in his low-key way. “Ten hours she spent on a train to get here. She wouldn’t let me pay for plane fare, bless her heart.”

“How do you do,” I say, watching in amazement as my hand is en-cushioned by hers.

“I saved his life after college,” comes Larry’s matter-of-fact voice from behind Mary. “I already had my own real-estate firm at eighteen, lent him a spare bedroom when he didn’t know how he was going to support himself as a writer. Girlfriend was cheating on him, so he got two shrinks and cheated on them by not telling them about each other. For the life of me, I’ll never understand why neither of them prescribed Valium so you didn’t have to steal mine.”

“You knew I was seeing two shrinks?” I say, trying to fetch back my hand.

“Now, as to why you needed to cheat on two shrinks, that I wouldn’t hazard a guess. I’m a professor of mediation, not a medical specialist. You’ll have to ask one of the doctors in the family if you’re interested in getting a handle on that. What is their professional opinion of our venture, by the way? I probably don’t want to know, right?”

“Probably not,” I say. “They’re so against it I call them the Disapproving Docs.”

“So tell me.”

I shift in my chair, partly out of sympathy for the weight Larry is carrying.

“They’re skeptical, to say the least.”

“And to say a little more?”

“They disparage the whole enterprise,” I say, “but you have to expect that. They reflect the conservative American medical establishment. Their official line is that we’re ‘irresponsible’ for leaving the warm grip of American medicine, even though American medicine is telling you to bide your time for ten years. Want me to continue?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Well, to play devil’s advocate for a minute, you have to admit they have a point, Larry. What do we know of the cleanliness over here? Of how they track organs? There are so many variables, it’s just a shame you couldn’t call on Burton for guidance.”