Once, Anna walked in on me when I was in the bathroom. “Hey,” I said. “Check this out.” I dribbled1 someJean Naté on the floor, her initials. Then I torched them. I figured she’d run screaming like a tattle-tale, butinstead she sat right down on the edge of the bathtub. She reached for the bottle of Jean Naté, made someloopy design on the tiles, and told me to do it again.
Anna is the only proof I have that I was born into this family, instead of dropped off on the doorstep by someBonnie and Clyde couple that ran off into the night. On the surface, we’re polar opposites. Under the skin,though, we’re the same: people think they know what they’re getting, and they’re always wrong.
Fuck them all. I ought to have that tattooed3 on my forehead, for all the times I’ve thought it. Usually I am intransit, speeding in my Jeep until my lungs give out. Today, I’m driving ninety-five down 95. I weave in andout of traffic, sewing up a scar. People yell at me behind their closed windows. I give them the finger.
It would solve a thousand problems if I rolled the Jeep over an embankment. It’s not like I haven’t thoughtabout it, you know. On my license4, it says I’m an organ donor5, but the truth is I’d consider being an organmartyr. I’m sure I’m worth a lot more dead than alive—the sum of the parts equals more than the whole. Iwonder who might wind up walking around with my liver, my lungs, even my eyeballs. I wonder what poorasshole would get stuck with whatever it is in me that passes for a heart.
To my dismay, though, I get all the way to the exit without a scratch. I peel off the ramp6 and tool along AllensAvenue. There’s an underpass there where I know I’ll find Duracell Dan. He’s a homeless dude, Vietnam vet,who spends most of his time collecting batteries that people toss into the trash. What the hell he does withthem, I don’t know. He opens them up, I know that much. He says the CIA hides messages for all itsoperatives in Energizer7 double-As, that the FBI sticks to Evereadys.
Dan and I have a deal: I bring him a McDonald’s Value Meal a few times a week, and in return, he watchesover my stuff. I find him huddled8 over the astrology book that he considers his manifesto9. “Dan,” I say,getting out of the car and handing him his Big Mac. “What’s up?”
He squints10 at me. “The moon’s in freaking Aquarius.” He stuffs a fry into his mouth. “I never should havegotten out of bed.”
If Dan has a bed, it’s news to me. “Sorry about that,” I say. “Got my stuff?”
He jerks his head to the barrels behind the concrete pylon11 where he keeps my things. The perchloric acidfilched from the chemistry lab at the high school is intact; in another barrel is the sawdust. I hike the stuffedpillowcase under my arm and haul it to the car. I find him waiting at the door. “Thanks.”
He leans against the car, won’t let me get inside. “They gave me a message for you.”
Even though everything that comes out of Dan’s mouth is total bullshit, my stomach rolls over. “Who did?”
He looks down the road, then back at me. “You know.” Leaning closer, he whispers, “Think twice.”
“That was the message?”
Dan nods. “Yeah. It was that, or Drink twice. I can’t be sure.”
“That advice I might actually listen to.” I shove him a little, so that I can get into the car. He is lighter12 thanyou’d think, like whatever was inside him was used up long ago. With that reasoning, it’s a wonder I don’tfloat off into the sky. “Later,” I tell him, and then I drive toward the warehouse13 I’ve been watching.
I look for places like me: big, hollow, forgotten by most everyone. This one’s in the Olneyville area. At onetime, it was used as a storage facility for an export business. Now, it’s pretty much just home to an extendedfamily of rats. I park far enough away that no one would think twice about my car. I stuff the pillowcase ofsawdust under my jacket and take off.
It turns out that I learned something from my dear old dad after all: firemen are experts at getting into placesthey shouldn’t be. It doesn’t take much to pick the lock, and then it’s just a matter of figuring out where Iwant to start. I cut a hole in the bottom of the pillowcase and let the sawdust draw three fat initials, JBF. ThenI take the acid and dribble2 it over the letters.
This is the first time I’ve done it in the middle of the day.
I take a pack of Merits out of my pocket and tamp15 them down, then stick one into my mouth. My Zippo’salmost out of lighter fluid; I need to remember to get some. When I’m finished, I get to my feet, take one lastdrag, and toss the cigarette into the sawdust. I know this one’s going to move fast, so I’m already runningwhen the wall of fire rises behind me. Like all the others, they will look for clues. But this cigarette and myinitials will have long been gone. The whole floor underneath16 them will melt. The walls will buckle17 and give.
The first engine reaches the scene just as I get back to my car and pull the binoculars18 out of my trunk. Bythen, the fire’s done what it wants to—escape. Glass has blown out of windows; smoke rises black, aneclipse.
The first time I saw my mother cry I was five. She was standing19 at the kitchen window, pretending that shewasn’t. The sun was just coming up, a swollen20 knot. “What are you doing?” I asked. It was not until yearslater that I realized I had heard her answer all wrong. That when she said mourning, she had not been talkingabout the time of day.
The sky, now, is thick and dark with smoke. Sparks shower as the roof falls in. A second crew of firefightersarrives, the ones who have been called in from their dinner tables and showers and living rooms. With thebinoculars, I can make out his name, winking21 on the back of his turnout coat like it’s spelled in diamonds.
Fitzgerald. My father lays hands on a charged line, and I get into my car and drive away.
At home, my mother is having a nervous breakdown22. She flies out the door as soon as I pull into my parkingspot. “Thank God,” she says. “I need your help.”
She doesn’t even look back to see if I’m following her inside, and that is how I know it’s Kate. The door tomy sisters’ room has been kicked in, the wooden frame around it splintered. My sister lies still on her bed.
Then all of a sudden she bursts to life, jerking up like a tire jack14 and puking blood. A stain spreads over hershirt and onto her flowered comforter, red poppies where there weren’t any before.
My mother gets down beside her, holding back her hair and pressing a towel up to her mouth when Katevomits again, another gush23 of blood. “Jesse,” she says matter-of-factly, “your father’s out on a call, and Ican’t reach him. I need you to drive us to the hospital, so that I can sit in the back with Kate.”
Kate’s lips are slick as cherries. I pick her up in my arms. She’s nothing but bones, poking24 sharp through theskin of her T-shirt.
“When Anna ran off, Kate wouldn’t let me into her room,” my mother says, hurrying beside me. “I gave her alittle while to calm down. And then I heard her coughing. I had to get in there.”
So you kicked it down, I think, and it doesn’t surprise me. We reach the car, and she opens the door so that Ican slide Kate inside. I pull out of the driveway and speed even faster than normal through town, onto thehighway, toward the hospital.
Today, when my parents were at court with Anna, Kate and I watched TV. She wanted to put on her soap andI told her fuck off and put on the scrambled25 Playboy channel instead. Now, as I run through red lights, I’mwishing that I’d let her watch that retarded26 soap. I’m trying not to look at her little white coin of a face in therearview mirror. You’d think, with all the time I’ve had to get used to it, that moments like this wouldn’tcome as such a shock. The question we cannot ask pushes through my veins27 with each beat: Is this it? Is thisit? Is this it?
The minute we hit the ER driveway, my mother’s out of the car, hurrying me to get Kate. We are quite apicture walking through the automatic doors, me with Kate bleeding in my arms, and my mother grabbing thefirst nurse who walks by. “She needs platelets,” my mother orders.
They take her away from me, and for a few moments, even after the ER team and my mother havedisappeared with Kate behind closed curtains, I stand with my arms buoyed28, trying to get used to the fact thatthere’s no longer anything in them.
Dr. Chance, the oncologist I know, and Dr. Nguyen, some expert I don’t, tell us what we’ve already figuredout: these are the death throes of end-stage kidney disease. My mother stands next to the bed, her hand tightaround Kate’s IV pole. “Can you still do a transplant?” she asks, as if Anna never started her lawsuit29, as if itmeans absolutely nothing.
“Kate’s in a pretty grave clinical state,” Dr. Chance tells her. “I told you before I didn’t know if she wasstrong enough to survive that level of surgery; the odds30 are even slighter now.”
“But if there was a donor,” she says, “would you do it?”
“Wait.” You’d think my throat had just been paved with straw. “Would mine work?”
Dr. Chance shakes his head. “A kidney donor doesn’t have to be a perfect match, in an ordinary case. Butyour sister isn’t an ordinary case.”
When the doctors leave, I can feel my mother staring at me. “Jesse,” she says.
“It wasn’t like I was volunteering. I just wanted to, you know, know.” But inside, I’m burning just as hot as Iwas when that fire caught at the warehouse. What made me believe I might be worth something, even now?
What made me think I could save my sister, when I can’t even save myself?
Kate’s eyes open, so that she’s staring right at me. She licks her lips—they’re still caked with blood—and itmakes her look like a vampire31. The undead. If only.
I lean closer, because she doesn’t have enough in her right now to make the words creep across the airbetween us. Tell, she mouths, so that my mother won’t look up.
I answer, just as silent. Tell? I want to make sure I’ve got it right.
Tell Anna.
But the door to the room bursts open and my father fills the room with smoke. His hair and clothes and skinreek of it, so much so that I look up, expecting the sprinklers to go off. “What happened?” he asks, goingright to the bed.
I slip out of the room, because nobody needs me there anymore. In the elevator, in front of the NOSMOKING sign, I light a cigarette.
Tell Anna what?
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1
dribbled
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| v.流口水( dribble的过去式和过去分词 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球 | |
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dribble
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| v.点滴留下，流口水；n.口水 | |
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tattooed
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| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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donor
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| n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体 | |
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ramp
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| n.暴怒，斜坡，坡道；vi.作恐吓姿势，暴怒，加速；vt.加速 | |
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energizer
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| n.抗抑制剂，情绪兴奋剂；增能器 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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manifesto
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| n.宣言，声明 | |
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squints
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| 斜视症( squint的名词复数 )； 瞥 | |
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pylon
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| n.高压电线架，桥塔 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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tamp
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| v.捣实，砸实 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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buckle
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| n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲 | |
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binoculars
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| n.双筒望远镜 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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21
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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breakdown
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| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
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gush
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| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
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24
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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25
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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retarded
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| a.智力迟钝的，智力发育迟缓的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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buoyed
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| v.使浮起( buoy的过去式和过去分词 )；支持；为…设浮标；振奋…的精神 | |
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lawsuit
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| n.诉讼，控诉 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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vampire
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| n.吸血鬼 | |
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