I said, “I don’t think Ramón felt like talking all that much.”
“Well, maybe next time,” said Mrs. Straus. “Bye for now, Ramón.”
“Bye,” I said.
We waited for Ramón to say good-bye. He didn’t.
When we were out in the hall, I said, “He didn’t say a word. Can he talk?”
“Of course he can talk,” said Mrs. Straus. “And he will. Ramón’s just going through a bit of a rough spot. Maybe when he gets more used to you.”
When would that be? I wondered. I thought of Tyro dishing out disgusting cafeteria food to lines of homeless men. I almost wished we’d drawn each other’s job. The homeless guys would at least say thank you and not leave me, as Ramón had just done, feeling useless and lame and embarrassed.
“Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Straus. “Ramón will warm up to you. Meanwhile, let’s go see Stimmer. Trust me. Meeting Stimmer will be very different from your visit with Ramón.”
I would have gone anywhere if someone promised me that it would be different from Ramón’s room. But Mrs. Straus was smiling in a way that made me think I might not like my time with Stimmer, whoever that was, any better than my “visit” with Ramón.
Stimmer, it seemed, was an artist. He’d colored his own whiteboard, so that his name was done graffiti style, in cartoony letters, like something you’d see, as you rode on a train, up on a rooftop or a ledge or in the center of a tunnel, and you couldn’t imagine how anyone had been brave or stupid or crazy enough to want to sign his name there.
To go along with the whole artist thing, Stimmer had convinced the nurses to let him wear his street clothes, which, in Stimmer’s case, meant a fluffy cap with a bill, a tight maroon jacket, checked pants, and big aviator sunglasses. Stimmer lay on top of the covers, his long, lean body bent slightly to fit the too-small bed. Even as I was thinking that Stimmer must have been pushing the top age limit of the children’s floor, it struck me that he was the first black kid I’d met since I left public school. There wasn’t one—not one—in the whole Bullywell population.
Probably Dr. Bratwurst had tried his hardest to get a black kid to go there, but I guessed he couldn’t find any parents willing to subject their kid to being the only black student in an entire school. And considering how they’d tortured me, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how the Bullywell bullies would treat someone who belonged to a racial minority.
Stimmer glanced up at me, but he was way too cool to change his expression from a look of boredom.
“Stimmer, this is Bart,” said Mrs. Straus. “He’s part of a new program—”
“Oh, I get it,” said Stimmer. “Buy the sick kid a paid friend. Or maybe we didn’t buy him, maybe he’s just rented for the day.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Mrs. Straus. “I wouldn’t say that at all.”
But I would have said it. That’s exactly what I would have said if I’d thought of it. I looked at Stimmer and practically burst out laughing. Right from the start, it was as if it was the two of us against Mrs. Straus, who’d done nothing to deserve the smirks we were giving her.
“Whatever,” said Stimmer. “Come on in. You might as well earn whatever they’re paying you. How much they paying you, anyhow? Maybe it might be more fair if we split it down the middle.”
“They’re not paying me anything, actually.” I hated how nervous and stiff I sounded.
Stimmer looked at me as if I was the biggest fool he’d ever met.
“Come on,” he said. “Don’t tell me you doing this for free. Are you trying to do some kind of good deed?”
“Well, then,” interrupted Mrs. Straus. “I can see that you two are getting along famously. So I’ll just make myself scarce and come back in a while and pick Bart up.”
“Make it quick,” said Stimmer, which, I thought, didn’t bode all that well for the great new friendship that Mrs. Straus seemed to think was developing. But she’d already left, and didn’t hear him.
“So come on,” said Stimmer as I pulled the chair up next to his bed. “How much are they paying you? What are you doing the Florence Nightingale thing for?”
I could see there was no point lying to Stimmer. I could tell he’d get the truth out of me sooner or later.
“Actually,” I said, “it’s sort of a community service thing.”
“You volunteered to hang out here? What are you? Stupid?”
“I didn’t exactly volunteer,” I said.
Stimmer considered this for a few seconds and then said, “So, what happened? You get busted? Buying a joint from an undercover cop hanging out near the schoolyard, something like that?”
“No,” I said. And then, just because I felt like saying it, and because I wanted to hear how it sounded, and because something about being with Stimmer made me suddenly feel almost proud of it, I said, “This kid was giving me a hard time in school. I got even. I trashed his SUV. Scratched the paint job, busted the windshield. So now I’m kind of like, you know, making amends.”
“No shit,” said Stimmer. “That is cool. That’s way cooler than I imagined. You don’t look like the kind of guy who’d do something like that.”
“Thanks,” I said. I couldn’t help feeling pleased even though I wasn’t sure it was meant as a compliment.
“What kind of ride was it?” asked Stimmer.
“Cadillac Escalade,” I said. “White. Top of the line.”
Stimmer whistled through his teeth, long and low. “That is excellent. So this is like punishment detail, right? Hang with the sick kids for a while, and they agree not to nail you for messing with some rich kid’s vehicle?”
“Sort of. I guess you could say that.”
“Right,” said Stimmer. “I get it now. The picture becomes clear.” And he instantly lost interest. We sat in silence for a while, watching TV. On the screen, a white guy in a stocking cap was showing off his fancy house: game room, pool table, pinball machine, humongous flat-screen TV.
“Nice crib,” said Stimmer. “Not bad at all.”
“I’d take it,” I said.
“Sweet,” said Stimmer. “Except that you don’t see the guy actually turn on the TV or work the pinball machine. Ever notice that? Because these dudes are always too dumb to know how to turn on the TV and make the machine run. That’s why he’s got to have an entourage, probably a butler and a maid.”
In a high voice, he said, “Jeeves, my good man, could you please get your white ass over here and turn on the television set?”
Okay. This was more like it. This felt like something you might do with an actual friend, watch TV and insult the people on it. I wondered why Stimmer was in the hospital. He seemed healthy, energetic enough. Actually, he seemed overly energetic, bouncing on his bed and snorting each time the white guy with the fancy house said something stupid.
Then abruptly Stimmer switched off the TV and turned to face me.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “I mean if you’re really my friend, my new best friend, why don’t you act like a friend?”
“Like do…what?” Here it comes, I thought.
“Why don’t you give me a part of your liver?” Stimmer said. “Just a teensy piece. A baby bite. It’ll grow back on its own. That’s what I’m doing in here, waiting for a liver transplant. I’m probably at the bottom of the list, down below anybody who happens to be related to a big CEO or a movie star or somebody in the government. And I’m probably going to die if I don’t get a chunk of somebody’s liver. So why not you, dog? Isn’t that what friends do for friends?”
“Gosh,” I said. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I could do that.” I felt like a coward or a completely selfish person. But I didn’t want to have surgery and give up part of my liver for someone I’d just met. I mean, I would have done it for Mom or Gran if they needed it, maybe even my aunts or cousins. But I’d only walked into Stimmer’s room five minutes ago. On the other hand, no one in my family needed a liver—no one that I knew about—and Stimmer did. It
seemed like a pretty high price to pay for taking my house keys to Tyro’s Escalade. Still, it was the right thing to do.
By now I was so confused that I couldn’t speak. Stimmer took one look at me and read the answer in my face.
“Is that a negative?” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “I mean no. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Not can’t. You mean you won’t. Some friend.” He turned away from me and looked up at the TV.
And that was how we were—not talking, watching TV—when Mrs. Straus came back to get me.
“How did you two get along?” she asked.
“Great,” said Stimmer. “Slammin’. Just don’t bring the dude back again, okay?”
“But Stimmer—”
“Don’t mess with me, okay?” he said. “You pull any of this funny shit again, I’m complaining to the doctor and the nurses. I’ve got some rights here, too.”
Mrs. Straus looked at me, and I rocketed out of my chair.
“Bye,” I said, but Stimmer didn’t reply.
“What happened?” asked Mrs. Straus when we were out in the hall.
“Things were going fine. And then he asked me to give him part of my liver.”
“Oh, the poor kid,” said Mrs. Straus, and tears sprang to her eyes. “He asks everyone. I should have anticipated that. I should have warned you.”
“I guess you can’t blame him,” I said.
Mrs. Straus shot me a quick look. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him I was sorry.” I couldn’t look at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have seen it coming. Don’t feel guilty, Bart. He shouldn’t have asked you. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “It’s not your fault.” It was strange that I was the one trying to make Mrs. Straus feel better about my second strikeout in a row. She’d said I’d only have to meet three kids today, which was reassuring. I only had one more spectacular failure and humiliation to go, and then I was free to leave and find Fat Freddie and take my pitiful self home.
“Don’t despair.” How did Mrs. Straus know that was what I’d been doing? “I’ve saved the best for last. You’ll love Nola, everyone does. The nurses fight to take care of her. She’s a total trip. And I just know that Nola will love you back.”
It was just occurring to me that Nola was a girl, and that—if you didn’t count my girl cousins, which I didn’t—I hadn’t even talked to a girl since I left public school. I was afraid that I might have forgotten how to talk to a girl, not that I ever knew, exactly.
For a moment I let myself imagine that Nola was an incredibly beautiful hot chick suffering from some not-so-bad disease of which she was just about to be cured, at which point she would leave the hospital and become my girlfriend. Then I thought: With my luck, she’ll be the bald one or the burn victim or the one with the hideous skin condition that wasn’t catching but you still didn’t want to look at it. Well, fine. I would visit my three sick kids, make my quota. I’d get through my first day of reaching out, and then I would be free to go home no matter how badly I’d done.
Walking into Nola’s room, I practically had to fight my way past a small army of teddy bears and stuffed animals. Many of them still had gift cards and get-well-soon messages tied around their furry necks. Obviously Nola was extremely popular.
I saw the face of a little girl staring at me from among all the stuffed-animal faces. She was maybe nine or ten, and I guess she would have been really cute except that her face was a brilliant, glow-in-the-dark shade of yellow.
“Nola, this is Bart,” said Mrs. Straus. “He’s come to hang out with you.”
Nola narrowed her eyes and stared at me. You could tell she was smart, just by looking at her. She didn’t say anything; she only raised one eyebrow.
“Hi, Nola!” I said, too loud, like a total jerk.
“Hello.” Nola was one of those little kids with a weirdly deep, throaty, smoker’s voice.
I remembered Mrs. Straus telling me not to ask what condition the kids had, not to make a deal about their diseases, not to do anything that would make them feel worse about being sick. But the color of Nola’s skin—that blazing canary yellow—was so intense that I couldn’t stop myself from staring.
Nola and I looked at each other. Once more, I dimly heard Mrs. Straus tell us what fun we were going to have between now and whenever she was coming to get me.
There was a long silence. Then Nola said, “It’s chameleonitis. In case you’re wondering. That’s my diagnosis, that’s what I’ve got.”
“Excuse me?”
“You should see me in the blue room,” she said. “I turn this totally crazy cobalt color.”
I couldn’t believe how slow I was! Because only now did I look around and see that the walls were the same yellow, more or less, as Nola’s skin, which was part of what made the whole thing seem so peculiar.
I said, “You’re kidding. That is a joke, right?”
“Ask my doctors if you don’t believe me,” she said. And she raised that one eyebrow again and looked as if she was trying to figure out exactly how retarded I was.
I had no idea where I got the nerve to say, “You know, you’re kind of bratty for a little kid.”
“Self-defense,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe what having people stick you with needles all day long does for your personality.”
“Have you been in here a long time?” I asked.
“Since I was born,” she said.
I said, “You’re kidding about that, too, right?” I wanted her to be joking.
“I’ve been in here a lot. On and off. They keep saying they know how to fix what’s wrong with me, and then it turns out they don’t know how to fix it, and then it turns out they don’t even know what’s wrong with me.”
I kept wanting to ask what they thought it was, what had turned her that color.
“How old are you?” I said instead.
“Ten,” said Nola.
I thought how strange it was to meet a ten-year-old who sort of reminded me of my mom.
It seemed like we’d run out of things to say when Nola asked, “So what are you doing here? Are you one of those kids who get off on hanging with sick and wounded freaks?”
“No,” I said. “Of course not, no way. I—”
“Don’t feel bad if you are. I don’t care. To tell you the truth, I’m glad for some company. I don’t care who it is.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
“Sorry,” said Nola. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounds. It just gets so boring here watching soap operas all day on TV. I don’t know why you can’t get the cartoon channel in this place, but you can’t. The hospital’s too cheap, I guess.”
“Doesn’t your family visit you?” I couldn’t believe I was asking Nola such a personal question, I’d only just met her.
“Sure, pretty much every evening and all weekend. But my parents work all day, my brother and sister go to school, so I’m mostly on my own till the evening visiting hours. And as you may have noticed, the other kids on the ward are not exactly a barrel of laughs.”
“I noticed,” I said.
“I keep hoping someone fun will show up, but no one ever does.”
“That’ll be me,” I said. “Mr. Fun.”
“Right,” said Nola. “So what are you doing here?”
I wanted to tell her the truth, because it seemed like the right thing to do but also because something about Nola’s clear blue eyes, shining out of that strange yellow face, made you think that she could see right through you and that she would know if you were lying. On the other hand, I didn’t want to tell her about trashing Tyro’s car. I wanted her to think well of me, or anyway, not to think I was the kind of person who’d solve a problem that way.
I said, “It’s a kind of community service thing. You know, like when celebrities get busted for something and they wind up getting their picture taken with some poor kid on their lap a
nd a book propped open. Well, it’s kind of like that.”
“Did you get busted?” said Nola, perking up. “For what? Shoplifting? Drugs?”
I said, “I got into trouble at school—”
“What kind of trouble?”
“I don’t feel like talking about it.”
“That’s okay,” Nola said. “I can respect that. So your school made you come here to punish you for what you did?”
“You got it,” I said. “Not that it’s punishment—”
“And you’re supposed to be my babysitter or guardian angel or something?”
“Not exactly.” I could feel myself blushing. “More just like somebody to hang out with.”
“What school do you go to?” she asked.
“Bullywell,” I said. “I mean, Baileywell.”
“Poor you!” Nola rolled her eyes.
“So you know about it?”
“Doesn’t everybody?” she said. “Doesn’t everybody know about Alcatraz? Sing Sing? San Quentin? Devil’s Island?”
I thought: She sure knows a lot of prison names for a ten-year-old kid. And then I thought: Her whole life must be like a jail.
“So where do you live?” said Nola.
“Hillbrook.” I made a face.
“What does your dad do?” she asked.
“Did,” I said. “He worked in the World Trade Center. He was killed on 9/11.”
Tears popped into Nola’s eyes. “Holy smokes,” she said, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m such a creep. I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean to say that.”
“That’s okay,” I said.
“Your dad,” she said. “That’s the worst thing I ever heard.”
It was odd. I did and didn’t want Nola to feel sorry for me. “It happened to a lot of people,” I said stupidly. “A lot of kids’ dads.”
“I know that,” she said. “But it was your dad.”
I said, “He’d left us, anyway.”
“What?” said Nola.
“Six months before he died. He left me and Mom to go live with this slut who worked in his office.”
“That’s even worse,” said Nola.
“What do you mean?” I said, though I sort of knew. In fact, it was what I thought. But I’d never heard anyone else say it. Maybe the reason no one had ever said that was that I’d never told anyone. It was this awful secret me and Mom had, and I’d never trusted anyone enough to let them in on it. So that made it even stranger—I mean, that I had just let it slip out the very first time I met this blue-eyed, yellow-faced little girl propped up in her hospital bed.
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