Periphery

by Lynne Jamneck

  My cell is pretty good on the response time—one of the best in Nornerk. We once had it up and running in three hours for a woman with multiple sclerosis whose husband left her for an AB. We kept her buffered and contained for three months, but then her MS symptoms were so bad she needed a neurologist and we didn’t have one in our cell or all of Nornerk. We briefed her over and over: what to say, what not to say—just get the Prednisone, the herbs, the homeopathics, the tests and the bladder care, and try to get out. Smile all the time. Don’t say anything but “fine” and “yes” and “doing great!” Don’t give them any reason to suspect you deserve a detention, that your flare is anything but a minor inconvenience. But the doc was sympathetic, the bastard, and she was an idiot or weak or, who knows, maybe she planned it. He probed. She broke down, said it’d been rough since the divorce—“Don’t know how I’ll get on” and that was enough. Her husband showed up at the funeral, the prick, and had the gall to cry. I still wonder if she really was in a flare, or if she faked it to get to the hospital. It wouldn’t be the first time an NDYer planned it herself, wanting to go down like a martyr instead of a traitor.

  Even trickier than the quarantines, which are, at least, time limited, is scoring the dope for the CDs. When a chemical depression flattens a crip, it’s pretty much a death sentence if they end up in medical detention—a sprained ankle would do it—so we have to hit up a sympathetic AB to score the scrip, and that’s risky all around. If they don’t get the symptoms just right the doc might get wise, especially if the ally has a compostable family member. That can go either way. On one hand, a physician will almost always believe that having a crip in the family is a de facto reason for depression. So the scrip may come easy. On the other hand, if the AB is a known or suspected NDY “terrorist,” the doc can spend hours running diagnostics and asking medicalese. They might even have ID, pictures, or news clippings in the “patient’s” file: “Anti-American Disability Right-to-Life Group ‘Not Dead Yet’ Disrupts CFR/Green Inaugural Ball,” or whatever.

  That’s what makes it tough—finding people who don’t mind taking the risk but who have some principles, too. In the beginning, when we got homeless people, junkies, runaways to do it, they’d turn around and charge us four times what the prescriptions were worth or just take off with them. Now we mostly use college students—they’re easy to keep track of. Plus, students like a bit of risk—and the cash, of course—and they’re usually all wrapped up in rebellion and philosophy, thinking they can change the world. It helps that college health services hand out psychotropics like candy, especially since compostables aren’t allowed to attend, so they think the campus is pure. Every nurse or doc is willing to believe Johnny Collegiate’s stressed over exam time and provide some anti-anxiety or antidepressant popper.

  My own Serena’s been a gold mine, “auditing” classes on medical ethics or “current social theory.” She looks so young, with those big eyes and moonlight skin, nobody questions she’s a student. Once she’s in, she just gets a discussion going in seminar to see who the dissidents are. It doesn’t hurt that all the boys—and half the girls—trip all over themselves to get close to her, to impress her. Sometimes, to make her feel sexy, I pretend I’m jealous of all these kids she dangles herself in front of as bait, but really I’m proud of her.

  Everything’s gonna change, though, when she goes full-time with ExxonMobil starting this summer. That’ll mean good money, and it’ll make her happy. But it’s kinda bittersweet. She won’t be able to rustle ABs for NDY every semester anymore. Part of me’s relieved she won’t be constantly putting her ass on the line. I mean, we’ve always been careful: we rotate professors and even colleges—there are so many in this area, we’re lucky that way. But how many times can a magician perform the same trick before someone in the audience gets wise?

  On the other hand, we really don’t have enough trained ABs to replace her, and it frustrates the shit out of me that she doesn’t get that she’s got a gift that we rely on. She thinks that anybody can do it, as long as they’ve had enough training. Like, right now, Serena’s training a kid named Dorothy who goes to AstraZenica Boston University. In Dorothy’s case, there’s an added impetus. She wanted to get involved in NDY because her brother, Frank, is going blind. None of us have met him—he lives in Denver—but the word is that they were very close growing up.

  But when I try to get reports on our new ally/trainee, Rena just shrugs and says, “Dorothy’s fine.” It’s not that I doubt Dorothy’s zeal. On the contrary, she’s a firecracker, like Rena. That’s the issue—Dorothy actually is in college—a real student—and I’m not thrilled to have someone so young shadowing Rena. People are stupid when they’re young. They have all those hormones zipping around. Dorothy might blab to one of her roommates or get overambitious and try to score at health services at different colleges. We had a problem in the past with kids doing that. I wanted to shake them: “Hello! Didn’t it occur to you that schools might cross-reference IDs?” Stupid shits.

  Rena gets pissed off if I try to bring this stuff up, but what am I supposed to do? Tonight, for instance, while I’m searching for clues to the Rev’s boy-toy, I’m getting bombarded by messages from the cell pressuring me for a progress report from Rena about Dorothy. They know there’s no point in trying to contact Rena directly—she never checks her messages. But after Rena’s miserable day—getting her stuff stolen—I don’t relish prodding the sleeping tiger. So, after closing the net, I meander to the kitchen—there’s no point trying to sleep—so I can set the scene, approach the topic carefully.

  I wake Rena up with a kiss and a cappuccino. While she’s showering I make her a breakfast burrito—her favorite. She’s pulling her hair into a ponytail as she enters the kitchen. She throws herself down at the table, knocks back a second cup of coffee, this one just straight-up espresso, and starts gobbling her burrito.

  “Hey! I put a lot of work into that burrito,” I brandish the spatula at her, “at least chew before you swallow so you can taste it.”

  “Sorry. It’s delish, but I don’t want to be late for my Modern Social Theory class.”

  “Jill and Burt are on vacation,” I start. “Jill says you can borrow her stuff. You wanna pick me up later and go to Jill’s to grab some equipment? She says anything but the new Nikon.”

  “Figures,” Serena grumbles, “that thing is sweet.”

  “But they’ve gotta have other cams and peripherals that are just as good as some of what you had stolen, don’t they?”

  “Yeah. Actually, Burt’s stuff is pretty good. Some of it is the same as mine. Was the same, I mean.” She sighs, pouring a third cup of coffee. “Shit, I’m gonna be late. Good thing Dorothy lives on campus so I don’t have to worry about her transport.”

  “Yeah, speaking of Dorothy, on the drive over maybe you could fill me in on how she’s been doing? The cell’s pretty anxious for some sort of progress report. We know nobody can be as good as you, but we need to know where we stand with Gottlieb, what rope tricks she might need to learn before we let her outta the chute.”

  “Don’t worry. She’s fine. Pays good attention. Asks a lot of questions. Never misses a class. I’m teaching her the fine art of flirting. ’Course she’s not as good as moi,” Rena bats her eyelashes, “but then that’s impossible.” She blows me a kiss across the table. “That oughta satisfy the minions.” She rubs some salsa off her fingertips with her napkin and stands to brush corn chip debris off her blouse. I need to stop her before she bolts.

  “Honey, that all sounds really good, but we really need more than that, you know? Like, it would be good to bring a button-cam to classes with you a few times so we can see what we might need to work on over the summer, rough edges to be polished, things like that. You know the details can mean life or death—”

  “I know that! Why are you treating me like a child?”

  “Who said anything about you being a child? This isn’t about you. This is about Dorothy. You, of all people, shoul
d understand we just wanna make sure that she’s ready when you…” I roll my eyes, searching for the right phrase, “you know—abandon us to our fates….” Rena is not smiling at my attempt at humor.

  “That was supposed to be a joke,” I say into the silence.

  “Ha. Ha.” Rena says grimly. “Funny how much it sounded like the truth. Or what you think is the truth.”

  “Why are we fighting? We’re supposed to be on the same side! All I need—all the Boston NDY cell needs—is a progress report, given by you, along with some footage of Gottlieb. It’s only reasonable. It’s just being responsible, Rena.”

  “So, what? You think I don’t know how to do my job—the job that I’ve been doing for, what? Six, seven years? All of a sudden, you don’t trust me?”

  “It’s not you,” I say. “It’s her. She’s so young.”

  “You are really ageist, you know that?” Rena slams her coffee cup onto the table, making Coleman jump up and look around.

  “Listen, can we put the rhetoric aside for a moment and deal with facts? Younger people have less impulse control, lower inhibitions. That’s just science. That can be dangerous.”

  “Funny, you didn’t seem to mind my lowered inhibitions and lack of impulse control when I climbed into your bed when I was twenty.”

  My face goes scarlet, partly because it’s true and partly because the way this argument is happening is actually proving my point—Rena is being a fucking brat. Only, if I try to point that out, she’ll go postal. I take a few deep breaths and try a different tack. “That’s true, but that’s not really the issue right now. Will you just listen to what I’m saying? Please? We can discuss my ageism another time, if you want, okay?”

  She crosses her arms. “Yeah, go on.”

  “Okay, you know how when you were a teenager and you just got your license your mom would get all nervous about you driving?”

  “Wait a minute! We’re bringing my mom into this? And all of a sudden I’m a teenager again? See, you do have age issues!”

  “No! I’m just making an analogy, for Chrissake. I’ll switch it. I’ll talk about me and my parents. So will you just calm the fuck down?”

  Rena grunts. I continue, “My dads wouldn’t let me drive on holidays, and I’d get all pissed off and indignant because I felt like I was a good driver. And they’d say, ‘It’s not you we don’t trust. It’s the other drivers on the road.’ At the time I didn’t get it, but now I do. Good drivers get hurt or killed by bad drivers all the time. But, as you get older, you get more experience behind the wheel, you learn how to react better in bad situations.

  “What I’m trying to say here is: It’s not you I don’t trust. And it’s not even so much that I don’t trust Dorothy—it’s that she’s new, y’know? Like, she’s still got her learner’s permit, and if the road is icy or there’s a drunk driver, she could do with some guidance on how to handle that. But, she probably doesn’t know that about herself. So, your job isn’t just to show her the ropes about getting the discussions started in seminar and hooking the allies to get scrips, it’s also to caution her: ‘Don’t tell anyone you’re doing this, not even the friends you think you trust. Don’t try to do more than your cell leader asks.’ Because she’s gonna trust you more than me—she knows you and she’s gonna see you as a peer because,” I pause, steeling myself, “I’m sorry, but you’re closer to her age.”

  Rena just gives a tight nod, her lips compressed, so I continue. “And, you’re AB. I mean, Christ, Rena, it’s not just that she’s a baby, she’s new to the whole world we’re dealing with. Her brother is only freshly in the you-know-what category. Until last year she didn’t even think about what it meant to be AB, probably thought she was immortal. You know how young ABs are….”

  Serena turns on me. “Oh yeah? How are we, Sis? Are we stupid and flighty and walking around with our heads up our asses? Because if we are, some of us have sure been doing a remarkable job saving your asses—miraculous, I’d say, considering how we have no idea of the consequences of our actions. Especially since we don’t have all that deep knowledge that comes from having a disability, right? How we’re so clueless about how easy we have it?

  “How easy do you think it is, doing what I have to do? I mean, who’s doing the real work on the campuses? Old gimps like you?” She’s pacing the room like a caged panther.

  “No. Me. You know what I think it is? You need us young ABs, and you resent it, Sis. You’re jealous that I’m finally moving up. So, you gotta give me a hard time. You gotta manufacture problems because you’re sitting around at home jerking off. Well, let me tell you: Dorothy is learning from the best, right? So, she’ll be one of the best. And then I can actually pay some attention to my career instead of worrying all the time about saving your ass.

  “You think you know how it is to be anxious all the time, to have no control?” She picks up her plate and smashes it on the floor. “How ’bout being saddled for life with a compostable?” She picks up her espresso cup and smashes it, too.

  The floor is covered in shards of white china and brown and red splatters of coffee and salsa. I hear a buzzing in my ears, but my mind is empty. Never, in all our arguments over eight years—and we’ve had some bitter fights—has she called me that word. In fact, she’s forbidden it to be spoken aloud in the house, by anyone, about anyone. Sure, I think it, because it’s the rhetoric that NDY is fighting, because it makes killing us palatable, but I never thought that she was thinking it about me.

  My throat dry, my mouth hanging open, I can only sit and stare. She crumples, puts her head on the table. She’s not making any noise, but from the way her shoulders are jerking up and down, I can tell that she’s crying.

  “Well,” I finally croak out, “I guess there’s no more to be said about that.” I turn and wheel down the hall.

  “Sis!” she cries from the kitchen. I keep going. “Sis!” she chokes out again. “Sisco! Fran!”

  I don’t answer. I’m heading to bed, to unconsciousness.

  “Sis, I’ll pick you up after class, okay? I’ll come by at noon and then we’ll go to Jill’s together, alright? Alright?”

  She waits for me to respond. When I don’t, she calls out, “I have to go, but I’m sorry, I really am. I’ll pick you up later, okay? We can talk then. Hey, I love you….” There’s a pause. Then I hear the front door open and shut. I climb into bed.

  I wake to Coleman nudging me in the face. “Cut it out, Coleman. What the fuck.” I shove her away and pull myself into a sit. The clock says 6:30. A rosy half-light is coming through the blinds. Is the sun rising or setting? Then, with a sick feeling, the fight comes back to me, and I realize it’s evening, and Rena didn’t pick me up at noon as she had promised. Well, that might be for the best—a cooling off period for both of us.

  I tentatively make my way to the living room. I am not looking forward to the conversation we’re going to have to have.

  But the room’s dark. The kitchen’s empty, too. Smashed breakfast dishes still on the floor. Rena must have picked up the cams and then gone to do some scouting and snooping. She’s still in the field.

  Coleman dances ahead of me, whining and nosing at the door. I realize that, wrapped in my cocoon of hurt and anger, I neglected to take her out for her afternoon relief and exercise. That’s why she woke me. “I’m sorry, buddy,” I rub her ears. “I’ve been such a bad mama today. Wanna go out?” She pants and twirls with excitement.

  When I swing open the back door, the cold air hits me in the chest. Late March is still winter in New England and I’m not wearing a coat or gloves. After Coleman does her thing I lead my reluctant pooch back inside.

  “Tomorrow, buddy, okay? Tomorrow we’ll play extra B-A-L-L to make up for today, okay?” Coleman wags uncertainly.

  I send Coleman to her crate and get a mop and dustpan to clean up the mess. After, I examine the dog’s paws to make sure she doesn’t have any splinters from the broken china. Finally, I can’t procrastinate any more. I chec
k the net and the phone for messages. There aren’t any. I suck in my breath, hold it for a count of five, let it out. I don’t know what we’re going to say to each other, but we have to start somewhere. She always calls me on her way home, and our fight doesn’t justify her not checking in. But I won’t start with that. We need to find a way, as Pop says, to “be gentle with ourselves.”

  My nerves a little calmer, I hit Rena’s number. The line’s already open and it takes me a minute to figure out what I’m seeing. It sort of resembles Rena’s car interior—there’s red vinyl and a window through which I see some grass and darkening sky. It looks like a fun-house mirror image of what I usually see. Then I realize why it looks so weird: it’s the inside of Rena’s car, but it’s sideways. Which must mean the car is on its side. So where’s Rena?

  “Hello?” I say. My voice seems to come from somewhere outside of me, like I’m hovering near the ceiling, looking at the image of night falling in Rena’s toppled car. “Hello?” I repeat, louder. “Rena, answer the fucking phone.” Silence.

  “For Chrissake, say something. Rena! We can work things out. It’s no big deal. Answer the phone.” I taste salt water and realize I’m crying. “Please?” I whisper. “Rena, are you there?”

  I know that I’m babbling pointlessly. If she could answer, she would have. I listen intently and hear the distant chirping of a colony of peepers, those miniscule frogs that hatch in vernal pools. Other than that, I can’t pick up on any sound or movement.

  I call Jill. “What’s wrong?” she says as soon as she sees me. God only knows what I look like, but I don’t care. I don’t bother with her question. “When did Rena come by your place today?” I ask, my voice shaking.