by Ezra Blake
“I can’t imagine the two of you speaking to each other voluntarily.”
Chris applies too much pressure to the next stroke of the knife. It bounces away from the branch, narrowly missing his finger. “I’m Ivan’s tenant,” he says.
“Hey—what’s your name?”
“Chris.”
“Chris, listen.” She squats to eye level and stares at him like she’s trying to read his mind. “I don’t care. You can love whoever you want.”
He grimaces and brings the wooden dog to his face, pretending to examine it while he thinks. Ivan has never explicitly instructed him to keep secrets, but there’s this sticky little voice in the back of his head that says don’t talk about it, and the voice sounds a lot like Ivan.
“You can’t tell anyone about this,” he says. “It’s sort of indefensible, to tell the truth. Maybe even illegal. Not sure.”
She sits next to him and strips off her gloves. It’s supposed to be evidence that she’s listening, but it’s unsettling for that exact reason. He’d rather she pretend to work.
“I mean it,” he says. “Not your therapist, not the police, not your mom, not your cat.”
“If it makes you feel better, I can tell you ‘bout the time I dropped eight tabs of acid and stole a cop car.” When he doesn’t laugh, she adds, “I won’t tell. Swear to God.”
“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “I was his student. I was pre-med, and he taught a few undergraduate courses and…yeah.”
“Italy was a good choice,” she says breezily. “Ethics are an absolute joke here.”
“Maybe that’s why he picked it.”
“Were you still his student when you got together?”
Chris hesitates. He needs to lie, but lying to Joy feels wrong on a fundamental level, like biting into a raw pineapple. “Yeah,” he says. “But it’s not what you’re thinking. It wasn’t about grades or anything. We have stuff in common that I thought I could never share with anyone. And it was so intense, it was so much more important than school or his job so we skipped town and we—” Chris shakes his head. “He’s just the biggest thing in my life. Not just right now, I mean. Ever.”
She tucks one leg beneath her and pivots to face him more fully. “Chris,” she says.
“Do you know that feeling, when you look out over the ocean and try to wrap your head around how unbelievably massive it is?”
“Chris.”
“Sometimes I feel that when I think about him.”
“Chris, let me know if I’m crossing a line here, but I have to ask. Does he hurt you?”
His shoulders tense; his face goes blank. “No,” he says. “Obviously not.”
“Because you know that if he hurts you, or isolates you, or makes you think you’re worthless, that isn’t love. Love lets you make your own decisions. It doesn’t punish your mistakes.”
They’re silent for a while after that. Joy pulls on her gloves and returns to uprooting weeds and tossing them in the wheelbarrow behind her, fat clumps of soil trailing in their roots. Chris follows different branches of conversation in his head, trying to predict her reactions, weighing pros and cons.
“Didn’t mean to kill the mood,” she says, a few minutes later. “I’m sensitive ‘bout all that. Knew someone whose boyfriend beat her, and now I always keep my ears peeled.”
“It’s okay. You didn’t kill the mood.” He stands and offers up her pocket knife. “I appreciate your concern, but you don’t need to worry about us.”
“Alright.” She reaches for the knife, pauses. “You can keep that if you want. I have loads of ‘em.”
He shakes his head. “Thanks,” he says, “but I don’t need it.”
He thinks about it at dinner, but not so hard that he can’t enjoy the wine and ravioli. By the third glass, it’s slipped his mind. They sit on the couch in the library and chat about teaching, Ivan’s book collection, travel. Light and easy. No chess.
“You ever been outside of Europe?” Chris asks, leaning on his shoulder.
Ivan takes a deep whiff of his hair. Even before their first kiss he was always smelling Chris, but now it’s more endearing than creepy, and also less subtle. “America and Canada,” he says.
“Oh yeah, obviously.” He fingers the edge of Ivan’s lapel. “I meant like, eastern countries.”
“I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure. Perhaps some day we’ll make it.” He catches Christopher’s wrist and draws it up to his face. “What happened to your hand?”
“I burnt it on the coffee maker.”
Ivan hums, dragging his thumb lightly over the fresh burn. It stings.
“You should be more careful.”
Chapter 10
Nobody is watching the guests’ comings and goings at the USA Motor Inn, and if the criminals inside room 104 murder him tonight, nobody will stand witness at his trial. There’s that precordial catch again.
“You’re drenched,” Vic says. Her pores and wrinkles are a terrain map of an alien planet. She looks like she hasn’t slept since they last spoke. “Come in.”
He hangs his sopping coat on the door hook. It drips, spreading a dark stain across the vomit-green carpet, weighing down all the scraggly loops of polyester where it meets the wall. It’s the sort of sensory flotsam Elliot finds enthralling when he’s on Adderall, and he brought extra.
Two bald white guys squeeze themselves into desk chairs. One of them has a black eye and a tattoo of a Powerpuff Girl, the green one, on his wrist. Elliot ignores them and perches on the hard mattress, restraining the frantic, tapping energy collecting in him like gunpowder. He watches the stain. They shouldn’t carpet motel rooms. It just makes them harder to clean.
“Good to see you again,” Vic says, like she thought he’d die. “We got off on the wrong foot.” She’s wearing the same tattered jeans she wore when she cut him open. Elliot counts the flecks of mud on the cuffs until he realizes she expects a response.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Yeah.” She flops back against the entertainment center and breathes a shaky laugh. “Let’s start fresh. I’m Vic, short for Victoria. That’s Paul, and that’s Max with the bruise.”
“Hired guns?”
“Friends,” she says. “I need someone to drive the car and I wasn’t gonna bet on you. No offense.”
Elliot drags his tongue back and forth against the roof of his mouth. “Vic,” he says. “You guys could kill me right now. How do I know you won’t?”
“I don’t like killing people.”
Paul rises to his feet and says, “If you’re done catching up, let’s move. We’re on a tight schedule.”
Vic stands. They pull on their coats, but Elliot stays where he is.
“Look,” she says. “I don’t care if you come or not. It’s easier for me if you don’t. But if you leave, I’m sure we’ll end up with your other kidney eventually.” She holds the door for Elliot, who doesn’t budge. “Get this over with and skip town.”
Elliot mumbles a non-answer and finally shoves his arms into his coat sleeves. It’s like wearing sacks of gas station ice, but he’d look stupid if he left it.
Their getaway minivan is waiting outside. He overlooked it on the way here, expecting a limo, a black sedan, or something of the sort, but nondescript is better, and they need space if they’re moving human cargo. He and Vic climb in the back, leaving an empty space between them.
“Where are we going?” Elliot asks as they pull out of the lot.
“Rehab,” says Paul. “I run groups there.”
“Groups?”
He doesn’t answer. Vic leans back in her seat and spreads her legs another few inches, encroaching upon Elliot’s space. “So he knows a guy, which is good ‘cause I don’t even do removal, usually. It’s cheaper to get organs overseas and ship them here, so mostly I pick them up and deliver them.”
Elliot’s fingers find the gauze under his shirt.
“The cosmetic surgery thing is new, but it wasn’t supposed to be a sca
m. I was gonna do it until the boss called.”
He leans on the window and slips a hand into his hair. His fingers search out his roots, pinch a strand, pluck. Pluck. Pluck. After a minute of silence, someone flips on the radio.
When our phoenix crumbles into ashes, God won’t be around to watch—
“I hate this emo shit,” Paul mutters, and tunes it to a Christian rock station.
Vic hasn’t set foot in a rehab facility since ‘99, and if Fresh Start Adult Wellness Center is any indication, their quality has declined since then. Hers wasn’t a luxury retreat, but they had couches and some natural light. This place doesn’t even have cameras.
She counts the cash in her pocket and gets out of the car, signaling Elliot to wait. He gives her a longing glance through the window as she crosses the dim parking lot. If he freaks out and ruins this, it’s her problem.
“Are you Malik?” She asks. The guy at the desk nods—black, thick glasses, reading a fitness magazine. “I’m Paul’s friend. He called you.”
“Yeah, I know who you are,” Malik says.
“And you have somebody ready to go?”
He chuckles and sets Pumped on the counter. “Destiny Hardwick. She’s a frequent flyer, so you’re probably doing her a favor.”
A sour taste gathers beneath her tongue. Malik shrugs and slips through a door behind the desk. Shetucks the wad of cash unsubtly under his keyboard, grimacing and tasting something like aerosol lemon furniture polish. Not that she’s ever huffed it.
Destiny Hardwick is a middle-aged black woman with a face like a Prozac commercial. She looks like a suburban mother of four, not a frequent flyer. Like she’ll be missed.
“This is her?” Vic asks. “Destiny…Hardwick?”
“She’s our only O-Negative. I’ve got papers.” Malik flicks his manila folder. “Nobody’s looking—”
Thankfully, Destiny cuts him off. “Who the hell are you?”
Vic pastes on her professional enthusiasm. “I’m here on behalf of your social worker. I’m supposed to transport you to a hearing.”
“Fuck,” she mumbles, yanking her arm from Malik’s grip. “Is this about Brian? I knew that motherfucker would—”
“They didn’t give me details, ma’am. They just told me where to find you.” She rests a hand on Destiny’s bicep and guides her toward the door. “We have a nice hotel booked for you this evening. I can give your social worker a call if you need more information.” Vic makes a show of getting her phone out and dialing a Max, whose phone is on silent. By the time it reaches voicemail, Destiny is squeezed between her and Elliot in the back of the van, and Paul has pulled out of the lot.
“She didn’t pick up, but I’ll call back.”
“My social worker is a guy,” Destiny snaps. “What the fuck is going on here? Who are you—”
Vic locks a hand over her mouth and grabs duct tape from the footwell. “Elliot, d’you know how to cook—fuck!”
Paul slams the breaks. They topple forward. Elliot’s face hits the back of the passenger seat and Destiny’s teeth lose their grip on her palm. She kicks. She’s strong. She squirms from Vic’s grip and lunges for the door.
“Max! Get back here!”
Max unbuckles his seatbelt and calmly rounds the car. Destiny wriggles over Elliot for a second, pawing at the door, and then Max slides it open and catches her around the waist, and that’s it. Elliot leaps over the console and scrambles into the passenger seat.
So Vic shoots her up, Max holds her down, and they both get bruises for their trouble. It takes six little shots in her flat veins before Destiny goes limp and her head lolls on Max’s shoulder. Vic takes a few breaths. She tips the syringe back and forth, watching the dregs of brown liquid undulate with the motion of the car.
“Jesus,” Elliot squeaks. “Jesus Christ.”
“Our lord and savior, Amen.”
“What the hell, Vic, how much did you give her?”
“Dunno. Not enough to kill her.” She caps the syringe and tosses it in her duffel.
“You don’t know?”
Vic tears her eyes away from the window to give Elliot a withering look. “Uncertainty is part of life, kid.” Back to the window. “This place looks good—yeah. Let’s get her inside.”
Nelly’s Designer Cutz is still full of furniture, crepe paper streamers, and bad flash photos of regular people who want to be models, but it smells abandoned. Max and Paul toss plastic tarps over every surface, kicking up dust. Elliot watches the proceedings from a styling chair. They lay Destiny on the desk, her feet still wound with silver tape, and then Vic turns to him and says, “Let’s get this conversation out of the way.”
“Uh, should we bounce?” Max asks.
“Doesn’t matter to me.”
Elliot tries to stand, but Vic puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him down. “I’m about to tell you to sit there and watch. Don’t talk—” she raises her palm. “Just listen.”
“We’ll be in the car, Vic.”
She waves one bony hand, and they shuffle out the door. Elliot says, “I didn’t come here to watch.”
“Latzke’s all about politics. He’s never been on the front lines. You’re here to prove a point, that a kid can do my job better than me, and he doesn’t care what happens as long as I get the message.”
“But I—”
“Our buyer says he knows you. He could have shut this down, but he didn’t. You know why?”
“Who is your—”
“He told me why. He thinks you need to get your attitude in check. Nobody’s expecting you to do this right, and if you fuck up, we’re both dead.” She finally takes a breath. He drags his nails over his scalp. “Alright, your turn. Be quick about it.”
Elliot thinks. He prefers to remain motionless when he thinks, but his mom has called it “creepy,” so he spins all the way around in the hairdressing chair to prove he’s still present. Vic doesn’t know shit about him. She built her argument on a series of insulting assumptions—but then again, he doesn’t need to prove anything to her. Her license was revoked.
“Fine,” he says.
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, well. You’ve obviously thought it out. I just want to get the job done and get paid, so if you don’t think I’m capable, you should do it.”
“I thought that would be harder.” She pulls a gallon of surgical scrub from her duffle bag and douses her hands, oblivious to what she’s splashing. It’s not ideal. Now that he’s free to move, Elliot searches for a tap while he talks.
“You thought I’d be an arrogant child prodigy because you were an arrogant child prodigy when you were my age.”
“I was an idiot.”
“You’re still an idiot,” Elliot says, and he turns on the sink.
She purses her lips. “Get scrubbed in.”
Elliot does. His hands have steadied now that he’s confident nobody will shoot him today, and he doesn’t falter as he wipes the donor’s torso with iodine. Before he can reach for the endoscope, Vic waves him away.
“At least let me operate the camera,” he says. “You’ll need both hands.”
“No thanks.” She draws an incision the size of a pencil eraser in Destiny’s abdomen and slips the thin, tube-shaped device inside.
Despite instructions to stay seated, Elliot hovers relentlessly. The monitor displays a blur of spongy, amorphous tissue. She can’t get the angle right. Clock’s ticking, so when he snatches the camera out of her hands, she lets him.
Elliot inhabits his hands and wrists and balanced breath. This is watching, technically, but it requires concentration. He doesn’t have the processing power to concern himself with the ethics or philosophical implications of penetrating an abducted drug addict with his camera. Even when Vic administers local anesthetic, makes the primary incision, and shoves her entire goddamn hand into the meat of Destiny’s abdomen, Elliot can’t spare a moment for awe or anxiety. He has a job to do. “Medial retraction of the bowel,” he says un
der his breath.
Silent minutes drag on.
“Colon is reflected medially and mobilized superficially.”
Waiting. Waiting.
“LCSC-5 are used to incise to the white line of tulte.”
Vic gives him an incredulous glance.
“Dissect to the medial aspect of the kidney…” he watches the hand-held screen. Organs are so much easier to differentiate when they aren’t dead and preserved. “Continue superior dissection toward the renal hilum.”
“Do you know what you’re saying, or did you memorize a video tutorial?”
“Both,” Elliot says without tearing his eyes from the screen. “Careful, you’ll want to use blunt dissection here—yeah, that’s the renal vein. Okay. Isolate the ureter and gonadal vessels.”
Vic slips her shears beneath the ureter.
“Wait!”
She glances up.
“You have to skeletonize the ureter first. Strip it.”
“Oh, shit.” She takes a long, shaky breath.
“You’re losing focus,” he says, and carefully sets down the endoscope. He gestures for the shears.
She hesitates for a second, her shaky hand locked on the instrument. Then Destiny twitches, and Vic comes to her senses. They exchange tools with a graceful closed change, half a waltz, which barely shifts the camera’s sensitive field of vision.
“Right,” he says. “Skeletonize and then divide.”
Her insides are warm and pulsing, slick against the back of his glove. The blazing cautery pen overwhelms the scent of iron. His professor once described burning flesh as nauseating, but Elliot finds a strange, forbidden pleasure in the stench, like huffing gasoline or cracking ice with his molars.
“Try to wrap it up,” Vic says. “I just saw her eyes twitch. Cooler’s in the bag. You know how to—”
“Grab it. Don’t move the camera.” He slips his fingers behind the kidney, double-checking the location of the renal hilum before he frees the organ from its surrounding tissue and cradles it like a newborn: smooth, slippery, still flushed with life-giving blood. Every cell in his body is screaming at him to crush it into pulp so Vic can’t touch it. Elliot savors these last fleeting seconds before he’s coerced out of his body once more.