Fallout

by Mark Ethridge

  The car still held the heat of the afternoon. Josh was reminded that summer was only days away.

  It was dusk when they arrived at the yellow-painted cinderblock building with the rusted tin roof. Neon signs—declaiming “Tattoos” in purple letters, “Piercings” in green, “Open” in red—glared from small windows that flanked the front door. Josh navigated slowly through the lot and parked. A rush of cigarette smoke and stale air washed over them as they entered. On one side of the room, a heavily tattooed man in leathers and a woman in black jeans and a black tank top slumped reading motorcycle magazines in vinyl chairs that bled stuffing from long gashes. On the other side of the room, the largest human Josh had ever seen stood behind a counter punching numbers into a calculator. His head was shaved smooth. He wore an open black leather vest with no shirt underneath and appeared to be tattooed from his neck to at least his waist. Josh could identify on the man’s massive left bicep an amazingly detailed depiction of Marines raising the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima.

  Allison strolled over to a series of racks on which hung framed poster-sized sheets of paper. Each sheet contained more than a dozen tattoos, arranged by theme, size, color and complexity. She leafed casually through the pages of flash art, pausing occasionally to examine a particular sheet in detail, as if she were considering swatches of $100-a-square yard fabric in her favorite upholstery shop.

  “If you don’t see something you like, we can pretty much do whatever you want freehand,” the man behind the counter offered.

  “Just looking,” Allison smiled. “We’re more interested in piercing.”

  “We can handle that.” The man walked from behind the counter. “Hi. I’m Lil’ Bob.”

  “I thought you might be, “Allison said.

  Lil’ Bob turned to Josh. “What were you thinking of?”

  It wasn’t a question Josh had ever considered. Flustered, he said, “Oh, the latest thing.”

  Lil’ Bob’s eyes sparkled. “That would be your Prince Albert.”

  “Prince Albert?”

  “Trade talk for pubic area. A pelvic piercing.” He turned to Allison.

  “Perhaps something less . . . adventurous,” she said. Josh nodded dumbly, his mind still spinning from the notion of Prince Albert. Allison didn’t look the slightest bit uncomfortable, which he attributed to the fact that she’d probably seen everything during her medical training.

  “I see your jewelry is certified,” Allison said. “Do people ever supply their own?”

  “Sometimes. Maybe they want a custom design. Or they use their own metal—maybe from their first Harley—for sentimental reasons. You can get body jewelry made anywhere, including Tiffany’s.”

  “Or your parking lot?” Josh asked.

  Lil’ Bob sighed. “We used to run Spike off but now we don’t bother. Truth is, his stuff’s not terrible and people will do what they do. He out there yet?”

  “Didn’t see him,” Josh said.

  “It’s early. He’s probably sleeping off his hangover.”

  New patrons arrived as Josh waited and Allison shopped the array of rings in the parlor offered for sale. Allison purchased a very plain fourteen karat gold ring. Josh couldn’t fault the design, but since Scruggs had not purchased his ring from Lil’ Bob, he was unsure of her intent.

  Lil’ Bob offered to handle the piercing himself on the spot, noting that his parlor passed regular health department inspections and boasted separate rooms for “intimate” and “non-intimate” piercing. “State law says there has to be a witness in the room when I pierce private parts.” Lil’ Bob gestured to Josh. “I guess that’ll be him?” Josh felt his face flame bright red.

  “I’m having it done later.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  They left the parlor. “This is our baseline to test against what we get from our traveling salesman,” Allison said. “And there he is.”

  Night had fallen. A streetlight with a single harsh bulb illuminated the dusty gravel parking lot where half a dozen cars now sat in no fixed order, like farm cats sprawled around a barnyard. Three black Harley soft-tails lazed near the front door.

  They crunched across the gravel to a green Subaru wagon, its trunk open to reveal a velvet-covered board displaying gold and silver jewelry. A young man with short black hair, wire-rimmed glasses, a close-cropped mustache and goatee got out. Josh couldn’t keep his eyes off the two silver spikes that protruded from his lower lip and the tiny silver barbell stuck though his left eyebrow. Allison noticed he was wearing gloves.

  “See anything you like?” It sounded like he was talking with a mouth full of oatmeal.

  “You have some very nice things,” Allison replied, eyeing his wares.

  “Thanks. Make ’em myself. I can beat the price on the stuff you find inside.”

  Josh estimated there were more than one hundred pieces here, from rings to earrings, plus studs, spikes, bars and dangling things. He fingered a few pieces. “Sell many tongue studs?”

  “A ton.”

  “Recently?”

  “Sure.”

  “How about toe rings?”

  “Not in a long time. A bit passé once old chicks started wearing ’em.”

  “Where do you get your metal?” Josh tried to make the question sound as innocuous as possible.

  “Metal dealers. Pawn shops. People bring me jewelry they’re tired of.” He eyed Josh warily. “It’s not like we’re melting down grandma’s stolen silver service.”

  “We’re not cops,” Josh assured him.

  Allison inspected a bar and gold chain. “Do you keep a customer data base?”

  Spike looked at her like she was crazy.

  “In case I wanted to check references,” she added hastily.

  Spike stuck out his lip. “Dude, check it out. I’m my own reference.”

  “Ever had any complaints about your work?” Josh asked.

  “Heck, no.”

  “I heard some guy bought a nipple ring here and it made him sick,” Allison said.

  “Sounds like one of those Internet rumors.”

  “I notice you’re wearing gloves. Something wrong with your hands?”

  “What’s with the questions? If you don’t want to buy anything . . .”

  “No, no, it’s fine.” Allison pointed to a simple ring from the velvet-covered board. “I’ll take this one. This one, too.”

  “One hundred fifty.” Spike slid the rings into a tiny cloth bag. “For the two. Cash only.”

  “Make it a hundred,” Josh countered.

  “Dude, I got a mom and a grandma to support. One twenty-five. Best I can do.”

  Josh produced the cash.

  Back at the Jeep, Allison stashed the bag with the jewelry in a stainless steel pan she had placed in the cargo area. She took a can of aerosol Steri-Foam from her black physician’s bag and dispensed a dollop into Josh’s palm.

  Josh rubbed the disinfectant into his hands. “You think Spike’s gloves are hiding an infection?”

  “Good chance. I’m going to try to get him to follow us back to the clinic. Or at least let me examine him here.” She grabbed her bag and was making her way toward the Subaru when a pickup skidded to a stop beside Spike’s car. Music blared from the pickup’s window. Even at his distance Josh could feel the thump of the bass. Ricky Scruggs jumped out, sprinted to the Subaru and rapped on the driver’s side window. Spike got out and slammed the door.

  “Wait,” Josh said. “Scruggs may help convince Spike he’s got a problem.” Allison stopped in her tracks.

  Scruggs pulled up his tank top to reveal his still-bandaged nipple. Spike shook his head and shrugged. Allison and Josh couldn’t pick up what was being said over the music.

  The discussion ended with Spike reaching for his wallet. He withdrew some bills and handed them to Scruggs who counted t
hem, climbed into his pickup and left.

  “C’mon.” Allison said. They were halfway to Spike when he spotted them, slammed the trunk and jumped in the Subaru. “Sorry. Closed.” He gunned the engine and spun out of the lot.

  Allison jerked Josh back to the Wagoneer. “Let’s go. He needs to know the situation.”

  Spike’s tail lights winked a quarter mile ahead of them by the time they hit the highway. Allison drove hard to keep the Subaru in sight as Spike sped toward the surrounding hills. Fog had settled into the hollows. The Wagoneer’s automatic wipers activated, smearing the reflection of red tail lights across the windshield like badly applied lipstick.

  The rear of a huge dump truck—its bed covered by a flapping tarp—appeared ahead in the gloom. The Subaru zipped around it. By the time Allison caught up, the dump truck had entered the hills. They hugged the bumper of the behemoth through a series of sheer-sided switchbacks. Allison passed at the first opportunity and hit the gas.

  The fog disappeared as quickly as it had come. Josh searched for the tail lights.

  “Lost him,” Allison said. “But I got his tag numbers.” She performed a perfect three-point turn and piloted them back to town as if they’d been out for a relaxing drive.

  The moon edged over the hilltop, bathing the hollows in milky glow. Shadows leaped and capered. Josh’s thoughts turned to his daughter. He envisioned a beam projected from his eyes to the moon, bouncing off and finding Katie, uniting them.

  Compared to what Katie was facing, this amateur sleuthing seemed rather pointless, almost juvenile. On the other hand, he realized that he’d just spent several hours not wallowing in worry about Katie. In fact, there were times he’d even enjoyed himself. It was like investigative reporting without the scrutiny. He could ask questions, develop theories, research information—in short, be a reporter—without the risk of publishing a story. If this was what he needed to keep himself on his feet and moving forward, he’d play along.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sunday Josh focused on his torment. Not in a theological or cosmic justice sense, but in the scientific, the practical.

  People got lung cancer because they smoked. People suffered heart attacks because they ate poorly and didn’t exercise. Sharon had breast cancer and so had her mother. There was a genetic connection. What had caused Katie’s cancer? Why had it happened?

  As a journalist, unanswered questions bothered him. Beyond that, not even his experience with Sharon had totally abused him of the conviction that if he knew enough about a problem, he could solve it.

  In this case, he knew the Who (Katie). He knew the What (Has osteogenic sarcoma). He knew the When (Now). He knew the Where (Tibia). What he didn’t know was the Why? Genetic? Environmental? Or just bad luck?

  It was the question Katie herself had asked first.

  Unshaved and still in his pajamas, he made coffee and settled in front of his computer. He typed the words “osteogenic sarcoma” into his search engine and got hundreds of results. He started at the top with the entries from Google Health and Wikipedia. They gave him the basics, most of which he’d already heard from Pepper. On page two of the search results, he found sites with detailed information about chemotherapy treatments—Cisplatin, Carboplatin, Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin, high-dose Methotrexate with Leucovorin and Ifosfamide. He made notes so he could research each drug more completely later. Websites for cancer treatment centers started popping up on page three.

  Fatigue and frustration forced him to quit at 5 p.m. He had come across a few intriguing facts and had found a couple of articles worth printing but most were so elementary as to be useless or so technical as to be incomprehensible to anyone without a medical degree. He wished there was an on-call expert who’d take time to listen to his questions and answer in plain English. Someone who was not Pepper.

  His phone rang. “I’ve been collecting some articles about osteogenic sarcoma,” Allison said. “Also, some general information on caring for a sick child. I thought they might be helpful. I can drop them by, if you’d like.”

  Josh was speechless for a moment. “I’ve been doing the same. I need answers.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  He shaved and had the house looking presentable by the time she arrived.

  He met her at the door. Allison handed him a stack of manila folders, each labeled with a different color tab.

  He thumbed through the folders. They contained pieces from the Journal of the American Medical Association, a study from the New England Journal of Medicine and monographs from the National Cancer Institute’s website. They were divided into categories: causes, symptoms, treatments and so on.

  “Some of them are a little dense but I think you’ll get through them,” Allison said. “There’s one on caring for a sick child. I wasn’t sure if you’d had much experience with that.”

  “This is amazing.”

  “Some of this might need explaining.”

  It was a moment before Josh realized he was being asked for an invitation. “Please,” he said. “Come in.”

  They settled at the kitchen table. Josh opened the folder labeled “Causes” and began to flip through some of the articles. Allison had drawn stars in the upper right hand corner of the first page of each article to indicate its relevance. Josh saw she’d also highlighted key passages and made concise, legible notes in the margins. He was stunned.

  “Quid pro quo,” she said. “For helping me.”

  “Can you stay?” he asked. “Give me the headlines if I make dinner?” Then added, “That is, if you’re not busy.”

  “We do need to eat.”

  “It’s the least I can do.”

  Josh uncorked a simple red wine, poured two glasses and handed one to Allison. “A votre santé. To your health.”

  Allison clinked his glass. “To Katie’s health.”

  Their eyes met as they sipped.

  Josh put a pot of water on to boil and removed a quart of spaghetti sauce from the freezer.

  Allison turned to her research. “Where do you want to start?”

  “Causes. We already know symptoms. And what Pepper and you’ve already told me about treatment pretty much matches what I found on the Internet.”

  Allison opened the folder with the red tab. “There’s been a lot of speculation, some research but not much hard information when it comes to causes. There’s some relationship to injury and some have hypothesized that repeated injuries to a certain area—like a leg bone—might lead to increased and rapid production of bony tissue and that might lead to malignancy.”

  Josh put the spaghetti sauce on to heat and started assembling the makings of a salad. “Could soccer injuries have something to do with it?”

  “Possibly. But most experts feel an injury simply brings the cancer to the person’s attention and there’s no causal relationship. That makes sense to me since we’d see a lot more cases if injury were to blame.” Allison picked up a monograph. “Genetics may have something to do with it.” Allison realized Sharon had just entered the conversation.

  Josh turned the heat down on the sauce and put the pasta into the pot of boiling water.

  “There’s no breast cancer connection. If a child has a genetic abnormality that causes a problem like Paget’s disease or dysplasia, they’re more likely to develop osteogenic sarcoma.” Allison picked up a printout. “Radiation exposure can be a cause but obviously not in Katie’s case.”

  Allison refilled their glasses and set the table. “Smells delicious. I know Sharon was a great cook. I didn’t know you were, too.”

  “Sharon was a very good cook and a very good cooking teacher. She couldn’t have me poisoning our daughter.”

  Josh smiled. He wasn’t accustomed to talking about Sharon to anyone but Katie. That Allison was a doctor made it easier, but it was more than that. She listened and, unlike so ma
ny MDs, she didn’t hide behind her training.

  “Garlic on your French bread?” he asked.

  Allison blushed.

  For no reason, she scolded herself. Josh was her best friend’s husband—before Sharon’s death and since. Period. Still, it was easy to see what had drawn her friend to him.

  Josh was attractive. His journalistic interest in aiding the downtrodden was admirable and mirrored her focus as a physician. He had maintained his sense of humor in the face of tragedy. His devotion to his wife and daughter was complete. He was what he seemed to be.

  How different from her ex-husband! Vince was good-looking but that’s where the similarity ended. There were actually two Vinces, she had learned too late. The loyal, connected, ambitious corporate lawyer and the other—the controlling, narcissistic physical and emotional abuser whose humor came always at another’s expense.

  How different Josh was—even from her father. For all of his good qualities, Allison had come to regard her father, too, as a bully. His bullying was intellectual, not physical. He did not discuss things with his wife, he debated them. And whether through logic—usually—or just by arguing louder, he always won. And having won, he would start again, belittling her for failing to prevail.

  When Allison’s mother died, Horace Wright’s focus turned to his daughter. Allison had felt like she was an actress in a nightly drama, a play whose curtain closed with Allison in tears and with another reason to feel insecure and unconfident.

  The argument that led to the breaking point had come when she was seventeen. “Damn,” she said, unaware of herself. The memory always left her angry.

  “Garlic on your French bread?” Josh repeated.

  Allison returned to the present. “Only if you have it, too.”

  She located two cloth napkins in a hutch. She brought two candles from the dining room and searched the drawers for a match. In one, she saw a blue hairbrush with blonde silken strands of hair still clinging from the black bristles. Sharon’s, she knew. Josh was nowhere near recovered from the loss of his wife. It was so unfair. Death had targeted the perfect couple instead of the deeply flawed. She closed the drawer without a word.