The Song Reader

by Lisa Tucker

  The fiftysomething, fat, balding doc had had the time of his life, running around the club, groping one woman after another, telling each of them, “I know I’m on X, but the way I feel about you is so intense, it has to be real.” Matthew was much more subdued, but he enjoyed the experience, too. And he felt proud that he’d forced himself to leave the club alone—after the doc left with some blonde—even though the pill was still working, knowing it would give him a cheerful walk home, which, damn, he needed for a change. The trip to the Caymans last weekend, meetings and conference calls and putting out fires all day, wining and dining research partners five nights out of seven: all of this was making him feel unusually tired, though he was determined to prove that nothing had changed, despite the fact that he’d just turned forty. He was in great shape. He could always party like it’s 1999 , even if that particular phrase was one he kept to himself, fearing it would date him with the hot twentysomethings he invariably found himself attracted to rather than women his own age.

  With the pill’s help, he floated painlessly down thirty-one blocks from Old City to the bridge, no side effects except a little teeth-chattering. He lived on the West Philly side of the river to enhance his intellectual cred with academics, but the loft scored him points for being hip, too, because uptight people were afraid to live there even though the building was more like a suburban gated community than an edgy inner-city neighborhood, and his Porsche was probably safer there than anywhere in the city. Walking on the Walnut Street Bridge at night did make him a little nervous, which was why he usually took a cab home, but now nothing bothered him, not even some screaming kid standing near the stairs to the river.

  When he reached the kid, he noticed the boy was holding what looked like a bundle of clothes, except that it was making sounds like a kitten (or were they words? Whatever it was, that sound was so sweet), and Matthew found himself bursting into a smile. “Can I hold it?” he said, pointing at the bundle.

  He just wanted to see what could make that brook sound, but the dirty boy wasn’t cool. He frowned and said, “What? Are you a perv or something?”

  Matthew wasn’t sure why, but the question made him feel so happy he started laughing. “No, I’m not,” Matthew said, still grinning. “Am I supposed to be?”

  The boy cursed under his breath. “You’re drunk.”

  “Wrong again,” Matthew said, and then he blurted out something he would never have told another adult, especially in his condition, given his strict policy of avoiding emotional entanglements. “I’ll have you know that my father died of cirrhosis of the liver. I am not now and have never been drunk. So there.” He stuck his arm out, pointing one finger playfully at the kid. “Take that!”

  The boy looked away then, lost in thought, but Matthew was too busy trying to see over the top of the bundle to care what the dirty kid was thinking about. Even if he’d known the kid was thinking about drugs, he wouldn’t have cared. What was the boy going to do, have him arrested for swallowing his first-ever tab of E? After a minute, Matthew said, pointing at the bundle, thrilled that he’d figured it out, “It’s a little girl!”

  “Duh,” the kid said. “It’s Isabelle, my sister.” He pulled the blanket down just enough to expose the largest blackest eyes Matthew had ever seen. Doll eyes.

  “She doesn’t look like you,” Matthew said. The little girl was a light brown color, while the boy was chalky pale, even under the dirt. “She’s so adorable. Can I touch her?”

  Before the boy could answer, the bundle shook and heaved like a volcano about to erupt, and Matthew took a confused step back as the little girl let loose with a stream of vomit that covered the boy’s hands before spewing all over the ground, with one big splat landing on one of Matthew’s handmade Italian shoes.

  “She’s sick,” the boy said, sounding depressed. “That’s why I stopped you. I’m sorry.”

  Matthew smiled at the humanness of it all. Puke. It happened to everyone, didn’t it? It had happened to him a few hours ago, right at the beginning of his trip. “I know what she needs,” he said, before he could stop himself. “Emetrol and Gatorade.”

  “Where do I get that?” The kid’s tone was much lighter now, sweet even. “All the stores around here are closed.”

  Matthew thought for a moment. He was happy, but not stupid; yet he didn’t see how this scrawny kid could pose any threat. Not to mention the downstairs guard at the loft: a 275-pound former boxer who would rush to his aid at the push of a button. He could give the beautiful baby the Emetrol and Gatorade and send them on their way, with cab fare for wherever they usually go at night, which he didn’t want to think about. He wanted to stay happy.

  “All right, come on.” He looked up at the dark sky and laughed.

  “I haven’t got all day.”

  “Great,” the kid said. “Just give me a minute.” He pointed below the bridge, presumably to the riverbank at the bottom of the stairs.

  “I left something. I have to get it or Isabelle will cry.”

  “We don’t want that,” Matthew said, though he was thinking that maybe he should go ahead and walk home without waiting for them. He’d just remembered the plane to Tokyo at 8:37 in the morning. His plan had been to be in bed by one-thirty, then up by five-thirty, showered, packed, and on the road to the airport by six-thirty. He’d sleep on the plane, too, but the four hours would buy him the energy to do the packing and stand in the annoying line at airport security.

  He was still working out the details in a fuzzy-minded way—he could easily make it to the Philly airport by seven, but he’d have to take a cab, so he didn’t have to park—when the kid handed him the bundle. “Just hold her. Stand right here.”

  The kid’s voice was reluctant, and so was his expression each time he looked back while he rushed away, but Matthew didn’t care. All night he’d felt like touching everyone, but holding this baby was like having a little bird in his hands, a beautiful bird that cooed delightedly every time his finger stroked her cheeks. This sound was better than dance music, better even than the Bach playlist on his iPod. It was like the voice of heaven, he thought. Why didn’t the radio play this child cooing all day long? Why wasn’t it being broadcast from the loudspeakers at Franklin Field right now?

  When the kid returned, dragging a garbage bag—and a skinny woman—with him, Matthew was still talking to the baby, listening to her sweet, lilting babbles that seemed to be answers in another language, though he was pretty sure he heard the word yes and positive he heard multiple nos. But still, he felt better when the boy told him the woman was their mother. This made him feel peaceful and warm, knowing these two kids weren’t out at night by themselves. They had a mom, though she was sick, too, obviously. During the short walk to the loft she puked twice, dry heaves, quick and quiet and over before the boy had time to stop. Unless he had no intention of stopping. He shot his mom several dirty looks, which struck Matthew as pointless. She couldn’t help it if she was sick. Puking was human and oddly touching. The simple act of retching made anyone seem vulnerable.

  They finally made it to Matthew’s building and went up the elevator into his apartment. Matthew found the Emetrol in the guest bathroom medicine cabinet and told them the Gatorade was in the fridge; then he headed to his bedroom, just planning to change his shoes because the smell of vomit was bothering him. Somehow he ended up on his bed. What happened after that wasn’t strange, since he’d swallowed two Ativans on his walk home, knowing E was an amphetamine and afraid he wouldn’t get to sleep for hours, but it was extremely unfortunate, since he passed out before he had a chance to get rid of the boy and his mother and even the beautiful-voice baby, who he knew he wouldn’t want to see in the morning. Without the pill’s effect, music was just music and puking babies were an annoyance. And strangers looking for handouts were worse than annoying; they were weak and irresponsible and, nearly always, absolute believers that they were morally entitled simply because they were victims.

  What Matthew thought of a
s the victim mentality taking over America was a perpetually sore subject for him, and never more so than in the last month when, as his boss so colorfully put it, Matthew had been driving a hundred miles an hour, in a convertible, trying to outrun a shit storm. The potential disaster had surfaced on an ordinary Thursday night when he was in bed with a woman, dozing after sex while she watched inane TV. Later he would wonder why no one on his media surveillance team knew that this pseudo news show was going to mention Galvenar, but at the time, his reaction was more primal. He went into the bathroom and punched the wall hard enough to make his knuckles bleed, though the wall, embarrassingly enough, was absolutely fine.

  By every standard, Galvenar had been Astor-Denning’s most spectacular success, and one of the most successful launches in the history of pharmaceuticals. The medicine was approved by the FDA for chronic pain, but it also had a stunning array of off-label uses, which had led to AD’s stock climbing steadily ever since the drug had come on the market two years earlier. In the last quarter alone, its sales had reached 1.32 billion. Matthew had no intention of letting some idiot who fancied himself an investigative journalist ruin all this, especially with the non-news story that two men had died of heart attacks while taking a long list of meds that just happened to include Galvenar, which this jackass journalist had the nerve to suggest could be “the next Vioxx” and have to be withdrawn from the market, like Vioxx, for the “safety of the public.”

  That same night, Matthew started making damage control phone calls. First, the AD legal team threatened the network with a lawsuit if they didn’t issue a statement that Galvenar had been specifically tested for cardiac side effects and judged absolutely safe, even in doses sixteen times larger than either of the men had been taking, which was all true: Galvenar wasn’t even in the same drug class as Vioxx. After the retraction aired, Matthew had his staff reach out to journalists, suggesting they might want to ring in on the “scare tactics” used by this network to boost ratings. More than a dozen had taken the bait, including a handful who wrote for prestigious newspapers. In the meantime, the PR firm drones were planting more testimonials for Galvenar on sites like patientsays.com and manufacturing outrage in pain community chat rooms about television shows that didn’t understand suffering, with frequent references to Galvenar, the gave-us-our-lives-back miracle drug. Then, over the last few weeks, Matthew had personally contacted all the scientists who’d signed on to the research results, just to gauge their reactions, but few of them had heard of this TV report and those who had thought it was another example of the public’s ignorance about cause and effect. Finally, he’d gone with Ben and Amelia to Grand Cayman last weekend, without telling anyone about the trip, even his boss. His boss didn’t know anything about that situation, but even if Matthew had forced him to hear every detail of the last twenty years, all the way back to when he and Ben and Amelia were in college, the boss might still have concluded that Matthew was being so careful it bordered on paranoid. But to Matthew, there was no such thing as too careful. Not when billions in profit were at stake.

  Thankfully, it had all blown over now. Well, almost. On Saturday, a Japanese television station had picked up the discredited story, and now Matthew was going to Tokyo with a PR exec, just to make sure the newest big market for Galvenar wasn’t having any second thoughts. His job was simply to present the clinical trial data again and emphasize the impressive safety record in the postmarket, while the PR rep, a heavy hitter, played off what the Japanese (and the rest of the world) already believed: that the American media and government seemed to be obsessed with scaring the hell out of everyone, turning our country into a nation of frightened brats.

  Matthew was all too aware that Japan and Europe didn’t like U.S. pharmaceutical companies, whose products they considered vastly overpriced, but they didn’t think the companies were Big Meanies. Only in America. He had dreams of telling all these whiners that the solution was simple: just stop taking any of the products from evil Big Pharma. Put your money where your mouth is. See how you feel about dying at forty, the way your great-great-grandparents did.

  This point of view, harsh though it undoubtedly sounds, was not something Matthew had chosen to believe; he was sure about that. Of course he would have preferred to see the world the way he had last night on E, but he knew that rosy outlook was deeply and utterly false, a mere alteration in his brain chemistry, not in the way things really operated. Case in point: last night, he’d stupidly tried to help a poor family, and what was the outcome? He’d not only been inconvenienced, he’d been robbed.

  He discovered this after his shower, when he was dressed and packed, but he couldn’t find his wallet. He was already planning to wake up the kid and tell him they had to leave, but now he was furious. He grabbed the boy by the hands, lifting him from the hardwood floor (vaguely wondering why the kid hadn’t slept on any of the furniture or even on the thick oriental rug), and said, “All right, you little thief. Where the fuck is my wallet?”

  The boy rubbed his eyes. “I tried to warn you. Don’t you remember? I kept shaking you, but you wouldn’t wake up.”

  “If I wouldn’t wake up, then how could I remember?”

  “I tried to stop her. I even tackled her, but she shook me off.”

  He smirked. “You’re saying the baby robbed me?” Then all of a sudden it hit him. The baby was still asleep, tucked into the corner of his leather couch, with throw pillows all around her. Of course he wasn’t talking about his sister; he was talking about his mom, who Matthew suddenly knew wasn’t sick like the little girl. She was sick like an addict. This was why the kid hadn’t sympathized with her last night. Of course.

  “You’re telling me your mom rolled me?” He was shouting. “I let you in to help your sister, and you bring along your mom, who you know will steal whatever isn’t nailed down?”

  “I wanted to tell you to lock everything up, but you passed out.” The kid’s voice had an edge to it, but then he said, more quietly,

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “What else did she take? My wallet and what else?”

  “Money in the desk drawer. All the prescription drugs in your bathroom. I think that’s it.”

  He kept more than five thousand dollars in the desk drawer. His emergency fund, in case of a bird flu–like disaster that would temporarily close down banks and ATMs. The medicines he didn’t care about, except Lomotil, which he always took on trips overseas, for diarrhea. He couldn’t imagine why a druggie would want it. The Percocet he’d gotten for his knee injury last year, the samples of Vicodin for a toothache a few months ago, the Ativan he took for occasional anxiety and sleep: all of those made sense, but Lomotil? Dammit. Now he’d have to pick up Imodium at the airport. Another thing to do, and time was short already.

  “I made her leave your driver’s license,” the kid said, pointing at the end table.

  “How thoughtful,” Matthew snapped, though he was relieved to see it lying there. He absolutely had to have that and his passport, or he’d miss his plane.

  As he walked into his bedroom to get his keys and watch and cell phone charger, he yelled to the kid that everyone had to go now. “I’m leaving and you and your sister are, too. Sorry, but this isn’t a shelter. I have to go to Japan and you’ll have to go back to wherever the hell you came from.”

  “How long will you be gone?” the kid said, following him.

  Matthew spun around. “Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “This building has the most advanced security system in the city. If you’re thinking you’ll sneak in after I’m gone, give it up.” He snapped the band on his Rolex to emphasize his point, and forced himself not to wince. “The one and only reason I’m not calling the police right now is I don’t have time.”

  “That’s nice,” the kid said sarcastically.

  “Why aren’t you waking up your sister?” He had the charger in his briefcase, along with his tablet laptop and the second corporate Amex he was supp
osed to use only in emergencies, but now he couldn’t find his goddamn cell. It was in his pants when he fell asleep, wasn’t it? Had it fallen on the floor? He knelt down to look and said, “I told you to get out. If you don’t, I’m calling the security guard to throw you out.”

  The boy watched him as he looked around the bedside table, under the bed, everywhere he could think of. Then he said, “Have you ever brought kids back here before?”

  “You know I haven’t,” Matthew said, because he was suddenly sure this kid did know. This boy’s eyes were cunning, suspicious, nothing like the innocent child he’d seen the night before. Fucking E. He’d never take it again as long as he lived, if he could just get through this morning and on the plane.

  “I don’t think you want to call the security guard.”

  “Oh, really?” Matthew stomped over to his bedroom phone and picked up the receiver. “We’ll see about that.”

  “I mean,” the kid said quickly, “how will it look when I tell him that you brought me back here for sex?”

  “What?” he said, though he’d heard the kid perfectly. “You scheming little—”

  “I won’t hurt any of your stuff. I swear. It’s just, I have to let Isabelle sleep. Even with all your yelling, she hasn’t woken up because she’s really sick. I can’t take her out yet or she might die.”

  “Boo hoo hoo. And how is that my problem again?”

  “It isn’t your problem. I know. But I have to protect my sister.”

  Matthew was still holding the receiver, but his finger was hesitating on the 7, the number for security. He didn’t know the security guard beyond awkward hellos in the hall and the less awkward giving of frequent tips, including five hundred dollars last Christmas. What if the man was some kind of kiddie advocate? What if he’d been abused by his father or his priest? The world was full of whiners, crying about what happened to them in their childhood. Unfortunately, even a 275-pound security guard might turn out to be one of them.