Abundance

by Fine, Michael;

  “And that makes it okay for him to steal my car?” Levin said.

  “A stolen car is nothing,” the mother said. “People here don’t understand the life this boy led. He was part of a pack of boys and girls who roamed the countryside with guns and machetes, involved in activities I don’t care to think about. They killed and they stole and they raped and they maimed. Then they were cut loose and left to fend for themselves, which they did, until their ammunition ran out. Then they were hungry. Those boys came into a market where we used to live. My family found him and sent him here, to me.”

  “So I should just sew the cut and leave the police out of it?” Levin said.

  “He is on a visitor’s visa. I bought him a good used car so he could find a job, but who will hire him in America with no green card, no skills, no education, and no English? He is a night watchman. He will always be a night watchman, unless he is in jail or until he is deported. I am sorry for your car. I am sorry for your computer. I am sorry for my son, who everyone has abandoned. And I am sorry for my country, which has abandoned decency, and which the world ignores. He hates it here. He wants to be back home and roam the streets again, hopped up on who knows what. Right now, you and I are all that stands between him and that.”

  If he were back home, Levin thought, I would be in my bed. What a goddamned stupid place to be. I want my bed. I’ve been up twenty-four hours straight, and I haven’t had a good night’s sleep for three days. I survived through all sorts of carnage the other night, and then the drunks, and now this. My brain isn’t working. I want my bed, and I want my computer back. Maybe she’s right, goddamn it. Maybe this kid didn’t have a chance. Fuckin’ American colonialism. We fucked up Africa. We fucked up Central America. We’re fucking up the Middle East. This kid stole my computer and fucked up my car, and now he wants me to fix his face. Or she wants me to fix his face. Or something. And she imagines that if I can find the energy I need to fix his face, then I won’t call the cops. Why is this my problem? I’m the completely wrong person to sew this lac. But it will take me ten years of explaining to get someone else to do it. Why can’t we ever get anything right? Why can’t we fix one little piece of a broken world? Just one little tiny piece without all these curveballs? Is there not one little place for justice in this mess?

  “Alright,” Levin said. “I’m going to sew the goddamn laceration. I’m going to do it fast, and I’m going to do it perfectly, and I don’t want one squeak out of you, kid. You hear me?”

  “He hears you,” the mother said.

  “From him. I want to hear it from him,” Levin said.

  “Sew it,” the kid said. “Please to sew it.”

  “That’s better,” Levin said. “Now keep still. Not a word. Not a peep. I’m going to numb it. The numbing will burn for a minute, and then you won’t feel a thing.”

  Levin broke open a glass vial and drew the contents into a syringe. He changed the needles on the syringe, and then paused. Second thoughts. Always second thoughts. That’s what they teach you in doctor school. Always second guess yourself. Before someone else does.

  “Look, like I was saying, it’s a laceration on the face. Any laceration repair can cause a scar, and people are sensitive about scars on the face. Sixteen hours out means greater than usual risk of infection. Some people would want a plastic surgeon to sew the laceration, and that is perfectly okay. I can call a plastic surgeon to the Emergency Department. It might take a couple more hours, but the plastic surgeon is specially trained to repair lacerations on the face and might be able to produce a better looking scar than …”

  Levin paused.

  “… and you really don’t want me fixing this cut. Terrance here just fucked up my car. He doesn’t want me standing over his face with a needle in my hand.”

  “I want you to do this for us, please,” the kid’s mother said.

  “Look lady, would you translate for your son. It’s his face. His decision.”

  “Please proceed. It is fine for you to proceed. Better for it to be you,” the mother said. “He will perhaps remember this day the next time he sees a car to snatch.”

  Levin waited, his gloved hands suspended in the air.

  “Do it,” the kid said, from under the drape. “Please to do it na.” You could hear the bravado in his voice. He thought he was so tough he could stand anything. Which included Levin sewing his face, despite their mutual history. Pretty tough after all, this kid, Levin thought.

  “It’s going to sting, to burn,” Levin said. You might feel a pinch. Tell him it’s going to sting. For a minute. Then the stinging will disappear.”

  Then Levin took a breath, shrugged, and inserted the needle into the tissue underneath the torn skin and injected local anesthetic into the tissue. Then he pushed the needle deeper, and advanced the needle again. He pushed a little, advanced a little, pushed a little, advanced a little, injecting deeper or in a slightly different direction each time until the flesh beneath the wound was tense with local anesthetic.

  The kid squirmed under the sheet. The mother put her hand on his shoulder under the sheet, and the kid quieted.

  “Not a peep,” Levin said. “I’m really good at this. You won’t feel a thing from now on. Breathe normally. Just don’t move.” Then Levin leaned over the kid’s face and the sterile field that covered it, and he began to sew.

  You leave the world when you sew. Or the world becomes the wound and the wound becomes the world. The first stitch, in the middle of the wound, is the most important stitch because it brings the edges of the wound together. So the needle has to be exactly the same distance from the wound edge on both sides, which means you have to align the edges perfectly in your own mind. You have to visualize that wound with three-dimensional geometric precision, penetrate the skin with the needle in exactly the right place, twist the needle holder with exactly the right degree of torque and at exactly the right angle, find the underside of the opposing side in just the right place, feel your way through the tissue, and then penetrate the skin so the needle emerges on the other side of the wound, exactly the same distance from the edge on the opposing side as it is on the near side. Then you grab the needle just below the point with forceps, hold it in place as you squeeze the needle holder to release the needle and you pull it through the tissue, leaving enough suture so that you can tie a closing knot and bring the wound ends together.

  “I know somebody in Liberia,” Levin said, after the first stitch was placed. It ended up exactly where it needed to be.

  “In Monrovia?” the kid’s mother said.

  “Some place else. I don’t remember the name of the place. How big is Liberia, anyway?” Levin said. He was sewing, and he kept his mind on his work.

  “Big, but not too big. Liberia is about the size of Tennessee,” the kid’s mother said.

  “Bigger than Rhode Island. Which means my friend could be anywhere.”

  “What work does your friend do?” said the kid’s mother.

  “She’s a doctor. She works in a little hospital and goes around to a bunch of health clinics in the countryside.”

  “My people are in Saint John’s River,” the kid’s mother said. “Near a small city called Buchanan, which is a three- or four-hour drive from Monrovia, the capital. Liberia is not a safe place now, not for Liberians or Americans or anyone else. Your friend is a brave woman. Or a stupid one.”

  “Hey, I’m the guy with the needle in my hand, remember? Brave. And headstrong. Not stupid. It could be Buchanan, I’m not sure. What’s the war about?” Levin said, as he placed one more stitch.

  “What is any war about?” the mother said. “Greedy men who want more than they need. And poor people doing what they are told to do, who are slaughtered for their trouble.”

  “Which makes it okay for your kid to steal my laptop?” Levin said.

  “I am ashamed about what happened, if you are correct and it was my son who broke into your car. I’m ashamed for my son. I’m ashamed for myself. And I’m as
hamed for my country,” the boy’s mother said.

  “Sounds like a different kind of place,” Levin said.

  “Different, yes, but also the same. In Liberia, there is nothing. Most people don’t have electricity or running water. But we have children anyway, like you do.”

  The kid shifted under the drape, and Levin held his hands still. The kid’s mother moved her hand under the drape.

  “Okay?” Levin said. Then the kid settled, the drape rose and fell as he breathed in and out. Levin began another stitch.

  She is a decent sort, this kid’s mother, Levin thought. Been through a lot. Dignified. “Which means?” Levin said, as he was stitching.

  “Which means life goes on despite the wars. Which means we have to feed ourselves and care for our children any way we can. Which means we have to live with people who have done terrible things. Which means we have to pretend to forget what no one should have to remember, but we remember anyway. Which means we put our faith in God, never in man. We believe in hope, and we believe in God, but we fear one another.”

  “Are we so different, here?” Levin said. “We’ve done some pretty terrible things to black people and Native Americans, and we pretend to forget those things.”

  “You can’t be serious,” the kid’s mother said. “Don’t you understand what you have? You all have enough to eat. Warm houses in the winter. Cool houses in the summer. Cars to drive in, and streets that are paved to drive those cars on. Schools for the children. Hospitals for the sick. Too many guns, yes, but no gunfire in the streets and no explosions in the night. Except in some places where people who look like me live. Your history is also difficult, yes. But you have a life and the time and space to try to make amends for the past. Each of you can hope to build a better life for yourself. Everyone in the rest of the world wants only to live like you live.”

  Levin was down to the last stitch.

  She wants me to let the kid off the hook, Levin thought. She wants me to let everyone off the hook. It’s okay now. The sun is out, and no one is dying in the street, and that is justice? History composed by the victors. Rules made by people with money to suit themselves. Okay, she loves her kid, and he is no angel. But you can’t just pretend it’s all okay when it isn’t. Property is theft, Levin thought. I know that. One little laptop doesn’t count for a hill of beans in this world. So why am I so ticked off?

  Levin pulled the paper drape off the kid’s face, bunched the paper into a ball, his right hand high and steadied by his left hand as if he were shooting a basket, and threw the balled paper into a wastepaper basket. Then he looked closely at the wound repair, seeing only the new suture line and not looking at the kid’s actual face at all.

  “Two points,” he said. “Nailed it. We got us a perfect sculptural closure, with perfectly matched wound edge opposition, resorbable suture, and not a single unnecessary stitch. The Michelangelo of suture repair, if I don’t say so myself.”

  Then Levin retrieved a small foil envelope from the suture tray, opened it, and squeezed a thick line of antibiotic ooze over the wound, covered it with gauze, and taped the gauze to the kid’s skin with white surgical tape.

  “The usual discharge instructions,” Levin said. “Keep it clean and dry. Return for redness, tenderness, fever, or bleeding. Wound check in three days. I’ll write you a script for Bactrim, which is maybe a little overkill, because we waited sixteen hours before sewing the wound. Suture removal in a week. Follow-up with a primary care physician in two weeks. They’ll give you a list of community health centers and primary care doctors taking new patients at checkout.”

  “But what the hell,” Levin said, as he stepped back from the gurney. “I’m not discharging you. I’m going to get a cop, and I’m gonna get my car fixed and my laptop back.”

  “And you are going to send my son back to Liberia where he will die in the next war?” the kid’s mother said.

  “I’m not sending this kid anywhere. The war in Liberia ain’t my problem. I didn’t break into a car. He did.”

  “And you have witnesses to this break in?” the kid’s mother said.

  “Lady, I don’t need witnesses. I saw this with my own eyes. You have a lawyer?”

  “I can get a lawyer.”

  “Oh come on. Are you trying to say your son didn’t break into my car? I just fixed this kid’s face.”

  “Dat ca shi. Da laptop shi,” the kid, Terrance, said. The car is shit. The laptop is shit.

  “Move yo mouh” the kid’s mother said. Stop talking.

  The kid jumped off the gurney and stood between his mother and the large open room. Then he was gone.

  “Yo, security,” Levin said, his voice loud enough that the whole room could hear. “I’m sorry for your trouble, lady, but this just isn’t my fight.”

  It took half an hour for the cops to show, and by then the kid was long gone.

  After security came and went, Levin went to the ED crash room to wash his face, stash his stethoscope in his locker, and get his coat. They weren’t going to find the kid, at least not right away. There would be a police report ready in five days at the new Public Safety Complex on Washington Street. Which didn’t matter for shit, because there already was a police report sitting there from when good old Terrance broke into the car in the first place. His car would cost more to fix than it was worth. No cop ever chases a car thief. They write it down and let you file for insurance. No one was ever going to Pawtucket to look for this kid. Let’s be real.

  Levin had no business repairing that lac. What had he been thinking? There was no way he could have been free of bias. If the tables were turned and a colleague or resident had asked him about doing the repair, Levin would have said, huge conflict of interest, patient with whom you’ve had an altercation—you recuse yourself right then and there and find someone else to be the suture jockey.

  Working twelve hours without a break keeps you from thinking straight. Dealing with the kid at all was a huge mistake, and if anything had gone wrong Levin knew that the Medical Board would take his license away. Hell, should take his license away. But the lac repair went smooth as glass. God protects children and fools. And ER docs coming off call.

  Levin walked out through the waiting room. He needed a shower and a night’s sleep. The mother was standing near the main ED door.

  “Sorry about all the fracas,” Levin said.

  “I am sorry for your trouble with the car,” the mother said. “I’m Yvonne Evans-Smith.”

  “You told me,” Levin said. “And you have a son named Terrance.” They stood together. “And I bet your son Terrance took the car and left you stranded,” Levin said, after his brain told him why the woman was standing there almost an hour after her son had fled.

  “The car is here. He took the keys. It’s his car. The keys were in his pocket,” the woman said.

  “He have a license? He’s on a visitor’s visa, right? So he’s undocumented. And no license,” Levin said. “But what does it matter. He’s someplace else with the keys. And you’re stuck here.”

  “I’m waiting for a cab,” the woman said.

  “What the hell, I’m headed out. I’ll run you home,” Levin said. “As long as you don’t mind riding in a car that you have to start with a screw driver, that has a fucked-up steering column and a door held on by duct tape.”

  Where the hell did that come from? Levin thought. Talk about no boundaries. Why the hell do I always have to try to fix everything myself? Another dumb idea on the long list of dumb ideas. Will I never learn? Levin thought.

  “I’m fine with a cab,” the kid’s mother said.

  “The hell with the cab, Ms. Evans-Smith. Yvonne, right? This is Providence, Rhode Island. Deep in the middle of nowhere. You could wait an hour for a cab around here. I live up on the East Side, right on the border with Pawtucket. And you live where?”

  “In Pawtucket, as well, just off Mineral Spring.”

  “Hell, that’s one exit up 95 from me. And who knows, maybe we
find your kid, and maybe I get my laptop back.”

  “I don’t know what happened to your car or your laptop,” Yvonne said.

  “Lady, you can bullshit me all you want but don’t bullshit yourself,” Levin said. “It was your kid. But that’s okay. It was your kid, but it wasn’t you. Let’s forget about the car and the laptop for a little while. Just let me run you home, so I can get out of this place and go home and get some sleep.”

  “Thank you, then,” Yvonne said. “Very kind, considering what we have just put you through. I can’t make any promises about the laptop, though. We can only hope.”

  “Let’s do a little more than hope,” Levin said. “This way you’ll know where and how to find me. In case the laptop happens to magically appear. Just in case.”

  It was cold on the other side of the revolving door. There had been a little bit of snow overnight, which remained on the ground as an icy crust. Still, the sun was back, and it was worth all the money in the world, even though the air was still cold. Spring was coming.

  Chapter Four

  Julia Richmond. Grand Bassa County, Liberia. July 15 and 16, 2003

  JULIA COULD NOT SEE WHAT WAS LEFT BEHIND WHEN THEY DROVE PAST THE VILLAGES. BUT she could hear. She heard automatic rifle fire and the taunts and the boasts of the boys in the back of the truck. She heard muffled voices calling out and screaming, which faded as they sped away.

  Julia saw the mud-walled huts. In one village they were just building a hut. There was a beautiful latticework of poles where the walls and roof would be, as if someone commanding the power of history had reached into the bush, found a collection of perfectly straight poles, and then assembled them, carving a safe space for human life out of air and elements.

  One moment she had been on the roof of their Land Cruiser, lowering a tire and getting a kiddo dying of malaria moved into Buchanan the quickest and best way she could manage. The next moment she watched Carl’s car drive north with Sister Martha, the child, and its mother. Then she saw a pickup on the road from District #4 Health Center. They heard the rumbling bass of a stereo from the blue pickup. You could see that there were people in the back of the pickup as it came closer to the main road, but you couldn’t see their faces or hear the sound of the pickup or their voices. Only the sexy grind of the music pulsing into the country air. The pickup turned right and climbed the small hill that was between the road it had come from and the hill they were on.