Alyssa couldn't help but shake her head at the irony of it. She came to Majestic thinking she'd meet the kind of backwards individuals who feel it's their duty to protect her from people like her husband. A black man. Now, she felt the need to protect herself.
"Let me explain, Ally. Please," Frederick said, his voice drained of emotion.
Alyssa heard that tone only one other time in the ten years they’d been together.
Four days ago. In the hospital.
-~-
"What happened?" Frederick opened his eyes for the first time since they’d brought him up from surgery.
Alyssa closed hers for relief from the garish light in the antiseptic hospital room which dwarfed her husband’s form.
"That bad, huh?"
Room 211 was empty save two things. An IV pole containing three bags of clear liquid and the thin hospital bed swallowing Freddy.
"Aren’t you gonna say anything? What hospital is this?"
Alyssa reached out and squeezed her husband's hand in hers. It was frigid. "I’m sorry."
Freddy moved toward his wife then immediately crashed back to the bed with a wince.
"I shouldn’t have been driving that night- I didn’t get enough sleep- I didn’t see the car- I fell asleep-"
"Don’t."
She didn’t want to tell him what the doctor said. "I’m so sorry. I-" She didn’t want to believe it herself.
"Accidents happen."
Alyssa stared at the white tile on the floor hoping to see something. Anything.
"But there’s more isn’t there?"
Freddy teddy protected her for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. He knew when she was having a bad day and could always do the right thing to make it better.
She couldn’t live in a world without him.
"What is it, Ally?"
She clenched her jaw. Maybe if she didn’t say the words it would cease to be a part of reality.
"Tell me."
He was still holding her hand. And it was still cold. "Your liver was punctured in the accident. It’s failing."
Freddy’s face went blank.
"You’re on the transplant list. At the top. But you don’t-" Alyssa felt like she had when she was ten years old and fell out of a black walnut tree. Air was all around her she just couldn't find a way to breathe it. "I can fix this. I can-"
Freddy swallowed. Loudly. "We’ll get through it. I know we will."
Alyssa nodded.
"But if it gets bad you have to promise me something."
She shook her head side to side so forcefully it hurt.
"Promise me. This isn't Tuskegee."
"I’ve almost figured it out. And this is a treatment. At the very least it buys us three more days." Alyssa could still hear the rhythm of his breathing. See his chest rise and fall. Listen to the bass drum beat of his heart. She couldn't give that up.
"I'm not a guinea pig. Promise me."
"I promise."
He was too sick to fight her. The hospital sent him home to die. But the doctor assured her he would call right away if a liver became available.
Within a day, Frederick’s fever spiked above one hundred four. He was clammy to the touch and his skin turned yellow.
She did what any wife would do.
Didn't she?
-~-
Another crack. Alyssa could see the peanut butter color of the hallway wall.
"I’m not going to hurt you, Alyssa. This is crazy."
The dementia began a day ago. The madness a couple of hours. "You’re not yourself, Freddy. I couldn’t fix it in time."
Frederick kicked through what was left of the door leaving it suspended from a ragged hinge. He was draped in a white lab coat, breathing in jagged spasms. "I’m doing this for you."
"You don’t know what you’re saying," Alyssa backpedaled, "just give me more time."
Frederick leapt for her.
Alyssa dodged.
He lunged again.
Alyssa ducked under his hand and grabbed his throat with all the force she could muster.
Frederick grabbed at her wrist, struggling to pull her off.
She squeezed.
He writhed a few seconds more- then stopped fighting. And let his hands sink to his sides.
Was this some type of trick? Trying to get her to let her guard down? She couldn’t tell. And she couldn’t risk stopping. Alyssa held his throat. Cool whip on chocolate ice cream.
After all her fears about what others would say about their mulatto babies, after all the strange looks from their families, after all they'd accomplished together, she was killing him.
Frederick's eyes bulged and his lips turned purple. Then Alyssa let his body collapse to the floor as tears ran down her face.
With all the problems in the world. With all the stuff human beings carry around. Her research was one more thing the world would have to decide on.
"Freddy." Alyssa stared at her fingers. She wiggled one, then another, then another, then another. She saw them move.
But she couldn’t feel them.
She ran her hand over the pink scar beside her navel. Frederick tried to kill her. He did. He had to.
She ripped open the pale blue oxford beneath his lab jacket.
There was no scar.
THE END
LOON by Sara Green
They called him Loon.
He had a long neck and could never complete a sentence. His real name was Lewis Noonan. He hated the abbreviation, but no one at school cared what he hated. Even the kids that liked him called him that. It was even some unspoken rite of passage for the other ridiculed students. If you called him Loon, your status would be reevaluated.
“Spp-ppp-itt-itt out, Loon!” said Matt Jarver, a typical tall jock with the chest the size of a Cadillac, a smile like subway tile, and the voice of a jackass.
“Sorry,” Lewis forced out.
“Suh-uh-uh-wee?” Matt Sarver waited for his audience to cheer, but there was no audience this time. It was just Lewis and Matt. Something about the moment felt final to Lewis, like it was the only moment his life was ever going to build towards. That scared him.
He apologized again. And again. And again.
“Come on there, Looney Tunes, sing me a new song. You’re creeping out my girl. You’re creeping out all the girls. Now I’m not here to kick your ass. I just want to give you some advice. Got it?” Matt cooled his tone as if he was Lewis’ best bud. “I just want to help you get along with the ladies.”
Lewis nodded even though he knew Matt was going to give it whether he wanted it or not.
“You see, there’s different people in the world. People that are attractive and people who aren’t attractive to uh…everybody. And you know maybe you’ll be a late bloomer or something. I don’t know. I’m not gay or nothing, but I know the girls round here aren’t interested right now. So cool your jets, invent something like a new smartphone app for doing dishes and then they’ll line up. But you’re wasting your time. Got it?” It all sounded like sincere advice until Matt added the stuttering repetition of, “Guh uh tah it?”
“I wasn’t staring,” Lewis said.
“Hey, I’m just saying what they told me. They say you were staring they probably thought what it was you were doing was staring. I know chicks, Loon. They think everybody wants them. They don’t get a guy like you is probably thinking about calculus and stuff. Not a boner in your whole body.”
“No. It’s just sometimes I’m like not looking at anything. And I forget where I’m looking.”
“Creepy. Don’t go Columbine on me.”
The thought hadn’t crossed Lewis’ mind before. But when the suggestion was made he couldn’t help but think he had it in his heart to make it happen. It was just too bad the gun recoil would probably shatter every bone in his body.
Lewis was fragile.
Lewis had sneezed last week, couldn’t get out of bed for a week. Father called h
im a fairy and forced him to go. His mom didn’t stick up for him this time. It was only getting worse. He used to be their perfect healthy baby, but everyday he descended deeper into the realm of worthless teenager with no future and no skills. He was in calculus—he was failing geometry. According to everyone else though, Lewis was destined to be a networking consultant or something with information systems, or in layman’s terms a computer nerd. Trouble was he hated computers more than he hated his nickname. He actually liked sports—or did—before he started falling apart.
“Loon? Hey?” Matt snapped his fingers. “Much as I’d like to stand here all day. All I gotta say is do what I said. And I don’t got to fold you, like a brochure.”
Lewis nodded and strutted back down the hallway out of the locker rooms where Matt had cornered him after gym class. He could hear the girls’ locker room door open behind him followed by a flurry or whispers and Matt saying it was no big deal and that Lewis wouldn’t be any trouble anymore.
Right then and there all Lewis wanted to be was trouble. The only problem with that was that by the time he got home he’d forget about how angry he was, he’d zone out again and another day would pass. He didn’t even bother staying up late. His routine brought him home for an hour of peace before his father got in. During that time he’d stare into space. After that he was forced to sit at the dinner table and stare into space. After that he did whatever homework he had left, then stared into space until it was nine o’clock. His parent’s didn’t question him if he went to bed then. And then he could stare into his darkened bedroom until he passed out.
As much sleep as he got he was always tired in the morning. Maybe he didn’t sleep. Maybe he just stared until his alarm went off. He couldn’t be sure anymore. Lewis didn’t even know what he thought about. Sometimes he thought he was levitating in his bed. Just hovering above it.
Those were the thoughts that got Lewis through sixth period, at least until the bell rang. If he’d had any others they went the way of a David Blaine illusion and all Lewis could do then was keep up with the high school traffic as he tried to get to his next class.
Lewis didn’t really hear it, but his mind did fill in the blanks. It was hard not with the way Sally Hinkle looked at him. Her mouth was agape, not in a pleasant shape, but more like the one that would fit a pear. Her finger jabbed the hallway air and he knew she told Matt Jarver. “He’s doing it again!”
Matt shook his head, wound his fist, and charged at Lewis. Something else took over and Lewis fled. He was moving so fast all he could hear were people screaming. He slammed into the door to outside. It felt like it snapped him like a bundle of twigs. But the door opened enough for Lewis to slip outside, and then he was gone.
++
“I’m a bit concerned about what we have found, Mrs. Noonan.” The Doctor had a healthy face but his waistline kept rubbing on Lewis’ arm as he lay in the hospital bed.
His mother had already shed her last tears of the day so her expression was a bit more annoyed that more crying would be called. She had found her son on their doorstep when she came home from work. His pale skin was like a checkerboard of red and black. Someone had beat him senseless, but Lewis wouldn’t give her a name. It wouldn’t sound truthful to blame the real culprit—the door.
“You see your son appears to have a rare bone condition, where they are very thin. Do you recall how a bird’s bones are hollow in order for them to be light enough to fly?”
She nodded. Lewis had been losing weight since the third grade even as he grew taller his weight seemed to drop. He was just told to eat more. But he hated school lunches, and second helpings at dinnertime meant more time sitting next to his father. No. He cleaned his plate and loaded it in the dishwasher as fast as he could.
“Well, your son’s bones appear to be not-unlike a bird’s. This is not a condition I am familiar with so I will have to recommend a specialist. I have one in Maryland, which I understand is quite the drive for you all so I want to check with him for anyone closer that he might recommend…and also confirm with your insurance as you see some health plans do not cover specialists and...”
“I’ll call them. I’m sure there’s some kind of coverage,” Mrs. Noonan said.
The doctor and his mother continued to talk. The words droned out as Lewis tried to relish in the revelation. He was a freak. It explained everything and yet nothing. Why were his bones brittle? Why was he so lightweight?
Did a stork have a physical contribution to delivering him to his parents?
He had felt weightless before. He’d dreamed of flying many times. They were his favorite dreams, but he’d read before that everybody dreams they are flying. It wasn’t special. He wasn’t special. He was just weak. His bones proved he was just a mistake of nature from the start.
He heard the doctor say, “He’ll need bed rest for a month or more while his bones heal.”
Bed rest. Again.
Lewis liked the sound of that, no school, no Sally Hinkle, and no Matt Jarver.
++
Time flew and Lewis found himself trying to present a reasonable argument for not returning to school. He’d spent most of the winter taking tests at home. His grades were better and so was his social life, as in no one was telling him he was a freak. Even his father had seemed concerned and bought him a gift. It wasn’t anything Lewis had interest in, but it was the thought that moved him.
His arguing had successfully bought him just one more week of bed rest. Their health insurance actually did not cover a specialist, so there was no talk of actually fixing Lewis. It couldn’t be afforded, so his parents had to eliminate any risk that would reverse his recovery.
It was February when a teacher came looking for him. His mother had called him downstairs one evening and to Lewis’ surprise it wasn’t a teacher that Lewis had a class with.
“Mr. Wright was checking in on how you were healing up.”
“Oh,” Lewis said, giving the teacher a polite but silent acknowledgement.
“Being the track coach I’m always on the look out for new recruits and I just wanted to stop by personally and see if you had any interest in sports.”
Lewis could hear his mother’s glee. He could imagine his father’s, but Lewis just shrugged.
“I saw you run, and if that door hadn’t been there you looked like you were going to break the sound barrier,” said Mr. Wright. He was trying his best to wear a big warming smile, but the teacher was capable of reading Lewis’ lack of enthusiasm and that extinguished the show. “Look, Lewis, I know where you are. I wasn’t always someone who could even speak to another person. It’s a shell. We all have ‘em. Some come out, some don’t ever. Some go back in. But my life would be a lot different if I never crawled out. I look at you and I see a kid who hasn’t found his knack. You’re unsure about yourself and no one is cutting you slack, not Matt Jarver, not anyone. But the way you ran through those halls would’ve qualified you in the 50-yard dash for States. No doubt. If the door wasn’t there, maybe you’re a long distance sprinter, who knows. But I think you should give it a shot. You might surprise yourself. You’ll be amazed what you like once you try it.”
“You really should consider it,” Lewis’ mother said. “You were always fast. As soon as you learned how to crawl you were off running.”
Lewis didn’t remember it that way. He was always last picked for soccer, kickball or relay races. He never ran fast then. Didn’t they understand he was running for his life? Did they plan to have a pack of wild dogs chasing him at every track meet, or would it just be Matt Jarver?
“You can think about it. Conditioning is starting up, but the actual season doesn’t start until March. So you have time. But I want to see Lighting Lewis tear up the track. I kind of want to see Matt Jarver’s draw drop. I shouldn’t say this, but you can bet that he’ll get his one day, this world has a nice way of swinging back. That kid is a bon-a-fide prick.”
Lewis’ mother would never have used such language but she nodd
ed in agreement and smiled at Lewis. He knew what she wanted him to say. So his willpower broke like his stupid fragile bones.
He said, “Okay.”
++++
Lewis still couldn’t remember if he’d actually said ‘okay’ or if everyone assumed he did. He spaced out and then he was standing on the track shivering as one of the seniors gave stretching instructions. He still didn’t feel like he belonged. He thought maybe he should run slow so that he was cut from the team and this experiment could end. Or maybe he could hurt himself again and never ever return to school.
Lewis liked that idea best of all.
“Stretch, Loon!” the senior yelled.
Lewis drifted into space again.
“You don’t want to end up with a cramp or a pulled muscle.”
Lewis had read something on the Internet where that was bull. He read a lot of things on the Internet while he was in bed rest. Apparently most of what he was taught was bull. But people kept teaching it. He saw the same ‘news’ article recycled with a new catchy headline. It was almost as if there wasn’t enough news to report everyday.
Mr. Wright blew his whistle. He might as well have appeared out of thin air, before breaking off the group into several track event categories, sprinters, jumpers, distance, throwing, and hurdlers. Lewis stood there while everyone else seemed to know where they belonged.
“Lewis, let’s try hurdles first,” said Mr. Wright.
Lewis followed another coach over towards where the hurdles were set up along the straight away Mr. Wright said something only for him to hear in passing, “I don’t want to embarrass the sprinters on the first day, watch out for doors. And have fun.”
+++++
“Holy Jeebers!” Coach Donovan hooted.
Lewis wasn’t out of breath, but he liked the sensation of ground beneath his feet again. The coach rushed over and patted Lewis on the back with a grin that could’ve been filled with all kinds of deliciousness.
“One thing we’ve got to work on, kid. I believe the rules state you have to touch the ground between each hurdle. You really can’t land? That’s better news, a white kid taking the long jump is worth the price for admission.”
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