by Len Vlahos
The listing had been live for only five hours, and already there were seven bids. These early bids were from a collection of society’s fringe actors. Their purchase histories showed a fondness for Nazi artifacts, medieval weaponry, and Hello Kitty collectibles. The highest bid from this group was $900, so far from the reserve of $1,000,000 that Jared had to laugh.
The doorbell rang, and he heard his daughter Megan scream, “I’ll get it!” as she thumped down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time as she always did.
Megan was a strong, self-sufficient girl, and he had no worries about her ability to accept, understand, and process his death. It would be traumatic, no doubt, but she would persevere. She was one of those kids who moved through life with a natural ease.
His older daughter, Jackie, was a different story.
Jackie allowed herself to exist in the shadow of her younger sister, never stepping into the light, never establishing who she was. She was small and tender, and Jared loved her more than life itself. It was worry about Jackie more than anything that propelled him to roll the dice with the eBay listing.
Jared heard a group of muffled voices at the front door, followed by “Mom! Dad!” from Megan. He pushed himself back from his computer and went to find out what was going on.
“Um, honey,” his wife, Deirdre, was saying, having reached the door a few seconds before he did, “is there something you want to tell me?”
Right, Jared thought on seeing the half-dozen camera crews and twice that number of reporters, now I know what I forgot.
***
Just as Jared was being besieged by the media at his front door, the glioblastoma was feasting on a memory from Jared’s second Christmas, when he, Jared, was one and a half years old. The memory was hidden so well that the tumor had to drill down through a rarely used sector of Jared’s brain to find it. The drilling was such a shock to Jared’s system that it caused the tumor’s host to stumble forward and fall into the arms of his wife.
The tumor was oblivious to what was going on in the world outside Jared’s brain. It was too enamored with the “snow boat”—the name with which Baby Jared referred to his first sled—to pay attention to anything else.
Unmarked, shiny, and red, like a mid-life crisis convertible, the sled was a thing of beauty. Baby Jared did his Baby Jared dance, basically running in place and laughing, as he held the sled’s yellow string. He didn’t know that it was meant to be used in the snow, but it didn’t matter. It was, according to his scale of the world, huge, and it was his.
The feeling was pure unadulterated joy. The tumor was so happy it thought it would cry, if it had eyes, tear ducts, or tears, but it was just the same. The experience was as tender as if it were happening in the present, in the physical world.
For her part, Deirdre caught Jared and helped him to the floor. He collected his thoughts, such as they were, pushed himself up, managed to stand without falling over, and turned back to the throng at his front door.
The tumor didn’t even notice.
***
“There’s something wrong with Dad.” Megan burst into the room, stopping in the doorway, breathing hard. Jackie kept her eyes glued to her phone.
Megan cleared her throat. “Did you hear me?”
Jackie had heard Megan but just figured that her little sister was trying to find a new and sinister way to torture her. For reasons Jackie never understood, it had become a favorite pastime of Megan’s. She’d find the one thing that mattered most to Jackie and use it as a weapon against her.
Once, years earlier, Megan had asked: “Is there a boy in your class named Kevin something or other?” She was in fourth grade, Jackie in sixth; and the question made Jackie’s heart stop.
Kevin Memmott sat in front of Jackie. He was an ordinary boy with an easy way about him, and he was Jackie’s first real crush. Each morning when he entered the class and said hello to her, Jackie’s palms got sweaty and her stomach felt like it was shrinking. She would put her head down and mutter hello from beneath her bangs. He would shrug and take his seat, and they wouldn’t talk again during the day. To Kevin, it was a forgettable routine. For Jackie, it was their routine.
“There is a boy named Kevin,” she told Megan. “Why?”
“Oh, no reason, just that I heard him talking to another boy … about you.” Even at nine years old, Megan was as good at baiting her sister as a professional fisherman was at tying a fly on the end of his line.
“What were they saying?” Jackie asked, looking at her feet and twirling her finger through her hair, trying but failing to pretend like she really didn’t care.
“Well, I heard them saying … ” Megan paused, and even though they were in the privacy of Jackie’s bedroom, she lowered her voice, like she was telling a secret and didn’t want anyone else to hear. “I heard them saying that he likes you!”
Every person who has ever had a crush believes, in their heart of hearts, that the object of their affection feels the same way, even though there has never been any outward sign of it. Jackie spent so much time imagining that she and Kevin were girlfriend and boyfriend that Megan’s lie was just too easy to believe.
Megan could see that she had the hook in her sister’s mouth, and all she had to do was reel her in.
“He was talking to some other boy in your class, Scott something or other.” Scott Yee, Jackie thought, Kevin Memmott’s best friend. “He said he really likes you, and wants to ask you out, but just wished you would dress nicer.”
The next day, Jackie, who never wore anything other than blue jeans and loose-fitting sweaters, donned the same dress she had worn to church on Easter Sunday just a few weeks before. It was faded pink, hung down just above her knees, and had a big bow in the back. Her parents were so happy to see Jackie come out from under her shell that they couldn’t help but ooh and aah over her at the breakfast table.
When she got to school, Jackie waited out front for Kevin Memmott, just standing there in her pink dress, everyone doing a double take as they passed by. When Kevin finally arrived, Jackie lit up like a high-powered flashlight.
She mustered the courage to say, “Hi, Kevin,” as he and Scott Yee approached.
“Huh? Oh, hi,” he said, not even noticing her.
An instant later, another boy, Jason Sanderson, with his thick glasses, uncombed hair, and a prematurely pockmarked face, walked up. “Boy, oh boy, Jackie, you look pretty today!”
Jackie liked Jason well enough. He was a nice boy, though utterly unaware of his surroundings, as if part of his brain was always somewhere else. The frumpy appearance combined with the absentminded-professor demeanor made him a favorite target of the other children. It made Jackie angry that they picked on Jason; once she even stepped outside her comfort zone and came to his defense. But on this day, the day of the Easter dress, Jason Sanderson was the last boy on Earth she wanted to see.
Then, from somewhere behind her, Jackie heard giggles and snorts; both she and Jason turned around. Megan and her friends were standing nearby, doubled over in laughter. Jackie knew right away that, though they usually brayed like hyenas for no reason at all, this time their laughter had purpose.
She turned and ran all the way home, staying in bed for two days pretending she was sick but mostly just crying under the covers, partly from embarrassment and partly because she couldn’t understand how her sister could be so mean.
So when Megan came into her room now and said, “There’s something wrong with Dad,” Jackie’s guard was already up.
“Uh-huh,” she answered.
“Look outside. We’re on TV.”
Jackie was skeptical, but there was something different in her sister’s voice. She went to the window.
A throng of reporters was dissipating on her front lawn. Some were packing up sound equipment, some were capturing a last shot of Jackie’s house for network news B-roll, and some were walking to their cars. It was like a flash mob had met, played their prank, and were now heading home.
Jackie
started for her door to go downstairs, but Megan caught her arm.
“Jax,” she said, her voice catching, “don’t.”
Then the two sisters sat on the bed together, something they hadn’t done in years, and Megan told Jackie everything she’d heard.
“Wait. Daddy’s dying?” Jackie asked when Megan finished.
Megan nodded and burst into tears. She flung herself into Jackie’s arms, sobbing into her big sister’s chest. Jackie was too stunned to react right away. But crying is like yawn- ing; once one person starts, the other person can’t help but join in.
***
The defining emotional moment of Hazel Huck’s life happened when she was seven years old. Her dog, Boots, was drinking out of his bowl, lapping mouthful after mouthful of water while Hazel waited patiently behind him. It was a well-rehearsed script they acted out with glee each morning.
Boots would lick Hazel’s hands and face until she woke up and then lead her to the door. She’d let him out, watch him do his business, let him back in, and feed him. Hazel would then stand exactly nine steps behind him (nine was her lucky number) and watch him eat. Each morning Boots would assault his kibble as if it were his first meal in weeks, making sure he chomped every last piece, and then drink half his bowl of water. When he was done, he would turn around, see Hazel, wag his tail, and nuzzle his wet face into her belly.
On this one morning, after he was done with his water, Boots turned around, wagged his tail, took a step toward Hazel, and fell over. Hazel screamed.
The vet, a tall thin man with a tall thin nose, a wide thin mustache, and a high thin voice, said, “Brain tumor.” Hazel, a precocious seven, was pretty sure she knew what that meant. A lump was growing on Boots’s brain.
“Can you scoop it out?” she asked.
Her mother burst into tears when she saw the hopeful look on Hazel’s face. The vet got down on one knee so he could look Hazel in the eye. “I’m sorry, precious, I don’t think we can.”
The day they buried Boots in the backyard, Hazel did all she could to fight back the tears. She didn’t think Boots would want her to cry. When the last shovelful of dirt was thrown on his grave, Hazel let go, and it all came out. She ran into her house, flung herself on her bed, and didn’t come out of her room again that day.
When she saw Jared Stone on the news ten years later, with his wife and dog, talking about his brain tumor, the memory of Boots came flooding back. She went straight to her computer and sent a message to her fellow Warcraft guild members with the subject: “Alert! Alert! We have to help Jared Stone!”
***
The evening Ethan Overbee saw the news clip of Jared, any thought of his assistant, Monique, went right out of his head. His first thought was, Holy shit. This was followed by his second thought, Holy FUCKING shit! These two thoughts were followed by a complex series of thoughts that formed the basis of a new idea in Ethan’s head. He needed to act fast.
Ethan had only been at the studio for three years, but already he felt he was languishing in the shadow of the executive in charge of programming, Thaddeus St. Claire. Thad had taken Ethan under his wing and was grooming him for the top job a decade or so down the road. But young people, especially young, rich people, and especially young, rich people missing a certain marker on chromosome 15q, don’t wait years—let alone decades—for things to go their way. Ethan saw an opening now and was going to take it.
“Monique,” he barked into his speakerphone. “I need to find someone who just posted something on eBay. It’s urgent. Do we have any contacts there?”
“I’ll check, Ethan,” she answered, betraying no hint of the revulsion she felt in simply hearing his voice. “Can I ask what this is in reference to?”
“I’ve just discovered the reality TV series of the century.”
***
Sister Benedict Joan had her doubts about the veracity of the eBay listing. Certainly no one could be foolish or Godless enough to sell himself into oblivion. But that night she saw the man on the late news.
She was surprised at how young, nice-looking, and reasonable he seemed to be. He stood nearly six feet tall and had hair the color of apple pie, a pleasantly wide mouth, and caramel eyes. He even professed to have faith in God.
He did seem a bit confused during the interview, and when asked why, he claimed it was the result of the tumor growing in his head.
Of course, the Sister was not pleased to hear Mr. Stone’s views on euthanasia.
“Until this happened, I honestly didn’t know which way I would vote,” he told the reporter, referring to the bill before the Oregon legislature. “I only hope I live long enough to cast a yea vote.”
An evil thought flashed through the Sister’s mind: she felt satisfaction that God would strike Mr. Stone down before he could use his legislative power to wrap man’s greatest sin in the cloak of governmental protection. Of course, the Sister’s brain didn’t seem to process the paradox of its own thought, that Jared was being swayed to vote in favor of euthanasia by the very tumor the Sister believed to be an instrument of God. In any case, the Sister knew enough to recognize a wicked thought for what it was; she crossed herself three times and turned her attention back to the TV.
What caught the Sister’s attention most was that Mr. Stone lived in her parish. She didn’t know if he was a Catholic, but one needn’t start out a Catholic to die a Catholic martyr. And if Sister Benedict had anything to say about it, Mr. Stone wouldn’t be dying for a very, very long time.
She reached for the phone to call the monsignor.
***
When Sherman Kingsborough first saw Jared Stone’s listing, he knew he had to bid, but he didn’t quite know why. When he saw Jared on the news, a face now given to what had merely been a notion, his interest bloomed into an obsession. His brain went through a kind of mental gymnastics as it considered what to do with Jared:
Maybe I could perform brain surgery, he thought. I can be the first man to execute a full-brain transplant, maybe replace his sick brain with a healthy monkey’s brain. That would be funny. But even Sherman realized he would need so much training that he wouldn’t have time to succeed. He filed the idea away for future reference.
Maybe he could turn the man into a suicide bomber. But Sherman didn’t have anything he wanted to bomb, and that seemed kind of pointless.
Maybe, he thought, I could just kill him.
Sherman let that roll around his mind for a bit. Yes, kill him. What would that be like? Would I feel powerful, like a god? Would I feel sad? Not knowing what he would feel like was all the impetus Sherman Kingsborough needed. This was something new, and that made it desirable.
For the record, Sherman’s brain didn’t have any damage to the anterior prefrontal cortex, nor did he have an excess of monoamine oxidase-A—two of the more likely indicators of violent behavior or lack of a conscience. No, Sherman was just bored to tears and desperate for a new experience.
He began to contemplate how best to murder someone, and none of the options felt quite right. Guns weren’t sporting, lethal injections were boring, and while drowning had a certain appeal, it seemed as if it would be over too quickly. Maybe, Sherman thought, bidding on this guy’s life isn’t really worth the trouble.
He spent time surfing the Web for ideas and was about to give up when he came across a reference to a 1932 film called The Most Dangerous Game: a shipwrecked man washes ashore on a remote island owned by a deranged Russian who plays a game hunting humans.
“Hunting humans,” he said aloud after reading it. “Hunting humans.” Sherman’s brain conveniently ignored the part about the “deranged” Russian, seeing only what it wanted to see.
He knew that the man who had posted the eBay listing had a brain tumor—it was a central point of the news story—but he didn’t really know what that meant. What if, by the time he purchased his prey, the guy was comatose? No, he needed a victim who would run, hide, and fight back.
As he had learned from his father, whe
n you need a piece of information, go to the source. Sherman composed a note to Jared using eBay’s contact form, sent it off, sat back, and waited.
***
Jared was still reeling from his encounter with the media. They’d descended on his house like the Portland rain. The lights, cameras, and blitzkrieg of reporters felt like a vise grip on his right temple. Or was it the tumor making his head hurt? Or did the lights and cameras and reporters make the tumor hurt, which made his head hurt? Whatever the case, his head was throbbing, again, and his focus was all but gone.
When he finally closed the front door, he hardly noticed Deirdre and Megan standing there, both crying. He half crawled, half stumbled up the stairs, Trebuchet trailing at his heel, and practically fell to the floor in his office lair, nudging the door shut with his foot.
The part of his mind that was aware of the outside world expected Deirdre to follow him, but she didn’t. Jared and Trebuchet were alone in the dark. He could hear the dog panting, could feel his breath on his arm. This, more than anything, helped to center Jared. He reached in the direction of the dog’s warm breath, felt for his ear, and gently scratched just behind it, Trey’s favorite thing in the world, or at least Jared thought it was.
Butch tree, Jared thought, making an anagram out of his dog’s name.
Trebuchet licked his lips and put his head down with one big sigh, his panting calmed to an even measure, a metronome of the living. The two of them, Jared and his faithful companion, drifted off to sleep at almost exactly the same time.
8d 11h 39m
Jackie woke up next to Megan, the two of them snuggled together on Jackie’s twin bed, Megan snoring gently.
Everything came flooding back to Jackie: Megan’s report of what her father had told the newspeople at the door; how her father had collapsed; the fact that her father was dying of a brain tumor. She understood precious little of what was happening and wanted more than anything to talk to her dad, but she couldn’t.
For her entire life, Jared had been Jackie’s anchor. No matter how bad things got for Jackie, her dad was there to make it better, even if only a little. But now, the bad thing was her father. The realization was paralyzing.
