Larry's Kidney: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant--and Save His Life

by Daniel Asa Rose

  “That’s good of you. But, Larry,” I say, trying to sound out my words clearly, “you misrepresented the situation.”

  “I fudged, Dan. Let’s not pussyfoot around or make it sound prettier than it was. I fudged, fair and square, but do you honestly think you would have gotten on that plane if I’d kept you in the loop? It was for your own good, in a way. You would have been riddled with doubt if I hadn’t protected you from the trufe.”

  I look around to turn up the air conditioner but see there isn’t one. No wonder I’m sweating through my clothes.

  “Don’t look at me that way, Dan. Am I commenting on your goatee and earring, distasteful as I may or may not find them? I realize you’re a different person from the way we were as kids. Live and let live, that’s my motto. We all gotta eat.”

  “I could get very mad at you now, Larry.”

  “And I could point out to you, Dan, hopefully not for the first time, not to get mad at the messenger. Would you prefer I continue to spring nuffing but half-trufes on you, so pretty soon you know even less whether you’re coming or going?”

  He’s right, I don’t want that. I’m having enough trouble telling what I’m doing. Am I daydreaming again, or am I really hearing him say that Mary advertised herself on candeyblossoms.com as “a petite thirty-five-year-old professor of architecture at a prestigious university with great command of the English language and a six-year-old ballerina daughter who’s cute as a button”? Is he really telling me that he especially loves the ballerina part because of how much he loves kids, he’s got like a dozen godchildren including one from a dean at his college who’s a nun, couldn’t have her own kids but adopted one from Ecuador, who more or less authorized an all-purpose recommendation letter that he carries on his person everywhere he goes? “This is to certify that Larry Feldman is a highly respected intellectual with advanced degrees in mediation/negotiation and a license to practice the art of real estate in countless American states. Any assistance you extend this VIP will be devoutly appreciated in the highest circles.” And that he took as inspiration the notes I forged in high school to get out of detention?

  I’m not sure; it’s something to that effect. But one thing I am sure of is that I didn’t come halfway around the world to talk about me. I tell him so.

  “You’re right, Dan. I’m just saying: You’re an inspiration to me. And just between us, I understand it’s stacked against artists in our society; no one can blame a forged signature here and there to help you make your way. (And in case I haven’t said this before, thank you for coming on this trip, and please extend my thanks also to your wife, I appreciate her making this economic and emotional sacrifice so that I can hopefully attain just a fraction of the marital bliss with my wife that you no doubt enjoy with yours.)”

  So help me I’m spellbound. At a certain point, and it happened several minutes ago, I don’t even try to resist. I’m held captive by a snake charmer—perhaps the only one in the world who talks with parentheticals. Yet I must admit there’s a certain relief in surrendering to such masterful manipulation. It’s like being very tired of holding your head up straight and then deliciously allowing yourself to relax your neck and fall asleep at last. Concessions are made. Forgiveness is found. Maybe this is the sweet submission that members of a cult feel. God help me, I’m joining the cult of Larry.

  “Okay,” I say, rousing myself to speak after a long silence, “so when do I get to meet the bride?”

  “You just did. That’s her,” he says, raising his chin to the woman scrubbing the sink.

  My head snaps upright, straining a muscle in my neck. I try to find an ounce of delicacy.

  “But, Larry,” I manage to say, “she’s not quite the way she described herself.”

  “Tell me about it. I’m as surprised as you are. She’s forty-nine if she’s a day, she’s built like a linebacker, she said a hundred and twenty pounds, I judge more like one-sixty, maybe she teaches electronics as a substitute teacher at a rural high school way the hell out in the sticks somewhere near the border with North Korea. I’m still researching that one.” He up-ends a Coke bottle with Chinese squiggles on it and takes a tiny sip. “Oh, and she doesn’t have a six-year-old daughter, cute as a button. She has a twenty-four-year-old mentally endangered son—challenged, threatened, whatever the correct term is. Not that I have anything against retarded people. My beloved sister, Judy, was no great shakes herself in the gray-matter department, rest her soul, though she was surprisingly adept when it came to crossword puzzles. Being shy was mostly her problem. Retiring. Well, you remember, Dan: Did you ever see her make conversation at a family function, other than the time she was so excited about getting accepted into that special program for epileptics?”

  “Wait,” I say, trying to shake off the blitz of words. “If Mary’s not the way she described herself, isn’t the deal off? I mean, truth in advertising, right? Doesn’t that nullify the arrangement?”

  “Not at all, Dan. I very much respect the fact that she misrepresented herself. It shows a native cunning that I appreciate. Not once in our two years of e-mail correspondence did she tip her hand. Plus which, it’s flattering in a way. She made all that up just to impress me? Well, pardon me, but I am impressed.”

  “But she lied, Larry!”

  “Yes she did, and I’m putting that in the equation, but on the other hand we have all those things I mentioned in common, plus she has an uncle who I gather is some sort of muckety-muck in the government, at least inasmuch as he is able to put me in touch with a clinic where I can get my dialysis, starting tomorrow. Which is not a minor consideration, given my health and also my desire to make a few business deals on the side, if at all possible. He also threw in a taxi driver free of charge for the week, which I think is a nice gesture. So I am very much against rushing to judgment. Who am I to judge a book by its cover? You’re an author, Dan, you should know what I’m talking about. How would you like it if everyone judged your books by their covers?”

  “They do!”

  “But don’t you wish they didn’t?”

  I know there’s got to be an answer to this, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is. I rub my neck, where I strained it. Finally it comes to me, feebly. “Well, it’s your call, Larry.”

  “Yes it is, and I’m glad you remember that,” he replies. “Be careful not to prejudge in life, is all I’m saying, Dan. Didn’t you once tell off a friend’s fiancée on the eve of their wedding, only to regret it when she proved a loyal wife a decade later?”

  “I can’t believe I’ve told you my whole life’s story.”

  “You don’t want to make that mistake again, Dan, especially with the cross-cultural difference between us and the Chinks. What? What?”

  A pause.

  “Nothing, Larry. So, do you want to make the introductions or what?”

  “Mary?” he calls in the direction of the bathroom. “Mary?”

  When she doesn’t respond after his second call, he puts frail fingers in his mouth and executes a brutal, cab-hailing whistle. “Mary, put down that brush like I told you and get in here!”

  “Yes, ah, Professor?” she says, scurrying in and slipping onto Larry’s lap, dwarfing her betrothed so I can’t see the face that continues the introductions.

  “Dear, this is the man I used to think was James Bond.”

  “I was so not.”

  “That’s how you appeared to me growing up, Dan, what can I say? The adoring eyes of a younger cousin. You had this savvy fair. I don’t know if it was dumb luck or what, but no matter what kind of jam you got yourself in, you always came out smelling like a horse.”

  We shake hands while I crane around Mary to see Larry beaming in his low-key way. “Ten hours she spent on a train to get here. She wouldn’t let me pay for plane fare, bless her heart.”

  “How do you do,” I say, watching in amazement as my hand is en-cushioned by hers.

  “I saved his life after college,” comes Larry’s matt
er-of-fact voice from behind Mary. “I already had my own real-estate firm at eighteen, lent him a spare bedroom when he didn’t know how he was going to support himself as a writer. Girlfriend was cheating on him, so he got two shrinks and cheated on them by not telling them about each other. For the life of me, I’ll never understand why neither of them prescribed Valium so you didn’t have to steal mine.”

  “You knew I was seeing two shrinks?” I say, trying to fetch back my hand.

  “Now, as to why you needed to cheat on two shrinks, that I wouldn’t hazard a guess. I’m a professor of mediation, not a medical specialist. You’ll have to ask one of the doctors in the family if you’re interested in getting a handle on that. What is their professional opinion of our venture, by the way? I probably don’t want to know, right?”

  “Probably not,” I say. “They’re so against it I call them the Disapproving Docs.”

  “So tell me.”

  I shift in my chair, partly out of sympathy for the weight Larry is carrying.

  “They’re skeptical, to say the least.”

  “And to say a little more?”

  “They disparage the whole enterprise,” I say, “but you have to expect that. They reflect the conservative American medical establishment. Their official line is that we’re ‘irresponsible’ for leaving the warm grip of American medicine, even though American medicine is telling you to bide your time for ten years. Want me to continue?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Well, to play devil’s advocate for a minute, you have to admit they have a point, Larry. What do we know of the cleanliness over here? Of how they track organs? There are so many variables, it’s just a shame you couldn’t call on Burton for guidance.”

  Mere mention of the name transforms Larry. Suddenly he looks less like a box turtle than a snapping one, neck recoiled, capable of inflicting real damage. “Dan, that is so far from anything I would do.”

  “I know, but there’s no discounting the fact that Burton is one of America’s leading doctors, after all. You sure know how to pick your enemies.”

  “Any case, whatever you do, do not tell Burton where we are. He would like nuffing better than to put the kibosh on this, just to get back at me.”

  “I don’t think medical professionals operate like that, Larry.”

  “I hope you’re right, Dan, for his sake. Because he may think he wants me to die of renal failure and just fall off the end of the earth, but he definitely wants me to live a long life. He has no idea how much he wants me to live a long life.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nuffing, Dan,” he says, becoming benign again. “Here, have a peanut butter patty, these ones are my favorite.”

  “You didn’t bring any of the sugar-free chocolate chips, in your condition?”

  “Sugar-free is for sissies, Dan.”

  “Then there’s the ethical question,” I continue, declining the treat. “All the docs in the family are opposed to ‘shopping for body parts,’ as they put it, maybe even from a prisoner. What’s your position on that anyway?”

  “My position? Here’s my position: This nonprisoner needs a kidney. Execute someone of my blood type!”

  “But seriously—”

  “I’m dead serious.”

  And he is. This is such a horrible thing to hear him say, so against every principle of decency I’ve been brought up to believe, that all I can do is pretend it came from someone else—I can’t see the speaker anyway—and change the topic.

  “So aside from Mary being, uh, not petite, what’s your assessment of her after a few hours?” I ask him.

  “Other than the fact that she lied about her size and her age, which I take as a girl thing, I find myself more comfortable with her than just about any woman at home,” comes the voice behind the wall of Mary. “Is she perfect? No. Her English is subpar. She keeps trying to check me for lice, but that might be cultural. Despite her being kind of a clean freak, as you can see, I think we have enormous amounts in common.”

  “So you like her?”

  “I do-uu,” he says with surprising ardor, peering at me over his shades and opening his eyes so wide I’m startled by their Paul Newman blueness. No wonder that women have always been eager to help him. “She gets my jokes,” he continues. “Don’t ask me how, but she laughs at the right time. She insists on hand-washing my socks. It’s like being in Sho gun. If only she’d put out, everything would be great.”

  “You’ve come halfway around the world and haven’t consummated?”

  “Didn’t you notice the separate single beds? It’s like Donna Reed in here. But we have an awful lot in common. Did I mention that she hand-washes my socks?”

  There’s a pause during which I’m hoping Larry’s regretting his words because of how chauvinistic, politically incorrect, and generally hideous they sound. But apparently he’s not regretting them, because toward the end of the pause he cranes his head around to send Mary a lascivious wink.

  “Dan made good use of my spare bedroom, I’ll tell you that,” he says.

  “Hey, Larry made good use of it, too,” I tell her defensively. “When I came back from a weekend away, the door was busted down and there was a picture of my bed on the front page of the local paper under the headline ‘Biggest Bust in Two Years.’”

  “Which made us even-steven in the drug department,” Larry says. “Dan stole my Valium. I allowed an associate of mine to stash a little dope under his mattress in his absence. Not that I would ever partake myself, Mary. As I may or may not have told you, I never touch the stuff, because: One, I like staying in control. Two, always a bad idea to invade principal. And three, dealing it back in the seventies was strictly business.”

  I reflect that Larry is pretty straight, when it comes right down to it. No drink, no drugs, no unisex salons. He tried a joint back in 1970, fainted. He doesn’t even chew gum—behavior unbefitting a businessman, in his opinion. That’s why he always keeps a sharp crease in his pants. Have I even seen him wearing a T-shirt, or shorts for that matter? Of course not. According to Larry, who’s gonna respect you if your knees are showing?

  Larry turns to me and adds some confidential information. “Best art thief in the business, incidentally.”

  “Who was?” I ask. “Your ‘associate’?”

  “Moishe the ringleader,” he says. “Moving dope was just a sideline compared to his interest in art. Speaking of which, they’ve never solved the Gardner Museum heist, you know, Dan.”

  “I don’t want to know, okay, Larry? Let’s have a rule that you not tell me anything I can’t repeat in court, okay? Besides, we’ve lost our audience.”

  Mary has slipped back into the bathroom to resume scrubbing, leaving Larry with a frontal sheen of sweat in her absence.

  “Did she even understand a word we were saying?” I ask.

  “A couple here and there, maybe,” he says. In silence we watch Mary as she continues sanitizing.

  “Are my eyes getting worse, or is there really a step in the threshold going into the bathroom?” Larry asks.

  “That’s to keep out evil spirits,” I tell him.

  “Oh, that’s right, I forgot for a minute,” he says. “Because evil is so dumb it doesn’t know how to crawl up a step.”

  We continue watching Mary while I refrain from reminding Larry that a sardonic attitude will not help us while we’re at the mercy of this splendid nation. “What’s with her heavy coat on a day like today?” I ask him.

  “It’s a gift I sent her last month,” he tells me. “Warmest coat L. L. Bean sells. She was thoughtful enough to bring it here so she could model it for me. It’s minus-forty degrees where she lives. The North Koreans think they’re getting someplace good when they escape their homeland, apparently, but it serves them right. Minus-forty, the same temperature as Moscow, plus it has one of the biggest open mine pits on the planet. Not very appealing. Anyway, the poor dear has to go out in minus-forty-degree weather to send me
an e-mail, plus avoid falling into the pit. Even the thought of her going out in that abusive situation makes me shiver.”

  Larry has always been openhanded to a fault. In this he takes after his father, Sam, the lovable but illiterate garage mechanic, who would stand there between hospitalizations passing out silver dollars to the children. The less he had, the more coins he passed out. Though Larry had numerous bitter issues with his father and would be loath to acknowledge any resemblance to him, he does basically the same thing. The less, the more. During the recession of 1990–91, hard times for his Tuxedo Band-Aids (first aid for black-tie affairs) or whatever product he was pimping back then, Larry never showed up at a family member’s house without some pricey secondhand offering in the trunk of his Studebaker Avanti. He specialized in bulky items: dehumidifiers, microwave ovens, even, during one dubious venture into gaming that I forbade him to tell me about, pinball machines. It isn’t exactly a dirty secret per se, but it’s worth noting that almost every member of our clan has a pinball machine in his or her cellar, vintage mid-seventies, obtained in ways none of us wants to hear about. Larry never drove up anyone’s driveway empty-trunked. Air conditioners, too—something we could certainly use right now in this airless hotel room.

  “It must be ninety degrees in here,” I point out. “Couldn’t she just model the coat for you and then take it off?” I ask.

  “It’s an honor thing, I gather, some Asian way of displaying loyalty,” Larry says, mopping his brow not very effectively with the Coke bottle. “Or subservience or something. You tell me—you’re the China hand.”