Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop: 2 Bugman Novels in 1

by Tim Downs

  “I am an organ procurement coordinator for the Center for Organ Procurement and Education.” Man, what a mouthful. He flipped open the file folder and scanned it again:

  Father: Tejano Juarez, age 31, landscape maintenance.

  Mother: Belicia Juarez, age 26, domestic services.

  “I’m Dr. Julian Zohar,” he mumbled, “and you two are probably a couple of wetbacks who barely finished the sixth grade before you squeezed under a fence somewhere in west Texas. Organ procurement coordinator. Organ pro-cure-ment. Comprende ‘procurement’? Sure you do.”

  He tossed the folder beside the sink and began to pace back and forth in the rest room, gesturing in the air as he spoke.

  “Well, hello there! I’m Julian Zohar. I was just passing by, and—what’s that? Your four-year-old daughter drowned this morning in a drainage ditch? Say, that is a bit of bad news. But speaking of people who don’t need their vital organs anymore—can I have hers? Oh no, not all of them, just her kidneys. Riñones, I think you call them. I can? Well, that’s very big of you! Now, if you’ll just scratch your names here on this multipage release form, I’ll be on my way. And so sorry about Angie, or Amy, or whatever her name was.”

  He stood silently in the center of the rest room for a moment, then turned back to the sink. He opened the spigot, plunged both hands under the stream, and watched the water run off. Minutes went by.

  Finally, he looked up at his image once again, slowly leaned forward, and pointed at his own face.

  “I am Dr. Julian Zohar,” he said deliberately. “I learned less than an hour ago about the tragic loss of your daughter. I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I have no way to comprehend your feelings of loss and grief. But I came here today to tell you that your daughter’s death does not have to be in vain. Even now, even in death, she has the ability to save another little girl’s life. Just a few miles away from here, over at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, there is a little girl dying of end-stage renal disease. Your daughter is the right size, the right blood type, and they are reasonably histocompatible. I am asking you to release your daughter’s kidneys for transplant. Without them, that other little girl will die—and you have the power to prevent it. One little girl died this morning. Please don’t let there be two.”

  Just then the rest-room door swung open with a pneumatic sigh. In stepped the figure of a priest.

  “Please forgive the intrusion,” he said. “I’m looking for Julian Zohar.”

  “You’ve found him.”

  “I’m Father Anduhar,” he said, extending his hand. “I received a call this morning about the Juarez family—about their loss.”

  “I didn’t call you,” Julian said.

  “The family services coordinator called. I understand that you’re preparing to approach the family about organ donation. In such cases, it’s often helpful if a member of the clergy is there to assist.”

  “No thanks.” Julian stepped past the priest and pressed the hand blower with the butt of his palm.

  “May I ask why not?” the priest said above the low roar.

  “Sorry,” Julian said, rubbing his hands smoothly one over the other.

  The priest waited patiently for the roar to subside. “Why not?” he asked again.

  Julian turned to him. “I’m about to ask a mother and father to allow a surgeon to cut out their daughter’s kidneys. Their daughter is dead. They know that, but they don’t feel it yet. Clinically speaking, there’s a very fine line between life and death; emotionally, there’s no line at all. The last thing I want is a priest talking to them about ‘the resurrection of the body unto life everlasting.’”

  The priest shook his head. “You misunderstand. The Catholic church wholeheartedly endorses organ donation—”

  “It’s not what you endorse; it’s what you represent,” Julian said. “You tell the family, ‘Angelita lives on! She can hear you, she can see you. Talk to her, pray for her.’ I tell the family, ‘Angelita is dead. She cannot hear, she cannot feel—so give me her kidneys. Let someone use them who is alive.’ You encourage people to dwell on the dead; I want them to think about the living. No thank you.”

  The priest shook his head. “If you fail to care for the dead, you fail to care for the living.”

  Julian stepped toward the door. “You go ahead and sprinkle your water and wave your incense. Say your prayers for the dead—me, I work with the living.”

  The priest stared after him in astonishment. “Remarkable. You have no faith at all, do you?”

  Julian turned back again. “Let me tell you what I have faith in,” he said. “One year ago, a Swiss biochemist named Jean Borel discovered an amazing immunosuppressant called cyclosporine. It’s made from a common soil fungus. Up until now transplants have been hit or miss, but when cyclosporine hits the market, it’s going to revolutionize transplant technology. No more massive tissue rejection, no more 20 percent survival rates. Can you imagine? People living ten, twenty, thirty years longer; people surviving cancers and overcoming genetic defects; people extending the duration and quality of their lives because they can get parts. And not just kidneys and the occasional liver; I’m talking about intestines, lungs—even hearts. Hearts!

  “And when all this happens, Father whatever-your-name-is, you know what the greatest barrier to transplantation will be? People like you: people who encourage others to focus on the past instead of the future. Because even with all that wonderful technology, people will still have to be willing to give up their organs—and that has to change.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Not all cultures are as individualistic as we are in the West. Here, we assume that each individual should possess sovereign rights over his own body—even after death. In more communal cultures—more enlightened cultures, in my view—they believe that the community should assume the rights to your body at the moment of death, and the community should then be free to use your body for the greater good.”

  “That’s frightening.”

  “You think so? What frightens me is the idea that the dead should have power over the living. That’s your world, not mine. I want to make people understand that it’s not just a privilege to donate an organ, it’s an obligation.”

  “You’re going to tell this family that they’re obligated to surrender their daughter’s kidneys?”

  “I’m going to tell them whatever it takes,” Julian said.

  “That is immoral and unethical.”

  Julian smiled. “I have a PhD in bioethics,” he said. “You want to talk ethics? What’s the greater good here: that a family should be permitted, through ignorance or selfishness or superstition, to allow perfectly good organs to perish, or that those organs should be used to save another human being’s life? What do you think, Father? Should one little girl die today or two?”

  The priest said nothing. Julian turned and pulled open the door.

  “I think you are a very great fool,” said the priest.

  “I am the future. You are the past. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a life to save.”

  Julian peered through the waiting-room window at the grieving Juarez family. There were six of them huddled loosely around an orange vinyl sofa in a tableau vivant; Julian studied the setting the way a painter would analyze the composition of a painting.

  Seated in the center was a gray-haired woman; she held her head in her hands and bobbed back and forth, wiping at the corners of her eyes with the tips of her fingers.

  Grandmother. The beloved matriarch. The tent peg of the family, the one with the strongest sense of loyalty and tradition. She can turn the whole family if she wants to.

  A younger woman sat stroking the old woman’s back, reaching across to pat the face of a crying sibling, stopping only to cover her own face and let out a shuddering sob.

  Mother. The backbone of the family, the one who holds everyone else together. No matter what she feels, she’ll do what she thinks is best for the rest of them. She’s the lever, the
one who can move them all.

  Three children orbited the grieving women like little satellites. The oldest, a girl, stood weeping beside her mother. Her younger brother cried more gently, grieving more over his mother’s pain than over a death he could not yet comprehend. On the floor, an even younger boy sat blissfully flipping through the pages of an activity book.

  Daughter. The only one of the three who’s really a player. She’s the catalyst; she holds the family’s heart. If she trusts me, the rest will follow. I can reach them all through the daughter.

  To the left, standing at a distance and facing away from the rest of the family, stood a small, sinewy man with a copper face and a tangled mustache. He was dressed in work clothes: sagging denims that hung down over mottled gray boots, and a faded gray T-shirt with a gaping collar. He stood with his hands jammed deep in his pockets, pacing back and forth in quick steps like a stallion that wants to bolt but has nowhere to run. His eyes alternated between confusion, grief, and rage—but rage was winning out.

  Father. The alpha male. He has all the anger; he’s the wild bull. I can ride him, or he can trample me. He has the ego; he’s the one to stroke.

  Julian took a deep breath, tucked the file folder under his arm, and rapped on the glass.

  “Good morning,” he said as evenly as possible, “I’m Dr. Zohar.”

  The father stopped and looked at him, his eyes brightening.

  “There is news?” he said excitedly. “Something has changed?”

  Suddenly the entire tableau broke apart before Julian’s eyes. The mother sprang to her feet and rushed toward him, grasping Julian’s forearm with both hands. The children swept in behind her like flotsam in the wake of a boat. The father charged forward and then halted, staring in wide-eyed anticipation.

  And then, worst of all, Julian saw the grandmother struggle painfully to her feet and shuffle forward. He had made the old woman rise—and for nothing.

  A terrible moment of silence followed.

  “No—there’s no change. Angelita is still … I mean, I’m not that kind of doctor.”

  Julian felt the mother squeeze his arm again, and then release. He saw three pairs of youthful eyes turn to her for explanation. He watched the older woman’s shoulders round and her body sag as though she might drop right where she stood. Worst of all, he saw the rage returning to the father’s eyes. Julian bit his lip. By raising their hopes, even for an instant, he had caused them to look backward. Now his job would be twice as hard.

  “Then what do you want?” the father growled. “Leave us!”

  “I just stopped by … to see if … if there’s anything I can do,” Julian stumbled.

  “What can you do? You can bring my little Angelita back to life. Can you do this? No? But you are not that kind of doctor.”

  The women had returned to the sofa now, weeping freshly and glancing resentfully back at Julian.

  “I came to tell you that your daughter’s death does not have to be in vain.”

  The father turned to his wife and shrugged. “¿Qué quiere decir? ‘In vain.’”

  “Inútil,” she translated. “‘Useless.’”

  The father whipped around in a fury. “Angelita’s death was not useless. What do you want from us? Is this how you help?”

  “No. I’m sorry. Please—let me explain.” He stepped to the sofa, smiled, and rested his hand on the little girl’s head. She ducked away and leaned against her mother.

  “There is another little girl. She is very sick. She is in a hospital right now, not far from here. Angelita can help her.”

  “Angelita can help no one. Angelita is dead.”

  “She can still help. A part of her can help.”

  The mother squinted at Julian in confusion—until a look of horrified recognition began to spread across her face like gangrene.

  Julian saw it. Seconds were critical now; he plunged ahead.

  “We want your permission to remove your daughter’s kidneys. The doctors want to transplant them—place them—into the little girl who is sick. This can save her life.”

  The father turned again to his wife and mother. There was a flurry of Spanish between them: “Angelita … los doctores … sus riñones … trasplante.”

  The old woman groaned.

  The father stumbled back as though he had been punched in the gut.

  “Is this why Angelita is dead?” he said. “Did the doctors even try to save her?”

  “Mr. Juarez, of course they did. The doctors here did everything in their power to—”

  The father charged forward, jerked the file folder from under Julian’s arm, and handed it back to him. “The girl in the hospital,” he said. “What color is she?”

  “Mr. Juarez, it makes absolutely no difference—”

  “What color is she?”

  Julian fumbled open the folder and ran a finger down the first page, focusing on nothing at all. He knew the answer before he opened the folder.

  “The little girl … this particular little girl … seems to be of Caucasian descent.”

  “Anglo!” the father spluttered. “Angelita is dead so an Anglo can live!”

  “Mr. Juarez, this has nothing to do with race—nothing whatsoever.” Julian listened to the sound of his own words. The harder he protested, the more hollow the words seemed to sound.

  “Mr. Juarez, listen to me. Angelita is dead. She feels nothing.”

  “I feel! I feel!”

  “You have the power to save a little girl’s life.”

  “And you! You had the power to save my little girl’s life!”

  “Mr. Juarez, try to think of the other girl’s family.”

  The father stared at Julian in amazement. “My Angelita is dead less than one hour. You come to me and say, ‘Please! Give me her riñones! We will cut her open! And then you ask me to think of another little girl? Get out! Get out of here!”

  Julian turned silently to the door and stepped out. As it closed behind him, he looked one last time at the family of Angelita Juarez, a little girl whose perfect little kidneys, through a series of chemical changes, would soon be reduced to two lumps of decomposing waste.

  Waste.

  Angelita was dead—and so was the little girl across town.

  North Carolina State University, May 2003

  Nick Polchak stood with his nose less than twelve inches from the blackboard, his right hand waving a stick of chalk like a conductor’s baton. From time to time he stopped abruptly, and the chalk would tap out a hypnotic staccato; then he would suddenly arch away from the blackboard, study his most recent series of scratchings, make a few quick edits with his left hand, and begin again. He spoke directly to the blackboard, as though students might somehow be trapped behind it. In fact, they were behind him, fighting off heat-induced slumber and cursing the fate that had forced them to take General Entomology during a summer session while more fortunate classmates were right now stretching out on the sands at Myrtle Beach.

  “While all bugs are insects, not all insects are bugs,” Nick confided to the blackboard. “True bugs belong to the suborder Heteroptera; these include lace bugs, squash bugs, chinch bugs, red bugs, water bugs. The tips of their wings are membranous, but only the tips—insects with entirely membranous wings belong to the suborder Homoptera, which includes cicadas, treehoppers, aphids, and lantern flies. Both orders, of course, are characterized by sucking mouthparts—”

  “Dr. Polchak,” a weary voice interrupted, “will this be on the final?”

  The chalk stopped tapping. Nick turned slowly and looked over the class as if he were shocked to discover someone sitting behind him.

  “Who said that?”

  The soft shuffling of papers and shifting of bodies abruptly stopped; all eyes turned to the blackboard. Nick Polchak was a legend among students at NC State. He was a professor who had been censured by his own department so many times that he had achieved an almost mythical status. Nick was a forensic entomologist in a department of ho
rticulturalists and livestock specialists, a man whose private research on human decomposition had spawned a dozen campus legends about missing undergraduates and shallow graves deep in the Carolina woods. But the best-known thing about Nick Polchak, the thing that every student knew about, was his eyes. Nick wore the largest, thickest glasses anyone had ever seen, and they made his chestnut eyes appear enormous. But it was more than size—it was the way the eyes moved. They floated and darted like synchronized hummingbirds; they scanned and penetrated like orbiting probes; they disappeared completely when Nick closed his eyes, then suddenly reappeared twice as imposing as they were just a moment ago.

  Nick’s entomology courses were among the most popular on campus. Everyone wanted a chance to look at him—but no one wanted Nick to look back; those eyes were just too much to bear. Whenever Nick turned from the blackboard—an event that was mercifully rare—every head was bowed and every pen was busy. Everyone knew that Nick Polchak loved insects more than anything in the world. He was the Bug Man—and someone just asked the Bug Man if bugs would be on the final exam.

  A young man in the second row, squeezing himself down into the recesses of his writing desk, looked up to see twin moons rise in the sky above him.

  “It seems a bit premature,” Nick said, “to be asking in the first week of a course whether ‘this will be on the final.’ It shows tremendous … foresight.”

  Nick blinked, and the brown moons vanished—then they flashed open again, even larger than before.

  “What you’re really asking me is whether this”— he gestured to the blackboard—“is worth knowing.” Nick cocked his head to one side and studied the young man’s face as though he were searching for those sucking mouthparts. “Insects comprise the largest class in the animal world,” he said. “Ninety-five percent of all animal species are insects. There are about a million known species; there may be thirty million more waiting to be discovered. They are distributed from the polar regions to the rain forests, from snowfields in the Himalayas to abandoned mines a mile underground. They flourish in the hottest deserts, on the surface of the ocean, in thermal springs—even in pools of petroleum. The smallest insect is less than a hundredth of an inch long; there is a kind of tarantula that weighs a quarter of a pound and measures eleven inches toe to toe. It has fangs an inch long. It eats birds. Is any of this worth knowing?