The Organ Broker

by Stu Strumwasser

  “There are no tin shacks you know, Jack. Alex looks like a poor little city. There’re buildings and even schools.”

  I continued to watch the road.

  “What is it you’re looking for, Jack? Dr. Wolff was worried about me bringing you here.”

  “It’s not his concern. I just want to see where they come from.”

  “The natives, Jack?” he asked, again grinning.

  “The organs, Pierre.”

  That shut him up for a bit. I had always felt a subtle competitiveness from Pierre, but he usually yielded when the conversation required one party to give way. After a long minute or two of silence, Pierre again said, “Really, what is it you’re looking for, Jack?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s not a zoo, you know,” he said more quietly.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  Again, Pierre side-stepped my sarcasm. “We’ll meet one of my people. Two white men can’t prance into Alex alone. Dr. Wolff told me to keep you safe.”

  “Okay.”

  “Jack,” he said, a little more strongly, “you can’t ever come here without me. You wander into Alexandra on your own and you’re dead in an hour. It’s all real here, Jack.”

  ◆

  It was only about a ten- or fifteen-minute drive until Pierre pulled over and parked on a nondescript stretch of road. If I looked only to the right the road looked no different from any other in a wealthy, northern part of Jozi near Sandton. To the left, however, was a dangerous slum. I’m no longer surprised by the proximity of the shantytowns and townships to the rest of the city. It’s as if they dropped a poverty-stricken internment camp right into the middle of Manhattan and there was nothing more separating it from Chelsea or Soho than the simple knowledge among locals that you don’t go past certain streets. Sometimes there is no gate or fence or any structure whatsoever to separate the two worlds. There is merely a stark line of mental demarcation. On one side of the road, there are middle-class white people going about their business and on the other side, in the shadow of their homes and office buildings, are the vivid results of hundreds of years of slavery and apartheid. Government-reported unemployment among such people is about 35 percent, but in reality it is closer to 50 percent. Electricity and running water are spotty. If the homes aren’t literally tin shacks made out of scrap metal and duct tape, they are cheap concrete constructions, funded by occasional initiatives, motivated by the desire to keep them out of the rest of the province more than any concern for their quality of life. The land had been purchased a hundred years ago prior to it becoming illegal for blacks in South Africa to own real estate. Crime cannot be measured. In such a place, murder is a daily occurrence and there are essentially no women who haven’t suffered rape or sexual abuse at some time or another. These were, of course, the perfect conditions for a man like Pierre Kleinhans to seed a “farm.”

  Pierre probably spent years making contacts inside of that place, the way I had spent years making contacts at transplant centers. Did he meet them on the periphery, like we would apparently do today? Did he buy them Scotches in the comfort of hotel bars in Sandton?

  There were several transplant centers around the world that were on the take and who dealt directly with their own Pierre Kleinhanses, so I didn’t have to. I could merely pay off surgeons or hospital administrators and when someone needed a kidney, I faxed them my client’s medical details, and they would provide the part, paying careful attention to blood type, MHC, and HLA matching criteria—like an auto dealership that had ordered up a part for your car from a distributor in Ohio who bought it from a factory in Mexico. I never cared much about where the parts came from; I just dealt with the dealerships. I sent them email and faxes from across the ocean. But suddenly I felt touched by it. I needed to see the raw and fertile fields of the farm.

  Pierre reached in front of me and opened the glove compartment, revealing a handgun that he tucked inside his belt. “Here he is,” he said, motioning to a middle-aged black man approaching the car. “Dr. Wolff said let you get a look and let’s not get anyone hurt today so let’s make it like that, Jack. Let’s get you a look but no problems please.”

  “I don’t want any problems,” I said quietly, assessing the man approaching us. His clothes were entirely western. His demeanor was entirely blank. Tough to read. He did not wave or smile but he nodded very slightly to Pierre. That told me a little about him.

  Pierre popped open the door handle on his side to exit the car so I followed suit. He walked to the front of the car to greet the man and they shook hands. They exchanged a few words but it wasn’t in English or Afrikaans. It might have been Zulu. “This is New York Jack,” Pierre said then and the man extended his hand and met my gaze. I shook his hand and Pierre added, “Thaba,” indicating his name.

  “Hello,” I said, assuming he spoke English.

  “You want to see inside Alex?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “For business,” I replied. I felt as if I couldn’t just say, “I don’t know.”

  Pierre said something to him in the other language again. Thaba shrugged. Pierre spoke again and then he nodded. “Okay,” Thaba said. “Come,” and he started walking in the direction of Alexandria, only about a block from our car.

  “You give a lot of walking tours?” I dead-panned.

  “What?” from Thaba, over his shoulder.

  “Jack …” from Pierre.

  “I’m just a bit excited, Pierre,” I said. “Even though it’s not a zoo.”

  ◆

  The Dark City was different from some other black townships in that the buildings were more substantial, looked more permanent. It was just as dangerous as any other place if you made a mistake, but the people there were apparently a little more acclimated to white people sniffing around. Being white in Alex might indicate that you were from the government—assessing a project to build a school or clinic—or perhaps from a local hospital or some other aid organization. If you were white and standing within the confines of Alexandra, you were probably there to somehow help the local population, so you were more likely to be left alone—unless you carried the scent of money. Wolff probably told Pierre, “If he has to go, take him to Alex.” He probably added, “But bring a local, and for God’s sake bring a weapon just in case.”

  ◆

  We crossed a street and entered what looked like an alley, but it was their equivalent of an avenue. It was lined on both sides by squat concrete structures, pinkish, one-story huts. The population in these places is usually young because those who can get out, do, and for the rest, life expectancy is low. There were young black men standing in doorways, sitting on boxes in the dirt street, some walking past us, on their way to nowhere, I supposed. We only saw a few women, and not many children. Thaba spoke to one or two people in that native language. I didn’t know what they said, but it was never with a smile.

  ◆

  We had walked a couple of blocks when Thaba stopped and said something to Pierre. Kleinhans turned to me and said, “He doesn’t want to go too deep into the township with you. He asked if there is anything in particular you want to see?”

  “This is fine,” I said, directing my speech to Thaba. “Just a few more minutes please.”

  “Okay.” Thaba shrugged. “Come.”

  We walked for another few blocks and made a few turns, mostly rights. He was circling us back toward the car and staying on the periphery of the township. We came upon a sort of large, open courtyard. In the back was a dirt area that appeared to serve as a soccer field. There were some kids kicking a ball around. When they noticed us, one young man broke away from the group and immediately began walking toward us. He picked something up—it was round and might have been another ball—and continued approaching us. He looked about fifteen years old, but he was tall, nearly my height, six feet, and very thin. He had no shoes on and his T-shirt was ripped. As he got close to us, a wide and genuine smile broke out on his face
and he said, “Kidney Thaba!” in English. Thaba responded to him in the other language and the boy said, “Oh, Kidney Thaba. I am always friendly!” Then, he turned to me, or perhaps to both me and Pierre, and asked, “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Jack.”

  “Kidney Jack!” he said with a big smile.

  “No.”

  “You’re with Thaba,” he said, “you don’t come to buy a kidney?”

  Pierre said something to him in the other language and his smile dipped in radiance but was not erased.

  Thaba said, “This is Lesedi. He live here. I know him. He want to sell a kidney. He is too young,” Thaba said.

  “Not anymore,” Lesedi replied. He was still smiling. I noticed then that the “soccer ball” he was holding was made of tape, layer after layer of it. It was dirty and frayed all over, not much bigger than a softball.

  “I am Lesedi,” he said, and extended his hand, smiling this big shit-eating grin like he thought our meeting was rather hysterical.

  I couldn’t help but laugh a little as I took his hand and said, “I am Jack.”

  “All right Jack! Kidney Jack!” he said.

  “Just Jack.”

  “Jack! Okay. Jack. When you need a good kidney, you come here to the football pitch. I am always here. Right, Thaba? Come anytime, Jack.” Then he lowered his voice, “But bring American money,” he added more quietly, still smiling broadly.

  I nodded. He gave a short laugh. He was performing, but he seemed sort of smart and also genuinely likable. “So you want a nice drink of water, Jack?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “He makes a joke,” Thaba said.

  “It’s time to go, Jack,” Pierre said, and we turned and headed back the way we had come.

  Lesedi yelled, “Jack!” and the three of us all turned back toward him. He flashed that huge half-fake/half-real smile and then did a standing back flip—just jumped up in the air and flipped completely over, backwards, landing on his feet. It was quite impressive. “Two very good kidneys!” he said. Then he waved like a little kid, added, “Merry Christmas, New York Jack!” and ran back to join the others. I liked him.

  ◆

  This is the thing that our government and the uninformed still don’t understand: There is no shortage of organs; there is only a shortage of organs in America. And not since the early years have my associates and I had a difficult time locating customers for our imported products. I always had more leads than I could handle. Besides, every time a patient suffering through late-stage renal failure said, “I would never buy a kidney,” for some ill-conceived ethical, moral, or religious reason, he laid one more brick in the foundation of the booming black market for organs. Those were the people that sustained the system; the system sustained the black market; and the black market sustained the guys like me.

  ◆

  When Wallace called I had already been back in New York for a few days.

  “I need a couple of Eighties,” he said. We sometimes referred to kidneys as Eighties since they comprised eighty percent of the waiting list. We called livers Fifteens. Then Wallace added, “It’s pretty routine. You want to get those for me? After the new year?”

  “Not a problem,” I replied.

  “Everything’s okay?” he asked.

  “I just got back from Jozi. It’s all buttoned down. Supply is great right now.” “But everything’s okay?” he asked, clearly referring to the Marlene Brown thing.

  “Wallace,” I said slowly, for emphasis, “yes, everything is okay. Everything is.”

  “It’s just that you worried me last month,” he said quietly.

  “Asked and answered.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Asked and answered. It’s lawyer talk for, ‘We already discussed this so please don’t ask me again just to bust my balls.’”

  He laughed a bit. “Okay.” Then he added, “So everything’s okay in Jozi?”

  “Perfect. My guy is running the entire show now. Things will get even easier.”

  “When you say the whole show … ?”

  “Yes, all of it. Chief Administrator.”

  “Wow. Okay,” Wallace said. “Good times.”

  ◆

  Wallace thinks ahead; I think of leaving. Could I finally just fade away to Tucson? Could I leave New York and let my lease expire and send them a check for a few grand to dispose of the furniture I’d leave behind? I could burn my phones and email addresses—for the last time—and start fresh, with a last name I would keep. I have the money I need. I could get a new phone and email account, accrue contacts. Personal contacts. I’d have the pool, and the golf courses, and dogs barking in the windows of condos, piercing the stillness, to remind me that it is real. I could get that by stepping on the throat of one last seller. Couldn’t I forget them? Mark. He’s like the fingerprint I left behind at what would have otherwise been a perfect crime scene. He’s beautiful, but he ties me to it. I could go to Tucson, but he’d still be in New York. Michelle would be in New York too. How did things get this way? On the driving range, at the supermarket, on the highway driving to Phoenix… . Is it too late? I’m forty-five years old. Can’t people change sometimes? But Tucson is too close to the border, and to reminders of immigrants, and climbing over fences and dying on the trains at night and selling parts of themselves off for food to feed their families, and soon enough you just find yourself caught up in it all and planning trips to Thailand for old, white men from LA who have drank and eaten their way into renal failure. There are no gold watches for kidney brokers.

  PART II: THE EIGHTIES

  CHAPTER FIVE:

  JACKIE TRAYNER

  Growing up in my house was like being a declawed housecat in a home dominated by a large, old dog. My father usually took little interest in me, and I kept to myself, but when we occasionally bumped heads it was bad for the housecat. I was fifteen when I had the worst run-in with my father. One day, I got home around six and he was sitting in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette and reading the paper. That house was small and boxy and as soon as you entered through the front door you could see straight into the kitchen to the right, and straight into the small living room to the left. From their bedroom, my mother said, “Jackie?” and my father yelled, “Stay in there!”

  I took a couple of steps toward the kitchen and noticed about half a dozen plastic baggies full of weed spread out on the table. My father took a drag of his cigarette but said nothing. He’d obviously found them in my room. I was terrified. My breathing quickened and I felt a little nauseous. He stood up as I approached, and I stopped a few feet from him, on the other side of the kitchen table. I expected him to yell and threaten me, perhaps lunge forward with an open-hand slap, but he didn’t. After a moment he quietly said, “Go down to my office. I want to talk to you there.”

  I said something like, “I’m sorry, Dad. I know it’s a big mistake. I’m really sorry.” I was probably trembling. But he just took another deep drag of smoke and said, “Go.” We stared at each other for another moment and then he jerked forward a little so I turned and quickly started walking toward the basement door. I got the door open and made my way down a few stairs, when I heard his heavy foot hit the top step. Immediately, I felt something crash down onto the right side of my head and the top of my shoulder. I lost my footing and sort of crumpled forward and down six or seven steps until I landed on the tiled floor of the basement. I pulled up my knees, curled up on the floor with my eyes closed against the beating I thought I was about to get.

  “You think you’re going to embarrass me?!”

  “No!” I screamed.

  “This crap is split up in bags like you’re some kind of fucking drug dealer, you little piece of shit!”

  He stepped down the last few stairs until he was standing just above me. “This. Is. My. House,” he said quietly, with venom in his voice.

  I was crying, but silently. I knew that making a sound would set him off and bring down punches. So I tr
ied to speak without stammering, but what came out was something like, “It w-w-was, a … big mis-mistake. I know.”

  I heard the sound of a zipper. My eyes were still closed. There was a splash of light from the hallway above streaming down on one wall of the stairwell but it was otherwise dark down there. He pulled out his big adult cock and pissed on me. On my face, in my hair … Warm piss soaked my shirt and hair.

  When he was done he moved slowly and that was the meanest part of all. He took his time re-zippering his pants. It was silent for a long moment after that. He must have simply been standing there looking down at me. Finally, he said, “You think you’re smarter than me?” His shoe stepped on the tiles very close to my face, making a tap sound, and then the other shoe hit the first step. He climbed the stairs slowly, the steps creaking under the weight of his large frame. It took me a minute or two to calm myself down enough to stand. I pushed my fingers back through my hair, pushing away the piss he had left all over me.

  After a minute or two I started to feel that same numbness that always swept through me in those days. Then I walked up the stairs and through the hall and out the front door as if nothing had happened. No one spoke. I don’t think I even closed the door behind me. I left the house and started walking with no particular destination in mind. I started to feel something down inside of me. It started out as a gurgling sort of ache but grew into a visceral feeling of pain. There was a feeling in my gut that was becoming animated. I felt it straining against my innards, but it wasn’t coming from my stomach. It was lower, nearer to my dick, and it was like a match being lit and I have no idea why it had taken so long… . I could have at least put my hands up. I could have fought back once. I didn’t have to take it so calmly every time. This time, I thought about killing him.