The Organ Broker

by Stu Strumwasser

  “That? Nothing. I was in the studio before …”

  “You’re an artist?”

  “No,” he said, looking down, shaking his head a bit.

  “Mark, the person I was,” I began in a low, gruff rumble of coffee-voice, “your mom was right to tell you the way she did. The way I have … structured things, lived my life… .” I felt exhausted. The mere fact of meeting him, of knowing that I had created a son with Carrie Franco, that alone was enough to send me to Tucson for a month of recovery.

  “Yeah?” he said, asking me to finish.

  “I’m just glad that she kept you from me,” I said rather quietly and without a sense of melodrama. I wanted to leave.

  “That’s shitty.”

  “I don’t mean it that way,” I said, “I mean that I am glad for your sake.”

  “Yeah, I knew what you meant,” he responded. “But it’s shitty to you.”

  “You don’t know me,” I said, a bit sadly.

  His hair was starting to dry. It was ending up a little curly, not much like mine, I thought. His eyes were blue. They were just like mine—not pure blue, but bluish-green swirled, a bit like marbles. They were the same knowing, calm, cynical, observant pair of eyes I’d been seeing in a mirror for forty-four years.

  “That’s true. I don’t know much about you, dude,” he said, and for the first time in twenty minutes took a big draw on his coffee. “I know some things about who you were twenty-two years ago, but all I know about you now is that you live in New York, you’re a lawyer, and you are really, really hard to track down.”

  “Harder than you know.” I smiled a little.

  “My mom did love you, you know.”

  “Oh?’ I said, casually, Def-Con Two ringing somewhere in the back of my head.

  “Yeah. But a lot changes at this time, my mom says. You leave school and things start to have consequences. Mom keeps telling me that this is an important time for a person. Decisions made for you guys then, for me now, she thinks it matters a lot. She keeps telling me that lately.”

  “Does she know you came to meet me?”

  “Jack,” he began, in a stronger tone, “I want you to know that I’m all good. I am pretty happy. I like school—”

  “Does she know that you came to meet me?”

  “Yeah. She knows. I said that. We fought about the whole thing. Anyway, sometimes I think I should have majored in something with a career path—I mean, I’m a philosophy major, a philosopher of all things—but I may go to law school. You wanna know this shit, right?” I nodded affirmatively. “I have a great boyfriend, and we’re genuinely in love. I came out to my mom when I was sixteen and she didn’t flinch.” He paused. “By the way, you look like you’re flinching a bit yourself right now there, Jack.”

  “No. I’m not. That’s fine.”

  “Okay. Well, I love him. For real love. My parents do too. That took a while—he’s twelve years older than me—but they do now. And I have great friends and I don’t need anything from you. My parents are pretty wealthy. I’m good. I just thought that we should know each other. But I don’t have any kinda agenda. Just to meet. Cool?”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say we can grab a cup of coffee again some time. That’s all, and we’re cool.”

  “Mark, do you … don’t you have anything you want to ask me, to know about me?”

  “Of course,” he said. “But I thought maybe I could get to know you a little rather than interview you. Whenever you want to tell me is fine. Is there something you wanna tell me now, Jack?” he asked with a grin.

  He was likable.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

  MARK AND PHILIP

  Mark and I did meet again, but it wasn’t for a few more weeks. In late February he suddenly called the cell number I had given him. It was two months after the Marlene Brown funeral and I still didn’t feel like myself. We agreed to have dinner together. We made a plan to meet at Antonio’s on Seventh in the Fifties. I was sitting at the bar drinking the Macallan Eighteen neat and Mark was about ten minutes late. When he finally arrived, I noticed him right away, saw him checking his coat and smiling nervously to another young man who was trailing him. He saw me at the bar and approached.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s ten minutes. Don’t worry.”

  “No, about Philip, I mean.” Then he motioned toward the other man and said, “Philip.” He gestured toward me and said, “Jack.”

  “Hi,” Philip said quietly, and we shook hands. Philip was young too. Mark had mentioned that he was twelve years older than him, putting Philip in his early thirties, but he looked younger. He wore a black pinstriped suit that looked custom-tailored. He unobtrusively waited for someone else to lead the conversation; somehow his demeanor seemed almost apologetic. I took him for smart and there was something I liked about him immediately.

  “Jack, we’re late because, well we had a little debate about Philip coming and then we also debated whether we needed to give you a heads-up or maybe just not concern you by making a big deal and I just hope it’s okay because I—

  “I insisted,” Philip interjected with a slightly conspiratorial smile as he leaned into the middle of our little circle by the bar.

  “He insisted,” Mark said, sighing a little and smiling.

  “I hope it’s not impolite,” Philip said.

  “It’s fine. We’ll play it where it lies.”

  “Oh, do you play?” Philip asked, picking up on the golf reference.

  “Yes.”

  “Great,” Mark said softly and facetiously, biting at a nail.

  “He doesn’t?” I asked Philip, pointing toward Mark.

  “Jack,” Mark began, “about Philip being here, I just wanted to tell you, we’ve been together over four years now. He’s been with me through this. I mean, learning about you and meeting you … a father’s important—”

  “I think it is too. Let’s sit down and discuss it with a few drinks in us,” I responded.

  ◆

  Philip put his hand on Mark’s shoulder. For some reason I felt a surge of forgotten and terrible longing for Carrie and for those months when we were in love. It occurred to me that those events were twenty years behind me. I felt as if some unseen force had yanked open a spigot in my gut and released a wave of emotions that I thought had been obliterated years before. I can’t say that I remember feeling hopeful in those days with Carrie, but I do know this: in the moments now when I realize that it may be possible to be happy, what I’m left with is regret.

  I wanted to take Mark, right then, and go to Boston, and sit with him and Carrie and just watch them together, simply interact as mother and son. I had nothing to say to them, and it was irrational, but I thought that maybe seeing Carrie and Mark together could somehow unsteel my heart. That thought stayed with me permeating the air in the restaurant like humidity. I finally realized that Mark and Philip were at the table and stood to go join them.

  I sat and no one spoke at first. We passed those small and formulaic “lip-press” smiles to each other, packaged with half-nods.

  “You’re a lawyer?” I finally asked Philip.

  “A lot of lawyers around here,” he said.

  “It looks like I’m going to law school after all,” Mark explained.

  “Oh,” I said and nodded.

  “What do you do, Jack?” Philip asked.

  “Corporate. International.”

  “No one I know knows you,” he added casually.

  “Should they?”

  “I don’t know. Just attorneys.”

  “I rarely do much here in the States anymore. I represent companies in India, China, emerging markets mostly. I travel a lot. My own little firm. Less of a lawyer than a businessperson these days really.”

  “I see,” Philip said. Mark smiled slightly, and I think Philip took his hand underneath the table.

  “Why’d you change your name?” Mark asked bluntly, and then seemed to a
lmost regret having asked. It was matter-of-fact.

  “It’s just that it was nearly impossible to find you,” Philip chimed in.

  “I changed it a long time ago, after my own father died. He was my stepfather. Like Mark,” I lied, “I was raised by my stepfather. So I changed it back to my real name, Tuckman, after he died. Your mom must have told you that.” I actually had no idea if Carrie knew that I had changed my name.

  “She didn’t. But she does think that maybe you don’t want to be found because you were a drug dealer. Because a lawyer doesn’t want to be identified with having been a coke dealer,” Philip said.

  “No. That’s not it.”

  “You weren’t a drug dealer?” Mark asked.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you changed it again?”

  “Sometimes in business I use a pen name. It’s, well, it’s international matters and sometimes it’s complicated.”

  Mark nodded, and said, “Sure. Pen name. Nom de plume. That makes sense,” he said grinning.

  “What about you?” I asked, looking toward Philip and smiling comfortably, condition yellow, but not emergency-mode. Right then the waiter came by and asked for our drink orders. I ordered another Scotch and Philip asked if I might be persuaded to drink some wine as well and I agreed.

  “The Gaja Barbaresco?” he said to the waiter.

  “Of course,” the waiter said with a sincere smile.

  “It would be my treat of course,” Philip said. He seemed genuinely concerned about not committing any sort of faux pas. I knew that bottle and it costs about four hundred dollars.

  “The Gaja is great, Philip. And I appreciate the offer, but I’d like to take care of dinner tonight.” I told the waiter to bring the Scotch while the wine was decanting. Then, turning to Philip again, I asked, “So, what’s your practice like?”

  “I did labor relations and employment matters mostly, occasional civil rights cases which I found to be a lot more engaging, but in the last few years some things have changed and I’ve been focused more specifically on the civil rights actions and doing a lot of pro bono work for non-profits.”

  “I’m proud of him,” Mark said quietly.

  “I do mostly pro Jack work,” I said.

  “As is your right,” Philip returned, smiling slightly. I laughed, just a little. Then Philip said, “I do a lot of stuff for gay rights groups now. I’m trying to help.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “The last bastion of institutional racism,” he said matter-of-factly.

  I nodded. He seemed passionate and genuine, but not self-righteous.

  “Jack,” Mark said with a slight clearing of his throat, “Philip … what changed is that he’s positive. You know? He’s HIV positive.”

  I took a moment and studied him. Watched for signs in the muscles of his face that might tip me off to his emotional state, his reaction to Mark’s words. Almost none. That in itself was telling. I looked then at Mark.

  After a moment he said, “I’m not,” very quietly.

  “Quite an introduction, huh?” Philip said. “Can we drink the wine now?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:

  RECRUITING

  In March of this year I went back to Johannesburg. The morning after I arrived I left my passport and wallet in my room at the Michelangelo, took some cash and the car keys, and headed out in the rental car. A few minutes later I pulled up on the side of the road near the outskirts of Alexandra, exactly where we had parked a couple of months earlier when Pierre and I went to meet Thaba. I left the cash in the glove compartment and stashed the keys under a large rock nearby when I was certain no one was looking. I had nothing on my person of any value. I thought I might be satisfied after the visit in January but I was not. I wanted to talk with the sellers and I knew it would be risky to ask Pierre to bring me there again so I decided to go by myself. It was unlike me.

  I remembered our path from the previous visit. A right and a right and a left and straight for a while before again making two more rights to reach that large clearing. Walking into Alex I felt tired. Tired of my routines, of the travel, of the pretense and the facades. But more than anything, I felt sorry. Perhaps I had gone there to punish myself, but there was no one to apologize to. Over the years I have not spoken to most of our sellers, and I have met only a handful. I walked up the alley and passed men standing in the doorways wearing dirty T-shirts, their vacant stares directed vaguely in my direction. Dark shadows filled up dimly lit rooms behind them. There was a tiny Vodafone office on the first corner. It surprised me that anyone in Alex could afford a cell phone, but also that I had somehow missed it on our first visit. I headed toward that clearing and noticed that one of the men I had passed was following me. He wore a blue and white striped shirt and was hanging back unobtrusively. I decided that he was probably just curious about the white guy and not out to hurt me. And if he was, I would be dead soon and it wouldn’t matter.

  There was garbage in the alleys. The puddles contained maggots that I could see moving at the edges of the water. The structures all seemed lopsided, slightly shifted on their foundations, as if every little building was created and then sort of screwed into the ground to make it stick, each ending up on a slightly uneven angle. After two more turns I came to the clearing and squinted against some dust that was kicking up in the agitated air. I moved aside a little and sat down on the dirt with my back to one of the concrete buildings that made up the square. The air was hot, but not intolerably so. It was March and already getting cooler in South Africa.

  Then I saw Lesedi in the back portion of the square where they played soccer. He was sitting while some kids nearby played a pickup game. His tape ball was on the ground beside him. He noticed me quickly, the only white man in the township, and our eyes met. I didn’t even know I was looking for him until I found him. He did not wave and he did not flash that phony-yet-charming smile of his, but after a few long moments he stood and approached me. Around the same time the man in the blue and white striped shirt emerged into the square, leaned against a wall, and lit a cigarette. Lesedi came to a stop only a couple of feet in front of me. He still wasn’t smiling. He might have even grown an inch or two, I thought. His tape ball was tucked under his arm.

  “You are Jack,” he said, standing above me.

  I was squinting against the sun and looking up at him. “Hello, Lesedi.”

  “You remember Lesedi’s name.” He paused and seemed to be thinking a moment. There was a problem, I knew that, but I didn’t yet understand its nature or how severe it might be for Jack, now vulnerably sitting in the few square meters on earth where he least belonged. He seemed dirtier, a little gaunter than he had appeared to be two months earlier. “Kidney Jack is who you are,” he said, somewhat loudly.

  “I told you, just Jack.”

  “Well you come last time with Thaba. Thaba tells me ten thousand rand for a kidney. Ten thousand to fix the water and help my sisters. But I only get six thousand Rand and Thaba says not to talk to him now.” Ten thousand rand was the equivalent of about fifteen hundred US dollars.

  “Did you … ?” I scrambled to my feet. The man in the striped shirt was about fifteen feet away, smoking. Lesedi was right in front of me. Everyone else in the area—about eight kids playing soccer and four or five adults sitting on cheap broken chairs or standing and talking—had taken notice of me and then gone on about their own business. “Did you sell him a kidney?”

  He smiled a little finally, but this time it was facetious and mean-looking. “My mother died last year, Jack,” he said quietly. “I went with Thaba to Royston Hospital.” He pulled up the left side of his shirt and twisted his thin frame a little and there cut into his lower left side was a nephrectomy scar, not yet fully healed. I thought, No, but I said nothing and just looked at it until he dropped his shirt. He still didn’t speak.

  “Wait,” I said, and then motioned for him to lift his shirt back up. He obliged me. There was still some redness in
one or two spots and what looked like dry and hardened pus, but nothing too bad. It looked like some minor infection that he was actually beating without complications. He was up and about. I wasn’t that alarmed.

  The man in the striped shirt then yelled something that I did not understand.

  I didn’t even turn my head. “Did Thaba give you any pills?” I asked Lesedi.

  “Yes, he gave me the pills for after but he only gives me six thousand rand and not ten thousand. You give me four thousand more.”

  “I didn’t come here carrying any money,” I said and he seemed to believe me.

  Again the man in the striped shirt yelled. Clearly it was meant for me.

  “Lesedi,” I said. “Thaba is not my friend. Walk out with me now, and don’t let this man bother me, and I will give you your money that you deserve.”

  He looked at me for a long moment before responding. I imagined that he was considering whether it was worth four thousand rand to see a white devil bastard get cut open in the village square. He nodded in agreement, opting for the cash, and we turned toward the man in the striped shirt. Lesedi barked something at him in their native language and the man laughed. We passed without incident and made our way back toward my car. It was too hot to be chasing some white guy down the alley in the middle of the African day anyway.

  We crossed the road and I recovered the car key and opened the door. I removed what was about five thousand rand from the glove box, plus another hundred in US dollars, and handed it to him. He took it from me, but he was not satisfied either.

  “I bring shame to my family and my sisters say not to talk to them now. I hid the money in two places and one of the places is found now and the money stolen away from Lesedi.”

  I tried to show him respect by not apologizing or trying to rationalize anything. I said nothing.

  “I do this for my sisters but now they are not my sisters no longer;” he said, finally allowing sadness to infect his speech. I had heard of this, of sellers being ostracized from the very communities and families they were trying to help, but I didn’t expect it in a place like Alex. It was urban and close to a large city. It was incredibly poor but it had a modern sensibility. So many parts must have already come from inside of there. Didn’t Lesedi know what would happen? He was young, but no one is a kid who lives in a place like Alexandra. I wanted to help him, but what could I really do? I couldn’t bring him back to New York and set him up with a job at my make-believe law firm and take him on camping trips. I couldn’t start sending child support checks to the Alexandra Western Union. Pierre certainly wouldn’t help him. All I could do was let the kid have that cash and leave him knowing he’d probably be dead by thirty, assuming he took his meds and lived through the next month.