Daniel Rose - Larry's Kidney, Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China

2010

When Larry and I were in China, a number of people put themselves and their livelihoods on the line to help us. Throughout the writing of this book, it has been crucial to protect these people by preserving their anonymity. For this reason, I have changed names, locations, and key features of several individuals and institutions, and have compressed a few time lines connected to their activities, so that they may continue their lives without being identified.

A word about the dialect: Although it has traditionally been considered condescending to write in dialect, the climate seems to be changing-and for good reason. In his recent book about India, The Elephanta Suite, Paul Theroux uses such locutions as wicious for vicious, moddom for madam, and wee-icle for vehicle in an effort to transmit more shades of emotional truth than a sanitized transcript can. Nor is the practice limited to native English writers. By writing, My bawss was sacked, so we got laid all together in his recent novel A Free Life, the Chinese-American author Ha Jin suggests how cross-cultural communication is a creative process for both native and visitor, with results that are sometimes as revealing as Freudian slips. Track ing both how foreigners use the English language and how an American visitor scrambles to make sense of foreign sounds is here meant to transmit the spirit of modern travel-equal parts charming and alarming.

Larrys dialect, meanwhile, is another matter entirely.

The cautious seldom err.

Huwwo?

Hello, whos this?

Huwwo, Dan?

Yes. Whos this, please?

This is Larry, Dan.

Who?

Larry. Your cousin.

Whoa, my long-lost cousin Larry?

Yes, Dan, thats a fair description. I deserve that. I take full responsibility for being out of touch.

My black-sheep cousin Larry?

Thats also apt, as long as youre simply stating a fact and dont mean it in a negative way. Where did I reach you?

Actually, Im on a chairlift in the Colorado Rockies, Larry, a couple of miles above sea level.

In the middle of summer? Im somewhat dubious. Not that Im calling you a liar, necessarily, but people have been known to alter their whereabouts to avoid speaking to people they arent necessarily eager to speak to.

Im with my mountain bike, Larry-about fifty feet in the air, overlooking miles of ski trails that double as bike trails in the summer.

There, you see? Im not dubious anymore. A perfectly cogent explanation. Some family members who will go unnamed-except that its Cousin Burton-consider me an unreasonable man, but I just object to being lied to, or considered an idiot simply because I dropped out of high school instead of taking the standard family route of going to Harvard or Brown, which you never did.

Never did what?

Considered me an idiot, at least to my face, which is one of the reasons I always looked up to you, Dan, even though you did go to Brown. Are you alone?

Im here on vacation with my wife and two sons.

I heard you got remarried. Ive been meaning to call you. Congratulations.

Well, thats fourteen years ago now, Larry, but thanks. Where are you?

Im under my blankets in my Florida condo. I havent come out for two days.

Whatre you doing there?

Im [-SQUAWK-]ing, Dan.

Youre what? Were passing over some sort of radio tower or something. Whatd you say you were doing?

[-SQUAWK-]ing.

What?

Dying, Dan. I need a favor.

[Click.] The line goes dead.

The phone rings again twenty seconds later. I scramble to adjust my bike so I can keep one hand free, and there it is again, the lugubrious voice, like that of a funeral director with a slight speech impediment. Huwwo.

Larry, sorry about that. Hold on a second, Ive got to take these earplugs out. Okay, I can hear you better.

Whats with the earplugs? Is it cold?

No, nothing. My kids are nine and twelve, is all. It gets kinda noisy. Guys, I say, securing a couple of fast-moving collars within my fist so they stop ramming their handlebars into each other, if you dont stop fooling around, someones going to fall right under the-

Huwwo?

Larry, Im still here. So what do you mean, dying? Literally or metaphorically?

Literally, Dan. Kiddie disease.

Kiddie-

Kidney, kidney. Consequently, Im depressed beyond all measure. More than depressed: Im depressionistic. But first I have to ask: Are you still mad at me?

Mad? You mean for ratting me out to the FBI that time, telling them Id inflated my income on a condo mortgage application, which you specifically advised me to do because you needed the commission?

I was upset, Dan. Im not proud of it.

And why were you upset? Because I had the gall to ask for the thousand dollars back that Id loaned you to spot your latest invention.

Youre right, Dan, I regret it.

Which as I recall was for wooden neckties.

Which you could sponge the gravy stains off of. I still maintain that would have been huge if Id had the proper financing.

The chairlift stalls above a grove of majestic pine trees, allowing the boys a momentary calm to see how far they can dangle one of the front wheels off the side. I nearly lose the phone grabbing a tire.

No, Im not mad at you anymore, especially since the FBI laughed it off. Besides, who the hell cares about that, if youre literally dying?

Oh, its literal all right. Diabetes claimed first one, then bofe my kidneys. For two years Ive been on a dialysis machine four hours every other day, watching my life ebb away before my eyes. Solution number one is off the table, because Im not about to ask anyone in the family for their kidney, given how much they dislike my guts, which I assure you is mutual. But solution number two is surprisingly doable: Ive been researching the Internet from under the blankets, and it turns out China does more kidney transplants than any other nation. And I wont have to wait on a list seven to ten more years for a cadaver kidney, as my overcautious American doctors are telling me to-we could get a live one fairly quickly, if we make the right connections.

Larry, hold on-what do you mean we?

Youre an old China hand, Dan. You used to do that travel column in Esquire-

Larry, I havent been to China in twenty-five years! I dont have any more contacts there than you do.

At least you know your way around. Ive hardly ever been out of the States, except for luxury cruises to the Caribbean, which I could maybe fix you up on sometime, because college girls do things on a cruise ship theyd never dream of doing on shore, believe me, you could pass yourself off as a professor-

[Click.] The line goes dead.

Huwwo.

The chairlift is still stalled in the middle of the Rockies, giving me a chance to take in the scenery: azure peaks crosshatched by bicycle spokes. My wifes provisionally pacified the boys with an emergency Milky Way.

Larry, I cant promise we wont get cut off again. The winds kicking up, and were swaying like a-

This must be eating up your airtime, Dan. I apologize. No, Ill do better. Send me the bill, you know Im good for it-in fact, let me buy you a coupla new cell phones, those new ones that work at any attitude? I dont want to put you out any more than I have to.

Youre not putting me out, exactly, Larry, its just-

We go there, we grab a kidney, we come back. Couldnt be simpler. Only one glitch, Dan, which honesty bids me report, because I want to start a new slate with you and be on the up-and-up about everything: Theyve made it somewhat illegal.