You Shall Know Our Velocity (40 page)

—Lord God, don’t you think I could use these things against you? Don’t you know that what
you
can do,
I
can do? Don’t you know that I can summon your own winds, move the plates of this earth, just as you do? This earth is not yours; it’s ours. Don’t you fucking know this? Why do you play with us when you know I will do the same, and worse, to you? I will bring the winds of your world to bear against you. I will take your winds and twist them and throw them to you. I will mix them with your oceans, I will wrench them together and send them up to you and watch you drown in screaming waters of the blood and bones of your favorites. Look at you. Look at you! You all hairless and white with eyes burning black and red—what makes you so sure I won’t hurt you the same way? What makes you so sure? I can take your skies and rip them in great swaths and crumple them, swallow them, turn them to fire. What makes you think I won’t stalk you to the corners of the earth and make you pay for this? What makes you so sure that I won’t bring it all back to you? I shall have waters of blood cast you away! I will sit upon the mount and send judgment
down upon you. You shall cleave to
my
house! Therefore shall evil come upon thee; and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know! And what shall ye say in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from below? To whom will ye flee for help? And where will ye have your glory?—Oh Lord I am spinning and wet—I will forgive you everything before if you allow us this, if you allow us this. If you should allow us this, if you should invest us with the necessary strength and then clear our path, so shall I honor thee and praise thee across the earth. But if thee shall take him away I will know vengeance—

“I’ve got an idea,” Hand said. “Get off the floor.” Hand had been on the phone with a few of his medical acquaintances in St. Louis, and found a place in Mexico that did experimental spinal cord surgery.

“Where?”

“Chiapas.”

“No.”

“I swear.”

The vertebrae would be replaced by ceramics made from molds of the originals, and the spinal cord would be frozen first—Hand said
hypothermal shock treatment—
making it more accepting of treatment, to peripheral nerve grafts—

“Insurance isn’t going to pay for that kind of thing,” I said. I was standing again now, and we were next to the blood orange painting. The painter of that orange was a lunatic.

“So? You have money,” Hand said.

I did. I did! I was thrilled with the idea of using it now.
I’ll use that godforsaken money!
I could use that money. The money had a purpose. I felt a divine order that I’d never known before. This was why I had been given the money. It all made sense.
Of course it makes sense! There is order!
A lightbulb, a windfall, now this.

—Lord God this is your last chance.

I was sure the Mexican treatment would cost exactly $80,000. This would work. It would be hard but it was possible. Sometimes there was work laid out before you and you had to thrust yourself into it and find your way out of it. I’d pay to fly Jack down there, however they did it. Was that some kind of helicopter? “A military plane,” Jack said. That we’d hook onto a military jet already heading down that way. Or maybe the cargo hold of a regular jet. I’d never seen a gurney on a plane. “It’ll cost more than $80,000,” Hand said. “All in all, the whole treatment will end up costing more like half a million.” “No, no,” I said, so sure. “It’ll be $80,000. It won’t be more.” There’s a reason. This was when there would be a reason. He let it go.

It was only five o’clock in Hawaii so I called Cathy Wambat to make sure I could access all the money right away. It would take a day or two for the mutual funds, she said, and I’d be taxed. Fine, I said. How much in cash did I have? About twenty thousand, she said, in a money market. We hadn’t invested it yet. Good, I said. $20,000 would be enough to get us started in Mexico, for sure. They’d know we could afford the procedure, they’d know we were serious. What about cash? I said. How would I get that in cash? I thought they’d prefer to have it in cash, to be able to prove it, clearly and without hesitation. She suggested a wire transfer. They could do one within an hour, she said. I said okay but wasn’t sure. Would we have that hour? We’d know once we got to Mexico.

The payphone rang. It was my mom. Cathy had called her and given her the number. It was two in the morning. I didn’t want to talk to her yet. Cathy hadn’t known why I wanted the money but called Mom anyway. I’m driving up, she said. I told her we were bringing Jack to Mexico and we’d be gone by the time she made it here. I begged her not to ask questions—the plan was still in the works. It would be hard but it could be done. She could fly, she
said. I told her to wait until the next day—maybe she should meet us in Mexico. How would she get to Mexico from Memphis? she asked. I don’t know, I said. You’re wasting our time. I made her promise she wouldn’t tell Jack’s parents about our plans. They wouldn’t understand.

Now how to get to Mexico? We knew it was too far for a helicopter. But how to get the military plane? Hand thought he had a connection outside of Kansas City, at Whiteman Air Force Base. So a chopper to Kansas? Too far. Hand remembered a guy he knew at the base in Peoria—someone in the Air Guard there. Peoria was much closer. A chopper to Peoria, then to Kansas? Or maybe a plane from Great Lakes Naval Base? No, no, we had no connections there. We’d have to drive part of the way.

Fond du Lac to Peoria

Peoria to Whiteman

Whiteman to Mexico City

But why Whiteman at all? Maybe we could skip Whiteman. But did they have jets at Peoria, or were those all propeller planes? Hand was mulling. Hand made more calls. Soon we were sure the doctors were hiding something. We’d seen them talking among themselves, looking concerned, and one doctor raised his voice, angry at the rest of them, then was hushed. They avoided us. They avoided our stares! There was internal dissent. Someone had fucked up. Now it was too late for them to fix it. We had to leap in.

But the choppers and planes were falling through. Hand was calling his connections and getting no help. Regular people didn’t get flown around on military planes, and we’d need to be family to get him on a commercial jet. Maybe bribe an agent at the airline? Too big a risk. We knew we might have to drive him all the way ourselves. We’d probably have to. We’d rent a minivan. The drive would take about thirty hours, we figured. Maybe more? Forty hours. We’d call his parents from the road. They’d know it was the
best thing. They’d know they’d given up but we hadn’t and that it was worth a shot. We had the money, we’d tell them. We had $80,000 and that would cover it completely. We’d have to be vague enough so they wouldn’t try to find us, stop us. They’d have lost their minds by then and couldn’t be trusted. They’d thank us in the end. We’d save Jack so they’d have to thank us. Would we get stopped at the border? We didn’t know. We could hide him. He could be sleeping. We’d lower the gurney so it looked like a bed. We’d bring lots of pillows.

We asked again but they said it would be at least another twelve hours before we could go in and see him. “He’d want to see us,” I told the doctor, and she nodded, and agreed but then said it would be twelve hours. We’d lock her in the closet. They were working on some of the lower vertebrae, then had to relieve some pressure on the brain stem, and then—

It’s 3
A.M.
We went to the parking lot again, to race. We were so wired we needed to run. We raced from one end to the other, dodging parked cars, under the lights that give us each six speeding shadows. The finish line was over a low hedge, rough, black—we had to jump it to win. There was work to be done but not yet; the time would come. When Mexico wakes up we’d call and let them know we’re coming; when Jack stabilized we’d take him. But for now we’d have to fill the hours without sleeping and we ran around the parking lot and Hand imitated the way Jack runs, chest first, chin jutting out like he was forever at the finish line.

At 5
A.M.
we were back inside and Jack’s mom came in from the ICU. She said Jack’s mental activity was minimal and was diminishing hourly. What does that mean? I asked. She said it meant that he didn’t have any noticeable cranial activity—did she say cranial? that’s not even right—that he was fading. She didn’t say brain dead. She said his mental activity was receding, something like that. Hand wanted more details but she didn’t have them. She
and her husband weren’t asking the right questions. We needed to be in charge. So they did an MRI? Hand asked. Of course, she said. He’s not responding to any stimuli, she said. That doesn’t mean anything, I said. You can’t measure mental activity. You can’t! I said. You’re right, Hand said. Jack’s mom left and Hand said he’d once read some journals to the same effect and that I was probably right. No one knew anything about mental activity. Can’t measure it. Inexact science. Hand and I gave her words almost no thought.

Hand went to the Walgreen’s again and got an atlas and plotted the best route down. We asked a nurse, our age, black and sturdy, how long each IV lasted. We’d need at least six of them, we figured. We’d bring ten. We asked if they had any portable respirators, respirators that could run on some kind of generator and into a car. Hand had been sure that they had portable kinds of every machine, and all had to be able to function in case of a power outage. She explained that the hospital had something that might be able to work if rigged properly. They had them in ambulances, after all. We’d go to the hardware store for wiring in the morning. When did everything open? Hardware was usually at six. The hours went quickly until five, then stopped. Between five and six we slapped ourselves to stay awake, alert. There was no news.

At 6
A.M.
Hand went to the hardware store and came back with hundreds of dollars in extension cords, electrical wiring, copper cable—I didn’t ask—and a small generator. At 7:30 I left to rent the minivan. We weren’t that far from the Enterprise so they picked me up. It took too long. I waited in the parking lot for half an hour, cursing them, planning to ruin their van. A young bright cheerful guy with his polo shirt-collar turned up brought me to the office and twenty minutes later I was in the hospital lot, with a minivan the color of grape juice and we were removing the seats. The two back seats had to be taken out but to where? We left them on the sidewalk, planning to hide them in the woods across the
street. So many other things had to be figured out. My car, which we’d driven up, would be found by the cops and they’d tow it and keep it once they knew we’d taken Jack. Did I care? I couldn’t decide. No, I didn’t care much. I moved it to the back of the lot, anyway, behind the building, near the dumpsters, still expecting to lose it. I grabbed what I could from the backseat and brought it to the minivan. The van was a strong car, and we could go fast. We could get a ticket in each state and still be fine. Just part of the trip. Wouldn’t have to sleep or stop, with two of us driving. The terrain would get warmer as we got closer to where we’d bring Jack to have him saved, to have him wake up and say
Shit, guys, where the fuck am I?
and we’d tell him the story, and he’d be so amazed, but then not so surprised. As he recuperated everyone would come down and visit, and eventually we’d wonder if we should, hell, maybe stay down in Mexico after all, the three of us. Land down there would be so much cheaper than even Phelps, right? Damn right it would be cheaper. Maybe Jack would be fragile afterward. He’d be like Kennedy, where he’d be playing touch football and be fine that way, but also brittle, never quite robust again. Kennedy! Damn, that’s who he looked like! Or was it just his hair, that neat part he wore? Or was it just the name they shared? I was trying to think, and was shielding my eyes from the new sun, low and screaming at me, watching as Hand was jogging back from the woods, where he’d hidden the seats. It was getting hot already, so early, when Jack’s mom came out of the hospital doors and toward us with her hands clasped over her head—

“Not again,” Hand said.

“I’m not, fucker.”

“Don’twiththenewguyinthecar.”

“I’m not.”

Taavi said nothing.

The road bled into Pärnu, a small city of red squat brick buildings, and in its center the spires of a squat burgundy municipal building. This was where he was getting off, Taavi said.

“Here, stop please,” he said. We stopped at a gas station. Hand gave him his address, and Taavi said he’d send Hand a tape, and we all said goodbye. Taavi got out and walked briskly across the parking lot, heading to the bus stop across the street. I pulled all the German marks out of my sock and gave them to Hand.

“Good,” said Hand. “I was hoping you’d do that.”

He ran after Taavi.

He caught up with him in the road and handed him the bills, about $850. “For the band,” he said, “but not for vodka!” Taavi laughed and thanked him and jogged across the street. Hand walked back and closed the door and turned up the heat.

“That was good,” said Hand.

I pulled out of the lot. We passed him, as he waited at the bus stop, but didn’t want him to see us anymore, so we didn’t wave.

“You still want to?” Hand asked.

I did.

At this point, the kids were definitely out of school. It was almost four and in the fading light—just a drop of yellow in a shallow pool of white—we saw them everywhere, the small people. Hand was driving now, and we passed the residential area off the main road, between the railroad tracks and the ocean. We knew where the kids were; now we had to bury the treasure.

We had at best an hour of daylight. We left town and after a few miles pulled off at some sort of forest preserve. We drove down a winding road, then over a set of train tracks, and immediately hit a three-pronged fork in the road. Hand stopped the car.

“This is as good as anyplace.”

I agreed.

We got out and surveyed. I found a crooked tree about fifty feet from the base of the fork. Behind it there was already a kind of hole—home for chipmunks or snakes. It would do. I took a roll of bills from my left sock. With his feet Hand started gauging the distance from the fork to the tree, heel to toe, slowly, as if measuring a room. He was counting, concentrating, so I got a funny idea. Something funny I would say.