Card Sharks

  ***

  His name was Daudi, which is Swahili for "Beloved One," and I think it showed a lot of class on the part of his parents to name him such, and keep him, and love him when most of their countrymen viewed him as evil and a monster.

  The day after the attack I came calling. An older man was perched precariously on a step ladder, thatching the roof of the hut. There was the sharp smell of newly hewn wood, and the walls were smooth with fresh mud wattling. Each week the flow of refugees out of Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania swelled our numbers. Housing was at a premium so there was nothing strange about the family building their own hut. It was the placement that was strange - huddled against the barb wire and chain link fence well away from the rest of the village. It depressed me that these people had come seeking a refuge, and as shitty as Kilango was treating them it was still obviously better than what they'd left. If it wasn't they wouldn't have stayed.

  I called out in as friendly and welcoming a voice as I could muster. It didn't seem to help. The man jerked around so fast that he almost pitched off the ladder. He relaxed when he saw me, but his dark eyes were still wary as he descended to the ground.

  He stood before me, his eyes on the ground between us. I thrust out my hand. "Bradley Finn."

  He hesitantly shook. "Our son told us ... what you did." There was another long pause. "Thank you," he finally said.

  I shrugged uncomfortably. "Hey, no problem. I wanted to come by, say welcome, tell you a little about the village - activities, services, that kind of thing. I'm a sort of Peace Corps Welcome Wagon." He didn't get it, and I winced at my feeble attempt at humor.

  He raised wise and knowing eyes to meet mine. "My name is Jonathan wa Phonda. You are welcome at our home, but I wish you would tell me what you really want."

  I could feel myself blushing. "Okay, I was worried about your son. I wanted to invite him into the Scout Troop -" He opened his mouth to interrupt, and I forestalled him with upraised palms. "Please. This village is about not having to hide. I'll look out for him." (As I recall those pompous words all these years later I could fucking cry.)

  "I also need to make certain your family has been immunized. We're getting really crowded here, and we've got to be really careful about infection."

  Jonathan was back looking at the ground. "Doctors are not a thing I trust."

  "I can understand that. Will you at least give me a chance?" I asked.

  We were interrupted by a child's voice lifting in song. It was a beautiful boy soprano singing a hymn.

  "My son," Jonathan said simply.

  "Uh, wow," was my brilliant response.

  "He sings for the comfort of his mother," Jonathan continued. The final notes seemed to waft away on the wind, and Jonathan suddenly indicated the door of the hut. "Won't you come in?"

  "I'd love to, thanks." I started forward only to be arrested by him saying.

  "My wife ... well, do not be too shocked. The disease ... devours her."

  I thought he was being poetical. No such luck. The woman who lay upon the cot was a lovely face with a misshapen torso. No legs. No arms. And the wild card had begun its inroads on her body. It's hard to describe what was happening to her. It was as if her blood had been replaced with acid, and it was slowly eating at her from the extremities in. The pain must have been indescribable, but she still managed to smile at me. The boy looked up in surprise at my entrance.

  "My son, Daudi," Jonathan said with that father's pride that I hope to feel for my own son some day.

  ***

  It took five months before Dad's rubber chicken act was cleared to fly. And my pop and I looked like we were communicating with Mars from the size of his phone bills. And actually that's not true. We'd been cleared to fly three times before, but each time some new bureaucratic objection was raised. One time it was a challenge to the registration and ownership of the plane. Somebody claimed it was South African, and it took two weeks to straighten that out. Then some moron got the idea we were pawning off outdated vaccine on the long suffering natives of Africa, and Dad had to get affidavits from all the pharmaceutical companies. I forget the third crisis, but eventually all the bureaucratic drones were finished pissing in the soup, and a C-111 cargo plane was sitting on the tarmac at LAX slowly being loaded. I had wet dreams at night imagining all those cases and cases of lovely disposable needles that we could well ... dispose.

  In the village I continued to doctor, but I was fighting an uphill battle trying to get Daudi into the clinic for his vaccinations. He might have been only ten, but he was real mature for his age, and he kept asking me the unanswerable question - "if you can't save my mother why should I trust you?"

  At first this was an ego thing with me. I was by God going to get this kid to trust me, and get him vaccinated so he would be protected. Then I grew to like him. Then love him. He adored music, and his passion for new sounds led me into creating an ad hoc music appreciation course to satisfy his cravings. I initially tried rock and roll, the music I enjoy, but I think the wild card had affected Daudi's ears, making him hyper-sensitive. He couldn't take the decibels of rock, so I begged Mom for classical music tapes. Then for my old guitar and sheet music. And it wasn't all one way; by walking this small Kenyan boy through a history of music I found an appreciation for, and an understanding of, classical music that had eluded me as a youth.

  It was my wont once a month to enjoy a weekend of liberty in a suite in one of Nairobi's best hotels. One thing Africa taught me; I'm not cut out for sainthood. I'll work hard, I'll volunteer, I'll get down, and I'll get dirty, but God had seen fit to bless me with wealthy parents who loved me (despite my jokerdom), and I enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, the freedom and pleasures money can buy. I make no apologies.

  This time I'd brought Daudi with me. He was going to experience his first opera, and I was going to suffer for the good of this kid's soul, and the improvement of his mind. I also sensed I was getting real close to the victory, and it made me glad that when Daudi finally did consent to be immunized I would be doing it with fresh and sharp needles. I wanted as little pain as possible for this child because it was clear that it was only a matter of days before his mother lost her battle with death.

  Daudi was out on the balcony, gazing in wonder at the city laid out beneath him, and I was preparing to wash the bod. This requires four rubber boots to keep from slipping in the shower, and I was just forcing a hoof into the last one when the phone rang. It was Dad.

  "Hey, Pop!" I trilled.

  "Don't sound so happy," came his gravely voice across the thousands of miles.

  I dropped back awkwardly onto my haunches. "It's my plane, isn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "It ain't flyin, is it?" I asked.

  "No, and your old man is getting his ass audited by the IRS. Along with most of the people who donated money."

  My tail flicked along my left side. I caught it, and began to nervously pull tangles from the silky white hairs. "I don't get it."

  "They're claiming this is a bogus charity, and that we really intend to sell the supplies, launder the money in Europe, and quietly return a profit to our contributors. Until we can prove this is a paranoid fantasy they've grounded the plane. Brad, they want to talk to you."

  "I'm in Africa! What the fuck am I supposed to do? I'm doctoring. I've got patients ..." Words failed me.

  "I've tried to explain this to them."

  "What are you going to do?" I asked miserably. I had heard the weariness in his voice, and I was afraid he was going to give up on it. This wasn't his problem. He had a new movie beginning production in three weeks, and he didn't need this kind of aggravation.

  "I'm going to get that goddam plane to Africa if I have to put it on a raft, put a rope in my teeth, and tow the sonofabitch!" I held the phone away from my ear. "Somebody with a lot of power doesn't want your plane to fly. Damned if I know why, and damned if I know who, but ... well, you be careful, Bradley."

  He never calls me Bradley unless
he's really worried, and not much worries my dad. It was then I felt the first presentiment of danger. I shivered.

  "Pop, I love you," I said. He grunted; overt emotionalism always embarrasses him, and I had the nasal buzz of the dial tone.

  I hung up the phone, and stood staring blindly down at the carpet. Suddenly I felt small warm hands sliding around my waist. I looked back over my shoulder. Daudi hugged me tighter. It's a wonderful thing with children. They never try to analyze, they just offer comfort in their simple, visceral way. I laughed, and hooked a thumb over my shoulder.

  "Hop aboard. I'll give you a ride." He smiled shyly, and climbed on. I cantered once around the bedroom, took careful aim, gave a hitch of my hindquarters, and bucked him onto the bed. His giggles followed me into the shower.

  Three days after our return to Kilango his mother died. The next morning I found Daudi waiting for me on the steps of the clinic when I arrived for work. He didn't even cry when I administered the shots.

  ***

  One night, late, as I lay on my mattress and read by the light of a kerosene lantern, I experienced a hideous epiphany. I was perusing the latest issue of the Harvard Medical Review (latest is a relative term. It was actually several months out of date, but my professional mail was getting forwarded through my parents, and then to a P.O. Box in Nairobi, and all of this took time. I also wasn't exactly overloaded with spare time to read) when I hit the article on the new antibody test for the HTLV-III virus - more commonly known as AIDS.

  This was 1985, and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome was not well understood. I was losing people to a whole host of gastrointestinal parasites, the most common opportunistic infections in our region, and about as unusual in Africa as fleas on dogs. So while I grieved and cursed, I initially didn't think too much about it.

  Now this article had burst across the old brain pan, and I got a cold prickly feeling all along my scalp. Scrambling awkwardly to my feet, I dug like a frenzied dog in search of a prize bone through back issues of the review for anything I could find on AIDS. It wasn't much. The traditional medical establishment was leery about writing much about the "gay disease," and Rock Hudson hadn't collapsed yet in a hotel lobby in Paris and been forced to shed his square-jawed leading man image.

  I read until three A.M. I then drove to Nairobi, and called Dad. I wanted a lot of those antibody kits. I wanted them fast. And I sure as fuck wasn't going to tell the International Red Cross and WHO, so they could tell me how careful we all had to be.

  No, my antibody kits would come in with a Care package of Mom's chocolate chip, raisin and oatmeal cookies, and the lastest Ed McBain novel.

  ***

  The final chemical solution washed across my tray of tiny, dainty beads. They turned a lovely purple. I stared at them, and began to cry. Of the fifty people I had tested, all carried the HTLV-III antibody in their twisted bodies. And now the significance of all those patients dying from what the Africans had dubbed the "slimming disease" came clear. AIDS had invaded Kilango like the Germans entering Poland.

  Our new deep water well, all the vaccinations against diptheria, and typhoid, measles, weren't going to make a damn bit of difference. Death had become a permanent resident in the village.

  A part of me, the heedless, spoiled kid from Hollywood, didn't want to know the extent of the infection. The wiser part, the doctor, had to know so we could plot strategies to control the spread of the disease. I hadn't told Faneuil what I had done, what I was continuing to do. I figured I'd give him the bad news all in one dose. There were times when I cursed him, and named him a fool. How could he not have seen the virological evidence before him? But I had missed it during the first five months of my tenure at Kilango.

  But he's been here years!

  Great men can have their little blind spots, my small excusatory voice whined.

  Pretty fucking big blind spot!

  Because of the seven thousand two hundred and forty-nine people living in Kilango five thousand fifty-six were infected, or displaying the symptoms of full blown AIDS.

  I went to Faneuil. He was at the house, resting during the worst heat of the day. I had sweat patches on my chest and flanks, partly from nerves, partly from the stultifying heat which seemed to run like warm syrup across the body.

  He offered me a lemonade saying, "Only mad dogs and Englishmen -" He broke off abruptly once he took a good look at my face. "Bradley, what is wrong? What is it? Are you ill?"

  Suddenly I was in tears, my hands pressed hard against my face as if the pressure of my fingers could hold back this unmanly display. He got an arm around my shoulders, maneuvered me under the big ceiling fan which was turning lazily. A few minutes, and the gulping sobs had been reduced to sniffles. Faneuil pressed a handkerchief into my hands.

  "Here, Bradley child, here. Now what is wrong?"

  I told him. He sat very still, a wax effigy on the sofa, then his anger broke across me.

  "How dare you! How dare you take this action without consulting me! I deny this test. I deny its validity. I have never heard of this test!"

  Rage propelled him to his feet, and his long legs scissored as he paced the length of the room, and back.

  My first shock and chagrin was giving way to an anger every bit as white hot as his. It was Old Fart Doctor Syndrome. If they haven't heard of it, it's not worth shit, and of course they never hear of it because they stop studying.

  "You're like fucking King Canute and the waves," I bellowed back. "You can rant and rail, and deny all you want, but they're still going to die, and a word from the mighty Faneuil isn't going to prevent it! You don't want to believe me ... fine! Try the CDC, the NIH, talk to some other Froggies. Montagnier at the Pasteur Institute, they isolated the goddam virus! The test has been designed as a screening mechanism for world blood banks. I used it, maybe wrongly, as a diagnostic tool, but God, we had to know. We've got to do something."

  He was trembling, his nostrils pinched tight as he said, "The first thing I am going to do is get you out of my hospital. Out of my village. You have no ethics."

  "I love nats. Your village? This is a joker village. And I'm a joker, and I think I have more fucking right to be here than you do. You contact the Peace Corps. I'll reveal what I've discovered here. You got lazy. You got complacent. That's bad, but it's not criminal. You ignore this, and it will be criminal."

  He collapsed onto the sofa, and he began to cry. My anger cooled as if doused by the rain of his grief. I felt sick ... for his pain and guilt, for our dying patients. "I'm sorry, Etienne."

  He lifted a tear-streaked face, shook his head, and waved a hand helplessly. "No, no, Bradley, you were right to shout. I was being a stubborn old fool. But the time for tears is past. Now we must act."

  ***

  They were fine words, but they were just words. For those already infected or into full blown AIDS all we could do was ease their deaths, and try to educate them to keep them from passing the disease to the few healthy members of our community.

  The question which tormented me in those dark weeks was the how? How had the disease ran with such ease through the community? Even assuming ten or twelve infected jokers arriving in the village, it could not have spread this comprehensively. Each night I continued my research.

  Blood transfusion? Unlikely. We didn't do that much surgery at the clinic, we weren't equipped for it, and certainly no procedure that would require a large amount of blood. We sure as hell didn't have a large gay population, and heterosexual infection, while it is a growing phenomenon, was not as easy as the media would like people to believe. No IV drug users -

  My thoughts tumbled to a halt like cars in an L.A. freeway pileup. But we sterilize our needles! I told myself, laying aside that worry. We are careful.

  I tried to put it out of my mind. I quizzed Margaret again and again about our sterilization techniques, and maybe it was the hostile shuttered look in her pale, pale eyes that finally led me to add a new skill to my list of credits - breaking and enteri
ng. Maybe it was also the relaxed attitude which seemed to grip the medical staff of Kilango. Having now realized that he had a bunch of dying jokers, Fanueil didn't seem to care about preventing any further spread of the disease. I felt like a wild eyed, tangled haired prophet crying to the heavens about condoms and safe sex. And like most wild eyed and tangled haired prophets I was unsung in my own country.

  Anyway, it was late one night. I was coming off rounds, but instead of heading back to my hut I cruised across the lobby and down the hall to Faneuil's office. It wasn't locked, which surprised me at first (I'm a white boy from L.A. - we lock everything), and suddenly I felt very foolish. An unlocked door wasn't very sinister. Still, I'd come this far, and vilified Faneuil's image in my own mind, so I entered.

  Moving quickly, I flipped through the filing cabinets. Minutes went crawling past. In my own fevered imagination I had been in the office for days. I kept having visions of myself caught by Faneuil and Margaret. His eyes sad and hurt as I tried to stammer out apologies. I almost quit, but there was only one more drawer to go. I yanked it open. Began a cursory search. An icy footed, long legged insect seemed to go stalking down my spine. I collapsed back onto my hindquarters like a trick circus pony, and read quickly through the collection of articles in my hands.

  They were all from the 1970s, and they dealt with things like needle transmission of infectious hepatitis. The number of viral particles necessary on a needle to cause serum transmission. Virus survivability rates at room temperatures.

  There's a logical explanation for this, my mind yammered as it ran in circles around the confines of my skull. We're sterilizing disposable needles. He's just worried and concerned. Making certain our system is as foolproof as man and science can make it.

  Because if we weren't, and if there was something unthinkable occurring I ... I thought of Daudi, and I couldn't finish the thought.

  I replaced the articles, and slipped out of the office.