blood, marrow, building tolerance, immunity, controlling the circumstances. This was a favorite word of his.
Circumstances
. It sounded so odd when he said it, one of those words designed to make me forget other words, the whole language.
Murphy felt that we should be drawing blood from our own kids, informally, gently, of course. Everyone will soon come over to this approach. It needn’t cause any trouble. In the spirit of science.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about drawing some of, what’s your daughter’s name again? Her blood?”
I had not told him Esther’s name, had not even told him I had a daughter. Just called her my kid. If I had thought of drawing her blood, a nighttime withdrawal while the girl slept, I would not reveal that to Murphy.
“You have the source of the disease living in your house and you’re not even curious what her blood might reveal under a microscope?”
Profoundly incurious, I thought. Deeply, hugely indifferent. I looked down and smiled as if he were being hypothetical.
Murphy waved the question away, letting me off the hook, repeating that if I’d only come down to the Oliver’s, I could see what was being done.
I pictured children linked by medical tubing to one of those vast, overhead syringes. I pictured a wolf climbing a slippery wall, on top of which sat some glistening piece of meat.
I thanked him and said good night. Had to be getting back. Work to do. Pretty tired now. But Murphy didn’t respond, didn’t move.
Among other things, Murphy excelled at a refusal to release me from our encounters. It was a strange power of his, to pretend a conversation had not ended.
“Wait,” he said, his head cocked, listening.
I wanted to go home, get away from him, but I stopped, quieting my breath. You could hear the engines running the neighborhood homes. Furnaces and water heaters droning on. Above us came a hum from the telephone lines.
Murphy gripped my shoulder, raised his other hand in concentration, his eyes closed. And then I heard it, too.
A din rose out of the north field beyond the school, and as the sound bloomed it grew piercing, wretchedly clear, borne so quickly on the wind, we shuddered when it hit. Voice-like, childlike, a cluster of speech blaring out of the field. The sound crushed out my air. Behind the noise ran a pack of kids, so shadowed and small at that distance, they looked like animals sprinting across the field. Coming right toward us.
In front of them came a wall of speech so foul I felt myself burning.
Murphy scrambled, grabbed me, and we ran for cover. In the bushes I felt his cold hand in my mouth, a greasy paste spreading against my gums, his fingers reaching so far into me, they touched the back of my throat.
I gagged over his hand, fought to breathe. Murphy wanted to reach all the way into my lungs. I tried to relax my mouth, my throat, but I could feel my lips stretching, starting to tear. Murphy’s weight was on me, his own scared breath against my neck.
I gave in, exhaled, letting the man cover me, spread his medicine deep in my mouth. Then finally Murphy pulled out his hand, wiped it on the grass next to my face. The release from this agony felt sweet, and I could breathe again.
The kids cleared the field, ran past us, their voices sounding—I wasn’t sure how—harmless to me now, as if I’d only imagined the effect before. The awful wave had passed through and now I felt no acid in their speech. Just kids’ voices squeezed against the higher registers. Sharp and annoying, maybe, but safe. I had a fruity taste in my mouth and I had to keep swallowing. The paste triggered a gush of saliva that I did not want to give up. I drank what released in my mouth and watched. Everything out on the street under the lamp seemed gorgeous and clear.
One of the kids stopped on the sidewalk across the street from us. He’d caught someone and now he was going to attack. He crouched, his hands cupped over his mouth, and he started
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