Something Noble (7 page)
The first day seems to go fine. They come out of surgery and wake up a little bit later. Both of them are groggy. Both of them are in pain. That's normal. They sleep a lot. That's normal too.
The next day Dre gets up and tries walking around. He does fine. He complains he's sore. There's a drainage tube in the incision that's bothering him. But that will come out in a few days.
LeVon is not feeling so great. He says he feels hot all over. The nurse takes his temperature. He's got a fever. That's not terribly unusual, she says, but she looks worried. She calls the doctor.
Dr. Wendell comes right away. He orders stronger antibiotics for LeVon. He's got an infection, he says. This is fairly common. It's not good, but it doesn't have to be bad news either. If they keep an eye on it and treat it with drugs, it should go away.
It doesn't.
“Man, what's wrong with me?” says LeVon the next day. “I feel horrible.” He's got a high fever now. He says he's cold all the time. But he's sweating.
“This happens every once in a while,” says Dr. Wendell. “It's not the end of the world. Don't worry. We can treat it. We'll give you stronger antibiotics. It should go away very soon.”
But it doesn't.
“This is not good,” Dr. Wendell says to me in private. It's day three after the operation. Dre is doing great and is almost ready to leave. They're not allowing him in the same room as LeVon. This bothers him a lot. He wants to thank his brother in person. He wants to be with him while he gets better. But they won't let him, because they don't want him to get sick. His system is still too vulnerable.
“What's happening?” I say.
“It's a superbug,” says Dr. Wendell. “They've been cropping up lately. The germs that cause infections are evolving to fight the drugs we use. They're getting stronger and tougher. This is one of those new kinds of bacteria. It's winning the fight.”
“So what's going to happen?”
“We're not giving up,” says Dr. Wendell. “Not by a long shot. But I can't give him any more antibiotics. We don't have anything stronger. I'm doing everything I can for him. We have to trust that because he's young and healthy, he'll pull through.”
A little later I go into LeVon's room. He's not awake and he's not asleep. He stares at the ceiling, his eyes half closed. His breathing is shallow. I pull back the sheets and look at his toes. They're starting to curl.
Oh no.
“Listen to me,” I say. “It's not supposed to be like this. You're not even twenty years old. You can beat this thing. You can fight it. You're tough. You made it this far. You beat gangsters and drug dealers and life on the street. You mean to tell me a little old bug is gonna get you? Come on. Get real. Get your ass up out of this bed right now.”
LeVon doesn't answer. A nurse comes in. She and I look at each other. Nurses see it all. They are very practical people. And I can tell by the look in her eyes what this lady is thinking: Pretty soon this room is gonna have a free bed in it.
“How is he doing?” Dre asks me later, when I'm back in his room.
“He's not doing so good,” I say.
“What? Are you serious? I can't believe this.”
“I know. It wasn't supposed to be this way.”
“Won't they let me see him?”
“Baby, if you pick up what he has, it could kill you. That's the plain truth. So you stay away from him. I'm sorry. I know you want nothing more than to see him right now. But it ain't gonna happen.”
There is no one else to be with LeVon as he lies in his bed, waiting to get better or not. He has no one else who cares. If it wasn't for me, he'd be alone. So I sit there with him, holding his hand and talking to him.
“You know, you changed a lot of lives with what you did,” I say. “This is one of the greatest things a person can do for another person. Whatever wrong you think you might have done in your life, this takes care of it. You're even. You're clean. You can hold your head high.”
He doesn't answer. His hand is dry and cool.
I'm sitting with him just like this when he passes. It's three o'clock in the morning.
My practical side takes over. I call the nurse. She comes in and begins to try to revive him. It doesn't work. The doctor on duty comes rushing in and does the same. There is nothing they can do. They pronounce him dead a little before four am.
Dre is asleep down the hall. I'll tell him in the morning. No need to wake him now.
Suddenly I don't know what to do with myself. So I go into the bathroom and lock the door. And I cry for LeVon, and all the LeVons of the world. The ones who never had a chance to begin with.
I
t's over a year later. The date is September 1. It 's morning. Dre is getting ready for school. After a long delay, he's about to start his senior year, and he's never been more excited.
“Mom! Have you seen my tie?” he asks for the third time.
“It's on your bed,” I tell him, also for the third time.
“Oh yeah, right.”
“How come I can't wear a tie?” pouts Marco.
“Because they don't wear ties in first grade,” says Dre. “You'd probably get it caught on something and hang yourself.”
“Dre! That's terrible,” I say.
“Sorry, Mama. But you know it's true.” Dre finds his tie and puts it on. I help him straighten it. Just as I finish, a car pulls up.
“My dad's here!” Marco says. He's all excited.
Ernest gets out of the driver's side. Yvonne, his new wife, gets out of the passenger side. She's slow and awkward. Being pregnant will do that to you.
“Hey, buddy!” Ernest says to Marco. “You almost ready to go?”
“Are we gonna take a picture first?” Marco says.
“That's why I'm all dressed up,” says Ernest. “I wouldn't miss your first day of big-kid school for anything.”
“Hi, Linda, how are you?” says Yvonne.
“I'm fine, Yvonne. You feeling all right?”
“Pretty good. The morning sickness has passed.”
“Glad to hear it.” I smile. I like Yvonne. After I broke it to Ernest that it would never work for us to get back together, he realized he had to move on. And move on he did. Yvonne was someone he met through work. She's good for him, I can tell. I don't worry that Ernest is going to screw this one up, either. He's learned a lot from his past mistakes. Too bad he didn't figure that out sooner. But none of us is perfect. And I've learned it's important to forgive people. It's the greatest gift you can give yourself.
“Looking good, Dre,” says Ernest. “Excited to start your last year of high school?”
“Excited is not the word,” says Dre. “I've been waiting for this a long time.”
It hasn't been an easy year. There were a couple of health setbacks for Dre. While they were not life-threatening, he did have to miss a whole year of school after his transplant. He had the option to get home-schooled, and that's what we did. But there were some things he couldn't do at home if he wanted to pursue his new goal of becoming a doctor. Not just any doctorâa kidney specialist. My kitchen doesn't make a very good chemistry lab. Besides, he also wanted the experience of going to real classes, of being a normal kid again. He's going to be a year older than everybody else, but that's not a bad thing. A little maturity will serve him well.
We all go inside the house. Marco gets bossy, lining us all up in front of the couch for the picture. Yvonne holds his camera. She has to back up to fit us all in. My house is so small she's practically in the front yard. But finally she's ready.
“Wait!” says Dre. “I almost forgot.”
He runs to the door and takes down a picture that hangs there. Then he gets back in the shot and holds the picture up.
It's a shot of LeVon. Marco took it the day he came here. LeVon is looking up at the camera. He doesn't look anything like a gangster. He looks like a big kid sitting on the floor, video game controls in his hand, hat on sideways. He's even got a half smile on his face.
“Okay, now we're all here,” says Dre. He holds the picture up in front of him.
“One, two, three!” says Yvonne. She presses the shutter. The flash goes off once, twice, then three times.
“Okay, let's go,” says Ernest. He's taking Marco to school. I told him he could have this moment with his little boy. I'm going to have my own moment with Dre.
He doesn't know it, but this day is just as big for me as it is for him.
Ernest, Yvonne and Marco leave first. Then it's just Dre and me.
“You ready?” I say.
“Yeah, I'm ready,” says Dre. He hangs LeVon's picture up again next to the front door. “Let's go.”
Dre grabs his book bag and his jacket. On his way out the door he reaches up and touches the picture. He doesn't say anything. But he does this every time he leaves the house. I know what it means. It means
Thank you
.
LeVon had it rough. He said himself that making it to nineteen in the projects was like making it to ninety in the rest of the world. Sad to say, but for a young black man, that's the truth. He was more likely to end up dead or behind bars than he was to succeed. That's not right. But that's the world we live in, until we choose to change it.
Every time I see that face, I think of the fact that if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have my son anymore. So I touch LeVon's picture too.
“Thank you for my son,” I whisper, quiet enough so Dre doesn't hear. He gets embarrassed by me a lot lately. I don't care though. Sometimes a mother is going to embarrass her children no matter what she does.
Dre is already outside, waiting in the car. He's not just impatient to get to school. He's impatient to begin the rest of his life. He wants to do something noble with it. He's got the fire in him to make that happen. Dre knows he has to live two lives nowâhis and LeVon's. Nothing is going to slow him down. Nothing is going to stop him.
“You ready?” I ask him.
“Yeah, I'm ready,” he says.
“Put your seatbelt on,” I say.
“Mama,” Dre says, “it's on.”
“Sorry,” I say. I guess I just can't help myself.
That's how it is when you're a mom. You don't stop being one just because your kid turns eighteen. Motherhood is for life. And I mean that in more ways than one.
My thanks to Dr. Kate Johnson and Dr. John Jenkins for their technical assistance in the editing of this work.
Something Noble
is
WILLIAM KOWALSKI
's third title in the Rapid Reads series, following on the success of
The Barrio Kings
(2010) and
The Way It Works
(2010). Kowalski is the award-winning author of four previous novels, including the international bestseller
Eddie's Bastard
. He lives on the South Shore of Nova Scotia with his wife and children.
Titles in the Series
RAPID READS
And Everything Nice
Kim Moritsugu
Assault on Juno
Mark Zuehlke
The Barrio Kings
William Kowalski
Best Girl
Sylvia Warsh
The Fall Guy
Barbara Fradkin
Fit to Kill
James Heneghan
Generation Us
Andrew Weaver
Love You to Death
Gail Bowen
The Middle Ground
Zoe Whittall
The Next Sure Thing
Richard Wagamese
One Fine Day You're Gonna Die
Gail Bowen
Orchestrated Murder
Rick Blechta
Ortona Street Fight
Mark Zuehlke
The Second Wife
Brenda Chapman
The Shadow Killer
Gail Bowen
Something Noble
William Kowalski
The Spider Bites
Medora Sale
That Dog Won't Hunt
Lou Allin
The Way It Works
William Kowalski
When I Kill You
Michelle Wan
A Winter Kill
Vicki Delany