How Lucky: A Novel Page 21

  “I see you found the bacon,” she says.

  Jonathan looks at me, dumbstruck. I try to shrug. I don’t know if it comes across.

  She looks at me and, for the first time since she came into the room, briefly loses her composure, stepping back, startled. I must look awful. But she straightens herself and looks me right in the eye.

  Hello, Marjani.

  I am here, Daniel. This is almost over.

  Marjani, I was right. That’s him. He’s here. You have to be careful. He is very dangerous.

  We know who he is. We are here to help you. You have been so brave.

  I’m scared.

  I am scared too. But you are so strong. So we will be strong too.

  She winks at me. She winks at me. She then turns back toward Jonathan. “So,” she says, utterly calm, “is there any coffee?”

  Jonathan stands there, flabbergasted, and takes a short step toward her. “Lady, you need to—”

  Then there is a flash, and an explosion, and suddenly the room is full of smoke and sparks and many, many booming voices. “GET DOWN EVERYBODY DOWN EVERYBODY DOWN GET THE FUCK DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN.” I hear something awfully loud, and then something rams into the table, spinning me around to where I am lodged against the refrigerator, staring up at the ceiling.

  The smoke burns a little, and it’s becoming harder and harder to breathe. I shut my eyes, still sure I’m fading out, still sure these are the last moments, still all right with it, all right with all of it.

  I open them when a figure slams up against my chair, and then slides down, then gets up and tries to run across the room.

  There is another bang. The figure stops. I close my eyes again.

  It is quieter. It is calm. It is all going to be OK.

  I open my eyes. The ceiling fan is slowly turning above me. The shadows of the early-morning sun flicker in and out. If the final thing I see is this kitchen, well, it’s my kitchen. It’s my home. I made it mine. People say goodbye to worse. I always liked this kitchen.

  But it doesn’t fade to black, or light. The smoke clears. The noise dims. My eyes sharpen. I see a police officer in the corner of the room. He walks into the kitchen and leans down to attend to Terry. My eyes focus on his nameplate: ANDERSON. Back in this home again. His face is ashen and ruddy, and he is wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He looks at me, blinks, and looks away.

  I roll back over and stare at the ceiling fan again.

  And then Marjani and Travis are here.

  Marjani wipes my face. Travis is weeping. And they’re here and we are together and we’re not alone and it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had, I’m telling you, there is nowhere else I’ve been or am going that will ever be better than right here and right now.

  After

  She sits in the corner, a little nervous to look at me, a little cautious, but not too cautious, to come in. I understand. I’d be afraid of me right now too.

  But she is strong. A security guard puts an arm around her, but she pushes it off gently. The nurse next to her, young, so young, offers her a glass of water and a chair.

  This nurse is very sweet, but she makes me antsy, regardless. The whole week I’ve been here, when she finishes her rounds, she doesn’t go back to the nurse’s station to gossip with the staff or complain about one of the doctors. She comes back here, and she sits down next to me, and she holds my hand. She works the night shift, after all my visitors have left for the day, and she’s in that chair every spare moment, wiping my brow, fidgeting with my monitors, praying.

  This nurse has been in my room too much, man. Most medical professionals, nurses, doctors, paramedics, they have a certain studied remove that’s a job requirement, a callousness that develops after years of watching person after person die and person after person weep after them like they’ve lost the only person on earth who ever mattered. Death happens constantly, thousands of times every second, and there is nothing special about it. If you are close to the person who has died, it’s devastating. But if you’re not, it’s . . . not. More people than you have ever known in your life just died in the last five minutes. Does that make you sad?

  No, mourning is a luxury of the emotionally committed, and when we’re not, death is just one more line item you can’t do anything about. The experienced medical professional knows this. They are sad for you, and sympathetic for you, and there to help guide you through the grieving process. But then they will do it again tomorrow, with somebody else, and again the day after that, and the day after that, over and over until they grow too old to be of much help to anybody anymore. (And then they die.)

  This nurse is handling this whole scene now, though, and I’m realizing there are some advantages to having a medical professional with an emotional investment. She shooshes off the security guard, who waits outside the door, and the nurse whispers, “I’ll be right here” in my ear, and then in the ear of the woman next to her. The nurse then sits down next to her and rubs the woman’s back.

  Ai-Chin sits and looks at me. She’s older than I realized. Well, not older, exactly. Stronger. In my mind I had thought of her as a babe in the woods, swept up by the big bad wolf. But that is not right, and the fact that I thought that says more about my own preconceived notions than anything about her. I see her looking around the room, absorbing everything, calculating, figuring out the lay of the land. Her eyes flame with intelligence. This is not a scared little lamb.

  And then, just as quickly as I notice all of this, she chokes back a tear and looks away from me.

  I get it. I’m quite a sight. The first three nights were touch-and-go, from what I’m told. Travis told me I nearly died around four times before my mom’s flight even landed, but I have no recollection of any of that. I wasn’t dreaming of Kim, or that I could fly, or of fighting my way toward the light. I was just out. I wonder if that’s what it’s really like. Just out. I bet it is. That’s not so bad, if that’s what it is. I can deal with just out.

  I’m still in critical condition, and I’ve been lying in this bed for a week, and I suspect I look like a wadded-up ball of yellow construction paper. But I am still in here.

  I want Ai-Chin to know I am still in here. Using all the might I can muster, I strain to move my left hand. It doesn’t really work. I grunt and pull and groan, and my index and middle fingers only barely move. But Ai-Chin hears the grunting and pulls her head back in my direction. She looks at me. I look at her.

  Hello.

  Hello.

  I know what I look like. But you need to know I’m in here.

  She needs to know that it is not as bad as it looks. She needs to know that I am stronger, not weaker, because of her. On the surface, she sees a void where there is a soul; she sees a victim where there is power; she sees weakness where there is strength; she sees death where there is so much life. Look what I can do!

  I can do so much.

  I know that Ai-Chin Liao is alive because of me. According to what Travis told me, she had been locked in a storage shed behind Jonathan’s duplex all week, ever since she got in his car because she wasn’t sure where she was going and it was a little dark and she thought the man in the car looked like the one down the hall in her student housing complex and he had a kind face and America is supposed to be a place of nice people who will help you when you need their help. When the police found her, she was terrified, hungry, but otherwise unharmed. Whatever he was going to do with her, he hadn’t done it yet. His first taste of ultraviolence appears to have been with me and Terry. Jonathan turned out to be rather bad at being a criminal, as long as his victim wasn’t confined to a wheelchair. Terry not only didn’t die, all he ended up with was a broken jaw and a concussion. Travis said Terry even got a few blows in on Jonathan when he was lying on the floor of my hallway, and while I think Travis might be pulling my leg, I like the story enough that I decide to believe him. Good for him.

  Ai-Chin takes my hand. In it, she puts a letter. It is in Chinese.

&nb
sp; “I . . . letter,” she says. “For you.”

  I will read it. I know how to translate these things.

  I can do so much.

  Jonathan is in the Athens Correctional Center because of me, arraigned on felony kidnapping, aggravated assault, attempted murder, and a bunch of other charges they hurled at him because, honestly, screw that guy. When Travis got my message when I was trying to escape the house, he called 911 and told them that a disabled man was being attacked at his home. He then called Marjani, who called Officer Anderson, and they all arrived at the house at the same time, along with a phalanx of officers. Marjani somehow talked them into letting her serve as a distraction (“Is there any coffee?”) as they busted in the back door. Jonathan tried to run away, but they shot him in the leg and cuffed him right there.

  I hope getting shot hurt. I hope it still hurts.

  Now Jonathan is going to be away for a long time. I feel no bond to him, none of the special connection he so desperately wanted. He’s just a sad, sick guy who needs to be kept away from the rest of us from now on. I wanted to share his loneliness because I felt it too. But his isolation is not my isolation. He sees the world as a place that rejects him. I see the world as a place that can welcome everyone. His rejection is not because of isolation; it is because of stupid fear and sadism. If we hadn’t come across each other, maybe Ai-Chin would be dead. Maybe he’d do it again. Or maybe he’d let her go and hope she was too scared and confused to identify him. I don’t think Jonathan knew himself what was going to happen. It doesn’t matter. It’s over now. With any luck, Jonathan, none of us will ever see you again. You turned out to be nothing at all.

  That is not what is important right now, Ai-Chin, now that you are here. What is important is that I am the lucky one.

  I have power. I have strength. I have the security of knowing that even though I needed to use this chair, even though I could not just reach out and grab this world by the collar, I have changed this world. I have found my place. The world is different because I was in it. This is what we should all want.

  This is what we should all want.

  I know.

  I have the certainty that I took part in this life. I was an active participant. I did not just sit at my computer and let it all pass me by.

  I have people who love me. I have people who will be with me until the absolute end. I have the warmth of knowing that when I am gone, no matter when that is, the people near me will speak of me and remember me and keep me in their souls for the rest of their lives. I have helped people, and I have people who have helped me. Letting someone help you is the nicest thing you can do for anyone.

  Do you understand?

  I do. There has been such pain. You have suffered too much.

  I have not suffered. I have lived!

  I have lived!

  Ai-Chin begins to stroke my left cheek with her hand. She is lovely. She is strong. The world is so much better because she is in it. I can see that. And I know that she can too.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  I take a deep breath.

  “You. Are. Well. Come.”

  She smiles. She then stands up, takes the nurse’s hand, and walks out of the room.

  I have brought light into this world, and I have been given light from this world. And what light it is! I can say that I have lived. Can you say that you have lived? You must be able to say you have lived. I have loved, and I have been loved.

  That is all we should want. This is all you have to do right now. It’s right in front of you.

  So just take it. I know I plan to.

  Acknowledgments

  Like most people, I had never heard of spinal muscular atrophy until it touched my life. My son William was two years old when his close friend Miller was diagnosed with the neuromuscular disorder. He and my son are now nine years old, and still best pals: Their Madden battles get a little more intense every year. Being close to Miller, along with his parents, Lindsay David (whose help was consistently invaluable, and without whom none of this would have happened) and Eason David, introduced me to the world of SMA and, more to the point, all the families and individuals who live, and thrive, with it every day. Their warmth and good cheer sparked the initial notion to write this book, and their guidance lit my path throughout. I hope I’ve honored their strength. Thank you. I also must thank all the people who allowed me to listen to them about their experiences with SMA and disability. I’ll never know as much as you, but I know so much more because of you.

  Even though I hadn’t written a book for him in nearly a decade, my agent, David Gernert, still met me for dinner one night two years ago in the West Village, where I surprised him with a completed first draft of a book he had no idea I had been writing. His enthusiasm for this project, his faith in its voice, and his dogged persistence at making sure people saw it are the primary reason you’re holding it in your hand right now. I don’t know if your agent is supposed to be your friend, but I am glad he is mine. And I could not have imagined a better steward and shepherd for this book than Noah Eaker, my editor at Harper. He is brilliant and funny and incisive and is blessed with the best possible attribute an editor can have: He’s always right about everything but, you know, he’s cool about it. He is also my favorite person I met during the pandemic: We will be drinking much bourbon together at the earliest opportunity. I also can’t thank the whole Harper crew enough: Elina Cohen, Kate D’Esmond, Mary Gaule, Erin Kibby, David Koral, Lainey Mays, Joanne O’Neil, Virginia Stanley, and the rest of the gang.

  I wrote this whole book before I showed it to anyone and had no idea if it even made sense, let alone whether or not it was any good. I was fortunate to have intelligent friends to run it by: Their handiwork is all over it, whether they realize it or not. So, thank you to A. J. Daulerio, Aileen Gallagher, Tim Grierson, and Edith Zimmerman for their feedback and advice.

  I also must thank my editors and colleagues at all the various publications I regularly soil with my words, for their willingness to give me the opportunity to do so and the patience they had with me as I wrote this book in between all my assignments for them: Matt Meyers, Gregg Klayman, Matthew Leach, Jenifer Langosch, and Mike Petriello at MLB.com; David Wallace-Wells, Benjamin Hart, Ray Rahman, and Ann Clarke at New York magazine; Jon Gluck and Brendan Vaughan at Medium; Meredith Bennett-Smith at NBC News; and Ben Williams and Sam Schube at GQ.

  Special thanks also must go to Jami Attenberg, Chris Bergeron, Amy Blair, Mike Bruno, Joan Cetera, Mike Cetera, Jim Cooke, Tommy Craggs, Joe DeLessio, Denny Dooley, Jason Fry, Julia Furay, Derrick Goold, David Hirshey, Jenny Jackson, Kim Keniley, Andy Kuhns, Keith Law, Jill Leitch, Mark Lisanti, Bernie Miklasz, Adam Moss, Matt Pitzer, Keri Potts, Lindsay Robertson, Sue Rosenstock, Joe Sheehan, Trevor Stevenson, Susan Stoebner, Mark Tavani, and Kevin Wiegert. And thank you to my crew here in Georgia. I knew no one in Athens until I moved here in 2013, but now, thanks to so many of the people I met along the way, it is my home. Thank you to Matt Adair, April Allen, David Allen, Josh Brooks, Lillie Brooks, Hailey Campbell, Bertis Downs, Scott Duvall, Elizabeth Earl, Michael Earl, Seth Emerson, Kelly Girtz, Haley Graber, Will Haraway, Bryan Harris, Carrie Kelly, Tim Kelly, Kerri Loudis, Vicki Michaelis, John Parker, Michael Ripps, J. E. Skeets, and Tony Waller.

  One of the best parts of living in Georgia has been the presence of my parents, Bryan and Sally: They moved down from Illinois to be closer to their grandchildren, but for me to have them here has been a lifesaver for me, personally (even before the pandemic). Thank you for everything you have done for me: I’m so happy and fortunate to get to spend this time with you. Also, thank you to Wynne Stevenson for being the sort of mother-in-law I am elated to have part of my pandemic pod. (She’s a great copy editor, too.) And, man oh man, do I love the two little boys who live in this house with me. William and Wynn, you are the center of everything in my world, and just looking at you makes me feel like everything is going to be OK.

  And, lastly, to Alexa: You were the
first person to read this book because you are the first person I want to do everything. You know more about books than I do, but you know more about everything than I do. (She even solved this book’s biggest plot hole!) You are brilliant and talented and should probably just be in charge of everything on the planet. Being with you is the greatest privilege of my life. I love you, and thank you.

  About the Author

  WILL LEITCH is a contributing editor at New York magazine and national correspondent for MLB.com, as well as a regular contributor to the New York Times, NBC News, Medium, and the Washington Post. He is also the founder of the late sports website Deadspin. He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his wife and two sons.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Will Leitch

  Life as a Loser

  Catch

  God Save the Fan

  Are We Winning?

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  HOW LUCKY. Copyright © 2021 by Will Leitch. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.