E-Book Overview
Larry Feldman desperately needed a kidney. After two god-awful years on dialysis, watching his life ebb away while waiting on a transplant list behind 74,000 other Americans, the gun-toting couch potato decided to risk everything and travel to China, the controversial kingdom of organ transplants. But Larry urgently needed his cousin Daniel's help...even though they had been on the outs with each other for years. So begins the quest of two star-crossed cousins to rejuvenate Larry's failing body and ever-romantic heart, while avoiding getting tossed into a Chinese slammer.
E-Book Content
L A RR Y ’S K IDNE Y Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in
CHINA
with My
BLACK SHEEP Cousin
and His
MAIL-ORDERR Bride,
Skirting the
LAW
to Get Him a
AND Save His
Daniel A s a Rose
LIFE
TRANSPLANTT —
for the patients . . .
If a mad dog runs at you, whistle for him. —A NC I E N T
C H I N E S E P R OV E R B
Contents
Epigraph
iii
Author’s Note
vii
1. The Phone Call
1
2. McMao
12
3. The Larry and Mary Show
22
4. Making Love Out of Nothing at All
40
5. Situation Splendid
56
6. “Chutzpah” Is a Jewish Word
67
7. Good Luck, We Trick You
83
8. Anaerobic Memories
101
9. The Kidnap Cabbie
114
10. Welcome to the Super 2
129
11. Return of the Kidnap Cabbie
144
12. Shabbos Duck
159
13. Dear Florida Power & Light
178
14. Long, Long Live!
197
15. Knock-Knock-Knock
208
16. Thousand-Year-Old Panda
223
17. Fate Make Us Together
234
18. The Last Kidney in China
249
19. Long Live Larry
265
20. The Art of War
283
Epilogue
299
Nice Clear Morals, as Larry Prescribed
302
Acknowledgments
303
About the Author Other Books by Daniel Asa Rose Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher
Author’s Note
When Larry and I were in China, a number of people put themselves and their livelihoods on the line to help us. Throughout the writing of this book, it has been crucial to protect these people by preserving their anonymity. For this reason, I have changed names, locations, and key features of several individuals and institutions, and have compressed a few time lines connected to their activities, so that they may continue their lives without being identifi fied. A word about the dialect: Although it has traditionally been considered condescending to write in dialect, the climate seems to be changing—and for good reason. In his recent book about India, The Elephanta Suite, Paul Theroux uses such locutions as “wicious” for “vicious,” “moddom” for “madam,” and “wee-icle” for “vehicle” in an effort to transmit more shades of emotional truth than a sanitized transcript can. Nor is the practice limited to native English writers. By writing, “My bawss was sacked, so we got laid all together” in his recent novel A Free Life, the Chinese-American author Ha Jin suggests how crosscultural communication is a creative process for both native and visitor, with results that are sometimes as revealing as Freudian slips. Track-
VIII
Author ’s Note
ing both how foreigners use the English language and how an American visitor scrambles to make sense of foreign sounds is here meant to transmit the spirit of modern travel—equal parts charming and alarming. Larry’s dialect, meanwhile, is another matter entirely.
Chap ter 1
The Phone Call o The c a