Eventually he plucks the packet of Ka’Chava from the go-cup, which is obviously meant for mixing the stuff up with the remaining bottle of Dasani. The cup is from Dillon’s, a truck stop in Redlund where Jorge and Freddy sometimes have breakfast. He would like to be there now. He’d like to be in Ayers Chapel, listening to one of Reverend Gallatin’s boring-ass sermons. He’d like to be in a doctor’s office, waiting for a proctological exam. He would like to be anywhere but here.
He has no reason to trust anything the crazy Harrises give him, but now that the nausea’s worn off, he’s hungry. He always eats light before running, saving a heavier caloric intake for when he comes back. The envelope is sealed, which means it’s probably okay, but he looks it over carefully for pinpricks (hypo pricks) before tearing it open and pouring it into the go-cup. He adds water, closes the lid, and shakes well, as the instructions say. He tastes, then chugs. He doubts very much if it has been inspired by “ancient wisdom,” as the label says, but it’s fairly tasty. Chocolate. Like a frappé, if frappés were plant-based.
When it’s gone, he looks at the raw liver again. He tries pushing the tray back out through the flap, but at first he can’t, because the flap only swings in. He works his fingernails under the bottom and pulls it up. He shoves the tray out.
“Hey!” he shouts at the glass eye peering down at him. “Hey, what do you want? Let’s talk! Let’s work this out!”
Nothing.
7
Six hours pass.
This time it’s the male Harris who descends the stairs. He’s in pajamas and slippers. His shoulders are broad but he’s skinny the rest of the way down, and the pajamas—decorated with firetrucks, like a child’s—flap on him. Just looking at this old dude gives Jorge Castro a sense of unreality—can this really be happening?
“What do you want?”
Harris makes no reply, only looks at the rejected tray on the concrete floor. He looks at the flap, then back to the tray. A couple more times for good measure: tray, flap, flap, tray. Then he goes to the broom and pushes it back in.
Jorge has had enough. He holds the flap and shoves the tray back out. The blood-puddle splashes one cuff of Harris’s PJ bottoms. Harris lowers the broom to push it back, then decides that would be a zero-sum game. He leans the broom against the side of the stairs again and prepares to mount them. There’s not much to him below those broad shoulders, but the deceitful motherfucker looks agile enough.
“Come back,” Jorge says. “Let’s talk about this man to man.”
Harris looks at him and gives the sigh of a longsuffering parent dealing with a recalcitrant toddler. “You can get the tray when you want it,” he says. “I believe we’ve established that.”
“I’m not eating it, I already told your wife. Besides being raw, it’s been sitting at room temperature for…” He looks at Papi’s watch. “Over six hours.”
The crazy professor makes no reply to this, only climbs the stairs. The door shuts. The bolt runs. Snap.
8
It’s ten o’clock by Papi’s watch when Emily comes down. She’s swapped the trim brown pants for a floral wrapper and her own pair of slippers. Can it be the next night? Jorge thinks. Is that possible? How long did that shot put me out? Somehow the loss of time is even more upsetting than looking at that congealing glob of meat. Losing time is hard to get used to. But there’s something else he can’t get used to.
She looks at the tray. Looks at him. Smiles. Turns to go.
“Hey,” he says. “Emily.”
She doesn’t turn around, but she stops at the foot of the stairs, listening.
“I need some more water. I drank one bottle and used the other to mix that shake with. It was pretty good, by the way.”
“No more water until you eat your dinner,” she says, and climbs the stairs.
9
Time passes. Four hours. His thirst is becoming very bad. He’s not dying of it or anything, but there’s no doubt he’s dehydrated from vomiting, and that shake… he can feel it coating the sides of his throat. A drink of water would wash that away. Even just a sip or two.
He looks at the Porta-John, but he’s a long way from trying to drink disinfected water. Which I have now pissed in twice, he thinks.
He looks up at the lens. “Let’s talk, okay? Please.” He hesitates, then says, “I’m begging you.” He hears a crack in his voice. A dry crack.
Nothing.
10
Two more hours.
Now the thirst is all he can think about. He’s read stories about how men adrift on the ocean finally start drinking what they’re floating on, even though drinking seawater is a quick trip to madness. That’s the story, anyway, and whether it’s true or false doesn’t matter in his current situation because there’s no ocean for almost a thousand miles. There’s nothing here but the poison in the Porta-John.
At last Jorge gives in. He works his fingers under the flap, props himself on one arm, and reaches for the tray. At first he can’t quite grasp it because the edge is slippery with juice. Instead of pulling it toward him, he only succeeds in pushing it a little further out on the concrete. He strains and finally pinches a grip. He pulls the tray through the flap. He looks at the meat, as red as raw muscle, then closes his eyes and picks it up. It flops against his wrists, cold. Eyes still closed, he takes a bite. His gorge starts to spasm.
Don’t think about it, he tells himself. Just chew and swallow.
It goes down like a raw oyster. Or a mouthful of phlegm. He opens his eyes and looks up at the glass lens. It’s blurry because he’s crying. “Is that enough?”
Nothing. And it really wasn’t a bite, only a nibble. There’s so much left.
“Why?” he shouts. “Why would you? What purpose?”
Nothing. Maybe there’s no speaker, but Jorge doesn’t believe that. He thinks they can hear him as well as see him, and if they can hear him, they can reply.
“I can’t,” he says, crying harder. “I would if I could, but I fucking can’t.”
Yet he discovers that he can. Bite by bite, he eats the raw liver. The gag reflex is bad at first, but eventually it goes away.
Only that’s not right, Jorge thinks as he looks at the puddle of congealing red jelly on the otherwise empty plate. It didn’t go away, I beat it into submission.
He holds the plate up to the glass eye. At first there’s more nothing, then the door to the upstairs world opens and the woman descends. Her hair is in rollers. There’s some sort of night cream on her face. In one hand she holds a bottle of Dasani water. She puts it down on the concrete, out of Jorge’s reach, then grabs the broom.
“Drink the juice,” she says.
“Please,” Jorge whispers. “Please don’t. Please stop.”
Professor Emily Harris of the English Department—perhaps now emerita, just teaching the occasional class or seminar as well as attending departmental meetings—says nothing. The calm in her eyes is, for Jorge, the convincer. It’s like the old blues song says: cryin and pleadin don’t do no good.