Misconceptions about Blood

When they reached the top of the Ferris wheel, the man in the seat across from them said, “Lady, I’m going to throw you and your daughter out of this car. I’ve been waiting all day to do this.”

Earlier that morning, Brenda noticed him following them up King Avenue in his blue Volvo. Brenda wished she owned something that nice. Even her seven-year old daughter, Cheryl, now understood that certain cars, particularly the shiny ones with unconventional shapes, belonged to more comfortable people. When Brenda had picked her up that Saturday morning, Cheryl mentioned that her father had bought a Mercedes.

From the McDonalds drive-thru, Brenda eyed the Volvo across the street. Cheryl talked about what her school teacher had told the class, that in a place called Africa, kids are starving. Brenda, not paying much attention, said, “In life, problems are not relative. There’s a hierarchy of pain, and you’ll always be at the top.” She’d said the same thing to her defense attorney a year ago.

Cheryl asked if hierarchy is a game.

“It’s how things are arranged. Like, Big Macs are at the top of the hierarchy, and liver and onions are at the bottom. But it’s not just about food. It’s about people, too.”

“Am I at the top?” Cheryl asked, stabbing a straw into her orange juice box.

“Of course.”

Brenda pulled out into the road, and the Volvo followed.

“Mom, what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking about buying a nice blue car.”

“Dad has a new car.”

“You told me. That’s nice.”

At the amusement park, she pulled into a space near the Volvo. They had both entered the lot from opposite sides, and as if by silent agreement, they parked near each other. She wanted to see what he looked like, to see something more than his Cincinnati Reds jacket and black cap. Brenda held Cheryl’s hand, and as they walked by him, he said “Wasn’t that you at the light earlier?”

“I think so. I was admiring you car.”

He had deep lines at the corners of his mouth, olive skin, and a missing index finger. He said, “The funny thing is I won the car.”

Cheryl said. “In a contest?”

“That’s right. In a spitting contest at the Hamilton Country Fair. They charged twenty to enter and made all sorts of money to help hungry people in Appalachia or Africa, whatever. I had my picture in the paper.”

Brenda needed to get away from him. She was about to pull her daughter along, but Cheryl said, “Can you show us how far you spit?”

Brenda said, “Oh, that wouldn’t be appropriate. We have to go.”

Cheryl said, “I want to see. It won’t hurt nobody. It’s safe.”

Brenda glanced at the man. She said, “Would you mind spitting for my daughter?”

“I’d love to.” He sucked his cheeks in and snorted though his nose. His tongue swished around behind his teeth. He gasped, and then jerked forward, the sound like a vacuum sucking up a plastic bag. A ball of saliva glided over two minivans and disappeared behind a Camry.

“How’d you do that?” Cheryl said.

He said, “You just gotta know about air pressure.”

Brenda took Cheryl’s hand. “We really ought to be going.”

“One more thing,” the man said. “I’m supposed to meet my wife in there at ten, she’s inside already, and I’m short two bucks for admission. You wouldn’t happen--”

“Sure,” Brenda said. She took a five dollar bill from her wallet.

As they walked away, Cheryl whispered, “Daddy said never give money to people on the streets, they need to get jobs.”

“Your father’s wrong. People that take everyone’s money away say things like that.”

Brenda met Tim eight years ago. They were both employed by Tarker Inc., the leading fire-safety equipment manufactures in the world. Tim was the company’s top salesman, and Brenda was a contract liaison. She’d heard stories about him at dinner parties and in the company’s weekly newsletter. Tim’s Gulf-War experiences—specifically, the near-fatal burns he’d received after his fire-retarded suit failed--had inspired him to make sure that no American troop would ever become as intimate with flames as he had. During one of Tim’s keynote address, he said, “We’re in a strange line of business. Our enemy is fire, and it cannot be defeated. But our enemy doesn’t prey on anyone. It’s indifferent. The true foe, then, is human folly. The things we do to invite our enemies into our lives.”

They’d met during the reception. By that time, Brenda had already made the biggest mistake of her life, but she concealed it well, and hoped to keep it contained forever. When she made love to Tim in the hotel room, she ran her fingers over the purple burn scars scattered across his chest. They were like jigsaw puzzle pieces, but prohibited from motion and arrangement. She thought of how her breech in ethics might eventually scar a thousand men like Tim. Unable to look at his chest, she asked him to take her from behind. When he climaxed, he collapsed onto her back, the bumpy texture of his permanent blisters pressed against her skin, his fluid moving deep inside, knowing where to go and what to do and what to make.

Brenda and Cheryl went on the bumper cars, the log flume, and the merry-go-round. While they idled on the Octopus, Brenda saw the man alone on a bench, drinking bottled water. She imagined his daughter and wife were on a ride. She though of how people would see his Volvo and mistaken him for someone more cultured, more privileged, and he’d fail to meet their expectations. He’d embarrass himself. He’d boast about spitting and beer and bowling.

Later, as Brenda watched her daughter swing left and right on a pirate ship, the man approached. He tapped her shoulder and said, “I keep bumping into you today.”

“Small park,” she said.

“You don’t like going on rides, do you?”

“I get seasick.”

“Me too. As I get older, it gets worse. I also don’t like being in small spaces with people I don’t know. That’s why people don’t go to amusement parks alone.”

“Where are your wife and daughter? I bet they’re really nice.”

He pointed to the free-fall ride over the tree line. “I never liked amusement parks. It don’t help our survival.”

“Few things do.”

“So what’s stopping you from surviving today?” he asked.

“My car,” she said. “I don’t think it’s safe.”

“It’s important to have a good car. Thank God I got miracle lungs.”

The ship’s rocking slowed, an imaginary anchor dropped in an invisible sea.

The man said, “You thought it crazy how I spit for your daughter, right?”

“At first, yes.” She cleared her throat, and became aware of the excess saliva in her mouth. It had always been like that, but she’d never thought about it. The whole inside of her body was soaking wet, gallons of concealed blood, swooshing around, skin holding back the weight and pressure of everything that kept her alive. Once, she tried to explain to Cheryl that skin is a polymer. She used the simplest terms: a polymer is anything that can bend, bounce, and stretch. “And your dad and me,” she’d said, “We work in the polymer business, we make polymer suits.”

As the ship’s momentum dwindled, the man asked a question, but Brenda wasn’t listening. She said, “I think my daughter’s ride is finished.”

He glanced at the ride. “Looks like it is. We’ll bump into each other again. This place kinda restricts you.”

Brenda and Cheryl went on Journey to the Underworld. They sat on a slow-moving train that cut through mountains of synthetic lava and tissue-paper fire. Demons leapt from behind massive coals, and Cheryl embraced Brenda. Then, the train entered a tunnel, its tracks bending away from the hell pit, the only source of light. In the darkness, Cheryl said, “My teacher says blood keeps us alive, not food and exercise.”

“It’s a combination of things.”

“What’s at the top?”

“You really need everything. There’s no hierarchy inside the body.”

“How come we don’t have, like, orange juice for blood?”

Brenda said, “Because blood cells are like trucks, and we need these little trucks deliver microscopic pieces of food to all the parts of our bodies.”

“Dad said that he had to borrow someone else’s blood, or he’d die. I bet the man’s truck drivers got all lost because Dad is different inside.”

“We’re all the same on the inside. Blood knows where to go, no matter where you put it.”

Brenda and Tim had always dismissed the possibility that Cheryl had traces of Private Henderson in her body. Tim had received a blood transfusion from Henderson days after he’d been injured in battle, when his suit melted around him. In the ensuing years, Henderson wrote Tim letters asking, “How’s my blood?” Henderson had undoubtedly been scarred in a different way, and his letters conveyed a desire for his consciousness to abandon his body, to take residence in what he believed was his new body, Tim’s. Henderson’s last letter said, “Question: Does your experience belong to you?” Henderson explained that Tim couldn’t rightfully claim his experiences as his own, because his physical form contained the essence of someone else.

“It’s so dark in here,” Cheryl said. “I bet this is what it looked like before I was born. Let’s say I fall out. Will I be stuck forever?”

Brenda said, “You know that’s impossible.”

“But if I did get stuck here forever, what would you think?”

“Every day, I’d think of how I love you.”

“And you’d remember that I’m stuck?”

“I’d remember,” she said.

“Why did you and Daddy have me? Do you remember that?”

“Cheryl, enough! Enough questions!”

“If Daddy and you talk about things, will you both fall in love again?”

Brenda sucked her cheeks in, collecting saliva. She spit over the edge. Cheryl said, “You just spit.”

“Yes, honey, I did.”

“I couldn’t see it. It might have gone more far than the man’s spit. This part of the ride is so long and dark. I wish I could see.”

“Maybe they want people to know what true separation feels like. Like when you’re in a place where you just shouldn’t be.”

“Mom,” she said. “Sometimes I just don’t understand you.” Her words and intonation sounded like Tim’s, and it reminded Brenda of just how and when Tim’s voice had changed from gentleness to opposition. A year ago, internal auditors at Tarker investigated all manufacturing contracts signed within the last decade. They were suspicious that someone on the sales team had compromised the safety of their suits through cost-cutting deals, but they were unable to find a suspect. Tim, however, was resourceful. He’d discovered it was Brenda.

He’d arrived home an hour after Brenda that day. She’d already prepared a Caesar salad, fed Cheryl, and sent her to the playroom. When Brenda and Tim sat at the table, he said, “There’s been an investigation at Tarker. Do you know about this?”

“No,” she said, unloosening her ponytail and letting her hair down.

He tilted the salt shaker, allowing more out than usual. He didn’t even mix it in before driving his fork into the salad. “A while back, someone on our team had provoked a bidding war between rubber producers, for a contract. It was done under the table, the highest bidder under no obligation to follow Tarker quality standards. Some of those material designs, they’re out in the field, they’ve been out there. Do you know about this, Brenda?”

“I know nothing about this, Tim.”

He stared into his salad.

Cheryl came out of the playroom and approached the table.

Brenda said, “Not now, honey.”

“Dad? How much of that man’s blood did you take?”

Brenda turned toward Tim. “You told her?”

Tim ran his hand through Cheryl’s hair. “A lot of blood. One more drop, and he might not have lived. He saved me, Cheryl. Private Henderson was a good man, he just wanted everyone to be alive and well and good to each other.”

“Can he come over some day?”

Brenda said, “Sooner or later. But not right away. There’s going to be a lot of big changes. Daddy and me, we’re trying something different. Something that might be difficult. Now go back to the playroom. We’ll talk about it later.”

Cheryl slid in her socks like they were roller-skates, toward the playroom. After she shut the door, Tim poured more salt on his salad. He stirred it this time.

Brenda whispered, “Why did you tell her? Didn’t you think that would be too much for her at this age?”

With his cheeks full of spinach and lettuce, he pointed the fork at her and said, “She has a right to know the truth, especially since it involved charity. She also has the right to know her mother is a self-seeking fraud. My God, Brenda, sometimes, I just don’t understand you.”

The car veered right, and the darkness began to fade, the unloading platform reflecting the late afternoon sun. Perhaps the designers had taken into account the precise location at which the rider would feel relief, because there couldn’t have been a more effective, unexpected moment for the explosion of fire. Cheryl grabbed Brenda’s hand and leered, her shriek turning into laughter, and then, in a moment of recognition of what fire meant to the family, her face solidified. Brenda knew that Cheryl had experienced her first adult thought, the recognition of a vague correlation, the infusion of personal, symbolic meaning onto something neutral.

“Mom,” she said, “That might have burned me.”

The man was in front of them on the Ferris wheel line. When the ride stopped to unload, he walked up a vertical ramp on the left, to a red car. Brenda and Cheryl took the ramp to the right, towards the green one. He turned around and followed them.

Brenda suppressed her alarm. The man said, “How strange it is that we get to share the same space.” He shut the door.

They began their ascent, and then it stopped fifty-feet off the ground so that more people could load and unload.

“Where’s your family?” Brenda asked.

“They’re on something else. An adult ride, the free fall. They keep going on it again and again.”

The Ferris wheel jerked, and then began to move.

The man said, “Some people can’t get enough of the things they really hate.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

The Ferris wheel stopped again. Cheryl said, “I bet we can see our home from here.”

Brenda glanced out of the car. From this high up, the cornfields looked like stubble. Cheryl said, “One field looks brown, the other green, and the other yellow.”

The man said, “Your beautiful daughter must have really good eyesight and a sharp mind. Bet she does puzzles well. I’m good with puzzles.”

Brenda said, “What do you want from us?”

He said, “Lady, I’m going to throw you and your daughter out of this car. I’ve been waiting all day to do this.”

The man unbuckled his seatbelt. Brenda unbuckled hers.

He said, “No, no. You stay right there.”

He attempted to push the car’s door open, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Mom, what’s going on?” said Cheryl.

He kicked it three times, each blow causing the car to sway. When the door snapped open, Brenda grabbed Cheryl and pulled her toward the opening. Brenda heard the sound of his sharp breath whistling into his lungs as he lunged between Cheryl and the open air. His arms stretched from one side of the door frame to the other.

“No,” he said.

“Mom,” Cheryl said. “What are you doing?”

Brenda said to the man, “You stay right there. You don’t move an inch.”

“Or else? You gonna kill your own daughter, our daughter.”

“She’s got nothing to do with you.”

Cheryl squirmed, tried to loosen herself from Brenda’s grip.

The man said, “Nobody’s gonna kill anyone. Not in this car. I’m not gonna do this. I was just saying that. I just like to give people a scare, that’s all.”

Brenda said, “You just stay where you are.”

“Mom,” Cheryl said.

His eyes darkened. “I just wanted to meet Cheryl, meet you, know where I’ve been all these years.”

They stared at each other. His eyes slipped away from Brenda, and gazed covetously at Cheryl, a kind of sincerity that made Brenda image that had she successfully ejected her daughter, he would have tried to catch her. He would have clawed for that last strand of her hair. People would have horded in a circle around the body, and he would have squinted his eyes, looking for reasons to believe she’d only broken her legs. Cheryl would have looked like a drop of blood from this high up. He would have collapsed to his knees and wailed, as if he’d been gashed open.

The Ferris wheel began to descend. He said, “Please, please, let’s sit down.”

“I can’t trust you,” she said.

Cheryl spun around. “You weren’t going to throw me out, were you mom?”

The man said, “No, no. She was doing that for your safety… to startle me. And it worked. Your mother and father care about you, Cheryl. Nobody wants to see you dead.”

The timidity was gone from Cheryl’s eyes. The need to ask questions was extinguished, replaced by the weariness that comes with dreadful correlations. Fire, polymers, transfusions, divorce, money. Tim might have never said anything to Cheryl, he might have made up reasons for the divorce, but it didn’t matter. They’d know it was inevitable; Brenda could conceal it no better than Tim could hide his purple scars.

The field’s stubble grew into cornstalks, and they passed a line of trees. “What am I supposed to think now?” Cheryl said.

“Think about how you met Mr. Henderson today. That’s all you need to think about, all you need to remember.”

Cheryl shook her head. “I can’t do that, mom.”

They swooped passed the ground, and back up into the air. Brenda said, “Let’s listen to Mr. Henderson. Let’s sit for a moment.”

“I don’t feel good,” Cheryl said.

“Please, let’s sit.”

“I want to understand what just happened.”

The sun was beginning to set, the horizon like tarnished bronze.

Henderson said, “Cheryl, this experience has nothing to do with you. It’s between me, your mom, and your father. This isn’t your experience.”

“That’s right,” Brenda said. “Today you met Mr. Henderson. That’s all that happened. The rest is just stuff you’re not old enough to understand, okay?”

As they reached the circle’s apex, Cheryl looked out the window, toward the miles of fields. Brenda and Henderson glanced at each other, the kind of look that only defeated, hopeless parents exchange once their kids know too much about them.

Half way down, the Ferris wheel stopped. Henderson said, “How about when we get out of here, we all take a ride in my Volvo. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

Cheryl didn’t turn around. She mumbled tonelessly, “I don’t want to go in a Volvo. I just want to see my father.”

Again, Brenda and Henderson’s eyes met. His glance slipped beyond her, out into the open, where the sun was pressing into the horizon, shimmering red. Brenda stood up, nodded to Henderson as if accepting his approval in advanced, and then quietly pushed opened the door.

-Don Peteroy

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