We went, and they sent us to the lower level. We walked past the morgue with the smell of the dead, the chemicals they used to keep them fresh. There was a small room we took turns going into. A doctor gave me two injections in my arm. I was surprised that it didn’t go into my stomach or thigh or butt. But if it had been one of those places, I probably wouldn’t have done it. They gave me 10 dollars. I had to give them my name, my social security number, and a written promise that I would return next month for another injection. I would get 15 more dollars for that one.
A thing I never anticipated about getting older is feeling ridiculous about how much things used to cost. I don’t feel proud I was alive at a time when I could get coffee for less than a quarter. Maybe I would feel better about it if the coffee had been any good.
One of my friends said that what they were doing after that was testing vaccines. They were trying to find a way to make you immune to STDs, chicken pox, cancer. Most of my people died of cancer. Sometimes young, sometimes old, but all of them had it. It felt better to think maybe this vaccine would pass on to my children and my children’s children. A way to avoid that early death.
I did this for six months. I never told my parents. I’m still a little proud that I made so much money and kept a secret from them. There is a part of me that is always going to be 18, I think, and a little afraid of my mama.
My arm hurt bad after each visit. My friends and I would laugh, though, and say it’s the price of living to a hundred. We would be sitting in rocking chairs together, playing cards still.
But if they did give me their vaccine, it didn’t work. I’m not surprised anymore. How could they keep a cure for cancer secret for more than 40 years? Like two of my aunties, my grandpa, I’ll die before I’m 70.
I became used to the idea I may have been given those shots like how Catholic ladies use those saint medals. I smoked cigarettes, I drank, avoided going to the doctor, breathed in chemicals, ate poorly, ignored the pain growing in my stomach. A part of me thought a little, Well, it’s fine. I’m immune.
Tanya, I was sure Grandma had written this. The letter was scanned in, blurry, hard to read at times on the thin newsprint. My mom said I was seeing what I wanted to see. Your grandma didn’t make T’s like that. And her handwriting leaned to the right, my mom said, also she preferred cursive. But I thought about everything she’d had me give out and mail after the funeral. The letters in the shoebox.
At the end of my grandma’s life, she was calm. No regrets. It would be like her to tie as much up as possible, find a way to make things a little better without hurting either of us. It would be why the older man from the studies liked to ask me about her. Wouldn’t it be something to have research on three generations? The samples they’d taken of my blood, my urine, my skin. Were there lasting effects that could be seen in my genes?
Deziree and I decided to go somewhere private to talk.
Have you seen the lake yet? the waitress asked me while bringing me a to-go cup of coffee.
No.
She told us if the cops weren’t around, it was worth seeing. And Tanya, it was.
We drove toward it. Past the cabin with a satellite dish decorated with an image of Jesus holding a glass of wine in one hand and a fish in the other. He is the truth was written in papyrus font beneath the image. I thought the person who owned that satellite dish might be the pastor at Tom’s church. I had gone with him a few times, but it hadn’t done anything for me. A family was standing in the backyard, no masks, looking dazed. They were all wearing bathrobes and pajamas. The mom threw up in the yard, the rest of the family didn’t seem to notice. Their eyes were on the dirt road.
This is a bad idea, my mom said. But she didn’t tell me to turn around.
Parts of the lake were covered in bubble-bath foam. It looked like magic. Small rainbows appeared in some of the white clumps. Other parts were iridescent, like gas on pavement. A low-lying bike path near the lake was covered in the foam. It was so high that if I rode a bike through it, it would be up to my neck. My eyes were tearing as I parked the car. The area stunk of gross lake scent mixed with rot and sweet and gasoline. I was relieved that the woman from the diner told me to go, that my mom was next to me. If they hadn’t been there to confirm what I was seeing, I might have thought I was still high.
I got out of the car and walked to the beach’s highest point. The people who were there seemed to be taking samples of the water, of things along the shore, or calling to a small boat. They were wearing hazmat suits or rubber gloves and ventilation masks. My mom handed me a scarf from the car. She had my spare sweater tied over her nose and mouth. Deziree tied the scarf as tight as she could around my nose and mouth. Raised her hand up and pointed at her fingers to indicate we should stay for only five minutes at most. I peered out, trying to see what was happening with the boat. The light reflected off the water. The foam was almost blinding at that angle, but I thought I saw a lone woman sitting in a canoe.
My eyes were stinging by that point.
A man in a dark suit noticed us and came over. He recommended that we leave. The government still doesn’t know how toxic it is, he said. In a few hours they were going to start a mandatory evacuation of everyone who lived around the lake. They were giving them time to pack up and make arrangements if they could.
What does it do? I gestured at the foam.
Exposure leaves a rash. It can induce neurological symptoms, he said. Two men were here earlier taking pictures and one got too close. He said it made their hands bright red, felt as if they were burning. There could be permanent nerve damage. He sounded almost giddy. There’s a woman out there who apparently sleeps only in that canoe and now refuses to come back to shore.
I shook my head. I was having a more visceral reaction to the idea of someone preferring to sleep in a canoe than to the polluted lake right in front of me. Maybe it was about boundaries, or context. The lake was so strange. My brain didn’t—and still doesn’t—know how to make a big reaction, how to completely understand it. I took photos of it on my phone. Then a short video. I made sure to capture the way the foam moved with the lake’s small waves. Did a slow panoramic of everything.
How did this happen? my mom asked.
Chemicals, the man replied, as if that was enough of an answer.
I walked a little farther down. The man didn’t stop me. The dunes were shifting and pulling at my feet. I was on the verge of tripping, rolling down the beach and into the lake. I paused. There were no news cameras around. This is real, I told myself. Real, real, real. Cigarette butts, a shiny gum wrapper. Some gulls were circling above the lake; people were trying to chase them away, encourage them not to land or go after anything they might want on the shore. You’ll die, they yelled, as if the birds could understand English. You’ll die.
The woman still refused to come to shore.
The foam probably felt like bubble bath. It would feel soft until it started to burn.
30
Dear Tanya,
When we got to my apartment, everything they provided—the couch, the bed, the bedroom dresser, the dining room table set—was gone. My clothes were thrown on the bedroom floor, scattered on top of the boxes I hadn’t bothered to unpack. Books everywhere, with letters to you still sealed inside them. They had taken my plates and bowls. I kept focusing on that fact as I went through the rest of the apartment; I think it allowed me to pretend the stakes were lower. It was easier to act like I had just broken up with someone petty who would take things that were obviously mine than think about what this really meant.