Communicable

A pock-riddled teen with yellow sweat on his cheeks came running round the sidewalk corner to hide behind an overflowing dumpster. He sat on the pavement and clogged a roll of his dirty hoodie sleeve into his mouth to cover his dry, dirty coughing. From his hoodie’s pocket, the sick boy pulled out a lump of crumpled brown paper. It held a treasure the size of a hairbrush. He peered into the square metal slot on the dumpster’s side wall meant to catch the prongs that lift the box, then he stuffed his treasure deep inside.

After catching his breath, and checking around his hiding place to make sure he hadn’t been followed, the blistered teen ran on down the sidewalk. He was tackled by a police man at the next corner, and a bone-snapping Pop! knocked him out the instant he hit the ground. A short while later, a second police officer pulled up to the curb and the two men drove off with the limp body in their backseat.

Little Emily watched the whole thing from the other side of the road.

The first thing Emily did when she got home was to go up to her mother’s bedroom and ask, “Mommy, can I have another vaccine?”

Emily’s mom was too busy digging through her jewelry box to notice what was glittering in Emily’s hands.

“Another vaccine?” She sounded disinterested. “Why, are you feeling sick?”

Emily set her new treasure on the hall table and began the story of what she saw. “I was coming home, and I saw a guy, and he had big orange bruises all over, and he was running across the street, and he was tired from the cops that were chasing him, and he was really sick, and he was so sick and tired that they knocked him over and he fell on-conscious, and before they got him he was hiding a—”

Her mother pushed the jewelry box away and interrupted with, “Emily, please shut up. I need to remember something.” Then she opened her closet and began digging through all her suit jacket pockets.

Emily heard her father call up the stairs, “Are we going?” After no response, he climbed the steps and moved his daughter aside without looking at her. Then he loudly threw the same question into the back of his wife’s neck.

“Soon,” said Emily’s mother, “and sooner if you’d help me look.”

“Daddy,” said Emily, “guess what I found on the way home!”

“Just a minute.” Her father reached back blindly to pat her head and missed. “Look for what?” he asked his wife. “What’s so important?”

“I can’t find my dodecahedrons.”

“What in the hell is a do-decker-hedrons?”

“My studs. The gold studs with the little twelve-sided ball pins. They’re gone.”

“Are they the soccer ball looking earrings?” He sighed and pulled her out of the closet by her elbow. “Come on. They’re still in the car’s coin tray.”

“You’ve left my gold dodecahedrons in the coin tray!?” Emily’s mom pulled her arm free from her husband’s grip, then pushed herself ahead of him on their way down the stairs. “When would you have told me, after some junkie breaks the window and steals them?”

“You’re the one who put them there,” he said. “Where they’ve been since you got drunk at the arthouse gala.”

Emily’s parents were at the front door, wrapping themselves up in shiny fabrics and touching up their hair and make-up in the glass reflection of a family portrait.

“Daddy,” Emily called, “can I have another vaccine?”

“A what?” he asked.

“Another vaccine, like the doctor gave me?”

“No, Emily. The doctor gave you all you need. Why would you want another?”

“Just if I had it already. Should I use it?”

“That’s what I said. You’ve had yours already. You don’t need to be greedy and take another when there’s still plenty of people that haven’t had one.”

“What makes you want another vaccine?” asked her mother.

“When I was coming home,” said Emily, “I saw a guy, and he was so sick that his skin was melting all off, and he was really skinny, and he had—”

Her mother groaned and opened the front door. Emily’s father interrupted with, “Look, sweetie-pie, you’ve got what you need. Don’t let the neighborhood sickos scare you into being overly cautious.”

Emily asked what the word meant, but her father didn’t hear the question.

“In fact,” he continued, “that sick man in the streets is the one who ought to get a vaccine. Save some for them, why don’t ya?”

“But what if all the sick neighbors already have theirs?” asked Emily. “And what if I already got it?”

“I don’t know, Baby.” Her father was now the one being dragged by the elbow. “Ask me when we get back.” Then, without a hint to where they were going, when they’d be back, or what to do until then, Emily's dad shut and locked the door, leaving the little girl alone at the top of the stairs in a quiet home.

Emily wrapped up her treasure, took it into the backyard, dropped it over the neighbor’s wood fence, then carefully followed over the pointed plank tops. She walked through the neighbor's lawn and looked through the sliding glass door, shielded her view from the sunlight with an arch of both hands. Emily tapped on the glass and waved.

Inside, looking back at her from a seat at the kitchen counter, was a boy seven-and-a-half months younger than her, named Alec. He waved back, then dropped down from the chair to come open the door.

“Wanna see what I found?” Emily held out the loose bundle of brown paper.

“What’s in it?” asked Alec.

“Come on, I’ll show you.” She ran out into the yard and plopped down under a shady tree beside the wood fence. She waited for Alec to come sit beside her, then she unrolled the brown paper lunch sack and spilled her new treasures into the grass.

Emily told Alec the story of the sick teen on the run and how she watched him hide his treasure where the cops didn’t think to look. As she showed off the random assortment of trash, she made up facts about the teen’s life that would explain such prized commodities.

“He’s so poor that all he just eats is old soup cans that get thrown away. That’s why all he’s got for dishes is this bent spoon and a plastic straw. And this shoelace is his best necklace.”

“Is that a lighter?” asked Alec.

“It’s his campfire,” said Emily. “It’s how he cooks his soup cans.”

“Why’s he keep this scrap of tinfoil?” asked Alec.

“Um . . .” Emily picked up the crunchy ball of aluminum and looked at all the scorch marks inside. “Maybe it’s to go with the necklace, like he wraps it around the knot and then it’s like a necklace diamond.”

Alec pointed at the hypodermic needle. “And why’s he got that?”

“That’s a vaccine.” Emily held it up to a splatter of sunlight filtering through the trees. She removed the orange safety cap to show off the needle point. “That’s why the cops were chasing him. He was stealing vaccine from the hospital cuz he was so sick. It’s against the law to get more than you already got, so they took him to jail.”

“How much are you s'posed to get?”

“Just whatever the doctor gave you.”

Alec set his head in his hands and blew his cheeks out like a chipmunk. He seemed very confused by what Emily said. “How much is a doctor s'posed to give you?”

“Didn’t your doctor give you some?” asked Emily.

Alec shook his head. “I never went to the doctor. My mom said I don’t need vaccine.”

Emily uncrossed her legs and stood up high on her knees. “You’re supposed to get some vaccine! If you don’t have your vaccine you’ll get sick, and you’ll have yellow melty bruises like cheese all over your face, and then you’re gonna make me over-on-conscious because we’re neighbors! My dad said!”

“Well how do they give you it?” asked Alec.

“I watched,” said Emily. “It’s really easy. You just hold up your shirt sleeve and the doctor tells you to look at the wall and sing the alphabet. Then they tap you with a vaccine and you’re all done.”

“Does it hurt?”

Emily shook her head. “You can’t even feel it. Here.” She pulled up her shirt sleeve and aimed the needle. The metal shaft had a slight bend halfway down. She pointed the tip close to the freckle where her doctor had injected her in the months before. “Just go, ‘Aye, Bee, Cee, Dee, Ee, Eff, Gee!’ Then they poke.”

She let her sleeve down and scooted to Alec’s left side.

“You didn’t even poke yourself!” said Alec.

“Cuz I already got mine,” said Emily. “I told you, it’s breaking the law to have more. You can have this one if you want.”

Alec consented to the child logic of their game. This was like any other time they played doctor, only without the imaginary tools. He held his shirtsleeve like she asked and then he faced the wall of the wooden fence. He sang his alphabet and got all the way to ‘Que’ before the poke. He absolutely felt it, and told Emily so, but they were soon laughing it away because of how little the poke actually stung.

Alec’s mother slid back the glass door and asked if he was alright. “I thought I heard you scream.”

Alec gave Emily a quick look to remind her what his mother said about vaccines. "We're just playing pretend," he said.

Emily quickly packed her treasures back into the brown paper bag. Alec ran to his mother’s side and had her drop an ear to his lips so he could whisper a question. Emily took the opportunity of the mother’s down-turned head to toss her bag of treasures back over the fence.

After a nod of approval from his mother, Alec returned to Emily with good news. “My mom said you can come have a late-over.”

“Only if your parents approve,” his mother added from the glass door.

“They’re not home,” said Emily. “I can ask once they’re back, but that probably won’t be until bedtime.”

The mother bit her lip tighter and gave Emily a pitying look of parental concern. Emily saw this from her often, but never recognized the look as sympathetic. To Emily it always felt like an accusation, like she was under constant expectation to ruin the little boy somehow.

“Well," said the mother, "I guess you'd better wait here until they get back.”

Alec laughed with joy and ran inside. Emily followed, squeezing through the tight gap the mother's body formed in the glass doorway.