“Exactly.” After a moment, I say, “There’s more.”
Joel hitches his chin as if preparing himself. “Tell me.”
“In another experiment studying the relationship between emphysema and cigarette smoke exposure, experimenters have performed tracheotomies on ten beagles, allowing tobacco smoke to be pumped directly into their lungs. So far, half of the beagles have died.”
Joel is quiet for a long time. At last, he says, “How can anyone justify animals being forced to pay the price for our addictions?”
“Nicotine research is big money. You can justify anything when the incentive is money.”
“Don’t know why I’m getting so riled up,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve spent most of my lifetime reading reports like this, yet each one still hits me like a sledgehammer.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. So this isriled upfor Joel. I remember my reaction when I first read the report, how I punched a hole in Kane’s door and how Kane nearly punched me when he saw the damage.
Joel picks up the report. “Might as well start reading. Make me another cup, will you? I’m gonna need some sludge to get through this.”
In the kitchen, while waiting for the water to boil, I let Ticiana out the back door to play with the two Alsatians. Then I hear Joel yell from the living room, “You can forget it, Justin. There’s not a chance I’m gonna do it. You might have a death wish, but I’m not spending the last years of my life rotting in jail.”
While Joel continues his diatribe, I finish making his coffee, humming under my breath. I let him vent a little more before I stroll out of the kitchen.
“Absolutely not!” Joel insists, flapping the papers in my direction.
Ignoring the challenge, I hand him his coffee and return to my seat. I cross my legs at the ankles and dredge up the memory from a meticulously filled mental logbook. “Remember the time I was laid up in bed with rheumatic fever?”
“Ah, c’mon, Justin, not now.”
“Remember how bad I was?” When he remains silent, I help him to remember my joints swollen to twice their size, bones aching so unbearably you wanted to break them, a body that had caved in on itself, penicillin the only thing keeping it alive. “Remember who nursed me in those weeks? Certainly not you, nor my folks, because it seemed the chimps in Angola needed you more than I did.”
“The one time I failed you,” Joel says slowly, “and you’ve never let me forget it.”
“I was eight years old and you left me alone in a hospital.”
Joel’s normally placid brown eyes light up defensively. “We had people checking up on you.”
“Yeah, faceless fanatics who thought slaughterhouse stories would take my mind off the pain.”
“So now you’re cashing in?” he asks. “You honestly think me agreeing to this foolhardy mission will even out matters?”
“It’ll help.”
Joel grips his knees. After a while, his face set in stern lines, he says, “I don’t want to ever hear you say again I wasn’t there for you. Because you seem to forget it was me who threw you into rehab.”
No, I haven’t forgotten. I’m simply playing dirty to get what I want. Who can forget my slowly spiraling descent? At seventeen, my rebellion needed a physical outlet and drugs proved ideal. I started with thinners and weed, then graduated to acid. I tried coke only once before Joel hauled me out of the haze. A severe tongue-lashing and a nightmare stint in rehab straightened me out.
“All right,” I agree evenly. “The card’s been played. I won’t deal it again.”
Joel nods. “What about your folks? You ready to talk to them yet?”
“More sacrificing for the cause?” I mock.
“C’mon, kid, I love you all. When are you gonna let it go?”
Byit,I assume Joel means the past, with all its bits of wreckage marooned in dark waters. Wreckage stamped with missed birthdays, lonely TV suppers, parentless parents’ days at school. I tried everything to win their attention—top student, top athlete, dutiful son—but nothing I attempted made an impression. Then one day I strolled into the clothing section of a top department store and poured butyric acid into the pockets of all the fur coats there. The praise from my folks was effusive. And I learned that if I want to be a part of their life I have to adopt their cause as my own.
“If you’re still in this only to grab your folks’ attention,” Joel says, “you’ll land us both behind bars.”
“Relax, genetics stopped being a factor a while ago. I’m in this for the animals.” Not entirely true but lying comes as easily as breathing.
“So it has to be done tomorrow night.”
