Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,85

brought there were given drugs. The kind that made you feel as if you were in a fairy-tale land. Some of them were kept isolated, or would be hurt in different ways. Electricity on their feet. Water over their heads.

I was 17 and I wanted to feel like myself. To feel important like the adults around me. Some of my friends were already getting married.

So, one weekend, I went to Lakewood with my friends. We were in the town for probably only two minutes when an old white man came over to us. I felt the trouble coming out of his pores. I thought he was going to call the police on us. But instead, he smiled and asked if we wanted to make some money.

Yes, I said.

He told us to go to the hospital and tell them we were there for the vaccine study.

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