“Sounds to me,” said Lexie, “that he’s more miserable at the prospect of being healthy than being sick.”
“Exactly! It’s like he actually wants to have Pulmonary Monoxic Systemia.” And I posed to her the question that had been rattling in my head for days. “Why would anyone WANT to be dying?”
“Munchausen,” said Lexie.
I was tempted to say “gesundheit,” but I took the more serious route instead. “What’s that?” I asked. “Sounds bad.”
“It can be. It’s a mental illness where someone lies about being sick, to get attention. There are people who give themselves infections, so they can go to the doctor. There are people who make their own children sick.”
“All for attention?”
“Well,” said Lexie, “it’s complicated.”
“Which means,” grumbled her blindfolded grandfather, “that you’re wasting your breath trying to explain it to him.”
I thought about Gunnar. Did he want attention? He got a lot of it already. He was popular, girls liked him, everyone knew him. He wasn’t starving to be noticed . . . but, on the other hand, he wasn’t exactly the focus of his parents’ lives these days. But, on the other hand, neither was I, and I wasn’t telling everyone I had a dreaded disease, although I’m sure there are some people who are convinced I do.
We reached Prospect Park and walked Crawley, still blindfolded, to the first tree. When we took off the blindfold, Crawley made a move to run, but I caught him. This was a standard part of the ritual, too.
“This is too dangerous!” he shouted as we moved him onto a platform rigged with pulleys—probably more than were necessary, but after all, it was done by engineering students—they were trying to show off. “There must be laws against things like this!”
“That’ll be a great quote for your tombstone,” I said, but then I shut up, because it reminded me of Gunnar.
Crawley gave me the kind of gaze that knows no repeatable words, and we were hoisted up to the high platform, where one of the engineering students waited with sets of harnesses, helmets, and gear that looked like it was meant for space walks.
“How far is it to the other platform?” I asked the engineering guy next to me, but before he could answer, Crawley said bitterly:
“Lexie’s boyfriend could probably tell you.” And he made some clicking noises.
“Stop it, Grandpa.”
Now that he was safely in his harness, I pushed him and he went flying down the zip line, screaming and cursing for all he was worth.
“So how is Raoul?” I asked Lexie.
“Raoul and I agreed it was best to end it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yes, I am,” I told her. “Because now you’re going to want me to end it with Kjersten, just to keep the status quo.”
“Status quo,” she said. “Big words for you.”
“I’m Catholic,” I reminded her. “I get Latin.” Then I gave her a gentle shove, and she shot down the zip line, toward her grandfather and the nervous engineering students waiting to catch her.
“It’s a quarter mile,” said the engineering student, who had been waiting all this time to answer my question, “but it feels a lot longer!”
I pulled up the rear, shouting and whooping as the landscape of Prospect Park shot beneath me. This kidnapping was a winner! The zip line did exactly what it was supposed to do—it filled our senses and souls with excitement. It reminded us what it meant to be alive. For twenty shining seconds there was nothing but me, the wind, and the fifty feet between me and the ground. The engineering guy was wrong. It felt too short!
By the time I arrived, Crawley had already recovered some of his usual demeanor.
“So, whaddaya think?” I asked.
“I’m only mildly impressed.” From him, this was a five-star review.
“It was . . . exhilarating,” Lexie said. I could tell she hadn’t cared for it. When you’re flying down a zip line, I suppose sight is a sense worth having.
The students lowered us from the platform, working hard on the pulleys like medieval sailors, and as we descended, Crawley said to me, “As usual, you’re missing the obvious.”
“Excuse me?”
“With regard to your not-quite-dying friend—you’re missing the obvious.”
I crossed my arms. “So tell us. We await your brilliance, O Ancient One.”
For once he ignored my sarcasm. “It’s not that he wants to die—it’s that he needs to be sick. The sooner you find out why he needs to be sick, the sooner you can solve this mystery and return to your mediocre existence.”
I didn’t respond, because as much as I hated to admit it, I knew he was right.
“Now,” he said, “take me back to the other tree, so we can do that again.”
Crawley contacted the parks department shortly after the kidnapping and offered to build a zip line tourist attraction in Prospect Park. He got the blessing of the city, and wouldn’t you know it, the zip line was already in place. Any minute he’ll be making a hefty profit from it.
“The difference between you and me,” he once told me, “is that when I look at the world, I see opportunity. When you look at the world, you’re just trying to find a place to urinate.”
***
When I got home that afternoon, I decided to play Sherlock Holmes and figure out why Gunnar needed to be sick. I did some in-depth research on Pulmonary Monoxic Systemia.
Although the disease is almost always fatal within a year of diagnosis, huge strides were being made in research recently, and there were early reports that test patients were living longer, healthier lives. The leading research and all the hopeful results were coming from Columbia University Medical Center, right in Manhattan.
I thought about Dr. G. The thing with the Dr. G website is that you can throw out the same basic symptoms, and each time it would diagnose you with something else. I wonder how many diagnoses Gunnar had gotten before he convinced himself that this is what he had.
And wasn’t it convenient that all the hope for Gunnar’s illness lay right here in New York?
Before I could think about it much further, I got a call from my father. He needed me to work at the restaurant. The Crawley kidnapping had exhausted me, and it was the last thing I wanted to do today.
“There are laws against child labor,” I told him.
“Aren’t you always telling us you’re not a child?”
“What about my homework? Is your restaurant more important than my education?”
“It’s our restaurant, not just mine—and didn’t Christmas vacation start today?”
I knew he had me.
I showed up at seven and did my job, but the whole situation with Gunnar never left my mind entirely. Sure, it was vacation, but there was a big fat Gunnar-themed rally waiting for me when vacation was over. I was irritable, but maintained an air of professionalism for most of the evening. Things would have been fine if it hadn’t been for the single certified idiot at table number nine.
He arrived at around seven-thirty with a scowling wife, and two kids who wouldn’t stop fighting. From the moment he sits down, this guy starts complaining. His fork has spots on it; the wine isn’t cold enough. The appetizer came out too late and the main course came out too early. He demands to see the manager, and my father comes over. I’m standing there, refilling water glasses, after having been chewed out by the guy for not having refilled them the instant he took a sip. For him I don’t bother with skillful pouring.