Needles

Alba comes down hard on the fish head. She looks to see her foot submerged in blood and gelatinous goo. The sun glints off iridescent fish scales and hot white pavement. She notices graffiti that is popping up all over the city – a stenciled monkey head, smoking a cigarette, with its middle finger pointed directly at her. Well, fuck you too, she thinks. Her sneaker is ruined and she’s late for a very important appointment and she stepped on a fish head and the Chinese guy who mans one of the fish stalls leaning his elbow on a tank that Alba swears holds a live piranha is smirking at her. And how did that fish head end up on the sidewalk instead of in the garbage? Huh, monkey boy?

Bodies whirl past in a furious sweat - muscled bodies, shiny bodies, fleshy bodies, bodies that seem to have been dipped in orange and red oil. Even though it is already 4:15 in the afternoon, the sun remains vengeful. The tar streets are liquefying, and Alba starts to tremble. The heat has embalmed the other bodies as well, and they merge into a pulsating ribbon. Faces blur into one, hungry human being. Alba stops to buy a 7-Up to quench her thirst.
She’s going to be late if she doesn’t step on it. She forces her way through the winding streets of lower Manhattan. Tourists hug each other close, greedy to land a good deal. They buy cheap, plastic jewelry and watches for their relatives back home. Chinese locals crowd vegetable stalls. Chickens hang upside down by their nooses, glistening and golden in restaurant windows.

A young Chinese woman with greasy hair muscles a stroller into Alba, jamming her knee. A current of something Alba can’t name - a jolt of a memory - is sucked from her brain. The baby in the stroller is rotund, grotesque, like a blimp baby floating in the Macy’s day parade. He holds a red lollipop that is shaped like a bell. Alba and the young woman lock eyes for a few moments, like they are the only two people within miles.
“Excuse me, do I know you?” Alba asks, but the girl looks away. A horn screams. The child squeals with laughter. When the girl veers the stroller into the swarms of late afternoon shoppers, Alba notices that she has a limp. Her right leg swings from her hip like it desperately wants to fly away from the rest of her body.

Alba jumps onto the elevator with ten other riders, all of them Chinese. They have impassive, tired faces. She wonders if all these people work on Saturdays. Or are they also visiting acupuncturists, trying to relax and ease the pain. She’s not trying to fix her pain, exactly. She’s there to have a baby. She and Jon had been trying for just over a year. Both of them were getting close to 35 and had taken all the requisite tests – her tubes were clear and hormones regular, Jon’s sperm count was good to go. Alba’s friend Sue suggested that she see an acupuncturist. It had helped Sue get pregnant with Sam.
Alba steps into an office filled with virile, thick-leaved Birds of Paradise, Snake plants and Aloe Vera. The Doctor emerges from the other room. Petit and seasoned, she wears black heels, an Oxford shirt and a short skirt. She is an unflappable woman, Alba thinks. But still, she loves the babies, their fleshy mounds and toothless smiles. Whenever a client brings one by, the Doctor claps and whistles at them, suddenly unshackled from her cool exterior. Alba finds this heartening because they are babies. But she’d also like to be humored, to have the doctor sing soft lullabies in her ear. If no songs are to be sung, maybe, for once, they could have a normal conversation. Unfortunately, Alba doesn’t speak Mandarin and the Doctor’s English is poor. And, what could they talk about, really? The stifling heat or record-breaking temperature of 102 degrees? Yet, Alba longs to ask the Doctor about the photos of children that line her desk, or for advice about the houseplants she can’t seem to keep alive – the African violets, Gardinias, Calatheas. Only her Ferns remain healthy year round. The others deflate every winter, like they’re simply waiting for the soil to devour them.

The Doctor motions Alba to the tables draped in white paper. A woman lies motionless on one of the cots. With all those needles jutting out of her skin, she reminds Alba of a praying mantis, except for the straight blond hair that falls to the floor. The woman’s veiny feet, rigid against the table, cause Alba to wince.
“Feeling okay?” the Doctor asks.
“Yes, pretty good, “ Alba replies, gathering herself. “But I’m sweaty.”
“Did you go to bathroom, clear out bladder?”
“Yes.”
Alba wonders about the other woman on the table: is she trying to get pregnant also? Are all the women who visit this place trying to get pregnant? It shouldn’t be so difficult. Billions of creatures, from among millions of species, procreate everyday. It’s the most natural phenomena in the world. Alba wonders if infertility isn’t their own fault, humans that is. Or maybe planet Earth cannot sustain another white, American baby. Or maybe it just comes down to Alba. She remembers the time she called her mother a bitch. Her mother just stood there, speechless. No time out in her room, no soap in her mouth, no limits on television viewing. No punishment at all.

The Doctor has disappeared. Alba remembers the plants lining the windowsill. Their leaves climb to the ceiling, tentacles reaching for the latch that will provide them fresh air and more of that low-slung, late August sunlight. Greedy, little fuckers, Alba thinks. She undresses and puts on the gown the Doctor has left for her. She nestles her head on a heart-shaped, red silk pillow. She knows she looks like a boy with the new haircut.
“I like your hair short. You look younger,” Jon said, when she returned from the salon. “It’s sexy.”
“I’ll grow it back.” Alba blew snot into a tissue and assessed her profile in the mirror. “It’ll be lustrous again. I’ll dye it sable brown, like a good breeding mare. It’ll bring us lady luck.”
Alba ponders her naked body cocooned in the striped, cotton cloth. As it goes with her bedtime ritual, she is compelled to grab her waist, measuring the fat. She manages to grab at least an inch of flab. Just a few years ago, she would lie on her back, tummy sunk inward and hipbones protruding. She loved to feel the smoothness of her thin skin against the bony pelvic girdle. It reassured her that she was fit, that she could control her body’s trajectory. But then she got some bad news. She would have to undergo surgery to remove one of her ovaries and a cyst the size of a grapefruit that had encased the ovary. On a follow-up visit, the OB/GYN mentioned that Alba’s cyst was the largest she had seen in a thirty-year old woman. Alba’s chances of getting pregnant had decreased by a third.

Alba cranes her neck to peer out the window. It’s dinnertime. The crowds flock to restaurants and cafes. A general hum that vaguely sounds like chanting resonates from the street. Although it is pleasing, it also alarms Alba. Just as she’s about to name what bothers her, the thought drifts away. The Doctor has returned, and her treatment begins. The Doctor opens Alba’s robe and lays a towel over her thighs and hips. She touches her calves. They are sensitive, ripe. The Doctor swabs rubbing alcohol on them and her wrists, forearms, ears, head and belly. She spikes a needle on the inside of one of Alba’s legs. A spasm rides down her muscle, and a tingling sensation lodges in her right foot. Alba jerks back in pain.
“Take deep breath,” the Doctor says, blunt, as usual.
Alba normally keeps her eyes shut when the Doctor is working. The darkness helps her forget the needles and why she needs them. But today, she glimpses a two-inch dagger between the Doctor’s fingers. In order to distract herself, Alba breathes and focuses on the space between her eyes, like the Doctor has trained her to do. Alba’s deep breath accompanies a needle in the other calf. There is less throbbing this time. Another needle pricks her right wrist. Her hand is on fire. Then another pinches her left wrist until electricity radiates to that hand. More needles slice into her stomach. Alba feels nothing with these entries. Her womb is numb, thick with fat and scar tissue from the surgery. After twisting a needle in the top of Alba’s head, the Doctor leaves to assist another patient.
Alba usually relaxes at this stage of a treatment, giving in to the warm flood of energy, or chi. But today, she can’t forget the points where the needles stick out of her body. She imagines each needle, burrowed deep in its resting place, slowly sliding under her skin and into her fat, her muscles, her tendons, her bones, her organs. The needles disappear down her digestive tract, and slip into to her lower intestine, ready for expulsion. But the holes in her flesh remain.

Alba hears a scream from outside. Hundreds of footsteps patter on the cement. They gather into a furious stampede. Whispers emanate from the crowd, crushing one another with a buzz that reminds Alba of bees gathering at a honey trough. The whispers metamorphose into indecipherable chattering, then into coherent shouts of “what happened?” And “someone call the fucking police!” Or so Alba thinks. It’s difficult to make out what is going on in the rest of the world when she is on the table.
The Doctor listens to a patient in the adjoining room.
“I have a sciatic nerve that keeps me up at all hours of the night. I’m taking Percoset to help ease the pain. I recently started taking Ambien to help me sleep, but the drugs don’t work. I just feel drowsy, like I’m sleepwalking through the day. At night, I’ll doze for 30 minutes, then wake up with searing back pain.”
“Do you remember your dreams?” the Doctor asks.
Alba hears another scream. Gunshots litter the streets. She doesn’t know much about guns, so it’s difficult to identify what has been fired. A rifle? An AK-47? A glock? Has someone been shot? Many people? Sirens toll, swelling to a fevered pitch. Helicopters hang low in the sky. Alba thinks her eardrums will perforate from all the noise. She will find out what happened when she leaves the table. For now, she must lie very still, so she can have a baby.

“The dream I had last night is one I’ve had before,” the patient recalls. “The sky is vast. I wander through an open field. Something or someone propels me forward, but it’s unclear where I’m headed. So I just walk west. The sun radiates such intense heat, the grass has burnt and turned brown. The winds carry the dry blades as if they were reeds in a swamp. I feel I might choke on particles of dust. I see mountains in the distance and sense there are cliffs nearby. If I’m not careful, I will tumble down into their dark caverns. Suddenly I hear music. I come upon a violinist, who plays a famous Bach concerto. I am bewitched. I follow the melody to its completion because the tune calms me. When the musician finishes his song, I offer him a dollar, but he refuses to take the money. He hands me a pink carnation that I put in my hair. After he disappears, I realize I’m on my own again. I notice acacia trees in the distance. I run towards the trees, hoping for a pool of water or to meet someone I know. As I approach the oasis, I come upon my childhood friends who I haven’t seen in fifty years. They have gathered under the trees. My husband is there also - and my children too. They are all whispering, but turn silent when they recognize me. They refuse to speak to me. My face and throat turn red. My stomach churns in fear. Why do they ignore me? What have they said about me? Am I even there at all?”

Another, blistering high-pitched scream interrupts the dream. Alba fears someone has been shot. Is it possible that someone is being tortured? Because she is stuck on the table, Alba can only speculate about the crime that has been committed – or is being committed. But she is sure it is brutal. No one screams like that without good reason.
“Yes, you so cute, Joy. You so pretty.” The Doctor has entered Alba’s room with baby Joy in her arms. “You my baby? You my baby?” the Doctor keeps cooing and giggling. The Doctor ignores the sirens and the helicopters and the gunshots and the screams. Joy's mother and everyone else in the Doctor’s office seem oblivious to the horror that is taking place just around the corner. Aren’t they concerned? Aren’t they even curious? Alba wonders if they know something she doesn’t, or if she has been barred from an exclusive club. The top of Alba’s head starts to throb. A swelling ripples down her legs and lands in her feet. Her breath grows shallow until she’s no longer aware of her throat, lungs, and diaphragm. Fluorescent bulbs in the office flicker on and off, and her eyelids tighten against the strobe-like effect. She pictures gray dust swept up by the wind. A ferocious tornado thickens in her skull. She enters a trance halfway between wakefulness and sleep.

Alba is certain that a young woman has been shot. It makes complete sense. Someone shot her because innocent girls get tortured and raped and left for dead all the time. Alba imagines two men taking aim. A bullet pierces one of the girl’s feet and another gets lodged in one of her hands. The two brutes leave the girl to struggle alone in a room, on the twentieth floor of a crumbling, factory building. Perhaps the girl is a seamstress. Maybe she came from a small, rural province in China, seeking a better life in New York. She has an uncle and aunt who live in Flushing, Queens, who have taken her in. She works here, on this island, to save money to send back home. She must be young, eighteen or nineteen at most, barely out of school.
The young woman sews in the factory all day, every day, on 12-hour shifts. She has been obedient but has done something to infuriate the foreman of the factory. They are lovers. He is married, and she is his concubine, virginal and pink, with swollen lips and black eyes. Her hair smells of jasmine because of the incense she keeps in her room. She dabs rosewater on her neck, so it blends with her sweat, like Alba’s grandmother used to do. This drives the foreman crazy. He can’t get enough of her. They meet when they can, mostly after work, making love on the sweatshop floor even though it is covered in sawdust and frayed threads.
The foreman loves her but is frightened. The girl has told him she is pregnant with his baby. If his wife finds out, she’ll threaten him with divorce. He can’t bear to be without his children, and his wife keeps a tight accounting of their books. He would be lost without her, even if he doesn’t care for her anymore. The foreman decides that he must get rid of the girl. He hires hit men who wear black masks to do his dirty work.
Alba realizes that she was wrong - the woman wasn’t shot in the foot and the hand. She was shot in the heart. Pools of blood slide down her chest, as she lays slumped over. She is dying, alone, blood shrouding her from help. Unfortunately, the assassins have escaped. Quick and undaunted by American authority, the police will never find them. More sirens erupt from the street. The crowds congeal into a mob. Some scream obscenities in Mandarin, others in Cantonese. The Caucasian police officers can’t understand a word. Their square jaws clench down hard. Their eyes steel straight ahead. They remain alert for any spontaneous acts of violence. Tourists stand aghast, shaking their heads in pity and fear. Deep in her anger, Alba decides that this mercy is a ruse, feigned to throw off those who seek the truth. Most tourists are secretly grateful for a story of depravity to dazzle their friends back home with. It affirms their opinion that it’s better to live where they live than anywhere else in the world.

The police arrive too late. The girl is pronounced dead at 6:46 pm. Alba wonders how close the murder scene is to the Doctor’s office. She knows she must lie still - there is nothing she can do. She will find out what happened to this poor girl once she is able to walk again. She will let the angry voices in the crowd carry her to that horrible place.
Alba feels a chill loosen her body from the grip of heat. She feels like she is floating on the lake that she and Jon visited a few summers ago in upstate New York. As she drifted aimlessly and the sun skimmed the trees, Alba sensed the day wouldn’t last much longer. A few weeks earlier, she had lost her ovary.
"You’re okay. You don’t have cancer." A disembodied voice roused Alba from the anesthesia. "Can you hear me? The biopsy came back negative. The cyst is benign. You're alive."

“How you doing?” the Doctor asks.
Alba’s time is up. She barely feels the needles leaving her body. When the Doctor pulls out the last one - the needle deep inside her calf - Alba flinches, until the pain dulls into numbness. She feels cold and shivers under the Doctor’s watchful gaze. She holds the robe tightly to her chest. Alba thinks her feet must be blue. The Doctor grabs them and warms her toes firmly.
“Good luck,” the Doctor says. “Year of Dog good luck for babies. You get baby soon. And remember, no cold liquids. Warm water good to drink to make baby. And if you get period, call right away.”
Alba rises from the table and puts on her clothes. She is dizzy but relieved to be standing. She wants to ask the Doctor about the plants. She knows she shouldn’t, because the Doctor is busy, but she just can’t help herself.
“Doctor A., you have such healthy plants. They are so big and strong. But there isn’t much sunlight here. What’s the secret?” The Doctor's smile reminds Alba of a two-year old child, in the sandbox for the first time. It’s as if the Doctor has seen a roly-poly baby with outstretched arms and legs, swimming in the air, floating towards her. She’s just an embrace away from that mercurial baby. That’s how much those plants mean to her.
“No secret. But plants very old.” the Doctor replies.

And that’s all Alba gets from her. But it doesn’t really matter because Alba remembers the dead girl. She pays the $100 fee and races to the elevators before they can leave her behind. When she arrives at the first floor, the night guards are waging bets about the baseball game on TV. Their laughter seems forced, like they are jockeying for attention or propping themselves up against failure. If they stop this standup routine, their team might just lose the game.
Alba opens the glass doors. Heat and pollution and noise punch her hard in the face. She falters, twisting her head back and forth. The evening is lit purple by millions of lamps and television sets and the coming storm. She runs to the next block, nearly knocking over an old lady with a cane. She looks for the locals trying to get the story; for the tourists nodding their heads; for the hit men lost in the titanic crowd; for the police arriving too late; for the uncle and aunt crying in their apartment; for the EMT workers pronouncing the young woman dead; for a girl lying still in the corner of a large room, filled with hundreds of gray sewing machines that have been switched off until tomorrow morning. But instead, people pass her by, chattering one minute, silent the next. As she turns her head upward, a flock of crows part the darkening sky, uncertain of where they are headed.