Blood Colony Read Online Free PDF Page A

world a day in your life, she’d accused. After joining Big Brothers, Johnny thought he had seen enough reality to make up for it. He had asked to mentor a kid with health problems; he didn’t want to turn into one of those robotronic doctors who forgot the whole point. Already Johnny realized he wanted to be a pediatrician. Omari was teaching him that.
    Johnny listened to Omari’s end of the conversation as his mother quizzed him on the telephone. He understood her worry: Omari was especially vulnerable because he’d been getting monthly blood transfusions for three years. Omari’s body might be getting overloaded with iron, his mother had confided, so she was always on the lookout for signs of organ damage.
    “It’s my legs. I told you already, dag,” Omari complained to his mother. He suddenly handed the phone back to Johnny without a good-bye.
    “Mr. Wright?” his mother said when Johnny got on, with the brand of formality Johnny recognized from his grandmother in Macon. “Omari says it’s his joints, but you sure it’s not his chest? No trouble breathing?”
    “No, ma’am, not that I can see.” Omari’s face was still twisted with pain, but his breathing looked steady. Omari was absently flicking at the edge of the Jimi Hendrix poster hanging above him on the wall, the one from the Berkeley show almost forty-five years ago.
    “You call me right back if he does, hear? Omari says he’s at a six, but he knows good and damn well that when he has chest pain, he goes to the hospital. Understand? If he has a clog in his lungs and doesn’t get enough oxygen, then we’re looking at hypoxia.” She was rushed, speaking in a low tone so she wouldn’t be overheard. But she wasn’t panicked. The mother of a child who suffered from chronic pain didn’t have room for panic in her daily life.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Make sure he gets liquids. Water or Gatorade. It’ll thin his blood and help his joints feel better. I’ll call Lemuel and see if he can’t come by and pick him up early.”
    The woman was impressive. “Omari’s lucky to have a nurse for a mom,” Johnny said.
    She breathed into the phone, and he couldn’t tell if she was amused or annoyed. “Luck ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. My boy needed me, so I went to school. You take good care of Omari, Mr. Wright. God bless you.”
    “Yes, ma’am. God bless you, too.”
    When Johnny hit End to hang up his phone, Omari was still playing with the poster without looking toward him. Johnny pulled up his desk chair and sat beside the bed. Telltale moisture dampened the bridge of Omari’s nose, and seeing his tears made Johnny’s eyes smart. What if he wasn’t helping this kid at all? What if he was only showing Omari his limitations?
    “It’s just a bad day,” Johnny said. “You can come back.”
    Omari’s chin trembled slightly before he caught it. “What for? Mama don’t have college money. It all goes to food, gas and blood. And with me like this? Ain’t no way.”
    “When we don’t see a way, God finds the way,” Johnny said. “It’s up to us to bust our asses to get what we want, but God does the rest. He makes the way out of no way.”
    Johnny’s grandmother in Macon might have quoted the Twenty-third Psalm: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. His Jaddah Jamilah, his grandmother who lived in Jordan, would echo the sentiment with her favorite Muslim prayer: I know that Allah is able to do anything, and that Allah knows all. O Allah I seek refuge in You from the evil in myself and every creature that You have given power over us. Verily my Lord is on the straight path.
    “You should be a damn preacher, man,” Omari said in a small voice. “For real.”
    “I just don’t want to see you give up, Omari. I know you can do it. I know you can.”
    “How?” Omari’s bitter tone was foreign. “You gonna’ make a miracle