Read Dead Man's Cell Phone for Free Online Page A

noticed that—
    Gordon, organ/organ, Gordon, same letters too!
    O, R, G—there’s no D—
    and God in the middle—oh! I feel sick.
    Â 
    JEAN
    Gordon—sold organs?
    Â 
    HERMIA
    I thought you were in in-coming.

    Â 
    JEAN
    I was.
    Â 
    HERMIA
    And you didn’t know what was in the packages?
    Â 
    JEAN
    No—I guess I didn’t.
    Â 
    HERMIA
    That’s funny! Well, I’m sorry to ruin your illusions about Gordon. I was never supposed to know—I told my friends he was in waste management. I remember one sad case. Gordon convinced a Brazilian man to give his kidney to a woman in Israel. Gordon paid him five thousand dollars cash. Gordon probably made one hundred thousand dollars in the transaction. He bought me a yellow diamond. (I think they look like something you’d find in a candy machine, but they’re very rare.) So the man returned to Brazil, kidney-less. And then his money was stolen from him at the airport in Rio. Can you imagine? He wrote these sad letters to our home. He would draw pictures of his lost kidney. It looked like a broken heart.
    Â 
    JEAN
    Oh!
    The phone rings.
Jean and Hermia look at each other.
Jean chooses to answer it.
    Hello—

    She is cut off.
She listens for a while.
Film noir music.
She hangs up.
    They said they have a kidney from Brazil. Go to South Africa. To the airport. I’ll be wearing a red raincoat. And hung up.
    Â 
    I have to go to South Africa.
    Â 
    HERMIA
    What?
    Â 
    JEAN
    I’ll make up for Gordon’s mistakes.
    Â 
    HERMIA
    Too late, Jean. The kidneys, the corneas, the skin—they’re the rings on my fingers and the fixtures in our bathrooms. What’s done is done.
    Â 
    JEAN
    Someone is waiting for a kidney, Hermia!
Tell Dwight I’ll call him from Johannesburg.
    Â 
    HERMIA
    What?
Jean! Do you own a gun?
    But Jean is out the door.

scene four
    At the airport in Johannesburg.
    Jean waits.
    A stranger enters (the Other Woman who is disguised completely and androgynously with a different accent from the one she had before—she now has an Eastern European accent, whereas before she had a vague, worldly and wholly unidentifiable accent of a beautiful woman who travels constantly between the city capitals of Europe and South America).
    Film noir music.
    The stranger wears a red raincoat and sunglasses.
    The stranger takes her cell phone out and dials a number.
    Jean’s cell phone rings.
    She answers it.
    Â 
    JEAN
    Hello.

    Â 
    STRANGER
    Hello. I am right behind you.
    Jean looks back at her.
    Don’t look at me.
    Jean turns back.
They remain on their phones though they are in close proximity.
    Place the money on the lost luggage counter. Then hang up, and place your phone on the lost luggage, as though it is afterthought. Then check your watch, look distracted, look up at departure screen, and get back on a plane to your own country.
    Â 
    JEAN
    Actually, we’re in a bit of a pickle. In our country we can only give our organs away for love. I mean I’m not saying our country is great or anything because at the moment—well, you know—but in terms of organ laws—it has to be love. It’s a strange law, right, because how can you measure love? I’m not sure you can measure love.
    Â 
    In any case, if you’re willing to give away your kidney for love, then we’re still in business. If not—
    Â 
    I am willing to give my kidney away instead of yours.
    Â 
    STRANGER
    What?

    Â 
    JEAN
    That’s right. It was so good of you to offer. I’m sorry I have no money to give you. I did make something for you though, just a token, it’s a lamp, in the shape of a kidney, it says, I was willing to give you away so that someone else shall live—so that when you turn it on—
    Â 
    STRANGER
    Hang up the phone. I’m coming over.
    They hang up their phones.
The stranger approaches.
    There are numbers stored on that phone. I need