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Swapfare

Bill Tope

    The man in the raincoat stood like a statue against the gray, overcast sky and gazed uncertainly up at the building before him, a grim-looking, one-story red brick affair. Affixed to the front of the structure was a huge, electronic billboard which bore the legend,

GOLDMAN’S ORGAN EXCHANGE
ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC AID

    Turning his collar back against the rain, he strode boldly across the street, up to the tiny street-side window and peeped inside.
    “Yessir?” As if by magic a man appeared at the window, speaking from behind a wire mesh screen.
    “I want to exchange an organ,” the man said hesitantly.
    “Of course, of course,” beamed the proprietor, pulling his glasses down off his forehead. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
    Rather sheepishly, the man drew a shoebox-sized package from beneath his raincoat and pushed it into the sliding drawer beneath the window. The other man placed the box onto a little table, pulled off the lid, pushed away some surgical tissue and packing materials and surveyed the contents with a critical eye. The seller eyed the proceedings anxiously.
    “It’s a one-owner,” he offered hopefully. A pause. Then, he added, “A family heirloom.” The buyer grunted noncommitally. At length he pushed the paper back in place, replaced the lid and looked up dispassionately. “Medicaid?” he queried. The other man shook his head no. “Then I’ll give you three books.”
    “Three books?” cried the seller. “For a kidney?”
    “I should tell you how many kidneys I got in the back already, just sitting on shelves? Now, if you had a liver, well, that’d be different.” The seller knew this to be true, for peering over the man’s shoulder, he could see row upon row of organs, both organic and mechanical, and most of them kidneys. Today it was clearly a buyer’s market.“Three books,” the man repeated, with a note of finality. But then he added almost as an aside, “Plus eighty. I don’t know how I make a profit...” The seller scowled and looked away briefly but then nodded. Forms were turned up, signatures appended. and the treasured kidney placed carefully into a refrigerated display case, next to other kidneys, hearts, spleens, and the coveted livers.
    The seller stumbled back onto the rain-slick pavement, a voucher for three books of Food Stamps and eighty dollars cash clutched tightly in his fist. As he passed under the diffused glare of a streetlamp, he wondered again at the stories his grandmother used to tell him about the old-time Public Aid system, that didn’t swap organs and blood for benefits. Anyone could get Food Stamps. And a Medical Card.
    He chuckled and shook his head in disbelief. “No,” he murmured, walked across the boulevard to the Lottery Office. That wouldn’t make any sense; else how would Medicaid get all the organs it needs for the Department of Transplants and Prosthetics? He drifted up to the ticket window.
    The cashier looked up without interest. “Which game?” he asked.
    “Lucky Lungs and Livers,” the man replied. He winced and gingerly felt his side, ran his fingers over the hollow space, where his kidney had once been. He badly needed a cigarette but reminded himself that with just one remaining lung, he’d do well to give up tobacco. Receiving his Lottery chances at last, his face broke into a hopeful smile as he stared up hungrily at the Prize Board hanging over the window.
    He said wistfully, “I could get OFF Welfare if I could just win a Major Organ System!”

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