22
“Who the fuck is that guy, and why is he puking in your bathroom?” Sheila demanded in hushed tones.
“His name is Elijah,” Angela said, trying to steady her voice. “I don’t know what to do about this, Sheila.”
“Let me see it again,” Sheila said.
Sheila took Angela’s hand in hers, turning it over and inspecting it. The finger was now almost completely red, and swollen up like a balloon.
“Okay,” Sheila said, still examining the finger. “This looks pretty bad, Ang, I’m not gonna lie.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do now?” Angela said.
“I don’t know,” Sheila said slowly. “I don’t know.”
They stood there for a moment, looking at each other. The chickens clucked.
“How did it even get this bad in the first place? Didn’t you say they gave you medication?” Sheila said.
“Yes,” Angela said. “Well, it’s a long story, but that’s why I went to the farm.”
The sound of the toilet flushing interrupted Angela, and within a few seconds, Elijah was back.
“Sorry,” he said.
Sheila and Angela just looked at him.
“Do you have any mouthwash?” Elijah said quietly.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that,” Angela said. “I was just about to explain to my sister—did you tell her anything?” Angela said.
Elijah shook his head vigorously.
“I was about to tell her that I’m afraid I might have already...” she struggled to find the right words. “I think the antibiotics might be.... Well, the chickens, I…. I think I’ve been feeding the chickens antibiotics.”
The three of them stood in silence for a moment. They looked down at the chickens, who were scattered around the trailer.
“How?” Elijah said finally. “What do you mean? You’re mixing antibiotics into their food?”
“Well,” Angela said, still looking at the chickens. “Yeah. Sort of.”
“Where are you getting the antibiotics?” Elijah said. “I don’t even… I can’t even get antibiotics without—”
“I’m stealing feed from the farm I work at,” Angela interrupted.
For a moment, Angela felt like the world had stopped turning. Even the chickens stopped clucking.
“What?” Sheila said. “You’re stealing feed?”
Angela avoided Sheila’s gaze, saying nothing.
“So what does that have to do with—”
“Oh my God,” Elijah said, his eyes widening. “Antibiotic resistance.”
Angela and Sheila looked at him with the same puzzled expression. Elijah looked around at the chickens, then back at Angela.
“What does that even mean?” Sheila said.
“The chickens,” he said, staring at Angela’s finger, speaking slowly, as if in a trance. “You fed the chickens antibiotics... The bacteria living inside the chickens have these, like... they have little, uhh… pamphlets… of DNA….”
“Pamphlets?” Angela said.
“They’re called plasmids. They’re these… little… pamphlets... and the bacteria use them to transfer antibiotic resistance genes,” he said, trailing off.
He looked at the floor. Angela and Sheila looked at him expectantly.
“The bacteria in the chickens gets exposed to the antibiotics in their feed…. If it survives, it takes that experience… writes it down on a plasmid… passes it around... it starts catching on... gets passed around.... It’s like a warning... a pamphlet... Thomas Paine... bacterial samizdat.... Oh my God. Angela. What did you do?” he said.
“I didn’t know! Is it bad? I didn’t know, I swear!”
“There shouldn’t be antibiotics...” Elijah said under his breath. “I thought they passed a law....”
“I don’t know, Elijah. All I know is that the feed has kept my chickens healthier since they started living in here with me,” Angela said.
“Okay, that reminds me: why the fuck are there chickens in here?” Elijah said, his facade of professionalism finally shattering.
“I don’t have time to get into that right now. They live in here with me. That’s all you need to know.”
“Okay,” Elijah said. “Umm…. Shit.”
Elijah turned away from Angela and Sheila and started pacing, his head down.
“Fuck. Why couldn’t you just let Dr. Leonard lance it?” he said, stopping to look at Angela.
“I didn’t know—”
“This is so bad,” he interrupted, and resumed pacing. “This is so fucking bad. I should’ve taken a social history. I should’ve asked if you had pets.”
He stopped again and looked at Angela, who had a terrified look on her face.
“What do you do for work?”
Angela had not seen this side of Elijah before. She began to worry that he had lost his mind.
“I work at an industrial chicken farm,” she said.
Elijah stared at her in silence, and Angela could see his thoughts moving.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” he said in a low voice, as if he had been betrayed. “Why didn’t you....” He looked down again and continued pacing. “Why didn’t I ask?”
Angela strode over to Elijah and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Can you get a grip? I’m the one who should be freaking out right now,” she said, putting her face close to his.
Elijah stared at her, frozen. She released her grip, and he looked down again.
“I’m going to get fired. I’m going to get banned from being a doctor before I even get my license. I did a malpractice. I didn’t take a good enough history, and I gave you antibiotics.... I could’ve figured it out. We could’ve lanced it. I could’ve told him if I’d asked you the questions, and we need to just lance it, and it’s no use prescribing anything—”
“You’re not allowed to have a meltdown right now, Elijah. You need to fix this. You told me it was just a pimple, and then you gave me the wrong medication, and then you made me lie to your boss to save your ass. I don’t care about your job right now. You need to fix this.”
Elijah looked up at her.
“I can’t fix it on my own,” he said. “We have to tell Dr. Leonard.”
“No,” Angela said. “We’re not telling anyone. No one can know about this. We’ll both lose our jobs.”
“Angela, what?” Sheila said. “So what is the plan, exactly?”
Angela said nothing. The chickens clucked.
“Angela, what are you asking?” Sheila demanded.
“Elijah,” Angela said, looking at the chickens. They were making their way to Angela’s makeshift roost—a ladder propped against a wall—for the night. She smiled, then looked back at Elijah.
“You need to cut off my finger.”
end of part one