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Gerlaine shook his head and shuffled wordlessly to the door He turned, gave Angel a long, worried look, then left the room The door clicked shut behind him

Quiet descended, settled uncomfortably onto the blank walls and speckled linoleum The monitor blipped on and on and on

Angel stared at the closed door, feeling the blood hurtling through his body, pounding at his te on the tired old valves of his heart His fingers were cold, so cold, and he couldn’t draw a decent breath

A transplant

He wanted to laugh it all off, to tell hi bad advice, and part of him even believed it But not all of him, not deep, deep inside of him where the fear had always lived, the dark spot in his soul where even the booze and drugs couldn’t reach

Transplant

The word circled back on itself and returned

Transplanttransplanttransplant

They wanted to cut his heart out

Drugs swirled soothingly through Angel’s body He couldn’t keep his eyes open, and his body felt weighted and tingly Consciousness ca of the wall clock

Ho him home

He tried not to think about it, but the memories were persistent He didn’t have the pills and the booze and the women to keep them away this time, and without his narcotic armor, he was so damned vulnerable He closed his eyes, and slowly, slowly, the antiseptic smell of the hospital was bloay by a rain-sweet breeze He no longer heard the ine…

He was seventeen again … riding his motorcycle, the Harley-Davidson that had cost hiine throbbed and purred beneath hi until he reached the stoplight The sign hovered above hionwheel Estates Trailer Park

He urged the bike forward, inching past one trailer, then another and another Eachrooms shored up with piles of concrete blocks, backyards a six-by-six square of gravel

Finally he came to his boyhood home