AUTHOR’S NOTE:

A short-short story of mine called “Post-Op” was published in June in the little literary magazine Sequoia Speaks. The magazine is one of the few left that only publishes in print, not online. If you want to buy the issue, go here. My short-short story is on page 21. Meanwhile, you can read “Post-Op” on my WordPress site below.

I’m laying here, thinking about Herb Brooks, when a nurse comes to my gurney.

“Jack Leddy?”

“Hi.”

He says that the operation went well, and that the surgeon will be in shortly to tell us 

more.

“You in pain?” 

“No.”

Whatever they snowed me with hasn’t worn off. He pivots. Gone.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. The phone call with Herb Brooks that went like this.

“You don’t have to do this,” I tell him.

“But I do. I cannot not do it.”

Herb’s giving away one of his kidneys. It’s a non-direction donation; Herb and the 

recipient don’t know each other.

“Why should I have two kidneys,” he says, “when someone else needs just one, just to 

stay alive?”

We’re both 52. Herb spent most of his forties giving away the sixty million dollars he’d 

made in real estate in his thirties. He set up a trust fund for Liz and their kids, and bought a small home in Cheltenham, outside of Philadelphia. They live on Liz’s salary and the modest residuals of stock and bonds that Liz wouldn’t let Herb part with. 

He wanted to pay my mortgage, but I wouldn’t let him—I’m a high school history teacher, and my wife and I manage. I never told her about Herb’s offer; she would have thought that I’m as crazy for not accepting as Herb is for always giving, giving, giving. No way in hell I’d let myself be beholden to anyone, especially Herb Brooks. I’d been the one who craved fame and fortune, the one trekking to Hollywood after college and writing screenplays, and going to auditions, and finally crawling back to Philly to teach history to high school kids. Herb had majored in philosophy, dropped out, and inherited two small properties from his grandfather. 

Herb Brooks: Millionaire.

Jack Leddy?

Well, I did win educator of the year once.

Herb gave money because he had it and people needed it. Nobody could talk him out of 

it. Normal people think give some, but keep earning so that you’ll always have extra to give. You’ll help more people that way. That’s the normal way of thinking. Not Herb thinking. 

The mental issues—depression, obsession, aggression—that compelled Herb Brooks to make a fortune also compelled him to get rid of it. He’d had to talk Liz into each new endowment along the way, but since the money mostly went to health care for children, she eventually conceded, until finally, she didn’t. 

So, what else could Herb Brooks give away but a kidney?

I go back to that phone call.
“It would be immoral for me not to,” Herb says.

It’s like this, he says. Two situations. One: You see a kid drowning in a lake. Two: You get 

a letter asking for money to help an impoverished kid. You save the drowning child because 

that’s just what you do. But simply because Situation One happens in front of you and Situation Two exists at some remove doesn’t mean that they both don’t deserve an urgent response. 

“If 100,000 people in this country donated a kidney each year, that ends the problem,” Herb says. “Everybody who needs one will get one. It’s immoral not to donate.” 

I should have made an excuse then. Something’s come up, Herb. I’ll get back to you. But no. Instead, I say, “You mean that because I don’t donate my kidney, I am an immoral person?” 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I perfected the pregnant pause. If anybody started in about the pandemic being fake and the vaccine a scheme, I’d go quiet. I didn’t try to convince these people, but I wouldn’t affirm their craziness, either. 

“Yes,” Herb said.

Pregnant pause.

“Herb, I need to go.”

We met in first grade. Our friendship began with a fight: slapping and wrestling and crying until the two strong hands of the teacher pulled us apart, and we were sent to opposite corners of the classroom to face the wall. Time out. He had cut in front of me in the pretzel line. Or I had cut in front of him. We’ve never agreed on what happened, trading versions over the years: 

“You started it.” “No, you started it.”

Or “I started it.” “No, I started it.”

We are only sons. I have four sister, and Herb has three, so we became “brothers.” As 

kids we both pretended to seriously consider pricking our fingers and mixing our blood, but we found a loophole. We’re both type O negative. Rare. That makes us brothers. We grew up. 

Drank our first beers together. Learned to drive. Played sports. Best man at each other’s weddings. Wept when our parents died. Wept again when our first children were born. Brothers. But after that phone call, brothers no more. 

The surgeon stands to the right of my gurney.

“How are you feeling, Jack?”

“Fine, Doctor.”
She turns towards the other gurney in the room. “And you, Herb?” “Ditto.” 

Yeah. 

They usually don’t have two patients sharing post-op, but Herb and I requested they make an exception. The kidney he had kept from his donation gets infected—badly. He needs a new one fast. And for one reason or another, nobody in Herb’s family can donate. I called Liz when I heard. Now here I am, in post-op, next to Herb Brooks, whom I thought I’d cut out of my life forever after that last phone call. 

Happy ending? 

Stay tuned. Liz mentioned that Herb had been talking about giving his other kidney away, living on dialysis the rest of his life. Liz had said “No way,” and when Herb’s remaining kidney began to malfunction, he panicked, and now, here we are. But knowing Herb… 

In the seconds between the surgeon leaving and our wives arriving, I say, “Herb, if you try to give my kidney away after all this, I’ll kill you.” 

Pregnant pause. “Herb?” 

“You know what I’d like to do, Jack Leddy? When we’re both up to it, I’d very much like lunch and beers at McNally’s, back in the old neighborhood. Give our kidneys a test drive.” 

“I. Will. Kill. You.”
The meds are wearing off. I’m hurting. Herb’s still focused on McNally’s. “On me, Jack Leddy.”
“Oh no. On me, Herb Brooks.”