“Listen, I’ve been thinking . . . you know I was storked, right? And well, you know, it’s nothing big, but I thought it might be nice to make some special reserved time just for storked kids at the Rec Jet. Just to show them they won’t be discriminated against anymore.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Connor says, as he stares at the engine, happy to be ending the conversation. He never even realizes what he’s just given away.
Starkey calls his little group the Stork Club and stakes out the hour between seven and eight every evening. While everyone’s looking somewhere else, a new class distinction rises within the Graveyard. The Stork Club is the only minority with special members-only time at the Rec Jet. It’s a taste of privilege that these kids have never had before—and Starkey wants them to gobble it up. He wants them to get used to it. He wants them all to expect it—and to know that Starkey can deliver.
Since Starkey runs food services, members of the Stork Club start replacing others in serving positions, and dole out larger servings to other storks with a wink. In the Holy of Whollies, the only ones who seem wise to these little creeping alliances are Ashley, whose job it is to root out social flare points, and that obnoxious Sherman kid who replaced John as head of waste and sanitation. It turns out Ralphy was easily bribed to look the other way, and as for Ashley, Starkey pretty much has it under control.
“What if giving storks special treatment creates resentment in the general population?” Ashley asks him as he supervises dinner one night.
“Well,” Starkey tells her with a mildly seductive smile, “the general population can kiss my ass.”
It makes Ashley blush just a little bit. “Just try to keep a low profile, okay?”
Still beaming charm, he says, “It’s what I do best,” and serves her a nice heaping portion, all the while calculating how she might secretly play into his plans.
“You’re a hard guy to read,” she tells him. “I’d really like to get inside your head.”
To which he responds, “The feeling’s mutual.”
- - -
Each night, during “the stork hour” at the Rec Jet, Starkey plants tiny seeds of discontent over games of pool and Ping-Pong. Nothing so blatant as fomenting a revolution, just innocent suggestions to encourage certain directions of thought.
“I think Connor’s done a good job for a guy who’s not all that smart,” he tells them offhandedly. Or, “I really like Connor. He’s not much of a leader, but isn’t he a great guy?”
Starkey never shows any open defiance; that would be counterproductive. It’s not about tearing Connor down, it’s about rotting out his roots. He won’t even suggest that he should be the one taking Connor’s place. That suggestion will eventually come from other storks—and all on their own, without any prompting from him. He knows it will happen, because he knows that every storked kid, deep down, dreams of a world where they’re not considered second-class citizens. That makes Starkey more than just the leader of a club. It makes him the hope for storked salvation.
Part Three
Windows of the Soul
Collected on the Internet, October 2011:
Kidney and other organ prices on the global criminal markets are based upon publicly available reports and are quoted in U.S. dollars. The price represents the amount either paid to the seller of the organ or the price paid by the buyer for the organ.
Average paid by kidney buyer: $150,000
Average paid to seller of kidney: $5,000
Kidney broker in Yemen: $60,000
Kidney broker in the Philippines: $1,000 to $1,500
Kidney buyer in Israel: $125,000 to $135,000
Kidney buyer in Moldova: $100,000 to $250,000
Kidney buyer in Singapore: $300,000
Kidney buyer in United States: $30,000
Kidney buyer in China: $87,000
Kidney buyer in Saudi Arabia: $16,000
Kidney seller in Bangladesh: $2,500
Kidney seller in China: $15,000