The Two Kinds of Decay

Iowa City

In August 1997 I moved to Iowa City to go to graduate school. I brought a letter from my hematologist noting the concentration and rate of the gamma globulin infusion I’d need if the disease relapsed again.

I loved Iowa City. It was small enough that I was able to know it thoroughly.

I didn’t bring a car. I didn’t like driving. I’d loved living in New York and walking everywhere.

And so even though Iowa City wasn’t as pedestrian-convenient as New York, I walked everywhere.

I walked all the way up Gilbert Street to the Asian grocery store where I could get Korean noodle bowls. The kind I liked was called I’m Hot.

I liked cooking the oily noodles, draining them and mixing them with a can of tuna, then tossing everything with the contents of the spice packet and a couple of tablespoons of water.

I went to the Korean grocery every two weeks.

On maybe my fifth trip to the grocery, I noticed a small building just past it, on Gilbert.

It was a plasma donation center!

The rates for plasma donation were posted in the window. I think it paid $45 per liter.

One day a woman in my graduate program told me that she donated plasma twice a month, which was as often as they’d allow it. And I remember how excited I felt, the moment before I told her how much plasma I’d used, plasma that had been gathered at donation centers like the one on Gilbert.