T. Coraghessan Boyle's The Fugitive

In T. Coraghessan Boyle’s 2016 short story The Fugitive, a deathly ill man ignores his doctor’s orders in favor of living life. The story revolves around Marciano, a man afflicted with severe tuberculosis, who has just been given his final chance to obey his doctor’s instructions and live freely. Marciano leaves the clinic and immediately removes his required mask, goes to a bar, and generally lives life without the stigma of his illness hanging over him. Several days later, however, Marciano’s caseworker catches him without the mask, and immediately has him quarantined. He escapes by using his contagiousness to his advantage, but is quickly recaptured. Marciano, a Mexican-American man, wishes to live his life in peace, regardless of his contagious tuberculosis. Despite numerous warnings, he refuses to follow the doctor’s orders to wear a mask in public because he despises the stigma and curious …show more content…
This buildup continues for several pages as he steadily ignores her warnings and goes to a bar and work without his mask. Finally, as Rosa finds out about Marciano’s deception and goes to his house with an officer, the action begins to pick up. He at first runs away, but quickly succumbs to the illness in his system. When he wakes up in a hospital, Marciano begins to panic. When Rosa tells Marciano that he will be transferred to a prison, his emotions run rampant. He describes himself as someone who “went out of his way to avoid confrontation (Boyle 7),” but still acts against her and the accompanying officer, justifying it with the idea that they were confronting him and that he deserves better. To be direct, he dredges up all the contagious mucus he can, and spits it all over the two. As he runs away, Marciano thinks about how he wishes his pain on them: “…see how they like being condemned and ostracized and locked up without a trial or a lawyer or anything… (Boyle