sat quietly for another moment. I checked my watch. It was 9:19 p.m. When I was in grade school, a friend told me that every conversation pauses awkwardly at 20 and 40 minutes past the hour, because the ghosts are flying over your head. I rounded up to 9:20 in my head. For Mom’s sake.
“I know it was hard to see your mom go,” he said. “I was there. I wouldn’t wish the anguish you, your sister, and I went through on anyone. I know why you’d want to hold onto me so fiercely after that. I really do. If your mom were still around, you can bet I’d turn over fourteen grand to your doc quick as lightning. But she isn’t, and I’ve accomplished everything here that I’ve wanted to do. I’m comfortable. So I don’t want you to think this is some awful thing that’s going to happen to me down the line. It’s fine. Besides, I’m already old. I assume this thing doesn’t take thirty years off of your odometer, correct?”
“Yeah, unfortunately. It only puts you in park, not reverse.”
“See, I don’t want to stay old forever and ever. That’s why everyone your age is probably rushing out to get this. It’s not that people don’t want to die. It’s that they don’t want to grow old. Well, I missed out on that chance.”
“The unluckiest generation.”
“The unluckiest generation.” He sipped his drink. “You know I’m still due to be around here for a while, don’t you? I drink red wine. I eat my asparagus. I’m going to be annoying you for quite some time.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“If everyone ends up your age, that’s gonna be one hell of a party.”
“Could be.”
“What do we do about your birthday? Do we wish you a happy twenty-ninth birthday every year from here on out? Do we all have to get you presents every year for the next thousand damn years?”
“I’ll just take a cake.”
“I can do that. I can bake a cake, you know. They have some incredible cake mixes in the store now. They have fudge ripples. Sprinkles. Everything. And they taste just as good as the ones people make from scratch. I’m telling you, cake-batter mixes are one of the great food innovations of the past sixty years. They are a fabulous, fabulous product. I suppose you’ll still be around when they find a way to improve them.”
“How will they do that?”
He thought for a moment. “They’ll fly. In the future, you’ll get to eat flying cake.”
He poured me a glass of whiskey, and we proceeded to talk about the Bills and graham cracker piecrusts and his ten-year crusade to have a stoplight built at the intersection of Rand Avenue and Route 118. I happily would have stayed there, talking to him about anything and everything, for God knows how long.
Date Modified: 6/19/2019, 10:34AM
The Woman In The Elevator
They changed the slogan on those First Avenue wild postings: DEATH BE PROUD. I don’t think it’s anywhere near as clever as the first one they tossed up there. Nearly all the posters had already been defaced by the time I saw them. There was one piece of graffiti that I particularly enjoyed. It had been done by someone who was clearly skilled with a can of spray-paint. It was the grim reaper, his own scythe plunged straight through his back, impaling him and leaving him dangling in midair. He was stone dead.
Unlike two weeks ago, yesterday was an insanely gorgeous day. Razor-sharp blue sky, as if you were staring at it through polarized lenses. I took this as a good omen, and walked to the doctor’s office from the subway using my finest New York walking technique: ass tight, legs churning, chin up, purposely avoiding eye contact with any people or objects. I can walk ten blocks like that in five minutes, even if you spring a tour bus group on me in the middle of it.
I had a faint trace of anxiety way in the back of my mind as I approached Dr. X’s building. It had been two weeks. He could have been arrested, or killed. Or he could have already fled the country for Brazil, taking with him thousands of dollars in cash (all in denominations under fifty dollars, of course). Or maybe those people decrying the cure as a giant hoax were onto something.
And the money. I’m not much of a cash person. I’ve never carried more than a hundred bucks on me at a time. Now I had 350 twenty-dollar bills to deal with (the clerk had no fifties). They wouldn’t fit in my wallet, and I didn’t want to keep them there anyway, since it would have bulged out and looked all too conspicuous. So I wadded the bills up and put them in my messenger bag. But my bag has roughly nine thousand pockets, and I’m the type of person who will put something somewhere and then immediately forget where the hell I put it. So on the subway ride there, I did this thing where I’d feel for the cash, only I’d feel the wrong pocket; then I’d quietly freak out and frisk the bag until I found the bulge. This happened at least three times.
But I was out of the subway now, and the crisp day quickly cleared all those niggling obsessions from my mind. It was nice out, and I was about to stay twenty-nine years old for the rest of my life. Nothing else mattered.
Again, the doorman let me sail right through to the elevator. I jammed the button and stared at the numbers above the door glowing progressively downward eight, seven, six, five… still on five… still on five… still on five… Jesus, was someone herding buffalo into the car? It began moving downward again, finally settling on L.
The door opened, and out stepped an unreasonably attractive woman. My fervent urge to get in the elevator was instantly destroyed. She was nearly six feet tall (I’m six foot six), naturally tanned. California blonde. If she hadn’t been standing before me, I’d have sworn she could only be created with Photoshop. She radiated like some kind of bright-shining beacon, welcoming all to a newly discovered paradise, a gateway to unimaginable happiness.
She saw me, gave a small smile, and said hi in a party girl’s raspy voice. I said hi back. I think I said hi back. I may have simply mouthed it and forgotten to make an audible sound. That’s probably what I did.
She walked right past me. I turned to look. So did the doorman. She was the promise of eternal youth made flesh. A feeling of incredible urgency lit up my system. That kind of instant love that you know isn’t the real thing but feels like it all the same. She had an impossible body, athletic and voluptuous all at once. Somehow. Some way. I have no idea. I immediately hoped she was coming from Dr. X’s office. I’ve never wanted to live forever so badly.
She breezed out of the entranceway and turned to walk down the street, out of view. I carefully etched the outline of her body into the most easily accessed part of my brain. That accomplished, I turned to the elevator to get back to business. It had already closed and gone back up. Eight, seven, six, five… still on five… still on five… Christ.
I made it to Dr. X’s door and knocked again. He let me in. His eyes were bloodshot. He beckoned me in and closed the door. I immediately handed him the cash, relieved that I no longer had to be its guardian.
“Oh, excellent,” he said. “Thank you. Would you like a receipt?”
“You give receipts?”
“Oh, sure. I mean, they’re not explicit. They don’t say, ‘Hey, I did something illegal.’ But I’ve had more than my fair share of clients who have employers that would happily bear the cost for this kind of thing.”
Scores was within ten blocks of the building. I immediately put two and two together.
“Before we get started,” I said, “I have a question.”
“Always with the questions. I like that you’re so inquisitive.”
“There was a blonde woman I saw walking out of the building. She was attractive. Highly attractive. Was she here just now, getting the cure?”
“I can’t answer that question. You know that.”
“But she was, right?”
“Again, I can’t answer that.”