The End Specialist

But more to the point, I have yet to meet a single person who has publicly admitted it. I think we’ve all collectively adopted the unspoken rule that you don’t mention it out in the open. Like getting a nose job. Every discussion I’ve had about it has been conducted strictly in hypothetical terms. “Would you get it?” “What if it were legal? Would you get it then?” “Would you fly to Brazil and do it? I heard about a bunch of people at work who are taking sudden ‘vacations’ to Rio.” Stuff like that. But no one has ever said to me, “Yes, I got it”—which is just so weird. Clearly, people are going to get it. If a random person like me can go have it done, I have to assume I’m not alone. But I suppose there’s just too much uncertainly right now to go around parading the fact.

Anyway, I was more than happy to keep all this to myself. But Katy got it out of me. She’s an interrogator, my roommate. Aggressively interested in other people. Present her with wine, and she’ll pepper you with questions until you feel as if you’re under a hot lamp. She delights in extracting key information from you and then playing with it—stretching it out and bouncing it against the walls until she grows bored with it.

We were sitting in our apartment, watching the news. They were doing their nightly cure story, and Katy turned to me, clear out of the blue. She was squinting one eye.

“Did you get it?”

“What? No.”

“Oh, my God,” she said. “You are the absolute worst liar ever.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You fell dead silent when that report came on just now. Don’t try to hide it. I have excellent cure-dar.”

“Cure-dar?”

“Uh huh. Remember when I said Jesse Padgett had it done? She totally did. You could tell because she’d clam right up whenever the subject came up. Just like you did there. You should look in the mirror. Your face is so red right now. You look like a giant tomato.”

“Aw, Jesus.”

“You did it! You did it! You did it! I can’t believe this. You slippery bastard!”

She got the confession in record time and beamed in delight at the accomplishment. Her eyes bugged and she smiled proudly. She has a snaggletooth and loves to flaunt it as a distinguishing feature.

“Don’t go broadcasting this all over the place, all right?”

“Oh, I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “I promise you that. But you’re gonna tell me everything.”

“They haven’t even finished yet.”

“They haven’t finished? What do they do to you? Tell me, tell me, tell me. I heard you get sixty shots, all in the armpit.”

“No. They just took my blood, and then a week from now they give me three shots. That’s it.”

“That’s it? Holy underwear. What did it cost?”

“Seven thousand bucks.”

“Seven grand?”

“Shh!”

“That’s nothing! That’s less than nothing! I once expensed a tab at Lusardi’s that was bigger than that! You have to tell me how to do it.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, bullshit.”

“This doctor will only take direct referrals from a small circle of people he knows, and one of them happens to be a friend. No extra degrees of separation beyond that. It’s like a drug dealer, I swear.”

“So just give me your guy’s name and I’ll say I know him.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, please. Who made you guardian of the fountain? What—is this like your little boys’ club? Do you all go get the cure and then take a naked swim together? Is that it?”

“I just don’t want to get anyone in trouble. They asked me not to refer anyone.”

“This is so unfair. Who’s the guy you know? Is it Schilling? I bet it’s Schilling.”

“No…”

Another crooked, triumphant grin.

“It is! This is amazing. I don’t even need a polygraph. All I have to do is ask you a question and wait for your head to blow up.”

“Regardless, you still need the address and phone number from me.”

“Well, why hold it back? Honestly. Give me one good reason, apart from your little pinky swear not to, that I don’t deserve the information and you do. I’ve never known you to be timid about anything. But I ask you about this and you turn into a mute. Come on. Don’t be so annoying. It’s not like people won’t find out at some point that you’re having it done. In fact, judging by how quickly I found out, the whole city should know by morning.”

“Okay. Fine. I will give you all the information. After I’ve gotten the final shots a week from now. And, you have to pay the cable bill for six months.”

“What?”

“Referral fee,” I said. “It’s only fair.”

“You’re such a goddamn lawyer.”

“Those are the terms. We have a deal?”

“We do. I can’t believe you found it. Oh, I love you! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! Yes! You know I’ve been trying to find a curist for months now? I am so relieved. This is gonna be incredible. Except… You’re sure this guy’s legit, right?”

“Yes.”

“Because you know about all the bogus ones out there, right? How do you know this guy isn’t gonna inject you with Cascade? Remember the lady in Queens who had that done to her last week?”

“I’m certain it won’t be Cascade. For one thing, this doctor has no dishes to wash.”

“Okay, then I’ll wait until you get your shots. And if you don’t drop dead on the spot, I’m definitely calling him. I am so excited! I’m gonna be twenty-seven forever! And I don’t have to go to São Paulo to do it!”

She sprung up and rushed to the kitchen, then froze halfway there.

“Oh, Christ,” she said. “Do you know what I just realized? I’m always gonna get my period. That sucks.”

“Seems like a minor sticking point.”

“We could be roommates forever too. Do you want to sign a hundred-year lease?”

“No.”

“Your loss, because I am gonna party my ass off until the year 5000!”

Then she poured a glass of Shiraz to the brim and danced on the sofa.

Date Modified: 6/13/2019, 10:02AM

“Cake-Batter Mixes Are One Of The Great Food Innovations Of The Past Sixty Years”

That’s the kind of thing you hear when you talk with my dad for any considerable length of time. I don’t want to say he goes off on tangents, because that would suggest he has a main topic from which to deviate. I enjoy his company because he never answers any question with the phrase “I don’t know.” He either knows, or he’ll talk out of his ass until he’s convinced you he knows. It’s a skill I’ve yet to master.

I’m due to get the cure finished off on Monday. I should be all excited at the prospect of beginning the rest of my indefinitely elongated life, but I’ve found myself increasingly impatient as I grow closer. All I’ve done the past few days is calculate population figures and think about death—mine or anyone else’s. I don’t enjoy thinking about death, which is one of the reasons I wanted the cure in the first place. Now, I seem to be obsessing over it. The irony of it all is infuriating.

All of this ruminating and provocation was beginning to feel like a vise on my head. I was getting sick of endlessly talking about it with myself. I needed an outlet. Someone besides Katy. Any time I bring up the cure with her, she screams out in ecstasy and packs a bowl. She’s got a fabulous attitude about the whole thing, but I needed to go a bit deeper. Besides, I was already visiting my dad for the weekend, and I would have burst like a grape if I didn’t fess up.

My dad has lived in northwest Connecticut for the past fifteen years, in one of those towns you can only get to on Metro North by switching trains at Bridgeport. Then you have to go all the way to Waterbury, at which point you feel as if you’ve been dumped off in a nuclear fallout zone. Towns around Waterbury are populated exclusively by elderly people and kids who took enough acid to permanently unmoor their brains. After more than five days in the vicinity, I have a hard time not wanting to tear off my own skin. Once you’re in that part of the state, there is nothing to do except eat and drink. And that’s how my old man has spent his retirement: eating and drinking.

He picked me up at the Waterbury station and drove me home. He had cold beer and a dish of mixed nuts waiting at the house for us. It was his way of entertaining the way my mom might have, way back when—of adding a nice little flourish to my arrival. I appreciated it greatly. Once we sat down, I couldn’t hold back.

“I’m getting the cure.”

“What?”

“I’m getting the cure. Final shots are on Monday.”

“So it’s real?”

“Far as I know.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

He sat there. He had an inscrutable look on his face. I couldn’t read him in the slightest.

“How did you get it?” he asked.

“I knew someone. It wasn’t that hard. Do you want it? The doctor said he wouldn’t give it to anyone over thirty-five, but I bet I could convince him otherwise, or find someone else to do it.”

“Won’t give it to anyone over thirty-five? Well, isn’t that a bitch? I suppose I’m a member of the ‘unluckiest generation’ now. That’s what they called it in the news report. ‘The last to die,’ they said. It’s like the people who died just as TV was being invented. That had to have been aggravating. You spend your whole life sitting next to some giant radio. And when they finally get around to adding picture to the sound, you’re dead as a doornail. Not really fair.”

“Like I said, I still think I can get it for you.”

“How much did it cost?”

“Seven thousand bucks.”

“I don’t know. Seems like a lot.”

“It’s eternal youth, Dad. It’s not gonna cost the same as a gumball.”

“No, you’re probably right about that. It’s just… I dunno. Look, I don’t mean to sadden you. Because I’m happy as can be that you found something that will keep you healthy forever and ever. I really am. It’s a comfort to me to know you’re not going to grow old and have crappy knees and hit a golf ball no more than eighty yards. But each day I’m down here is another day I’m away from your mother.”

We sat quietly for a moment. My mom died when I was fifteen years old, right after we moved from Buffalo. She died of cancer. For two years, she went through chemo and radiation. She aged forty years in a whisper. All her hair fell out. They kept going back to cut out parts of her again and again. And she stayed alive because she knew this was the only life she’d ever have. No reincarnation. No afterlife. Just this. That’s all you get. By the time the cancer had colonized every inch of her frame, she’d dropped to ninety pounds and looked like a mummy preserved in oil. Just a skeleton with a tarp of skin stretched out over it. There was nothing about her dying that was good.

“You really think you’ll see her again?” I asked him.

“Oh, I have no doubt of that.”

“But she’ll always be there. Why spend the next few years just sitting here waiting? Why not do something with the time you have?”

“I do plenty!”

He gestured to his railroad timetables. My dad collects them in bulk. Five times a year he’ll drive to some random state and attend a timetable convention. He’s the only person at those things who isn’t dressed in overalls and a Fruit of the Loom T-shirt.

“I’m just saying that there may be places and people that you still have to discover. You may find a new passion, like antique boats or something.”

“Antique boats? Why would I like antique boats? I’ve met those boating guys. They’re all completely cheesy.”

“It’s just an example, Dad. It could be anything. I just don’t think there’s any need for you to sit here, waiting for the end.”

He grew angry at that remark. “I’m not waiting for the end, John. I’m not in a rest home. I have a life, one I’m glad to have. I’m not some sad old thing you have to come check on occasionally like a houseplant. But I have a date with your mom somewhere down the line, and I don’t want to postpone it longer than I have to. I don’t judge your choice to loiter around this planet forever, like a skateboarder outside a movie theater. So I would hope you would refrain from judging mine.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad or to judge you. I’m being selfish here. I know that. I just don’t want to see you go.”

“You’re gonna have to. I’m sorry.”

We 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.”

He gave me a look that told me she was.

“Can I have her number?”

“What did I just say? Look, do you want these shots or not?”

“Yes, yes! Sorry.”

“Okay. Come on over to the chair.”

He led me over to a chair in the corner of the apartment. It had a lap belt, and belts to bind your wrists and ankles. I became alarmed. “What the hell is this?”

“The restraints help keep you in place during the injections,” he said. “If I don’t use them, you wiggle all over the place and the whole thing takes forever.”

“I thought you said these were three simple shots.”

“They are. But I have to inject them deep into your tissue. If you want, I can apply a small amount of local anesthesia to each area. I do it for some of the female patients.”

“So this will hurt?”

“It’s an ageless life, John. Did you really expect it to be painless?”

I relented and got in the chair. He buckled me in, and I quickly had a vision in my mind of him jumping into his closet and coming back out carrying a cattle prod and wearing a gimp mask. Instead, he wheeled a small cart towards the chair and uncovered the tray on top. There were three huge needles. Hell, they weren’t even needles. They looked like railroad spikes. Katy thought you got sixty shots in your armpit. My dad heard a rumor it was administered via a balloon enema. I would have preferred either option. I handle normal shots just fine. These were elephant shots.

“I do this fast. You’ll feel pressure, and it’ll sting. Badly. Here, hold this.”

He handed me a stress doll, one of those rubber ones where the eyes and ears bulge out if you squeeze it. “I don’t think I—”

“Trust me. You’ll want it.”

I held on. He plunged the needles in rapid succession, and in increasing order of excruciating pain: first my shoulder (not bad), then my neck (agony), then my thigh (like reverse childbirth). I squeezed the stupid doll until its ears could practically touch opposite sides of the room. It was horrible, but it was over quickly. He bandaged me up, undid the restraints, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“That it?”

“That’s it,” he said. “We’re all done. Enjoy the rest of your life.”

“Thank you.”

He gripped my shoulder and looked me in the eye.

“No, I mean it. Enjoy it. You still never know how much of it you have left.”

He patted me on the back and escorted me out. I pushed the elevator button. Again, it stalled at the fifth floor. I couldn’t have cared less this time. Down to the lobby I went. I stepped out into the flawless morning. I made it a point to find that blonde girl again one day. I now have all the time in the world to do it.

Date Modified: 6/20/2019, 2:06PM

“You Realize You Can Never Retire Now, Right?”

Even if the cure is a complete hoax (and now that I’ve gotten it, that outcome is now a virtual certainty), I still recommend you get it. The placebo effect is marvelous. I’m not supposed to feel supercharged from getting it, but I do. And if I find out ten years from now that it was all a lie, that’s still ten years of tricking myself into feeling downright ebullient. I’ll have to get it again after that.

I felt like I could run a marathon when I got out onto the street yesterday. But because I am far too lazy, I instead opted for a leisurely walk back downtown. I also stopped for a donut, because it felt like the right thing to do. As I walked down into the Forties, I could hear the growing sound of a crowd in the distance. After a few more blocks, everything came into relief. I was close to the UN. The pro-cure protesters were standing outside. And if there is a group of people out there even more fanatical than the pro-death supporters, it’s the pro-cure supporters. They looked angry. One woman appeared to be shaking with rage as she walked around with a sign that read, LEGALIZE IT. YOU ARE LETTING US DIE. She paced in front of the building, stomping her feet like a T. rex.