The End Specialist

“Yet he chose to engage in some shady side business. Why is that?”

“It was just some ego thing.”

“And that doesn’t bother you, even now? I saw the doctor Mark wanted to visit to get it done. His name was Frankie, and he looked like he stole furniture out of trucks. I’ve heard some of the people offering to do it aren’t even real doctors. They’re like chiropractors times ten. I’m not judging you for getting it. I’m just worried about you. That’s all.”

“I’m grateful for that, P. I really am. But I’m fine. Mentally, I’m a disaster. But physically, I feel fine. Great, as odd as that sounds.”

She grew a touch curious. “So, you think it really works then.”

“We won’t know for a while. I’ve been taking a photo of my face every day just to see if there are any changes over time I don’t readily notice.”

“And you’re not worried about, you know, hogging all the food and stuff?”

“I promise I won’t eat all the Nilla Wafers in the house, like last time.”

“You know that’s not what I mean. There’s a reason people are fighting so fiercely to keep this cure out of people’s hands. You don’t have kids. I do. I think about this stuff. I think about what’ll be left for them.”

“So you’re never going to get it? And you’ll never let Mark get it?”

She let out a low groan. “I have no idea. I really don’t. I’m guessing there will be a point where it’s legal and everyone has it and I feel obligated to get it too. I was like that with cell phones. I was easily the last of my friends to get one. Everyone else had one. And there I was, outside school at some disgusting pay phone that didn’t even work. Now, of course, I have one and I’ll never go back. That’s how I am. I usually have to be dragged into things. I know it’s probably inevitable that I’ll get the cure and that we’ll all get it. It’s just gonna be something you do. But it opens up all sorts of odd questions that I don’t want to deal with right now. I mean, what happens to Mark and me?”

“Are you guys having problems?”

“No! Not at all. But it’s a whole weird thing, to think you’ll be with someone for that long. I love him, and I’m willing to do it. It’s just… daunting. And the kids… Jesus. You become a parent, and your whole life becomes about worrying. You just worry constantly that they’ll be okay. And the idea that I’ll be worried forever about them and what they do… I almost have a panic attack when I think about it. I’m worried, and I’m worried about having to worry so goddamn much.”

I told her about all the bankers getting divorced.

“Oh, Christ,” she said. “Don’t tell me that.”

“Sorry.”

“See, that completely freaks me out. One day we’ll get it, and Mark’s friends will all say, ‘Hey, what are you still doing with that old bag?’”

“But you won’t be old.”

“But I’m old already. I have two kids. That makes you old. So then I have that to worry about. Do I have the ability to keep my husband happy for centuries upon centuries? Do I need to get lipo so that I can look like some perky goddamn cheerleader? I have no earthly idea, and I don’t like the idea of having to confront all those issues somewhere down the road. Right now my whole life is plagued with decisions that have to be made: what to get for dinner, which school the kids should go to, which kid’s birthday party we should go to this weekend. It’s just decision after decision after decision, from trivial crap to really important things. By the end of the day, I’m mush. I don’t even eat dinner because I don’t want to choose what to have. I have cereal and call it a day. And now there’s this. Big, huge decision alert. Every question I ask myself about it begets a dozen more. It’s giving me a migraine right now, and I haven’t even done anything.”

“It has to be better than the alternative, though.”

“Does it? I don’t know.”

“Well, you already say you’re old. How does growing old feel so far?”

She sighed. “It sucks.”

“Well, now I feel somewhat better about my decision.”

We changed the subject. Polly handed me a plate of cold roast beef and corn on the cob. We talked, and I ate and, for the first time, Katy’s death moved to the back of my consciousness, if only for a moment. This is bereavement: the slow, eventual reassertion of your own meaningless preoccupations. As I ate, the look in Polly’s eyes made it clear she was still thinking about the cure. She had tried for so long to stem the tide, to avoid being overwhelmed by it all. But now here I was: the tsunami at her doorstep.

Date Modified: 7/17/2019, 5:09PM

DC Apparently Stands For

“Don’t Come”

I have a friend in DC who emailed me this in response to reports about the expanded security perimeters to accommodate protesters in Midtown:

Dude, the security bullshit you have to deal with up there is nothing compared to what’s going on down here. The entirety of Northwest DC below M Street has been cordoned off since that girl was beaten to death for her DieStrong bracelet and the riots in Germany started. You can’t drive anywhere downtown. I’m talking about miles the hell away from the White House. And when you come up out of Metro, there are National Guard members with loaded rifles, their fingers ready on the trigger, ready to pull you aside if you look like a threat. They increased the restricted airspace above the town by nearly twentyfold. If you come down on a shuttle from Boston to National, you practically have to go through Ohio. It’s insane.

Downtown DC around the Wizards’ arena is essentially a pedestrian thoroughfare now. I have no issue with this, since people in DC can’t drive for shit, except that Metro stops can be goddamn light years away from each other. That scene you described at Penn Station? That’s every Metro station, except here the station escalators never work, so you have to haul ass up four thousand stairs before you get to emerge above ground. And the buses aren’t running. All the protesters have been forced to demonstrate on the other side of the Potomac, along the bike trail in Arlington. I saw a bunch of them trying to swim across the Potomac to get to the Mall, only to have cops pick them up in a riverboat and haul their sorry asses out of the water. One of them almost drowned in the rip currents.

I have a friend who works on the Hill who says the Supreme Court judges will be moved to an undisclosed location to argue the California case. Lots of bomb threats.

Fucking crazy, man. Fucking crazy.

—MK

Date Modified: 7/18/2019, 11:07AM

A Blonde Everywhere I Turn

I was walking down Third Avenue today when I spotted a woman across the street with a remarkable body and blonde hair that broke just past her shoulder blades. I turned electric. I saw a gap in traffic and sprinted across the avenue. A cab rounding from Forty-third blithely took the corner and nearly plowed into me. I kept my focus on the blonde as the driver honked at me three hundred times in the space of four seconds. She didn’t turn her head and kept bouncing down Third, with me trailing behind her and trying to figure out a plan in my head before quickening my pace to identify her. I kept thirty yards behind, dodging dog walkers, tourists, and the meandering hordes of the unemployed. I took out my phone and queued up the number for the police without hitting Send, so I would have it at the ready. I took her picture so I could post it to my feed if need be. If this blonde was the blonde, I’d call the police and alert them to her presence, then follow her until they arrived to detain her.

I made the decision to pass. I sprint-walked closer and closer, until I was side-by-side, then I feigned interest in the window of a Hot & Crusty on the other side of her, and caught a quick glimpse on her face. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t even close.

This sort of wild-goose chase has now taken up firm residence in my daily routine. Spy blonde. Suspect blonde. Chase blonde. Realize I’ve misidentified blonde. Think of my friend bursting into flames sixteen days ago while I remained outside, like a dumb dog that no one bothered to train. Doomed to follow every pointless distraction that crosses my path.

Date Modified: 7/19/2019, 9:34PM

The Worst Since Kent State

From the Washington Post website:

DEVELOPING: FOUR DEAD IN CONCORD CURE PROTEST

By Luke Spiller and Candace English

CONCORD, NH (AP)—Four pro-cure demonstrators were shot dead today by National Guardsmen in the New Hampshire state capital of Concord after a massive protest turned into the most violent cure-related conflict since two students were shot dead in a Berlin riot three weeks ago.

After a widespread report was released yesterday accusing the United States military of offering the so-called cure for death to its own soldiers in exchange for extended pension benefits, protesters here in the Granite State marched on the Capitol. Many were incensed.

“They were trying to force their way inside the building. They wanted to take it over,” says lawyer Jim Watley, who works in the Capitol. “I don’t know what they would have done if they had gotten in, but that was their aim.”

A small group of National Guardsmen aimed with protecting the Capitol tried to keep protesters at bay with shields and threats of tear gas. But witnesses say a crazed protestor threw a lit Molotov cocktail at the guardsmen, which prompted two of them to open fire into the crowd, causing protesters to flee in mass panic. Four people are now confirmed dead. An unspecified number of people were injured, including Jackie Frost of Nashua, NH, who was shot in the leg.

“They were supposed to use rubber bullets!” she cried. “No one else was armed! Why didn’t they use rubber bullets?”

The number of people killed in today’s incident is equal to that of the number killed in the 1970 shootings at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.

Further details forthcoming.

I looked outside my window just now and saw a man running down the median of the avenue, screaming his head off as cars threatened to sideswipe him from both directions. He wasn’t saying anything. He was just unleashing the most primal noise he could possibly make. He was holding up a sign that said GIVE IT TO US NOW.

On the TV right now, they’re showing protesters lined up against the barricades in DC. They look like a mob of shoppers waiting to get into a department store at 7:00 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving. The President is due to speak at 8:00 p.m.

Date Modified: 8/14/2019, 3:20PM

“One Infinite Generation”

Here’s the full text of the President’s speech, copied from CNN:

My fellow Americans:

This is a very tense time. The world has been confronted with a medical innovation that represents a seismic change in the very nature of who we are and how we interact. I am not an enemy of science, nor do I ever wish to be someone who stands in the way of progress. Three years ago, when I first issued the executive order banning the black market sale of the cure for aging, it was never with the intention that the ban would be permanent. Like many of you, I marvel at possibility opened by this cure. It means the potential to have a very long, very wonderful life, surrounded by those we love for perhaps thousands of years or more.

But we must consider the impact that kind of longevity will have, both on our fellow men and women and on the large yet delicate planet we call home. For the past 243 years, we have existed as a country united in a single goal: liberty for all. We believe in freedom because we believe it is not only the right of every man, woman, and child, but also because freedom serves as the catalyst for our very highest ambitions.

It is this idea—the idea that freedom can make the world a better place—upon which we have built our nation. It is this idea that so many brave young Americans have fought and died for. At Valley Forge. At Gettysburg. In Normandy and Iwo Jima. In Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Our men and women fought not only for their fellow countrymen, but for future generations—generations they knew they’d never live to meet face-to-face.

But there aren’t going to be future generations anymore. Not after this. There will only be us. One infinite generation, forever growing and reaching an unknown and incomprehensible size. And so now we are charged once again with the task of sacrificing for the sake of our nation’s future—a future in which we will all now serve a much larger role than we ever dreamed possible. Because while we may now have a virtually unlimited lifespan, our natural resources almost certainly do not. Gas. Clean water. Land. Mother Nature has blessed us with only a finite amount of each of these things.

We have known, long before this cure was discovered, that we have been consuming resources at an unsustainable pace—a pace that will now quicken at an unimaginable rate. We are a nation of strong, hardworking people. But it is, I’m afraid, part of human nature that we adapt only when forced to. We are told there is only so much crude oil left in the earth. Yet we can still buy gas at the station on the corner, and for a relatively decent price. We haven’t changed our ways because we don’t feel we have to.

It is only in the face of grim reality that we are able to dig down and discover just what we are made of. And that reality is coming, hurtling towards us faster and faster every day now. I cannot tell you when it will come—perhaps long after I’ve left office. But it will come. And the question we must all ask ourselves is: Are we ready for that reality?

I banned this cure three years ago because I wanted us to have as much time as possible to be ready for when that day comes, to be prepared for all the responsibilities this cure demands of us.

But the time has come for me to stop prolonging the inevitable.

One hour ago, I signed an executive order reversing the original ban on the sale of the cure for aging. The cure will be submitted for FDA approval and, pending all relevant testing, people will be free to purchase it from their physician as they please. However, I again remind us all that we must think about what is fair. As part of my executive order, all citizens who get the cure will no longer be eligible for Social Security or Medicare benefits, regardless of how long they live. Furthermore, in accordance with the recommendation of doctors across the country, no citizen under the age of twenty-six will be allowed to purchase the cure. Doctors who violate this edict will have their licenses revoked and be subject to swift prosecution. I also take this moment to again condemn the attacks on doctors administering the cure in New York and Oregon. Anyone found to be coordinating terrorist attacks against doctors offering the cure will be subject to federal prosecution and the death penalty.

This has been a tragic, awful day in our history. Four of our own were killed in New Hampshire. Our hearts go out to them and their families. We grieve and pray with them, and we promise to take all possible measures to prevent deaths like theirs from ever occurring again. They were four young people, passionate in the cause of retaining their youth, of seeing what they could make of a life extended indefinitely by the miracles of technology. They were willing to fight for what they believed in, for their personal liberty, and that makes them Americans to the very core. We will not forget them, nor shall we let them die in vain.

The nation that adapts to the effects of this cure and masters a world changed by postmortality is the nation that will lead the world into the next century and well beyond. Today, I declare my faith that we can and will be that nation. So many gave for our future, and now that future fully belongs to us all. We are ready. We have no other choice.

God bless us all, and God bless the United States of America.

I heard cheers burst out from the street as the President closed his remarks. I looked out the window and saw protesters hugging and raising their fists in victory. They sang songs and drank from open containers. I could see the excitement in their faces, the pure delirium at all the new and wonderful (and legal) possibilities. They had the same look in their faces that Katy had just as we were walking to the doctor’s office.

Date Modified: 8/14/2019, 9:11PM

“The Floodgates Are Wide Open”

I’ve tried to pull together as many responses to the President’s speech as I could. Here’s what I’ve gathered so far:

The Atlantic:

Proof once again that we Americans can get what we want if we simply stomp and scream for something like the immature schoolchildren that we are. Those protesters in New Hampshire weren’t, as the president implied, banging on the Capitol doors for some grand, noble cause. The idea that they sacrificed themselves like the soldiers at Iwo Jima is farcical and an insult to our intelligence. They did it for themselves and no one else. They weren’t sacrificing for the future. They were trying to hog it. This generation hasn’t had to sacrifice one bit, and its reward for such callousness is now eternal life. It’s a classic American scenario of people wanting everything right now without caring a lick about the long term. You could excuse that by saying, “Well, that’s just the way we are.” Well, the way we are is going to cost us everything.

Bob Mandel’s feed:

It’s like eating a sausage pizza. You know it’s gonna kill you. But it’s not going to kill you now, so who gives a shit? Let’s eat.

My dad:

Well, now I kind of want to get it. Just to see how all this plays out.

Allan Atkins:

He’s the most gutless president we have ever had. He is a liar, a fraud, a terrorist appeaser, and a criminal. If that Times report about the soldiers taking the cure never came out, you never see last night’s speech. I guarantee you that. People had to die for this man to finally listen to me. Troops had to flagrantly disobey their superiors for this man to listen to me. And then, when he finally does listen to me, he legalizes the cure in the clumsiest, most insincere manner possible. It’s disgusting. I am disgusted, and you should be too.

That said, I’m glad he finally legalized it. And now I can finally tell you all: I got it, baby! You’re never gonna get rid of me now!

Choosedeath.org:

You have no idea what you’ve just done.

My sister:

He legalized it? Oh, Christ. I think I’m gonna pass out. Am I the last person to know this? I am, aren’t I?

Joe Weis (NBC):

In the end, the President had no choice but to legalize the cure. Those who would criticize him for his handling of the entire situation need to step back for a moment and consider the issue this president was facing. This is a problem unlike anything any leader of any kind has ever been faced with. Did we really expect this man to handle the issue of the cure perfectly when it stands poised to tip the entire planet on its axis? His first instinct, the correct instinct, was to be cautious with it for as long as possible. Well, turns out three years was as long as possible. He bravely admitted it was a mistake on his part to stall, but he didn’t need to apologize for it. Those three years of waiting allowed him time to decide how to best regulate the cure in a sensible manner. The President spoke of a grim reality that will soon descend upon us all. Well, it seems he is one of the few people out there who has tried to envision what that reality will look like and how we will deal with it. His words were hopeful last night, but the concern in his eyes was unmistakable. He is bracing himself for what’s ahead, and he wants us to do likewise. Because the floodgates are open now.

The floodgates are wide open.

After the President’s speech last night, I took a long walk uptown. The barricades had been taken down and the protesters had dissipated. The entire city seemed to breathe again. Everyone was smiling. Happy. Possibly drunk. The honeymoon was in full swing.

I walked by the UN building: no longer besieged. I walked by the posters on First Avenue. There were no anti-cure messages there this time. Just a bunch of Pepsi ads. I walked by the doctor’s apartment and the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Everything felt normal. Everything felt the way it should be. The world was functional again.

But deep in my marrow, I know it won’t stay that way.

Date Modified: 8/15/2019, 10:21AM

II

Spread: June 2029

(Ten Years Later)

Photo No. 3,650

I took my picture again this morning. Still the same. The nose. The eyes. The brow. The chin. Nothing has sagged. No creases have formed. I scrolled through the “Face” folder in my library to compare it with the others. There’s no real variation, except for when I get a haircut. That’s the only time there’s any noticeable difference. My hair gets a little bit longer and a little bit longer, then I get a cut and my image resets, like one of those antique typewriters that slides back into place whenever you hit the carriage return. Though the hair gets longer, not a whisper of it gets grayer.

One day I drew a star on my cheek, just to mix things up. You can see it fade over the course of a week or so. Everyone at work looked at me like I was an unruly toddler after I did that. I’ve tried to keep the same expression throughout the photos, as a control mechanism. But there are some photos where I couldn’t hide my mood. The ones where I’m hung over are fairly easy to detect. I don’t look happy to have my picture taken, even though I’m the pushy fella who’s insisting it be done.

So there are some slight differences there, but the fundamental aspects of my face are identical from each day to the next. If you made a flipbook of it, it would be the most boring film imaginable. The only exciting part is when the star pops up. I haven’t changed. I haven’t grown. The supposed character that aging features provides has not been bestowed on me. You wouldn’t know that I’ve lived ten years between the first photo and the last. All 3,650 photos could—if not for my hair—have been taken on the same day. The time span is invisible. It’s as if I haven’t lived at all.

I have a friend who struggles with his weight from time to time. He’ll reach a certain weight and then grow completely intolerant of what he’s become. So he’ll start running and eating nothing but grilled chicken and asparagus and baked potato chips. Then he’ll get down to a fairly acceptable weight, get a girlfriend, eat her cooking, and gain all the weight back. And once he’s reached his own personal critical mass again, he’ll do it all over. If you took his picture every day for a decade, it would be far more interesting. It would be like watching someone try to inflate a balloon without bothering to pinch the end between breaths. You’d see the history. You would get at least some semblance of the life he’s led and what’s he’s been dealing with. But you can’t see that with me. There’s no story. You can’t tell a damn thing.

Happy tenth cure day to me.

Date Modified: 6/20/2029, 12:14PM

“You Said You’d Love Me Forever”

Sonia wanted to get married. The issue had come up in the past, but I had managed to stave it off for as long as I possibly could. I have found in my life, though, that once a woman introduces the idea of something to you, she’ll never let it go until you finally relent. I don’t mean this as a criticism of women. They’re all so admirably tenacious, whereas I am the exact opposite. I’ll let go of anything if holding onto it comes to require too much effort.

She broke one of the long silences that tended to overpopulate our most serious arguments. “I don’t understand what you’re so afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” I told her.

“Yes, you are.”

“You’re not going to get me to marry you simply by challenging my manhood. I already know I don’t stack up to most men. The Cap’n Crunch boxes in the kitchen are proof alone of that.”

“This isn’t funny, John. I’ve invested four years of my life in this. There comes a point when it’s fair for a woman to ask what a man’s intentions are. Don’t you think that’s fair?”