Читать книгу The End Specialist - Drew Magary, Drew Magary - Страница 13

“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.

I made a turn to go across to Second Avenue, but police had already put up a barricade. Helicopters flew over the scene. My only way out was back up First. I quickly turned around to get away. A small flock of new protesters was coming my way. One of them jammed a flyer into my hand.

“Don’t take this shit lying down,” he said. On top of the flyer was the headline THE CONSERVATIVE CASE FOR LEGALIZING THE CURE, BY ALLAN ATKINS. I didn’t know you could now get Allan Atkins rants in pamphlet form. I turned to the crowd in front of the headquarters. Normally, you see protesters demonstrating peacefully, walking in circles and whatnot. But these people were in rows, facing a single direction, pressed as close to the building as the cops would allow them to be. They didn’t look content to simply voice their disapproval. They looked like they wanted in. I got back up into the Fifties and went across town and back down as fast as I could.

Once I was in our apartment, I downed the cheap champagne, ate a cold can of Chunky Soup, and watched a news report about what I had just waded through. Apparently, cops fired rubber bullets into the crowd an hour after I left. I’m pretty sure that’s the first time they’ve done that.

Katy was already drunk by the time I got to the bar. I had to catch up.

“Happy cure day!” she screamed.

“Shh!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll be quiet. But you have to tell me everything. And you owe me some doctor digits. Pony up, kid.”

We retreated to a corner table. I gave her Dr. X’s info. I told her everything: the chair, the needles, the protesters, etc. Even the blonde girl.

“She sounds hot.”

“She was.”

“Well, happy cure day. Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“Do you realize that you’re now always going to look the way you look at this exact moment? From this day on? This is how you’ll look when you die. Do you realize that? It’s like I’m looking at your corpse!”

“I didn’t think of it that way, no. But thank you.”

“You also realize you can never retire now, right?”

“What?”

“You can’t ever retire now. How are you gonna quit your job at sixty-five if you live for another five hundred years? Did you consider that?”

I had, but I had placed it squarely in the “things I prefer not to think about” pile. “This just gives me more time to figure out what it is I really want to do,” I told her. “I’m not preparing for some sixty-five-year end goal anymore. That rush to save money or whatever is all gone now.”

“Ooh! I just thought of something else. Do you realize we could live another five hundred years and the Bills still may not win the Super Bowl?”

“Will you shut up about all the terrible stuff already?”

“Okay, okay. You’re right. No dark stuff. This is your cure day. And in a few weeks, we’ll be celebrating mine too. Oh yes we will.”

We staggered home at 6:00 a.m. and I took a shower before going to bed. I washed off the night and emerged from behind the curtain looking relatively fresh. I looked at myself in the mirror: brown hair, round face, sloped shoulders, two gentle smile creases bracketing my mouth. A barely noticeable strawberry mark under my eye. Slight stubble that steadfastly refuses to grow into anything resembling a normal beard. I took a photo of myself. This is how I look now. This is how I’ll look when I die.

Happy cure day to me, indeed.

Date Modified: 6/21/2019, 3:45PM