Gary Braver - Elixir

At fifty-seven years of age, Wally Olafsson saw himself as a rapidly aging organism, living out the rest of his life alone. He was overweight, his cholesterol was 312 at last checkup, he had high blood pressure, he drank and ate too much, and he got no exercise. Much of his decline came with the breakdown of his marriage. His wife had won custody of Todd and moved two hundred miles away. Wally had a few male friends, but he did not feel desirable to women, especially younger ones. While he tried not to think about death, he envisioned his future as a featureless tunnel, constricting like an occluded artery.

Now, he had an option to push back the clock and jam its mechanism.

Suddenly he began to think young again. About getting back into life, in the words of the old Depends ad. He could join a health club, get into shape, maybe meet some nice fortyish women. There was golf-a game he had always wanted to take up, and a good way to enhance business contacts. (All he had for a social life now was a men's book group.)

And maybe he'd take up skiing again. He had hung up his poles ten years ago when he took a bad fall. Todd had been after him to return to the slopes, take refresher lessons so they could do something fun together besides an occasional movie or UW football game. He might even go off on one of those discovery vacations, an Earthwatch expedition. And with Todd-a father-and-son high-adventure getaway.

He didn't think too long-range-like how he'd explain to his son and friends why he didn't grow old. But it crossed his mind that he could make a killing on the stock market. He could sell out in twenty or thirty years and take on a new identity while investing his earnings for another twenty years. Keep that up for a while, and he'd be as rich as Bill Gates by the end of the twenty-first century. And still only fifty-seven years old, and looking thirtyish.

By Friday, Wally had made up his mind: He was Go on Elixir.

He would live his life all the way up.

He would make up for lost time. Would he ever!

At 1:30 on Friday afternoon, Roger called Wally at the office and instructed him to drive to the empty parking lot of St. Jerome's Roman Catholic Church on Preston Street where he would find a shopping bag behind the statue of the Virgin Mary. Inside was a cell phone.

Wally did as he was told and retrieved the bag with the phone. The lot was empty and nobody followed him.

At two o'clock, Roger called him with instructions to drive to the Silver Pines motel on Route 61 and to keep the line open all the way so that Wally could not make a quick call to the police before arriving. Roger was a man devoid of trust. Thirteen years on the run would do that, Wally guessed.

At 2:36, he arrived at the motel and entered room 217 with the phone line still open.

Roger was waiting for him, phone in hand. Wally's face was shiny with excitement. "What do you think?" Roger asked him.

"You know what Woody Allen said: 'I'm not afraid of dying; I just don't want to be there when it happens.'"

Roger smiled. "So, you're on?"

"Yeah, but on one condition-that I get my own supply to draw from."

Chris shook his head. "Nope, I can't do that."

"Why not?'

"The entire supply stays with me. That's the way it is."

"You afraid I'm going to blackmarket the stuff?"

"No, but if something should happen to you and it falls into the wrong hands, it could be duplicated. And that can't happen."

"Then I'm dependent upon you for my life."

"As I am with you. It's what'll keep us honest."

"Hell, Chris, I'm not going to turn you in. You were framed, and I believe you. I went back the feds as I said. There's no way I'd betray you."

"Maybe in a few years when things have settled, but for the immediate future, I will dole it out. And the name's Roger."

"But what if something happens to you-you know, you get into an accident, a car crash or something?"

"I'll leave instructions with people I trust to send you a key to a locker containing enough serum to last for centuries. That key and the serum's location will be sent to you if and only if I die by accident."

"Who are these people?"

"Blood relatives and trustworthy."

"What if you're caught by the feds?"

"Let's hope that I'm not. But if that happens and it's clear you had nothing to do with it, you'll be sent the key. On the other hand, if I learn you were instrumental in my capture or the capture of my wife or son, you'll never get any."

"Then what?"

"Then you'll die."

"Jesus, you don't trust anybody."

Roger grinned. "It's how I'm going to live to a ripe old age." He produced the ampule and lay it on the table. Wally took a long look at it. He then picked it up and inspected the wax seal on the septum with his finger print deeply incised in it. It was clean and unbroken.

"Was the FBI convinced?"

"I think so. I gave it my best shot." Wally rolled up his sleeve.

"Before we do this, I want you to understand that if you tell anyone, I'll cut you off and you'll be dead in a matter of weeks."

"Gee, that's comforting."

They both chuckled, and Roger felt something pass between them-an inviolable trust of his old friend.

For a second time Roger explained that the first shot would be of high concentration to be followed up in three days. Then three days after that, followed by a fourth shot on the tenth day. The idea was to build up a plateau in his system. In a few days he would begin to feel the first rush of rejuvenation. The follow-up shots would be administered at different motels. In an emergency-any unexpected side effects-he gave Wally the number of an answering machine whose messages Roger would check periodically.

Wally took it all in, then he opened his arm as Roger applied a tourniquet. He wore surgical gloves. In fact, he had arrived with them on so as not to leave prints.

Roger removed the protective wrapper from a new syringe then scraped away the wax seal. He inserted the needle through the septum and extracted four ccs of Elixir.

"Ready?"

"Forever and ever," he chuckled nervously. "Famous last words."

Then Roger injected the contents into Wally's arm.

"Now what?"

" Now we're friends for life."

The woman bounded like a gazelle. She was a sleek, long-limbed creature whose silver Spandex highlighted the muscles and curves of her body. Her face and shoulders glistened with sweat, her eyes fixed on herself in the mirror as she pounded the treadmill in a strong, clean stride at eight miles per hour. She was pretty in a gamine kind of way with short, swept-back hair and sweatband. But she wasn't very friendly, projecting an air of cool superiority.

Wally had tried to strike up a conversation at the water dispenser, but she was too busy timing her pulse. When he said that he'd just joined the club and wondered if she'd explain the treadmill program, she reluctantly stabbed a few buttons and suggested he hire a trainer. Then she snapped on her headphones and proceeded to stretch elaborately, never once looking his way, but making certain he got to appreciate the full wonders of her body. When she was through, she jumped onto her machine and into a brisk run.

Meanwhile, in his new white shorts and tank top, Wally Olafsson looked like the Pillsbury dough boy waddling on the treadmill beside her. His joints squeaked and clanged as he slowly turned up the pace to a pathetic 3.5 MPH walk, hoping he could keep it up. He had a mental flash of himself stumbling off in cardiac arrest as Wonder Woman continued to bound away, refusing to break stride to administer CPR and-God forbid!-mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

At one point he caught her studying herself in the side-wall mirror, no doubt admiring what a perfect specimen of womankind she was-firm in body and mind, worshipped by men of all ages, the envy of the entire female breed. When she caught him smiling at her, she flashed a disdainful look and snapped her head forward.