Drew Magary - The End Specialist

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?”