Roxanne chuckled and the tension broke with a tiny sigh.
They turned on the bench to face the falls now, its cascading roar soothing, the occasional breath of mist cool on their faces.
After a while, Roxanne said, “During your speech yesterday—”
“Rant.”
“Okay, rant. Mister Quinn said they had you to thank for the progress on Alzheimer’s disease. What did he mean by that?”
“First of all, hearing anyone call Quinn ‘Mister’ makes me wanna drop to my knees in hysterics. And once you get to know the man, you’ll see he has a tendency to exaggerate.”
“Or maybe you’re just too modest.”
Ben felt himself blushing again, something he believed he’d outgrown decades ago. He said, “You know who Francis Riley is?”
“The billionaire energy guy who orbits the planet in his space shuttle all the time? That Francis Riley?” Ben nodded and Roxanne said, “Who doesn’t?”
“Well, early in twenty-seventeen, when I was scrambling to fund the Foundation, the man called me out of the blue and said he had a proposition for me. His wife Dawn had just been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s—she was thirty-eight at the time—and Francis was beside himself. He said he’d read about the work we were doing with anti-aggregates and knew we were running short on funds. He asked if I thought the drug would work and I told him I was almost certain. So he asked how much we needed to complete the research, and couriered a check to me for twice that amount the next day.”
“Wow.”
“No kidding. My hand shook holding it. Now here’s the thing, Roxanne—and you have to swear you’ll never breathe a word of this to anyone. I could go to prison if what I’m about to tell you ever got out, and I’m too old to wind up some hardcore convict’s love kitten.”
Roxanne giggled, but swore herself to secrecy.
Ben said, “The stage we were at with anti-aggregates at the time, it was going to be at least two years before we got anywhere near human trials, never mind Health Canada approval. And Riley’s wife had already attempted suicide twice during her lucid intervals. So…”
Ben covered his mouth with his hand, a prudent inner voice telling him he was crazy, admitting the commission of a federal crime to a teenager he barely knew.
But before he could say any more, Roxanne said, “I think I know where this is going. And even though I can assure you I’d never repeat a word of it to anyone, if you don’t want to tell me, I’m okay with that. I won’t be insulted or anything.”
“All right. Let’s make a little game of it, then. You tell me where you think it’s going and I’ll nod or shake my head.”
“You started treatment on her right away, without jumping through all the legal hoops.”
Ben nodded.
“And it worked?”
“Like a charm. She’ll have to stay on the drug the rest of her life, of course, but she’s writing children’s books now and sits on the board of directors of the Foundation. Riley was so grateful, he wrote another check, this one for the construction of the building. It should be called the Riley Foundation. He cemented-in that hunk of marble with my name on it at the ribbon-cutting ceremony the following year.”
Roxanne said, “That’s incredible,” and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, her breath warm on his skin. She said, “You’re a hero,” and Ben felt himself beaming like a sunrise.
* * *
Sitting on the bench with Roxanne, Ben felt his mind begin to tilt, and at some level he knew he was slipping. But he also knew there was nothing he could do about it and so he closed his eyes, letting it come, almost inviting it on this idyllic spring evening, his companion’s shoulder warm against his own, no pain in his body now…and when he glanced at Roxanne, she was someone else. Someone from a long time ago. Someone he’d given his heart to in the callow, headlong fashion of the very young, the girl barely sixteen, himself only a year older.
Melanie
It had been sunny that day too, but closer to winter, a bracing chill in the air, the maple they were nestled under losing its leaves in a gusting breeze. Ben was holding something in his hand, and he looked at it now—God, yes, his grandfather’s wedding band, a small treasure his grandmother had given him after the old man passed. He was going to offer it to his girl, ask her to go steady—
A familiar voice now, flat and distant: “What did you say?”
Glancing at his empty palm, Ben said, “Did I say something?”
Roxanne said, “I thought you just asked me to go steady.” Smiling, but perplexed.
“Did I? I’m so sorry.”
Laughing now, Roxanne said, “No need to apologize,” and gave his sleeve a playful tug. “It’s the best offer I’ve had in ages.”
It was clear she was teasing, but her response unbalanced him, and he looked again at his hands. Old man’s hands. And while the sight of them should have grounded him, as it had so often in the past, now it only deepened his confusion.
Roxanne said, “You looked like you were daydreaming.”
Seeing a way out, Ben said, “Yeah, I do that sometimes.” He didn’t want to lie to the girl, but he could see little point in telling the truth; he’d done enough of that for one day. He tried to convince himself it was because he didn’t want to upset her, but deep down he knew it was pride. Settling for a half-truth, he said, “Old age, I guess. We codgers tend to drift off the rails from time to time.”
Roxanne laughed. “Codgers. Gram says age is just a state of mind. Gramps was a daydreamer, too. The simple truth is, he just lost track sometimes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“What a refreshing way of looking at it.”
Roxanne glanced at her watch now, saying, “Oh boy, I’d better get rolling. It’s my turn to make dinner and Gram’s a bear when she gets hungry.” She stood. “Wanna walk me back to my bike?”
Ben smiled, still a little wobbly. “I’d love to, hon, but I think I’m just going to sit here a while. Watch the sun go down.”
Roxanne said okay and bent to give him a peck on the forehead. Then she was gone, trailing a scent of jasmine, leaving a tiny hole in Ben’s heart.
* * *
The first hardy mosquitos of the season harried him back to the Center, and Ben mused as he walked that a respectable version of Hell might be an eternity spent in a room swarming with the nasty beggars, each of them coming back to life after you swatted it flat.
Ray was waiting for him in the lobby, hunched over an old e-reader. The reader surprised Ben. During his disillusioned stint as an anesthesiologist, he’d written three novels that got picked up by Random House—he’d gone through a brief Robin Cook phase, thinking he could make a bundle writing medical thrillers and retire to the French Riviera—but Ray had never read them, not even the one Ben had dedicated to him, claiming he didn’t have the attention span for fiction. Ben ragged him gently about it now, but backed off when he saw the tortured expression on his friend’s face.
He sat next to Ray and touched his arm. “Hey, man, you okay?”
Ray closed the reader. “Yeah, yeah, it’s nothing. Just a little back pain. It’ll pass.”
Ben wasn’t convinced, but he knew better than to persist. If Ray didn’t want to talk about something, even a beating wouldn’t drag it out of him.
“Okay. What are you reading?”
“Stephen Hunter,” Ray said. “Dirty White Boys. Bella loved the guy.” He held up the reader. “She gave me this for Christmas a month before she died. It was already loaded with some insane number of books. Couple thousand, I think.” He managed a pained smile. “Yours are in here, too.”
“Did you read ’em?”
“Every last one.”
“And?”
Ray said, “Don’t give up your day job,” and laughed.
“Asshole.”
“No, man, I loved them. Really. Almost teared up when I saw the dedication in The Surgeon. Did you actually work with a psycho like that or is he
made up?”
“Pure fiction, my brother. Product of a sick mind.”
Laughing again, Ray said, “No argument there.” He closed the reader and stood. “You up to finishing our chat?”
“You bet.”
“Come on then, I’ll show you my place.”
Ben chuckled. “I’d bet my left nut it looks exactly like my place.”
Heading for the elevators now, Ray said, “Yeah, but I bet your place doesn’t have a chunk of hash the size of your left nut in it,” and pulled a silly face. Then: “On second thought, maybe the size of my left nut, seeing as you don’t need a magnifying glass and tweezers to find it.”
Ben swatted him playfully, saying, “Wilder?”
Ray nodded, thumbing the UP button on the call panel now. “Palmed it to me at the picnic table.”
“Goddamn. Getting high for the third time in two days. It’s starting to feel like the summer of love all over again.”
The elevator arrived and the men stepped aboard. Pressing 12 with a shaky finger, Ray said, “You see anything wrong with that?”
Ben only grinned, feeling like a teenager again.
* * *
Ben said, “Cold as a meat locker in here.”
Ray was standing at the Formica countertop in the kitchen, slicing the hash into slivers with a pocket knife, then rolling them into balls the size of a match head.
Watching from the living room, Ben said, “The men in black catch you with that weapon, they’ll confiscate it.”
“They’re welcome to try. Who are those bastards, anyway? Slinking around with clipboards. Bella worked in the hospital system for thirty-five years and she used to tell me, ‘Never trust anyone with a clipboard’. What’s the story with those guys?”
“Clifford Hicks, the CEO here, calls them his ‘Security Team’. I used to ask him, ‘Security from what?’ Most of them are retired cops or ex-military. Creepy guys. Nobody messes with them, that much I can tell you. When I was medical director, we had a staff of about a dozen guards, overweight retirees looking to make a few extra bucks punching watchclocks. But these guys…I don’t know what Hicks was thinking, hiring them. Do something they don’t like, they’re quick to put their hands on you.”
Ray brandished the three-inch blade. “Good way to lose a finger.”
“I hear you. But trust me, if you want to hold onto that thing, keep it out of sight.”
Ray placed the last ball of hash on a square of tinfoil, then switched on an element on the stovetop. While the element heated, he scouted through the kitchen drawers until he found a couple of stainless steel butter knives, which he inserted tip-first between the coils of the reddening element. Then he motioned for Ben to join him at the stove.
Grinning, Ben said, “Hot knives. Brings back memories.”
“Yeah, one in particular. You so baked on Afghani border hash you branded your bottom lip with the knife and didn’t even notice.”
Ben laughed. “I get dumb as a post on that shit.”
“Then prepare to get all-the-way retarded.”
Ray handed Ben a plastic drinking straw, picked up one of the knives, and dropped a ball of hash onto its glowing tip. The drug ignited instantly, releasing a thin streamer of smoke. Using his free hand, Ray grabbed the other knife and pressed it over the burning chunk, Ben leaning in now to suck an explosion of smoke through the straw. The toke was shockingly harsh and he leaned away from it quickly, straining to hold it in. Ray grabbed the straw with his teeth and took over right away, capturing the last curls of smoke before tossing the knives clattering into the sink.
Facing each other now, the men slipped into an old contest—seeing who could hold onto the hit the longest—and, as always, Ray won. Ben told him it was because he never went first and had an unfair advantage, a chest the size of a rain barrel.
Hacking as he ejected the last of the toke, Ben said, “Your ‘stache is on fire,” and Ray leaned over the sink, blasting cold water over his moustache to douse the tiny flame.
Red-eyed, Ben said, “I love the smell of burning hair in the morning.”
Ray said, “Then you must be fucking too fast,” and they laughed until Ben almost puked.
* * *
After deciding three hits of Wilder’s killer blend was enough, the two old friends retired to the couch. Ben offered to scoot down to his place for a couple of ciders and Ray said maybe later.
Cuffing tears of laughter from his face, Ray said, “It may have been a bit slippery of me, getting you shitfaced before talking about this, but think of it as Irish courage. Considering the favor I’m about to ask, I’m pretty sure you’re going to need it.”
“You’d better spill now, buddy, okay? You’re scaring me a little here.”
Ray said, “Harshing your buzz?” making the kind of goofy face that normally would have tipped Ben into spasms of stoned laughter.
But Ben said, “Come on, man. Focus. Let’s get whatever this is behind us.”
Nodding, averting his bloodshot eyes, Ray said, “I’ve got cancer.” Ben opened his mouth to say something and Ray said, “It’s metastatic. Bone, lung, liver, brain. It’s everywhere.”
Ben felt slammed, thinking he’d seen it right away, that grayness in his friend’s complexion, the loss of muscle mass. He said, “Shit, man, I am so sorry. But listen, it may not be too late. I know specialists here at the Center, total pros. We could—”
“That’s not the favor I wanted to ask,” Ray said, raising his eyes to meet Ben’s now, the redness in them not solely from the hash. He said, “Remember that remake of The Fly back in the eighties?”
“Jeff Goldblum.”
“Yeah. At one point in the film, he says something that’s stuck with me all these years. Because I knew I’d feel the same way if I ever got cancer. I don’t remember his exact words, but it went something like, ‘I don’t want to be just another tumorous bore’. I’ve been struggling with this thing for over a year now, man, and I’m just about done.”
“What kind is it?”
“Pancreatic.”
Jesus Christ. “So how can I help?”
“I want to end it.”
“Euthanasia?”
Ray nodded.
Feeling conflicted now—knowing how badly his friend must be suffering but not wanting to lose him, even to a solution he’d championed himself—Ben said, “I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.” He sighed. “When were you thinking of doing it?”
Ray sighed now, too. “Month. Six weeks tops. Depends how bad it gets. I wanted some time to hang out with you guys—you especially—bullshit about old times and do juvenile shit like we did today. But if it gets much worse…”
“All right, look. Tomorrow, if you’d like, we’ll head over to the Foundation. You can fill out the necessary forms, then I’ll introduce you to Sandy Hart. Sandy’s the best counselor we—”
Ray was shaking his head. “No counselors.”
“No way around it. There are protocols—”
“Fuck protocols.” He took Ben’s hand into both of his; Ben could feel the disease smoldering in those once-powerful mitts and it broke his heart.
Then Ray dropped the bomb.
“I want you to do it,” he said, his gaze steady, locked on Ben’s widening eyes. “I want you to put me down.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Thursday, June 1
ROXANNE WAS UP AND dressed the next morning before the sun cleared the horizon, making poached eggs and toast for her and Gram. They ate in silence at the breakfast nook Gramps had built when Roxanne was a baby, each lost in her own musings on what was coming and what had gone before.
They left their small yellow house on Second Avenue at eight o’clock. Roxanne helped Gram into the passenger seat of the sporty red Honda Gramps had been so fond of, then climbed in on the driver’s side, securing her seatbelt and helping Gram fasten hers. As she backed onto the quiet street, it occurred to her that their days in the house she loved so much were numbered, G
ram growing less able to maintain it on her own with each passing month. In all likelihood, she’d be moving the old gal into the Center before she left for Dalhousie in the fall.
The Center was a twenty-minute drive and Roxanne did it in twelve, an escalating urgency making her reckless and tense. By the time they pulled into the lot fronting the Euthanasia Foundation, her hands felt like they’d been grafted to the wheel.
She found a spot near the entrance and killed the engine. As she reached for the door handle, her grandmother said, “I can make it in from here on my own, sweetheart. Why don’t you take off for a while and I’ll call you when it’s done.”
Facing the old woman now, Roxanne said, “Yesterday—even an hour ago—I might’ve said okay. But I really want to see this through with you, Gram. You shouldn’t have to go through it alone.”
Gram gave her a stoic smile. “Honey, I mourned your grandfather ten months ago, when they told me he wouldn’t be coming home.” She glanced at the imposing building, its purpose undisguised by its cedar gardens and ornate exterior. Sighing, she said, “That isn’t him in there anymore, my darling. It’s just the place he used to live.”
“I know that now. It just took me a little longer to figure out. I’m sorry I made you wait so—”
“Please, Roxanne, don’t ever apologize for that. You needed the time and I was happy to give it to you.”
Roxanne nodded, the urge to cry welling up, then slipping away. Sitting in silence with her grandmother, she realized she really had said her goodbyes, and now it was time to move on. In the hope of softening the mood this morning, she'd prepared a ten-minute video spliced together from home movies dating as far back as the sixties, a surprise for Gram the Foundation said they’d screen during the euthanasia process.
Now Roxanne said, “Shall we?”
Nodding, Gram got out of the car.
* * *
Ben awoke fully dressed on the La-Z-Boy, the TV on but muted, an attractive brunette silently extolling the virtues of a bagless canister vacuum. The girl held him in thrall for a while, glistening lips shaping scripted words but somehow inviting intimacy, her obviously store-bought boobs shifting like fleshy zeppelins above her low-cut blouse, animated by her gesturing arms. It made him think of a book he’d read in the seventies called Subliminal Seduction, an exploration of the uses of sex in advertising, and he laughed out loud.
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