The teenager, Ricky imagined, was delighted to see him leave.
His next stop was at a large chain pharmacy. He walked to the rear of the store and asked to see the head pharmacist. The man, wearing a white jacket and a slightly officious air, emerged from the back. Ricky introduced himself.
“I need a scrip filled,” he said. He gave the pharmacist his DEA authorization number. “Elavil. A thirty-day supply of thirty milligram tablets. Nine thousand milligrams, total.”
The man shook his head, but not in disagreement, more in minor surprise. “I haven’t filled that much in a long time, doctor. And there are some far newer drugs on the market that are more effective, with far fewer side effects, and not nearly as dangerous to take as Elavil. It’s almost an antique. Hardly ever used nowadays. I mean, I’ve got some in storage that’s still within its expiration date, but, are you certain that this is what you want?”
“Absolutely,” Ricky answered.
The pharmacist shrugged, as if saying that he’d done his best to dissuade Ricky and steer him toward some other mood elevator that was more efficient. “What name shall I put on the label?” he asked.
“My own,” Ricky replied.
From the drugstore, Ricky went to a small stationery outlet. Ignoring the rows upon rows of prefabricated get well, condolence, new baby, happy birthday, and anniversary cards that cluttered each aisle, Ricky picked out a cheap tablet of ruled letter paper, a dozen thick envelopes, and two ballpoint pens. At the counter, where he paid for the purchases, he was also able to obtain stamps for the envelopes. He needed eleven. The young woman manning the register didn’t even look him in the eye as she rang up the order.
He threw this collection of items into the backseat of the old Honda, and quickly drove down Route 6 toward Provincetown. This town, at the end of the Cape, had an unusual relationship with the other nearby vacation spots. It catered to a far younger and considerably hipper crowd, often gay or lesbian, that seemed the polar opposites of the more conservative doctors, lawyers, writers, and academicians who were drawn to Wellfleet and Truro. These two towns were all about relaxing, drinking cocktails, and discussing books and politics and who was getting divorced and who was having an affair, and therefore had a certain near-constant stodginess and predictability about them. Provincetown in the summer had a musical beat and sexual energy. It wasn’t about relaxing and finding rhythms, it was about partying and connection. It was a place where the demands of youth and energy were paramount. There was little chance that he would be seen by anyone who knew him, even tangentially. Consequently, it was the ideal spot for Ricky to acquire his next items.
At a sporting goods store he bought a small, black backpack of the type favored by students for carrying books. He also purchased the cheapest back-pocket wallet the store had to offer and a midrange pair of running shoes. These purchases he made with as little conversation as possible with the clerk, avoiding eye contact, not behaving furtively, because that might have drawn attention, but making decisions efficiently, so that his presence in the store was as routine and unnoticeable as possible.
From this store, he went to another large chain drugstore where he acquired some Grecian 5 5-Minute Haircolor in black, a pair of cheap sunglasses, and a set of adjustable aluminum crutches, not the sort that extended up under the armpit, favored by injured athletes, but the type utilized by long-term users, people crippled by some disease or another, where the handle and the semicircular brace formed a sleeve for the hand and forearm.
He had one other stop in Provincetown, at the Bonanza bus terminal, a small roadside office with a single counter, three chairs to wait in and a blacktop parking area big enough for two or three buses. He waited outside, wearing the sunglasses, until a bus arrived, depositing a flock of weekend visitors, before walking in and making his purchase rapidly.
In the Honda, heading toward his home, he thought he barely had enough time left that day. Sunlight filled the windshield, heat poured in through the open side windows. It was the point of the summer afternoon when people gathered themselves off of the sand, called for the children to get out of the surf, collected towels and coolers and brightly colored plastic buckets and shovels, and began the slightly uncomfortable trek back to their vehicles-a moment of transition, before the nighttime routine of dinner and a movie, or a party, or a quiet time spent with some dog-eared paperback novel took over. It was time that Ricky, in years past, would have luxuriated in a warm shower, and then spent with his wife just talking over ordinary things in their lives. Some particularly difficult stage with a patient, for him, a client who couldn’t turn his life around for her. Little moments that filled days, and became simple yet fascinating in the scheme of living quietly together. He remembered these times, wondered a bit why he had not thought of them in the years since her death. Remembering did not make him sad, as it so often does to recall missing partners, but actually comforted him. He smiled, because, he thought, for the first time in months, he could recall the sound of her voice. For a moment he wondered whether she thought of the same things, not the big and extraordinary moments of living, but the easy, little times that bordered on the routine, and were so speedily forgotten, when she was preparing herself for death. He shook his head. He guessed that she had tried, but that the pain of the cancer was too great, and when masked by morphine, these memories would be lost to her, which was a realization that Ricky regretted.
My dying seems different, he told himself.
Far different.
He pulled into a Texaco station and stopped at the row of pumps. He stepped from the Honda and took the pair of gas tanks out of the trunk, then proceeded to fill them up to the brim with regular fuel. A teenage boy, working at the full-serve section, saw him, and called out, “Hey, mister, you want to be leaving enough room for oil, if those are going into an outboard. Some take a mix of fifty to one, others, a hundred to one, but you gotta put it right in the tank…”
Ricky shook his head. “Not for an outboard, thanks.”
The teenager persisted. “They’re outboard tanks.”
“Yeah,” Ricky said. “But I don’t own an outboard.”
The boy shrugged. He was probably year-round, Ricky thought, a local high school kid who couldn’t imagine another use for the tanks other than what they were designed for, and who immediately put Ricky into the category that the Cape residents had for summer people, which was a status of mild contempt and utter persuasion that no one from New York or Boston had even the slightest idea what they were doing at any time whatsoever. Ricky paid, replaced the now filled tanks in the trunk of the car, an act even he understood to be remarkably dangerous, and set out for his home.
He set the two gasoline canisters down temporarily in the living room, and returned to the kitchen. He felt suddenly parched, as if he’d exerted a great deal of energy, and he found a bottle of spring water in the refrigerator which he gulped at rapidly. His heart seemed to have picked up pace, as the hours of this last day dwindled, and he told himself to remain calm.