"Yo, dad?! I'm so PISSED!"I think he might have been, about six. Seven, tops.
"I'm . . ."
"I'm . . ."
"I'M!"
"I'm GOING TO KILL YOU, dad!"
The little boy, his face set in a Gangstadon'tchafuckwithme grimace, stomped along the wall of cheap synthetic vitamins which promised our joints and our hearts and our memories some respite. We pathetic Pharma-queuers, look on in horror. We might want to pay attention to ourselves, however.
(DON'T) "ASK YOUR DOCTOR"
When I got to the pharmacy section of my local Walgreens, the line before me immediately made me think twice: "do I really need this 'script?" But we sad pharma-queuers apparently follow scripts, and so, like the feeble, strange and "sick" folk ahead of me, I waited on the waitin' line. Our leader, a palsied woman in her 80s (oh, I could tell she broke some hearts, she did! despite the weathered patina of age, I could certainly "see" her)bent over her Ziplock freezer bag filled with empty prescription bottles. I counted at least 9 visible bottles, but there could have been more. If the 6 others ahead of me induced a double take that almost snapped me out of my zombie zone, the over sized, overstuffed baggie o' burnt umber pill bottles were no doubt catalyst to my inevitable wander-wonder. Cradling the bag to her bosom, she ambled toward the tiny waiting area to the back right of the store; there, she eventually managed to sit and thumb through one of the "informative" brochures on some aspect of our managed pill popping paradisio. This is when I realized she must have been incredibly beautiful once.
And this is when we first meet our young hero.
"Oooooooooooooh! I'm so PISSED. I'm going to. . ."
The morbidly obese woman in the black and white peony-floral shirt with the tight red-orange Loreal curls turns to offer her "shock and awe":
"Did you hear that kid? And look! His father. . . trails behind! Typical!" She shakes her curls, and begins to rhythmically tap her pack of Prilosec to the beat of her own dismay and disgust. The haggard and ashen woman with the butterfly tattoo and long denim sundress drops her prescription on the floor, and tiredly whisper-scolds it, "Oh, you," she mutters. Bending down to pick it up, the man who can't find whatever supplement he was looking for grumbles about not getting any assistance, and the new elderly line leader seems to be having some sort of trouble with his Medicare managed refill "time":
"Too soon?" he blinks.
Suddenly, I notice the song.
Dear Carly Simon; or, Muzac is better than Prozac Any day!
Maybe it was the song? I don't know, but I felt like I was in my own, bad indie movie never to be released on YouTube (but, well, soon to be butchered in blog). In the midst of the Walhell pharmacy chaos, came the soundtrack hit single to the chorus' construction of our young PHARMAKOS from tinny speakers, "I haven't got time for the. . ."
"Too soon? But I"
. . .
"Future generations! Humph!" (TAP TAP TAP TAP)
. . .
". . .said it was on the top shelf?"
. . .
"Oh, you."
. . .
"I'm GOING TO KILLLLLLLL YOOOOOOOOUUUUUU, DAAAAAAHD!"
"suffering was the only thing that made me feel alive"
"Did you hear. . ." (taptaptaptaptapppppppp)
"Someone aught to give him uh. . ."
"I haven't got time for the pain. . ."
And then, suddenly, he was born. Our pharmakos. Each member of the chorus stopped to gawk, to head shake, to collectively bemoan the state of our tragic, parricidal youth. The elderly line leader who cried for time held a single finger mid air as if to feel whether or not his unlucky wind blew from the detritus trail of
"that boy!"
echoed Loreal, her finger, unlike Father Time's, was now machine gunning the seemingly benign purple box.
The woman in the denim sun dress coughed a deep, guttural cough that punctuated the air with a reminder of our eternal battle with pestilence and West Nile Virus. She seemed to want to shrink into her already too large dress. Or maybe. . . I wanted her to?
Slowly, as if rolling through the residue of the shame we supplant on the
"shameful!"
little boy, a very large man, leaning over his cart crawls into our scene. His lips, I notice, droop and hang, mirroring his stomach, and I can't help but notice the two items in his cart: Cap'n Crunch and a big yellow box of Domino sugar. He cuts across and I refuse to see where he's headed; while I wasn't looking, Loreal disappeared and the woman in the sun dress is inching closer to the Drop Off window; my turn is coming soon, and I'm already writing this in my wandering brain, despite the fact that I stay to order my refill.
When she coughs again, I try not to wince and offer a smile as she passes by to leave. She doesn't acknowledge the offering, and I am left to hold the weight of its presence until I almost drop it on the weary woman behind the counter along with my last name and phone number. She's had enough of false smiles and complaint. She, from the looks of it, is sick of them.
STARTING SALARIES AND SMALL SINCERE :-)'s
Before I leave the store, I recall I'm in desperate need of new razor blades. Perusing the pink and green, I'm pulled once again to the back of the pharmacy--this time audibly--by laughter and a fragment of a punchline, "And that's old age, honey! No cure for it!"
The new pharma crew laugh, and I'm smiling a real smile, my eyes are evidence. Somehow I begin to remember a conversation I had with someone I love very dearly:
"My dad wanted me to be a pharmacist. He said they have great . . . starting salaries". In his face, I could see the very particular brand of disappointment and dismay that comes with the acid/alkaline imbalance of familial desire and alienation. I remember his eyes when he said this to me, that pained swallow-squint. Somewhere, no doubt, the "I'm going to kill you daaaaaaaaaaad!" sentiment screamed aloud by our pharmakos is held at bay in the tight cradle of eye lid and lash. I want to send him a text, but I get caught up in the inability to find those damn razors. So, when I talk to him shortly thereafter, I begin with
"I'm glad you decided against being a pharmacist." On the other end, some laughter framed by the sound of a question mark. On my end, a genuine grin.
"How are you feeling?" He asks.
"Much better," I answer. I'm tapping my V5 on the box of Pepcid I've just pulled from the medicine cabinet. tap tap tap
"My dad just loved Carly Simon when I was a kid, ya know?" taptaptaptaptap
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