SLEEPING AIDS, the sign over this section of Aisle 3 read.
Ralph, never much of a patent-medicine user (he would otherwise have arrived here much sooner, no doubt), didn’t know exactly what he’d expected, but it surely had not been this wild, almost indecent profusion of products. His eye slipped across the boxes (the majority were a soothing blue), reading the names. Most seemed strange and slightly ominous: Compoz, Nytol, Sleepinal, Z-Power, Sominex, Sleepinex, Drow-Zee. There was even a generic brand.
You have to be kidding, he thought. None of these things are going to work for you. It’s time to quit fucking around, don’t you know that? When you start to see colored footprints on the sidewalk, it is time to quit fucking around and go to the doctor, But on the other hand he heard Dr. Litchfield, heard him so clearly it was as if a tape recorder had turned on in the middle of his head: Your wife is suffering from tension headaches, Ralph-unpleasant and painful, but not life-threatening. I think we can take care of the problem, Unpleasant and painful, but not life-threatening-yes, right, that was what the man had said. And then he had reached for his prescription pad and written out the order for the first bunch of useless pills while the tiny clump of alien cells in Carolyn’s head continued to send out its microbursts of destruction, and maybe Dr. Jamal had been right, maybe it was too late even then, but maybe jamal was full of shit, maybe jamal was just a stranger in a strange land, trying to get along, trying not to make waves. Maybe this and maybe that; Ralph didn’t know for sure and never would. All he really knew was that Litchfield hadn’t been around when the final two tasks of their marriage had been set before them: her job to die, his job to watch her do it.
Is that what I want to do? Go to Litchfield and watch him reach for his prescription pad again?
Maybe this time it would work, he argued to-with-himself. At ’me his hand stole out, seemingly Of its own volition, and the same time took a box of Sleepinex from the shelf. He turned it over, held it the slightly away from his eyes so he could read the small print on its side panel, and ran his eye slowly down the list of active ingredients.
He had no idea of how to pronounce most of the jawbreaking words, and even less of what they were or how they were supposed to help you sleep.
Yes, he answered the voice. Maybe this time it would work. But maybe the real answer would be just to find another doc “Help you?” a voice asked from directly behind Ralph’s shoulder.
He was in the act of returning the box of Sleepinex to its place, meaning to take something that sounded a little less like a sinister drug in a Robin Cook novel, when the voice spoke. Ralph jumped and knocked a dozen assorted boxes of synthetic sleep onto the floor.
“oh, sorry-clumsy!” Ralph said, and looked over his shoulder.
“Not at all. My fault entirely.” And before Ralph could do more than pick up two boxes of Sleepinex and one box of Drow-Zee gel capsules, the man in the white smock who had spoken to him had swept up the rest and was redistributing them with the speed of a riverboat gambler dealing a hand of poker. According to the gold ID bar pinned to his breast, this was JOE WYZER, RITE AID PHARMACIST. with a friendly grin, “let’s start over. Can I help you? You look a “Now,” Wyzer said, dusting off his hands and turning to Ralph little lost.”
Ralph’s initial response-annoyance at being disturbed while having a deep and meaningful conversation with himself-was being replaced with guarded interest. “Well, I don’t know,” he said, and gestured to the array of sleeping potions. “Do any of these actually work?”
Wyzer’s grin widened. He was a tall, middle-aged man with fair skin and thinning brown hair which he parted in the middle. He stuck out his hand, and Ralph had barely begun the polite reciprocatory gesture when his own hand was swallowed. “I’m Joe,” the pharmacist said, and tapped the gold tunic-pin with his free hand.
“I used to be Joe Wyze, but now I’m older and Wyzer.”
This was almost certainly an ancient joke, but it had lost none of its savor for Joe Wyzer, who laughed uproariously. Ralph smiled a polite little smile with just the smallest touch of anxiety around its edges. The hand which had enfolded his was clearly a strong one, and he was afraid if the pharmacist squeezed hard, his hand might finish the day in a cast. He found himself wishing, at least momentarily, that he’d taken his problem to Paul Durgin downtown after all. Then Wyzer gave his hand two energetic pumps and let go.
“I’m Ralph Roberts. Nice to meet you, Mr. Wyzer.”
“Mutual. Now, concerning the efficacy of these fine products.
Let me answer your question with one of my own, to wit, does a bear shit in a telephone booth?”
Ralph burst out laughing. “Rarely, I’d think,” he said when he could Say anything again.
“Correct. And I rest my case.” Wyzer glanced at the sleeping aids, a wall done in shades of blue. “Thank God I’m a pharmacist and not a salesman, Mr. Roberts; I’d starve trying to peddle stuff door to door.
Are you an insomniac? I’m asking partly because you’re investigating the sleeping aids, but mostly because you have an hollow-eyed look.”
Ralph said, “Mr. Wyzer, I’d be the happiest man on earth if I could get five hours’ sleep some night, and I’d settle for four.”
“How long’s it been going on, Mr. Roberts? Or do you prefer Ralph?”
“Ralph’s fine,”
“Good. And I’m Joe.”
“It started in April, I think. A month or six weeks after my wife died, anyway.”
“Gee, I’m sorry to hear you lost your wife. My sympathies.”
“Thank you,” Ralph said, then repeated the old formula. “I miss her a lot, but I was glad when her suffering was over.”
“Except now you’re suffering. For… let’s see.” Wyzer counted quickly on his big fingers. “Going on half a year now.”
Ralph suddenly found himself fascinated by those fingers. No jet contrails this time, but the tip of each one appeared to be wrapped in a bright silvery haze, like tinfoil you could somehow look right through. He suddenly found himself thinking of Carolyn again, and remembering the phantom smells she had sometimes complained of last fall-cloves, sewage, burning ham. Maybe this was the male equivalent, and the onset of his own brain tumor had been signaled not by headaches but by insomnia.
Self-diagnosis is a fool’s game, Ralph, so why don’t you Just quit it?
He moved his eyes resolutely back to Wyzer’s big, pleasant face.
No silvery haze there; not so much as a hint of a haze. He was almost sure of it.
“Going on half a year. It seems that’s right,” he said. “Going longer. A lot longer, actually.”
Any noticeable pattern? There usually is. I mean, do you toss and turn before you go to sleep, or 11
“I’m a premature waker.”
Wyzer’s eyebrows went up. “And read a book or three about the problem too, I deduce.” If Litchfield had made a remark of this sort, Ralph would have read condescension into it. From Joe Wyzer he sensed not condescension but genuine admiration.
“I read what the library had, but there wasn’t much, and none of it has helped much.” Ralph paused, then added: “The truth is, none of it has helped at all.”
“Well, let me tell you what I know on the subject, and you just kind of flop your hand when I start heading into territory you’ve already explored. Who’s your doctor, by the way?”
“Litchfield.
“Uh-huh. And you usually trade at… where? The People’s Drug out at the mall? The Rexall downtown?”
“The Rexall.”
“You’re incognito today, I take it.”
Ralph blushed… then grinned. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Uh-huh. And I don’t need to ask if you’ve been to see Litchfield about your problem, do lo If you had, you wouldn’t be exploring the wonderful world of patent medicines.”
“Is that what these are? Patent medicines?”
“Put it this way-I’d feel a helluva lot more comfortable selling I wagon with fancy yellow most of this crap off the back of a big red wheels,”
Ralph laughed, and the bright silvery cloud which had been gathering in front of Joe Wyzer’s tunic blew away when he did.
“That kind of salesmanship I might be able to get into,” Wyzer said with a misty little grin. “I’d get a sweet little honeybun to do call her Little Egypt, like in that old Coasters song… she’d be my warm-up act. Plus I’d have a banjo-picker. In my experience, there’s nothing like a good dose of banjo music to put people in a buying mood.”
Wyzer looked off past the laxatives and analgesics, enjoying this gaudy daydream. Then he looked back at Ralph again.
“For a premature waker like you, Ralph, this stuff is entirely useless. You’d be better off with a shot of booze or one of those wave machines they sell through the catalogues, and looking at you, I’d guess you probably tried em both.”
“Yes.”
in a sequined a dance’ d bra and a Pair of harem pants “Along with about two dozen other oldtimer-tested home remedies.”
Ralph laughed again. He was coming to like this guy a lot. “Try four dozen and you’ll be in the ballpark.”
,well, you’re an industrious bugger, I’ll give you that,” Wyzer said, and waved a hand at the blue boxes. “These things are nothing but antihistamines. Essentially they’re trading on a side-effect antihistamines make people sleepy. Check out a box of Comtrex or Benadryl down there in Decongestants and it’ll say you shouldn’t take it if you’re going to be driving or operating heavy machinery.
For people who suffer from occasional sleeplessness, a Sominex every now and then may work. It gives them a nudge. But they wouldn’t work for you in any case, because your problem isn’t getting to sleep, it’s staying asleep. correct?”
“Correct.”
“Can I ask you a delicate question?”
“Sure. I guess so.
“Do you have a problem with Dr. Litchfield regarding this Maybe have some doubts about his ability to understand how really pissy your insomnia is making you feel?”
“Yes,” Ralph said gratefully. “Do you think I should go see him?
Try to explain that to him so he’ll understand?” To this question Wyzer would of course respond in the affirmative, and Ralph would finally make the call. And it would bel should be Litchfield-he saw that now. It was madness to think of hooking up with a new doctor at his age.
Can you tell Dr. Litchfield you’re seeing things? Can you tell him about the blue marks you saw shooting up from the tips of Lois Chasse’s fingers? The footprints on the sidewalk, like the footprints in an Arthur Murray dance-diagram? The silvery stuff around the tips of Joe Wyzer’s fingers? Are you really going to tell Litchfield that stuff?
And if you’re of, If you can’t, by are you going to see hill, in first Place, no matter what this guy recommends?
Wyzer, however, surprised him by going in an entirely different direction. “Are you still dreaming?”
“Yes. Quite a lot, in fact, considering that I’m down to about three hours’ sleep a night.”
“Are they coherent dreams-dreams that consist of perceivable events and have some kind of narrative flow, no matter how kookoo-or are they just jumbled images?”
