“Okay. Sounds good.” She gave me another quick kiss, and I hugged T. J. and told him to have fun. Michelle made a fuss about me getting soapsuds all over his clothes, and T. J. giggled. Then she ushered him out the door.
I stood at the kitchen window and watched them walk down the sidewalk together, hand in hand. I cried. I cried for a long time and used a dishrag to dry both my hands and my face. Then it was off to the bathroom again for another battle with my stomach. This time, it came out both ends, and there was blood in both my vomit and my stool. After about twenty minutes, when I felt like an empty, dried-out bag of skin, I stood up and got on with the business of dying.
* * *
The truck didn’t want to start right away. It felt about as healthy as I did. When I finally got it running, I stopped at the big supermarket on Carlisle Street with the pharmacy inside. I had lied to Michelle about my plans. There was nothing wrong with John’s timing belt, and in fact, I didn’t even plan on seeing him all day. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the day hanging out with John and Sherm. There were other things that I needed to take care of instead. I had a To Do list for the day . . .
I walked through the produce section, past the paperback rack and the aisles for bottled soda, potato chips, and pet supplies before I found the pharmacy. There was a big guy behind the counter, dressed in a white lab coat with a name tag that said CASEY. He looked more like a club bouncer than a pharmacist.
“Good morning.” He grinned. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a prescription that I need to get filled. Wasn’t sure you’d be open today, to tell you the truth.”
“Yep, we’re open on Sundays. That’s why I’m stuck here today instead of at home watching the game. People get sick seven days a week. Let’s take a look at your prescription.”
I handed him the crumpled-up piece of white paper. He unfolded it, smoothed out the wrinkles, and carefully deciphered the doctor’s handwriting.
“Hmmm, eighty milligrams of OxyContin, to be taken twice daily. Not a problem. Should be about fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“Okay.”
“I just need to see your insurance card, and I’ll also need your date of birth.”
I looked down at my feet. “I don’t have any insurance.”
“That’s okay. Lots of people in this town don’t have health insurance.” His voice was still friendly, but his smile had drooped a few notches. “Will you be paying by cash, credit, or debit card?”
“Um, none of them right now,” I said. “I was just wondering if you could tell me how much it was going to be. That way I know how much to set aside for next week.”
He paused, studying me. “Well, eighty milligrams per day, taken twice daily— that comes to six hundred and fifty dollars per month.”
My mouth dropped open.
“Jesus fucking Christ! Six hundred and fifty bucks? You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“You’re lucky, pal. Just be glad that your doctor didn’t put you on one hundred and sixty milligrams. That would be even more expensive. On the street, they call OxyContin the poor man’s heroin, but there’s nothing poor about it.”
“What do you mean, ‘on the street’?”
“OxyContin, if taken properly, is released slowly into the body. It’s a time-release capsule. But drug addicts circumvent the time release by crushing the pills and inhaling or injecting the powder. It gives them a heroin-like high, supposedly. The cops blame it for part of the rise in crime across the country here lately. Between that, and the fact that there’s no generic version, the prices stay high.”
“Well, this is bullshit, man. I can’t afford this.”
His smile completely vanished.
“Look, buddy, I don’t set the prices. If that’s not affordable for you, then talk to your doctor. There are generic versions of other painkillers that he can prescribe.”
“How cheap would they be?”
He shrugged. “Anywhere from three to five hundred a month.”
“Nothing cheaper?”
“Not unless you want to walk over to aisle six and get yourself a bottle of aspirin or ibuprofen.”
“Well, I guess that settles that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Look, don’t take it personal, okay? I’m sorry for bothering you. Just been trying to figure out what I’m going to do, and this may have helped me make up my mind. Thanks for your help, Casey.”
“Whatever you say. Hang in there.”
Without another word, I turned and left the counter. I’d promised Michelle that I would get my prescription filled. As far as I was concerned, I’d tried. Now there were no doubts in my mind about what I had to do. The bank robbery was the only way, even if just to pay for my painkillers.
Before I left the store, I remembered that I was down to three cigarettes. I strolled up to the customer service booth and flashed the girl behind the counter my best flirtatious smile, the same one that had finally won Michelle over.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Boy, I really hope so. I put a five-dollar bill in the soda machine outside and not only did it not give me a soda, but it won’t give me my money back either. I think it must be broken or something.”
“Well, that’s not good.”
“No it ain’t. Do you have one of those little envelopes that I can fill out for a refund from the vendor?”
She didn’t, of course, and I knew that. The store automatically refunded your money on the spot, then squared up with the vending company later on. But I played stupid.
“I can take care of it for you right now, sir.”
“You can? Awesome! That would be great. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, but five bucks is five bucks, you know what I’m saying?”
She nodded in sympathy, filled out a little piece of paper, had me sign it, and gave me a crisp, new five-dollar bill. Easy money, and soon, there’d be more where that came from. I climbed back into the truck, drove across the street to the discount tobacco store, and bought a fresh pack of smokes. I walked out with a buck in change, enough for a soda later on. Then I went to the library, second on my agenda for the day.
* * *
The library was only open for limited hours on Sunday, and I had to wait until somebody unlocked the doors. Despite the fact that it was a beautiful, balmy spring day, I stood there shivering on the sidewalk. Eventually, I got back in the truck and let the heater run. I rubbed my hands together in front of the dashboard vents, trying to get some circulation in my numb fingers. By the time the librarian showed up, I was almost warm. I gave the librarian my driver’s license, signed in for a computer, and logged onto the net. I typed ALTERNATIVE CANCER TREATMENTS into the search engine, waited a moment, and got seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand matches. The sheer amount of information was pretty daunting. There was information on herbs and supplements and vitamins, some of which were supposed to prevent you from getting cancer (too late for me on that one), and others that were supposed to help combat it, either taken separately or with prescribed medication from a doctor. I clicked on a few links, but the herbs were just as expensive as the painkillers my doctor prescribed. Next was heat therapy, which supposedly killed the cancer cells from the inside out. One week of intensive therapy cost seventeen thousand dollars, and the recommended treatment was a minimum of two weeks. Just a little bit out of my price range. Other cures and treatments involved acupuncture, something called applied kinesiology, emulsified vitamin A, Cesium Chloride, holistic meditation, vitamin E, essiac tea, ellagic acid, mushrooms (that didn’t sound too bad), marijuana ingestion (that didn’t sound too bad either), Aloe Vera extract, Rife technology, infrared treatment, mistletoe pills, hypothermia (which kind of invalidated the heat treatment theory and cost the same amount), peroxide therapy, hyperbaric units, flax oil, high doses of vitamin C, shark cartilage, kelp, harmonic vibration therapy, whale song therapy, and thousands more— each one more whacked and expensive than the last. It was all bullshit. There were doctors and clinics outside the US that I could visit for help, but I couldn’t afford gas money to
