Once life starts to go downhill, it gathers speed very quickly. Like a skier on a strange and slippery slope, I find myself wanting to get off but traveling too fast to bail out.
Just a few short years ago, life in Westlake Village was akin to the life led in the antebellum south. A man might stop by his neighbors on a warm Saturday afternoon and sit under a spreading maple. Without so much as a "would you care for?" he would be pleasantly surprised by the clink of ice cubes in a pitcher of lemonade en route from the kitchen to his spot in the shade.
But why do I torture myself, and why does the face of Bernie Shapiro come back to haunt me?
Because Bernie Shapiro was a microcosm of all that was good in the world of drugs. He was our druggist. No, he was not a pharmacist or an apothecary, he was a just a plain old druggist. He could make you a strawberry float or fill your prescription. In those forgotten antebellum days, when you couldn't get the doctor up off his butt, you could always get Bernie.
Well, you can't get Bernie any more. In fact, the nearest thing you can get to a drug store is the cosmic cut-rate pharmacy cum department store. While you're there you can buy lawn furniture, industrial detergent, and tennis shoes. The pharmacy is a hole in the wall back off in the corner. The pharmacist is a first year Med school drop-out who fills prescriptions. Ours is Ramahadjadan Olipromidou. If Rama had not passed this last and final exam, he would be driving you to La Guardia. Bernie would lance a boil if you had one. If your prostate kept you up at night, Bernie had a solution. Sties, sprained ankles and nose bleeds -- they were Bernie's bread and butter.
I go to the doctor a lot. I've outlived three of them. Every time I go to the doctor, he has to do a complete check-up from ground zero. Then he sends me to another doctor who has a room full of secret "on the cutting edge" equipment that will take him a lifetime to pay for.
After the MRIs, the EKGs, the tests for this and that, I find myself back again at the pharmacy with a handful of prescriptions. A rough count of noses at the pharmacy window would reveal twenty or so Westlake Villagers all clamoring for immediate service. Beads of perspiration are forming on the brow of Ramahadjadan and the little, lost, rabbity creature assigned as his receptionist. They both look as though the last train has left to Calcutta without them. There is a free blood pressure machine in the corner, and elderly people are gathered around it. It is the only doctor in the house. "What's yours," says one old man to me. "Mine's 280 over 198." He thinks a minute. "That's better than last week. Doctor Katchatourian is a wonder...do you go to him?"
"No," I reply. "I'm a Belcher man."
Everybody is told he or she must wait fifteen minutes. "Personally, I will announce your name on the intercom." Mr. Ramahadjadan smiles nervously, and his tiny parakeet receptionist bobs her head in agreement. The old folks are free to wander through the store checking out the contraceptives ... the diapers. From the stock of diapers, I deduce that there must be something wrong with the condoms. I wonder if I should buy an umbrella -- there is a clearance on umbrellas. There's something I could use! A twenty pound bag of charcoal! Just as I am about to heave the bag on my shoulder, I hear my name from speaker in the ceiling.
"Mr. Buscahaman, Hurry!" I am used to things like this. I can't ever remember being called by my right name. Even the "Hurry" part. Unless I make sure the loop is closed on the 'a' in Harry, they'll call me "Hurry" every time.
The parakeet has difficulty finding my bag of prescriptions. "Under 'B' I say" ... I try to be helpful. Yes, I can read my name all the way from the check-out counter. She, with her nose almost touching it, cannot see it. "There -- there I say," as she moves it aside to look at another one.
"Hurry Buscahaman. Yes, cash or charge?"
You would have to be a total idiot to bring that much cash with you into a store like this. "To your knowledge, has anyone ever paid cash for a prescription my dear?" I can't help asking her.
The suggestion of a smile flickers and is quickly extinguished as she runs the old credit card through her well-worn machine.
In the fading light of this fall day, I sit in my car and check out my prescriptions. Fresh troops are ready to join the silent battle being waged in my body. They are like faithful friends promising me free and easy bowel movements, a sparkling complexion, and a better blood-sugar ratio than I might have expected without them. Then I look at the printouts.
Printouts are a new development in the pharmaceutical world. Bernie Shapiro never gave printouts. He'd tell you when to take your pills and what to expect if you didn't follow instructions ... "If your ears start ringing, give me a call." You can't fit the printouts on the prescription these days, they are two and three pages long. They include your name, the doctor's name, the pharmacist's name and the drug name. They include "Common Uses," "How to Use," "Cautions," and "Possible Side Effects." I have a book full of these printouts, each nullifying the one that came before. As the drugs are used, doctors find them doing different things to different people. It is not comforting to realize that doctors are learning as they go, and we are our own guinea pigs in the broad area of medicine.
Nevertheless, my printouts seem strange to me. I am not pregnant and I am not avoiding pregnancy. I am not knowingly spreading sexually transmitted diseases. Why must I agree to make my doctor aware of any persistent or recurrent vaginal bleeding or difficulty in wearing contact lenses!? Furthermore, my doctor is not Delwin Digger, and Goddammit, my name isn't Patty Funstedt. But wait a minute!!
I know them well, the Funstedt family. Brian and Betty! They live over on Eighth Street. They were second generation Westlake Villagers. My daughter graduated with Betty...their daughter Patty...my God! She can't be more than fifteen. She's a pompom girl. I've seen her on the field...green skirt, little white bodice with the gold braid and her flashing smile. She's on birth control pills?!!
The light is almost gone now. I feel I must do something. Does her family know? If she's got my printouts in place of hers -- I'm in on it. Patty and me both know each other's most intimate secrets. Hers are the secrets of youth, and mine are the secrets of old age. By some strange and incongruous twist of fate Patty and I are linked in a way neither of us want any part of.
I wonder what Bernie Shapiro would have done?
(Copyright 1997 by Harry Buschman - No reproduction without express permission from the author)