Rookies

Pharmacist by Ben Renz

I am a pharmacist. My name is Auther and I am married to a very kind woman named Sam. Sam walks like a little girl and she’s so small she always appears as if she’s a mile away. I love her very much. She’s a somewhat eccentric woman (at least in certain ways) who believes that blind people are lying, that they can actually see. She is a rabid fan of the poet William Carlos Williams, though she hates his name with a passion. She talks to me about these two things quite a lot. When I talk about her, however, I tend to bring up how she pronounces ‘Hersey’ without the ‘sh’ sound. It sounds like ‘heresy” without that last ‘e.’ We married at 22, two days following our graduation at the college we both attended. Where we met. I’m a very lucky man. The college isn’t around anymore. It went bankrupt five years after we left.

We have a son and we are very proud of him. His name is PJ and he’s a paperboy. He’s 17. He has his share of issues as well, just as my wife does. I once found porn on his computer, but couldn’t talk to him about it, or tell my wife about what I had found. Mainly because, at least from some of the things I saw, he’s turned on by naked girls stabbing other naked girls. I don’t think I can tell anyone about this, and I probably never will. I hope he turns out alright.

PJ wants to be a writer, however – and I’ve talked to him about this- all of his characters always find themselves in a bind that they escape out of just in the nick of time. I encourage him to inject a little variety into his plotlines, but he has none of it. He gets very angry at me. But I realize how slim the odds are of him actually still wanting to be a writer once he gets to college (in a few years now), so I don’t worry too much about it.

We have a dog named Spot. PJ named him and PJ had his reasons for naming the dog Spot. Mostly because there was a time when all dogs were named Spot, and now there isn’t a single dog named Spot. This was PJ’s ten-year-old logic, at least. We all love Spot very much.

I love my son very much, too. But you could gather that, right? I do love my son. As my wife. As our dog. I really do have a nice family. We live in Zanesville, Indiana. I am the only pharmacist in town and people know me and people know my family. My wife seems to act as if we’re the center of attention, but I’m not too sure about that.

I’m 45 and my wife is 45 and it’s about at this age that I start thinking of going to the desert. And it’s about this time, when I’m at my most serious, that I get the news that my son has just been hit by a car on his bicycle.

I get in my car. My wife is out of town. She’s with some friends. The hospital called her. She called me. I was working. I told my assistant what happened, the little information that I knew, and I left quickly.

There isn’t much to this town. There’s a very small hospital. It takes me no time at all to get there. My goddamn wife didn’t tell me the condition. Just that he had been hit. Maybe she didn’t know any more information. How could she not know any more information? This is something that she should have asked about.

I have no trouble finding a parking space. I get out and I realize that I’ve left my coat back at the pharmacy. It’s very cold. I wish PJ didn’t have to deliver papers in this kind of cold. The type of cold where your hands are susceptible to pain, because when it’s cold, it’s much easier to get hurt. When it can hurt the most, this is when you’ll get hurt. And this is when my son has gotten hurt. I begin to think about who hit him. My thoughts become blurry.

I walk inside, automatic doors. It’s a relatively new hospital. I walk right in because this is now my hospital. I tell the nurse at the desk who I am and why I am here and she knows who I am and why I’m here so I follow her, she will take me to PJ. We turn a corner and walk. We turn another corner. Keep walking. Why the fuck would he be so far away? What kind of fucking operation is this? Another corner. Keep walking. Another corner. I see no other sick people. No other nurses. Or doctors. Could it really just be me and this nurse in this hospital? Is PJ even fucking here?

And then we’re at the room. It’s a shared room, but no one’s on the other side. No one’s doing anything and PJ is laying on the bed, eyes closed.

“Shouldn’t someone be doing something,” I say, quieter than I should. I realize my mistake and say it louder. “Shouldn’t someone be doing something, goddamnit?” You might say I surprised myself with the raising of my voice and the inclusion of the curse word, but this doesn’t surprise me. This is how normal people react when they think someone they love may be dead.

Two other doctors are in the room and they aren’t looking at me and they aren’t looking at PJ. They’re wearing gym shoes. Running shoes. Their scrubs are light blue, the exact same shade and they won’t fucking look at me. This isn’t professional. This not looking bullshit. Fucking look at me.

But I know what they’re going to say.

I’m sorry, I just figured this was a good place to start. I figured that this might explain things that I couldn’t explain.