Eddied Bad Break

(an excerpt from S.King’s novel "It")

Yes, it was hot that day, but cool inside the Center Street Drug, and there was that comforting smell of mixed powders and nostrums. This was the place where they sold health - that was Eddie's mother's unstated but clearly communicated conviction, and with his body-clock set at half-past eleven, Eddie had no suspicion that his mother might be wrong about that, or anything else.

He remembers standing at the comic rack for awhile, spinning it idly to see if there were any new Batmans or Superboys, or his own favourite, Plastic Man. He had given his mother's list (she sent him to the drugstore as other boys’ mothers might send them to the cor­ner grocery) and his mother's check to Mr. Keen; he would fill the order and then write in the amount on the check, giving Eddie the receipt so she could deduct the amount from her checking balance. Three different kinds of prescription for his mother, plus a bottle of Geritol because, she told him mysteriously, "It's full of iron, Eddie, and women need more iron than men," Also, there would be his vitamins, a bottle of Dr. Swell's Elixir for Children... and, of course, his asthma medicine.

It was always the same. But this day was different, it would end with him in the hospital and that was certainly different; but it started being different when Mr. Keen called him. Because instead of handing him the big white bag full of cures and the receipt, Mr. Keen looked at him thoughtfully and said, "Come back into the office for a minute, Eddie, I want to talk to you."

Eddie only looked at him for a moment, blinking, a little scared. The idea that maybe Mr. Keen thought he had been shoplifting flashed briefly through his mind. Then Mr.Keen confused him even further by saying, "How about an ice-cream soda?" ""Well -"

"Oh, it's on the house. I always have one in the office around this time of day. Good energy, unless you need to watch your weight, and I'd say neither of us do. What flavor, Eddie?"

"Well, my mother said to get home as soon as I -"

"You look like a chocolate man to me. Chocolate okay for you?" Mr. Keen's eyes twinkled, but it was a dry twinkle, like the sun shin­ing on mica in the desert.

"Sure," Eddie gave in. Something about the way Mr. Keen pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up on his blade of nose made him edgy. Something about the way Mr. Keen seemed both nervous and secretly pleased. He didn't want to go into the office with Mr. Keen. This wasn't about a soda. Nope. And whatever it was about, Eddie had an idea it wasn't such great news.

Maybe he's going to tell me I got cancer or something, Eddie thought wildly. That kid-cancer. Leukemia. Jesus! Oh, don't be that stupid, he answered himself back. This guy is a pharmacist, not a doctor. But Eddie was still nervous.

Mr. Keen had raised the counter-gate and was beckoning to Eddie with one bony finger. "Come on, son. I'm not going to bite you." And Mr. Keen actually winked, astounding Eddie completely.

Mr. Keen propelled Eddie forward into the office and closed the door firmly behind him. When it clicked shut Eddie felt a warning tightness in his chest and fought it. There would be a fresh aspira­tor in with his mother's things, and he could have a long satis­fying honk on it as soon as he was out of here.

2.

Mr. Keen sat down in the swivel chair behind his desk, opened his drawer and took something out. He put it down and Eddie felt real alarm course through him. It was an aspirator. For one night­mare moment Eddie thought Mr. Keen would say: "Eddie, nine out of ten doctors agree that asthma medicine gives you cancer. You've probably got it already. Just thought you ought to know."

But what Mr. Keen did say was so peculiar that Eddie could think of no response at all; he could only sit in the straight wooden chair on th6 other side of Mr. Keen's desk like a nit.

"This has gone on long enough."

Eddie opened his mouth and then closed it again.

"How old are you? Eleven, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir," Eddie said faintly. His breathing was indeed shallowing up. He wasn't yet whistling like a tea-kettle, but that might hap­pen at any time. He looked longingly at the aspirator on Mr. Keen's desk, and because something else seemed required, he said:"I'11 be twelve in November."

Mr. Keen nodded. "Do you know what a placebo is, Eddie?"

Nervously, taking his best guess, Eddie said: "Those are the things on cows that the milk comes out of, aren't they?" "No," he said, and Eddie blushed to the roots of his flattop haircut. Now he could hear the whistle creeping into his breathing. "A placebo -"

"Loosen up, Eddie. I am not going to bite you, or hurt you."

Eddie nodded, because Mr. Keen was a grownup and you were supposed to agree with grownups at all costs (his mother had taught him that), but inside he was thinking: Oh, I've heard that bullshit before.

Eddie tried another half-hearted suck on his soda straw, but it was no good; he needed all the space_in his narrowing throat just to suck in air. He looked at the aspirator sitting in the middle of Mr. Keen's blotter, wanted to ask for it, didn't quite dare. A weird thought occured to him: maybe Mr. Keen knew he wanted it but didn't dare ask for it, that maybe Mr. Keen was

(torturing)

teasing him. Except that was a really stupid idea, wasn't it? A grownup - particularly a health-dispensing grownup - wouldn't tease a little kid that way, would he? Surely not.

But there it was, there it was, so near and yet so far, like water just beyond the reach of a man who was dying of thirst in the desert. There it was, standing on the desk below Mr. Keen's smiling mica eyes. How could you fight a grownup who said it wasn't going to hurt when he knew it was? How could you fight a grownup who asked you funny questions and said obscurely ominous things like This has gone on long enough?

"Loosen up," Mr. Keen said again. "Most of your trouble, Eddie, comes from being so tight and stiff all the time. Take your asthma, for instance. Look here."

Mr. Keen opened his desk drawer, fumbled around inside, and then brought out a baloon. Expanding his narrow chest as much as possible, he huffed into it and blew it up. Mr. Keen pinched the baloon's rub­ber neck and held the balloon out in front of him. "Now pretend for just a moment that this is a lung," he said. "Your lung."

"Mr. Keen, could I have my aspirator now? "Eddie's head was starting to pound. He could feel his windpipe sealing itself up. His heartrate was up, and sweat stood on his forehead.

"In a minute, "Mr. Keen said. "Pay attention, Eddie. I want to help you. It's titbe somebody did. If Russ Handor isn't man enough to do it, I'll have to. Your lung is like this balloon, except it's surrounded by a blanket of muscle; these muscles are like the arms of a man operating a bellows, you understand? In a healthy person, those muscles help the lungs to expand and contract easily. But if the owner of those healthy lungs is always getting stiff and tight, the muscles begin to work against the lungs rather than with them. Look!

Mr. Keen wrapped a bony hand around the balloon and squeezed. The balloon bulged over and under his fist and Eddie winced, trying to get ready for the pop. Simaltaneously he felt his breathing stop al­together. He leaned over the desk and grabbed for the aspirator on the blotter. His shoulder struck the heavy ice-cream-soda glass. It toppled off the desk and shattered on the floor like a bomb.

Eddie heard that only dimly. He was clawing the top off the as­pirator, slamming the nozzle into his mouth, triggering it off. He took a tearing heaving breath, his thoughts a ratrun of panic as they al­ways were at moments like this: Please Mommy I'm suffocating I can't BREATHE oh my dear God I can't BREATHE please I don't want to die don't want to die oh please -

Then the fog from the aspirator condensed on the swollen walls of his throat and he could breathe again.

"I'm sorry," he said nearly crying. "I'm sorry about the glass... I'll clean up and pay for it...just please don't tell my mother, okay? I'm sorry, Mr. Keen, but I couldn't breathe -

Eddie's breath was starting to whistle again. He took another pull at the aspirator and then began his fumbling apology once more. He ceased only when he saw that Mr. Keen was smiling at him - that pecu­liar dry smile. "You feel much better now, don't you'?"

Eddie nodded.

"Why?"

“Why? Well... because I had my medicine."

"But you didn't have any medicine, "Mr. Keen said. "You had a placebo. A placebo, Eddie, is something that looks like medicine and tastes like medicine but isn't medicine. A placebo isn't medicine because it has no active ingredients. Or, if it is medicine, it's medicine of a very special sort. Head-medicine. "Mr. Keen smiled. "Do you understand that, Eddie?"

Eddie understood, all right; Mr. Keen was telling him he was crazy. But through numb lips he said, "No, I don't get you."

"Let me tell you a little story," Mr. Keen said. "In 1954, a series of medical tests on ulcer patients was run at DePaul Univercity. One hund­red ulcer patients were given pills. They were all told the pills would help their ulcers, but fifty of the patients really got placebos... They were. in fact, M&M's given a uniform pink coating." Mr. Keen ut­tered a strange shrill giggle - that of a man describing a prank rather than an experiment. "Of those one hundred patients, ninety-three said they felt a definite improvement, and eighty-one showed an im­provement. So what do you think? What conclusion do you draw from such an experiment, Eddie?"

"I don't know," Eddie said faintly.

Mr. Keen tapped his head solemnly. “Most sickness starts in here. That's what I think. I've been in this business, a long long time, and I knew about placebos a mighty stretch of years before those doc­tors at DePaul University did their study. Usually it's old folks who end up getting the placebos. The old fellow or the old girl will go to the doctor, convinced that they've got heart disease or cancer or diabetes or some damn thing. But in a good many cases it's no­thing like that at all. They don't feel good because they're old, that's all. But what's a doctor to do? Tell them they're like wat­ches with wornout mainsprings? Huh Not likely. Doctors like their fees too much. "And now Mr. Keen's face wore an expression somewhere between a smile and a sneer.

Eddie just sat there waiting for it to be over, to be over, to be over. You didn’t have any medicine: those words clanged in his mind.

"The doctors don't tell them that, and I don't tell them that, either. Why bother? Sometimes an old party will come in with a pres­cription blank that will say it right out: Placebo, or 25 grains Blue Skies, which was how old Doc Pearson used to put it."

Mr. Keen cackled briefly and then sucked on his coffee soda.

"Well, what's wrong with it?" he asked Eddie, and when Eddie only sat there, Mr. Keen answered his own question. "Why, nothing! Nothing at all! At least... usually. Placebos are a blessing for old people. And then there are other cases - folks with cancer, folks with degenerative heart disease, folks with terrible things that we don't understand yet, some of them children just like you, Eddie! In cases like that, if a placebo makes the patient feel better, where is the harm? Do you see the harm?, Eddie?"

"No, sir," said Eddie, and looked down at the splatter of choco­late cream, soda-water, whipped cream, and broken glass on the floor. Looking at this mess made his chest feel tight again.

"Then we're like Ike and Mike! We think alike! Five years ago, when Vernon Maitland had cancer of the esophagus - a painful, pain­ful sort of cancer - and the doctors had run out of anything effective they could give him for his pain, I came by his hospital room with a bottle of sugar-pills. He was a special friend, you see. And I said, "Vern, these are special experimental pain-pills. The doctor doesn't know I'm giving them to you. They might not work, but I think they will. Take no more than one a day, and only if the pain is especially bad" He thanked me with tears in his eyes. Tears, Eddie! And they worked for him! Yes! They were only sugar-pills, but they killed most of his pain... because pain is here."

Solemnly, Mr. Keen tapped his head again.

Eddie said: "My medicine does so work."

"I know it does," Mr. Keen replied, and smiled a maddening compla­cent grownup's smile. "It works on your chest because it works on your head. HedrOx, Eddie, is water with a dash of camphor thrown in to give it a medicine taste."

"No," Eddie said. His breath had began to whistle again.

"I want to go now," Eddie said

"Let me finish, please."

"Not I want to go, you've got your money and I want to got"

"Let me finish," Mr. Reen said, so forbiddingly that Eddie sat back in his chair. Grownups could be so hateful in their power sometimes. So hateful.

"Part of the problem is that your doctor, Russ. Handor, is weak. And part of the problem is that your mother is determined you are ill. You, Eddie, have been caught in the middle."

"I'm not crazy," Eddie whispered, the words coming out in a bare husk.

"What?"

"I said I'm not crazy!" Eddie shouted. Then, immediately, a mise­rable blush rose into his face.

Mr. Keen smiled. Think what you like, that smile said. Think what you like, and I'll think what I like.

"All I am telling you, Eddie, is that you're not physically ill. Your lungs don't have asthma; your mind does."

"You mean I’m crazy."

Mr. Keen leaned forward, looking at him intently over his folded hands. "I don't know," he said softly. "Are you?"

"It's all a lie!" Eddie cried, surprised the words came out so strongly from his tight chest. All a great big lie! I do have asth­ma, I do!"

"Yes," Mr. Keen said, and now the dry smile had become a weird skeleton grin. "But who gave it to you, Eddie?"

Eddie's brain thudded and whirled. Oh, he felt sick, he felt very sick.

"Four years ago, in 1954 - the same year as the DePaul tests, oddly enough, - Dr. Handor began prescribing this HydrOx for you. That stands for hydrogen and oxygen, the two components of water. I have condoned this deception since then, but I will condone it no more. Your asthma medicine works on your mind rather than your body. Your asthma is the result of a nervous tightening of the diaphragm that is ordered by your mind...or your mother. You are not sick."

A terrible silence descended.

Eddie sat in his chair, his mind whirling. For a moment he con­sidered the possibility that Kr. Keen might be telling the truth, but there were ramifications in such an idea that he could not face. Yet why would Mr. Keen lie, especially about something so serious? But why would he lie? (It was only years later that Eddie asked him­self the more terrible question: Why would he tell me the truth?)

Dimly he heard Mr. Keen saying: "I've kept my eye on you, Eddie. I told you all this because you're old enough to understand, but also because I've noticed you've finally made some friends. They are good friends, aren't they?"

"Yes," Eddie said.

"And I bet your mother doesn't like them much, does she?"

"She likes them fine," Eddie said, thinking of the cutting things his mother had said about Richie Tozier (He has a foul mouth...and I've smelled his breath, Eddie... I think he smokes), her sniffing remark not to loan any money to Stan Uris bесаusе he was a Jew, her outright dislike of Bill Denborough and "that' fatboy".

He repeated to Mr. Keen: "She likes them a lot."

"Does she?" Mr. Keen said, still smiling. "Well, maybe she is right and maybe she's wrong, but at least you have friends. Maybe you ought to talk to them about this problem of yours. This... mental weakness. See what they have to say."

Eddie didn’t reply. He was through talking to Mr. Keen that seemed safer. And he was afraid that if he didn’t get out of here soon, he really would cry.

"Well! Mr. Keen said, standing up. "I think that just about fi­nishes us up, Eddie. If I've upset you, I'm sorry. I was only doing my duty as I saw it. I -"

But before he could say any more, Eddie had snatched up his as­pirator and the white bag of pills and nostrums and had fled. One of his feet skidded in the ice-creamy mess on the floor and he almost fell. Then he was running, bolting from the Center Street Drug in spite of his whistling breath.

Behind him he seemed to sense Mr. Keen standing in the doorway of his office and watching his graceless retreat over the prescrip­tion counter, gaunt and thoughtful and smiling. Smiling that dry desert smile.

He paused outside on the three-way corner of Kansas, Main and Center. He took another deep pull from his aspirator. He then slipped it into his pocket and tried not to think. He couldn't find a way to stay angry at Mr. Keen, but he had no trouble at all feeling bad for Eddie Kaspbrak.

More than anything else he wanted to do exactly what Mr. Keen had suggested: go down to the Barrens and tell his friends everything, see what they would say, find out what answers they had. But he couldn't do that now. His mother would expect him home with her medicine soon.

He stopped halfway up the hill, and pulled his aspirator from his pocket. Hydox Mist, the label said. Administer as needed.

Something else clicked home. Administer as needed. He was only a kid, still wet behind the ears (as his mother sometimes told him when she was "slapping down the cards"), but even a kid of eleven knew that you didn't give someone real medicine and then write of the label Administer as needed. If it was real medicine, it would be too easy to kill yourself as you went happy-assholing around and administering as needed. He supposed you could kill yourself with plain old aspirin doing that.

He looked fixedly at the aspirator, unaware of the old lady who glanced curiously at him. He felt betrayed. And for one moment he almost cast the plastic squeeze-bottle into the gutter. But in the end, habit was simply too strong. He replaced the aspirator in his right front pants pocket and walked on, hardly hearing the occasio­nal blare of a horn or the diesel drone of the Bassey Park bus as it passed him. He was likewise unaware of how close he was to discovering what being hurt - really hurt - was all about.

Дата добавления: 2015-09-04