The End Specialist. Drew Magary

you an annulment under those circumstances. It’s a binding marriage. It lasts forever.”

      “But no one told me forever would be this long!” the big swinging dick screamed. “I know I swore to be with her till death, but that was under a different definition of death, was it not?”

      The lawyer stammered, “Well, that’s a bit of a gray area right now.”

      “Well, ungray it. Make it black or make it white. I don’t care which. I’ll pay you five million if you can get it annulled. Five million. And, if you can’t, you get me my divorce. Then you charge me one hundred million in legal fees. That way, I’m technically broke and she can’t touch the cash. But I only pay you five million, and you ignore the rest of the debt.”

      “That’s illegal in about thirty-seven different ways.”

      “I don’t care! I want my money, and I want a clean break from that woman. Give her the townhouse if you need a negotiating tool. Between the dog hair and that glass sofa she bought, she’s made the place all but unlivable anyway. And I want it done by fall. I have a two-week vacation in Majorca with our former nanny, and I don’t want to cancel it. Get it done or I’ll find a real lawyer.”

      And with that, the big swinging dick stormed right back out. Two hours later, his wife walked into the exact same lawyer’s office, demanding the townhouse, the Hamptons estate, and “alimony for the rest of his miserable existence, regardless of length.”

      I’m definitely attending that seminar.

      Date Modified: 6/26/2019, 10:10PM

      “I Never Thought I Had The Luxury Of Time—Now It’s All I’m Gonna Have”

      Katy demanded I go with her to her cure consultation. I explained to her that there was no waiting room in Dr. X’s apartment, and that I thought he probably preferred that everyone come alone. I made a compromise of walking her to the building, waiting outside for her, and grabbing some drinks with her after she got her blood drawn. “You’ll get drunk even faster, since you’ll have less blood in your system,” I explained. She liked the idea.

      When we got off the subway and walked east, we could hear the protesters outside the UN. Their numbers have continued to swell. I’m not sure they even take bathroom breaks anymore. The avenue has been barricaded much farther uptown than when I was last caught in the middle of it, as if there’s a permanent weekend street fair. I was tempted to see if any vendors had set up shop among the throngs, selling paper plates of greasy pad thai for two bucks. I resisted.

      We stopped at a bagel shop and grabbed a quick lunch before her appointment. Again, Katy brought up every cure-related scenario that came to her mind, both the good and the horrific. Mostly the horrific. She let her guard down a bit as we ate. My best friend is not the world’s most introspective person. But she took a moment to stop being so damn bubbly.

      “I don’t know what I’m going to do after this,” she said. “Suddenly, I’m all worried about the future.”

      “That’s what Dr. X said. No one he sees thinks about it until they get it done.”

      “Am I doing the right thing here? My grandma’s got pancreatic cancer. Is it fair she has to go through that and I get to sidestep it?”

      “You could still get cancer. You think your grandma would wish it on you?”

      “No, I guess not. I don’t know. I never really thought about my life before. I knew it was short, and I knew I should have a good time before it’s over. That was about it. I never thought I had the luxury of time—now it’s all I’m gonna have. I feel like I should probably do something more substantial with it.”

      “You’ve always had the luxury of time. You’re twenty-seven. Cure or no cure, that’s still plenty of time up ahead. It’s yours to do with as you please. You’re not obligated to be Mother Teresa now. This just means you have more time to do what you enjoy, or find what you enjoy, I guess.”

      “Well, you know what I enjoy.”

      “I do indeed.”

      She grew alarmed. “What if we run out of booze three hundred years from now?

      “Oh, I think measures will be taken to prevent that sort of thing. We don’t need glaciers. But vodka? They won’t let the vodka dry up.”

      “Thank God.”

      We got up to leave and approached the doctor’s building. We got to the southwest corner of the intersection on First. The doctor’s building was across the avenue, on the southeast corner. The light turned for us to cross. Out of my peripheral vision, on the northwest corner, I saw a tall figure outside a candy shop. Blonde. An impossible body. She didn’t have to turn for me to instantly recognize her. In fact, I had memorized the back of her quite capably. I stopped and held Katy back.

      “That’s the blonde! That’s the blonde!”

      Katy looked at her. “Oh, she is hot.”

      “I have to go talk to her. I’ll meet you out front when you’re finished.”

      I broke from Katy to cross the street. Katy hurried into the doctor’s building. As I got to the opposite corner, the blonde turned and looked in my direction. I gave a tentative wave, trying to ascertain if she recognized me or not. She appeared unnerved, turned away from me, and began walking up the avenue. I crossed the street in hopes that she was simply walking away and not walking away from me. She gave another look back, saw me approaching, and quickened her gait. I took the hint and stopped outside the candy store, dejected. She blazed down the avenue, only pausing once to look back at the doctor’s apartment building. I turned to do the same.

      And that’s when the doctor’s apartment blew up.

      Before I could see anything, I heard a gigantic BOOM! Then a quarter of an instant later the corner of the eighth floor blew out onto First Avenue in a single lash of flame. Right where the doctor’s office once was. A makeshift hailstorm of pulverized white brick pummeled the traffic below. Hot black smoke began quickly scaling the outside of the building. A Freidrich air-conditioning unit—one of those heavy, old-school units—crashed into the sidewalk below. If anyone had been underneath it, it would have destroyed them.

      Everything, everyone, everywhere, froze to turn. What the fuck just happened? I looked to the doorway but couldn’t see Katy. She was in there. She was on her way to the eighth floor, or she was there already. I didn’t move. I stood still and hoped everything would suddenly reset and be put back in its proper place, because nothing about this felt possible. It felt absurd, like some kind of prank. The building was on fire and I knew I needed to run in but didn’t know how to run or speak or breathe at the moment. Horrible thoughts about Katy dying circled around my consciousness, like strange footsteps you hear outside your window in the dead of night. I heard the sirens blasting and growing louder and more intense, as if they were meant to echo the cries of those suffering inside.

      My body finally unlocked and I began running to the building as the fire truck pulled up alongside it. When I was in the middle of the intersection, I looked down the street and saw two more towers of smoke climbing up and up at points farther to the west, towards the Hudson: one less than half a block away, another much farther across town.

      An elderly woman came running out of the building. She carried a small black Scottie with her and wore a gypsy’s head wrap. I stepped in front of her to get her to stop. She stared at me, confused by it all.

      “What just happened?” she asked.

      I pointed inside. “Did you see anyone else on your way out?”

      “No.”

      “Are you certain? I’m looking for a brunette woman. In her twenties. You saw her. Tell me you saw her coming out.”

      I held her shoulders tight, begging her for a response.

      “I didn’t see anything!”

      She wrested away from my grip