The doctor was a tall dark man in fine but terribly mismatched clothing. As Bette would later, aptly describe him, more for his demeanor and pitch than his garb, as being a bit too similar to a used car salesmen. He brought me, Bette and Peppy into a small conference room at the end of the hall to present us with his recommended course of action. Among Bette, Peppy and myself there was great ambivalence. Eric was clearly in agony, an agony that he clearly expressed having no intention of residing within. Eric had been emphatic in the past about wanting to down a delightful lethal cocktail rather than hanging on through the torturous nether place that he knew his disease would become. At this point that hell was undeniably here but, Eric had also taken the position that for him, his life had now boiled down to love and pain and, that the love that he felt from all of those who had rallied around him was well worth it. Eric was a positive energy junky. All we really wanted to do was give that beautiful old doper the biggest fix we could, a consummate high fit for Kieth Richards to say goodbye, a smile that would take him from there to the end of time. The doctor expressed his possition that he was not in the business of helping people die especially if he felt that he could provide the opportunity of creating more quality time. The notion of quality time was a big hook. Eric had just been brightly lucid two days earlier. In all honesty I don’t think that it was solely our desire to give him extra time just for him, in truth we were Eric junkies as well and wanted to selfishly continue basking in his charm and magic. We wanted to hide from the end and the final goodbyes, the finishing of the story, the end of the saga, the end of his toothless smiles and devilish wit. I think in part, we wanted to take some refuge from what pains we knew would arise from the deprivation of his crazy silly soul. The doctor explained that the key problem at this point was that Eric’s kidneys had shut down and that if we but him on dialysis we might be able to give him another month or so. The notion of another month or so peppered with beautiful magic moments was an intoxicating but, ultimately selfish idea. What sea of searing pains would he have to swim in order to regive those gifts he’d already given? Bette asked me for my opinion on the dialysis. I told her that a month with more of those magic moments might well be worth it and also that if we gave it this last shot that we could go guiltlessly into our futures without forever wondering if we had pulled his plug to soon. This course would also give Eric, should he awake, an opportunity to put in his two most valuable cents as to how we should go from there. Peppy being the calmest and most level headed of we three, concurred. The doctor was given our go ahead. We went back to Eric’s room to collect his things.
