ROGER LUDLOW - LOCKED IN JOLLY'S PHARMACY
GUILFORD, MASSACHUSETTS - ENTRY #1
My Millie got the cancer a long time before she told me.
I don't rightly know why she didn't say anything. Maybe she was afraid for me. Sometimes Millie was protective in a way that wives shouldn't be protective over their husbands.
She stopped letting me mow the lawn when I was fifty-five because she was worried for my ticker. She refused to let me shovel the sidewalk or the path leading up to the duplex, too. Instead, she scrimped and saved so she could pay that fat, lazy, turd, P.J. Marshall to do it. God only knows he used the money for reefer.
He’s just that way.
Yes, Millie was afraid for me, but this time it wasn't because I might blow an artery or have a stroke doing things reserved for younger men. She was afraid for my mind.
After all, Millie and I went way back, well, almost to the beginning. I was sweet on her from the moment I first set eyes on her back in Priest the Beast’s second grade classroom. There weren't many other colored families in town back then, so it was a big deal that Millie's family moved here. Lordy, but they were a big bunch, too.
Millie had seven sisters and four brothers, and there she was, smack dab in the middle of them all.
She liked me, too, even though I couldn't string five words together to make a conversation. I was shy back then, but my Mille wasn't. She did enough talking for the both of us. When we got hitched, and I worked on cars in Hap's garage while she ran the register and kept the books, she talked for me, too.
You see, she knew I wasn't a strong man. I'm a good man, but I was never a strong man. As the years went on, I suppose shy gave way to reserved. As the decades layered one on the other like drifts of snow in the winter, reserved gave way to thoughtful, or just, 'that sweet old Mr. Ludlow'.
So now what's ‘that sweet old Mr. Ludlow’ supposed to do? My Millie's got the cancer, and now she's got this other nonsense, too. I don't know what it is, but Millie, and the rest of the folks here in Jolly’s pharmacy, are sick.
Real sick.
I've locked them all in the basement, but how long is that going to last? I know one thing for sure. I can't do this life thing without my Millie. She can't leave me. She just can't.
I won't let her.
ROGER LUDLOW - LOCKED IN JOLLY'S PHARMACY
GUILFORD, MASSACHUSETTS - ENTRY #2
It started last Friday night. I think today is Tuesday, but I'm not sure. The days are running together like red underwear runs in a load of white laundry.
My Millie and I had stopped by Jolly’s Pharmacy to pick up one of her prescriptions. Mille didn’t like to talk about what Dr.McKee had her taking. She called them her special candy.
I knew they were pain pills, but she didn’t want me to think she was in pain.
Millie never wanted me to worry about her like that. She wanted to worry about me.
There were only a few other locals in the pharmacy when everything happened.
Nola Norris was working the front checkout. She’s been riding that register at Jolly’s for over ten years. Nola always told Millie that someday she’d settle down and find a husband, but I had my doubts. After all, she wasn’t much of a looker. Besides, she was covered with
angry, red, poison-ivy welts. My Millie asked her what happened. Nola just shrugged and told her there’re some things that you just shouldn’t do in the woods.
Then there was the druggist—John something-or-other. He’s been at Jolly’s since before I started working at Hap’s. As a matter of fact, he’s been there long enough for me to see his hair go from blonde to white, and the crow’s feet around his eyes become permanently etched on his face like battle scars.
That trouble-maker girl who went and got herself tattooed all over the place, was there, too. I don’t know her name, but I do know her parents. She ought to be ashamed of herself for the things she puts them through. When we first came into the pharmacy, I noticed her
reading a magazine in aisle six. She was probably getting ready to steal it.
Millie and I were slowly walking up the cosmetic’s aisle, arm in arm, heading to the front register. She couldn’t walk that fast anymore, but she sure could hold her head up high. I don’t mind telling you, my Millie always walked with her head held high, like one of those beautiful carvings on the front of an old-time whaling ship.
I let her guide me as we walked, because I knew that’s what my Millie wanted. I would do anything for my Millie--anything.
I remember I was trying to decide if I was going to buy one of those new-fangled Snickers bars with the yellow wrapper—the kind with peanut butter layered inside. Lord knows they’re bad for me. Still, they taste so damn good.
As we walked, Millie started squeezing my arm. I didn’t quite notice at first, but her grip got harder and harder.
“What’re you doing, woman?” I asked her, but then I saw her eyes. They weren’t Millie’s eyes, anymore. They were someone else’s eyes—cold and gray.
I didn’t mean to pull away from her. I would never pull away from my Millie, but I was startled. Her beautiful skin—that soft, brown, cocoa, skin that I had the privilege of
touching for the majority of our lives—was gray.
I took a step back—then another. That’s when I noticed the others. I keep playing it all back in my mind in slow motion. I don’t know why, because everything happened so quickly. Still, in my head, it takes a million years.
Nola Norris’s poison-ivy welts weren’t red anymore. They were white against gray skin, and her eyes were gray like Millie’s peepers. Pharmacist John was making a bee-line for me—not Millie—just me. He was walking down the cosmetics aisle like someone with cerebral palsy. I couldn’t understand why, because John was a healthy guy. That
trouble-maker girl—she was staggering toward me, too.
"What’s happening, Millie? Honey, are you okay?” She didn't answer me. I kept saying,
“Honey—honey—honey,” like a broken record. The whole time she kept squeezing my arm tighter and tighter, like a vice.
Finally, my Millie snarled at me. It was an awful sound, like the growl of a rabid dog in a dark alley, hovering over the bloody remains of a dead rat.
I think that's when I realized there was something wrong with all of them—not just my Millie, but everyone in the pharmacy.
Something dead wrong.
ROGER LUDLOW - LOCKED IN JOLLY'S PHARMACY
GUILFORD, MASSACHUSETTS - ENTRY #3
Help.
I intended to get help, but by the time I got my head screwed on straight, it was too late. There was no help to get. The few people I saw out in the parking lot had the gray eyes and the funny walk, just like Nola and John and that girl whose parents I knew.
Just like my Mille.
I saw an open door in the back of the pharmacy, near that wall of condoms that everyone’s always talked about. ‘Get your jollies at Jolly’s’ they used to say. When I was younger—a lifetime ago—lots of fellas in town would head off to the Jolly’s right after they cut out of work on Friday afternoons. I bought my first box of safes here when I was just shy of nineteen. My Millie made me do it. Don’t get me wrong. She was a good girl and we waited until our wedding night. Still, she said she wasn’t interested in any babies until we weren’t babies ourselves.
My Millie was always smarter than me.
The basement door was open just a crack, and the light was still on. Maybe Nola Norris or Pharmacist John had been down there getting some more gummy worms or wax lips to fill up the shelves. Candy always flies out of Jolly’s this time of year. Kids are back at school so they often come into the pharmacy to get their lined paper or pencils. The leaf peepers also start coming this way, hoping they’ll catch a glimpse of whatever colors New England is supposed to offer.
I don't mind telling you, I’ve been in Guilford all my life, so they’re nothing special about the foliage to me, except maybe out at the Quabbin Reservoir, or Hollowton, or even Apple. Now that's a quirky place--Apple, I mean. Anyone who’s anyone should know to stay away from Apple, Massachusetts in the fall. Folks get themselves killed there. Every year when the trees begin to die there are murders. I guess that's the price you pay for living there. As a matter of fact, Hap lives in Apple. I asked him about the murders once. He just shrugged and said, “Yeah. Apple chews up and spits out a few seeds every year.” I wouldn’t want to live in Apple, that’s for sure. Who would want to approach the fall every year, dreading you might end up a seed?
Anyway, my Millie and the rest of them followed me down into the basement. Nola Norris kept gnashing her teeth together as she staggered along. It didn’t take but a minute or two before I realized what Nola wanted was to take a bite out of me. I didn’t know what would happen if she did, but I had a sinking suspicion that a bite from Nola, or any of them, would make me just like them.
My heart ached for my Millie. Maybe I did want to be just like them—just like her. One bite—that’s all it would take.
Once we were all down in the cellar, it was easy enough for me to lose them all in the stacks of shelves with extra inventory on them like deodorant and tacky stuffed animals that kids wail for their mammies to buy them--just to make them shut-up.
I left them all down there, catching one last glimpse of my Millie as I dashed up the stairs—locking the basement door behind me.
Help. I really needed help, but I didn't have the foggiest idea of where to turn. Still, my Millie must be hungry. Without even thinking, I pulled some beef jerky off a spinning rack, cracked open the basement door and threw several bags down the stairs.
After all, I couldn’t let me Millie starve, now could I.
GUILFORD, MASSACHUSETTS - ENTRY #1
My Millie got the cancer a long time before she told me.
I don't rightly know why she didn't say anything. Maybe she was afraid for me. Sometimes Millie was protective in a way that wives shouldn't be protective over their husbands.
She stopped letting me mow the lawn when I was fifty-five because she was worried for my ticker. She refused to let me shovel the sidewalk or the path leading up to the duplex, too. Instead, she scrimped and saved so she could pay that fat, lazy, turd, P.J. Marshall to do it. God only knows he used the money for reefer.
He’s just that way.
Yes, Millie was afraid for me, but this time it wasn't because I might blow an artery or have a stroke doing things reserved for younger men. She was afraid for my mind.
After all, Millie and I went way back, well, almost to the beginning. I was sweet on her from the moment I first set eyes on her back in Priest the Beast’s second grade classroom. There weren't many other colored families in town back then, so it was a big deal that Millie's family moved here. Lordy, but they were a big bunch, too.
Millie had seven sisters and four brothers, and there she was, smack dab in the middle of them all.
She liked me, too, even though I couldn't string five words together to make a conversation. I was shy back then, but my Mille wasn't. She did enough talking for the both of us. When we got hitched, and I worked on cars in Hap's garage while she ran the register and kept the books, she talked for me, too.
You see, she knew I wasn't a strong man. I'm a good man, but I was never a strong man. As the years went on, I suppose shy gave way to reserved. As the decades layered one on the other like drifts of snow in the winter, reserved gave way to thoughtful, or just, 'that sweet old Mr. Ludlow'.
So now what's ‘that sweet old Mr. Ludlow’ supposed to do? My Millie's got the cancer, and now she's got this other nonsense, too. I don't know what it is, but Millie, and the rest of the folks here in Jolly’s pharmacy, are sick.
Real sick.
I've locked them all in the basement, but how long is that going to last? I know one thing for sure. I can't do this life thing without my Millie. She can't leave me. She just can't.
I won't let her.
ROGER LUDLOW - LOCKED IN JOLLY'S PHARMACY
GUILFORD, MASSACHUSETTS - ENTRY #2
It started last Friday night. I think today is Tuesday, but I'm not sure. The days are running together like red underwear runs in a load of white laundry.
My Millie and I had stopped by Jolly’s Pharmacy to pick up one of her prescriptions. Mille didn’t like to talk about what Dr.McKee had her taking. She called them her special candy.
I knew they were pain pills, but she didn’t want me to think she was in pain.
Millie never wanted me to worry about her like that. She wanted to worry about me.
There were only a few other locals in the pharmacy when everything happened.
Nola Norris was working the front checkout. She’s been riding that register at Jolly’s for over ten years. Nola always told Millie that someday she’d settle down and find a husband, but I had my doubts. After all, she wasn’t much of a looker. Besides, she was covered with
angry, red, poison-ivy welts. My Millie asked her what happened. Nola just shrugged and told her there’re some things that you just shouldn’t do in the woods.
Then there was the druggist—John something-or-other. He’s been at Jolly’s since before I started working at Hap’s. As a matter of fact, he’s been there long enough for me to see his hair go from blonde to white, and the crow’s feet around his eyes become permanently etched on his face like battle scars.
That trouble-maker girl who went and got herself tattooed all over the place, was there, too. I don’t know her name, but I do know her parents. She ought to be ashamed of herself for the things she puts them through. When we first came into the pharmacy, I noticed her
reading a magazine in aisle six. She was probably getting ready to steal it.
Millie and I were slowly walking up the cosmetic’s aisle, arm in arm, heading to the front register. She couldn’t walk that fast anymore, but she sure could hold her head up high. I don’t mind telling you, my Millie always walked with her head held high, like one of those beautiful carvings on the front of an old-time whaling ship.
I let her guide me as we walked, because I knew that’s what my Millie wanted. I would do anything for my Millie--anything.
I remember I was trying to decide if I was going to buy one of those new-fangled Snickers bars with the yellow wrapper—the kind with peanut butter layered inside. Lord knows they’re bad for me. Still, they taste so damn good.
As we walked, Millie started squeezing my arm. I didn’t quite notice at first, but her grip got harder and harder.
“What’re you doing, woman?” I asked her, but then I saw her eyes. They weren’t Millie’s eyes, anymore. They were someone else’s eyes—cold and gray.
I didn’t mean to pull away from her. I would never pull away from my Millie, but I was startled. Her beautiful skin—that soft, brown, cocoa, skin that I had the privilege of
touching for the majority of our lives—was gray.
I took a step back—then another. That’s when I noticed the others. I keep playing it all back in my mind in slow motion. I don’t know why, because everything happened so quickly. Still, in my head, it takes a million years.
Nola Norris’s poison-ivy welts weren’t red anymore. They were white against gray skin, and her eyes were gray like Millie’s peepers. Pharmacist John was making a bee-line for me—not Millie—just me. He was walking down the cosmetics aisle like someone with cerebral palsy. I couldn’t understand why, because John was a healthy guy. That
trouble-maker girl—she was staggering toward me, too.
"What’s happening, Millie? Honey, are you okay?” She didn't answer me. I kept saying,
“Honey—honey—honey,” like a broken record. The whole time she kept squeezing my arm tighter and tighter, like a vice.
Finally, my Millie snarled at me. It was an awful sound, like the growl of a rabid dog in a dark alley, hovering over the bloody remains of a dead rat.
I think that's when I realized there was something wrong with all of them—not just my Millie, but everyone in the pharmacy.
Something dead wrong.
ROGER LUDLOW - LOCKED IN JOLLY'S PHARMACY
GUILFORD, MASSACHUSETTS - ENTRY #3
Help.
I intended to get help, but by the time I got my head screwed on straight, it was too late. There was no help to get. The few people I saw out in the parking lot had the gray eyes and the funny walk, just like Nola and John and that girl whose parents I knew.
Just like my Mille.
I saw an open door in the back of the pharmacy, near that wall of condoms that everyone’s always talked about. ‘Get your jollies at Jolly’s’ they used to say. When I was younger—a lifetime ago—lots of fellas in town would head off to the Jolly’s right after they cut out of work on Friday afternoons. I bought my first box of safes here when I was just shy of nineteen. My Millie made me do it. Don’t get me wrong. She was a good girl and we waited until our wedding night. Still, she said she wasn’t interested in any babies until we weren’t babies ourselves.
My Millie was always smarter than me.
The basement door was open just a crack, and the light was still on. Maybe Nola Norris or Pharmacist John had been down there getting some more gummy worms or wax lips to fill up the shelves. Candy always flies out of Jolly’s this time of year. Kids are back at school so they often come into the pharmacy to get their lined paper or pencils. The leaf peepers also start coming this way, hoping they’ll catch a glimpse of whatever colors New England is supposed to offer.
I don't mind telling you, I’ve been in Guilford all my life, so they’re nothing special about the foliage to me, except maybe out at the Quabbin Reservoir, or Hollowton, or even Apple. Now that's a quirky place--Apple, I mean. Anyone who’s anyone should know to stay away from Apple, Massachusetts in the fall. Folks get themselves killed there. Every year when the trees begin to die there are murders. I guess that's the price you pay for living there. As a matter of fact, Hap lives in Apple. I asked him about the murders once. He just shrugged and said, “Yeah. Apple chews up and spits out a few seeds every year.” I wouldn’t want to live in Apple, that’s for sure. Who would want to approach the fall every year, dreading you might end up a seed?
Anyway, my Millie and the rest of them followed me down into the basement. Nola Norris kept gnashing her teeth together as she staggered along. It didn’t take but a minute or two before I realized what Nola wanted was to take a bite out of me. I didn’t know what would happen if she did, but I had a sinking suspicion that a bite from Nola, or any of them, would make me just like them.
My heart ached for my Millie. Maybe I did want to be just like them—just like her. One bite—that’s all it would take.
Once we were all down in the cellar, it was easy enough for me to lose them all in the stacks of shelves with extra inventory on them like deodorant and tacky stuffed animals that kids wail for their mammies to buy them--just to make them shut-up.
I left them all down there, catching one last glimpse of my Millie as I dashed up the stairs—locking the basement door behind me.
Help. I really needed help, but I didn't have the foggiest idea of where to turn. Still, my Millie must be hungry. Without even thinking, I pulled some beef jerky off a spinning rack, cracked open the basement door and threw several bags down the stairs.
After all, I couldn’t let me Millie starve, now could I.