Tombstone

[prog]

It came to him, for reasons nobody is quite sure of, to invest in a tombstone for himself. I mean, an actual hunk of polished granite. I didn't think to ask if he's had it inscribed yet. At any rate, this decision was met with some controversy but what's done was done and Peter helped drive it to our parents' house, where it now rests in a wheelbarrow in the basement. Nobody wants to talk about it but Ricky is pleased that he pulled it off.

He's moved past being actually frightened about what he calls "the door incident" (mafia device and all of that) and is now feeling concerned about how frightened he was - the right direction, as far as I'm concerned. He feels he really tweaked his VA social worker when describing the incident to her. "She gave me a look like, you know, from the back of the choir. I mean: freaky." Ricky wonders if he should schedule an appointment with a psych[iatr|olog]ist he's worked with before. It would mean spending money, is the thing, even with Medicare.

His friend Jim is on some kind of new heavy-duty meds that makes him a zombie, and Ricky's bummed out about that. This isn't the goofball friend who thought that the smelly liquid might be ebola; that's Russell. Russell's doing fine.

"You sound good," I said to him. "Yeah, I sound good," said he. I told him I'd mail him Clans of the Alphane Moon. I think he'll enjoy it. I may warn him ahead of time that it's got (as doctor_atomic put it) some rather archaic notions of mental disorders in it, as these things often rub him the wrong way... but he's read enough PKD by now that he probably wouldn't mind much.

Comments

i must say

[jtroutman.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your writing. The first paragraph is very short story worthy.

Re: i must say

[doctor-atomic.livejournal.com]

I move that prog writes a book about Ricky.

Re: i must say

[daerr.livejournal.com]

Seconded!