The line to see the dying man stretched down the hall, past the faux Pissarro, past the faux Renoir -- clear back to where they hung the awful Warhol. On line, prayerful men, women and children clutched their $25 tickets and impatiently fidgeted. His primary care physician, who hadn't been by in 18 months, assured all the patient could go at any minute.

The minute he goes, the benignly bubble-headed Nurse Dudash will nod to Buster, a gum-chewing moron, who will walk to the sliding glass doors that lead to the spacious balcony high above the city streets. From the pants pocket of his garish purple uniform, he will pull the antique cigarette lighter he’d stolen from his grandfather when he was just a boy. Five times he will flick it as he crosses the white linoleum of the white room where the 105-pound white man had lay dying for years. Still flicking, he'll slide open the doors and cross the balcony to the platform where the box marked, "DANGER. EXPLOSIVES. FIREWORKS." stood. Buster will remove the protective covering from the five-inch fuse and curse as the ancient lighter again failed to spark. On the ninth try, flame will dance to life. Fire will be lowered to fuse and the 50-pound pyrotechnic will be on its way. And as the throng 47 floors below gazes up in wonderment and anticipation at the rapidly expanding starburst in the sky, Buster will spit out his gum and hope it hit a deserving face staring -- cross your fingers -- gape-mouthed toward the heavens.

The world's last baby boomer will be dead. The parades will be underway in an hour.

But until then, monotony would reign as long as the endless line of men and women who had come from around the solar system to pray for the death of Martin Jacob McCrae.

Buster was the spiritual poobah of gum-chewing morons everywhere and the envy of all. Sure, for nearly two years straight he'd sat in the small white room with the speechless McCrae, a former couch potato who had graduated to a persistent vegetative state. In that time, Buster had never said a single word in the direction of McCrae. And whether it was out of contempt or simply a reflex function of a comatose body, the only sound McCrae had ever made in the direction of Dingus was produced by the gentle trumpet of uncontrollable flatulence.

Not that Buster was insulted. The old man, hell, the prehistoric man, was his meal ticket and Buster felt an abiding affection for anyone who had buttered his bread as deeply and evenly as McCrae was buttering his. People were paying Buster $25 a pop to step into the room with McCrae for precisely 15 minutes. Buster would mumble hello and motion them to a large X on the floor five feet from the foot of McCrae's crisply made-up hospital bed. Then, click, he'd start the wall-mounted digital clock and resume watching the ever-playing television in the corner.

When the clock ticked down to double zero, a prerecorded phone sex voice would gush, "Your time's up! Better luck next time! You can play all day, any day, so come back soon! And thanks for dropping by!"

This was followed by a businesslike male voice speaking at auctioneer speed:
"ThiscourtesymessagewasbroughttoyoubythemakersofCoca-Cola,nowvavialableonPluto," and the slight, crisp ding! of a wall-mounted bell.

That's when Buster would non-nonchalantly reach to his right for the 3-foot lever and give it a short tug. The action would trigger a spring releasing the large trap door beneath the X, thus voiding the dreams, not to mention the presence, of the dreamer standing upon it. Down they'd go.

"And thanks for dropping buh-bye!" he'd call as they fell from sight. It had been this way for nearly two years since the old man fell from consciousness and this is the way it would be until the old man was declared dead, dead, finally dead. Rain or shine, night or day, they lined up no fewer than 100 deep and took their chances. Even today, with angry lightning approaching Manhattan from the southwest, a throng waited patiently on the sidewalk to purchase tickets to see McCrae die.

To say this was a full-time job was like saying breathing was a full-time job to people who pursued life-sustaining respiration. Buster had not taken a break since he and McCrae had made their arrangement. That was five years ago, way back in 2076. The first months were logistical nightmares involving insurance agents, lawyers, accountants and other associated criminals. Then came the historic hoopla of Excesstival!!! and the joyful anticipation of the demise of McCrae, something the old man, too, was eager to achieve. Still, McCrae'd been enjoying the attention, the pampering and the fragrant nearness of the comely Nurse Dudash. Her eyes were the color of Elvis Presley’s turquoise belt buckle and Marty thought she was sweet enough to cause cancer in lab rats.

But then came the collapse. McCrae'd been gumming a bowl of marshmallow-studded cereal and making up ridiculous answers to serious questions about the past 112 years from three Girl Scouts from Jakarta.

"Do you remember the moon landing?"

"No. I was too young."

"Do you remember the Kennedy assassination?"

"No. I was still in the womb. My mother carried me for 10 months and three weeks. Quite a long time. If things would have worked out the way I wanted, I'd still be there today. It was quite pleasant and I loved my mommy."

"Do you remember being on board the Titanic?"

"Oh, yeah, I was earning $50 a day for three weeks until they fired me for blowing the whistle about the drowned extra. Nobody believed me until I threatened to go to the TV stations. But at that point, they weren't going to let the death of one lousy extra stop the filming of a $200 million blockbuster. They offered me a cool $500,000 to keep my mouth shut. That was fine ‘cause I didn't really care. I never let principle stand in the way of a nice payday. But I held out until they agreed to let me be in an underwater scene with Kate Winslet so I could feel her up while she was fighting for her life. We said, 'Deal!' they said, 'Action!' And I got to feel up Kate Winslet, and nobody ever heard of that poor bastard again. Name was Peter Gerstenberger, I think. That's all I remember about Titanic's last victim."

"To what do you attribute your longevity?"

"Everything that didn’t kill me, only made me stronger."

"At your advanced years, is there anything else you do remember?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

"I remember laughter, being born, and the day the music died."

"You remember being born? C’mon, all those years ago?"

"Yes, and it's the one thing I recall with utter clarity. I remember complete and perfect happiness one second and cold, naked -- and I really mean naked -- fear the next. Then I remember the doctor holding me by my feet and saying, 'It's a boy! A healthy baby boy!' I remember looking around the room and everyone was upside down and smiling at me. I smiled back. Then I remember this big son of a bitch taking his beefy hand and cracking me on the ass. I remember being hurt and mystified. I spent a good deal of my formative years believing being a healthy boy pleased them because they'd all get to watch the big doctor whack me on the ass. And this gratuitous violence was somehow pleasing to them. It wasn't until years later I learned that they hit everybody on the ass. Healthy boy -- whack! Healthy girl -- whack! Unhealthy girl -- whack! Unhealthy boy -- whack! White, black -- whack! Whack! It's safe to assume that unless you come out carrying a loaded revolver, chances are pretty good you're the one who's going to get whacked. The doctors said it was good for the baby, but I haven't trusted a single doctor since the precise second my butt started to sting."

"You said you remember laughter."

"Yes, I do. I don't remember events, dates, presidents, lovers, losers, the mundane or the magnificent, but I do remember laughter. All my life, it's as if someone's been tickling me with a giant invisible feather. Very pleasant. I assume God simply enjoys seeing my teeth and is intent on filling my life with laughter. I have no other explanation, but it's been wonderful, really."

"You don't have any teeth."

"Yes I do. They're on the table. Now, if God wants to see my teeth He need only peek into the glass on the table. I'm sure it's much simpler than tickling me with a giant invisible feather."

"Tell us about the day the music died."

"Ah, yes. It was 2039. Keith Richards, who survived all the other Rolling Stones by nearly three decades, was on his way to jam when he was struck by a bus. Keith and I’d been drinking Jack Daniel's whiskey and smoking while I was teaching him how to juggle when -- gack! Gack! Gaaaaaaaa . . ."

A violent seizure. Pandemonium ensued. The old golfer had taken one final stroke.

The nurses ran in. The docents ran out and the Girl Scouts ran for their cameras. McCrae splashed face first into his Lucky Charms. The nurses checked his breathing. They checked his pulse. And before the cameras came out they checked their makeup. A paramedic crew came crashing through the door.

One! Two! Three! They lifted him onto the nearby bed. The first paramedic took a needle attached to a small tube and put it in a tiny vein in the patient's left hand. The second took a needle with a slightly larger tube and put it in a pulsing blue vein in his arm. A third paramedic took a tube about the circumference of a pencil and shoved it up a cavernous nostril. Then into the room came a slight, balding man toting what looked like an angry garden hose.

"All right, roll him over," he ordered.

McCrae, eyes widening, hissed, "By God, you'd better not be thinking of sticking that thing up inside of me."

If you exclude the shouted expletive that followed insertion, these were widely reported to be his last words.

To Buster, those days seemed about a hundred years ago. Jarring lightning split the sky outside and he glanced at the monitors above McCrae's bed. The meaningless lines blipped and beeped with clinical indifference to the storm raging outside. Paying customers were dripping puddles down the marbled hall and the more nervous types were jumping at each crack of the increasingly frequent bolts of blue lightning. On television, a game show contestant squealed in perfect synchronization with the lightning, almost as if it'd zapped her right on her nice, round bottom.

Then -- CRACK!!! -- she was gone. The building took a direct hit. Lights flickered and died. Alarmed, Buster glanced at the monitor above the prone man's bed. He gave the lever an angry tug, sending a prayerful old man screaming into the darkness below. The old timer still had 4:06 left, but the posted rules voided the time limit in the event of an Act of God. Under the rules, lightning strikes, earthquake, tornado, catastrophic meteor hit, hurricane, flood, alien invasion and labor strife were all considered Acts of God.

The lights on the monitor above the bed began to dim. McCrae, otherwise motionless for the past 18 months, gave a short start. His chest rose slowly and then settled back down again. An emergency generator kicked in seconds later. The blaring television filled the room with dysfunctional static. Dingus ran to the hall, his heart pounding in his chest. "Dudash! Dudash! Get in here! Now!"

She was there in seconds, her face white as her uniform. "What is it? Is it over?"

"The lightning knocked out the satellite. Get up there and fix the television. That blond's about to spin again."

Of course, Dudash knew less about television repair than she knew about critical nursing, which was less than nothing. She wasn't a nurse, The Fox wasn't a hospital and McCrae wasn't a patient. There wasn't a single patient anywhere in the building. In fact, everyone was impatient and had been that way for more than five years. The people who waited in line were impatient. Dudash was impatient. Dingus was impatient. Staffers were impatient. The only soul in the entire Michael J. Fox Museum of Art and Natural History who seemed remotely patient was the serenely comatose McCrae. Enduring the endless crowds and the dirgelike monotony, McCrae seemed like a man with all the time in the world.

And that was the problem. He would not die. Alive and dying for the better part of three years, he just wouldn't get on with it.

The world had been hearing about baby boomers for nearly 150 years and the subject had grown tedious. A generation staring at itself in the mirror, baby boomers had always enjoyed the view. In the end, the world was so sick of them there was talk about hiring honest-to-goodness bounty hunters to track down the tired old remainders and shoot them off into deep space to fritter away their days angrily accusing one another of cheating at euchre. But it was just rabble talk and one by one they all dried up and died off.

All except McCrae. And if you overlook the multitudes who were showing up year after year around the clock to earnestly pray for his death, nobody wished him any ill. He was, after all, an intriguing individual. That's why they'd lodged him in a so-called "gallery suite" on the top floor of the Michael J. Fox Museum, a spectacular East 53rd Street tourist attraction named after the 53rd president of the United States, a former TV and movie star. In fact, in some quarters McCrae was still hailed as a national hero. People would come from all over the country to visit him at his multimedia exhibit, one that was so interactive contestants would sometimes leave with inadvertent gobs of spit dripping from their faces, unwelcome residue from the subject's shouted pronouncements.

Prior to his coma, they could talk to him, ask him questions, have their picture made with him, and listen to his colorful lies and try to mine some truth from all the fool's gold that spilled from his toothless mouth.

He’d lived an original life. He’d spent nearly two whole lifetimes warring against boredom and in the end he was just tired. That's when he met Dingus. He'd been sitting on a park bench feeding the pigeons and thinking about dead friends. And that was everyone. Anyone and everyone he’d ever loved. They were all gone. Buddy, Skip, Hugh, Will, Hope, Ben, Joyce, Mitch. The five Rexes, including the Nervous Rex, and he missed him often.

Dead. All of them. He was alone. While all the others, everyone, had devoted themselves to living forever, by God, it looked like he was the only one who was going to have a real run at it. Living forever had been a national obsession. Eat right, don't drink, don't smoke, pop the right pills, and endure the self-torture that was daily exercise and you might escape death. So millions of healthy, strapping Americans led pristine, vice-free lives without blemish, profanity or flaw. In the end, that's what killed them. As the perfect specimens grew older and cruel time began to inflict its bitter victories against their brittle bodies, there was nothing the doctors could do to save them.

In the old days the doctor could tell you to lose weight, quit smoking, stop drinking, control your anger, cut back on salt, drive carefully and pay the lady on your way out. But when the baby boomers got older all the doctors could say was, "I'm sorry. You've followed my advice all your life and now there's nothing I can do for you. Pay the lady on your way out."

That's why doctors were thrilled with McCrae. His whole life he'd drank, smoked, ate rich foods, swore, had unsafe sex with lusty Haitians and generally lived a happily dissolute life. While others were killing themselves trying to live forever, he'd done as he pleased. Now it was coming back to haunt him.

Five years earlier, he’d been reflecting upon this irony when he noticed the young man absentmindedly fingering his ear and staring at him. McCrae stuck a finger up his nose and stared back, thus startling the young man into speech.








2076



"You're McCrae, right?"

"Nope."

"Yes, you are. I recognize you. I saw you on TV. You're the last one. When you go, that's it. No more baby boomers."

"Go away, kid. You bother me."

But the kid wouldn’t leave. He just kept staring at McCrae, who for months had been sitting at the same bench, feeding the same pigeons as he waited for tardy death to come by and pick him up the way passengers wait endlessly for the last, late bus home.

Buster had the face of a badly carved pumpkin. His restless, amber eyes were rolling back and forth inside their sockets like tumbleweeds caught in a cross wind. His prematurely balding hair had a dark, Nixonian tuft slicked-down at the front, making it appear as if a skillful motorcyclist had burned rubber from his forehead clear back to the bald spot.

"I am an old man. I have little time left. In fact, I plan on dying here within the next few minutes. So, please, go away."

"Look," Buster blurted out, "I think I can make you some money."

McCrae’s surprised guffaw startled a few of the pigeons into a squawk. "You think I need money? For what? My golden years? You are a foolish young man and I've had enough of fools. Now, go away. You're scaring the pigeons."

Buster sensed opportunity, but the potter's wheel of his mind wasn't spinning fast enough to mold the clay into any thought that would hold water. Never before cursed with ambition, Buster had been a lifelong failure and was, thus, perfectly content. As a child, he was so lazy and utterly devoid of good intentions, his mother once paid him cash to stop stealing her jewelry. He still had a jeweled antique lighter he’s lifted from his grandfather, the sole survivor from the family haul he’d pawned long ago. Alien ambition had gnawed at him since he spied McCrae serenely feeding pigeons two days ago. A recently televised segment about McCrae had caught his interest for two reasons, and both of them were filling the swelled sweater of broadcaster Cherry Canyon. She was the stripper who slept with the vice president. He’d loved her madly until she was stricken by the Boobonic Plague. Then, for him at least, everything went straight to hell. He became the butt of jokes, President Cochran gave him nothing to do, and his wife and family were cold and distant. In short, absolutely nothing had changed except Cherry didn't want anything to do with him, and he sorely missed her voluptuous warmth.

For Cherry and thousands of other women, the Boobonic Plague was a godsend. She wrote a thoughtful book about the affair, was hailed for her wit and insight and was given a television show of her own. Her television numbers were robust in part because her other numbers were 46-24-32.

Women liked her because she was sassy, forthright and disrespectful to males. Men admired her more visible qualities but generally preferred to watch her program with the sound turned down because of her tendency to say hurtful truths about their gender.

It was Cherry Canyon who, besides her ample cleavage, revealed on national television that McCrae, surprisingly, was still alive and was indeed the last living baby boomer. She produced his birth certificate -- born Dec. 9, 1964, Passavant Hospital, Pittsburgh -- he was 112 years old; she checked with Maxwell Barnacle, a government census official who, after some tedious checking said, indeed, McCrae was the last living baby boomer. The final 15 minutes of the show featured footage of McCrae angrily refusing to be interviewed, slamming doors on Barney, Cherry's sidekick cameraman, whacking Barney with the silver handle of his walnut cane, flipping the bird at Barney, mooning Barney, shooting bullets wildly in Barney's direction, siccing his rabid monkey on Barney, and pouring boiling oil on Barney from the roof of his small brownstone.

The show drew huge ratings because all the promos showed the indestructible Barney taking a terrific beating and because it was Cherry-Wears-A-Halter-Top Wednesday and viewers always tuned in to see Cherry in a halter top. It was always considered a grabber, particularly this night when the show concluded with McCrae being a grabber in the final scene where he made a lustful lunge at Cherry's canyon before sprawling helplessly on the sidewalk while she signed off from above the supine senior with, "And be sure to tune in Friday when I'll do the news dressed like a French maid!"

The immediate result of the report was for office and Internet ghoul pools to be flooded with the name Martin J. McCrae, greatly depressing the odds of anyone hitting for much. Everywhere people bubbled with enthusiasm that the boomers might finally die off and with amazement that McCrae was still spry enough to make a sporting leap at Cherry's silicone valley.

That Buster was thinking nothing of halters, cleavage, French maids or humiliated cameramen was a tribute to the power of the idea that had germinated in him the day of the report and was now bursting like a beanstalk through the fertile manure of his mind. To him, McCrae was the ultimate ghoul pool, the culmination of a generation's endless obsession with youth and the grim resistance to its final fate.

But his sole moment of genius would wilt without the cooperation of the man himself. His shot depended on securing the willing participation of a cranky old man who not only had no reason to live but could, in fact, make a compelling argument in favor of death.

"All right, you don't need money," he said. "But you could leave it to someone, a relative, a charity. You could do someone a lot of good."

"There is no one. I am alone. I have no relatives. I'm mistrustful of charities. There is no one I care to enrich." He was thoughtfully silent for a moment. "All I have are these pigeons. They are good company and I wish them well. But they don't need money. They don't even need me. When I'm gone, someone else will feed them. And if no one feeds them, they'll still survive. They're perfectly independent. Tell me, have you ever seen a skinny pigeon? An old pigeon? A baby pigeon? A pigeon nest? A pigeon egg? A sick pigeon? A dead one? A pigeon that didn't look almost exactly like every other damned pigeon? No. For all we know they live forever. The world might have an assigned number of pigeons that have been here since Noah. Kings, dynasties, nations -- they come and they go. But the pigeons remain. The very same pigeons. These pigeons might have been in the rafters at Yankee Stadium when the great DiMaggio danced across centerfield. These might be the same pigeons who were there when the pilgrims and the Indians enjoyed the first Thanksgiving. They may have been there when the Romans nailed Jesus to the cross. No one ever thinks about that. The poets never write about the pigeons. The artists never paint them. But they were there. I guarantee it.

"If you have money, would you please consider making a machine that would decipher what a pigeon has to say? It might be fascinating."

Buster stood slack-jawed in wonder. "You're right. I have never devoted a second of thought to a pigeon. But I'll tell you this, any man who's devoted that much time to thinking about pigeons may not need money, but he needs someone to talk to besides these damn birds. You're bored. I know about you. I know about your life. What you've done, who you knew. You shouldn't be sitting here spending your last days analyzing the posterity of pigeons."

McCrae gently cocked his head. The fall breezes blew the shoulder-length white hair in wispy swirls around his lightly bearded face. Time and gravity and a dainty diet of rice and beans had dwindled his once robust 5-foot-10, 180-pound frame to a stooped, fragile, 5-foot-3, 108-pounds. His face was as wrinkled and craggy as a hiker’s detailed topographical map of the Rockies. If every line told a story, then his face was prolific as the Library of Congress. He asked: "And what should I be doing?"

"You should be making history."

McCrae snorted. "Did plenty of that. You must have slept through class that day."

Here was a man who couldn't be bought, bribed, coerced, cajoled or blackmailed into doing something he did not wish to do. McCrae, perhaps for the first time in his life, was utterly incorruptible. Buster felt like strangling him for it. What do you give the man who has everything but time?

All it takes in life to be successful, even massively so, is just one good idea. Buster had his in front of McCrae and his pigeons. "Mr. McCrae, you're bored, aren't you? You've golfed with eight presidents, danced with princesses and you've raced balloons across the Sea of Tranquility. You've surfed rivers of lava, ran with the bulls and rode the first elevator to the top of Everest. I have the cure for all your boredom."

"Well, what do you have in mind?"

Buster looked him square in the eye and said, "I'd like to take you and put you in a museum and charge people to come see you. And since you're the last baby boomer on earth and the oldest man on the planet, I'd like to run a lottery ghoul pool so that whoever is in the room with you when you finally expire will win all the loot."

It came out in such a torrent, Buster didn't have time to dam any of it up with subtle tact. It just spilled out and drenched McCrae. If the pigeons were surprised by the proposal, they didn't let on.

It was outrageous. It was unsavory. It was the kind of thing that made decent people everywhere cringe in disgust. McCrae embraced it almost immediately. After a long moment of silent reflection where Buster thought the subject of his sole moment of inspiration had passed to his final reward, McCrae climbed on board with a chipper, "Okee-dokey."

The ghoul pool had always been central to his life and philosophy. Who was next to die? While others shunned death and the morbid mention of it, McCrae had always embraced it. He'd always enjoyed ghoul pools and had an uncanny eye for impassively picking who'd be the next to slip into the great beyond. He'd accurately predicted the deaths of famous musicians, politicians, artists, local scoundrels, beloved bar owners, fast-living young actors, celebrated clergy and, famously, a prized thoroughbred. He'd noticed Dixie Dumplin', a three-year-old filly, had been heaving out of the gate and said the horse, a 3-1 Kentucky Derby favorite, would not live to race the 2033 Preakness. Sure enough, the horse broke a leg on the first furlong and was glue-factory bound before the ceremonial roses were collared around the winning filly.

Of course, throughout his life, the name Martin J. McCrae had always been at the top of many ghoul pools because he recklessly engaged in many of the high-risk activities that claimed the lives of so many others.

"So many ways to die, just one way to live." That’s what he'd always say when asked why he did what he did. And now he'd put himself in the ultimate ghoul pool.

During the weeks that followed, he instructed Dingus to make all the arrangements. He insisted on being kept informed of all the details concerning his comfort, care and what size television would be in the room. He would be an exhibit. People could come and watch him and talk to him if he felt like talking back.

Sponsors were quick to climb on board. Historians were already writing that the final mark of the baby boomers would be tastelessness, hysteria and gaudy excess. To their grandchildren, nothing was so embarrassingly funny as watching baby boomers age. Just the names produced snorts of oxymoronic giggles. Septuagenarian Baby Boomer. Patrician Baby Boomer. The sociologists meant no harm when they dubbed the horde of runny-nosed postwar spawn "baby boomers," but you can't attach the name "baby" to an entire generation and not expect some psychological warping to occur. It's like calling the little neighbor kid Stinky and not expecting him to grow up to be distant and awkward around the ladies.

So as the decades passed and these cherubic babies began to become sagging adults with knees that clicked, breasts that drooped, hairlines that rose and peckers that didn't, they went to comical lengths to fend off aging or at least the appearance of it. They nearly bankrupted the country by pulling all their money out of their 401-K plans and throwing it at squads of eager young plastic surgeons promising miracle cures for crow's feet, age spots and brewer’s droop.

The immediate effect of these transactions was to plunge destitute Wall Street into recession, make tycoons out of cosmetic surgeons and a sad shambles of the mortician industry. Who needs funeral directors when the dead have been embalmed five years prior to burial?

Condensing the whole generation into one Caligulian festival of excess, soon dubbed EXCESSTIVAL!!! seemed entirely appropriate. A host of dignitaries read prepared speeches as the cameras focused on McCrae, who appeared frightened and near death, a fact that was conveyed with gaudy detail on the eight-story JumboTron towering over Times Square. The wanton revelry had terrified the ancient McCrae. He’d been pathologically avoiding crowds since his 97th birthday and the magnitude of the mayhem shocked him. Had Buster refused his pleas for a tranquilizer and a pint of bourbon, it's doubtful he'd have been able to even make it to the stage.

With eyes like galaxies, the image of McCrae stared out at the crowd, which stared straight back. His was a face that fascinated and here it was, finally, as big as the city itself. People marveled at the sweeping canyons around his mouth, the rivers of dimples that plunged across his cheek and the crow's feet so deep and expressive, they appeared to be capable of taking flight. Once raging scars on his forehead looked like mountain ranges and the throbbing mole on his left cheek looked like it could comfortably accommodate the drunken crowd attending a professional hockey game. It was a face that belonged in a museum for no other reason than it was, perhaps, the last adult face on the face of the earth that hadn't undergone a single procedure at the hands of even a multi-thumbed, hillbilly plastic surgeon.

He felt a gush of gratitude when the nightmare ended and Buster agreed to let him take another belt of booze while leading him to the convertible that would whisk him to where he was destined to spend his final days on earth. The posh new Michael J. Fox Museum had been selected because of its inventive bid and, in part, because the Fox was a lasting monument to the excesses of the Baby Boom generation that had elected a beloved sitcom actor president. Fox, who'd never even bothered to run for office, was elected while doing a sitcom in which he portrayed a candidate running for office.

This was a fitting career trajectory for an actor that voting viewers remember as having been a conservative young man growing up in a wacky family. The role showed him as an informed youth unafraid of tackling tough issues. This scored well with voters. Then, logically, he played a political consultant with a wacky cast of office mates with whom he helped run New York. From this, voters inferred he had hands-on practical experience with the nitty-gritty of local government that would keep the streets safe and clean. As he matured into adulthood, the youthful-looking actor played, in succession: an ambassador to a wacky banana boat republic; a junior senator from a leading dairy-producing state with a cast of wacky talking farm animals; and finally, as himself, he played a presidential candidate grappling with the tough issues in a campaign dominated by wacky voters.

The show was so successful and the candidate, at least in the minds of viewers, so qualified that no one was surprised when Fox's name showed up on ballots nationwide and was soon ushered into the White House in the landslide of 2032. Everyone was satisfied with the outcome, until the premise for the show shifted from the campaign trail to the White House. Poll numbers dipped until Fox, who saw no reason to step down as executive producer of the show, appointed a wacky talking cow as Secretary of Defense and had it declare war on a wacky banana boat republic, which was a huge ratings success and led to Fox's reelection in '36.

So it made perfect sense to lodge McCrae in the Fox's Den, the penthouse gallery of the museum that had become the nation's attic for all things Baby Boomer. When the baby boomers began to die, their descendants willed their vast collections to the Fox Foundation. McCrae was willing himself.

"I like the view," he said as he tottered into the room where he would be spending his final moments on earth. He’d made a few suggestions, but had been a model patient/guest/exhibit -- no one could agree on what to call him. Buster would do his bidding. Excesstival had given the country a happy lift and had made Buster a prominent man, sought for interviews and influence.

And it would make someone else fabulously wealthy. It had the potential to become the biggest jackpot in history. Some said it would get as high as $250 million. Although some deemed the $14 admission, plus the $25 ticket to take a chance on McCrae, as too cost prohibitive, Buster had the museum construct the 440-foot death chute so that, in addition to the lottery ticket, losers would still get to enjoy a Disney-worthy thrill ride that deposited them on the sidewalk right next to the gift shop.

"I'd like some plants and flowers brought in, and some books. Some Mark Twain, Steinbeck, Catch-22 -- the classics. I must have read them all, but by now my mind's a clean slate. It'll be like reading them all over again for the first time. And get me an easel, some canvas and some painting materials. I'd like to be able to sketch some of the people and then offer them a portrait. Might be a good way to get repeat customers, eh? Tell them the portrait will be done in three months and then ask them to come back. What do you think, Buster?"

"Sounds like a winner, boss man, sounds like a winner."

Of course, to Buster, it sounded like utter nonsense. He'd been whispering to friends that McCrae would not last three weeks. Not that he was telling any secrets. Doctors said they were surprised to see McCrae even upright, let alone planning for the future. Of the doctors who were assigned to monitor him, two said his heart would fail, three predicted stroke and one said convincingly on the noon news, "Old age will kill him. It's not just that the man's 112, he's an old 112. It's like a car with a lot of miles on it. You take it to the shop and they tell you they could fix the carburetor, but then they'd have to replace the fuel injectors, and if they do that they'll have to replace the engine, and on and on and on. There's just nothing they can do. That's McCrae, except with a car you can at least disassemble it and use it for parts. Not this guy. His parts are worthless, even to him, for the most part. Frankly, I wouldn't transplant his diseased liver into a sick pig."

There was a slight tapping on the door. Dingus and McCrae turned from the window to see museum director Holly Wanvig standing with a statuesque brunette in blue jeans and a pulse-quickening sweater. "Mr. Dingus, Mr. McCrae, this is Becky Dudash. We've hired her to be your nurse."

"Nice to meetcha," Buster said with a perfunctory nod. He had much on his mind. In one week, more than 78.5 million tickets had been sold on earth and the seven inhabited planets and moons in the known universe. Only on Gonto, the pleasant Alpha Centauri moon McCrae had saved from civilization, had not a single ticket been purchased. The small, mono-armed tree-dwellers revered McCrae and would forever cherish his memory.

He’d loved his two years on Gonto as much as he’d loved anything in his entire life, and that included the boy Ben. And Hope, the only one of his 10 or so wives -- he’d long ago lost count -- he truly loved. His only regret about his years on Gonto was that he’d just missed Jesus by two days. Two days! God, he would have loved to have met Jesus.

McCrae's death, if he lived the four hours it would take for the contest to officially begin, would enrich two winners. The person holding a ticket corresponding to the randomly drawn number at the time of death would take $20 million. The big money and the king's ransom of prizes would go to the person standing in the room when McCrae was declared dead. The historic first player was Emily Pennington, a 12-year-old from Eugene, Oregon. Photographers would snap her picture as the smiling sixth-grader became the first contestant through the door to spend 14 minutes with the -- Dingus hoped -- chatty McCrae. Sweet Emmy Pennington was at that very moment saying earnest prayers that McCrae would die in precisely two hours and 11 minutes, give or take a charitable minute or two.

While the details of this were ricocheting maddeningly around Dingus's brain, McCrae was slowly entering the third stage of his intoxication, that of a charmingly adolescent 112-year-old. Bending to kiss her ivory hand, he said, "How do you do, Ms. Dudash? It is indeed a pleasure to meet you."

Dudash, charmed by the courtliness of the gesture, felt an immediate rush of sweet affection for the old man. Of 120 female and 40 male applicants, Dudash was deemed perfect for the role of nurse, a position which required no nursing skills. She was told right up front it would be a short- term position and she'd likely be out of work within two to four months. The timing of her arrival was a happy coincidence for McCrae, who was within another snort or two from entering the crying-about-your-daddy phase of his drunkenness, a stage from which it is virtually impossible to make a favorable impression on any one except your long-dead daddy.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. McCrae."

"Please, you may call me Marty. Everyone else does. Just Marty."

"Marty it is. I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time with you, and hearing your stories. You've led an amazing life."


Marty smiled serenely.

Wanvig said: "Becky'll be on duty all day at the desk across the hall. She'll be dressed like a nurse, but mainly, she'll do housekeeping, order your food and see to your comfort. She'll be here full-time. When she's not here, museum staffers will help take care of you."

"Dudash, I must say, you sort of favor Thelma, my fourth wife. Is there any connection between the Dudash line and the Louisiana Delatoixes?"

"No, not that I know of."

"Now, Marty," Wanvig broke in, "your fourth wife was a black woman. Becky, as you can surely see is a fair-skinned Caucasian. The two don't look at all alike. Don't you be messing with this girl's head. We can't have you chasing off the help with your devilish ways."

"Ah, Mrs. Wanvig, you are correct, as usual. Thelma was indeed black as midnight, and, oh, boy, could she ignite the passion. I remember the night we met. Five times we made love under the bayou moon. I remember waking up the next day with mosquito bites on my ass and a wedding ring on my finger. I could explain the bites, but I doubt Sherlock Holmes could have explained how that damned wedding ring got there. In fact, some of those damned bites outlasted the marriage."

Wanvig shook her head in a slow scold. "Becky, you'll have your hands full with Marty. He says and does as he pleases so watch your step!"

Dudash didn't mind. "Oh, I think we'll get along fine," she said, unconsciously picking up a pillow from the couch and fluffing it with a couple of quick, smart jabs. "I want to hear all his stories about the people he knew, the places he's been and things he's done. You're one of the most fascinating people from the last 200 years. And here you are, even after 112 years, still making history. Amazing."

He ambled over to the window and looked out at the horizon. The wrinkled corners of his mouth smiled sunshine and he turned to Dudash and said, "Darlin', you ain't seen nothin' yet. Right Buster?"

"Right on, boss man."

McCrae's right arm had drifted to the pocket under his coat. Wanvig sprung, too late, to prevent the old man from tilting the concealed bottle into his smiling maw, quickly draining the amber contents by a quarter.

"Mr. McCrae! Give me that bottle. Oh, you are a rascal!"

Dabbing the corners of his mouth with his sleeve, McCrae gave a satisfied shudder and motioned to Dudash. "Come, let's sit together on the couch. I want to tell you about my daddy."