Pharmacy Perspectives - Winter 2012 - 12

Alumni

On Friday nights, he announces Nucla High football games. They play eight-man ball, although if a bigger school comes to town they switch numbers with every possession, so that each side can practice its plays. When Nucla is on offense, it’s eighton-eight, but it becomes eleven-oneleven when the other team has the ball. Occasionally, somebody gets confused, and Don’s voice rings out over the loudspeakers: “There’s eleven white guys and eight blue guys, and that won’t work.” The football might not be first-rate, but the players’ names are a novelist’s dream. Nucla has Seth Knob, Chad Stoner, and Seldon Riddle. Dove Creek has a player named Tommy Fury. Blanding has Talon Jack and Sterling Black, Tecohda Tom and Herschel Todachinnie. Shilo Stanley, Terrance Tate, Dillon Daves: if alliteration ever needs an offensive line, recruiting should begin around the Colorado-Utah border. When outsiders come to town—loners, drifters—they often find their way to Don. A number of years ago, a man in his seventies named Tim Brick moved to Naturita and rented a mobile home. He placed special orders at the Apothecary Shoppe: echinacea, goldenseal, chamomile teas. He distrusted doctors, and often had Don check his blood pressure. It was high, and eventually Don persuaded him to get on regular medication. Soon, he was visiting every four or five days, mostly to talk. Don referred to him as Mr. Brick. He had no other local friends, and he was cagey about his past, although certain details emerged over time. His birth name had been Penrose Brick—he was a descendant of the Penrose family, which came from Philadelphia and had made a fortune from mining claims around Cripple Creek. But for some reason Mr. Brick had been estranged from all his relatives for decades. He had changed his first name,

and he had spent most of his working life as an auto mechanic.

under four different aliases. There were letters in Mr. Brick’s handwriting asking friends if they could introduce One day, his mobile home was broken him to other men who were “of the into, and thieves made off with some same type as me.” But he must have stock certificates. Mr. Brick had never lost courage, because those letters used a broker—to him, they were just were never mailed. Don also found as untrustworthy as doctors—so he unopened letters that Mr. Brick’s went to the Apothecary Shoppe for mother had sent more than half a cenhelp. Before long, Don was making tury ago. One contained a ten-dollar dozens of trips across Disappointment bill and a message begging her son Valley, driving two hours each way, in to make contact. The bill, from the order to get documents certified at the nineteen-forties, still looked brandbank in Cortez, Colorado. Eventually, new, and seeing that crisp note made he sorted out Mr. Brick’s finances, but Don feel sad. Years ago, he had sensed then the older man’s health began to that Mr. Brick was gay, and that this decline. Don managed his care, help- was the reason he was estranged from ing him move out of various residenc- his family, but it wasn’t a conversation es; on a couple of occasions, Mr. Brick they ever had. lived at Don’s house for an extended stretch. At the age of ninety-one, Mr. In his will, Mr. Brick left more than Brick became seriously ill and went to half a million dollars in cash and see a doctor in Montrose. The doctor stock to the local druggist. After taxes said that prostate cancer had spread and other expenses, it came to more to his stomach; with surgery, he might than three hundred thousand dollars, live another six months. Mr. Brick which was almost exactly what the said he had never had surgery and he community owed Don Colcord. But wasn’t going to start now. Don didn’t seem to connect these events. He talked about all three subDon spent the next night at the old jects—neglecting his dying brother, man’s bedside. At one point in the offering credit to the townspeople, evening, Mr. Brick was lucid enough and helping Mr. Brick and receiving to have a conversation. “I think you’re his gift—in different conversations dying,” Don said. that spanned more than a year. He probably never would have men“I’m not dying,” Mr. Brick said. “I’m tioned the money that was owed to just going to pray now.” him, but somebody in Nucla told me and I asked about it. From my per“Well, you better pray pretty hard,” spective, it was tempting to apply a Don said. “But I think you’re dying.” moral calculus, until everything addHe asked if Mr. Brick needed to see a lawyer. The old man declined; he said ed up to a neat story about redemption and reward in a former utopian his affairs were in order. community. But Don’s experiences seemed to have taught him that there Don found a hospice nurse, and is something solitary and unknowwithin two days Mr. Brick died. Don able about every human life. He saw arranged a funeral Mass, and then connections of a different sort: these he went through boxes of Mr. Brick’s people and incidents were more like effects. There was a collection of old the spokes of a wheel. They didn’t highway maps, an antique cradle touch directly, but each was linked to telephone, and a Catholic prayer stand. There were many photographs something bigger, and Don’s role was of naked men. Don found checkbooks to try to keep the whole thing moving

the best he could. Don Colcord’s birthday is the Fourth of July. That’s also when Nucla celebrates its annual Water Days, which commemorates the completion of the town’s irrigation system. Today, the theme is “Where the Past Meets the Future,” and Don announces the floats for the parade down Main Street. After that, he helps out at the barbecue in the park, and then he prepares to set off the town’s fireworks. All these events are sponsored by the Lions Club. When Don joined the club, in 1978, he was the youngest member, and he still is. Soon, the Lions Club will be disbanded because of lack of members. In the evening, we drive to the top of Nucla Hill. The view is spectacular in all directions: westward, the slateblue La Sal Mountains, and the Uncompahgre Plateau to the east, where the feathered tops of cottonwoods mark the long line of the irrigation ditch. Three remaining members of the Lions Club are here, along with some volunteer firemen. Trucks and cars arrive from town and park at the bottom of the hill to watch the show. When darkness falls, the Lions prepare the fireworks in metal tubes, and Don ignites them one by one. After it’s over, we watch the pairs of headlights glide in a neat line back up Main Street, dispersing as drivers turn off toward home. Our attention drifts upward—now that the fireworks and the headlights are gone, the stars seem brilliant, clustered together like the lights of some faraway city. Don passes around a few bottles of beer. “I don’t care if it is a small town, we got good fireworks,” he says. He sips his beer and gazes up at the Milky Way. “When you see them from here, they look so close together,” he says. “It’s hard to believe they’re millions of miles apart.”

CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Pharmacy Perspectives - Winter 2012

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