The next morning I got up, got dressed, took down the framed prescription pad Harlan hung above the register in 1982, and turned it over, and on the back, in my husbands careful hand, was a note and a deed book number that stopped the hospital system cold.
The vice president in his good suit had told me theyd have my building by Christmas, that theyd already hired away my young druggist, that a lady my age did not need a soda fountain, that Id sell one way or another.
He did not know what Harlan wrote on the back of that pad.
My husband placed the entire building into a charitable trust in 1982, dedicating it in perpetuity to serve the people of the square, with the pharmacy and the fountain protected as long as they operate, a trust recorded at the county that no hospital can buy, tax out, or condemn away.
Harlan filled prescriptions at midnight for folks who could not pay, and he never sent a soul to collections, and he knew that a corner drugstore on the square would be worth a fortune to somebody someday. So he tied it up in a trust, and he wrote the deed book and page on the back of the very first prescription pad he ever framed, and he told me only that the answer was on the wall if I ever needed it.
A building held in a charitable trust is not for sale. The taxes are handled by the trust, not by me, so the mans threat about me not affording them was empty. And the trust names the fountain and the pharmacy as its protected purpose, which meant even hiring away my tenant changed nothing.
I took it to a lawyer in Lebanon, and he read it and smiled and said, Mrs. Pruitt, your husband protected this place better than the hospital could ever dream of taking it.
When the vice president came back, I did not argue. I handed him the recorded trust and I said, my husband gave this building to the square in 1982. Its a charitable trust. You cannot buy it, you cannot tax me out of it, and you cannot condemn a trust like this without a fight your board does not want on the front page. Put your urgent care somewhere else. The old men still need their coffee at six.
He read it a long while and left, and the hospital found another lot, and the fountain Harlan built out of walnut in 1979 is still open every morning.
A lady your age doesnt need a soda fountain, he had told me. This lady needed the back of one framed prescription pad, and it was enough to protect a whole square. I lease the pharmacy to another young druggist now, and I pour the coffee myself at six, because Harlan built this place to serve people, and he made sure that no suit could ever turn it into anything else.