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| These kids sneaked into The Membranous Lounge with fake IDs... |
Cocktails & Cancer Part II
-1-
It started with the worms, but not
really. I’d been drinking relentlessly (religiously) leading up to my Big
Psychiatric Appointment and my reflection looked like a scream in a movie
theater. I’d switched from Steel Reserve to a cheap boxed wine called White Burble. It was as atrocious as its
name. I hadn’t eaten anything more than a few pistachio nuts in five days. I
surrendered to morbid fantasies of lynching myself (even going so far as to
hang a necktie-noose from my closet clothes rack), or suffocating myself with
Glad Wrap or buying a cheap box of helium from iParty and poisoning my lungs
with funny Mickey Mouse gas.
I prayed for the cancer to return. No surgery, no chemotherapy this
time. I would nurse the little black cells like a protective mother with a gulping
child.
My first meeting with the psychiatrist and I was already an emergency.
It was warm when I set out toward Evergreen Mental Health Services. The
sky was bright, cloudless and intense. A sky so blue I wanted to shoot holes in
it. Assault the environment. My head was filled with a loud, thirsty crowd,
screaming, screaming like angry villagers in a Frankenstein movie...
I began my weary, Don Birnam[1]
trudge feeling every agonized stride like a new wound. Every footstep carried
the threat of imminent death. My liver hurt. Two miles stretched ahead of me
like Death Valley. After five minutes of walking I knew I was doomed. I
considered turning back and cancelling the appointment but then what? Drink
more wine and get sicker? I’d reached the end of another rope. I needed help, stat. My desperation both clung to me and
tumbled from me like a parasitic twin with crumpled bones.
Outside the puzzling young woman’s apartment, by the steps there, I
noticed a dried out half a mouse (the hindquarters) a spent condom and a bent
spoon. More pieces to a savage, enigmatic puzzle.
A sudden sandstorm whirled, blinding and granular, into my mind and I
had to stop and close my eyes a few seconds for fear of fainting. My mouth had
gone dry. My tongue tasted (probably) like the dead half-mouse at my feet.
I can’t do this.
(All you have to do is get there).
I kept walking, forcing my weakened, burdensome legs forward. Sweat
started. I wished for a handkerchief so I could mop my brow like Louis
Armstrong after a taxing solo. Instead, I brushed the sweat from my forehead
into my (already oily) hair, pasting it back. I wished for a pair of
sunglasses. I wished for a hat. The sun was so assaultive I could feel
cataracts developing over my eyes like lenses of milk. All of my internal personae
are weak and desperate. There’s nothing to hang onto. Clark Kent turns into
another Clark Kent. Nothing under the business suit but flabby flesh weakened
by kidneystones of green Kryptonite.
And then I had a seizure and fell into the street, right in the path of
a huge, lumbering truck...
In a Joe Don Baker voice: “Breaker breaker one nine, you got some real
wet pathetic viscera on yore treads...”
Approaching from a distance I spotted a young mother pushing a stroller.
I tried to wipe the wet pathetic from my face, then looked down at the grains
of the pavement to avoid her possibly friendly eyes and warm smile. I hate the
passing-stranger greeting. As we passed each other, I sneaked a quick glance at
the stroller. It was empty. Fuzzy pink dice dangled above the vacant seat.
Something about a woman pushing an empty stroller struck me as distressingly
strange. Idea for a situation comedy: Ghost
Baby. Okay, get this, this baby
is neglected to death. Like crib death or something, okay? Then it comes back
to haunt the parents that allowed it to perish. Movie-guy voice: “Babies are a
demanding handful, but ghost babies
are an ectoplasmic disaster”!
(Cue canned laughter...)
Forget it. It must have been done already. I needed to concentrate on
the George Weiss article (actually, I needed to concentrate on putting one foot
in front of the other).
I stopped to catch my breath. On the sidewalk in front of me was the
last bitten end of a hot dog crawling with tiny black ants. They looked like
photonic static; manic, minute particles jittering in my vision. Waves of blur
undulated in front of me like a TV flashback. I thought (again) of turning
back. My head was killing me. My liver was failing, I was sure. I wiped new
sweat from my blinded eyes.
Umberto Scali[2],
that sneering wiseguy said, Fuck this
palaver. Go back. Drink wine. Watch Paris After Midnite[3] (1950) and relaaaaax.
Get me?
“I can’t,” I told him. I stepped over the hot dog, leaving the ants to
their salvaging mission. I actually wondered why a hot dog had entered my life?
Why not Chicken McNuggets? That would have made more sense.
Twin suns baked my face. The sidewalk was the Sahara. I saw a band of
nomads on camelback moving ahead of me. The asphalt started to melt. I needed
water. I tried to rehearse what I’d say to the shrink but came up empty. My
mind was a disconnected mess, my thoughts miles from articulation.
I stopped at a – thank God – convenience store called Mario’s Market.
Ordinarily I bristle at paying for water. It falls free out of the sky! It
gushes from taps! I don’t give a shit if it contains arsenic and old lace as
long as it quenches my thirst. But this was an urgent situation. I went into
the store. Chimes jingled above me. Cool air hit me like a blessing. A large
man with a thick black beard (Mario?) stood behind the counter. He sized me up,
then, deciding I wasn’t an armed robber, went back to reading the newspaper. I
headed toward the cold drinks. I considered buying an energy drink. They had a
new one called Ivan the Terrible but
the sugar content turned me off. I needed water. I felt like I could swallow a
waterfall.
And then oh shit I noticed they sold beer. Razorous talons ripped across
my gray little brain.
Are you fucking kidding me?
What’s the diff? Fuck it, I thought. I grabbed a 16oz can of Pabst Blue
Ribbon and a 12oz bottle of water. A dollar seventy-five for 12 ounces of
WATER?! What the fuck! If the bottle were glass instead of plastic I would have
smashed it on the floor in protest.[4]
I approached Mario. I had decided he was Mario.
“Glorious day, isn’t it?” said Mario.
“Yes,” I said.
“That’ll be three seventy-five.”
I handed him four dollars. He gave me my change and bagged my beverages.
Then I stepped from the cool, air-conditioned little Shangri-La and back into
Hell.
I still had about a mile and a half ahead of me. How would I make it,
feeling like this? I took a few conservative sips of water and then started
slogging again. I was on Tatooine sans Bantha.
When you gonna drink the beer?
It’ll
be my reward when (if) I make it to Evergreen.
(Later...)
By the time I reached the red brick office building that housed
Evergreen, my agony was a roar in my head. My thoughts were fragmented,
segmented and blended. The ground under me tilted and lurched like the deck of
a rickety ship. My knees were melting. I tossed my
empty water bottle into a trash can by the door, then headed to the side of the
building to drink the beer. This’ll fix me up. This will soothe my aching
brain. I cracked it open and drank half in one long glug. It remained in my
stomach for about twelve seconds, then came back up, still store fresh. I shook
off my nausea and drank the rest of the can. I breathed for a couple of minutes
until I was sure it was going to stay down. I wiped the sweat from my face and
headed toward the entrance.
Evergreen Mental Health Services was located behind the first door on
the left. A sign read, Under construction!
Please pardon our appearance! Everything was shouting at me.
I entered the waiting room hoping I’d see the puzzling young woman with
the Louise Brooks haircut again. To my left hung a blue tarp with hammering
sounds behind it. To my right was a shelf in front of a sliding glass window.
There were women behind it. Four women. I stood behind a beefy lady with unruly
red hair. I felt close to keeling over and saw myself collapsing into her. A
scream and a thud. The beefy lady made an appointment and then left. I stepped
up to the glass.
“Yes?” the woman said after sliding the window open.
“I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Dr. Elaine Voss?” I said,
wondering if I’d made any sense.
“Name?” She seemed to really resent her job.
“Henry K_____.”
She flipped pages in a date book, made a check mark and then said, “All
set. Have a seat.”
“Thank you.”
I sat down, eyeing a scatter of magazines on a coffee table. I picked up
a Marie Claire to look for pictures
of attractive women.
And that was when I noticed the worms.
I had little green inchworms crawling all over me.
I quickly inspected myself. My shirt and pants were black, making the
worms stand out as if they were glowing fluorescent green. They squirmed on my
shoulders, chest, legs, everywhere. I put down the magazine.
My therapist, Glen, wandered into the waiting room holding a sheaf of
papers. I nodded my acknowledgement of him.
“Hello, Henry. How you doing?” he said.
“I’m covered with worms,” I told him. A small part of me wanted him to
think I was hallucinating. Shit, maybe I was! Maybe the worms were a
manifestation of delirium tremens...
Glen gave me a look. Then he saw them.
“You really are!” he said, surprised.
“Yeah, I know.”
“You want to go outside and brush them off?” he said, as if prodding an
inactive child.
I nodded. “Good idea.” My perceptions lagged behind my mind like
creeping molasses.
Glen said, “Take care, buddy,” and left the waiting room.
As soon as I stood up I heard my name. “Henry K_____?”
I raised my hand. “Here.”
I brushed off quickly, discreetly, flinging worms to the floor. Then I
followed Dr. Elaine Voss down the hall and into her office.
She closed the door. “Have a
seat.”
I sat down across from her desk. I noticed she had a framed picture of
Grape Ape and his little canine pal, Beegle Beagle.[5]
It was signed by Marty Ingels. I liked her at once.
“So, how you doing?” she said.
“I have worms all over me,” I
told her.
“And how often do you feel this way?”
“No, I mean literally. See?” I
pointed out a worm on my collar.
She didn’t even look. She said, “Ah. That happens to me sometimes.”
“I must have walked under a tree or something. They probably fell
out of a tree.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Thank you.” I was starting to think that maybe the worms were
hallucinations after all. That these people were just humoring the crazy guy...
Dr. Voss was around forty years old and very pregnant. She wore a low
cut top. Great, I thought. I’m going to have to control my gaze. Look at her
face, I told myself. Keep your damn leering eyes on her face...
And then the sandstorm returned. It began with the worms. I’d been
drinking relentlessly “So what brings you here today?” (religiously) leading up
to my Big Psychiatric Appointment and my reflection “I’m a mess.” looked like a
scream in a movie theater. I’d switched from Steel Reserve “Oh? How so?” to a
cheap boxed wine “I’m an anxiety-ridden, depressed, suicidal alcoholic.” Make
it stop. I surrendered to morbid fantasies of lynching myself “You really lay
it all out on the table.” tie a noose from my closet clothes rack or
suffocating myself with Glad Wrap or “Yeah.” I blushed. “I guess so, I
dunno...” buying a cheap box of helium from iParty and poisoning my lungs with
funny Mickey Mouse gas “You said you feel suicidal. Do you have a plan for
killing yourself?” My first meeting with the psychiatrist and I was already an
“Several. The easiest seems to be helium.” emergency “You can buy it for
parties,” emergency “I’ve heard it’s more peaceful than carbon monoxide,” emergency
“something about tricking the brain into thinking it’s oxygen. Anyway, that’s
one of my plans,” street in front of a huge, lumbering truck emergency “Uh-huh.
And have you purchased any helium?” “Not yet,” just kidding but I envisioned it
again and again...
“But you plan to?”
“I guess. Maybe...” Oops...
She stood up. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”
“Sure.”
She left the room. My vision was swimming. I sat alone in the office. I
brushed a few more worms off of me and they landed on the carpet. Sorry, Doc. I
stared at the picture of Grape Ape and tried to remain conscious.
I must have sat in the office a good twenty harrowing minutes before she
came back, escorted by two policemen.
“I had to call in a section 12. These officers will accompany you to an
ambulance and take you to the hospital. I’m sorry, it’s the law.”
So, okay. Back to the fucking hospital yet again. No biggie. They’ll just
calm me with Valium and release me tomorrow.
That’s what I thought anyway.
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