During the month of September 1987, the summer heatwave ended and Henry's took Stephen King’s advice—
READ IF YOU WANT TO WRITE.
Henry was reading like a bat out of hell on The Stephen King Speed Freak Reading Jag as he called it.
Having read the paperbacks— Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, Factotum by Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carvers’ Cathedral, and Fred Exley's' book, A Fan's Notes, a wild romp centered on Exley's passion for Quarterback Frank Gifford and the New York Giants, juiced by his bouts in the nuthouse and constant drinking.
Stephen King’s advice on writing had in some way changed Henry, although it was unclear how.
Take his tip for aspiring writers not to take a creative writing course resulting in scores of English professors being laid off all over the country.
Henry realized while on The Stephen King Speed Freak Reading Jag that introductory book formatting is a waste of paper.
John Q. Reader opens his newly purchased book, clamoring to read his favorite author, but there are pages of literary red tape to page through—
Half-title page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Epigraph
Foreword
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Finally, after thumbing through the 20 introductory pages, including 2 mysterious blank pages, having to read a two
faced forward written by an eminent individual who hopes the book will tank— John Q. Reader is finally at the meat of his book, savoring the ideas of his favorite author.
And, the sad truth is the paper used by publishers in introductory book formatting causes the deforestation of 100s of acres of spruce, pine, and hemlock trees every year.
Why not print books and periodicals on wafer-thin, high test ganja paper you could roll joints with when you finish the book?
He also had read a few pages into Ballets Without Music, Without Dancers, Without Anything, a great title for a book by the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline, but he got seasick, so he threw the book overboard.
Celine’s a nature freak who writes as though he’s tripping on mushrooms, the first chapter of Ballet… is underwater. Reading it you feel like your flowing through currents at sea bottom— encountering fish and other ocean creatures with human personality traits— they’re lazy, humorous, selfish, mean, greedy, caring, uncaring, and so on.
The sea creatures live in an oceanic society and must answer to the king of the sea Jupiter and his family— Pluto, Juno, Ceres, and Vesta, who rule the ocean.
Celine writes in a hectic style as though he’s hyped up, excited about something, typing 7 or 8 words then spacing using 4 periods …. over and over again, by page 7 you feel a migraine coming on.
While reading Ballets Without Music, Without Dancers, Without Anything you sense there’s a Francophile secret that Celine or the French aren’t letting English language readers in on, you need to speak French to be admitted to their club.
Henry's interrupted as he types naked in his office by his Cubano wife, Lucia. She reminds him he has an appointment in an hour with Dr. Pedro Alvarez in downtown Key West.
Why do Mothers all over the world say?
Put a clean pair of underwear on when you go out, you never know.
Are Mothers of the world referring to the possibility of ER technicians seeing butt flowers on your undies?
Lucia bathes and washes Henry, babying him, shampooing his waist-length black and white hair, soaping him up all over his body, helping him out of the tub, drying him with a large cotton towel, then wrapping the towel around his hair like a turban.
He looks good at 45, lean, not muscular with olive skin. Lucia oils his long hair with patchouli oil, lacing it in a single braid.
He's wears cut off fatigues, a purple Levi shirt, and a pair of Rainbow flip flops, he hadn't worn a tie for years and he wondered if the suits of the world had trouble breathing?
He'll ride the tribes Vespa scooter to the clinic. Key West is 18.70 kilometers squared so things are centralized— you can travel from one part of the city to the other in less than 20 minutes.
Dr. Alvarez's clinic is in an ugly mall. Henry parks his Vespa on the sidewalk in front of the doctor’s office. The mall looks like every other mall built in the 60s, single-story design with sterile modern architecture— made of concrete, cream brick, and laced like a shoe with round metal beams.
Inside the clinic there are 14 people waiting, looking uncomfortable, sitting in unfriendly hard plastic chairs, the chairs, like the architecture of the mall, are a symptom of 60s minimalist design.
2 alluring receptionists, bleach-blond Dolly Parton look-alikes wearing form-fitting nurses outfits emit color in the room, contrasting the lint grey backdrop of the drab and emotionless patients.
Henry sits down and fantasizes, eyeballing the alluring medical assistants imagining they're porn stars on their off time, wondering what they look like naked.
He initiates eye contact with one of the medical assistants and she ignores him, yawning and raising her arms, causing her breast to expand to basketball size. Then she puts a pen in her mouth like it's a cigarette, moving the pen in and out of her mouth. Henry is turned on and she knows it. Medical assistant number 2 says,
Mr. Lucowski, the doctor will see you now,
She leads him down a hall, her ass tightens and twitches as she walks, her scented body floats a trail of Magnolia perfume in the air that embraces him.
In the office Dr. Alvarez is sitting at his desk, he has bushy eyebrows, curly black hair, and is wearing a starched white lab coat. Pictures of the doctor in Tibet with the Dalai Lama and Baba Ram Dung are on the walls. Henry feels he's in the presence of deity. The doctor asks,
What seems to be the problem Mr. Lucowski?
I've been having cramps and diarrhea once a week for the last year.
Why didn't you come sooner?
I figured loose bowels cleansed my stomach and intestines like cayenne pepper do.
I'm concerned Mr. Lucowski that your stool consistency could be a symptom of something.
Like what?
Colon cancer or worse,
What's worse?
Level 5,
level 5 then what?
Let's not put the cart before the horse Mr. Lucowski. I think it's best you go directly to The Lower Keys Medical Center for a series of blood tests, stomach X Rays, and a colonoscopy.
I'd rather go home and eat a cheeseburger.
I will tell Nurse Cockburn to call Dr. Zuckerputz, the oncologist, to schedule a probe.
The probe is intriguing Doctor, would you say it's pleasurable pain?
Doctor Zuckerputz will explain the procedure.
Henry's bill is 250 dollars, he hands his Visa card to 1 of the strumpets in white. She ignores him, his problems are no concern to her. He could have colon cancer or worse, level 5 maybe. She sees this type of thing every day and it's nothing to her.
Outside he gets on his Vespa, there's a parking ticket on his motorbike. He notices a grinning mall cop who's flashing a mouth full of yellow teeth looking at him. The guy is skeletal, his black leather belt has extra holes punched in it to accommodate his narrow waist. His hair is slicked back with Vitalis and he's sporting a cheesy thin mustache.
Henry gets off the scooter and walks up to the rent a cop, saying,
I suppose hassling people gives you pleasure.
Ahhh, it's my job,
it's your job to make people miserable?
No, not exactly, I ah, enforce mall policy.
I'm dying so you can shove the ticket.
Go ahead, do what you want mister, but you're gonna have to pay in the end.
I don't need high philosophy from a flyweight mall cop who makes 4 dollars an hour.
Henry rips the ticket into confetti pieces, tossing the bits into the air like it was new year's. The skeletal mall cop says as he jots down the scooter's license number on the inside of his palm,
real funny mister, now I can write you a ticket for littering.
As he rides his scooter down Main he's mentally going through the 5 emotions people experience when they find out they're dying.
Denial— yes, indeed, flush the nagging death thoughts like a dead fly down the commode.
Anger— sure, who wouldn't be angry mixing it up with Wild at Heart, Bobby Peru the rent a cop?
Bargaining— with who, God? The doctors? I don't believe either of them.
Depression— are you kidding? The Hunter S. Thompson booze and dope regimen will get me through it— mass quantities of bloody maries, cocaine, hash, acid, and 8 fresh grapefruits a day.
Acceptance— Why bother, it's asinine, like talking about closure.
Noticing a local dive, Bobby's Monkey Bar, he parks in a nearby alley and goes inside. It's 2 PM, the place is dark except for a few lit, dust-covered Miller Beer signs— it's smokey inside and the joint is lined with barflies staring down at their drinks, struck dumb and tongue-tied.
At the rail, he orders a mug of Miller Draft and a shot of whiskey, dropping the shot into the mug Boilermaker style,
downing it and saying,
hit me again.
After 3 of the same, he feels up for probing.
On the Vespa again he makes it to the clinic in minutes, parking in the motorcycle parking lot this time.
Inside The Lower Keys Medical Clinic, a modern structure made of frosted ribbed glass with the feel of a ghostly cathedral, Henry goes to the information desk, saying one word,
oncology,
He reeked of firewater, the receptionist raises an eyebrow and says,
2nd floor, alcohol is strictly forbidden on the premise!
OK, OK.
His run-in with Bobby Peru mall cop and the intrusive demeanor of the hospital receptionists was proof that society's changing— bureaucrats were becoming enforcers and inquisitors on the lookout, wary of— patients, customers, welfare recipients, people in parks, on bicycles, and anyone else because everyone's a suspect.
Henry sits down in the Department of Oncology, the chairs are comfortable, padded. He's half in the bag, slouching in his chair, wondering if one of the enforcers in the nurse's station sipping juice stolen off of patients trays, and gossiping would reprimand him, telling him to sit up straight.
Instead of putting on clean underwear as his long-gone mother had repeatedly told him to do, he wore no underwear— no underwear no butt flowers, no underwear as an act of civil disobedience.
He fiddles away time by looking at the other patients, scrutinizing them for telltale signs of colon cancer or worse, level 5. The ones looking like sick birds were surly level 5, but not worse, yet.
He didn't look them, his hair was long and shiny and his skin glowed, what was he doing there? He'd soon know.
When his name is called by a sullen medical assistant, another inquisitor, he follows her to Doctor Zuckerputz's office.
Inside he sits in front of a long desk, an expensive mahogany desk. Golden framed photos of Zuckerputz's sailboat, Ultrasound, festooned the office walls. He figures if a doctor prescribed enough probes and ultrasounds he could buy an expensive yacht. The oncologist says,
Mr. Lucowski after conferring with Doctor Alvarez we concur that you should take a series of tests, a blood test that will tell us how your kidney and liver are functioning, a stomach X-ray, and a colonoscopy.
How about the probe?
Sir, the colonoscopy is a probe done with a colonoscope.
Nice—
That was the sum of it, Henry stands up and is escorted to the cashier offices. Cash, a major player in hospitals everywhere, because hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharma, insurance companies, and the medical equipment industries all know they have you by the balls when you're sick— it's pay or die, or die and pay anyway.
His number flashes at counter 3, he jumps up and hustles to the glass-enclosed counter. The cashier hands him a printed bill through an open area in the glass. He'll have to pay 1st, this ensures he won't make a run for it after the tests. The mood is hushed and of great consequence, the same feeling you get in a bank or a church.
The bill is a whopping 18,677 dollars, the colonoscopy is 11 grand, an hour of outpatient tests cost as much as a new Cadillac.
Henry looks at the teller, hands the bill back to her and says,
How much for the 30 seconds I spent in Zuckerplatz's office staring at the pictures of his yacht?
The stone-faced cashier pushes a button and a page pops up from a printer, she hands it to Henry, 400 dollars,
400 dollars? I was in his office for less than a minute.
Mr. Lucowski, Doctor Zuckerputz is a specialist so his fees are higher than a general practitioner.
He hands her his Visa card and says,
I'm going home, eat a cheeseburger and drink myself to death, It cost too much to die in a hospital.
Back at the bungalow, he's happy to see his wife, Lucia, their lover Summer Wynd, the Chihuahuas, Che y Mia and Pedro the woodpecker, telling the girls,
I've been running around town all day chasing a red herring. Inches from being gobbled up and probed by the fraternity of white lab coats with their coyote smiles, shark skin wingtips, red gu-gu eyes, and megaphone mouths, Summer Wynd giggles,
what's with the drama baby, so how did the tests go?
at 20 grand, the tests never made it to 1st base.
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