their guts to you right away? Preston didn't feel like spilling his guts to
anybody, ever.
When Guy didn't find any contraband in Preston 's suitcase or in his clothes, he said,
"I'm real proud of you, Scott. That's a very positive sign," and he
directed Preston to the infirmary. The fun had just begun.
The infirmary was another office off the
lobby, run by a manatee of a woman named Nurse Bridget, who took Preston 's height and weight and blood pressure
and samples of his several fluids and (of
course) had to tell him about her husband, who was a fireman until the time he
climbed a ladder and rescued a woman from the fourth floor of a burning
building but then, because he was smashed out of his mind, dropped her off the
ladder from three and a half stories up, and about how she and Sean spent his
enforced retirement watching game shows and drinking Reunite until he died of
cirrhosis and she was committed to an institution by her daughter, Bridey.
All the while Nurse Bridget was inflicting her
life story and her sphygmomanometer on Preston, he heard grunts and protests
through a closed door behind her, and at about the time she was launching into
the details of her progress through the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous,
the door sprang open and out staggered Duke, looking like a man who had just
been a plaything for the KGB.
He saw Preston and said curtly, “You gay?"
"Me? Hardly."
"Too bad. This place is paradise for
fruits." He looked back into the room from which he had emerged, and he
shouted furiously, "Have a nice day!" and then, clutching a
terry-cloth robe around his middle, he lurched out of the infirmary.
A second later, a short, porcine male nurse
appeared in the doorway of the back room. He was forcing his chubby fingers
into a pair of rubber gloves. He reached to the side, then brought his hand
back into view and beckoned to Preston —with
a rubber-covered index finger slathered with a clot of Vaseline.
Nurse Bridget was fiddling with the
blood-pressure bulb, and the needle must have jumped off the dial because she
took a step back and exclaimed, “My stars!”
As Nature is kind to human beings and erases
all specific memory of pain, so Preston was
spared any physical recollection of the discomfort of having his fundament
probed, not for malignant polyps but for suppositories filled with controlled
substances. He could not, however, expunge the memory of the indignity of lying
face-down on a steel table while the creature took a leisurely journey up what
he called Chocolate Avenue and regaled Preston the while with the saga of his descent into
the black hole of Valium addiction.
Now he sat in the lobby, beside Duke in a robe
and slippers. They did not speak, did not look at each other. It was as if they
were both ashamed.
There was nothing medical about the atmosphere
in the clinic, no signs pointing to emergency or admonishing SILENCE, no
crepe-soled attendants rushing about on missions of mercy, no uniforms of any
kind. The passersby, and there were many, could have been secretaries or
bureaucrats or doctors or patients, for they all wore casual street clothes.
The decor was simple and understated. A
visitor might have discerned only two hints about the purpose of the place.
There were ashtrays every whereon stands, screwed into walls and on practically
every flat surface. Smoking was not merely tolerated, it was encouraged as an
acceptable replacement crutch while the afflicted learned to maneuver without
the braces of booze. And there were two semiabstract posters, which, after long
study, appeared to contain the messages "One Day at a Time"
anybody, ever.
When Guy didn't find any contraband in Preston 's suitcase or in his clothes, he said,
"I'm real proud of you, Scott. That's a very positive sign," and he
directed Preston to the infirmary. The fun had just begun.
The infirmary was another office off the
lobby, run by a manatee of a woman named Nurse Bridget, who took Preston 's height and weight and blood pressure
and samples of his several fluids and (of
course) had to tell him about her husband, who was a fireman until the time he
climbed a ladder and rescued a woman from the fourth floor of a burning
building but then, because he was smashed out of his mind, dropped her off the
ladder from three and a half stories up, and about how she and Sean spent his
enforced retirement watching game shows and drinking Reunite until he died of
cirrhosis and she was committed to an institution by her daughter, Bridey.
All the while Nurse Bridget was inflicting her
life story and her sphygmomanometer on Preston, he heard grunts and protests
through a closed door behind her, and at about the time she was launching into
the details of her progress through the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous,
the door sprang open and out staggered Duke, looking like a man who had just
been a plaything for the KGB.
He saw Preston and said curtly, “You gay?"
"Me? Hardly."
"Too bad. This place is paradise for
fruits." He looked back into the room from which he had emerged, and he
shouted furiously, "Have a nice day!" and then, clutching a
terry-cloth robe around his middle, he lurched out of the infirmary.
A second later, a short, porcine male nurse
appeared in the doorway of the back room. He was forcing his chubby fingers
into a pair of rubber gloves. He reached to the side, then brought his hand
back into view and beckoned to Preston —with
a rubber-covered index finger slathered with a clot of Vaseline.
Nurse Bridget was fiddling with the
blood-pressure bulb, and the needle must have jumped off the dial because she
took a step back and exclaimed, “My stars!”
As Nature is kind to human beings and erases
all specific memory of pain, so Preston was
spared any physical recollection of the discomfort of having his fundament
probed, not for malignant polyps but for suppositories filled with controlled
substances. He could not, however, expunge the memory of the indignity of lying
face-down on a steel table while the creature took a leisurely journey up what
he called Chocolate Avenue and regaled Preston the while with the saga of his descent into
the black hole of Valium addiction.
Now he sat in the lobby, beside Duke in a robe
and slippers. They did not speak, did not look at each other. It was as if they
were both ashamed.
There was nothing medical about the atmosphere
in the clinic, no signs pointing to emergency or admonishing SILENCE, no
crepe-soled attendants rushing about on missions of mercy, no uniforms of any
kind. The passersby, and there were many, could have been secretaries or
bureaucrats or doctors or patients, for they all wore casual street clothes.
The decor was simple and understated. A
visitor might have discerned only two hints about the purpose of the place.
There were ashtrays every whereon stands, screwed into walls and on practically
every flat surface. Smoking was not merely tolerated, it was encouraged as an
acceptable replacement crutch while the afflicted learned to maneuver without
the braces of booze. And there were two semiabstract posters, which, after long
study, appeared to contain the messages "One Day at a Time"
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