Whatever.
If my subconscious was so invested in me learning about the perils of garlic that it drug me out of the deepest sleep that I’d had in decades, then I figured I’d better heed it. I browsed over the article once more and managed to summarize the thesis as the following: garlic is bad. It seemed like a bit of a moot point, because I had never been that particularly into garlic to begin with. I’d always heard that garlic was like a miracle food in the same category as green tea, apple cider vinegar, or chia seeds, but I’d never taken the plunge. The furthest I’d gone down into the healthy-alternatives abyss was gingko biloba and the occasional Emergen-C vitamin pack.
Now if I had to protect myself from Count Dracula or a werewolf or some other evil spirit identified within the annals of folklore, then I’d be screwed. I figured it was worth the risk because who knows what would happen if my brain was suddenly “desynchronized” and I lost my “psychic mind”. Not to mention the bad breath.
I yawned and stretched toward the ceiling, feeling muscles I’d thought had been atrophied and lost move beneath my skin. I somehow seemed lean and powerful, like a panther. I patted my belly and realized it was less plump than I expected, and my fingers drifted across the hard ridges of hidden abdominals beneath the layers of decadence. I flexed my right arm and the bicep rose to a height unseen since my teenage years. It didn’t make any kind of sense, but my body was changing at a rapid rate. The best explanation was that the Donut Palace was a front for drug-runners dealing anabolic steroids smuggled in from Mexico which they hid in a batch of apple fritters and unintentionally sold to me. As Sherlock Holmes had famously said: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” So basically, the only explanation was that I had become an unwitting ‘roid head.
This next part is a bit on the gross side, so I apologize in advance. If you want to break now for a quick snack or something . . .
Over the past day or so I had become a slave to my bodily processes. And what my body suddenly demanded was that I go take a deuce. You’ve probably had the flu or something and been in a spot where there was very little time to squat on the pot—such was the case in this instance. I scrambled away from the computer and clenched my cheeks and crab-walked the short distance to my small bathroom. I sat on the cold porcelain lid, spread my cheeks, unclenched . . . and waited. Despite the feeling that I was a sneeze away from giving birth, I couldn’t so much as fart.
I stared ahead and vacantly noticed that my white linoleum floor was moldy and pissed stained and that stray pubic hairs were accumulating against the crown molding, forming a grotesque barrier. It might have shamed me into pouring out a bottle of Mr. Clean, but I was more concerned with the worst constipation of my life. Maybe I’d overdone it on the kolaches or maybe Orange Crush wasn’t a proper substitute for water. Maybe my body was just reacting to my detoxing from the pain patches. Whatever the cause, I was at a loss as to the solution. I had always heard that it is dangerous to push because it can cause hemorrhoids, but I threw caution to the wind and treated the situation like I was living on the plantation and Butterfly McQueen was squealing in my ear.
I took a deep breath and deeply exhaled while simultaneously pretending like I was pushing my breath thru my anus. It might appear to be a strange plan, but it seemed to be working. Slowly the shy turtle began to poke his head out of his shell, but damn if his head wasn’t too big for the opening. I didn’t even dare look down between my legs because I felt something tearing. A moment later there was an audible pop and I experienced both relief and agony. Whatever fell into the toilet was heavy enough that the splash hit my testicles, making them recede into my abdomen.
I was pretty certain that I had torn open my rectum and that first splash was just the dam breaking, there was much more to come. I should have just given it a courtesy flush, stared ahead at those pube-covered baseboards, and stoically paid the inevitable price for my gluttony. I shouldn’t have looked down into the toilet. But I did. It was a quick glance at a large mass of excrement. I shuddered and heard myself mutter: “No fucking way.” Then I quickly flushed it.
But I had already seen what had come out of me and there was no denying it. Several long tendrils were embedded in the feces, undulating in the still water of the toilet like seaweed caught in a wave. Slick tendrils with an elliptical disk at the tip of their snouts armed with several rows of hooked teeth. The closest I’d ever seen to them was in a cheesy Animal Planet movie called Blood Lake which was about killer lampreys.
Now the notion that I had somehow shit a strange nest of miniature lampreys was horrifying, but what really turned my blood cold was that I had only just begun my bowel movement. To be fair, I did warn you to go ahead and take a break if you were going to eat anytime soon.
I’ll spare you the grotesque details, but I sat on the toilet for at least a half hour and I must have had to flush more than a dozen times. I was smart enough not to chance any more looks, but I frequently felt them slithering out of me and I cowered as I anticipated their teeth tearing into me.
As I heard the final splash and felt a gentle emptiness in my stomach, I took a glance into the toilet. Seeing it, I fainted and fell off the porcelain throne, striking my head on the hard floor. I’m not going to bother telling you what I saw because it wasn’t real and I don’t have the words to describe it, anyhow. It was impossibly horrific and beyond its more grotesque qualities, it was far too large to come out of my hapless ass. Suffice to say, it scared me into unconsciousness. When I awoke I was crying and my body shook as I struggled to my feet. I steadied my nerves and cautiously glanced into the toilet. I anticipated sprinting out of the bathroom and declaring the end of days, but I realized what was sitting in the toilet was simply a moderate sized turd. Nothing more.
Bingo, buster.
That strange voice in my head sounded self-satisfied and mildly condescending. On one hand the pain that had been quickly debilitating my body had vanished overnight, but there was also a growing fear that my brain was developing holes quicker than a two by four infested with termites. I was being assaulted by horrific hallucinations that began with the discovery of the dead body of my wife’s lover and led to me giving butt birth to the Antichrist. And there was also a foreign voice in my head that was becoming more and more persistent. An ear worm that was no longer just attaching itself to my subconscious through snippets of song, but also through condescending asides.
Bingo, buster.
To all your friends you’re delirious,
So consumed in all your doom.
Trying hard to fill the emptiness.
The pieces gone, left the puzzle undone.
Is that the way it is?
You are beautiful no matter what they say
Words can’t bring you down . . . .oh no
You are beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can’t bring you down, oh, no
So don’t you bring me down today . . .
—Christina Aguilera
6.
Skin Deep, Like Patrick Swayze’s Brother
Earlier I mentioned my Psychoanalyst, Dr. Chod, so maybe this is a good time for a flashback to talk about her in greater detail. I’d only seen her once up to that point and it was a few months prior, not long after I had been diagnosed with the terminal brain disease and just a few days after Dare decided it was the right time for us to take a break. Chod’s office was located in Tyler, but Dr. Bhaskar was pretty insistent that she was the closest and most qualified Psychotherapist to deal with my particular “issue”. Dying. I wasn’t really sure what the point was in talking about it, but, whatever.
Her office was located on the third floor of a glass building that looked like it had been used to film the 1960’s version of Mad Men only it hadn’t been renovated since then and the thread-thin carpets were the color of a smoker’s lung. The peacock feather-print wallpaper was significantly less stylish than Dan Draper and seemed more at
home in the hotel from The Shining.
Her lobby was empty when I entered it on that fateful day. I had sat down on a leather couch and listened to a portable speaker that was playing jazz. I picked up an issue of People that was several years old and turned to an article about TLC’s “hidden gem” Jon and Kate Plus 8. The kids and the husband looked miserable and the blonde wife carried a permanent expression of disgust. It was like an alternate history in which Hitler put Koreans in the concentration camps and Kate was Göring.
I was wondering how Honey Boo Boo fit into this alternate history when Dr. Chod stepped into the lobby. I consider myself kind of a feminist, so it is with trepidation that I offer a physical description. Imagine a shorter Dr. Ruth Westheimer and then add about a hundred pounds of fat and you get an appropriate outline. Put her in a pantsuit that is so plain that Hillary Clinton would reject it and add a complete lack of understanding of how to apply makeup. Now imagine Donald Trump’s hair, only thinner and receding, and shamefully resting atop an old woman’s head. There was also a mole that sprouted under her thin bottom lip and made me immediately reconsider my attraction to Rachel McAdams. She smiled and extended a wrinkled hand. “Ripley?”
I smiled back at her and gently shook her hand, trying to make eye contact while feeling my gaze slowly shifting back towards the mole. It had four distinct hairs growing out of it. “You guessed it,” I said. “A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Chod.”
“You can call me Angela.” She turned and led me down a narrow hallway and into her office, which was filled with natural light from two surrounding glass walls, though my view outside was obscured by thin blinds. “Choose a seat.” She sat down in a leather swivel chair adorned with golden buttons.
There were three seating options: a comfy green chair with a soft white throw pillow covered with sprawling red octopus tentacles, an uncomfortable industrial chair with chrome arms and a stiff seat, and a long leather couch that invited a long nap. I figured that my choice probably indicated something deeply personal about me, so I went with my third choice to throw her off. The chair must have been designed by the Marque De Sade and I immediately regretted my decision and moved over to the couch and sunk into it, staring in Dr. Chod’s vicinity without looking at her more prominent feature.
Dr. Chod picked up a clipboard and scrawled something down, then stared at me attentively and said, “So tell me why you are here.”
“Well, Dr. Bhaskar practically mandated that I come speak to you.”
Dr. Chod nodded. “And since you have already signed a release form I do know some minor details, but I would like to hear from you with a clean slate what is going on.”
“Well, I found out a few months ago that I’ve got . . . that I’m going to . . . ” I cleared my throat and continued, “Well, that if I’m lucky I’ll live a few more months and most of that in agony.” I noticed a statue situated on her bookshelf that looked like the Hindu god Ganesh with his trademark elephant trunk and four arms, but from a distance it also looked like a Buddha with an octopus stuck to his face and tentacles sprouting out where arms should be. I refocused on Dr. Chod and said, “So, that’s happening.”
“And how does that feel?”
“Obviously it sucks. And to add to that, my wife basically left me a month ago.”
“Did she ask for a divorce?”
“Nothing like that. She just wants some time to figure things out.”
Dr. Chod nodded. “But you don’t have a lot of time.”
“Tell me about it. I’m sequestered to the pool house and only allowed to see her and my daughter once a week for an uncomfortable dinner.”
Dr. Chod raised an eyebrow. “That is the only time you get to see your daughter?”
“Basically.”
“How is that for you? Have you been an involved parent up to this point?”
“How would you define an involved parent?”
“I wouldn’t,” Dr. Chod said. “How do you define it? I use the word ambiguously because I want to know what you think of your relationship with her.”
“It’s fine.”
“Okay. What were your parents like?”
I spent the next half hour detailing my sordid family history and blah, blah, blah. Nobody that isn’t getting paid should be forced to listen to that shit. To her credit she nodded and sighed in all the right places and managed to stay awake. The highlights are that she seemed to think my uncle had been mentally and physically abusive and I had to defend that I hadn’t also been sexually abused. Ultimately, she determined that there wasn’t enough time left in my life to even begin to peel back the layers of how fucked up I am from my childhood traumas. She wanted to bring it back to the present and fixate on how fucked up I am from the more recent events. She asked me, “How do you feel about the realization that you are terminally ill?”
“It sucks.”
“And do you feel like your wife has abandoned you during this difficult time?”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t even know.”
Dr. Chod stiffened. “Can you explain to me your decision to keep that from her?”
“I figure that if I tell her I’m dying then she will take me back out of pity.”
“Does that matter?”
“Yeah, of course it does.”
“Why does that matter to you, considering that there is a known end to your life? Would you prefer that your last days be spent dealing with reality and long-term issues you won’t be around to face, or would you prefer an easy time, emotionally and relationally, even though it might not be based on genuine emotions?”
“I want reality.” I realized after I’d said it, that my voice had grown louder and my words seemed to echo.
“Okay.”
I wondered if Dr. Chod was disappointed in my answer, so I tried to explain my rationale. “I know I’m dying and that it could be any day, so I figure the only thing I can leave behind is for someone to love me and . . . I want it to be real.”
“And you want that love to come from your wife?”
“Yeah.”
Dr. Chod nodded. “And you obviously have doubts, considering recent events.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you always doubted her feelings?”
I shrugged. “Kind of. I mean, you have to understand, she’s out of my league. I’ve always known it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for one thing, she’s a knock out. I mean as close to a perfect ten as someone could get. She’s like that hot redhead from Mad Men only more proportional and less irritating and me . . . ”
“Yes? What about you?”
“You don’t have to bullshit me. I know I’m no Ryan Gosling. I’m more . . . Have you ever seen Patrick Swayze’s brother?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Well, if you saw them side by side you’d swear they were nearly identical twins, but there’s something just a little bit off about him. Patrick Swayze was like this hunky leading man, but his brother only got secondary roles playing thugs or degenerates. There’s something different about him that can barely even be registered by the eye . . . Maybe it runs skin deep.”
“And you think there is something a little off about you?”
“I’m just talking looks. Don’t read into it or anything.”
Dr. Chod nodded. “I’m not, you said skin deep—”
“Yeah, I did say that. Who really knows why someone is attracted to someone else. Maybe it’s just timing, or maybe it’s because I’ve always wanted the comfort of having attentive parents and she’s been held under the control of her parents like a butterfly pinned and framed . . . Opposites attract and all that. Who knows? What I do know is that whatever that thing was that drew her to me has slowly faded and . . . I want it back. I need it back.”
Dr. Chod stared into me and said, “We are here to sort out your end of life and what that looks like for you. What are your objectives?”
“That’s it. That’s my only thing.
”
“Your only objective before you die is to rekindle your relationship with your wife?”
“Yeah. I want her to say she loves me, and mean it, and then I’ll die.”
Dr. Chod slowly nodded. “Without her knowing that you are terminally ill?”
“Yeah.”
Dr. Chod scribbled on her pad, then said, “Well, knowing that we cannot control the behaviors of other people, nor can we necessarily predict with all that much accuracy how they are going to behave, is there a way for you to take your end of life goals and make them about you and what you can achieve, rather than make them dependent upon someone else?”
“No. Can’t you tell me how to win her back? Don’t you know the tricks? You must know how to manipulate people.”
Dr. Chod shook her head. “Without having her in this room I know very little about her. Furthermore, that mindset toward relationships is not healthy.”
I sat up and asked, “Aren’t all relationships just about one person tricking the other into—”
“No,” she interrupted. “This process is really about helping you come to terms with—”
I stood. “I think you mean well, and your heart is in the right place, but . . . ”
Dr. Chod smiled and said, “Are you firing me?”
I walked over to her door and turned back. “I wouldn’t look at it like that. Will you let Dr. Bhaskar know that I gave it a good shot?”
Dr. Chod stood and said, “I’ll certainly speak to him. And I want you to know that I’m here if you want to speak again. Perhaps the circumstances will change.”
I would have sworn that there was no chance I’d ever see Dr. Chod again after that day, but the circumstances had certainly changed. Even if she wasn’t good at giving relationship advice, maybe she had some pointers for dealing with a persistent ear worm and visions of the apocalypse hidden within yesterday’s kolaches. So, I scuttled out of my bathroom, away from the demonic toilet, and jumped onto my computer. I fiddled through a poorly constructed website hosted by Psychology Today and made an appointment with Dr. Chod for the following Wednesday.
Earworm Page 5
