Tar Baby
Predator Press
[Mr. I]
I hand the clipboard back through the sliding glass window, and the nurse scrutinizes it with great interest through thick, black-framed Buddy Holly glasses you associate with the nerdy.
"Hm," she began. "No drugs or alcohol? Really?"
"No ma'am," I says. "He says he doesn't like sharing the credit."
That's when I start feeling my first pangs of guilt. At least when LOBO did drugs, he would tend to be a little more reclusive. And cautious. Manageable. But drug-free status only emboldened him. In his eyes, I think, he was just finally taking his rightful spot in the world with the rest of us clean lunatics.
Still, this was a kind of half-truth. LOBO and I have blown some occasional weed. But I don't feel like explaining to some nosy puritanical asshole how they should mind their own fucking business about people's private recreational pursuits. We're adults. And we're not robbing liquor stores and crashing cars.
It's commerce really. Dolly Madison and XBox should send us fruit baskets.
Fuck off.
"Are you the next of kin?" she asks without looking at me.
"No," I says. "Well, I'm not sure-"
Shit.
"No," I reply flatly.
"Your relationship with the patient?"
The official title, the one I put on my taxes, is "Assistant". But that doesn't really cover it, does it Ethan?
"Handler, I suppose."
"Really?" she says again.
Somebody get this woman a Thesaurus.
"Yeah. We work for Hawly Enterprises. Publishing. My guess is that the CEO is sort of David's benefactor. Like Jerry's Kids or something. Probably a public relations thing."
"Maybe he figures Mister Curr is safer where an eye can be kept on him."
"Yeah. Or maybe everyone else is safer that way."
"And he's insured by-" she squints at the scribbly clipboard. "Hawly Enterprises?"
"Yeah."
"Well, bless this Mr Hawly. He sounds like a wonderful and noble fellow, what with looking out for the handicapped and all."
And his tax exemptions.
"Yeah, I'd fuck him," I says dryly.
She glares at me, a little stunned. "Please have a seat," she says, grabbing the sliding window. "The doctor will be with you shortly."
Thud.
***
I hear her voice over the PA system as I'm flipping through archaic issues of Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine. "Doctor Keller, please report to ... "
Selecting an antiquated Sports Illustrated, I try not to make eye contact with anyone else in the waiting room.
Sitting, I notice I've unbuttoned my suit jacket completely on 'autopilot'. My belly -clear evidence of my new-found success- rolls out and swallows my belt whole.
I've grown pretty used to all this money.
I imagine how I'll be gingerly explaining to Ethan that while he was on vacation, my "charge" -and his best friend- was recently committed. This is serious. Even more serious than when LOBO took a shower at Phoebe's place and left hairs stuck in the soap, sink and bathtub, and she burned her own house down in utter revulsion.
No matter how much arson I've covered up, no matter how much insurance fraud I've committed, the addition of 'Handler' on my new resume won't seem very potent.
Goodbye salary, goodbye expense accounts.
I wonder if Ethan will let me keep my clothes, my car.
I'm the Predator Press whore.
It should be me in here.
***
Doctor Keller arrives, rescuing me from excruciating speculation over who is going to win the 2004 World Series.
I stand, and we shake hands.
"Thank you for coming," he says.
I was expecting a white lab coat. A stethoscope. A pager.
Doctor icons for people who watch too much television.
Doctor Keller is in khakis, a button-up checkered shirt, expensive preppie-leather shoes and a matching thin belt. He looks more like somebody who orders baked potato skins and a diet Coke at TGIF, and then stiffs the waitress on a tip. But the more I think about it, the more it made sense, really. In his line of work, it probably pays to not appear so clinical and imposing.
"How is he?" I ask as we walk past through the door. From the waiting room, it looks like a door anyway; once inside, the facade drops abruptly, revealing a massive cage.
I think of tiger traps you see in cartoons, the big hole covered with palm tree branches.
Long halls of white gloss, antiseptic smells, and steel mesh are the Feng Shui of Crackerland today.
You must be this nuts to take this ride.
I'm expecting something more like Arkham from Batman comics. Still, where good Doctor Keller let me down, the tidy innards of Bertram Asylum did not disappoint.
"He's, well ... " the doctor begins. Keller is walking really fast. I don't think visitors see this wing often. "Comfortable."
"Comfortable" is doctor-speak for sedated.
"Keeping him good and stoned, eh?" I ask, smiling. "Doc, I've spent the last year with that crazy bastard. You can drop the clinical euphemisms."
"No, I'm afraid you don't understand," he says.
Jesus Christ this guy walks fast. We stop at a massive steel door, and he slides his keycard through a protruding slot.
"See for yourself."
***
Through a large, thick, one-way glass window, we can see LOBO. In white pajamas and a straight jacket, he's sitting cross legged in the middle of an empty room.
He looks peaceful. Like he's meditating. You could easily imagine little glowing butterflies circling his empty head.
"Wow," I says. "I was expecting him to be really upset. You must've given him some really great shit!
"We don't have him on any medication," replies the doctor.
"Huh?"
"He's been a model patient. He's healthy, and no danger to himself or others."
"So why is he here?" I ask cautiously. I can already tell I don't like where this is going.
"Well, frankly, it seems he doesn't want to leave."
My fuckin jaw must've been on the floor. "Doc. I thought you brought me here to clear up some paperwork. Maybe even visit--!"
"No. We've been trying to release him for several hours now."
Covering my eyes, I fall back into a convenient viewing chair.
I forgot to unbutton my jacket, and the button cracks loudly against the glass.
LOBO stirs to the sound.
The doctor continues. "We were hoping you would help us make his departure, well," the doc thought for a moment, "voluntary."
I open my eyes, and watch LOBO struggle to his feet. He squints into the glass.
"But he's fucking crazy!" I insist.
"Yes. He has a lot of emotional and psychological problems, true. But nothing that warrants him staying here."
"But he's fucking crazy!" I repeat, pointing at the glass, dumbfounded. "Are you sure you're not a patient here? Where's your goddamned stethoscope? I need to see some fucking credentials, mister--"
"With the proper medication and counseling, he can be handled on an outpatient basis."
"Oh!" I chuckle, digging for my wallet. "Now I've gotcha. Listen, if you're angling for a bribe, boy are you barking up the right tree." I spread it open and break out the greenbacks. "I've got about three hundred and eight bucks here-"
"Sir," Doctor Keller says calmly. "Please put away your money."
I pull out a Master Card. "How about a thousand? You got a bank machine here somewhere?"
"Sir, it's illegal to keep him here unnecessarily."
Fuck.
***
The orderlies none-too-gently drag LOBO into the small room where Doctor Keller and I waited.
And the second he sees me, Judas, his eyes light up.
"Hey buddy!" he beams. "I'm glad you're here. This is absolutely the best fucking resort I've ever been in!"
"Can I have a sedative?" I ask the doctor.
"The food kicks ass," LOBO continues, "and you don't have to wash dishes, do laundry, shave, bathe yourself or anything."
"No," says Doctor Keller.
"They even cushion all the walls and floors so space isn't wasted on furniture!"
"C'mon, doc," I says. "Look how happy he is. You're gonna kick this guy out into the street?"
"-Legless Jim is here! And you'll never guess who else ... "
"Napoleon?" I says, faking enthusiasm.
LOBO is dumbstruck. "How the fuck did you know? I thought that was classified ... !"
"It's in the brochure," I says.
Doctor Keller nods to the orderlies. "I don't think there's any need for the restraints."
But as they reach for the buckle on the back of the straight jacket, LOBO flinches away.
"Hey, hey!" he says, leaning forward. "Back off, buddy. It's chilly in here."
"Mister Curr," says Doctor Keller. "We're all here to once again ask you to please vacate the premisses."
"But this place is great!" LOBO insists. "Ethan would absolutely love it-"
Doctor Keller sighed. "Mister Curr. David. This isn't a resort. It's a mental health facility."
LOBO looks at the doc, puzzled. "So?"
"So we would like you to please leave."
I can tell by his voice LOBO was wearing Doctor Keller down.
An opportunity.
Maybe there's still some hope here.
"Losing your 'patients,' Doc?" LOBO grins.
"Very clever," he says.
"Let me get this straight," I says finally. "You found this guy sane?"
"Yeah," says LOBO. "What the fuck kind of doctor are you? Where's your stethoscope?"
"I never said 'sane'. I said I want him out."
Between LOBO and I, we can sense the professional veneer cracking.
"Haven't you read my blog?" asks LOBO. "It's full of fairies and dragons and zombies and robots-"
"A creative endeavor of healthy expression," the doc counters.
"You are aware that he just signed a deal with the Fox Network, right?" I ask.
The doc had no answer for that one.
"How about for just a couple of months?" LOBO begs.
That did it. Doctor Keller abruptly stands and hurls his plastic clipboard violently against the wall, causing the orderlies to duck from the rather impressive makeshift shrapnel. Whirling on us wild-eyed, he tears off his expensive-looking glasses and crushes them in his hand.
Still squeezing the mangled wire frames tightly in his clenched bleeding fist, he screams "WOULD YOU TWO JUST GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!?!
***
I press the button on my keychain, and the Mercedes' alarm chirps in the distance.
"They wouldn't even let me keep the jacket," LOBO whines dejectedly.
"They needed it for the doctor," I reply.
"Hey," says LOBO, grabbing my arm, stopping me. "Thanks for pulling for me in there."
"Don't mention it," I grumble.
Sulky and resigned, we start heading for the car again.
"Just lay off the craziness for a while, okay? Don't go running for President or anyth-"
I smack my hand over my mouth, even as LOBO's eyes light up.
[Mr. I]
I hand the clipboard back through the sliding glass window, and the nurse scrutinizes it with great interest through thick, black-framed Buddy Holly glasses you associate with the nerdy.
"Hm," she began. "No drugs or alcohol? Really?"
"No ma'am," I says. "He says he doesn't like sharing the credit."
That's when I start feeling my first pangs of guilt. At least when LOBO did drugs, he would tend to be a little more reclusive. And cautious. Manageable. But drug-free status only emboldened him. In his eyes, I think, he was just finally taking his rightful spot in the world with the rest of us clean lunatics.
Still, this was a kind of half-truth. LOBO and I have blown some occasional weed. But I don't feel like explaining to some nosy puritanical asshole how they should mind their own fucking business about people's private recreational pursuits. We're adults. And we're not robbing liquor stores and crashing cars.
It's commerce really. Dolly Madison and XBox should send us fruit baskets.
Fuck off.
"Are you the next of kin?" she asks without looking at me.
"No," I says. "Well, I'm not sure-"
Shit.
"No," I reply flatly.
"Your relationship with the patient?"
The official title, the one I put on my taxes, is "Assistant". But that doesn't really cover it, does it Ethan?
"Handler, I suppose."
"Really?" she says again.
Somebody get this woman a Thesaurus.
"Yeah. We work for Hawly Enterprises. Publishing. My guess is that the CEO is sort of David's benefactor. Like Jerry's Kids or something. Probably a public relations thing."
"Maybe he figures Mister Curr is safer where an eye can be kept on him."
"Yeah. Or maybe everyone else is safer that way."
"And he's insured by-" she squints at the scribbly clipboard. "Hawly Enterprises?"
"Yeah."
"Well, bless this Mr Hawly. He sounds like a wonderful and noble fellow, what with looking out for the handicapped and all."
And his tax exemptions.
"Yeah, I'd fuck him," I says dryly.
She glares at me, a little stunned. "Please have a seat," she says, grabbing the sliding window. "The doctor will be with you shortly."
Thud.
I hear her voice over the PA system as I'm flipping through archaic issues of Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine. "Doctor Keller, please report to ... "
Selecting an antiquated Sports Illustrated, I try not to make eye contact with anyone else in the waiting room.
Sitting, I notice I've unbuttoned my suit jacket completely on 'autopilot'. My belly -clear evidence of my new-found success- rolls out and swallows my belt whole.
I've grown pretty used to all this money.
I imagine how I'll be gingerly explaining to Ethan that while he was on vacation, my "charge" -and his best friend- was recently committed. This is serious. Even more serious than when LOBO took a shower at Phoebe's place and left hairs stuck in the soap, sink and bathtub, and she burned her own house down in utter revulsion.
No matter how much arson I've covered up, no matter how much insurance fraud I've committed, the addition of 'Handler' on my new resume won't seem very potent.
Goodbye salary, goodbye expense accounts.
I wonder if Ethan will let me keep my clothes, my car.
I'm the Predator Press whore.
It should be me in here.
Doctor Keller arrives, rescuing me from excruciating speculation over who is going to win the 2004 World Series.
I stand, and we shake hands.
"Thank you for coming," he says.
I was expecting a white lab coat. A stethoscope. A pager.
Doctor icons for people who watch too much television.
Doctor Keller is in khakis, a button-up checkered shirt, expensive preppie-leather shoes and a matching thin belt. He looks more like somebody who orders baked potato skins and a diet Coke at TGIF, and then stiffs the waitress on a tip. But the more I think about it, the more it made sense, really. In his line of work, it probably pays to not appear so clinical and imposing.
"How is he?" I ask as we walk past through the door. From the waiting room, it looks like a door anyway; once inside, the facade drops abruptly, revealing a massive cage.
I think of tiger traps you see in cartoons, the big hole covered with palm tree branches.
Long halls of white gloss, antiseptic smells, and steel mesh are the Feng Shui of Crackerland today.
You must be this nuts to take this ride.
I'm expecting something more like Arkham from Batman comics. Still, where good Doctor Keller let me down, the tidy innards of Bertram Asylum did not disappoint.
"He's, well ... " the doctor begins. Keller is walking really fast. I don't think visitors see this wing often. "Comfortable."
"Comfortable" is doctor-speak for sedated.
"Keeping him good and stoned, eh?" I ask, smiling. "Doc, I've spent the last year with that crazy bastard. You can drop the clinical euphemisms."
"No, I'm afraid you don't understand," he says.
Jesus Christ this guy walks fast. We stop at a massive steel door, and he slides his keycard through a protruding slot.
"See for yourself."
Through a large, thick, one-way glass window, we can see LOBO. In white pajamas and a straight jacket, he's sitting cross legged in the middle of an empty room.
He looks peaceful. Like he's meditating. You could easily imagine little glowing butterflies circling his empty head.
"Wow," I says. "I was expecting him to be really upset. You must've given him some really great shit!
"We don't have him on any medication," replies the doctor.
"Huh?"
"He's been a model patient. He's healthy, and no danger to himself or others."
"So why is he here?" I ask cautiously. I can already tell I don't like where this is going.
"Well, frankly, it seems he doesn't want to leave."
My fuckin jaw must've been on the floor. "Doc. I thought you brought me here to clear up some paperwork. Maybe even visit--!"
"No. We've been trying to release him for several hours now."
Covering my eyes, I fall back into a convenient viewing chair.
I forgot to unbutton my jacket, and the button cracks loudly against the glass.
LOBO stirs to the sound.
The doctor continues. "We were hoping you would help us make his departure, well," the doc thought for a moment, "voluntary."
I open my eyes, and watch LOBO struggle to his feet. He squints into the glass.
"But he's fucking crazy!" I insist.
"Yes. He has a lot of emotional and psychological problems, true. But nothing that warrants him staying here."
"But he's fucking crazy!" I repeat, pointing at the glass, dumbfounded. "Are you sure you're not a patient here? Where's your goddamned stethoscope? I need to see some fucking credentials, mister--"
"With the proper medication and counseling, he can be handled on an outpatient basis."
"Oh!" I chuckle, digging for my wallet. "Now I've gotcha. Listen, if you're angling for a bribe, boy are you barking up the right tree." I spread it open and break out the greenbacks. "I've got about three hundred and eight bucks here-"
"Sir," Doctor Keller says calmly. "Please put away your money."
I pull out a Master Card. "How about a thousand? You got a bank machine here somewhere?"
"Sir, it's illegal to keep him here unnecessarily."
Fuck.
The orderlies none-too-gently drag LOBO into the small room where Doctor Keller and I waited.
And the second he sees me, Judas, his eyes light up.
"Hey buddy!" he beams. "I'm glad you're here. This is absolutely the best fucking resort I've ever been in!"
"Can I have a sedative?" I ask the doctor.
"The food kicks ass," LOBO continues, "and you don't have to wash dishes, do laundry, shave, bathe yourself or anything."
"No," says Doctor Keller.
"They even cushion all the walls and floors so space isn't wasted on furniture!"
"C'mon, doc," I says. "Look how happy he is. You're gonna kick this guy out into the street?"
"-Legless Jim is here! And you'll never guess who else ... "
"Napoleon?" I says, faking enthusiasm.
LOBO is dumbstruck. "How the fuck did you know? I thought that was classified ... !"
"It's in the brochure," I says.
Doctor Keller nods to the orderlies. "I don't think there's any need for the restraints."
But as they reach for the buckle on the back of the straight jacket, LOBO flinches away.
"Hey, hey!" he says, leaning forward. "Back off, buddy. It's chilly in here."
"Mister Curr," says Doctor Keller. "We're all here to once again ask you to please vacate the premisses."
"But this place is great!" LOBO insists. "Ethan would absolutely love it-"
Doctor Keller sighed. "Mister Curr. David. This isn't a resort. It's a mental health facility."
LOBO looks at the doc, puzzled. "So?"
"So we would like you to please leave."
I can tell by his voice LOBO was wearing Doctor Keller down.
An opportunity.
Maybe there's still some hope here.
"Losing your 'patients,' Doc?" LOBO grins.
"Very clever," he says.
"Let me get this straight," I says finally. "You found this guy sane?"
"Yeah," says LOBO. "What the fuck kind of doctor are you? Where's your stethoscope?"
"I never said 'sane'. I said I want him out."
Between LOBO and I, we can sense the professional veneer cracking.
"Haven't you read my blog?" asks LOBO. "It's full of fairies and dragons and zombies and robots-"
"A creative endeavor of healthy expression," the doc counters.
"You are aware that he just signed a deal with the Fox Network, right?" I ask.
The doc had no answer for that one.
"How about for just a couple of months?" LOBO begs.
That did it. Doctor Keller abruptly stands and hurls his plastic clipboard violently against the wall, causing the orderlies to duck from the rather impressive makeshift shrapnel. Whirling on us wild-eyed, he tears off his expensive-looking glasses and crushes them in his hand.
Still squeezing the mangled wire frames tightly in his clenched bleeding fist, he screams "WOULD YOU TWO JUST GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!?!
I press the button on my keychain, and the Mercedes' alarm chirps in the distance.
"They wouldn't even let me keep the jacket," LOBO whines dejectedly.
"They needed it for the doctor," I reply.
"Hey," says LOBO, grabbing my arm, stopping me. "Thanks for pulling for me in there."
"Don't mention it," I grumble.
Sulky and resigned, we start heading for the car again.
"Just lay off the craziness for a while, okay? Don't go running for President or anyth-"
I smack my hand over my mouth, even as LOBO's eyes light up.
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