inviting, pathogen-daring, microbe-annihilating,virus-slaying, bug-blasting, honest-to-God, ninja warrior

12 Monkeys is an apocalyptic film about a mutant germ that wipes out most the world’s population and sends mankind underground into hiding. It’s a masterpiece, really. I must have seen it at least a hundred times, but truth be told I never watched it with anyone else before. It was at this time that the subject of germs first came up.

I remember asking her if she wasn’t worried, being around all those germs in the hospital all the time.

“Not one bit,” she said. “I crave germs.”

Crave germs?

“I invite bacteria. I dare pathogens ”

Like with Staphylococcus aureus?

“Yes. How do you know about that?”

Whoops. I told her I read about it in a magazine.

“Ah,” she said. “Well, as a matter of fact, Yes. While antibiotics like penicillin and methicillin cannot adapt, fortunately I can.”

Adapt?

“Yes. Adapt. Evolve.”

I asked her if germs evolve, as well.

“Yes, she said, “they evolve, just like human beings. Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, do not. They just make more money.”

Wow. I didn’t know it until now, but my girlfriend was a syringe-wielding, germ-craving, bacteria-inviting, pathogen-daring, microbe-annihilating, virus-slaying, bug-blasting, honest-to-God, ninja warrior. At least, I think she was my girlfriend. I still wasn’t completely sure.

Still, there was no way I was going to tell her about me and my big fat brain. Besides, I felt pretty much like an idiot right now anyway.

I wanted so badly to tell her about the hospital, about how I heard everything she said. EVERYTHING. But the coma police made me swear never to say a word. Ever. Believe me when I tell you, you don’t mess around with the coma police. They have the power to, well, put you right back into a coma. Forever.

You know what? Fuck ‘em!

All of a sudden I just blurted it out. What was it about this woman that just made me go blurting things out, lose total control? Again, my total lack of experience with women had me at a complete disadvantage.

I told her I heard every word she said. Coma police be damned, I was a man in love.

“When?” she said.

I told her: when I was in the coma.

“But how is that possible?” she said.

I told her I had no idea, I was in a coma at the time.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a dream?”

Well, I asked her, was there something about super bugs?

“Yes.”

Robots?

“Yes.”

Lasers?

“Yes.”

I asked her, how many nurses does it take to screw in a light bulb?

“None,” she said.”

They just have a nursing student do it, I told her.

“That’s right,” she said.

I told her I heard better jokes down in the trauma center.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “Don’t listen to those people. They’re a bunch of jackals.”

She couldn’t believe I heard it all. I wonder if she thought, like I had, that we had some sort of ESP going on. But how would that explain everything else I heard? ESP is, after all, a matter for faith, not science.

Ever hear the one about the prisoner who got his lips cut off because he was supposedly a snitch?

“Yes, and I didn’t think it was funny then, either,” she said.

Enough of that. The rest of the time we spent together was light-hearted.

We ate Ring Dings and Ding Dongs, Cheetos and Doritos. She cooked spaghetti and meatballs. I was even starting to put on some weight.

“Good,” she said, “you need to put on a few pounds. You’re all skin and bones.”

She made popcorn and fed it to me right out of her hand, like some goddamn Aztec orgy.

Eventually, she even got me into watching regular TV. You know, the popular shows. I told her I never watch regular TV, which wasn’t entirely true. Turns out it was kind of nice. I just sat back and let the dullness wash over me like some kind of narcotic.

When we weren’t watching the idiot box, we listened to music. I played her all my favorite songs, like Taxman by the Beatles, Destroyer by the Kinks, Fingerprint File by the Rolling Stones, Panic Song by Green Day, Sweating Bullets by Megadeath; it went on until someone started banging on my door, saying “Shut the fuck up!” It had been a long time since anyone told me to shut the fuck up.

I have to give Fanny credit; she sat there and listened to each and every one of those songs. I never knew this was how it works, that when someone really likes you, they also like the things you do. I was learning so many things, so fast. I was hoping to learn so much more.

I have to give Fanny credit for something else, too. Every morning and every night, when the apartment shook and the pictures fell off the wall, she just smiled. She never said a word, just smiled. You gotta love my neighbors in 9A.

Then, Fanny played a CD of her own. It was by some new Nashville country star. Of course, everybody knows that real country music heeded Horace Greeley’s advice a long time ago. But to my surprise, I didn’t say a word.

Next thing I knew, we were dancing. I never danced before, not in my whole life. I don’t remember what that first song was, but I bet if I ever heard it again I’d remember it, and I’d like it still.

We danced to whatever songs she played; and never, not even once, did I think about how ridiculous I must look. I was too busy having fun. Picture it: a guy with a massive head injury shaking his booty to KC and the Sunshine Band. What a scene.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how exhilarating a simpleton’s life could be. It was like I was living in the midst of some opiate stupor. And then it happened. I knew I must have turned into a doper for sure when I sat through an entire episode of The View, and liked it. After that, Dr. Phil went down easy.

We watched everything, from those reality shows to CNN and CNBC, the financial channel. What’s the deal anyway with that stock market guy who’s always got his sleeves rolled up like he works for a living? Why is he screaming all the time? Someone once told me that guy’s worth a hundred million bucks. If that’s true, then what’s he so damn mad about?

I even sat there and watched the Weather Channel, all night long. Life was good, living in the land of dumbnation. There was only one problem: I knew if I was going to keep her, I was going to have to seal the deal. That meant—yep, you guessed it: Kissing her. Oh boy.

Eventually we got back to 12 Monkeys and the scene where Dr. Railly starts talking about a germ that would ultimately wipe mankind off the face of the Earth, and that’s when it happened. That’s when I first started feeling strange.

I started getting the feeling like Fanny might be onto me. I kept looking over at her, watching for signs that maybe she knew exactly who I was, what I was; but just like in Body Snatchers, nothing showed on her face.

Maybe it was just all the wild camera angles. I don’t know if you ever noticed, but Terry Gilliam uses the craziest camera angles. After a while, it really can start getting to you. He did it a lot in The Fischer King, too.

I tried passing it off as indigestion, but who was I kidding? As I became even more uneasy, I began sinking deeper into the couch. Did she know about me? About My Condition? There was really no way she could. There was no literature lying around the apartment, no one she could have talked to. She wasn’t a doctor, for Christ’s sake.

But what was it she was thinking about so intently? Her eyes hadn’t left the screen the whole time; her head barely even moved. What was going on in that pretty little head of hers?

Then she came right out and said it: “Bruce Willis used to have hair, you know?”

I did not know that.

“Back when he was on Moonlighting, I remember he had this great head of hair. Spiky, even.”

I laughed. Everything was all right, it was just me. What’s Moonlighting?

We had so much in common: the movies we liked, the music we loved, how much we both enjoyed our privacy; and being together. But there was one difference—one very big difference. While she was a germ-fighting, ninja warrior without fear—not even from a microbial invasion force from outer space—I was a hapless germaphobe. There, I said it. I’m a germaphobe. Happy now?

It’s one thing admitting it to yourself, quite another, however, trying to come clean with somebody else. I would tell her, in time. This just wasn’t the time. Not yet.

But I should have seen the writing on the wall. Who was I fooling? I didn’t have indigestion. I didn’t have heartburn, either. That whole incident should have served as a warning. Instead, I chose to ignore it. It would prove to be my undoing.

I was having trouble getting to sleep. Again.

“So,” said Fanny, “another bedtime story?”

You bet.

“Okay. So, woman comes into the ER looking exactly like Jabba the Hut. The smell from her is almost unbearable, but nurses are trained to deal with anything. There’s no smell, nor sight, too much to handle.”

Awesome! I could already tell: this was going to be a doozy.

“So there she is, this huge, slug-like creature who’s got a colostomy bag hanging off her with a concoction route up in there that no one in their right mind would open. But it’s leaking everywhere, and it has to be cleaned. No job too big.

“This woman is missing all but two teeth and clearly she has mental issues. She also has Tardive Dyskinesia going in full force. Funny part is, she’s actually at the hospital because she thinks her Ostomy is infected. Then, she says she’s got a whole other problem down in her nether regions. She’s right. There’s feces dripping down there steadily from her anus. She’s got this green slime oozing out her vagina and I know right away there’s gonorrhea everywhere. It’s what she says next, however, that’s the craziest part of all.

“Colostomy Bag tells me she knows why the fellas won’t fuck her anymore: it’s the green slime. So she asks me to hand her her purse, of all things. Why her purse? Because she wants to make sure she’s got plenty of condoms, and load up on even more while she’s here. Turns out the fellas have been fucking her in her ostomy, all because her ass is dripping with diarrhea and her snatch is oozing green slime. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she’s also got Chlamydia Herpes.

“I gave her all the condoms she could carry,” said Fanny. “She was going to need every last one of them.”

That night, I slept like a baby.