like fanny for stella, and i don’t mean stella dallas

 

It was in the midst of one of those HVI binges, possibly carbon tetrachloride or methylene chloride, that I found myself trying to track down Fanny at the hospital. I’m sure to all the staff I must have looked like some crazed lunatic, roaming the halls, shouting out her name. It was like Streetcar Named Desire meets Citizen Ruth. Stella!!!

I was so zapped out of my head, in fact, that I didn’t even realize I had just walked into the dragon’s lair. I’d forgotten everything Fanny had told me about hospitals, and germs. The awful truth was, it was even worse than that.

Hospitals, the mother of all bacteria traps, the proving ground for most every deadly germ known to man. Why do you think hospitals have hand sanitizer on the walls every six feet? I had really stepped in it now.

All those sick people coughing everywhere, all the handrails, elevator buttons, and door handles. And then there’s the waiting room, the nest, home to the drug resistant bacteria like C Diff (Clostridium Difficile). If you ingest enough C Diff, you can actually get diarrhea so bad it will kill you.

Did you know that over two million hospital patients are given the wrong medication every year? A man in Florida was given a drug that induces paralysis instead of an antacid, and he died of a heart attack when all he had to begin with was heartburn. Another man in California was given hormone injections instead of the prescribed vitamins and wound up growing breasts. Full-blown woman’s breasts. True story.

No thanks. I would look terrible with breasts.

I was all over that hospital: like Kramer looking for the Pig Man. I opened every door I could find, doing my best Stanley Kowalski at every turn. And of course, it wasn’t long until I got everyone’s attention. Especially the way I looked: like I just got struck by lightning.

It wasn’t long before a doctor and a few nurses got a hold of me. From all the bruises on my head and the fact that my face was turning blue, they decided I needed immediate medical attention. Admittedly, I must have looked a fright.

I asked one the nurses if she knew Fanny.

“Who?”

Fanny. Nurse Fanny.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know any Nurse Fanny. Now please relax,” she said, and with just those two words, “Please Relax”, I knew there was a needle in the works.

Oh, no! Not the needle!

“It just a mild sedative,” said the nurse.

Oh, yeah? That’s what they told McMurphy in Cuckoo’s Nest. No thank you, Nurse Ratched.

Those doctors and nurses finally got me on a gurney. When I looked up, I could see the needle coming. Dripping. Just like in a horror film. What if it was Midazolam? Or Pentobarbital? Or Fentanyl? These quacks weren’t about to turn me into some kind of Fentanyl junkie. No, sir.

I screamed Fanny’s name again.

“What in the world is he talking about?” said the doctor.

“I don’t know,” answered the nurse. “Claims he’s looking for a Nurse Fanny.”

“Nurse, Fanny?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do we have anyone here by that name?”

“Not that I’m aware of, sir.”

“There is a Fanny who works in the Children’s Wing,” said the other nurse. “But she’s not a nurse. She’s an orderly; I believe.”

An orderly? This lady didn’t know what she was talking about. All I had to do was find Fanny and she’d clear the whole thing up.

They had other plans entirely; but before they could spike me with that sedative—while they were still busy jawing away—I slipped off that gurney and made my getaway, crashing and thrashing my way all the way down the hall, through a door and up some stairs. Where’s Pediatrics, I thought? Where’s the Children’s Wing? That’s where I’ll find Fanny. That’ll show ‘em. That’ll show ‘em who’s crazy. It sure would. The Children’s Wing was the last place a guy like me should be right now.

Fanny! Fanny, darling! I’m coming to join you, honey. I’m almost there. Wait for me, sweetheart. I’m almost there, my love.

I must have circled that whole hospital five times over. Or something like that. How I was not in a straitjacket already, I have no idea.

And then, as if to add a miracle to providence, there I was: standing right there under a sign that said: Pediatrics. Amazing.

But where was she? I looked all around but she was nowhere to be found. The whole place was empty. Come to think of it, I didn’t see anyone on the entire floor. Weird. Had I just entered the Twilight Zone? Not hardly.

Then, I heard tiny little footsteps and the growing sound of children’s laughter. Laughter is a good and rare thing in the Children’s Wing. Besides death, laughter really is all these kids have left to look forward to.

Perhaps Fanny was with them, leading the pack like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music. Why not? Only problem was, one look at me, the Grim Reaper, and the whole place was going to erupt like Mount Vesuvius. I better find somewhere to hide, and fast.

Unfortunately, there really isn’t anywhere to hide in the Children’s Wing. Safety precautions, I suppose. All the closets were locked and the bathroom was sealed shut. But what was I to do? Where was I to go? It was just then I came across and old friend, that big, purple, cretaceous, singing savior of mine: Barney. Sweet Jesus.

That’s right. There was a Barney costume hanging right there in the Children’s Wing and inside of it was the only place to hide. So I slipped inside Barney, as much as I hated the way that sounded. When the kids came around the corner and saw me, they came running and screaming and jumping all around me.

“Barney, Barney, Barney,” they all started shouting. And then that song came on. You know the one; that same one that brought me out of my coma.

“I Love You, You Love Me…” I won’t torture you with the rest. Wish I had been so lucky.

That song bounced around in my head like a Chinese throwing star. Oh, and there was no Fanny; just some old broad with big tits that looked like Nurse Diesel.

I went running for my life, forgetting to even slip out of that Barney costume. Now, besides some bloodthirsty nurse chasing me around with a sedative-laced needle, I had a whole crew of kids on my trail. I had to get out this place, if it was the last thing I ever do.

If I thought I was in trouble before; they were really after me now. I could hear them talking on the PA system and I knew that unless I found somewhere to hide—AND FAST—I was going right into a padded cell. I don’t look good in pads.

Somehow I made it downstairs and into the Trauma Center. With all the crazies in the Emergency Room, I knew even in my Barney outfit I wouldn’t stick out. But when I made it outside, I saw a cop on his radio. Luckily he didn’t see me, and I slipped into the back of an empty ambulance. Who would ever think I would find solace in the back of a hospital wagon? It would be short-lived.

Next thing I know, two EMTs get in the front seat and I think: this is it. These guys are about to drive me to freedom, wherever that may be. Instead, they just sit there, jawing like a couple of hospital rats.

“So,” says one of them, “we get this call last night about this old lady complaining of extreme abdominal pains. First thing I do is push my fingers up inside her vagina to see what’s what. Only thing is, I’m only like two centimeters in. Something’s blocking her vaginal canal, and that’s what’s causing the pain.

“So I’m fishing around inside there when all of a sudden I feel like this explosion. Something has broken, and it ain’t her water.

“Next thing I know, there’s blood everywhere. But this ain’t no regular blood. This blood is old and stale and the smell is more like diarrhea. I just about lost my lunch.

“After we get her to the ER, nurse tells me the blood is from seventy years of menstrual periods backed up in the old bag. Can you imagine?”

I just about lost my lunch, too. Even worse, the EMT was munching on a bag of chips the whole time. It reminded me: I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

Then the other guys goes off.

“Oh, yeah?” says the other EMT. “Check this out:

“I get this call the other night up in the Palisades. When I get to the house, there’s this dad and his young daughter in her cheerleading uniform up on the kitchen table, lying on her back with her legs up like she’s gone into labor. Only thing is, this kid doesn’t have a baby up in there. Instead, she’s got a coke bottle shoved up her vagina.

“So just pull it out,” I tell the dad.

“’That’s the problem,’” he says. “’It’s stuck in there really good.’”

“So I go in, and damned if he isn’t right. It’s not that the coke bottle is so far up there, or that her snatch is really huge; the trouble seems to be that this girl’s got some serious suction going on. I mean: Octopus-like. That coke bottle’s in there but good, and it ain’t coming out.

“So I tell him we gotta get her to the hospital. That’s when he tells me, ‘No hospital.’ Huh?

“Turns out the guy’s a doctor. Says word of this can’t get out. We’re gonna have to take care of this here.

“I think about it for a sec’, then I get an idea. ‘You got a drill?’ I ask him. He’s back in a minute with his Black & Decker.

“I tell him my plan is to drill holes in the bottle. Tiny little holes, very carefully, as to relieve the suction.

“The daughter doesn’t seem too hip to the idea, but the dad says without hesitation, ‘Do it.’ I grab hold of that drill and get to work.

“I start drilling and by now the mom’s there too. There’s only one problem: the vibration from the drill starts working on the girl like a Steely Dan. What I mean is, the combination of that drill and the coke bottle acts as a vibrator. Next thing I know, I’m bring her to orgasm. I stop drilling.

“’Don’t stop now,’ says the dad.

“But?” I say.

“’But, nothing,’ says the dad. ‘Finish the job.’”

“So I start the drill again. That girl must have had half a dozen orgasms, lying there on the kitchen table with both her parents watching. Go Mariners.”

That was all I could take. I sat up, at the same time telling them what a couple of degenerates they were.

They didn’t say a word. I guess they were in shock at being lectured by Barney. I got out of there before they could even say boo. All they must have been thinking, I imagined, was WTF?

The first thing I did when I got out of that ambulance was slip out of that Barney costume. I didn’t see any cops, nor needle-wielding nurses or Village of the Damned chasing after me, so I got the hell out of there.