Yeah, I figured, I tell him. But, you got a choice between puncturing your lethal ass cyst or dying from it, you know… you gotta play the hand you’re dealt. He laughs and the cute nurses do too. I want to seem cool to him. I can tell he gets laid.
The second doctor stuck her hand in my ass and her finger got right on top of it and I screamed and screamed. You could hear the whole floor go quiet. Even the cholicky babies, the death moans of the elderly. Well I don’t see any signs of infection, she said. You’re doing a great job keeping it clean.
Thanks.
It feels like an internal hemorrhoid. Are you sure? Well no, she says. Someone needs to look at it. I can’t really get in there. Go to your primary care, get a referral to a surgeon. They’ll tell you if you need to get it cut out.
Lancing provides instant relief. What a fucking tease. I should have known, I should have known– a doctor tells you to go to a different doctor who can refer you to a real doctor. I went to my new Primary Care. Named Cesar just like the last one. Ten nurses there but only the hot one gets to follow him around. Yeah, they should have just done a colonoscopy at the ER, he said. But now you gotta see a specialist. I’ll put in the paperwork.
Meanwhile I looked at my ass again. The cyst is unmistakable now. Small grape erupting through the hot flesh of my ass ring. The whole pulpy pulsating organ is turning itself inside out. Pain like flames. There are also hemorrhoids. She was not wrong. Hideously coiled blue worms just on the verge of prolapsing. You induce a narrative. Spinach diarrhea caused a tear which caused a fistula which caused a cyst which blocked my anus which caused the hemorrhoids. If I had known this one day ago I could have told them. Instant relief.
Understanding only comes when it’s useless. Now I wait for the insurance letter. Dear sir: we regret to inform you that your request is not authorized. Get a lighter and a needle.
But Enough about My Ass
No! Never enough about my ass. Typing this standing up. The pain spread to my balls. They’re a pair of brass doorknobs clattering on each other. I can stand so my balls don’t touch my thighs. I can avoid sitting. But I cannot prevent my balls from having contact with each other. Pissing is OK, until I get to the last “drain it all the way” squirt. You want to flex your taint, muscle out the last few drops. This requires your asshole. Everything requires your asshole. And now every nerve command stops on its way there. A bite of pain flares up. My body says are you sure. I learned how to cough without clenching my ass. How to clear my throat. Do you know if your toothbrush hits your gums too far back, you clench your ass? No? Shatter a beer bottle and stick in in your ass and then brush your teeth if you don’t believe me.
A fart is like a knife. A shit is not so bad, interestingly. Except my ass– it’s like an old movie where a cop is trying to talk to a hysterical woman and has to smack her. It’s so traumatized it just shuts down. And I can’t push. That will make the hemorrhoid pop out. You have to be patient. Just let it drop. The prescription strength stool softener does nothing. My stools were already pillow soft.
I can either sit in the bath or lay face first on the couch. Fine. What would I have done anyway. I have no job. But it hurts, it hurts. I should have taken the Vicodin script. Trying to be Dudley fucking Do-right over here with my sobriety. Nobody’s giving me a prize for this shit. I have a couple jobs lined up. I’m not following up on them, because of my ass. I will lose this woman over my ass. My life maybe.
Oh well. They made more.
Ass Part 4
I called 911 because I was in the bath and my legs started spasming. You could see muscle pulsing like a snake moving under the skin. First calves. Then thighs. Then my legs locked up and my belly started to go. My foot stuck twisted like the end of a chicken wing. It hurt. What if it went all the way up. Would my face just go in the water. Would I die naked with my hot bath ball sac spread over my thighs like a steamed tortilla.
While my arms still worked I hoisted myself up by the soap holder. My fucking thumb was twitching and the phone was wet. Many tries to get the passcode. When there’s an emergency, you forget you can just hit “emergency.” Then– no, you dumb fucker, I am not calling 921. Jesus Christ. That voice never goes away. The one that tells you of course it would be like this. Your ass goes out and it spreads and you die naked because your retarded thumb can’t work the phone. You went to the doctor and everything. They told you it was hemorrhoids. You knew it was an anorectal abscess. Septic cyst that infects and kills you. That other voice doesn’t go away either: ha! I was right!
The girl left work to take me back to the ER. Of course it would be like this. You meet a nice girl and then die from your asshole.
Then a lot of pain and screaming broken up by long waits. I needed an operation, I was told. The staff were all funny. The guy who checked my heart said they had me figured for anal trauma. The nurse used to be an EMT, talked about dead bodies on the toilet. I told the anesthesiologist I was nervous and he said haha, me too. Then he told me he was giving me Michael Jackson medicine. So it’ll make me rape little boys to forget the savage beatings my dad gave me, I should have said. L’esprit d’escalier.
The only stick in the mud was the surgeon. We drain it and then we wait, he said. See if a fistula develops. 30-50% chance. The cyst cavity forms a tunnel connecting your rectum to the outside. So like a second butthole? No, no, it’s a tiny… it’s a pinprick. It just causes leakage. That sounds like a second butthole to me, I said. A third nipple is still a nipple even if it looks like a mole. Look, I have other patients, he said.
I had to stay overnight. They had TV. Discovery Channel was running a show called Naked and Afraid. Two nude people are dropped into a jungle. It’s a stupid show but there’s a woman’s ass. Meanwhile people come change your IV bag and make you sign papers and pray over you. A man in a hair net brings fajitas.
The procedure was a success. I feel better already. Now we wait. Stay vigilant about changing the ass maxi pad as it soaks up blood and weeping pus. Color of the juice on the cutting board when you carve a rare London Broil. The incision in its raised red crater like the second asshole I’ll soon grow. Twin suns of Tatooine. They blasted me with antibiotics and now my eyes are blurry and the light hurts. They gave me an estimated bill. Twenty eight thousand and twelve dollars. I do have insurance. This is just the opening highball in a long haggle between bloodthirsty corporations. There will be a bill for my first visit too. When they misdiagnosed my agonizing lethal condition as a minor nuisance. Insurance will say no and the hospital will stick me with it. I’ll get robocalls from whoever they sell the debt to deep into middle age. What are you gonna do.
Look at it this way: a hundred years ago this shit would have killed me. Now it’s just a bad week. That and a 50/50 shot at a permanent second shitpipe. Maybe I can fit a cigarette in it.
The Wolf Witch
They were laying in bed. He had her ipad on his lap to watch Conan the Barbarian. Golden Age Schwarzenegger had fled across frozen wastes. He came upon a hut. A woman with 1982 plastic surgery stood in the door. Do you not wish to warm yourself by my fire?
I’ve been unfair to you, she said. He paused the movie.
What?
I shouldn’t even tell you this but I forgot my texts come to that fucking thing.