We're in a weird motel...the indie version

During the late Jurassic age, I taught elementary art to get my teacher's certificate. Humping more supplies than a hundred dollar mule, I schlepped from school to school and met the wee ones. No mistake, these were tough rooms, so as an opener I'd asked the same question. How old are you inside? The six year olds were a bust, since that's a surreal age anyway. "I'm a bone," I remember one of them saying. "Just a big ol' bone."

It's a good question though. I happen to be 26 inside. How about you? And here's another. Where do you live? If, by temperament, circumstance, or a really bad smack habit, you live outside this culture, then you are, in effect, a Navajo. Being a blanket-wearing Navajo isn't too bad because you can see that everyone around you is bleeding from the ears over a construct that has no reality: arsisiety, I call it. Arsisiety is made up of newspaper snippets, chunks of blogging, staticky radio noise, talking heads on TV, and lots and lots and lots of colored pictures. And that's all.

But arsiety has a lot to say about airline tragedies, small children, Internet porn, and the durable horror of a dire medical prognosis.

So far only a few friends have ventured over to see me in my omnipresent Chucks, latex gloves, a sexy dab of Clorox behind each ear. As to the folks on the phone, their heads are totally full of arsiety doomsday ghastlyhood. Still, they seem to know all they need to. Oh, my God. How are you going to do this? There's no way you can take care of him. It's impossible. You've got that artificial hip. And at your age.

(Go screw yourself. I'm 26 inside.)

So, a girl walks into a room and Mistah Stroke opens his eyes and says, I got my keys and my tackle,and he holds out his hand to show me a nasal spray, his Primatene, and a plastic ruler from our auto insurence. S'all I need, he says. And the girl says, "Groovy. Time to change your catheter." And Mistah Stroke moans, But there's no one left. Where is everyone? Ohdear, Ohdear, Ohdear, Ohdear, Ohdear. And the girl says, "They're all making Halloween costumes. Lift up your butt." And she whips off his XL Depends. And Mistah Stroke says, Oh no, oh no, oh no. They're all gone. Everyone's gone. They'll get us too. And the girl says, "Bullshit. Roll this way." The girl says bullshit a lot.

So she puts down the waterproof pad, trades out his suave leg catheter for the giant flabby nightime catheter, gaffer-tapes it to the bed, puts anti-fungal ointment on his butt, powders him with lemony Mexican talc and whips on a new pair of Depends and yanks down his tshirt. Then she takes his blood pressure and his blood sugar. Mistah Stroke pronounces both excellent. "Bullshit," says the girl, scribbling down numbers. "Blood sugar is way high, blood pressure isn't great either."

You got a pen? asks Mistah Stroke asks her. "Yeah, why?" says the girl, holding hers up. For when they sign everything over to you. After I'm gone. "Nobody's signing dookie," says the girl, "we got shit to do." What? What? What can we do? There's no time. No time, Mistah Stroke wails a thin high wail. They've got us. We're so little. We're just so little. "You gotta get ready for Neuro-Rehab," says the girl. "That's like the rehab Olympics." Mistah Stroke brightens up considerably. The Olympics? he asks, looking pleased. I had no idea."That's you, bub," says the girl, giving him a peck. "Olympics all the way."

And that's one night down.