New teeth, p.9
New Teeth, page 9
“Oh, hey, Clobbo!” she said, waving awkwardly. “Happy Monday.”
“What is this meeting?” Clobbo said. “Nobody told Clobbo there was meeting.”
“Huh,” said the mayor. “Well, that’s probably just because it’s not for your department.”
“It seems like it is Clobbo’s department,” he said. He pointed over her shoulder. Behind her, projected onto a large screen, was a PowerPoint slide, reading, “Office of Community Affairs.”
“Clobbo is Community Affairs,” he reminded her. “And this is Community Affairs.”
“Huh,” the mayor said, nervously drumming the table with her fingers. “That’s so odd. It must have been an oversight by…Kevin.”
She smiled apologetically at Kevin, but he refused to make eye contact with her.
“I put it on his iCalendar last month,” he said, staring straight ahead. “It’s not my fault if he didn’t check it.”
Clobbo wasn’t sure what an iCalendar was, but he could feel everyone’s eyes on him.
“It was not on Clobbo’s iCalendar!” he said defensively. “Kevin did not tell me, because he is bad assistant!”
“Okay,” said the mayor. “We can sidebar this—”
“No!” Clobbo said, doubling down. “It cannot wait, because it is important! Kevin, you are always making mistake! You never give Clobbo numbers!”
Kevin folded his arms and cocked his head.
“What numbers would you like, Clobbo? Tell me, and I’ll happily provide them.”
“I want numbers for Community Affairs!” he shouted.
“Literally every piece of data is available on the server,” Kevin said. “If you bothered to read the daily briefings—”
“Clobbo reads daily briefings!” Clobbo shouted. “Clobbo reads it more than you, Kevin, because you are bad at job!”
“Okay,” Kevin said. “If you read the daily briefings, then what did you think of this morning’s Banana Report?”
“Clobbo hate Banana Report!” he said.
“Yeah, well, there was no Banana Report,” Kevin said.
Clobbo’s stomach lurched as a ripple of involuntary giggling spread across the room. Most people managed to stifle their chuckles, or modulate them into coughs. But the initial burst of laughter continued to echo in Clobbo’s head. He could feel sweat pouring down his back and pooling in his giant khaki diaper.
His fists instinctively began to flash and pulse, and for a moment he considered smashing everyone to death. But his anger quickly passed, replaced by a dull and throbbing nausea. He blinked his big red eyes, trying to hold back his tears.
“I’m sorry, Clobbo,” said the mayor. “It’s my fault. I should have made sure you knew about this meeting.”
“It is fine,” Clobbo said. “Clobbo is the one who should be sorry.” His voice began to crack. “Clobbo should have read daily briefings. Clobbo should have read Kevin’s Banana Report.”
Kevin hung his head, his anger toward Clobbo finally giving way to full-on pity.
“Clobbo resign,” Clobbo said.
“You don’t have to do that!” the mayor said. “You’re still a big part of the team!”
“Please,” Clobbo begged. “Stop lying to Clobbo. Stop torturing Clobbo. Let Clobbo go while he still has some dignity.”
Clobbo headed for the door, but his angle of entry was off, and he got stuck. The mayor watched with guilt as he struggled to force his body through the doorway, clumps of plaster falling all around him. Eventually he let out a sigh.
“Clobbo need five people to push on his butt,” he said quietly. “Two on left side, two on right side, and whoever strongest go in middle.”
The mayor and Kevin stood up, along with some other aides, and worked to shove Clobbo through the door. It took several minutes and the application of a tube of hand lotion, but eventually Clobbo was dislodged. There was a cartoonish popping noise as he fell forward, landing on his hands and knees. As he crawled away, his khaki diaper caught on the edge of a desk, leaving him completely naked. He didn’t have the space to turn around, so all he could do was keep on trudging down the path, whichever way it led.
Clobbo spent the next two months in bed.
Whenever Mimi asked him about his decision to “retire,” he gave her cryptic answers.
“Clobbo decide he need new challenge,” he would say. Or, “Clobbo need space to start new chapter.”
Mimi tried to feign enthusiasm, but she knew that he had failed. And worse, on some level Clobbo knew she knew.
One day, a package arrived from City Hall. Mayor Chung had sent Clobbo a “Farewell Key to the City.” Mimi tried to get Clobbo excited about it, but he saw the gift for the pitying gesture that it was. He shoved the box in the corner of their bedroom and left it there, unopened.
He hadn’t felt so low since he was a kid and being subjected to torture experiments by the evil scientist who made him. It had not been a happy childhood. It wasn’t anything specific Dr. Skull had done, but on some level, he’d just never felt completely valued. It wasn’t until he started fighting aliens that he developed anything resembling self-esteem.
He remembered how proud he’d been the first time he saw his face on the cover of the Empire Enquirer. They were the ones who’d dubbed him Clobbo. He’d never had a nickname before. When he was growing up, everyone had always just addressed him by his birth name, Monkey Torture Test Subject 12X. At first, he wasn’t sure he liked being called Clobbo. But the more he saw it printed in the headlines, the more he fell in love with it. He even began to speak in the third person, saying “Clobbo” at the beginning of basically every single sentence. It was a way of reminding himself that he had an identity. That in spite of where he’d come from, he’d somehow found a purpose in this world.
It wasn’t lost on him that the box from City Hall had been addressed to “Klobo.” The intern who’d mailed him the key was probably too young to have ever seen his name in print. The next generation would most likely never hear it uttered. The Clobbo name was gradually being erased, like a Space Slug being pummeled into goo.
It was while these grim thoughts were swirling through his brain that his wife’s phone rang abrasively. Clobbo forced a smile as his son and granddaughter popped onto the screen.
“Thanks for the birthday present,” Eli said.
“What birthday present?” Clobbo said. “Clobbo did not send present.”
Mimi sighed. “I sent Olivia a doll from both of us.”
“Oh,” Clobbo said. “Clobbo sorry.”
“Anyway,” Eli said. “I can’t talk for long. Olivia is having a T-A-N-T-R-U-M.”
Clobbo watched as the toddler screamed, her nostrils flared, her small fists clenched. He felt a similar way.
Mimi smiled into the camera. “Maybe I can cheer her up?” she said. “‘Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-i-ee-i-o…’”
Clobbo wandered away from the couch, his wife’s strained singing fading in the background. He couldn’t handle talking to his family right now. What was the point? He had nothing to offer to them or to anybody else. He was climbing into bed when he tripped over his package from the city. He idly tore it open and turned the key over in his paw. It was the cheapest model he had ever seen; aluminum, probably, or maybe even plastic.
“Thanks for the memories!” read a note from Mayor Chung, typed on generic Empire City letterhead. She hadn’t even bothered to sign it with a pen. He crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. He was about to crawl under the covers when he caught sight of something else inside the box. He stared at it, the wheels slowly turning in his mind. Tentatively, his palms began to pulse.
“‘And on that farm he had some chicks…’”
He could hear Mimi losing steam in the living room, her singing drowned out by the toddler’s swelling cries.
“Oh, well,” she was saying. “We can try again some other time…”
“Do not hang up!” Clobbo shouted.
He hurried back out into the living room, clutching the cardboard package in his hands.
“What’s going on?” Eli asked.
“Oh, your father got a new Key to the City,” Mimi said. “Guess he wants to show it to you.”
“No, that is not it,” Clobbo said. “Look, little girl. Clobbo have something for you.”
He reached into the box and took out a large plastic sheet. The girl’s sniffling started to subside. “Baboo has Bubble Wrap!” she said.
“Who is Baboo?” Clobbo asked, craning his giant neck around.
“That’s what she’s been calling you,” Eli explained. “I don’t know why.”
The toddler pointed her finger at the screen.
“Can Baboo do Bubble Wrap?” she asked.
Mimi nudged her husband indulgently. “That shouldn’t be a problem!” she said. “You might not know this, but your grandfather used to pop squishy things for a living—”
Baboo raised a paw, gently waving off the praise. He looked into the phone and nodded at his granddaughter.
“Baboo can do Bubble Wrap,” he said. “And Baboo will do it now.”
The toddler watched as her grandfather laid the sheet over his knee and rolled his fist over the plastic, setting off a long cascade of pops. His granddaughter sighed contentedly, and he smiled at her with pride.
“More?” she asked.
His smile faded.
“Baboo is not sure if there is more,” he said. “That might be all there is.”
The girl’s lower lip began to quiver.
“Baboo will see if there is more!” he said frantically.
Eli and Mimi watched as he rummaged through the box, tossing aside the flimsy key and digging through the Styrofoam peanuts. When he got to the bottom, he was so relieved that tears came to his eyes.
“There is more,” he said, roughly wiping a paw across his face. “Baboo has more. Baboo can do more.”
Mimi rubbed her husband’s furry back as he took out the Bubble Wrap and carefully set it on his knee.
“Baboo will do more,” he vowed to his granddaughter. “You watch Baboo.”
He took a deep breath and held up a fist for the camera.
“Baboo do more now,” he said. “Now it Baboo time.”
Case Study
London, 1886
It is rare for a physician to encounter a specimen whose condition reduces him to tears. But some cases are so horrific that even a hardened Man of Science cannot help but feel his emotions stirred. What follows is a true account of the most appalling case ever observed by this physician, a case so rare and tragic that it haunts him to this day.
The subject was first observed at a common Soho sideshow. He had spent his youth under the control of a cruel mustachioed showman, who had forced him to live inside a cage and display himself for profit. It was as if nature had conspired to riddle the poor creature with as many abnormalities as possible. His cranium was swollen to twice its natural size, and the features of his face were contorted into a grotesque grimace. His forehead was bulbous, his jawline crude and jagged. The subject’s given name was Joseph Merrick, but society had cursed him with a different appellation: the Elephant Man.
It was determined by this physician that the subject deserved a better life. And so the poor creature was rescued from the showman and transported to the Royal London Hospital so that he might find a new beginning.
The subject confessed to this physician that his greatest pain was, in fact, not physical but emotional. A lifetime of solitude had robbed him of the social kinship most men take for granted. And so it was determined by this physician that a visitor should be brought to see the subject, and thus bring improvement to his state of mind. This visitor would have to be someone of high noble character, gifted with patience, grace, and tact. To that end, it was determined by this physician that his own wife, Anne, ought to be enlisted.
After being warned of the subject’s vile condition, Anne was led into his hospital room. It is a testament to her poise and charm that she did not scream or recoil. Instead, she engaged the subject in happy pleasantries and even consented to shake his hand, ungloved. It was observed that her presence seemed to elevate the subject’s mood. Within moments of her arrival, the subject even managed a small smile, an expression this physician previously thought him to be physically incapable of forming.
It was observed by this physician that the subject’s hand gestures grew increasingly animated as he interacted with his wife. It was further observed that he made prolonged eye contact with her. It was generally observed by this physician that the subject seemed confident talking to his wife.
As the minutes passed, it was observed by this physician that some of the subject’s questions to his wife were pretty personal. For example, at one point, the subject asked her about her sister and then spoke about his own sister in a manner that implied that they were going through similar situations with their sisters. It was observed by this physician that his wife seemed impressed by the subject’s opinions about her sister. It was additionally observed that she laughed at all his jokes about her sister, even though she did not like it when this physician made jokes about her sister. It was noted that she seemed to find the subject’s jokes hilarious.
After observing much laughter by his wife, this physician ventured a joke of his own, to the effect that maybe his wife should get going, given that it was “visiting hour, not visiting day.” It was observed by this physician that his wife did not laugh at this joke, although it was objectively superior to the jokes that had been made by the subject, and that, evidently, his wife’s bar for comedy was lower for the subject than it was for this physician.
As the physician’s wife exited the hospital room, she noticed a crude model of St. Philip’s Church that the subject had built out of coarse strips of paper. The physician’s wife praised the model, and the subject described it as an example of how “sometimes, that which is ugly can grow to appear beautiful.” It was observed by this physician that his wife seemed impressed by the subject’s comment, even though it was obviously a line. It was further observed that the subject’s model of the church was not particularly good and was basically like something a child would do for school, and it wasn’t like the subject was some great artist, he had just glued together a few strips of paper, and he had probably only done it so he could say his line about how ugly things were beautiful, and it was observed by this physician that in general the subject kind of sucked.
That night at home, it was observed by this physician that his wife brought up the subject all the time and seemed to be obsessed with him. When this fact was noted by this physician, his wife confirmed she thought the subject was “impressive.” When pressed for evidence of this notion, the physician’s wife pointed to the “adversity” he had overcome. It was noted by this physician that many people overcome adversity. For example, some people work hard to become physicians, which requires one to go to medical school, a task considerably more challenging than sitting around in a sideshow all day, getting free food just to hang out. It was suggested by the physician’s wife that she return to the hospital tomorrow, to visit the subject again. It was stated by this physician that he was too busy to arrange said visit. At this point, the physician’s wife announced she intended to visit the subject anyway, alone. It was observed by this physician that she seemed more excited for this visit than she had been for anything in years, and that he hadn’t seen her smile so brightly since the very first moments of their courtship, when they’d met at a garden party and he’d asked her to go promenading.
It was observed by this physician that his wife seemed distracted all night. It was observed that she drank more than her usual one glass of wine. It was observed that she retired from the table early. It was observed that she went to bed without saying good night.
The next morning, it was observed by this physician that his wife came to visiting hours wearing a new dress. It was observed that the subject had left his door open and was conspicuously reading a thick book of poetry. It was observed that, when she greeted him, he pretended at first not to notice her, as if he were so engrossed in his cool poetry book that he could not even hear words. It was observed by this physician that his wife seemed impressed by this ruse and totally bought it.
It was observed by this physician that his wife presented the subject with expensive art supplies, and that he in turn presented her with a drawing he had made of Lord Byron, a poet she had mentioned during her previous visit. When she professed amazement at his “great memory,” the subject made a joke to the effect that “an elephant never forgets.” It was observed that she laughed so hard at this joke that everyone in the whole hospital could hear her, including the physician’s colleagues, who avoided eye contact with the physician, probably because they were embarrassed on his behalf because his wife was laughing so hard at another man’s joke that it was basically like she was having sex with him in front of everybody.
It was observed by this physician that visiting hours were over, and so he gave an order to the nurses to go from room to room, enforcing protocol. Shortly thereafter, the physician’s wife walked up to him and expressed disappointment that she had to stop talking to the subject in the middle of “a great conversation.” It was noted by this physician that it was weird that she wanted to keep hanging out with the subject. At this point, she laughed and said, “Oh, my God. Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
Her statement was refuted by this physician, but at the same time he did note that it was odd how much time she was spending with this guy she had just met.
“This is crazy,” she said. “You really think I’m attracted to him?”
It was noted by this physician that it certainly appeared that way, given her actions and behavior.
“He’s the most deformed person in history,” she said. “Besides, he’s clearly gay.”
It was noted by this physician that his wife had no hard evidence that the subject was gay.
“He wears a cape,” she said.
“What is this meeting?” Clobbo said. “Nobody told Clobbo there was meeting.”
“Huh,” said the mayor. “Well, that’s probably just because it’s not for your department.”
“It seems like it is Clobbo’s department,” he said. He pointed over her shoulder. Behind her, projected onto a large screen, was a PowerPoint slide, reading, “Office of Community Affairs.”
“Clobbo is Community Affairs,” he reminded her. “And this is Community Affairs.”
“Huh,” the mayor said, nervously drumming the table with her fingers. “That’s so odd. It must have been an oversight by…Kevin.”
She smiled apologetically at Kevin, but he refused to make eye contact with her.
“I put it on his iCalendar last month,” he said, staring straight ahead. “It’s not my fault if he didn’t check it.”
Clobbo wasn’t sure what an iCalendar was, but he could feel everyone’s eyes on him.
“It was not on Clobbo’s iCalendar!” he said defensively. “Kevin did not tell me, because he is bad assistant!”
“Okay,” said the mayor. “We can sidebar this—”
“No!” Clobbo said, doubling down. “It cannot wait, because it is important! Kevin, you are always making mistake! You never give Clobbo numbers!”
Kevin folded his arms and cocked his head.
“What numbers would you like, Clobbo? Tell me, and I’ll happily provide them.”
“I want numbers for Community Affairs!” he shouted.
“Literally every piece of data is available on the server,” Kevin said. “If you bothered to read the daily briefings—”
“Clobbo reads daily briefings!” Clobbo shouted. “Clobbo reads it more than you, Kevin, because you are bad at job!”
“Okay,” Kevin said. “If you read the daily briefings, then what did you think of this morning’s Banana Report?”
“Clobbo hate Banana Report!” he said.
“Yeah, well, there was no Banana Report,” Kevin said.
Clobbo’s stomach lurched as a ripple of involuntary giggling spread across the room. Most people managed to stifle their chuckles, or modulate them into coughs. But the initial burst of laughter continued to echo in Clobbo’s head. He could feel sweat pouring down his back and pooling in his giant khaki diaper.
His fists instinctively began to flash and pulse, and for a moment he considered smashing everyone to death. But his anger quickly passed, replaced by a dull and throbbing nausea. He blinked his big red eyes, trying to hold back his tears.
“I’m sorry, Clobbo,” said the mayor. “It’s my fault. I should have made sure you knew about this meeting.”
“It is fine,” Clobbo said. “Clobbo is the one who should be sorry.” His voice began to crack. “Clobbo should have read daily briefings. Clobbo should have read Kevin’s Banana Report.”
Kevin hung his head, his anger toward Clobbo finally giving way to full-on pity.
“Clobbo resign,” Clobbo said.
“You don’t have to do that!” the mayor said. “You’re still a big part of the team!”
“Please,” Clobbo begged. “Stop lying to Clobbo. Stop torturing Clobbo. Let Clobbo go while he still has some dignity.”
Clobbo headed for the door, but his angle of entry was off, and he got stuck. The mayor watched with guilt as he struggled to force his body through the doorway, clumps of plaster falling all around him. Eventually he let out a sigh.
“Clobbo need five people to push on his butt,” he said quietly. “Two on left side, two on right side, and whoever strongest go in middle.”
The mayor and Kevin stood up, along with some other aides, and worked to shove Clobbo through the door. It took several minutes and the application of a tube of hand lotion, but eventually Clobbo was dislodged. There was a cartoonish popping noise as he fell forward, landing on his hands and knees. As he crawled away, his khaki diaper caught on the edge of a desk, leaving him completely naked. He didn’t have the space to turn around, so all he could do was keep on trudging down the path, whichever way it led.
Clobbo spent the next two months in bed.
Whenever Mimi asked him about his decision to “retire,” he gave her cryptic answers.
“Clobbo decide he need new challenge,” he would say. Or, “Clobbo need space to start new chapter.”
Mimi tried to feign enthusiasm, but she knew that he had failed. And worse, on some level Clobbo knew she knew.
One day, a package arrived from City Hall. Mayor Chung had sent Clobbo a “Farewell Key to the City.” Mimi tried to get Clobbo excited about it, but he saw the gift for the pitying gesture that it was. He shoved the box in the corner of their bedroom and left it there, unopened.
He hadn’t felt so low since he was a kid and being subjected to torture experiments by the evil scientist who made him. It had not been a happy childhood. It wasn’t anything specific Dr. Skull had done, but on some level, he’d just never felt completely valued. It wasn’t until he started fighting aliens that he developed anything resembling self-esteem.
He remembered how proud he’d been the first time he saw his face on the cover of the Empire Enquirer. They were the ones who’d dubbed him Clobbo. He’d never had a nickname before. When he was growing up, everyone had always just addressed him by his birth name, Monkey Torture Test Subject 12X. At first, he wasn’t sure he liked being called Clobbo. But the more he saw it printed in the headlines, the more he fell in love with it. He even began to speak in the third person, saying “Clobbo” at the beginning of basically every single sentence. It was a way of reminding himself that he had an identity. That in spite of where he’d come from, he’d somehow found a purpose in this world.
It wasn’t lost on him that the box from City Hall had been addressed to “Klobo.” The intern who’d mailed him the key was probably too young to have ever seen his name in print. The next generation would most likely never hear it uttered. The Clobbo name was gradually being erased, like a Space Slug being pummeled into goo.
It was while these grim thoughts were swirling through his brain that his wife’s phone rang abrasively. Clobbo forced a smile as his son and granddaughter popped onto the screen.
“Thanks for the birthday present,” Eli said.
“What birthday present?” Clobbo said. “Clobbo did not send present.”
Mimi sighed. “I sent Olivia a doll from both of us.”
“Oh,” Clobbo said. “Clobbo sorry.”
“Anyway,” Eli said. “I can’t talk for long. Olivia is having a T-A-N-T-R-U-M.”
Clobbo watched as the toddler screamed, her nostrils flared, her small fists clenched. He felt a similar way.
Mimi smiled into the camera. “Maybe I can cheer her up?” she said. “‘Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-i-ee-i-o…’”
Clobbo wandered away from the couch, his wife’s strained singing fading in the background. He couldn’t handle talking to his family right now. What was the point? He had nothing to offer to them or to anybody else. He was climbing into bed when he tripped over his package from the city. He idly tore it open and turned the key over in his paw. It was the cheapest model he had ever seen; aluminum, probably, or maybe even plastic.
“Thanks for the memories!” read a note from Mayor Chung, typed on generic Empire City letterhead. She hadn’t even bothered to sign it with a pen. He crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. He was about to crawl under the covers when he caught sight of something else inside the box. He stared at it, the wheels slowly turning in his mind. Tentatively, his palms began to pulse.
“‘And on that farm he had some chicks…’”
He could hear Mimi losing steam in the living room, her singing drowned out by the toddler’s swelling cries.
“Oh, well,” she was saying. “We can try again some other time…”
“Do not hang up!” Clobbo shouted.
He hurried back out into the living room, clutching the cardboard package in his hands.
“What’s going on?” Eli asked.
“Oh, your father got a new Key to the City,” Mimi said. “Guess he wants to show it to you.”
“No, that is not it,” Clobbo said. “Look, little girl. Clobbo have something for you.”
He reached into the box and took out a large plastic sheet. The girl’s sniffling started to subside. “Baboo has Bubble Wrap!” she said.
“Who is Baboo?” Clobbo asked, craning his giant neck around.
“That’s what she’s been calling you,” Eli explained. “I don’t know why.”
The toddler pointed her finger at the screen.
“Can Baboo do Bubble Wrap?” she asked.
Mimi nudged her husband indulgently. “That shouldn’t be a problem!” she said. “You might not know this, but your grandfather used to pop squishy things for a living—”
Baboo raised a paw, gently waving off the praise. He looked into the phone and nodded at his granddaughter.
“Baboo can do Bubble Wrap,” he said. “And Baboo will do it now.”
The toddler watched as her grandfather laid the sheet over his knee and rolled his fist over the plastic, setting off a long cascade of pops. His granddaughter sighed contentedly, and he smiled at her with pride.
“More?” she asked.
His smile faded.
“Baboo is not sure if there is more,” he said. “That might be all there is.”
The girl’s lower lip began to quiver.
“Baboo will see if there is more!” he said frantically.
Eli and Mimi watched as he rummaged through the box, tossing aside the flimsy key and digging through the Styrofoam peanuts. When he got to the bottom, he was so relieved that tears came to his eyes.
“There is more,” he said, roughly wiping a paw across his face. “Baboo has more. Baboo can do more.”
Mimi rubbed her husband’s furry back as he took out the Bubble Wrap and carefully set it on his knee.
“Baboo will do more,” he vowed to his granddaughter. “You watch Baboo.”
He took a deep breath and held up a fist for the camera.
“Baboo do more now,” he said. “Now it Baboo time.”
Case Study
London, 1886
It is rare for a physician to encounter a specimen whose condition reduces him to tears. But some cases are so horrific that even a hardened Man of Science cannot help but feel his emotions stirred. What follows is a true account of the most appalling case ever observed by this physician, a case so rare and tragic that it haunts him to this day.
The subject was first observed at a common Soho sideshow. He had spent his youth under the control of a cruel mustachioed showman, who had forced him to live inside a cage and display himself for profit. It was as if nature had conspired to riddle the poor creature with as many abnormalities as possible. His cranium was swollen to twice its natural size, and the features of his face were contorted into a grotesque grimace. His forehead was bulbous, his jawline crude and jagged. The subject’s given name was Joseph Merrick, but society had cursed him with a different appellation: the Elephant Man.
It was determined by this physician that the subject deserved a better life. And so the poor creature was rescued from the showman and transported to the Royal London Hospital so that he might find a new beginning.
The subject confessed to this physician that his greatest pain was, in fact, not physical but emotional. A lifetime of solitude had robbed him of the social kinship most men take for granted. And so it was determined by this physician that a visitor should be brought to see the subject, and thus bring improvement to his state of mind. This visitor would have to be someone of high noble character, gifted with patience, grace, and tact. To that end, it was determined by this physician that his own wife, Anne, ought to be enlisted.
After being warned of the subject’s vile condition, Anne was led into his hospital room. It is a testament to her poise and charm that she did not scream or recoil. Instead, she engaged the subject in happy pleasantries and even consented to shake his hand, ungloved. It was observed that her presence seemed to elevate the subject’s mood. Within moments of her arrival, the subject even managed a small smile, an expression this physician previously thought him to be physically incapable of forming.
It was observed by this physician that the subject’s hand gestures grew increasingly animated as he interacted with his wife. It was further observed that he made prolonged eye contact with her. It was generally observed by this physician that the subject seemed confident talking to his wife.
As the minutes passed, it was observed by this physician that some of the subject’s questions to his wife were pretty personal. For example, at one point, the subject asked her about her sister and then spoke about his own sister in a manner that implied that they were going through similar situations with their sisters. It was observed by this physician that his wife seemed impressed by the subject’s opinions about her sister. It was additionally observed that she laughed at all his jokes about her sister, even though she did not like it when this physician made jokes about her sister. It was noted that she seemed to find the subject’s jokes hilarious.
After observing much laughter by his wife, this physician ventured a joke of his own, to the effect that maybe his wife should get going, given that it was “visiting hour, not visiting day.” It was observed by this physician that his wife did not laugh at this joke, although it was objectively superior to the jokes that had been made by the subject, and that, evidently, his wife’s bar for comedy was lower for the subject than it was for this physician.
As the physician’s wife exited the hospital room, she noticed a crude model of St. Philip’s Church that the subject had built out of coarse strips of paper. The physician’s wife praised the model, and the subject described it as an example of how “sometimes, that which is ugly can grow to appear beautiful.” It was observed by this physician that his wife seemed impressed by the subject’s comment, even though it was obviously a line. It was further observed that the subject’s model of the church was not particularly good and was basically like something a child would do for school, and it wasn’t like the subject was some great artist, he had just glued together a few strips of paper, and he had probably only done it so he could say his line about how ugly things were beautiful, and it was observed by this physician that in general the subject kind of sucked.
That night at home, it was observed by this physician that his wife brought up the subject all the time and seemed to be obsessed with him. When this fact was noted by this physician, his wife confirmed she thought the subject was “impressive.” When pressed for evidence of this notion, the physician’s wife pointed to the “adversity” he had overcome. It was noted by this physician that many people overcome adversity. For example, some people work hard to become physicians, which requires one to go to medical school, a task considerably more challenging than sitting around in a sideshow all day, getting free food just to hang out. It was suggested by the physician’s wife that she return to the hospital tomorrow, to visit the subject again. It was stated by this physician that he was too busy to arrange said visit. At this point, the physician’s wife announced she intended to visit the subject anyway, alone. It was observed by this physician that she seemed more excited for this visit than she had been for anything in years, and that he hadn’t seen her smile so brightly since the very first moments of their courtship, when they’d met at a garden party and he’d asked her to go promenading.
It was observed by this physician that his wife seemed distracted all night. It was observed that she drank more than her usual one glass of wine. It was observed that she retired from the table early. It was observed that she went to bed without saying good night.
The next morning, it was observed by this physician that his wife came to visiting hours wearing a new dress. It was observed that the subject had left his door open and was conspicuously reading a thick book of poetry. It was observed that, when she greeted him, he pretended at first not to notice her, as if he were so engrossed in his cool poetry book that he could not even hear words. It was observed by this physician that his wife seemed impressed by this ruse and totally bought it.
It was observed by this physician that his wife presented the subject with expensive art supplies, and that he in turn presented her with a drawing he had made of Lord Byron, a poet she had mentioned during her previous visit. When she professed amazement at his “great memory,” the subject made a joke to the effect that “an elephant never forgets.” It was observed that she laughed so hard at this joke that everyone in the whole hospital could hear her, including the physician’s colleagues, who avoided eye contact with the physician, probably because they were embarrassed on his behalf because his wife was laughing so hard at another man’s joke that it was basically like she was having sex with him in front of everybody.
It was observed by this physician that visiting hours were over, and so he gave an order to the nurses to go from room to room, enforcing protocol. Shortly thereafter, the physician’s wife walked up to him and expressed disappointment that she had to stop talking to the subject in the middle of “a great conversation.” It was noted by this physician that it was weird that she wanted to keep hanging out with the subject. At this point, she laughed and said, “Oh, my God. Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
Her statement was refuted by this physician, but at the same time he did note that it was odd how much time she was spending with this guy she had just met.
“This is crazy,” she said. “You really think I’m attracted to him?”
It was noted by this physician that it certainly appeared that way, given her actions and behavior.
“He’s the most deformed person in history,” she said. “Besides, he’s clearly gay.”
It was noted by this physician that his wife had no hard evidence that the subject was gay.
“He wears a cape,” she said.
