Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  Knobby nodded. “It’s set up in Minnesota this year. There’s supposed to be some big announcement from Banana Harris at the Mayo Clinic. They’ve been promoting it all week.”

  Banana Harris is a young scientist working in the field of Uber research. In fact, she’s the one who, at the ripe young age of fourteen, first identified and isolated Uber. She was probably approaching the quarter century mark by now, which I remember only fondly. I couldn’t imagine what her announcement might be. “That does sound exciting,” I said. My pain meds were wearing off and every breath felt like something was nibbling at my chest wall from the inside. “I’m sorry, Mom. I really need a few hours. Will you be all right?”

  “Of course, dear!” Mom replied. I could hear real concern in her voice and I felt a little guilty. I love my mother, but she takes a lot of energy that I didn’t have just then. “I’ll visit with your friends and I’ll see you when you wake up. Have a nice rest, sweetie.” She gave me a peck on the cheek and rubbed my back. I think she may have been looking for scar tissue.

  I pushed myself to my feet hoping the movement looked natural enough. “Nitro, can I talk to you about something first? Come upstairs with me. It won’t take long.”

  “Sure, Helena.” He waited for me at the bottom of the stairs, understanding that my request was really for assistance getting to my room. But if he had come to my side at the table it would be like broadcasting to my mother that I was seriously hurt. “Take good care of my mother, guys,” I said, moving slowly toward the stairs.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” said Billings. There was concern on his face, too. He came toward me to give me a gentle hug and kiss, and a brief moment of support in his arms so I could take a breath. He lowered his voice and whispered into my ear, “You want me to record everything on my phone?”

  “That would violate her Fourth Amendment rights, Billings. You know that,” I whispered. Louder, for everyone to hear, I added, “I love you, too, Billings.” He let go and I went to the bottom of the steps where Nitro was waiting, and where I would finally be out of my mother’s line of sight. He let me go in front of him, then kept a supporting arm across my back all the way up. He helped me into my bed and tucked me in as if he were my father. My own father, unfortunately, had died of obstruction in the early days of the OOPS. It’s a nasty little condition. Eating Uber cheese, over the course of mere weeks, shuts down the peristalsis that keeps the alimentary canal cleaned out. Waste builds up and eventually leaks into the abdominal cavity, causing peritonitis. Dad died happy, though. A narcotic aftereffect of the Uber because he was actually allowed to keep eating it. At the time, the connection between obstruction and Uber cheese hadn’t been determined. Once it was, patients were denied cheese and millions more, worldwide, died in agony, of peritonitis and simultaneous withdrawal symptoms. When you think about it, Dad was one of the lucky ones.

  I settled under the covers and put my head on the pillow, and I was out. Extreme comfort will do that. I’d spent a couple of nights in a hospital bed and we all know the kind of comfort that involves, and before that it was sleeping or dozing on the plane, so getting into a real bed, with a fresh, fluffy pillow under my head and a bedspread that my mother had crocheted for me several years ago, in my own home, with no worries. Who could blame me?

  Unfortunately, Nitro had been planning to give me more pain medication, but I passed out before he could even suggest it. And I slept like the proverbial dead. I must have, because when I woke up Nitro had my wrist in his hand and he was taking my pulse. I jerked awake, trying to sit up, but stopped when I realized who it was. Another thing that stopped me was a wave of pain that traveled across my entire body. My mouth opened in shock, but I managed to avoid screaming. “Hold on there, Helena. Slowly.” I sank back into the bed. Nitro released my wrist and put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to be sore for a while. You didn’t get your meds before you crashed.”

  With Nitro’s help, I was able to get into a sitting position, with my legs hanging off the edge of the bed. “Oh my God, Nitro. I feel like I’ve been hit by a train. It didn’t feel like this yesterday.”

  “You were on Morphine yesterday.” He got me to my feet. “Here. Take these.” He produced two small oval white pills. “Besides, you pretty much did that to yourself. If you’d hung there quietly instead of thrashing around—“

  “There was a spider crawling on me!” I interrupted him. “Probably more than one. Tell me you wouldn’t thrash.”

  He shrugged. “I had a pet tarantula when I was twelve.”

  “Of course you did,” I said in defeat. “How long was I sleeping?” I would have taken the pills from his hand, but I didn’t want to let go of his arm. I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me up.

  “About eight hours. It’s after 6.”

  “Christ. I only meant to do two or three. You should have woke me. You guys shouldn’t have to entertain my mother all day. Oh, God. Mom. How am I going to keep hiding this from her?” I remembered an old episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show in which he, as Rob Petrie, basically sprained his whole body while skiing and tried to hide it from his wife. My life was now a sitcom. And I was beginning to realize that if I didn’t get to the bathroom very soon I was going to wet myself. I started inching my way toward the bathroom door. Nitro inched ahead of me, leading me with one arm like a farmer leads a donkey with a carrot. He got me through the door and let go reluctantly. I left the door ajar, confident that Nitro would give me privacy, just in case I needed to call him.

  As I did my morning business just after 6 P.M., Nitro said through the partially open door, “Don’t worry, Helena. She’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, ‘she’s gone?’”

  “She got a phone call from Shirley and had to leave. Knobby took her to the airport about an hour ago. He should be back soon. The telethon starts at 8 and he didn’t want to miss the beginning.”

  “Shirley?” I asked. “What now? Narcolepsy? Bunions? Leprosy?” Mom’s friend Shirley, whose life ambition was to become a dowager despite the fact that she never married, was, for the most part, a hypochondriac. She has had some real physical ailments from time to time, but seemed to adopt any illness she heard about on TV or in the news. She checked herself into isolation once thinking that she’d been exposed to Ebola. The nurses eliminated any chance of it with the simple verbal history, but she insisted and wouldn’t leave for four days. For their records, they kept her for observation in these situations. The nurses would have her call my mother, who could more often than not convince her to go home. I had no doubt this is exactly what had happened as I slept.

  “Sarcoidosis,” said Nitro.

  I flushed the toilet. “Ah, that means she’s watching House reruns again. Mom can handle that. It’s a shame she couldn’t stay, though.” I came out, leaning heavily on the doorknob and then on the dresser.

  “You don’t have to pretend, Helena.”

  “Come on,” I told Nitro. “It’s not like I don’t love her. She’s my mother.”

  “I know,” he admitted.

  “What about the rest of the team? Did they just sit around all day while I’ve been sleeping?”

  Nitro shook his head. “They did about three and a half hours in the yard,” he replied. Behind the house, there is a well-equipped exercise yard in which all of us can hone and maintain our physical skills. I wouldn’t be allowed to do anything for several days most likely and I worried about falling behind. I thought maybe I could sneak in some light activity after Nitro had gone to bed. I discussed this with my body, which had several objections just then. We’ll see, I thought to myself. We’ll see. “That was before your Mom left. She really got a kick out of watching them, especially the twins.” Watching conjoined twins go through the paces was rather addictive. It was a little like synchronized swimming without the water or the background music.

  He handed me the pills and this time I was able to take them. He had a glass of water ready as well. “Morphine?” I asked, afte
r I’d swallowed them. Fine time to ask what they are, huh?

  “Tramadol. Less addictive.”

  I nodded. “I’d like to shower before I go downstairs. Can you come back in about fifteen to change my bandages?”

  “I’ll give you twenty,” he said. “And I’ll be listening for a thunk.”

  “The pipes make that sound sometimes,” I told him. He gave me a look that said he knew that was a lie and left the room, closing the door behind him. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to shower in the allotted time period and Nitro was ready when I emerged from the steamy bathroom with a large white towel wrapped around my torso. By that time, the Tramadol had kicked in and I was able to move more like a normal human being rather than a rusty robot. Nitro rebound my ribcage and I picked out a slightly oversized navy blue cotton lounge outfit. Since I was just getting up, I certainly wasn’t going to be going to bed at a normal time, so this outfit would serve for the evening no matter what I ended up doing. I brushed my wet hair and stared into the mirror with dissatisfaction. I looked pale, but I didn’t even own any makeup. I looked up at Nitro questioningly.

  “You look fine, Helena,” he said.

  “I just don’t want anyone treating me like a china doll down there. I may be broken, but that doesn’t mean I’m breakable.” I stood and headed for the door. “I suppose you want to hurry down ahead of me and warn everyone to put away the kid gloves?”

  He waved the comment away. “No, not at all,” he said, edging his way in front of me. “In fact, I won’t even help you down the stairs.” He moved swiftly down the stairs, whispering “call if you need help” into my ear as he passed, and disappeared, leaving me standing alone at the top of Mount Everest.

  I looked down from the imposing height, remembering the laborious climb up, and pumped my knees. The muscles that had protested before were now cooperating. I still descended slowly, ever vigilant for a sudden change. The painkiller Nitro had given me proved to be quite effective and I’m pretty sure I was able to join the group without any appearance of disability. I took a vacant seat on one of the three long couches grouped in a U in front of our huge 75-inch TV, next to Avis Nicely who patted the seat to the right of her in invitation. “Sit by me, future mother-in-law,” she said, her engagement to my son Billings only days old. Agnes, her conjoined sister sat, as always, to Avis’ left. The TV was already on, and commercials were running, promoting the upcoming telethon.

  “Wouldn’t you rather have Billings sitting there?” I asked.

  From across the coffee table, Billings replied, “I decided to sit over here. If you can’t figure out why, I’ll explain it to you later, in private.” He was blushing like mad, and there was a general round of quiet smirks.

  I wasn’t sitting long before my Internal People Counter went off. “Where’s Sir Haughty? He’ll miss the announcement.”

  “No, I shan’t,” said Sir Francis Maxwell Haughty IV, coming up behind me. I slowly turned my neck to look over my shoulder and saw Sir Haughty coming from the kitchen with two large bowls of fresh, fluffy popcorn, dusted with genuine artificial butter substitute. He put one on Avis’ lap and gave the other to Roxy, who sat in the middle between Sylvia Pendragon and Billings, then returned to the kitchen for a third bowl for his own couch with Nitro and Badger. Badger, whose real name was Gerrold Collins, was giving his eyes a rest from the contacts by wearing eyeglasses today. It kind of made him look like John Denver with a tan, which isn’t a bad thing. The centrally located coffee table was already populated with glasses of ice, cans of soda, and a few bottles of Evian.

  Except for the spot in front of me, of course. That spot had a tall glass of milk. I glanced at Nitro. “Milk with popcorn? That’s against the law of nature, isn’t it?”

  “Drink it anyway,” he said sternly. “You can’t grow bone with flavored syrup and carbon dioxide bubbles.”

  I took a large handful of popcorn from the bowl, cradled it in my left hand next to my belly, and took a few kernels with my right. “Aye, Aye, Mon Capitaine.”

  There was a drumroll as the introduction to the telethon began. An announcer said, “Welcome to the 5th Annual Alley Oops Telethon, coming to you from the Slippery Shoes Bowling Alley in Rochester, Minnesota.” I knew the Slippery franchise. There’d been some in Illinois as well. It isn’t just bowling alleys but all kinds of family athletic entertainment. You can find Slippery Gears bicycle trails and Slippery Slopes ski resorts and Slippery Greens golf courses (both miniature and full-size), and for the less active there is Slippery Screens movie theaters. My favorite is Slippery Slides, a huge playground with tunnels, slides, the whole works, and all large enough for the average, active adult. And because I’m considerably smaller than average, I even have elbow room. They are all, of course, exceedingly expensive and snagging the telethon will probably have them increasing their rates at the beginning of the year. It’s been a few years since I was able to get there, since Billings outgrew them several inches ago. The franchise is owned by a very wealthy progressive activist, so I’m not surprised they vied to be the venue for the telethon. The camera panned the exterior of the bowling alley, which had oscillating searchlights set up in the parking lot and a canopied entrance festooned with colorful blinking lights.

  The telethon is designed to last 32 hours, but is hosted by a rotation of several celebrities. It was generally accepted that there is no thrill in watching one host drive himself or herself to exhaustion. The 32 hours comes from Banana Harris’ original experiment which alerted her to a toxic substance in cheese. During that experiment, 16 mice perished, and because 16 hours is a pretty pathetic telethon, they decided to do 2 hours to honor each mouse. That experiment also led Ms. Harris to redefine animal research. I’m not sure exactly what she did, but she eventually earned an A+ rating from PETA. Not many animal researchers can say that. I admire Ms. Harris quite a bit. Most of us in CURDS do, actually.

  Badger had the remote and upped the volume a couple of notches. “You know, we should have DVR’d this thing, then we could fast forward through all this introductory stuff,” he said.

  “And not watch it live?” Roxy objected. “Perish the thought, heathen.” Roxy, who dressed for occasions even when there wasn’t one, was wearing a lavender chiffon gown with four inch boxy heels, which was practically flats for her.

  None of us would be watching it in its entirety, of course, not even with the utter freedom to do so. Having a member on the DL has its rewards, but there is no such thing as a 32 hour TV show worth watching. They were bound to put the announcement on early, though not right away. Anticipation works with a lot of things, not just ketchup. There were several minutes of introductory coverage, introducing the first host of the evening, a B actor named Charles Von Creightonville who was the latest macho superhero the Titanium Titan. Charles introduced the national phone bank’s first panel, twelve local Minnesota “celebrities” and politicians. Each one sat behind white library carrels wearing a wireless headset. They each had a pad of paper forms and a pencil cup of various donated writing instruments and they smiled and waved at the camera as it went by. Charles pronounced the phone bank open for business. A toll-free number appeared on the bottom of the screen. It would stay there whenever the national feed was broadcasting. Pleasantly, a few phones rang immediately and the volunteers went to work. “Also,” Charles said, “you can pledge online at the email address on your screen, or by texting ‘OOPS’ to 07734.” With that done, Charles then told us that there would be a short break while local affiliates introduced themselves to the viewing public, but added that we should stay tuned for an important announcement from Banana Harris.

  Our local Washington D.C. affiliate came on the air, hosted by Doug Calhoun, a popular weatherman, who promised not to talk weather at all this evening, but just had to mention that an unseasonable warm front was coming. There was also a local phone bank, where you had a much better chance of getting through. Another toll-free number appeared on the bottom of the screen labeled
“Washinton D.C.” The web address and text number were the same. There were a few high profile Senators and Representatives on the panel here, but for the most part it was ordinary volunteers. Calhoun then showed us the toteboard, currently showing zero dollars collected, and introduced a local pastor who led us in a prayer to ensure a successful telethon. He also promised that the President would have a response to Banana Harris’ announcement via satellite from her current location in Somalia where she and her Secretary of State were helping its provisional government institute weapons control legislation. A few hundred troops were accompanying them to assist Somalian police forces in confiscating currently circulating assault weapons. A very dangerous prospect to be sure. It was easy to forget that we at CURDS weren’t the only ones risking our lives.

  Finally, the D.C. affiliate tossed it back to Minnesota. Charles Von Creightonville welcomed us back with a rendition of the Proposed Global Anthem which was done with great fanfare by Yvonne Schmitthusen, an opera singer. And he told us yet again to stay tuned for an important announcement from Dr. Banana Harris.

  “Didn’t he already say that?” asked Nitro.

  “Twice,” responded Sir Haughty, who was excellent at keeping track of things.

  Creightonville showed us the national toteboard with a drumroll and the first total of $3417 appeared. Everyone applauded. He suddenly touched his earpiece, listening intently. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve just been told that Dr. Harris is in the building. We’ll give her a chance to get ready. In the meantime, please enjoy this performance from Let’s Face It!” A local rock band took the stage and began screaming unintelligibly.

  Our popcorn was about half gone. I was getting pretty thirsty, but I wasn’t thirsty enough to drink milk and then eat more popcorn. I decided I would chug the milk when I was finished, when I would be good and thirsty. I noticed that Nitro kept looking at my glass and was noting that it hadn’t been touched. He pointed to it with his eyes, and I responded by taking another handful of popcorn. If he really thought I’d defy his orders and common sense, let him sweat for a while, I thought. The song was predictably horrible. The good acts would come later in the telethon when viewers were tired and needed motivation to keep watching. Just as it finally ended, I bit down on an unpopped kernel and winced. “Popcorn is dry, isn’t it, Helena?” prodded Nitro.