by Larry Doyle
So if I were you, I’d sit up straight.
Anyway, your husband has what we call a “medical condition.” Without getting too technical, I should warn you this next part is going to make me look smart and you feel stupid, and it’s also pretty gory.
Your husband was admitted with extreme pain in the abdomen, which is obviously not our fault. Now, pain in the abdomen can be caused by any number of things, from comical food poisoning, which strikes in the middle of a fancy dinner party, to fatal—or noncomical—food poisoning, to a three-hundred-pound tumor composed of hair and teeth, possibly the overgrown unborn twin his mother mourned instead of ever loving him.
We didn’t want to rule anything out, so we opened him up.
There were no multi-hundred-pound tumors; that’s the good news.
However, it’s a real mess in there. There’s a lot of intestinal tubing squishing around—what you call “guts”—as well as an assortment of small, esoteric organs they don’t spend a lot of time on in medical school. And bear in mind that everything’s pretty much the same color, not like in the textbooks.
After securing the kidneys as a precaution, I took a step back and opened the floor to suggestions. This is a teaching hospital, so there’s always a bunch of smartass interns wandering around thinking they know everything. The “diagnoses” put forth—crazy, scary stuff—were summarily dismissed, because God forbid one of these snot-nosed wanna-docs is right.
I did a little preliminary exploratory surgery, employing what is known as the “scream test,” which involves poking various organs and seeing if the patient screams. That usually indicates a problem. The procedure is trickier when the patient is sedated, of course, but I’ve been known to get a decent scream out of patients who were technically dead. So I did some poking and prodding, but then I remembered I had an eye appointment, so I decided to close him up. And that’s when … well, you might want to stand up and sit back down again. I don’t know why; I find it helps, and I’m the doctor.
First, the good news. Your husband’s portfolio looks great; I can’t believe he got into Apple at twelve—pre-split twelve. I’d say the prognosis for your long-term financial health is excellent. However, last month your husband dumped seventy-eight thousand dollars worth of Clo-Pet, the pet-cloning outfit, two days before it was revealed that Dr. Kalabi was not in fact cloning clients’ beloved companions but instead creating look-alikes, using plastic surgery and transplanting pieces from other pets. Yesterday, the SEC and IRS swooped in and froze all your husband’s accounts—which may explain his abdominal pain—and then, talk about bad luck, this morning the CEO of your health-insurance carrier fled to Argentina with a transgendered dominatrix, owing me literally millions of dollars.
So, unless you’ve got fourteen thousand dollars in cash or a certified check, I’m going to have to leave Douglas wide open on the table. And it’s very cold in there.
Excuse me? He’s not your husband? Then whose—
Goddamn it. I’m going to have to go through that whole thing again. Great. Okay, well, then, who is your husband?
Oh.
I’m afraid I have some very bad news.
Breakfast Updates
Eating breakfast now. Yum!
(thelarrydoyle via Tweetdeck)
Man, bacon is delicious!
(thelarrydoyle via Tweetdeck)
I could eat bacon all d
(thelarrydoyle via Tweetdeck)
Eulogy for Bob
Life is an improvisation.
—Annoying saying
A Wake. Musical director ROZ plays somber organ music offstage right. FATHER O’DOULE stands at a podium located center stage, directly in front of the tabernacle. Stage left is an open casket, bearing BOB HARTWICK. He is deceased.
FATHER O’DOULE: Bob Hartwick was a gentle man. He was a kind man. He was a funny, funny man. But above all, he was a courageous man. At the age of forty-four, when most men would have accepted their lot in life, Bob Hartwick quit his job as creative director at Leo Burnett Worldwide, liquidated his assets, and divorced his wife in order to pursue his lifelong dream: to start his own improvisational comedy troupe. And while the Giggle Gas Factory never hit it big, exactly, they were getting more and more out-of-town bookings, and their most recent revue, I Hate This Damn Job, But I Can’t Seem to Stop Laughing, had gotten some very encouraging reviews. In fact, it is a testament to Bob Hartwick’s improvisational ability that last Thursday night, when he suffered a massive heart attack during the “Larry King and I” sketch, the audience laughed for a full six minutes before realizing it was not a put-on. It is perhaps sadly ironic that, had Bob received appropriate medical attention more quickly, he might still be with us today. But those who knew Bob Hartwick know he would have wanted to go out on a laugh. As you can probably guess, the Giggle Gas Factory was everything to Bob Hartwick. Consequently, I have asked a few people who knew Bob best, his fellow Giggle Gas Factory workers, to say a few words.
O’DOULE exits to vestibule upstage left and the surviving GIGGLE GASSERS—DESMOND, HELEN, CATE, and JEFF—trot up to the altar. They are in mourning: black jeans and gym shoes; black T-shirts with a reversed-out Giggle Gas logo.
DESMOND (reflexively cheerful): Thank you, and good afternoon everybody! (Failing to get enthusiastic response, he suddenly realizes BOB HARTWICK is dead. He is crestfallen.) But seriously, let’s not kid ourselves: Bob Hartwick was the Giggle Gas Factory. He was our foreman, but also our coworker; he was the man who turned on the Giggle Gas. And now, with his passing, that gas has been reduced to a slow leak. Bob Hartwick, quite simply, was irreplaceable.
HELEN (cutting in perkily): But we are taking applications!
DESMOND (laughing good-naturedly): You know, we make jokes; but that’s what Bob Hartwick’s life was all about: making jokes, making you giggle. And in honor of that, we wanted to give Bob the sort of eulogy we’d like to think he would have liked to have given himself.
JEFF (to MOURNERS): But first, we need an occupation. A normal everyday occupation.
MOURNER ONE: Gynecologist!
MOURNER TWO (drunkenly): Proctologist!
HELEN and CATE put their hands on their hips in mock disapproval.
DESMOND (in his deep ANNOUNCER voice): Please. Remember, this is a funeral.
MOURNER THREE: Mortician!
JEFF: We already have one of those.
MOURNER FOUR: Television anchorman!
JEFF: All right, television anchorman.
CATE (as HARRIET LEGGS, her strident feminist character): Or anchorwoman.
DESMOND: Yes, of course. This is the new millennium. Now, what we need is a last line, or I suppose in this case (chuckling), we should say last words.
MOURNER ONE: Good-bye, cruel world!
DESMOND (in his deep GAME SHOW HOST voice): And remember, originality counts!
MOURNER THREE: AAAaargh!
HELEN (pointing to MOURNER THREE): I’m sorry, we don’t do double funerals!
ROZ provides rim shot.
DESMOND: All right, the occupation is television anchorman, or anchorwoman, and the last line is (in uncanny impression of MOURNER THREE) “AAAaargh!” (aside to MOURNER THREE) Is that with five A’s? (listens to nonexistent response) Aaaargh with four A’s. Well, then, without further ado (in his ED RALPHWARDS voice), Bob Hartwick, this is your eulogy!
CATE and JEFF position themselves in front of the open casket. CATE assumes persona of DEBORAH GUMBALL, WGAS-TV anchorwoman. She stops JEFF as he walks by. ROZ provides the “Acting News” theme.
CATE: Sir, sir, could you please tell us how you felt when you found out that Bob Hartwick had died?
JEFF (horrorstruck): What?! Bob Hartwick is dead?! (dropping to his knees) There wasn’t anything about this in Arts & Leisure?!
DESMOND: FREEZE!
DESMOND runs in and taps JEFF on the shoulder, drops to his knees, and quickly assumes JEFF’s position. DESMOND then goes into his memorable TATOOIE character from the “Beyond t
he Return to Giggle Gas Island” sketch.
DESMOND (pointing to casket): De corpse! De corpse! (pause for laughter) Boss, what is your Bob Hartwick fantasy?
CATE (in her RICARDA MOUNTEBANK character): Well, Tatooie—(A beat. DESMOND wipes an imaginary goober from his eye.). My fantasy is that Bob Hartwick could still be with us, bringing mirth and laughter to all of Giggle Gas Island. But failing that (She walks over to caress the casket lining.), my fantasy is to see Bob Hartwick laid out in reech Corinthian leather…
HELEN: FREEZE!
HELEN runs in and taps CATE on the shoulder. She continues CATE’s gesture, cradling BOB HARTWICK’s lifeless head in her palm.
HELEN (dramatically): Alas, poor Hartwick, I knew him, Tatooie. (She wipes imaginary goober from BOB HARTWICK’s eye.)
JEFF: FREEZE!
JEFF runs in and taps DESMOND on the shoulder. From the kneeling position, he stands and begins to lurch toward the coffin.
JEFF (as EEGORE, the delightful pastiche he created for the “Haunted House on Pooh Corner” sketch): Master, master. (shuffling, deadpan) I brought you that new brain you wanted. It’s from the Times theater critic. It’s never been used.
HELEN (as DR. POOH): Oh, bother, Eegore! (Turning BOB HARTWICK’s face toward MOURNERS) This was Mr. Bob Hartwick! He deserves better than that! Oh, bother!
CATE: FREEZE!
CATE runs in and, as a joke, taps BOB HARTWICK on the shoulder, cracking HELEN up. She then assumes HELEN’s position, as THE FRIGID MORTICIAN from the revue, “The Giggle Gas Chamber, or I Hereby Sentence You to Laugh Yourself to Death.”
CATE (scolding JEFF): How many times do I have to tell you? Face up! Face up! (She uses BOB HARTWICK to illustrate) Not to the right! Not to the left! Face up!
JEFF (in his SKEETER voice): Uhhhhhhhh, oh-kay.
DESMOND: FREEZE!
DESMOND assumes HELEN’s position, but in his own mortician character, MORTY, YOUR DISCOUNT SARGOPHAGUS SALESMAN.
DESMOND (with a stiff sweeping gesture): Now this one’s a very nice, very nice. Our Bob Hartwick model. A big seller.
JEFF (comically hesitant): But … uh … there’s already a … a person in there.
DESMOND: It’s a demo. I can knock fifteen percent off the list.
JEFF (resting his hand inconspicuously on the side of the casket): Well, I was thinking of something, uh, a little less, uh, occupied.
DESMOND (annoyed): The customer’s always right, right? Right.
Here, I’ve got a very nice fiberglass item, if you’ll walk this way…
Before JEFF can respond “If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t need the embalming fluid,” DESMOND flips the casket lid shut and it falls on JEFF’s hand.
JEFF: AAAARGH!
Recognition of these “last words” causes MOURNERS to break into spontaneous applause. Over the applause, JEFF, HELEN, DESMOND, and CATE stand in front of the casket, holding hands, and take a bow. As the applause continues, they stand back and gesture toward the coffin. JEFF opens the casket to once again reveal the body of BOB HARTWICK, prompting increased applause. The soul of BOB HARTWICK rises from his earthly remains and takes its place in line with the living GIGGLE GASSERS. Wild applause. The coffin lid drops on the spectral hand of BOB HARTWICK. The phantasm feigns great pain. Hysterical laughter.
Fade to eternal black.
Rapture
Then What?
Today fur.
Tomorrow leather.
Then wool.
Then meat…
—An important message from the Fur Information Council of America
Then
they came and told me I had to free my dog. I still remember what I said.
I said: What?
—It’s immoral for one animal to hold dominion over another animal, the taller one said.
—It’s a form of slavery, the shorter one added.
—I see, I said, and I thanked them for their input and closed the door.
Then
when I opened the door again several minutes later, the taller one said: I’m afraid we’re going to have to insist.
—Look, I said, I don’t have all day to talk to kooks.
But then,
as it turned out, they weren’t kooks.
As it turned out, they were the police. And, as it further turned out, there had been some elections a while back and a lot of those green people had been swept into office and had passed all sorts of legislation, the gist of which meant I had to free my dog.
—We don’t write the laws, the taller one said. I have a dog myself. Had. Now we’re just friends.
—But my dog likes it here, I said.
—Ahhhhhh, the shorter one said.
They had all the answers.
And, in any case, the Pet Emancipation Act (PEA) was fairly clear on the matter, particularly with regard to fines and minimum prison terms. And so I said good-bye to Charlie, my best beagle buddy of nearly ten years, and emancipated him.
Charlie spent his first hour of freedom visiting all the yards directly adjacent to ours, eating garbage and doing all his other favorite things to do outside, and then he came romping back home, scratching and whining at the door.
I let him back in, and some people jumped out of the bushes and
then
I was on my way downtown as part of a massive FBI sting operation. I ended up paying a $1,500 fine, and Charlie was given new tags and relocated to another state under the Federal Witness and Animal Protection Program (FWAPP).
I don’t know what I expected to happen, I guess I thought that maybe old Charlie, braving the brute elements and traffic, would somehow find his way the hundreds and hundreds of miles back home. But beagles don’t travel well. Charlie, or whatever it is he calls himself these days, was gone.
But then,
anyway, I had other things to worry about once I got home. The neighborhood was literally crawling with freshly freed pets: and not just dogs and cats and parakeets and tropical fish, but poisonous snakes and lizards and several varieties of rodents. And a lot of those little turtles they supposedly stopped importing years ago.
The tropical fish and birds and turtles didn’t fare too well on the outside, and it wasn’t pleasant to watch (more unpleasant, though, was the fact that no one was ever too sure what happened to the rodents and the rest of the reptiles). But the dogs seemed to adjust okay, quickly forming support groups of about eight to fifteen; and the cats managed to scrape by, if just barely. It appeared that everything was going to be just fine—that is, until the fish and birds and turtles ran out.
Then
the dogs went bad. Almost overnight, they succumbed to some kind of ugly mob mentality, and soon it was unsafe to leave the house without a twenty-five-pound bag of dog food;
and then,
not long after that, dog food was no longer good enough for them, and since there wasn’t any meat anymore, the dogs became very difficult to please. The cats, in turn, became quite unsociable and began spending all of their time up in the trees, a vantage point from which they frequently would come hissing and clawing down onto your head, without provocation.
The police refused to do anything about any of this, saying their hands were tied by the Free Animals Are Not Subject to Human Laws Act (FAANSHLA). So things were pretty wild around my neighborhood, at least until that first winter.
Then,
the following spring, they came for my clothes. Under the Non-Exploitative and Environmentally Sound Use of Fabrics for Fashion Act (NEESUFFA) it became illegal to wear, or own, or assist in wearing, or try on, any garment, or draping, or accessory made in whole or in part from animals or animal by-products, petroleum products, or cotton harvested with a threshing device. They left me with a two-week supply of recycled-paper gowns and a phone number I could call to become a regular subscriber.
But then
the American garment industry sprang into action. Having already successfully circumvented U.S. labor laws, it ha
d little trouble getting around this one. By June, the clothing stores were completely restocked with a wide selection of high-fashion outerwear made from technically nonexploitative and environmentally sound fabrics: corn-silk shirts, whole woven-wheat suits, rice pants, stoneground denims, and soy-T’s.
This, then,
led the courts to rule that threshed-grain fabrics violated the spirit if not the letter of NEESUFFA, and by August we were back to wearing recycled-paper products and earthen shoes. Retailers promised a full line of winter claywear by fall,
but then
it failed to pass constitutional muster.
Then
Congress passed the All Animals Are Equal in Educational and Employment Opportunities and Environmental Access Act (AAAEEEOEAA), which mandated, among other things, the teaching of nesting and male display in public schools,
which then
led to the formation of the Department of Animal Niche, Territory, Habitat, Roost, and Coop Services (ANTHRCS), which was responsible for finding safe and dignified housing for all animals, except for humans, who were already served by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and which further led to a landmark court case in which a pack of timber wolves used their rights of eminent domain to force the relocation of five families in northern Minnesota.
Now then,