The grocery store clerk was furious as he screamed this stuff at Pamela in front of the three nervous customers that were next on line.
" F you and relax Leroy", Pamela muttered.
"My name ain't Leroy, it's Merle! Get out of my store!”
"Relax Merle. I'm dying and I'm a woman and people will listen to what I have to say. Have some fu%^&in respect. All I asked you for was a discount on a box of “Airborne” that your cheap store doesn't even carry. Chill out, I didn’t steal anything. It’s not a crime to feel sick. I was told that “Airborne” stops urinary dripping. I cannot stop pissing all over my pants now that my prostate is growing outta control. I’m going to Walmart to buy pampers that are on sale this week and I’ll just get the “Airborne” there too."
"Get the hell out of my store you nutjob and don't even think about pissing on my waxed floor or walkin’ around here in pampers! Go to Walmart and get out!", screamed Merle (who Pamela still wanted to call Leroy).
"My God, you're gonna give me high blood pressure. And just so you know, the prostate is a walnut-sized gland located around the bladder area. Of men!" Merle started to compassionately calm himself down. "I recommend you find a vegetarian that sells nuts.
“It is the responsibility of a serious person not to be a fool”, someone on the grocery line said.
This prostate problem that Pamela was inventing became very real to her. It could have been a symptom of frustration, she wasn’t sure yet. Pamela lived alone in a boring flat at 55 years of age. She lived hidden (from people). She lived tormented (by others). She lived disgusted (with herself, she was sure about that one). Pamela was angry at all of the bad choices that she had made in her life. She was mad that she intentionally dated older emotionally unavailable divorced men. And she had become even angrier at the fact that she had spent an enormous amount of saved money on stupid internet dating sites. She seemed to have become fed up.
“I am not a cougar.”
“I am not a cougar.”
“I am not a cougar.”
Obviously you are not a cougar Pamela if you are not dating younger men, I thought. Could we actually be looking at a bonafide online spinster here? Is there really such a thing? Would Pamela continue to troll the World Wide Web looking for that “special one?” Not anymore. Pam (I will begin to call her Pam now, just for the hell of it) has invented a whole new problem for herself today. Pam has decided to have an enlarged prostate. Pam has decided that her condition has become terminal. Pam wants to be cremated and scattered on a high-class road that she has picked out in France . If she plays her cards right, and if she spends enough time on Expedia.com, she thought, she can do it.
Pam cried and washed a pile of shattered dishes as her puppy dog Ginger farted and wagged its tail. The dog was foolish and staring at the round-trip ticket to France that was lying on the floor. Ginger wanted to eat it. Ginger wanted to eat this ticket very badly.
"Ginger, you would look like a fool if you ate my ticket", Pam whispered. “They never saw my body in Europe after I died because I have already arranged to have my body cremated you little dummy.”
The whole urinary drip thing would eventually lead to a serious infection that would instigate a premature death that would make her dog look very stupid. Pam was right about that. Also, her death would operate as a means to make everyone at Merle’s store this morning feel really bad for her. Pam focused on this “suspension of disbelief” that she was living. This was part of the construction work that she was very good at doing (she was always interested in construction work as a child, she rarely mentions that she was a tomboy).
“She died broke, lonely and afraid”, Pam muttered.
That is how Pam wanted her epitaph to read. That is how Pam wanted her life to be described in the local newspaper (in English and in the French language then translated to various important newspapers around the world). Prior to booking her flight to Paris , Pam purchased an array of moo-moo gowns. Why? That sounds crazy right? I thought the same thing, that sounds crazy.
"Since I am dying relatively young, but old enough for hanging flab, I want everything to reflect how I have decided to live my life now. I want everything to hang loose", she said to the dog.
Pam had reached a turning point that she had been looking for for a very long time. Pam had been looking to be strengthened by an experience. But what would this experience be? She wanted to be able to verbally describe her turning point at its momentum.
"Pick up your panties high", she confided to herself. She refused to succumb to vulnerability despite her glossy toenails that glimmered false hope. “I am a tomboy.”
Pam remembered that crisis intervention must remain time-limited. Pam had to use the bathroom again. Pam would only use the toilet for a quick minute, she thought. She immediately became hungry after the flush.
"I must remain fed, vital and strong until my flight to France . Yes. Pick up my pampers high".
After all Pamela (I will begin to call her Pamela now rather than Pam out of respect for the dead) had been a crisis counselor prior to the disclosure and self-diagnosis of this enlarged prostate. The landscape of experience was vast, certain and unrewarding after it had become altered on September 11th, 2001. The prevalence of social and psychological stress had increased dramatically in recent years for Pamela.
“Could stress related to fear of a future terrorism attack have contributed to this hypochondria?”,I wondered. Pamela's prostate swelling may very well have been crisis-induced.
"You never kick a man when he's down," she projected to me (e.g. hostage situations, bio-terrorism, threats of drive-by shootings). Her career as a crisis-counselor was flat out trauma-provoking. This job had become her personal natural disaster (and this was the reason that she quit her last job and gave herself a hemorrhoid before diverting circumstances to a prostate).
Pamela’s door was being pounded on relentlessly. Her phone started ringing off the hook. She peeked through a window curtain and recognized the intruder. It was her parole officer.
"Open up Pam. I explained to you that I can, and will, come see you randomly, and at anytime, at any hour, sometimes even at 3am. You need to pay attention to the front door ringer. I have been here banging for a half an hour and I see you peeking at me now. I mean what I'm saying Pam, you hear", declared Leroy. Leroy was the name of Pamela's parole officer (I will keep calling her Pamela now, but her P.O. will be callin’ her Pam as you have noticed. It’s no big deal, just a legal thing).
“It is the responsibility of a serious person not to be a fool”, Leroy said furiously.
Leroy asked Pamela to listen carefully to her advice. "Pam, I got some serious phone calls about you yesterday. Pam, as you get older your body changes. You are not going to die in France with any prostate problem that you have invented because you are not allowed to travel outside of this house after 7pm. Pam, the bottom line here, and the reason that I came by today is to inform you that you are most likely going to die of a broken heart soon. Last year, after your were released from your sentence, you had a minor heart attack. Remember that? You got upset about the extension placed on your release hearing. The stint used to save your life during surgery will fail. The doctor called us yesterday. We need to talk about what is going to happen to you. Your body will feel inexplicable pain, and your heart is going to explode. I am sorry to break this news to you like this because it’s not my job. I don’t get paid to be honest with you. You are going to die soon from a matter of the heart".
There was immediate peace and silence.
“Sad”, Pamela thought to herself. “I have become what I was always told that I would be in life. I am a consequential spoiler”.
"Open up the door Pam. You're not going to be allowed to go to any damn airport. Open the door now."
This realization made her panicky. Pamela began throwing ceramic coffee mugs at her dog. It farted and wagged its tail at her. Another dog started barking, and that dog bark was not one that she recognized. Sirens sounded from the back area of her home. Pamela then stopped reacting to everything. She allowed her dog to eat the flight ticket that was lying on the floor. Her dog farted. Pamela stood in a daze. Thinking (it was not a one-way ticket folks). Muttering (that she was not a subversive informant). Grumbling (I don't fit the profile for this kind of bi-weekly aggravated harassment). Crying privately (Pamela and Pam was forced to learn how to let go).
And her prostate problem simply just went away.
The End
© 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS).
Written by Jane Public, inspired by scrap notes and newspaper images.
Copyright © 2012, Jane Public.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2012, Jane Public.
All rights reserved.
