There's a brand new talk,
but it's not very clear
That people from good homes
are talking this year
It's loud and tasteless
and I've heard it before
You shout it while you're dancing
on the whole dance floor
Oh bop, fashion
- David Bowie, "Fashion"
I don't keep my collar or my sleeves buttoned at work. No self-respecting man does. A tie is a noose, and as soon as I get to the office, it comes loose and stays that way until I leave.1 If I'm dressed casually, the cuffs on my shirt are rolled up before I leave the house. Shit, most of them hang in the closet that way, since I only clean them when I spill food. Why? Unless you're Amish, wearing your shirt cuffed and buttoned to the wrist is a creepy look. It's not short-sleeve-shirt-and-tie-child-molester chic, but it's up there.
But then, there are those emergencies where it's necessary...
"The nurse is here," my girlfriend, Lisa, barked from the kitchen.
"Shit, that's today?" I muttered to myself, recalling I was having blood drawn that morning. My parents forced me into a life insurance policy, and to get a life insurance policy, the insurer wanted a vial of blood.
I had good reason not to comply - a whole decade's worth of unhealthy behaviors. Most people want to know if they have AIDS, hepatitis, leukemia, scurvy, Mad Cow, rickets, gonorrhea, cirrhosis, Bird Flu or what the fat women on the subway call 'the die-yah-beet-is.'
I am not one of them.
None of the Big Diseases you see on a blood test are curable, and taking steps to remedy any of them would require me to stop drinking. That's not going to happen, so what's the point in knowing I've got something? I made a deal with myself long ago that my drinking would never end. It may end me, but not vice versa. The notion of dealing with this life in permanent sobriety is a nearly unfathomable horror. Giving up the simple, perfect ecstasy of that first glass of vodka on Friday at 5:00, or that third Manhattan at a Wednesday night dinner, or those four Anchor Steams on a Tuesday night for no reason at all, just isn't in the cards. Do I need that slug of frozen Belvedere before bed? No. Am I giving it up? No. You can't eat salt, sit in the sun, screw strange women bareback, smoke cigarettes or drive drunk. You need to have your colon filmed to make sure it's not full of cancer, your cholesterol checked to make sure you're not filling your arteries with sap and, if you're a woman, your tits squeezed under a giant microscope to make sure they're not ripe with tumors. They tell me I should juggle my balls in the shower looking for lumps, see a doc for mickeys if I can't sleep and take the pills that give housewives on my block vacant smiles and 1000 yard stares if I find myself hating the people around me. These things purport to make me live longer.
Make it a triple, put extra mayo on that burger and point me to the closest shooting gallery.
"Used needle, please..."
I'd rather die of drink like an honest man. The Golden Years of blood thinners, bladder control underwear and hard-on pills aren't the ones I need or want. When the man in the lab coat tells you the days of scotch are over, or you or the women you can lay are too damned saggy and creaky to screw, it's time to sail dead East, alone, with vodka, quality dope and a handgun. Go out, as Willard said, "standing."
"You're still smoking the marijuana and that's why you won't get that test." I held the phone away from my face as my mother yammered away.
"You done?"
"No. When are you going to grow up?"
"Jesus Fuhhh... Look, I don't like needles." What a shitty excuse. But you can't say to your mother, "I fear I may have damaged my liver quite severely, or have some sex disease I never had diagnosed. I used to bang this chick in law school and... let's just say it gives me piss shivers when I consider what might have been in her pussy. And in either case, I don't want to know." Neeew, you can't say that to Mom.
I was pretty sure I didn't have HIV. I figured that would've blossomed into the AIDS years before. But why take a chance on learning you got hepatitis from that hairy granola chick you did on Spring break in Junior year? What would I do with my social life? I'd have to become a tweaker or a junkie, and that's too much work. I know people in those gigs; it's a second job.
My mother was pissed because I'd been avoiding the blood test for the policy for three weeks, offering one absurd excuse after another. I knew I couldn't hold out forever, but at a minimum, I figured I'd need three weeks to get any marijuana residue out of my blood. The last thing I needed was a heart to heart with the parents about flunking a dope test. That's a top ten Bad Conversation, just a shade below the "I need to see other people" and "you can keep it, but we're not getting married" discussions.
I'd forgotten the nurse was even coming that day. I remember standing in the bedroom, stuffing my foot into a shoe when the doorbell rang. I remembered the appointment instantly, before Lisa opened her mouth. Who else would be knocking on the door at 7:30 am?
She was a nice woman, pleasant, smiling, maybe 45. "Can you roll up your sleeve?"
"Sure," I laid my arm on the table and turned my head.
"Don't like needles?"
"No. I don't mind having stuff shot into me. I just can't watch it get pulled out."
"Oh, it's not so bad."
It wasn't. It was the usual cool sensation of alcohol on the skin, followed by a prick, then that odd feeling of a foreign object pushed into your flesh, followed by a slight pinch as the needle comes out.
I shook the nurse's hand, grabbed my bag and ran out the door. It was Friday. It was Summer. The sooner I got the work day under way, the sooner it'd be over.
By 9:00 that evening I found myself downing Beam shots and beers and blaring "Waiting for Columbus" out of the stereo in my friend Lynch's place.2
Well I Stepped Inside, and Stood By the Door
While a Dark Girl Sang, and Played the Guitar
There Was Hookers, and Hustlers, Filled Up the Room
I Heard About This Place They Call the Spanish Moon
If you don't know Little Feat, well, "Waiting for Columbus" is one of those odd cds you'll only pick when you're badly, heavily, twisted out of your tree. I'm not talking lost-in-the-Meadowlands- parking-lot-after-a-Dead show twisted, more along the lines of basement-of-a-70s-disco3 twisted.
For reasons I can't fully comprehend, Lowell George's slide guitar sounds its most amazing, seems necessary, and will only escape the confines of the dustiest corner of your music collection, when you are fucking flying. George's death, and the way he died, was about as shocking as the sun coming up tomorrow morning. Little Feat celebrated, and came as close to channeling sonically, the feeling of "too much" more than any band I've ever heard. "Waiting For Columbus" is my soundtrack to many a late night ER visit. "I don't know, Doc. She was grooving to 'Tripe Face Boogie' and 'pow'... next thing I knew, she face-planted into the coffee table. No pulse, drooling... I don't understand it...
She seemed fine through 'Dixie Chicken'."
I passed out around 4:30 watching Simpsons reruns and drinking Grand Marnier. At some point I walked to the bathroom and brushed a sticky liqueur film from my teeth, shut off the light and went to bed.
Saturday. Noon. Lisa pulled back the blackout curtain. "Get up already," she shook me awake.
I staggered to the hallway and stumbled into the bathroom. I felt like someone had salted my sinuses and tongue to jerky. I tried to pick my nose but it hurt too much. Each time I shoved my finger into a nostril, I pressed what felt like a three dimensional Chinese star of mucous into the flesh. My throat felt like it'd been sanded with a rusty file, seared bloody from a thousand cigarettes and countless drinks. My mouth was filled with acrid vapors of stomach acid and the remnants of a stale turkey hoagie I'd tried to put down at 2:00 am. My face was swollen fatter than a catcher's mitt from the booze and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, straining fresh blood into the organs to flush out the toxins. For a second when I turned on the lights, I saw a stream of trails and strobe like pulsations - yellow blobs flooding my brain. I looked down to avoid the light and saw the horrible clear swirls I'm told are caused by movements of fluid behind the eyes in a severely dehydrated body.
I knew this drill. I'd been here before. I gave myself the "never again" speech, got my bearings, splashed water in my face, blew a cluster of the rock hard mucous asteroids and blood from my head and stared into the mirror.
"Is that a zit on my nose?" I raised my arm toward my face.
"What the fuck?"
As I raised my left arm, the mirror showed me that the area from the inside hinge of my elbow to just below my watch was blue - nearly purple - dark as deep ocean water.
Shock, confusion, paranoia gripped me in an instant. "This is not good." Had I had a heart attack in my sleep? What an atrocious thing to have to ask a doctor. How in the hell would I explain that to my family? I checked my pulse, which was now so fast the space between beats was almost indistinguishable. I'd had many odd "social misadventures" in the past; the usual material: hallucinating that insects are crawling on your legs, panic attacks, morning heartburn that feels like a massive coronary, dry heaves for 24 hours that burst capillaries in your eyes. The human body will bounce back and keep trucking like an old Benz diesel (those 1980 wagons you still see on the road today) from just about anything. But blue skin? Blue was bad - serious trouble. Blue reminded me of Bart Giamatti. I remember that press conference back in 1989, when he was banning Pete Rose from baseball. I was sitting in the kitchen, watching Bart gesture to the cameras with his hands and distinctly recall thinking "his hand is blue." I wasn't alone. A cardiologist watching the press conference told him the same thing. Bart paid it no mind. He was dead a week later (and Rose was cursing the Great Umpire's cruel timing).
"Lisa, can you come here?"
Lisa sauntered into the bathroom. "What?" She laughed, with a "You look like shit" grin on her face.
I held out my arm. "Look at this."
Lisa recoiled for a second, then drew silent, scratching her chin. "Wait a minute. You had blood drawn yesterday. The nurse probably broke the vein and it bled out."
"But it wasn't like this yesterday afternoon, waaay after she did the test."
"You probably got your blood pressure up so high last night you caused the little hole she put in it to burst open."
"I didn't have, like, a stroke or anything like that..." I stopped to consider the sound of my voice, replaying my last syllables in my head, searching for slurs, stutters, or other sign of motor deficiency. "I don't sound like Crackhead Bob, do I?"
"You are such a fag," Lisa laughed.
"But seriously, should I see a doctor?"
"Uh... noooo, we, shouldn't do that," she snapped back.
I trusted Lisa's advice. She'd worked in a nursing home years before and had a solid layman's understanding of medicine. But it wouldn't have mattered if I had Dr. Koop and Florence Nightingale standing next to me. When you're looking at your arm in the mirror and almost a foot of it is bluish purple, logic and rational thought go out the window. "This could be serious. Suppose I get some infection, or a clot or something," I protested. "I can't lose this arm."
"You're not going to lose your arm," she shook her head and walked away. "Stop thinking so much."
Sunday came and went and the arm was still a deep purple.
"I look like a retard," I stood before the mirror that Monday morning, grey pants and white shirt, cuffs buttoned like a seven-year-old on his first day at school.
"You look fine," Lisa half giggled. "It takes a few days. Get used to it. The blood has to be absorbed back into the tissue."
"I look like a fucking Amish plow driver. And it's fucking July, like 90 degrees outside."
Heat, and the annoyance of having an uncomfortable swath of fabric covering my lower arms - dragged through salad dressing or soup when reaching for iced tea at lunch, pulled back every time I look at my watch - weren't my only concerns. I'm not a fashion plate, but I am cognizant of the sartorial abominations floating about offices, and steer clear of the greater fashion sins:
Cardigan: Atrocious; never acceptable, even if it is a beautiful day in the neighborhood
Vest: Ask yourself three questions:
If you can't answer one of the three affirmatively, you can't wear a vest.
The vest also falls, among numerous other items, into the Southwestern Clothing Rule. If you're outside Arizona or New Mexico, a vest is never acceptable. Yes, this includes you, Colorado. The vest also falls under the Steven Segal Rule. If your vest is embroidered with any designs - Chinese characters, Indian symbols or otherwise - it is never acceptable4, anywhere.
Short Sleeve Shirt with Tie: Is an explanation even necessary?
Suspenders: Last acceptable when George Michael was still a sex symbol... for women.
Three Piece Suit: "Excuse me, Daddy Warbucks, you've dropped your pocket watch." This look only works for the fat little Monopoly man. That Kanye West, Diddy and Jay Z feel the need to impersonate Churchill is no excuse.
Jeans with Sportcoat: Ron Perelman can do this and still get laid. If you have $5 billion, so can you.
Tie Clip: Appropriate only in aluminum siding sales, undertaking and security for The Matrix.
Ascot: I shit you not, I once saw this worn at the office. I had to stand next to the partner in an elevator and converse, straight-faced. Possibly the most uncomfortable 2 minutes in my legal career:
"So, how has your Summer been so far?"
"Uh... good. Very, guuhh-oood." Don't look at him directly. Not even a peak. Stare away. Imagine he has a huge goiter, or a massive whitehead between his eyes. Stare at the elevator buttons, your shoes... anything else.
Blackberry/Cellphone Belt Clip: Unless it fires something, don't holster it.
Jodhpurs: I haven't seen them yet at the office. I just think the word sounds funny.
The idea of walking around with my sleeves buttoned all the way down made me feel like Randy Quaid's oafish Mennonite in "Kingpin." I don't mind looking like shit on my own time. I prefer surf shorts and t-shirts and shave as little as possible. But in the professional realm, I can't stand looking like a chump. I am, in many regards, what people would call a "face guy." I'm too disorganized, lazy and clumsy to be a full on "smooth guy." But when I sit still, keep my mouth shut and just smile, I do give off the appearance of a guy who has 'style' and might just be a player (of course, until I open my mouth). Take that image away - dress me like a short-busser - and I've lost my first line of attack.
Lisa chewed on the end of her finger for a second, looking me up and down. "You're more 'Hip Mormon Missionary.' Those are low cut pants... and the Amish don't do belts, do they?"
"Zippers. They don't do zippers," I snapped at Lisa and stomped out the door.
Despite the sauna-like atmosphere of a Philadelphia July, I made it to the office without pulling up my sleeve. But every fifteen minutes or so, I'd roll up the sleeve to look at the arm and see how the 'absorption' was going. I spent the better part of the morning searching online to find out how long I'd have this discolored appendage:
"broken vein absorb"
"blood clot dissipate"
"internal bleed heal"
With each look, I'd somehow further convinced myself that the blood pool was getting smaller, as though my wishing it away was actually shrinking the damned thing. I knew this was ridiculous, but I didn't know what else to do. Waiting for anything - from an appetizer, to dry cleaned shirts in that huge rotating mechanical rack, to a fucking draft beer - drives me mad. Those are the biopsy results of my world; immediate gratification is a necessity. Nature, of course, doesn't work this way. Knowledge of that didn't stop me from staring at the arm over and over, for minutes on end, like one of those old photos of an illusionist staring at the fork to bend it with his mind.
Go away. Go the fuck away, I yelled from my skull at the blood pool, mouthing the words with my lips.
This continued until around noon, when one of the partners, Kevin, walked into my office. I'd been careful enough to hold the arm behind my desk while I was looking at it, to avoid exposure, but it was obvious I was up to some strange shit. I could see the wheels turning in Kevin's head. Does he have porn behind his desk? Is he reading the attorney classified ads? Is someone on the floor next to him?
Kevin asked in a slow, hesitant matter, "Hey, ______. What do think about filing that motion to dismiss in the Wolff case?"
I looked up as nonchalantly as possible. "Good idea. I'll do it right now." The answer came quickly, from the survival synapses deep in the primordial circuits of my brain, as though I were ducking a spear or dodging an oncoming wild boar. I hadn't even considered the words as they left my mouth. "OK, great," Kevin responded, shocked I hadn't offered my usual weasely excuse to avoid writing the brief, more and more intrigued by my odd posture, my leaning forward and shaking my left sleeve down to the my wrist behind my desk. He so wanted to ask me what I was doing, but didn't dare.
"Uh, good... Great. So, uh... how was your weekend?"
"Good. Yours?"
"Relaxing, low key... you know," he smiled. "Anything interesting on your end?"
"No... no... Same," I smiled back. "Very relaxing."
-------
1 Running for a train half dressed, tie undone, advertises an appalling level of concern for office punctuality. If I'm not dressed by 8:12, I take the 8:40. It's not like I'll be busy before 10:30 anyway - about the time I finish drinking my third cup of coffee and reading about snow monkey mating habits and frotteurism on Wikipedia.
2 Contrary to legend, although George was obese at the time of his death, he did not die naturally in a bathtub.
3 Many people consider Steely Dan the ultimate hard substance band. This is wrong. That Fagan and Becker were drug-addled to Burroughsian levels when they recorded, and that aging hopheads of every variety love them, doesn't change the fact that Steely Dan made bad lounge music. It's too smooth, too perfectly produced and too absent a stitch of soul - the auditory equivalent of a fistful of Quaaludes. I've never understood the desire to listen to Steely Dan on uppers. I guess it provides a calming element, a sort of soft version of the effect of heroin in a speedball. You wouldn't blast The Hives while stoned, so why Steely Dan while wired? Perhaps I'm too provincial about this?
4 Unless you're teaching a pottery seminar at the local community college.
Posted by PhilaLawyer at 12:59 AM