Ass Part 4

image stolen from ballparkguys.com

I called 911 because I was in the bath and my legs started spasming. You could see muscle pulsing like a snake moving under the skin. First calves. Then thighs. Then my legs locked up and my belly started to go. My foot stuck twisted like the end of a chicken wing. It hurt. What if it went all the way up. Would my face just go in the water. Would I die naked with my hot bath ball sac spread over my thighs like a steamed tortilla.

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While my arms still worked I hoisted myself up by the soap holder. My fucking thumb was twitching and the phone was wet. Many tries to get the passcode. When there’s an emergency, you forget you can just hit “emergency.” Then– no, you dumb fucker, I am not calling 921. Jesus Christ. That voice never goes away. The one that tells you of course it would be like this. Your ass goes out and it spreads and you die naked because your retarded thumb can’t work the phone. You went to the doctor and everything. They told you it was hemorrhoids. You knew it was an anorectal abscess. Septic cyst that infects and kills you. That other voice doesn’t go away either: ha! I was right!

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The girl left work to take me back to the ER. Of course it would be like this. You meet a nice girl and then die from your asshole.

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Then a lot of pain and screaming broken up by long waits. I needed an operation, I was told. The staff were all funny. The guy who checked my heart said they had me figured for anal trauma. The nurse used to be an EMT, talked about dead bodies on the toilet. I told the anesthesiologist I was nervous and he said haha, me too. Then he told me he was giving me Michael Jackson medicine. So it’ll make me rape little boys to forget the savage beatings my dad gave me, I should have said. L’esprit d’escalier.

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The only stick in the mud was the surgeon. We drain it and then we wait, he said. See if a fistula develops. 30-50% chance. The cyst cavity forms a tunnel connecting your rectum to the outside. So like a second butthole? No, no, it’s a tiny… it’s a pinprick. It just causes leakage. That sounds like a second butthole to me, I said. A third nipple is still a nipple even if it looks like a mole. Look, I have other patients, he said.

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I had to stay overnight. They had TV. Discovery Channel was running a show called Naked and Afraid. Two nude people are dropped into a jungle. It’s a stupid show but there’s a woman’s ass. Meanwhile people come change your IV bag and make you sign papers and pray over you. A man in a hair net brings fajitas.

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The procedure was a success. I feel better already. Now we wait. Stay vigilant about changing the ass maxi pad as it soaks up blood and weeping pus. Color of the juice on the cutting board when you carve a rare London Broil. The incision in its raised red crater like the second asshole I’ll soon grow. Twin suns of Tatooine. They blasted me with antibiotics and now my eyes are blurry and the light hurts. They gave me an estimated bill. Twenty eight thousand and twelve dollars. I do have insurance. This is just the opening highball in a long haggle between bloodthirsty corporations. There will be a bill for my first visit too. When they misdiagnosed my agonizing lethal condition as a minor nuisance. Insurance will say no and the hospital will stick me with it. I’ll get robocalls from whoever they sell the debt to deep into middle age. What are you gonna do.

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Look at it this way: a hundred years ago this shit would have killed me. Now it’s just a bad week. That and a 50/50 shot at a permanent second shitpipe. Maybe I can fit a cigarette in it.

Tags: anal abscess, fistula, michael jackson