A Bad Episode
        by Darien Cavanaugh

Forty-two inches. Forty-two big fat inches. That's quite a stretch from bellybutton all the way around and back to bellybutton again. Ennis dropped the metal tape measure he’d been using as a tailor’s tape, and stared at his naked body in the mirror. Plugging an index finger into his navel, he whispered, “Beebo.” That’s what his mother used to do whenever he came to sit and pout on her lap, when he was still a little boy. She would lift up his shirt and say, “Beeeeeebo beebo beebobeebobeeebo,” while tickling his tummy. It made him laugh and squirm and laugh and laugh and laugh.

He put his hands beneath the roll of belly that hung down over his belt line, and lifted the flab. Then he squished it all around and made faces with it. Big fat hairy pale faces that talked through his bellybutton as he moved it, so that it opened and closed like a little mouth. “Hello, Ennis, look at how ginormous I’m getting. I’m a big disgusting blob.”

He went into the kitchen to get some juice and take a handful of pills. Because, “these will help with digestion… and these will boost your immune system… and these will help with the headaches… and you need a good multi-vitamin… and these will help with fatigue… and these are for this infection… and these will help with concentration… and these will suppress your adrenal glands… and these will take care of the constipation… and these should help with theeee, ummm, dysfunction… and these are for that infection… and these are for anxiety.”

“But I don’t think I really have any anxiety issues,” Ennis had objected. Well, now that proved a fine statement to make to a doctor, contradicting him and all, because doctors are quite capable of saying some very horrible things themselves, albeit in a very professional manner. Capable of saying things to insure your anxiety, to amplify and solidify any that’s there, and create and then perpetuate any that isn’t.

And that’s exactly what the doctor did over the next couple of months. He said things. And he must have told the other doctors to start saying things too, because they did. They all said things, things like “procedure” and “invasive” and “tumors” and “tests” and “abnormal” and “surgery” and “condition.” They said things until Ennis began taking all of those pills, even the ones for anxiety.

But the joke was on them, because Ennis really only took those pills for a couple weeks, just long enough to see they did him no good. Then he quit taking them, but kept telling the doctors he still was. Because he wasn’t crazy. He was sick. Sure some of the symptoms of his sickness affected him mentally, and psychologically, and emotionally. But all those pills weren’t the ones he needed. He needed the other ones, the ones he needed to take only once a day, the ones they promised to start giving him after surgery, after they sliced open his neck and cut out cysts and parts of glands. But surgery was such a long way off. Months away in fact, considering all of the other tests that had to be done first, and that all of the crappy diagnostic centers that accepted Ennis’ crappy health insurance managed to stay booked up all the time.

The one doctor insisted, “Until we can get all of this straightened out, I want you to keep taking that prescription I gave you, to help deal with the stress.” And Ennis said okay. He could tell that they thought at least some of his problems were in his head. That doctor looked insulted and so very disappointed when he asked if the little anxiety pills were helping, and Ennis answered, “Nope…absolutely no improvement.”

Now Ennis stared at the free promotional package of those anxiety pills that sat on his kitchen counter while he took all his other medicines. Now he wanted to take them and anything else that offered even the slightest little bit of placebo hope that he would start feeling better. He wanted to become one of the little white bobblehead mascots strolling across the front of the package with great big smiley faces. To crawl inside one of their little egg bodies and wobble around on two doodlebug legs and eat and hump, or whatever it is that they do. Ennis didn’t even mind if they didn’t hump. That didn’t bother him at all. Because lately he didn’t want to hump too much either. And if that wasn’t in their nature, then they probably didn’t mind at all – no desire nor shame for the lack of desire, none whatsoever. That may even be a relief. Yup, that was the ticket, just wobble around and smile and do whatever it is they do other than worrying about what to do or how often a normal bobblehead humps.

Ennis finished taking his medicine and drinking his apple juice and fantasizing about becoming a cartoon prescription drug mascot. He tried watching TV, but daytime television was so miserable he was embarrassed to watch it, even by himself. Then he tried to clean the bathroom, to scrub away some of the strips of green and orange algae from between the tiles, but he got dizzy and tired after about five minutes. Then he tried reading a book he started months earlier, but he couldn’t understand a damn word of it. It may as well been shit smeared all over the pages by a baby. He read and reread lines, but he’d forget how a sentence started before he finished it.

He decided to call Ellen at work. By the time he pushed 2 and then 4 and then 7, to navigate through the automated caller directory, only to be placed on hold forever by one of her coworkers, he was so irritated he wished he could snap the phone receiver over his knee. But he knew he couldn’t. He was too weak and stupid, and he would probably break his stupid weak knee if he tried.

When Ellen picked up, she said, “Hey sweetie, how’s it going?”

“Fine. What are you doing?”

“Well…I’m working…uh, not much else…”

“Are you cheating on me?”

“Sweeeetie, I thought we talked about this, ‘member?”

“I remember.  Is that one guy there?”

“You mean Scott?”

“I guess so.”

“Yes, little gay nineteen-year-old Scott is here, and I’m cheating on you with him.”

“Don’t. Stop it.”

“Well, then you stop being silly. I don’t like it when you accuse me of things, even when you’re joking it kinda…”

“I don’t feel good.”

“Oh, are you feeling bad again today?”

“Yes. I want you to come home.”

“Oh baby, I’ll be home at five. What’s wrong now?”

“Just the usual. I just don’t feel good.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“I know… I can’t really think clearly right now. I’m gonna go.”

“If you need me to come home, I can try…”

“No, it’s okay. I’m gonna go get a sam’ich.”

“Okay, you go get you a sam’ich, and take a nap after that, okay?.”

“Okay. I love you.”

“I love you too, and I’ll see you soon.”

Ennis started getting dressed. He had to suck in to get his pants on, and the zipper refused to say up, until he safety pinned it. His shirts barely covered his stomach anymore. It didn’t matter which one he wore, if he lifted his arms more than shoulder level in any of them it exposed his gargantuan gut and hairy bubble-butt ass crack to the whole wide world.

He thought of walking to the store at the end of the street. But decided to drive instead. When he got outside his whole body felt full of jelly, all his blood and guts and bones mixed together into a gooey muck, slowly rolling and flowing inside of him to currents he could neither predict nor control. Currents that threatened to tip him over or pull him down through the earth by his face. His big head felt heavy and swollen on his shoulders like a balloon with a lead weight in the bottom of it, and everywhere he walked his feet landed on giant sponges.

He wandered slowly through the aisles at the store, and everything blurred together, people and products, all an intimidating nightmarish haze. There was too much of everything for him to focus on anything. Operating on an instinctual level, capable of only the most basic reasoning and physical coordination, as he found his favorite flavor of bottled tea and favorite type of potato chips and a quart of pistachio ice cream, he thought to himself: maybe I have brain damage or Alzheimer’s or multiple sclerosis…fucking multiple sclerosis…

He found the items by size, shape, color and familiarity of location, rather than the words written on their labels. Otherwise, he would’ve been out of luck. Because there were other things he wanted, things he didn’t buy everyday, like hot sauce and pepper-jack cheese, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. He tried reading the listings on the aisle markers, but they didn’t make any sense. He could read, and he knew what the words were, he just couldn’t do anything with them. You may as well have given a blind man a hammer, but no nails, and then told him to go build a house out of piss and sand.

At the deli counter the sandwich girl wouldn’t stop asking him questions. He said hello and all that, and then “whole,” and then he said, “white,” and then, “provolone.” Then, “yes… tomatoes…pickles…everything.” He tried very hard to be nice, because he knew her. She lived next-door to his old apartment. But he didn’t want to answer anymore questions. Questions made him tired. Besides, he ordered the exact same damn sam’ich everyday, why couldn’t she just make it? Oh, it was just too much for him on this day. He became completely disoriented, and that’s when he looked at her and said, “Potato chips…pepper-jack cheese…hamburger and pizza…hamburger pizza.” The girl laughed and giggled. But then she stopped laughing and just stared back at him, holding a spatula thick with Dijon mustard that dripped down all over everything. Ennis said, “I’m sorry.” Then he looked away, looked at lemon-basil rotisserie chickens and ribs coated in gelatinous barbecue sauce. He calmly set his basket down on top of an open-air cooler case full of pudding cups and potato salad boats. Then began slowly taking his clothes off while mumbling, “I have a condition.” People edged away, to stare or laugh from a comfortable distance. Or just walked away in a hurry. The sandwich girl’s head started swinging back and forth, looking for someone to help her or tell her what to do. A young guy yelled something mean at Ennis, but he couldn’t exactly understand it. He just started stomping his feet and screaming, “I have a condition” while the pale flesh of his naked body wobbled up and down. One man attempted to apprehend Ennis, but when he got closer he reconsidered. The man just stood a few feet away, holding his arms out in front of him in a defensive position - as if Ennis were the one who accosted him and threatened to wrestle his bare butt body to the ground. The man kept saying, “Are you all right man? Are you all right? What’s going on?” Then the man became so confused and nervous himself that he started shouting even louder than Ennis, who still kept screaming, “I have a condition, I’m a blubbery belly monster.” And the man hollered back, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” until the manager came trotting up, stopping short, at about the same distance from Ennis as the other man. The manager asked, “Are you okay? What’s, what’s the problem? How can I help, how may I help you?” Ennis screeched back with a pterodactyl mouth, “I have a condition. I’m a big fat walrus butt.” Ennis continued stomping around, and shouting, “I’m a big fat walrus butt, look at me, I’m a great big fat hippo monster,” while he lifted up his belly with his hands and made faces with it, moving the beebo mouth back and forth to the rhythm of his words, as if it were the one doing all the yelling. The manager said, “Sir, please just calm down and…and put your clothes back on and everything will be fine.” But Ennis said, “Oh no, everything will not be fine because my clothes don’t fit me anymore. They hurt my fat little tummy, and they’re only getting tighter and tighter because I’m only getting fatter and fatter.” The manager told the sandwich girl to call 9-1-1, and when Ennis heard that he started crying like a little baby and jumping up and down screaming, “No, no no, please help me, please. I have a condition and it won’t go away. Make it go away!” The sandwich girl froze and the manager barked, “Call 9-1-1,” a little more sternly this time, and she picked up the phone and started dialing. She was crying too.

When Ennis heard her talking to the operator, a subconscious impulse sent a signal to every last nerve in his body. And when every last nerve in his body received that impulse, they frantically consulted one another but the only thing they could make of it was ‘get the fuck out of here.’ So that’s what they made his body do. He grabbed his pile of clothes, then he snatched up his basket of food from off of the cooler, and he ran like a son-of-a-bitch. The manager moved to stop him, doing a little shuffle step, but then cleared from his path at the last moment, the way a matador evades a charging bull.

In the parking lot, nobody knew what in the hell was going on, didn’t know whether to laugh or run for cover. Ennis threw everything in the car and took off like a dog with it’s ass on fire. He saw strange faces on the people he passed. Fear and teeth and wide eyes and dark cave mouths. All he could think was that he was in some sort of trouble and that he needed to get home. But then he knew that even if he got home he was in trouble. The sandwich girl would rat on him, or the manager would recognize him because of the bad checks he had written to the store. They would call some sinister looking bastards wearing hazmat suits to comb the place for fingerprints or hairs or something, while local law enforcement screened the videos from parking lot cameras and questioned witnesses. Everyone was going to do everything in their power to ensure that they find this crazy, naked beast-man who gets his kicks terrorizing innocents at grocery stores.

When Ennis got home he put the groceries in the fridge and threw his clothes on a chair. Then he sat on the couch and stared at an unidentifiable stain on the carpet.

Darien Cavanaugh lives in Tampa with his wife, Meeghan, and their two dogs, Jacobo and Emma. His work has appeared, and is forthcoming in Galeria, Impact Press, 3ammagazine, and Our Own Words (Vol. 5). He also writes exhibit guides for a local museum – but suspects that nobody actually reads them.