The house of God

"It's not Putzel, it's you," said Berry. "You hate something inside of you. Get it?"

"I don't, and it's not. Fats knows what an asshole Putzel is."

"Don't do it, Roy," said Berry, "you'll only hurt yourself."

"Fats?"

"Putzel's a turkey," said Fats, "a money?grubbing, incompetent piece of dreck. True. But he's not the monster you make him out to be. He's a harmless wimp. I feel sorry for him. Lay off. Whatever you're pla

I did it. I'd given the rumor a week to gnaw on Putzel. My time had come. I found Putzel holding a Rose's hand, and I crept up in back of him. I whispered in his ear: "I've had it with you, Putzel. Within the next twenty?four hours, I swear it, I'm going to do you in."

Putzel leaped up off the bed, gave me a panic-stricken look, and ran out of the room. I walked out into the corridor and watched the little emperor of the bowel run, keeping his back to the walls and intermittently ducking into doorways as if he were afraid of a bullet, race off down the hall. I ambled off toward rounds.

I never made it. Two Bouncers from House Security attacked me, twisted my arms behind me, and carried me into the on?call room. They stood me up against the wall and frisked me for a weapon and sat me down facing Lionel, the Fish, Fats, and, quaking in a corner, Putzel. "Hey, what the hell's going on?" I asked. Everyone looked at Putzel until he said, "I heard a rumor about some intern was going to kill me and then . . . and then he whispered in my ear that in the next twenty?four hours he was going to do me in."

I waited until the silence had become unbearable and then in a calm voice I said, "What did you say?"

"You said you were going to . . . to do me in."

"Dr. Putzel," I asked incredulously, "have you gone mad?"

"You said it! I heard you say it! Don't deny it to me!"

I denied it to him, said that anyone who thought that an intern in the Hous of God would threaten to kill a Private Doctor of the House of God had gone mad and told the Bouncers to let me go.

"No! Don't let him go!" screamed Putzel, hugging the wall like a terrified maniac.

"Look," I said, "I'm just an intern trying to do my job. I can't take responsibility for that nut. See you later, eh?"

"NO! NOOooo!" wailed Putzel, rolling his eyes like a nut.

"What do you think we should do?" the Bouncers asked the Fish.

"I don't know," said the Fish. "Fats?"

"I've never seen anything like this," said Fats. "One thing's for sure: Dr. Putzel is acting mighty strange."

"It's the strangest thing," said the Leggo, as I sat in his office, which was the only place they'd decided it was safe to send me, "yes, the strangest . . :" and he drifted off into that place out his window where the answers to strange things might be found. "I mean, you didn't in fact threaten to kill?no, of course you didn't!" said the Leggo, his consternation turning his horrific birthmark even more purple.

"How could I have, sir?"

"Exactly. It's extraordinary."

"Can I speak in confidence?"

"Fire away," he said, bracing himself for yet another shock.

"To me, this means that Dr. Putzel is a sick man:"

"Sick? A House Private sick, Roy?"

"Overworked. Needs a rest. And who doesn't, sir? Who doesn't?"

The Chief paused, as if perplexed, and then brightened and came up with the answer: "Why, no one doesn't. No one doesn't at all. I'll tell Dr. Putzel he needs a rest just like everyone else. Thanks, Roy, and keep right on in there plugging."

"Plugging? For what?"

"For what? Why . . . why, for the Awards. Yes, keep plugging for the Awards."

I felt good. Maybe I even felt grand. My only twinge of regret was that I had stepped out on my own, leaving behind Berry and Fats, the ones who claimed to care, the ones I'd counted on to save me.

17

It was all the rage, that Watergate March, and many Great Americans took the opportunity to explode. Jane Doe, bloated and floated by the infusion of that VA antibiotic, started with a little squeeping fart caught on the Fat Man's alert stopwatch, and then with the rest of us watching, went on to rage at us with a great cacophony of orchestrated farts and then liquid farts and finally a blasting of her bowels and a continual gushing of what seemed like eternal stool. Richard Nixon, bloated by power and doubt, started with a little bark when named by Judge Sirica as unindicted co?conspirator of the Watergate Boys, went on to rage in a farting cornucopia on national TV, convincing almost every Great American by overreaction and gushing paranoiac railing at other Great Americans that he was as guilty as anyone imagined. We were all much relieved that no matter what else, we'd all have Nixon to laugh at and kick around for quite a good while longer. In some ways, after Vietnam, it was just what the country needed: a President so lacking in grace.

In Gomer City, we terns exploded as well. First to go was Eat My Dust Eddie. Bent under his own sado-masochism, he broke. He took himself OTC on every gomer until his service was being run by his BMS, and Eddie would talk about gomers only in terms of "can I hurt this guy today?" or "Some of them us to kill them and some of them don't, and I wish they'd make up their minds 'cause it gets confusing." The BMS couldn't stand the strain and soon gave in to Eddies perverted thoughts, and one day when a particularly recalcitrant gomere shrieked PO?LICEI! PO?LICE! for several hours, Eddie and his BMS borrowed uniforms and appeared at the bedside and said, "Yes, madam, this is Patrolman Eddie and Officer Katz. What can we do to help?"

"Why are you tormenting them?" Fats would ask.

"'Cause they're tormenting me," Eddie would say, "they've got me on my knees, do you hear me? ON MY KNEES!"

When his wife started to have labor pains, all hell broke loose. The day his wife delivered, Eddie showed up dressed in his black motorcycle gear: hat and boots and black wraparound reflecting sunglasses and black leather jacket with

***EAT MY DUST***

***EDDIE***

in silver studs on the back, and went around to see his gomers with his flash camera taking portraits "to remember them by." The place came apart. Terrified, the gomers began to shriek. The ward began to sound and smell like a zoo. Every House Hierarchy sent a representative and we found Eddie sitting calmly in the on?call room, boots up on the desk, gri

"He's crazy," I said to Fats.

"Yeah. Delusional. A paranoid psychosis. It's terrible to watch. Ah, well, Basch, they'll have to give him a rest."

"They can't," I said. "There's no one to fill in for him."

"No one doesn't need a rest," said the Leggo to the Fish, as they discussed what to do about Eddie. "No one at all. Why, look at poor Dr. Putzel. I'll tell Eddie he needs a rest just like everyone else."

"And who will fill in for him?" asked the Fish.

"Who? Why, the others. My boys will all pitch in and help."

The next day Eddie was not at the cardflip, and when I called him at home he said, "I'm OTC for a while. I'm sorry to do this to you guys, but the Leggo won't let me back into the House. He thinks if I stayed there any longer I might kill one of the gomers and the House would get sued. He might just be right."

"Yeah," I said, "let's face it: you were getting close."

"Wouldn't be a bad idea, though, would it?"

"It's illegal. How's the baby?"