Why not get on a plan with free vision, dental, exercise and spa membership, all that is necessary is a co payment and an administrator sitting at a desk and playing video games, and shuffling papers for a 5 figure salary. Don’t mind the decadent luxury, the government pays for it all if you make it to 65 and debit for schedule B coverage. Thirty percent of the gross national product pays for medical care for the working class, the upper class can pay for what they want out of pocket. The administrators of corporations and small business huff and puff when they inform their loyal workers that health care coverage is matched by their employer, and they are lucky indeed. Unfortunately, the health care the working class receive is not worth a single cent and like the diehard professionals adamantly state that “it is better than nothing.’ this author tends to disagree.
Working people go to medical doctors with maladies mostly due to workplace noscomial pathogens or environmental factors, and the professionals take their blood pressure and fasting sugar glucose and inform them that they have either high blood pressure or diabetes, and all people eventually acquire high blood pressure or diabetes. The medications sanctioned by the AMA are cooked in a pot by organic chemists at big pharmaceutical companies and eventually induce blood cancer or cancer of the pancreas. A patient makes an appointment with a physician and does not get a cure, only carcinogen and a promise, and the professionals check with the pharmacists to make sure their patients are taking their medication. Employers pay for one half this charlatan behavior and they think that their monetary output is helping their staff that they depend on for performance and reliability. When a patient has an infection, these salt of the earth people are told to drive to another city to see a specialist. These dedicated humanitarian professionals do not want to live in the same town as their patients, they might be seen by them.
Unlike what people are led to believe, human existence is free from disease unless it is given to them. In a lifespan time line, a spike in incidence arises in youth and early adulthood when people are most sociable. In essence do not leave your children with others unattended. As humans age, the incidence of disease slowly increases until government retirement age when it spike up to termination.. These maladies are usually chronic and due to environmental or career choices, and there is no cure for them, only palliation with snake oil remedies that exert no effect. Medical administration states that it is a persons long lifetime and that this is normal and they need some kind of organ transplant to extend a normal life span. A transplant of any kind costs the government one million dollars in medicare costs and lasts at most five years. It would be prudent at this point to ascertain the environmental or work factors that induce disease and to reduce or eliminate them. Emergency rooms do not test for chemical toxins, Current diagnosis and treatment only list them in a glossary, in the back of the book and alas , the panacea is symptomatic support only.
In mid life, around the age of forty everyone should be wormed! That bulging beer belly or horrible increase in a woman’s waistline is probably due to intestinal worms of many types depending on the diet. Everyone who eats meet, especially rare meat acquires intestinal tapeworms and in our McDonald hamburger culture this usually means Taenia saginatta which is the tapeworm seen mostly in beef. Taenia solium is the similar tapeworm in pork. When your belly is growing fast or your wife cannot fit in her old clothes he or she has a tapeworm of some sort and needs to be wormed. Allopathic doctors regard an increase in girth as obesity and put all their patients on diets and order a colonoscopy. Diet is only temporary and colonoscopy often leads to perforation and an exploratory laparotomy. Health care administrators do not fund a veterinarian to worm human beings. In a animal clinic most animals are either wormed, spade or euthanized. Health insurance does not pay for a worming. Do animals, receive better care than human beings?
If a worker makes it to retirement, and their employers have doled out half of their medical costs for twenty years, they need to be chelated. All commercial foods contain some type of metal to preserve it from spoilage and bacterial contamination. Returning food to the store and crediting it to loss is an expensive undertaking and corporate does anything they can to prevent this loss in their commercial product. The English were the first to use metal salts to preserve food and they work great but metal, of any kind builds up in a human body, causing aging and senility. All humans at sixty need to be chelated but this is an expensive undertaking. The duration of Chelation therapy can last ten years of admission to outpatient surgical units for IV therapy. The government can not afford this, only the upper class pay for this out of pocket, so the working class get a colonoscopy and post surgical morbidity.
Hurrah, Hurrah. An hourly worker lives on boiled rice and an egg their whole existence with some fruit for soluble vitamins. They survive the opposition that most assume in our hamburger society. The aged now, have either hypertension and diabetes and they get prescribed carcinogen to escort their goodness to the undertaker. If a devoted scholar reads pathology books, he or she notices that the percentage of occurrence of cancer has increased exponentially in relation to industrial development in Technology. In other words, Cancer existed as a rare disease in the Nineteen hundreds, and our educated professionals ascribe this tremendous increase in cancer mortality due to extended life spans. Our doctors are humanitarian and highly intelligent and this must be the case. THE ONLY REASON MANKIND LIVES LONGER TODAY IS BECAUSE WE NOW HAVE ANTIBIOTICS THAT COMBAT INFECTIONS. Before 1940 and the advent of penicillin, everyone in the snow belt died of pneumonia in old age, and everyone in the deep south eventually died of dysentery due to shigella, salmonella or otherwise.
If everyone wants to live on bread, rice and fruit, be a vegetarian, and work on a farm, he or she might live a long time. Except for we the people and not everyone else, this is not the case and we get tired of medical doctors living in mansions and refusing treatment if the patient does not want a colonoscopy. Something has to give.
On to standard time.

Life in the United States depends on three factors. The first is genetic factors, beautiful people tend to be more successful, socioeconomic factors, the 20 percent usually get their way. Religious factors, the most apparent religion holds sway for ethical values unless they give it all away. This is life in the continental forty eight, and the rule has nearly been the same since the beginning of history. Without causing a national uproar in a democratic, capitalistic country where the good old dollar holds sway, whoever has it. The true people , the fifty percent of us that work for a living and pray every day that their children can attend college and land a good job, don’t get a good shake of the culture that is happening.
The rulers of the financial fiefdom, want their children to be rulers too, and this is nepotism
The clergy of the predominant religion want their children to be successful and this is nepotism too. The professionals, who attend expensive graduate schools field a closed shop, and for the most part, to be a professional, a person has to be the child of a professional, or marry the child of a professional. This seems to be Americanism or at least a democratic semblance of the reality that was and is to be. The reality of life on planet earth happens really not as communism or socialism but peoples, and political names are a coverup of past injustices and misuse.
The reality of existence lies in the fact that the people who work an hourly wage for a living, and want the most for their children, and their people, derive the least profit from their toil during their lives. The people that work an hourly wage for their existence: keep the water flowing, keep the electricity charging, build the bridges, highways and structures that define our society, and consume the products that the financiers acquiesce and continue the Malthusian economic cycle that requires constant input of natural resources to keep the pump primed and pumping.
In upper class diatribe this means, that the working people, clean up the motel rooms after the professionals cheat away. The working people fuel the airplanes and stock the galleys of fancy aircraft that take them on exotic vacations. The working class stand on girders and dangle from pulleys to build tall skyscrapers that no one wants to work in and are incredibly expensive to tear down. The working class become valets and busboys so the twenty percent can have a gas while they are governing. Most of all, and in the name of God, the working class die in wars for the right of burning foreign petroleum and their daughters are sold as slaves so obscure foreigners can have a good time on Friday night. Can this be reality in a nation under God, indivisible, for liberty and justice for all?
Martin Luther said, “believe in the truth because the truth will set you free.” and he was shot several times with a hunting rifle. So as not to be a political pariah and martyr, let the author state empirically, and with regret, and with knowledge of what might be: politicians and administrators, and investment bankers are superfluous commodities that should be dispensed with in a timely fashion. The working class does not have to accept the medicine that the ruling bodies provide which is worthless and expensive. All professionals are millionaires and soak up a third of the nations budget. Only the dedicated surgeon, a rare and important breed, is necessary because when you are shot or blasted, nothing else anywhere anytime will do in a farthing. Remember, God made the devil so to test mankind so that they might be saved. Surgeons are a necessary evil, and the rest to be dispensed with. Democracy is best because it gives everyone a chance to rise above the masses. No other system does.
It is the working class alone that is important to maintain the infrastructure of the civilization. Almost anything else is unnecessary. The government in all it administrative excellence should coddle and enhance these people which are the lifeblood of to the exclusion of everything else. Fifty percent of the population are decadent and unnecessary. The educated middle class has the onerous duty to maintain the civilization and keep it running while the twenty percent take drugs and have porno parties.
The working people of the United States of America make our civilization beautiful and this essay is for them. They are this nation and no one else. Maybe someone can stand up for right and justice and wear a bulletproof vest and ballistic helmet if the 20 percent feel they are too testy. We the people of the United States are real. United we stand divided we fall.

Wracks, I want you to come in at night at the ER because that is when the action happens.  Be sure to be here Friday or Saturday night on the Graveyard.  Every week we have a gunshot or a bludgeoning event.  We need the extra hands to tie sutures,” said Dr. Saber. “I will be here,” said Wracks

“We have a stat on a fight victim coming in” said the dispatcher.  “Wracks, bring him in and work him up. Then call me.” Said Dr. Saber.  The Paramedics brought the patient into the double doors of the ER.  The ER had double electric doors in case a murderer wanted to finalize an act not perfected.  We could lock them out.  The patient was of average height and average build Caucasian male.  He wore sweats and had no obvious odors diagnostic of metabolic conditions.  Upon neurological exam, The Wracks find the pupils fixed and dilated. The breathing is intermittent but not agonal.  There is no obvious bleeding from the nose, eyes or ear canals upon fundoscopic observation.  The patient is unconscious and does not respond to pain from needle prick or skin pull.  “Dr. Saber, I think we have a subarachnoid hemorrhage with antecedents of trauma to the face. “  Dr. Saber runs to console, grabs the phone and calls upstairs.  “Wait with him!” Dr. Saber commands.

     “Dr. Saber said you have good hands,” said the brain surgeon.  He is a middle size man of obvious English ancestry with short brownish red wavy hair. He stands at middle build on the lean side like people who are always on the run from an adversary. His clothing is impeccable like he arrived from a ball at the palace of Versailles. His shoes look brand new like he never walked in them because he doesn’t have to.  An aquiline gaze reveals steel grey eyes almost like the prince of Wales.  He must be related.   “I want you to assist me in neurosurgery tonight.”  “I will teach you how.”   The patient was already upstairs. He gestures to Wracks and says, “Take the elevator all the way up.  They will let you in.”   The elevator to the top surgical unit is slow and steady and quiet.  The light blink by slowly as it rises to the place where God alone rules and man tries to cheat him of his due.  Someone said to Wracks that the Obelisk was owned by a very rich man.  the Wracks did not believe them because he was forever hungry and looking for food.  Tonight, at eleven o’clock the Wracks will assist a brain surgeon and bring a dead man back to life. This is a third-year externship at Christmas when all his friends are surfing Pipe or the Con and he wasn’t.  He was already scrubbed when the Wracks arrives as if he flew up to the surgical suite.  There was Wracks, the brain surgeon and an older anesthesiologist who looked like he needed sleep too.

“I will teach you brain surgery,” said the brain surgeon.  “First, the conditions.”   “Cool your patient to 90 degrees Fahrenheit with a water blanket.  This will slow the heart and make the neurons less irritable.”  “ Then infuse urea to establish hyper osmotic equilibrium to prevent brain swelling.  This is faster.  Switch to mannitol post operative.  Now infuse solumedrol to prevent inflammation. This takes 24 hours to begin to take effect.  When the patient is readied by the anesthesiologist then we will begin.  Anesthesiology must be light or the patient will stop breathing.  The patient will be conscious.  No matter what the patient says keep going. Learn to focus and block out everything but the job at hand.”

   The patients head was shaved and the brain surgeon looked at the x-rays.  Visualize in your mind where the lesion is from the x-rays.  Take your own x-rays before surgery.   Do not rely on anyone.  Do not let anyone but licensed surgeons into the room.”  “Now we will unearth the calvarium.” Said the brain surgeon. 

     The bone saw whirs at a high frightening screech.  The saw is a small stainless steel orb that glints under the klieg lights and comes from a sterilized package.   “Hold open the operating theatre for me,” he said.  “Do not let go.”  “The patient might move!”  The saw whirred with a horrible whine and the frequency dulled as the blade cut the bone.  Smoke arose from the cut and I started to vomit.  “Dr. Saber said you were good.”   “Are you good?”  “I am good.” Says the Wracks and his senses came back to him.  He pulled of the top of the patient’s skull and snipped the tentorial ligaments with a small scissors.  “This is the durra mater and underneath the subarachnoid membrane. “  Under the durra mater, a skin like membrane stretched over the top of the brain was a mass of congealed blood.  The patient started to speak in a childish voice a language the Wracks could not discern. “Do not listen,” he said.  The brain then started to swell like a loaf of bread rising in an oven.  It pushed out two inches high.   “This is a bad one,” said the brain surgeon.  “We will have to do a total lobectomy.”     “I Want you to hold the suck and turn the fulgerator when I tell you to.”  The Wracks held the suck stable.  The surgeon literally sucked brain matter through a stylet into a huge plastic receptacle.  The osterized brain matter was bright pink like Jell-O.   The neurons are a light grey and the supporting structure of glial cells and myelin is alabaster white.  The brain surgeon hit a capillary and the blood spurt two feet high like a small geyser.  He clipped it with the forceps and said “burn it.” Wracks pressed the trigger of the fulgurator.  The smell of burnt brain permeated the whole operating area.  The wracks started to black out.  “I am going Doctor,” said the Wracks.  The brain surgeon commanded, “Hold the suck.”   “I am going Dr,” the Wracks.   The brain surgeon commanded “Hold the suck.”   The Wracks slowly started to come back. Slowly, surely, he came back to consciousness.  “Now we can continue.” He said.  Small hemorrhages would occur as he aspirated brain tissue.  The Wracks held the suck and triggered the burner as he commanded.  “Our father who art in heaven.”  And we continued.  “Hallowed be thy name.”  And we continued.  “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.”   “There” said the brain surgeon.   “The bleeding and swelling have stopped and the patient still breathes.”  He put the top of the skull back on the patient and secured it with staples.  Then he sutured the scalp back into place.   The clock says two A.M and I am spent.  “You can go now.” Said the brain surgeon.  “I am done here.”

      The elevator from the top slowly descended to moral reality and the Wracks walked back into the ER.   “Did he make it?” said Dr. Saber “He made it.” Says the Wracks.  “Good “said Dr. Saber.  “We have a gunshot wound to the abdomen in room 3 and I want you to wait there until the police arrive.”   “o.K.,” says the wracks.

      They said the patient was alive on a respirator until he was transferred to another hospital.  The Wracks lost track of him.  Some say he died some say he slipped away.  Some say the event never happened.   The Wracks never saw the brain surgeon again. He is a very busy man who lives on an airplane and flies all around the world cutting into people’s brain., They say he is the best in the world.   Instead, the Wracks does neuro- surgery with an African American who hates to do colostomies.   There was always action in the south, in the city, downtown, late at night during the summer externships at the hospital when the Wracks was a medical student.

“Where were you,” said Dr. Saber.   We need suturing for a head wound in room two.  the wracks went back to work for nothing to learn the craft in the days before the darkness in youth when achieving was so important and nothing else mattered.  They still do not know how to prevent the brain from swelling during trauma.  It is the increased intracranial pressure that stops the respiratory center from working., Pray to Yahweh and beg him to whisper the secret to a sincere dedicated surgeon.  Mankind is depending on you.   La Ilya alha Allah, Muhamed resund Allah.  

At eleven o’clock A.M. He is preparing to go to the cafeteria to eat.  The charge nurse for the surgical unit runs directly at W  and says “There is a large aneurysm to be resected in the main surgical theatre. Dr. P and Dr. Are want you there now.” Tell them to find someone else to assist them,” says W.   “They want you now,” says the charge nurse. “Go and scrub in, Now!”  “I have to check a bandage and then eat,” W says.   The Charge nurse points at the door and says “NOW!”    W then then slouches to the hallway ramparts, turns right and key in the code at the surgical unit door and enter.  “Grab a cup of coffee and some donuts,” says Dr. Are.  “We may be in there all afternoon.”   Get a new green and then scrub in.  “Where did you learn to wash your hands like that,” says Dr. are.  “In Mexico,” W says “And I got a “C” in surgery operating on dogs.”  “You will do,” he adds.

      The patient is a huge obese lady who is out cold under anesthesia.  The staff ropes her to the table.  Dr. P is there with a knife.  “Watch me rip her open,” he says.    He takes the stainless steel knife that glints from autoclave clean, starts at the belly and jerks it up to her rib cage.  Blood spurts everywhere.  “I will clamp the bleeders, you tie them off,” says Dr. Are.   We learned to tie knots fast at the Guad.   He clamps, W ties, he takes off the clamps and W ties the next. “We will be in next,” says Dr. P.  He takes all the used hemostat clamps and throws them in the corner eight feet away.”   “We have to count them all before we close,” says Dr. Are.   Dr. Are. takes a scalpel and cuts the peritoneal membrane and the viscera bulge out of the wound.  They are a beautiful pink on white.  He then sticks his hands into her abdomen and pulls out all of her guts and sets them on her chest on top of a cotton gauze towel.   He puts another towel on top of her bowels and says to me. “You have to hold them on her chest.  If you let them go, she dies.”  W holds.  He starts sweating and W holds and look inside her body cavity.  Dr. P is clamping off her aorta top and bottoms one large underneath her kidney and two other on the other two femoral arteries.  The aneurysm loots like a huge asymmetrical sac, reddish purple from coagulated blood about eight centimeters in diameter.   “It is ready to burst,” says Dr. P and he goes and gets the polyester pants that will replace the artery.  He holds them up and plays with them like a little rag doll.  Dr. Are says, “Is everyone ready?”  By now the whole surgical staff and medical student were watching from afar.  Some of them began to faint and were pulled outside by their friends.  The big fat woman who was dead because her heart had to stop to resect the aneurysm rolled on the table like a huge beached whale.  Dr. P said “Now.”  Dr. Are maneuvered to the other side of the table next to me.  Dr. P took a scalpel and in one motion delivered the aorta with aneurysm to a waiting steel bedpan held by Dr. W.  A charge nurse stepped in and took the bedpan.  W holds her guts on top of her chest.  Dr. P put the polyester pants in place and started to sew.  Dr. Are. took the top end and started to sew.  When they were done the polyester pants were in place with three clamps remaining.  “Second guess me Dr. Are.” said Dr. P.  “It looks good,” says Dr. Are.  “Let’s let her rip”.  Dr. P was the chief surgical resident in his fifth year.  He won the by over Dr. Are by subjective advantage.  They were both equally good.  Dr. P slowly, slowly. Slowly took the clamps off the aorta and threw them as far away from the table as he could.  W holds her viscera on her chest.   “Start her heart,” Dr. Are said to the anesthesiologist.  He injects epinephrine in her subclavian port and shocked her.  He shocked her again and the monitor came alive.  Sine wave and red blinking dot online. She is alive.  The graft inflated like a balloon and it held.  “Lets wait,” said Dr. W.  “I want to see.” The graft held and pulsed slowly. “Let go of her guts,” said Dr. Are.  W’s muscles were frozen into tetanic spasm and as she came back into consciousness, W let them go and stepped away from the table.  Dr. P stuffed the intestines back into her body cavity and closed the peritoneum with polylysine blue strand. Dr. are tied and cut the knots.  Dr. P said “thank you everyone.” And left.  Dr. W. said “Here is the stapler, “you staple her up.”  “I have to do an amputation.” So, W staples with a large stainless-steel stapler.  A second-year resident hold the skin together for W. as W staples.  W asked, “Why staples?”  The resident said, “In case we need to rip her open again, we can pop them quickly.”  W staples.  The anesthesiologist and the internist wheel her into recovery. They said, “You can go eat dinner now.”   We had to eat dinner because tonight was a call night every third day.  W will have to be up late.  Cigarettes lose their taste.  Coffee gives everyone who drinks a lot of it an ulcer.  What keeps someone going is sheer will, perseverance and faith.  After dinner W will sleep an hour and then walk rounds through the hospital till they tell W they do not need him until tomorrow.  By then it will be tomorrow anyway and the cycle begins anew and W wonders if he is really cut out to be a surgeon.  W needs too much sleep.  Every man must know his limitations and without knowing these a man is vulnerable to life and in life is birth, death and a new beginning.  W goes to the locker and scrub out.  Someone has stolen the earpieces from his stethoscope. W wraps tape around the pipe. Stick them in his pocket and walk towards the cafeteria.  The moon is full outside.  Spring is in the air.  The snow has melted and the air is delicious, but he is inside doing what needs to be done because it has to be done and he really wonder why.  He thinks about how he is going to sabotage the pager because they always bust him at dinner to do a blood gas.  They say he have good hands.  he would rather have a good heart.  The African American cook looks at me with a smile in the cafeteria. “The same,” he says  Chicken fricassee with broccoli and a scoop of mashed potatoes.  W does not know why she smiles at him. At this point W does not care.  He is on call tonight in the ICU.

“Well Dr. Wrak, you have completed twenty weeks of surgery and Dr. Ony has passed you,” says Dr. Q.  Dr. Q is the chief of internal medicine at Amityville hospital and oversees the fifth pathway program offered by New Amsterdam College.   Dr. Q stands slightly taller than average, has a slight build, olive colored skin, thin hair, but bright eyes.  His teeth show that braces were too expensive for his family in his youth and now as a rich medical doctor, he still has not corrected the poor bite which stands out when he smiles.  “I think that it is time for a vacation for you.  What elective rotation would you like for six weeks?” inquires Dr. Q.   “I would like radiology because there is no call in Radiology,” says Dr. Wrak.  “Don’t you like call,” explores Dr. Q.  “Not when it is every third day and I have to do surgery in the middle of the night,” says Dr. Wrak. “You will like the Radiology vacation,” says Dr. Q. “Dr. Pine will be instructing you.” “He is an extremely busy man.  Do not speak as you sit in the reading room and Dr. Pine will instruct you.”  “Not a word!”  insists Dr. Q.  “Not a word!”  “I promise,” says Dr. Wrak, “When do I begin?” “As soon as you leave this room.” Says Dr. Q.  “Dr. Pine is a pioneer in balloon angioplasty and will let you assist him if he likes you.”  “They read at ten AM and Four PM.” “Be there.’  “Thank you Dr. Q.” says Dr. Wrak.  As Dr. Wrak walks out of the room he hears again in the hall “Not a word Dr. Wrak.”   “Yes sir,” says Dr. Wrak as he enters the stairway and walks down from the second story at Amityville hospital into the stairwell.  Radiology lives on the first floor next to admissions.   The sign says, “Radiology, Patients enter here.”  Down the hall a smaller sign says, “Doctors only.”  Wrak chooses to enter there.  The cryptographer at the desk next to the door says, “Dr. Wrak you are late.  They are reading now.  Enter the room and take a chair in the back if one is available.  If not stand in back until they finish reading.”  “Thank you,” says Dr. Wrak.  The reading room lies to the right behind a sturdy oak door.  Inside the lights shroud a huge wall of white fluorescent reading screens with cloth pins at the top of each screen to hold the transparent X-ray films.  Comfortable padded chairs sit behind the screen plush with padding. Dr. Pine sits with three residents looking at films.  The room is dark and a red light provides enough illumination to enable a person to walk safely.  Dr. Wrak decides to stand in back.  “Good morning Dr. Wrak,” says Dr. Pine and he resumes reading films.   “This one is an intusception. Notice the fluid level above the obstruction. Phone third floor now.”   He flicks the film off the wall and places it back into a manila envelope.  A resident grabs the envelope, stands up and leaves without speaking a word.  Dr. Wrak takes his seat.  “This film is reactivation tuberculosis.  Notice the cavitation in the right lung apex on an anterior posterior.”  He puts the film back in an envelope, hands it to a resident and the resident leaves like the first one.  “Dr. Wrak, remember tuberculosis prefers the right lung because the main stem bronchus juts at a right angle.  The left stem bronchus exits at forty five degrees.  Above all be systematic in your analysis.” Says Dr. Pine.  Dr. Wrak nods his head once.   Dr. pine shoots through ten more films, looking at a film, writing an interpretation, and throwing the film back into a manila envelope.  He does this quickly and the clothes pins holding the transparencies on the wall make a snapping noise with the speed and ferocity of the actions.  “I am done.” Exclaims Dr. Pine.  “Do you want to assist in a procedure, he inquires.”  Dr. Wrak nods his head once.  “Get a radiology badge from the front office and meet me in surgery in thirty minutes.” Says Dr. Pine.  Dr. Wrak nods his head once.   The cryptographer in the front office opens a large manila folder as Dr. Wrak enters the office.  Inside the folder are bunch of radiology badges like prizes in a cracker jack box.   She wears her hair short, has glasses and a professional looking blouse buttoned up.  “Here is your badge. Do not lose it.”  She writes the number of the badge on a ledger and asks Dr. Wrak to sign it.”  “Thank you very much,” says Dr. Wrak.  “Take the badge home with you too,” She insists.

     “This patient has a stenosis in the left femoral artery at the level of the inferior olecranon process proximal to the popliteal space.” Says Dr. Pine.  “You are going to hold her leg still as I advance the cannula from her femoral triangle down to the obstruction.”  We will take films periodically as the balloon stylus descends.  The films will reveal progress.  Hold her leg still with both hands because if I pierce the arterial intima, an aneurysm will develop and the procedure will fail.  Dr. Wrak holds the patients leg and Dr. Pine inserts the cannula in the arterial stent created by a general surgeon moments before.  The X-ray gun hums.  A picture appears on the screen.  “Pixels,” says Dr. Pine.  “It is the new technology.”  He advances the cannula further.  The x-ray machine hums.  He advances the cannula as Dr. Wrak holds the patients leg.  The x-ray machine hums with a buzz and another picture appears on the screen above the table.  “We are almost there,” says Dr. Pine.  “When we get to the obstruction, hold the leg extremely still and I will inflate the balloon. At this point we will take films at the rate of one per five seconds to monitor the progress of the balloon inflating.”  The x-ray machine buzzes and a picture appears on the screen.  Dr. Pine squeezes a bulb furiously.  The x-ray machine buzzes and another picture appears on the screen.  The closed artery is being expanded.  The x-ray machine buzzes three more times and then Dr. Pine exclaims, “the dilation is successful.”  He deflates the balloon and slowly withdraws the catheter from the artery like an angler pulling in a fish.  The catheter appears to be three or more feet long. “Bring the patient back to recovery.” Says Dr. Pine The anesthesiologist leaves with the patient, dragging her IV pole beside him.  “Thank you Dr. Wrak.”  Says Dr. Pine. “See you at four.”  Dr. Wrak nods his head once.  As Dr. Pine walks out the surgical suite door he says casually as he exits, “The procedure only lasts for six months then the artery re-occludes.  I do them anyway.” “I am told what to do by the administration upstairs and if I don’t, they find someone who will.”

   “Dr. zel wants you to assist him in a lower GI barium swallow,” says the cryptographer. “Enter the room down the hall. You do not have to scrub.  The procedure will take about an hour.  You will rejoin the radiologists at four PM after lunch.  “What a morning,” thinks Dr. Wrak.  “Another surgical procedure.  I thought Radiology would be my vacation!”   Dr. Zel stands at medium height with large owl like spectacles and wavy dark brown hair.  He wears a pressed shirt and tie underneath the hospital smock.  “Take off your hospital smock and put on this lead suit says Dr. Zel.  Dr. Wrak complies. He puts his smock on the desk outside the radiology suite.  Dr. Wrak looks like the alien invader from Earth versus flying saucers. Dr. Wrak feels ill at ease.  The patient wheels in and the radiology orderly runs out.  Dr. Wrak helps Dr. Zel position the patient on a movable table and fastens the patient down.  “When I invert the patient hold them so they do not fall off the table. Assist the patient whenever possible, “teaches Dr. Zel.  Dr. Wrak helps Dr. Zel by moving the table into various positions as Dr. Zel takes pictures with an x-ray gun. About a half hour into the procedure something strange happens.  On the wall behind the screen a metal plate falls off the collimator at the top of the device, and a blue glowing flame appears in a steel box like a reactor core melting down.  The flame is intensely blue and Dr. Wrak cannot bear to look at it.  The room starts to smell like a lightning flash during a thunderstorm.  Dr. Wrak moves behind the lead glass screen and gesticulates to Dr. Zel about the huge blue flame in the metal box on the wall.  Dr. Zel smiles and says, “I have to finish the procedure,”  “You can go.” Dr. Wrak pounds on the glass and jumps up and down.  “It’s Ok” says Dr. Zel “the procedure is nearly over, you can go.”  Dr. Wrak nods his head in prayer and implores Dr. Zel to leave.  “It’s OK,” says Dr. Zel.  Dr. Wrak exits the room from behind the leaded glass and throws off the radiation suit.  He grabs his smock and proceeds to the cafeteria.  “Finally time to sit around and eat,” thinks Dr. Wrak.  “Where are you,” inquires a resident. “I am in Radiology now,” says Dr. Wrak.  “If you want to help in surgery, just stop by says a fourth year surgical resident. “I most certainly will,” says Dr. Wrak with a wan smile and he begins to eat the chicken fricassee with broccoli, mashed potatoes and gravy, chocolate milk and a cup of coffee with free refills to residents only.  This is the standard fare he can afford.

   “Good morning Ms. Kleb,” says Dr. Wrak.  “Dr. Wrak, you radiation badge is red and you must see the head of Radiology immediately.”  Dr. Wrak examines the radiation badge clipped to his left breast pocket and by Jove, the badge turned from ivory white to a bloody crimson red.  The chief of radiology is an older man with white hair and looks like either the God Thor or Loki the evil elf.  Dr. Wrak hands him his badge.  “Where have you been?” inquires the chief.  “Just a few procedures,” says Dr. Wrak.  ” I left my badge outside a procedure yesterday because I was wearing a lead radiation suit head to toe.  Somehow the badge got exposed to radiation.  The Chief says, “When a badge turns red , the event signifies a lethal dose of radiation.  You do not look sick.  If I report this badge, you cannot continue your residency until you complete medical treatment. I am going to throw it away and issue you a new badge as if this event did not ever happen.  I will alter the books.  Here is your new badge.  You can go back to the wards. If you feel sick in any way, come back and see me.”  “I will,” says Dr. Wrak.  “Good luck,” says the chief. 

     This is how radiology is. Even amongst educated elite, the world is a tooth and nail fight for wealth and supremacy.  All rivals and competitors face instant elimination on a daily basis and interact with  the forces of evil constantly.  Dr. Wrak hopes he was not exposed to high energy ionizing radiation.  Lots of radiation destroys the immune system.  Today is a new day and more films are to be read and more procedures done with x-ray guns pointed nearby.  Dr. Wrak finished the book on Clinical Radiology in one night and now knows what to expect and what to do in the hospital.  The future of Medicine lies in imagery because viewing things in situ, de facto, in surgery portends morbidity, mortality and worse for the patient and the staff.  Dr. Wrak runs with the new technology of Radiology and feels proud to be part of the new wave.  With the new wave comes great danger and in danger heroes are made. Some things must be done and not talked about.  Reading x-ray films expertly requires high intelligence, a background of medicine and the ability to visualize anatomic detail in the  mind as a doctor  correlates the information with the imagery presented on the film. Hope springs eternal even for the damned.

     “Dr. Wrak, are you finished with Radiology yet,” inquires Dr. Q from across the hall.  “We need you back on the ward.”  “I am still on vacation Dr. Q,  Still on vacation. Nice to see you. Two weeks to go.” 

Medicine is a fun and helping profession and W is glad to be part of it. 

In this clandestine life he has the opportunity to meet people, mostly at work. They come in all sizes and shapes and races and nationalities. Some are good, some are bad, some are pretty. Others not. They exist in different classes: some in suits, some in work-clothes, others in pajamas, others in bathing suits. If you decide to enter the health sciences, there are others.
Nurses in white, doctors in a smock, technicians in green. No blue, red or purple. Then there are the suits. Wearing a suit designates a human entity as administrative. Does the maker wear a suit? Late at night in a hospital, an ethical human being can find him there. Why is it always a him? He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t have to. Actions speak louder than words and when you are close, so very close, speaking does not make any sense.
He is tall, like most Celtic or Germanic men are. He is not muscular or overly emaciated, just thin like a long distance runner. He wears an expensive thin wool tweed suit in black or dark grey with something. Attornment of the very best. He sports a black tie, a small one neatly inserted into a white linen shirt. We never did get a chance to look at his shoes, he was entirely occupied. This man sports official credentials in a plastic placard hanging from a lanyard on his chest. This person seems to have contacts of the highest echelon and favor and has no friends. At least it doesn’t seem he has friends, the staff don’t seem to see him.
If a person dares to get close, and few people have, he contains light brown hair, a fair complexion, a normal nose with a slight crook to it and lips within the standard stanine. He might have freckles on his cheeks, only the lord knows. His eyes seem aquiline of the grey spectrum and he does not speak. We in the youth identified him once in a hospital at the witching hour of two AM. The occult seem to be fixed on this number for reasons unknown to the faithful. Of all things to have, he has a small book, all in black with white pages, and he outstretches his hand and shows it to you as if you know what it is, but you don’t. Then you leave, and don’t look back.
Upon the squalls of impending death this author saw him again, some fifty years later, looking at him with the hospital staff and they did not seem to see him, and he showed us the book, again, as if we know what it means, but we don’t. The author lives to write this and has not seen this man again and he hopes he never does. This man does not evidence, hate, envy, lust, greed or otherwise, he just is and when he shows up it is important. He might be an Englishman or worse a Teutonic but at times they are all the same.
If you see this man, turn around and walk away if you can.

justice is a beautiful lady

she holds a scale

on the right in white is ethos

on the left is black and pathos

she speaks the law

sometimes in between

you want to approach

and touch her

but you know you should not

At eleven P.M the nursing night shift arrives.  The charge nurse enters through the main door and the four nurses sit in the nursing stations and discuss the seven patients in the ICU.  The charge nurse leaves and within the next fifteen minutes the night shift evaporates to a small kitchen at the front of the unit near the main door.  They lock the door and draw the shades.  The fluorescent tubes glow within and the smell of coffee permeates the ICU. Dr. W is alone, and on call as a surgical resident at the Amityville general hospital.  The clock shows 12 A.M. and the orders from Q are to cover the surgical floor, the obstetrics gynecology surgical unit and the pediatric oncology unit here.  No one is in the ICU except Dr. W.  The heart monitors display their green lines and a red light pulses with each heartbeat for each patient on the verge of life or death. The respirators puff at inspiration and gasp at the expiration as a filmy foggy mist exits the respirator regulators.  Q’s orders are to survey the patients and report any neurological disturbances that might herald death such as decerebrate posturing and agonal respiration through the thoracic muscles.  Normal breathing is diaphragmatic and using the accessory muscles of respiration signals anoxia and a consequent cardiac arrest.  Decerebrate posturing happens when the brain does not receive blood any more. Then the patient curls into themselves and dies. Alongside the most critical patients is a crash cart. The crash cart is a metal box full of syringes, needles of varying sizes and a myriad of heart drugs, mostly epinephrine. The lights are low and one fixture pulsates with a dying light Dr. W note this and will tell physical plant at first light.  Dr. W never really felt at home at the ICU because everything, all parameters are taken away and placed in God’s hands. During the day Dr. W would have to rush in and take an arterial blood gas of a respirator patient and bring it to the cigarette smoking technician locked within a little room down the hall with three machines and a coffee urn. He would take the blood, blow smoke at Dr. W, say thanks and then close the door.  The rest was in God’s hands.  Tonight, he is alone, as he is always alone and left with a thankless job.  Every man must know his limitations and the limitations are that this body requires much sleep that he has not gotten in six months. Dr. W is on call every third night and call begins at 11 P.M.  He must visit all units at least once during my shift and catch what sleep he can.  Dr. W never really sleeps because fate wakes him up before he enters REM sleep and he is never satisfied.  Most surgical patients require a sleeper medication and those pre-operation meds induce respiratory arrest as a side effect.   The anesthesiologists caution Dr. W before to be prejudicial and withhold medication. The patients moan and look at Dr. W with wide scared eyes and beg to be put to sleep.  Oxacepam does not work as the books state.  Dalmane is the only thing that works and 5 mg may not be enough and the patient begs for more; He signs a requisition and give five more.  The nurse administers it in his presence.  Dr. W leaves and tries to get more sleep. Dr. W is tired of smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, especially at night because he becomes irritable and short tempered.  he exits to a call room, close the door, and barricade it with furniture so no one can enter silently.  Sleep is always short and a nurse bangs on the hardwood door until Dr. W emerges. Now is the second run through the hospital and he enters the ICU.  It must be two AM, and the lights are dim, and the respirators puff, the monitors skew and the red lights blink.  Sometimes he imagines a dying patient turns and smiles out of the corner of his eye.  He turns around and they are asleep once again.  The nurses lock themselves in the kitchen. Another patient seems to open their eyes and beckon to Dr. W, but when he turns around, they are asleep.  Once a human being is at deaths door, they ask everyone around them not to bring them back, and when there is an arrest, a surgeon moonlighting in the Emergency room appears and starts the procedures.  They inject epinephrine, calcium and more and use the shockers to start the heart beating again.  When the patient dies, they all seem to have a wan smile on their face because they know their will be no more, pain; anguish, despair, or disappointment and Dr. W says a prayer and wish them God speed. Nothing is going on in the ICU tonight.  Dr. W has not met God and he do es not want to.  The eerie glows and the shadows and the weird feeling He get at night here are an effect of hopelessness and finality.  Dr. W exits the unit through the front door and wait in the hall for someone else to come out or enter.  No one does.  He is told to use the stairway at night.   Entering the pediatric Oncology section Dr. W lingers as to make sure the poor children condemned to suffering are comfortable and not vomiting.  If they are, He is to contact the oncologist attending by hall phone and wait until they arrive. The kids are at rest and a single nurse sits in the station reading a book. She smiles at Dr. W; He waves and walk by.  Back to the surgical ward on floor three He looks for a bag of tea and put a traveler boiler probe in the cup with it.  A tall man with a small black book enters the unit. He is greater then six feet and wears an expensive suit.  He looks at the book, then at the room number and enters a suite. Dr. W follows him in.  He is sitting next to a surgical patient.  Dr. W Walk over and examine his badge that he wears on his left lapel.  Everything seems to be in order.  He is a bonafide licensed member of the hospital. He looks at Dr. W and gestures as he looks at my badge too.  I do not know what he does but the credentials are in order.  Rocking the boat will get Dr. W trashed. He leaves.  W enters his call room and barricade the door with furniture.  His watch says 3:30 A.M. He takes his pager and pulls the batteries out of it and set it on the bureau.   He hangs his smock on the door and crawl into a small bunk bed.  W pulls the covers over his head and says a prayer.  Now I lay me down to sleep……  Surgical rounds begin at seven A.M and W will be in surgery from eight A.M. to at least 2 P.M. non-stop.  He wonders if this is the life he really wants. Sleep overtakes him again.  As W drift off he imagines he hear a hand trying to open the handle on the door. Then W is asleep.  The ICU can wait for another day.

The train to Pookipsie is a slow easy ride beginning in Grand Central station.  Underneath the huge coliseum of trains, the engine snakes and skittles across classic upstate countryside. Brownstones come into view and vanish and there is some green in-between the snowdrifts slowly melting in the end of a late winter and beginning of a beautiful spring blossom.  Somewhere near the classic town of Pookipsie, lies the biggest Psychiatric facility in the United States of America.  At least it was.   Now the Wracks hear the huge veterans’ facility near Pookipsie is closed down, shut up and the subterranean tunnels filled with snarling rodents and slithering serpents.  The classic tunnels were devised to connect the buildings for communication and transportation even during the heaviest winter storms. Now Dr. Wracks is here and the Head of Psychiatry at the Veterans administration welcomes us for a ten-week tour of duty at a Psychiatric facility lockup. The chief of the facility is a tall handsome man with silver hair.  His looks are marred by Popsicle sticks protruding from his nose splinting it securely.  Unfortunately, the chief had a mental lapse and got too close to a florid patient.  The patient was a black belt in Okinawa Karate and smashed his nose to pieces with a powerful back fist strike. He would make a good president.   The Popsicle sticks did not impair his diction as he welcomes us.   He says he will be in and out of his office during the week and that our liaison and mentor during our intern rotation will be Dr. Lecter M.D. 

     We meet Dr. Lecter at his office.  He sits in a space with a huge desk, a couch and a library of a thousand books.  The books are like a bullet proof barricade shielding him from the outside and reality.  He turns to us and passes out lecture notes.  He says these notes will help us identify neuroses and Psychoses before the behavior can affect us.  We are to memorize the notes because the knowledge might save our lives.   The Veterans facility is a Psychiatric lockup.   At the end of each hall is a huge oak door with a large deadbolt   the interns are to enter a corridor and close the deadbolt before proceeding further.  During the week huge wrestlers acting as Psychiatric aids will let us in and out of each level as we identify ourselves at the small window in the middle of the door.  It is our responsibility to make sure the door is locked behind us as we progress and transgress the environment that will soon be ours. Any failure to maintain security overtly will result in instant termination as some of the patients are violent with criminal records. The majority of patients are Veterans of foreign wars.  The minority are horrible curiosities too dangerous or too strange to be allowed to live in the community. Dr. Lecter is a man of average height like Dr. W.  He has long straight jet-black hair, like Dr. W.  He moves like he is levitated across the room.  He assures us that what we learn and see here will remain with us for the rest of our lives.  We are to eat with the patients because they have to see us to trust us.  Other wise there exists no reason why they shouldn’t attack us.   In the main cafeteria, we eat in the Doctors area, immediately next to the patient area.  We are to wear our white smocks everywhere as they identify us as professionals.  We are to shave or trim our beards neatly and keep our hair short.  There can not exist any interaction with the patients in public.  All communication must be in a public area or consult where the cameras can watch and alarm security if a patient becomes homicidal. Dr. Lecter assures the group he will be near should some excitement ensue. He introduces Dr. Beck.  Dr. Beck has black hair but is tall and lean.  He must be the protégé of Dr. Lecter.  Dr. Beck looks too serious to fool around with.  I note this instantly and file the anagram in the dominant temporal lobe.  Dr. Beck states that if we have any problems to come and see him during weekday hours. Now we will meet the staff.  Two huge psychiatric technicians patrol the unit.  The nurses sit in a guarded station with bulletproof glass and a ticket terminal to distribute psychiatric drugs to inmates.  Both aides are wrestlers but work only nine to five during the week.  On weekends the staff is skeletal and the interns must patrol the unit to insure all patients are present and that no one is hurt or killed by another patient.  During the day in the winter most patients sit in the recreation room and play ping pong, deal cards or watch TV.  Most of these people are normal looking except for a cross dresser who sits inordinately still and a huge African American football player who plays on a national championship team as a defensive lineman. Most of the patients turn to the interns and wave in validation.  They are used to being surveyed, assayed and evaluated for their behavior that really is not their fault. These people are casualties of society and their behavior is too violent or exaggerated for them to continue to lead functional lives in the community.  Some are Viet Nam veterans who have a disorder called traumatic stress syndrome.  The affected patients have flashbacks to situations the soldiers encountered in the jungles of Viet Nam.  Psychologically the reason for the traumatic syndrome is the psychoses induced by being forced to witness the killing and torturing of hundreds or thousands of civilians close at hand.  Some of these soldiers were forced to kill thousands of innocent people because they harbored the Viet Cong.  Some soldiers who served our country in Viet Nam could never readjust to civilian life because of what they witnessed or were forced to do.  The soldiers with traumatic stress syndrome come and go in this Veterans facility and it is their second home and the Nation pays for the burden of the horrible destruction of a thankless war.  The interns move on.  Soon lunch arrives and we head to the cafeteria.  The long hours of internship are broken by a meal. Army style the interns get in line with the patients and we are given a ration of provisions that will maintain our health.  A sandwich, potato chips, and some raw vegetables are it but we can get refills of orangeade or lemonade from the coolers.  Dr. W asks the distributor of food why we are given so little.  “So you do not get fat.” She speaks.  Dr. W grabs a sandwich and walks by.  We eat together, the eight of us and then move to our quarters to move in.  We each have a little nook with a bunk bed like the quarters on the “MASH” show on television.  Dr. W is expecting Hawkeye to appear out of nowhere and make him look ridiculous.  This never happens and Dr. W resigns himself to books, cigarettes, and packets of instant coffee to be used sparingly.  The facility sells cigarettes at the canteen for Armed services prices.  The quarter master says he will sell me several cartons at this price because he likes Dr. W.  He looks like Napolean Bonaparte on the “MASH” television show.

Dr. W does not react and accept the gift with humility and rancor.  Back in a pigeon hole, Dr. W lights up a Marlboro and begin to memorize the notes.

 He is up late and the niche fills with smoke and   he put out a butt and falls asleep by himself, waiting for reverie at 6 hundred hours military time tomorrow.

From the top of the hill, the Pacific Ocean shimmers blue and undulates with the cool onshore wind pushing up the mountains. Blue and blue to the horizon with an island cast in grey on a southerly tack sitting low in the distance. The ocean is the only constant in this world. From the top of the hill homes insert into the mountain side up the street all the way to Disch anted way and to the left as a steep incline up and up as dead land lane.  A small brown stucco cottage school sits in front, mainly for children, uninhabited and locked behind an eight foot tall cyclone fence. The street runs downward, west into a cul-de-sac hidden behind a bend to the right and framing an enclosed canyon that once functioned as storm outlet running to the sea. Mellow man lane ends here and a small street begins and turns left with two houses on the ledge. The first on the corner is bluish green, large and has an expansive dichondra lawn, florid bushes, an entrance place and no one is ever seen there coming or going. A tall skinny oriental gardener whose eyes glow yellow occasionally works at the site.  On Halloween we coerce someone to come to the door for a trick or treat and no one ever comes and the house is dark and poorly lighted but kept in immaculate condition. The second house sits behind a ten foot tall red brick fence enclosing the whole compound like a fort.  A huge steel gate swings open to let cars in and out and when the Wracks walks home from school heads pop up on top of the fence and unseemly look around.  The road then turns west snakes downward  and merges into moonrise boulevard around a shrine to no-one and nothingness patrolled by priests who scare everyone away from the dream pools, meandering pathways, hidden retreats and unseen places far away from the sun shadowed by tall pines pushing upward to 50 feet. At the base of the long curve road at the ocean Moonrise boulevard stops and intersects highway 111.  A small point with a restaurant that breaks like LAN Ikea on Oahu when the swell gets to twenty feet once or twice every five years. The restaurant discharges effluent into the break and when the waves tower high dark grey shapes waft slowly in the water underneath your feet.  Time moves on and the constant are the things around us that do not talk or move and only change with the generations and the cycles of the moon.

     The street up to disc anted lane is a normal street in a beach town somewhere in the west.  The houses do not need air conditioners as the sea air keeps temperatures below 90 degrees.  In the winter, it might snow for a second, just long enough to grab some flakes and taste them and exalt in a winter season.  Houses line the street and are set into the mountain or inserted in a bed over the canyon. The house on the corner is big and brown and sits opposite Mellow man lane and the cyclone fencing of the elementary school. No one lives there very long. A prominent family on the east coast own the structure. They move in and out and the valuable corner lot is a museum of history and future occurrences.  The house next to them is a large green structure with an oriental roof and a gate in front of the entrance obscuring all that enter or exit. The Odelights sit and weed their castle constantly. They sit out in front on their knees and weed.  Afterwards they go inside. They must be the sentinels and spies.  The Odelights drive a 1950 Oldsmobile cutlass kept in immaculate and shiny condition. Time goes on. The next house on the street opposite us on the bend over the canyon looking at the pacific is a contemporary structure smaller than the Odelights with large front windows. No one stays here any longer than a couple years either.  regel got his teeth shot out playing the garbage bongos on a pleasant afternoon while trying out for an Australian rock band and then they soon moved out. The Benchly house sits opposite the Wrackers and like the other houses and families on the street, a person can not observe them arriving or leaving very often. Rumor has it that their daughter was possessed.    Everyone has electric garage door openers and flies in and out.  Her first husband had a heart attack in the middle of the night and the ambulance arrived too late. Her second husband looks like a scalded lobster and now they are separated.  I have not met Mrs. Benchly in person except to see her peeking out from her front door or the shutters on the living room window slowly move open and then close. The Barters lived across the street from us but moved to a larger house up the street where his wife died of hepatic failure. The grey house has a magnificent white water view and his sons showed me how magnesium burns and the temperature effects of an acetylene torch. They have a 500-pound drum of peroxide in their garage. On Halloween the Barters would stand on their roof and slide a weighted dummy down a rope on a pulley to frighten trick or treaters. Big brother poked little brother’s eye out. Time moves on. The Trains lived in a similar tract house to the Barters and the father was a doctor and he had two sons who would occasionally play with the Wracks.  Dr. Trains and his family soon moved to a larger house and the Gels moved in. regel would make sizzle burgers in his kitchen with worst shire sauce and plant smoke bombs in all the mail boxes.  His brother would break into the house of the Fonts and chase their young beautiful daughter.  This might be a reason regel got his teeth shot out.  His mother told me that he was a rough, mean boy and regel could not play with someone like me and my Chemistry set any more in the garage of the long house.

     The two main houses of interest are the houses next to and adjacent to the Wrackers who lived in the long yellow house. The house to the south was set on a large lot. Small complexes and independent town houses without adjoining entrances sit on the large hill corner lot.  The brown apartments are occluded with trees and brush and sit silently on the hill on the corner overlooking the big blue Pacific Ocean. No one is ever seen coming or going and the family on the east coast must use the house as a getaway. A tiny garage faces west on the low street side and a young man much older than the Wracks sits inside grooming a race prepared 427 Ford Cobra Race Car.  He started it once and the huge exhaust headers blooped melancholy percussions into the air at idle and then the car sped away. He must be Caroll Shelby.  One day the Wracks checked and he and his car were gone and the garage never opened again except once and it was full of paper boxes of documents.  No one was ever seen coming or going from the house but the gloom associated with the structure and the isolation and the overgrown plants told everyone the location was forbidden and not to be entered.  On Halloween, everyone avoided this place and even the most mischievous of us all refused to throw a lemon or rotten apple inside. The porch lights were never on and the curtains draped but two cars set in the driveway. On the north side were the Clothes. Mr. Clothes was a laid off aeronautic engineer blacklisted from employment in his profession. His tall wife became an administrator and knew Mr. Gold finger.  The Wracks never saw their daughter, but their son was the best piano player he has ever heard.  While shooting a BB gun at targets, he would play “for Elise” in a delicate and beautiful way no one could ever match. Bach, Tchaikovsky and Mozart were also played flawlessly. He could even duplicate the fruity texture of Mozart compositions exactly.  He played three hours a day every day and a musical ignoramus like the wracks could understand that he was something special.  He had a national piano recital that became a debacle and fiasco. In the middle of his act, he had a seizure of some sort and that was that.   His family declared war on the Gel’s. In middle age I still have not heard anyone who could play as well as he could.  The Wracks still wonders what happened to him. The Wracks understood he was a security cop at the local bank. Time moves on. Later on, in life the Wracks could hear him shoot a 22-rim fire gun in his back yard guarded by a huge pool filled with mosquitoes. A territorial female Rhodesian ridgeback would attack anyone who set foot on their property.  The dog eventually died of cancer and the Wracks moved away but the cast and the people of tranquil hills will live in memory and waking dreams forever. The ambiance in this community in Tranquil Hills was of silence, anonymity, conspiracy and foreboding.  People lived in a thick atmosphere of human want and emotion at the same time displaced from the mainstream like a salmon upstream out of water. The simple fact the Wracks reached adulthood living here was a miracle of rebirth and hope cast in a dark swamp deep in the mind of the collective unconscious. Kind of like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. That a situation like this shall ever occur in the space time continuum is improbable until the end of time and I want to thank everyone who made exodus timely and expeditious with all my heart and being.  The Wracks would not be surprised if somehow, someway it all burned to the ground. Os.

Yahweh give me peace of mind

And a life free from want

Until the end of time.