Stanley Elkin - The Franchiser

“It isn’t the heat,” the Englishman said, as they both lay awake one night while the screams of crazed patients in an adjacent ward came through their open windows. (The windows had to be opened, of course, to catch whatever breeze might suddenly stir.) “It’s the humidity drives them bonkers.”

“They were already bonkers,” Flesh said irritably.

“That exacerbated it then,” the Englishman said just as irritably.

“Shit.”

“You know,” the Englishman said, “I don’t remember heat like this even in Brit Honduras.”

“Brit Honduras, Brit Honduras. Why can’t you say British Honduras like everybody else?”

“Everyone in RAF called it Brit Honduras.”

“And that’s another thing — Raf. Can’t you say R.A.F. like any normal human being?”

“I’ll say what I bloody well please.”

“Then be consistent. Say ‘Craf.’ ” (The Englishman had been on detached duty with the Canadians at their air base in Brandon, Manitoba, when the first symptoms of his Lassa fever had begun to manifest themselves.)

“Why should one say ‘Craf’ when it’s the Royal Canadian Air Force? I should have thought you would have heard of the Royal Canadian Air Force exer cises. I’d have to say ‘RCAF,’ wouldn’t I? The whole point of an acronym is to save time. One could, I suppose, say ‘ R -caf.’ That might be all right, I should think. Yes. ‘ R -caf.’ That’s not bad. It has a ring, just. One could say that.”

“Don’t say anything.”

“I say. Are you saying, don’t say anything?”

“Don’t say bloody anything. Shut bloody up. Go to sleep just. Close your eyes and count your symptoms, check.”

“Well, we are in a temper. You’re bloody cheeky, Yank.”

“ ‘Yank .’ Jesus. Where’d you train, on the playing fields of the back lot? Why don’t they run my tests? I know what I have anyway. Why don’t they read the lumbar puncture thing?”

“Well, they’ve their priorities, haven’t they? The lumbar puncture. That was manly. You screaming like a banshee. Louder than our lunatic friends.”

“That needle was big as a pencil.”

“ ‘Please stop. Please! Oh goddamn it. Oh Jesus. Oh shit. Oh fuck.’ Oh me. Oh my. Oh dear. Be adamant, Mister Softee. Be infrangible. Be stiff , Mister Softee. Be obdurate, be corn, be kibe!”

Flesh shut his eyes against Tanner’s taunts and took the darker view. “I’m taking the darker view,” he said quietly. “I’m taking the darker view because I’m going to kill him.”

In the morning the nurse came for Ben with a wheelchair. It was more than a hundred degrees in the ward.

“Is it my tests? Are my tests back?”

“You have a phone call. You can take it at the nurses’ station.”

“A phone call? Gibberd?”

“No.”

“I can’t think who it could be. No one knows I’m here. Is it a woman?”

“A man.”

She wheeled Ben to the phone and put the receiver in his left hand.

“Mr. Flesh?”

“Yes?”

“Zifkovic.”

He’d forgotten about his manager. “Yes, Zifkovic, what is it?”

“How you feeling, sir?”

“The same. I’m waiting for my test results. Is anything wrong?”

“The stuff’s all turned, sir. It’s rancid glop. There must be a ton of it. The Mister Softee’s all melted and running. We were working with ice for a time but I can’t get no more. It’s a high tide of ruined vanilla. The fruit flavors are staining everything in sight. I got the girls working on it with pails and mops but they can’t keep up. A truck come down from Fargo with a new shipment today. I told him that with this heat wave we couldn’t accept, but he just dumped it anyway. It’s outside now. A whole lake of the shit. What should I do, Mr. Flesh? Mr. Flesh?”

“It’s a plague,” Flesh said. “It’s a smoting.”

“What? Mr. Flesh? What do you want me to do? You wouldn’t believe what this stuff smells like.”

“I’d believe it.”

“You got any suggestions, Mr. Flesh? I didn’t want to trouble you. I know you got your own problems, but I don’t know what to do. You got any ideas?”

“Be hard, Mister Softee.”

“What? I can hardly hear you.”

“Nothing. I have no suggestions.” He handed the phone back to the nurse. “It’s the plague,” Flesh said. “A fiery lake of Mister Softee, check.”

“There you are, Mr. Flesh,” another of the nurses said, coming up to him. “Dr. Gibberd has your test results. He’s waiting for you.”

Flesh nodded, allowed himself to be returned to the ward.

Gibberd, standing at the Englishman’s bedside, waved to him. He indicated to the nurse that she set a screen up around Flesh’s bed. He was carrying a manila folder with the results of Ben Flesh’s tests. They were all positive. It was M.S. all right, Gibberd told him, but of a sensory rather than a motor strain. The chances of its becoming motor were remote. The fact that he’d been in remission all these years was in his favor. He really wasn’t in such bad shape. For the time being there would be no treatment. Later, should it shift to a motor M.S., they could give him Ritalin, give him steroids. How would he know? Well, he’d be falling down in the streets, wouldn’t he? There’d be speech impairment, wouldn’t there? There’d be weakness and he wouldn’t be able to tie his shoes, would he? There’d be nystagmus, don’t you know? Nystagmus? A sort of rotation of the eyeballs. Anyway, there was no real reason to keep him in the hospital. They needed the beds. Flesh looked around the empty ward.

“As a matter of fact,” Gibberd said, “I wish I were going with you. Where you off to now? Someplace cool?”

“I can drive?”

“Of course you can drive. I’ve told you, there’s no strength loss, no motor impairment at all. It’s just sensory. A little discomfort in your hand. So what?”

“But it’s America’s number-one crippler of young adults.”

“M.S. is a basket term. You’ll be fine. These symptoms should go away in two to three months. Boy, this heat.”

“The heat, check.”

“Well. Get dressed, why don’t you? I’ll write up your discharge papers. Be sure to stop by the cashier on the way out. Really. Don’t worry about the M.S.”

“Sensory discomfort, check.”

“I guess you’ll be wanting to get back to your Mister Softee stand before you leave. This heat . I could use a Mister Softee myself right now.”

“The Mister Softees are all melted. The Lord has beaten the Mister Softees back into yogurt cultures.”

“What’s that?”

“Plague.”

“What’s all this about plague?”

“The plague is general throughout Dakota. We’re being visited and smited.”

“Well. Good luck, Mr. Flesh.”

“Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“What about him?” Flesh jerked his thumb in the direction of Tanner’s screen. The doctor shook his head.

“He’ll be shipped off to Guernsey eventually. The R.A.F. maintains a hospital there for incurables.”

The doctor extended his hand. A shiver of electric plague ran up Flesh’s hand and arm when Gibberd touched him. He felt he could start the hospital’s engines just by touching them, that the energy was in his hands now, in the ruined, demyelinating nerves sputtering like live wires in his fingertips.

Gibberd left and Flesh dressed. He was about his business, heading toward the cashier and the Cadillac. (Probably it wouldn’t start; the battery dead, check. Check the oil.) Then suddenly Ben turned back. He stood for a moment in the center aisle, staring in the direction of Tanner’s screen. “Tanner,” he said, “I don’t want you to say a thing. Don’t interrupt me. Just listen just.