Taxes and Dr. Death, or, The Yogi of Boothwyn

“Hiring Sheila had been a mistake. I knew that before I did it. The basic rule is never hire anyone you can’t fire. Or, as I prefer to state it, never hire anyone you are not willing to take out back and shoot.” Cusper Lynn

The Occidental Ape

by Cusper Lynn

SARASOTA Florida—(Weekly Hubris)—6/25/2012—I had spent a quiet morning working on reports at my office. My assistant, who is only slightly better than a paid audience, was busy organizing my files and losing my receipts. Those activities occupied the period between her arguments with her boyfriend, her 20 minutes of updating her Facebook page, and an intense game involving tossing small birds at pigs which she played on her phone.

Measuring my options—another useless conversation with her on office policy or an immediate termination—I decided to go to lunch.

Hiring Sheila had been a mistake. I knew it before I did it. The basic rule is: never hire anyone you can’t fire. Or, as I prefer to state it: never hire anyone you’re not willing to take out back and shoot.

Sheila Marksen is the daughter of an old friend of mine from my corporate warrior days. When he called me to ask if I knew anyone who might need the services of his “not quite” college graduate youngest daughter, I knew I was doomed. Without missing a beat, I accepted her services, sight unseen. I owed Carl Marksen.

Leaving the office, I informed Sheila that I would be out for about an hour.

She acknowledged this information with a slight grunt and then started whooping enthusiastically as she slaughtered a large family of green pigs with a single bird.

The “Sheila” problem did not occupy my mind unduly as I drove to Little Athens for lunch. My strategy was simple. Sheila was terminally in love with losers. What had brought her to my front door was Leslie Holbronte, an aspiring beach bum with a collection of tattoos, a middle class upbringing, and a permanent sneer on his face directed at societal conventions . . . which made him a very conventional idiot.

On two or three occasions, I had seen him in the office—to get money from Sheila to do something he wanted to do—and I had identified his weakness; his need to be extreme, brutal and inscrutable. My goal is to prompt him to pursue dangerous activities that will require relocation to a place that has mountains, say Boulder, Colorado. I had laid out my general campaign. To associate his current sport —Kite Surfing—performed with members of my generation, and to interject a more dangerous sport—say Speed Mountain Climbing—with practitioners three years his junior. If Carl Marksen were really lucky, Leslie would break his neck climbing a mountain peak. If Carl Marksen weren’t lucky, he would become the father-in-law of a mountain-climbing maniac.

I let my mind pass from the happy thought of a letter of resignation from Sheila to my gyro, the stuffed grape leaves, and the side of extra feta I had ordered.

After completing my tax filings, I am always a bit melancholy. It has nothing to do with the forms or the money, itself. It has more to do with the fact that reviewing a year’s worth of double-entry accounting takes me through the last year, transaction by transaction, and makes me acutely aware of how little I have learned, how quickly time has passed, and how much of life dribbles away making negligible purchases.

Such moods leave me craving Greek food; the way too much beer leaves you craving a curry.

I was just negotiating my way into the gyro when I saw him: Dr. Death. I did not need this. A conversation, an exchange of any kid and of any duration with Dr. Death was something I absolutely did not need.

Dr. Death is not the famed torturer of prisoners of war—pick whatever war you like; there is always a Dr. Death. Nor is he the famous euthanasia advocate, now himself deceased, from Michigan. He isn’t even the famed Dr. Jerkowitz—thus christened by the nurses at the East Division Center for homicidal arrogance displayed during his residency there. (Dr. Jerkowitz went on to change his specialty to Renal Failure, describing more what he achieved than what his patients had when they first presented at his office, and gave him a batting average well above that of the deceased euthanasia advocate.) This was THE Dr. Death: Dr. Andrew M. DeHeath.

Practicing an ancient meditation technique of indivisibility taught to me by an itinerant Yogi Adept outside Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, I deflected Dr. DeHeath to the far side of the restaurant.

“Cusper?” Dr. DeHeath called out to me.

Must have done something wrong. The meditation wasn’t working.

“It is you, Cusper!” he said happily, and started for my table bearing a tray.

I reviewed my experience with the itinerant Yogi of Boothwyn. I believe it went as follows: “Mister, would you like to learn the secret of invisibility . . . for a dollar?”

“What?” I asked as the old man dropped into step beside me as I was leaving an office building.

“Learn the secret of invisibility for a dollar?” the old man repeated.

I then stopped and looked at him. The proposition was preposterous, but the price was right. I took out a dollar and gave it to him.

We stood together . . . and time froze. Or so it seemed to me. Perhaps, though, it was just the memory of the opening passage of the Bhagavad Gita that flitted through my mind as I anticipated the passing on of received wisdom.

“Clear your mind,” said the Adept.

“OK.” I cleared my mind.

“Stop bathing, dress like me and ask people for change,” he said, and then left me to consider the sacred teaching I had received. I never saw him again.

“You must be having a lot of fun, lately,” Dr. DeHeath said, settling into my booth.

My eyes met those of my unwanted luncheon companion and I began seriously to question whether I had ever been initiated into the secret of invisibility.

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“The new budget and the health care law . . . .” Dr. DeHeath smiled as he unpacked his silverware.

By now, the suspicion that the old man in Boothwyn was not a Yogi but, instead a creative panhandler was beginning to take hold. It was also apparent that I would not be able to dislodge Dr. DeHeath without creating a scene. So, I returned his smile.

“It has kept me busy,” I conceded.

“Busy?” he snorted. “From what I hear, you are the equivalent of a practice wrecking ball.”

I shrugged. Dr. DeHeath is not a friend, nor a client. I have often wondered if he is even human.

“Do you really think the government would destroy doctors’ livelihoods and deny patients care?” he laughed.

I shrugged again. He was not going to get a free consultation by barging in on my lunch and then annoying me.

“Come on,” he said, with a wheedling tone that made me want to punch him in the nose, “these are not stupid people.”

I assumed he was referring to our governor, state senators and representatives. Under the circumstances, I considered it more probable that I had met a wandering Yogi and learned the Art of Invisibility than that he had been sincere in his opinion of our state’s government. So, I let the remark pass unchallenged.

“I had an interesting experience,” Dr. DeHeath said, prodding his lamb with a fork.

Dear God, No. I did not need to hear about another of Dr. DeHeath’s “Interesting Experiences.”

“ . . . about two nights ago,” he began, oblivious to my silence, “I had this terrible headache.”

I considered asking him for change.

“You know the type: side of the head, half the face, and down to the base of the skull?” he said, his mouth now full of partially chewed lamb and rice and his fork tracing the area of his complaint.

I continued to refrain from participating in this discussion.

“Well, next thing I know, I’ve got this tingling sensation down the side of my face, I can’t open my eye, and it feels like my mouth is drooping,” he elucidated, chewing, smacking and simultaneously drawing down the right side of his face to emphasize his point.

There are in this world neurotics for whom life is a series of terrors present and future.

“. . . then, I felt my arm become weak. Couldn’t do a darn thing with it,” he smiled, a bit of partially chewed food trailing from his drooping mouth.

Then, there are hypochondriacs, for whom all symptoms point to diseases small and large.

“. . . so, I lay down and considered having Vivian call for an ambulance,” Dr. Andrew M. DeHeath continued, delaying with a napkin the downward progress of the trailing food at the corner of his mouth.

Then, there is Dr. DeHeath, for whom grotesque symptoms of infirmity and imminent death are a fascinating insight into the circumstances of his patients.

“My leg was going numb and, I’m thinking, ‘hemi-facial paralysis, unilateral upper extremity paralysis’ and I’m just wondering where this is going because I figure this sure is text-book,” he said, really smiling now, through his lamb. “And you know what happened next?”

I stared at him.

Every doctor on the planet who has ever taken Differential Diagnosis & Pathology has gone through this process: the conscious awareness of death and its manifold forms. Some do become neurotics or hypochondriacs; a few become seriously dependent on prescriptions; most grow out of it by drawing across themselves the veil of denial or practice the mental exercise of ignoring the implications.

“My leg went numb,” he smiled even more broadly, “could not move it. So there I am, half my body numb, a ‘whooshing’ sound in my right ear. Did I mention the ‘whooshing” sound’?”

I continued to stare at him. Dr. DeHeath is entirely different from the neurotics, hypochondriacs, addicts and depressives to be found in practice. He is healthy—just a hair past 50—fit and possessed of an obnoxious vitality.

“Yes—‘whooshing’ in my right ear, like listening to the ocean,” he answered himself.

It is never clear to me whether the urge to kill him arises from his absurd vitality or his near-death sagas.

“So, I figure, stroke. Thought, well this may well be it.” He splayed his hands out as though in acceptance. “Was going to try and call Vivian and the kids in.”

Once, while at a conference he produced a quarter-inch long tumor in a jar that had been recently removed from his sinuses. He did this while giving an eye-watering description of being conscious for the entire procedure. He had started that discourse while we were having drinks and appetizers.

Thank the gods for the drinks.

“Then, I was gone, out like a light. Fell straight to sleep,” he continued, undeterred.

The urge to do him an injury grew, apace with his narrative.

“Next morning, woke up with a minor crick in the neck, got over to the office, scheduled a few tests. They came back negative, all of ‘em, and I’m right as rain! Amazing, isn’t it!?”

I looked down at my plate; my appetite gone.

“Anyway,” he said happily, “I just want you to know I think you are full of shit and everything is going to be just fine . . .”

I really wanted this man to feel some serious pain. Right then.

“. . . so much so,” he said folding his napkin and moving his remaining food to the corner of his plate, “that I have bought a new building and am doubling the size of my staff.”

I shook my head. “Sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Ha,” Dr. DeHeath erupted. “Cusper, you are such a pessimist.”

“Look,” I said. “You do what you want. But a word of advice. There is an office manager, name of Sheila Marksen. She only works in the top-flight clinics. Save your money. You won’t need her. You won’t be in business long enough.”

“Marksen?” he said, getting up from my booth. “I may have to look her up.”

I just shook my head and watched him leave.

Evil? Yes. But I doubted I could get Dr. Death to take up Speed Mountain Climbing.

I pushed aside my uneaten gyro and ordered the baklava: my appetite had returned.

Original photo-collage by Cusper Lynn.