I Meet a Rich Man

RIGHTING 🤺 WRONGS

I Have Pneumonia.

So . . . I’m not 100% certain if it’s the raging fever, the rolling diarrhea, the sudden blackouts, or the buckets of phlegm that cause me to meet a rich man in Dr. R’s waiting room. But you’ll see the headlines shortly, and will decide for yourself, Hygienic Reader!

And . . . because, no doubt, at this very moment, the rich man may be filing a police report, I think I’ll just use this time before the cops apply the pry bar to my cabin door, to take my Azithromycin and place the facts before you . . . OK?

I’ll tell you as much as I remember; then, when the law drags me off my pneumonia bed and hauls me away, you, Rosy-Cheeked Reader, you can go to the proper authorities and explain that I’m a sick, sick woman.

Deal?

✤ ✤ ✤

So, my doctor is arguably the most famous doctor in New York. Her hospital is NYU Langone, the highest-ranked hospital in the city. Her offices are in one of NYU Langone’s state-of-the-art medical buildings, and, what with the tripledemic and Manhattan being frozen stiffer than billionaire’s bidet, her waiting room is chock-full of moaners and groaners at 7:45 a.m. when I crawl in, heave my boiling bulk into a blue plastic corner chair, balance on one buttock—the better not to unwedge the offering of Bounty paper towels I’ve stuffed into my pants for the diarrhea gods—and, not even bothering to examine my fellow patients, I fall fast asleep.

Ping-Ping

I jerk to my feet. A chill of terror shoots up my spine. I’m astonished to find myself in my doctor’s waiting room. A hot taste of nausea fills my mouth. I adjust the mound of Bounty towels, take my seat again, and look at my phone.

Ah.

It’s an Ask E. Jean letter.

Dear E. Jean:

Please! Do you have any suggestions for a business woman who’s suddenly lost 90% of her income?

I’m stone BROKE! The only food in the house is bag of potatoes and a box of Cheerios. I can’t even manage to scrape together the $17 that my little boy needs for his class trip next week to Radio City Music Hall. A measly 17 bucks! Can you believe it? Our electricity is about to be turned off, and my boy keeps telling me: “Mom! It will be fun wearing our coats to bed!”

E. Jean, this is insane! I have a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. I’m an artist. I have reviews which are so glowing, I’d blush to repeat them to you. So why is my heat about to be turned off in the middle of one the coldest winters in New York history?

Because my business—I draw live portraits over Zoom—depends heavily on Twitter. And when Elon Musk bought Twitter, he smashed-up my career, and my boy and me along with it.

Three months ago, I had almost 81,600 followers and an income that we could live on. Today, thanks to Elon Musk I have less than 3,400 followers! I have spent hours writing to the Twitter engineers, PR people, and management. Nothing.

E. Jean! Help me! I have no where else to turn! How do I get my followers back? —Busted by Musk

P.S. Yes, I am working around the clock on Insta and TikTok, but it’s slow going! By the by, my Twitter handle is the once-shiny-now-shitty [Redacted].

✤ ✤ ✤

In a kind of hot dander, I re-read the letter. To make certain I grasp the facts, I read it again, and God save us, Reader! My first instinct is strangle Elon Musk! Also I feel a surge of curiosity to see Miss Busted’s portraits. But just as I’m looking her up on Twitter, a pneumatic young giantess in spectacularly tight sapphire scrubs, batting a pair of false eyelashes long as my ribs, appears:

“Miss Carroll?”

“Yes?”

“Dr. R has asked me to take you upstairs for a chest x-ray.”

I stand.

The wad of Bounty un-rolls, or possibly un-sticks, and starts its trip down my leg. And don’t tell me, Unobstructed Reader, you don’t know what I’m talking about! We’re all organized this way, and if you haven’t stuffed a wad or two of Bounty down your pants, I’ll eat my faux-fur earmuffs. So, as I was saying, I pick up my bag, and planning what I’ll reply to Miss Busted, and trailing a hail storm of blown Kleenex, I follow the Giantess into an empty elevator.

With her elbow, the Giantess presses the 12th floor and commences pulling off my outdoor scarf, my puffer coat, my indoor scarf, my puffer vest, my blue-and-black striped-wool sweater, my black long underwear shirt, my grey long underwear shirt, and, shoving me into some sort of paper garment while unsnapping and removing my bra, she hands me out of the elevator into the charge of a technician, who stands me against some kind of plate in an intimidatingly-dark room, instructs me to “take a breath, “hold it,” impales me in a beam of radiation, and the Giantess meets me with my clothes.

The Giantess and I perform a semi-version of this ecdysiast-routine again in a tiny room on the fourth floor for the purpose of what the Giantess calls “getting your bloods,” but when she attempts to strip me buck-naked on the sixth floor so as to shove me into a machine and obtain a computerized tomography scan of my innards, Reader! I cinch my belt!

“Off with your pants,” says the Giantess.

I suspect the Giantess is not making an honest attempt to understand my thinking.

“Which pants?” I say.

“All the pants.”

I stare up at her. Her eyelashes are like awnings on the Chrysler Building.

“I’ll tell you what,” I say. “I’ll give you my black long underwear pants, my navy long underwear pants, my riding breeches, and, as this is your lucky day, you’ll receive, in addition, my prize pair of Official United States Army Cold-Weather Pant Liners. In return, I keep my Hanes breathable, moisture-wicking bikini underpants and my wadded-up Bounty towels.”

For the Fashionable Reader, here’s a photo of the Official US Army Cold Weather Pant Liners. You can get ‘em from Army Surplus for $9.

The Giantess ruminates.

“Keep the Bounty,” she says, “gimme the pants.”

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CT-scanned and re-panted, I am delivered into Waiting Room 2—the corral for patients who are about to be assigned to one of Dr. R’s exam rooms. Two beings occupy this hallowed space, both are seated on chairs. One is the 2015 Grand Marshall of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, Disney star, and most famous dog in New York.

“Betty!” I cry.

Betty leaps off her chair, spins about twenty-five times, and jumps into my arms.

“Happy New Year, old girl!” I cry. “Give us a kiss!”

Betty the Indefatigable! Betty the Tireless! Day and night, around the clock, Dr. R’s little rescue mutt visits the sick and the dying in New York. Betty may possess the body of skate board and the ears of a donkey, she may be a strange color they don’t even have a name for, but Betty’s probably brought more hope to the “hopeless” than anybody in the city.

With Betty in my arms, I feel about 550 times better.

“How’s the girl?” I say, “Who are you visiting today? I saw you on Jimmy Kimmel last—what? Oh! You want to get down? Ok! Ok! Here ya go!”

Carefully, carefully—Betty’s not getting any younger—I put her on her chair. And not being a person who’d miss a photo opportunity with Betty, I am beginning the hunt for my phone, beating my pockets, pawing my pants, when I catch, out of the tail of my eye, Betty flying across the room.

She hits the wall.

“YOU KICKED….. BETTY?” I scream at the other occupant of the room.

Fearless Reader, what would you do? I don’t have time to remove my earrings or my coat, I don’t think about my temperature hitting 103.1, I don’t even entertain the slightest thought for the Bounty, I simply take a running kick at the other being in the room and crack him so hard in the hip, he topples off his chair and lands face down.

“Don’t be dead, Betty!” I’m thinking to myself, “For Godssakes! Don’t be dead!” She’s not moving, that’s for sure. I turn her over, shut her mouth, close my hand around her muzzle and blow three breaths into her nose. I have no idea what I’m doing, Reader! I may be breathing bacteria into Betty which will kill her faster than the kick. I try the three breaths again.

“YOU!” shouts the other occupant in the room. “You kicked Betty!”

“Me?” I cry, turning around, “you kicked Betty!” and I snatch up a medical waste container and hurl it at him with such force it flattens his nose.

Disregarding all medical protocol, the man leaps upon me, grabs me by the shoulders, flings me about the floor, tipping over the weight and height scale, and knocking me against a cabinet of antiseptics, cotton balls, and disposable gloves, which scatter over the floor. Only as I am crawling through a glistening mess of spilled hand sanitizer trying to get to the reflex hammer with the idea of banging the oaf’s brains out do I notice that the guy whose nose I flattened looks like Elon Musk.

I receive a clearer view when he climbs on top of me and flails away, wobbly and sick as I am, built like a water heater, heavy, gasping, yes, it is definitely the The Musk, and just as I am grabbing him feebly around the throat, the door swings open, and Dr. R appears:

“Elon! E. Jean! What’s this?!”

“He killed Betty!” I whimper, from underneath The Musk.

“I didn’t kill Betty! She killed Betty!” says The Musk.

“I didn’t kill Betty! He killed Betty!”

“She killed Betty!

“He killed Betty!”

“Nobody killed Betty,” says Dr. R. “Up-Up, Betty!”

And amazingly, incredibly, Betty rolls over, springs into the air, dances the cha-cha on her back legs, picks up the scattered cotton balls, places them in the trash, and if there had been a piano in the room, I have not the least doubt that Betty would have sat down and played Clair de Lune.

The Musk and I both are both so tired of thumping and being thumped that we can’t even climb to our feet, and we just sit and grin at Betty.

“Elon,” says Dr. R. “You’ve never met Betty? She’s the best actor of her generation.” Dr. R picks Betty up into her arms. “She plays dead better than any opossum on Earth, don’t you, darling? Now listen, E. Jean. I have a Senator out there who’s frightened by the idea of an MRI, and Betty must give him a pep talk. Can I leave you alone with Elon for five minutes? That nose of his can’t take another hit.”

And with a smile, the elegant Dr. R leaves us. Half-a-second later Betty trots back into the room, gives me a kiss, gives The Musk a kiss, and, with a wag of her tail, exits, and closes the door behind her.

“Mr. Musk!” I say. “Heavens! Forgive me! I’m so sorry! My Gawd! I beg your pardon! I should never, never have kicked you. I’m sorry! Lordy! What a