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My friend Linda

Fritz Hamilton

    My friend Linda, 50 percent injun from New Mexico, Mexican & Irish, tells her Pasadena shrink about me, & the shrinko thinks I have syphilis of the brain. I just thought I was brain dead. I carry my head through Pasadena hiding behind a smile of contentment, because I don’t want anyone to see how sick I am behind my teeth.
    I get a couple blocks from my home of loonies at Centennial Place, where the poor recovering addicts dwell. I haven’t told them yet about the brain syphilis, but I suspect they’ve always known that something is askew. I’m certainly not going to tell them, for fear they’ll lock me up forever at the state nuthouse or just shoot me.
    Pretty Linda is trying to avoid me. Who can blame her. Brain syphilis is con- tagious. Even when I breathe, there’s syphilis in the air. Linda has probably carried it to Maui where she lived & spread her wares for 20 years before returning to Pasadena to save the city from brain syphilis.
    Anyway, it takes me a couple blocks before I notice that everybody’s headless, I assume to protect the community from my brain disease. Their heads are probably at the nuclear wasteland being buried with the rest of the waste.
    It occurs to me, if they’re at all discerning, they’ll decapitate me for the wasteland, & I selfishly don’t want to go there. So I take a train to the 202 Club to find Linda to talk it over. I find her in the parking garage sharing a quart of Wild Irish Rose with some other Indians.
    She smiles at me to hide her 20 years of sobriety.
    “Hey, Linda love,” I say. “Is your shrink sure I have brain syphilis? Maybe it’s just tuberculosis of the balls.”
    “No, Fred, it’s brain syphilis. Maybe it’s also TB of the balls, but nobody cares about that.”
    “They’ll care plenty if they get balls TB from me. Maybe they’ll get some in the teats.”
    “What you should do, Fred, is throw all of you into the nuclear wasteland. Your loss will be our gain.”
    “Maybe I should take you there with me for company.”
    “TS Eliot could write ‘The Nuclear Wasteland’ about it.”
    “That’s the cats, Linda. Maybe I should jump in & become a hotdog.”
    “Your weenie could use some fire, Fred.”
    When I get home, I find somebody has burnt down my Centennial Place. I sit on the ashes & become Job.

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