 "Evolution,
Devolution, Revolution"
(Excerpt)
by David M. Fitzpatrick
“Nothing worse than being a fat guy and
having to wear this johnny, doc,” Marvin Drucker said, crossing his meaty
arms over his big chest. “Unless you’re gonna tell me I’ve got skin
cancer.” "Nothing so bad as that,
Mr. Drucker,” Dr. Orrin said, plucking his glasses off his wrinkled
nose and looking paternally at Marvin. “You have a decubitus
ulcer—often called a pressure sore or bedsore."
"Bedsores?" Marvin said, eyes wide. "But I'm only thirty-five."
"It's not about age," Orrin said. "They occur after prolonged
pressure on a particular point—usually where the skin and tissue is
thin over bone. The one you have is on your left posterior
sacroiliac crest—the jutting bone on your left lower back. Impeded
blood supply to the area caused the ulceration. You likely have
spent too much time sleeping on your back, so spend less time that
way. In the meantime, we’ll treat the sore with some topical cream.”
“I don’t spend that much time in bed,” Marvin said. “Why else could
they occur?” “The biggest
factor is likely your weight.”
Marvin reddened, sliding his hand defensively over his corpulent
gut. “Yeah, I know. I gotta lose some of this.”
“Some isn’t the word. You’re nearly four hundred forty pounds, Mr.
Drucker. You need to lose half of that.”
“I know, I just… can’t help eating all the time,” Marvin said. “I
went on a new diet last month, though, just before the summer—one
where you have to stick to a certain number of points worth of food
every day. I’m a teacher, and I figured it would be easier to start
during summer vacation, since I eat more during the school year.
More stress than usual, maybe.”
“Is the diet working?” “Well,
I’ve lost eleven pounds so far. It’s tough to fight stuffing my
face, but I’m managing. And now this.”
“It isn’t all that bad,” Orrin said. “Use the cream, sleep in new
positions, and you should be fine in no time. And, perhaps more than
anything, keep yourself on that diet.”
# Marvin was starving when he
left Orrin’s office; talking about the food he wasn’t eating was
usually all it took. He drove past seemingly countless fast food
joints on the way home and managed to not stop at any of them. As he
huffed and puffed his way out of his car in the driveway, he
realized it might have been the most fast food joints he’d ever
driven past in one trip without stopping.
It was difficult putting the medicated cream on back there,
considering his circumference, but he managed. Two mornings
afterward, the sore felt better. He could see in the mirror, looking
clumsily over his shoulder, that it was nearly gone.
So the following morning, when he had two new sores in the middle of
his back, he was surprised as well as annoyed. He called Dr. Orrin
to report and complain. “You
need to spend less time in bed,” Orrin said. “I prescribed you more
than enough cream, so use it—but stay out of bed as much as you
can.” “I did, doc,” Marvin
said. “I set my alarm early each morning, and I slept on my stomach.
I was never even on my back.”
“Then you likely changed positions during the night, ending up on
your back in the process.”
“Are you kidding? At my size, when I roll over, I wake myself right
up.”
“I see. Well, for now, keep using the cream. If the sores persist,
perhaps we should do a biopsy—just in case.”
# The new sores were cleverly
out of reach, so getting the cream on them was almost acrobatic,
requiring a backscratcher with the stuff glopped on the end. All the
while, his stomach growled away, letting him know how annoyed it was
being deprived of its usual buffet. He made himself a salad, using
only zero-point vegetables (according to the food point charts) and
skipped the dressing. As healthy as it was, there was just something
utterly wrong about a big, grown man eating a salad and calling it a
meal, so he despised every accursed bite. Afterward, his stomach
still grumbled, as if it had been fed nothing—and the salad nearly
constituted nothing, Marvin thought, so he couldn’t blame it for
bitching. In the bedroom, he
tore off the sheets and mattress pad and gave the bed a close
inspection. He expected to find a worn mattress with jutting spring
coils being the culprits, but there was nothing of the sort. It
appeared his thousand-dollar investment three years ago had been
worth it. Still, he resolved
to sleep elsewhere. The recliner had served him for many good naps
and a few full nights, so with the TV on and the chair tilted only
slightly back, Marvin got comfortable. All the while, his stomach
growled in its seething anger. It was as if the thing thought it
could win out by being as annoying as possible—and it nearly did,
but Marvin fought it until sleep won out over hunger.
# He woke to stomach cramps
and a voracious appetite—an unfortunately regular irritant for him.
Every other member in his dieting group never had such a problem,
and in fact no other dieters he knew had reported such; rather, it
was usually the reverse. It was as if his body was angry with him
for eating too many greens and was demanding a real meal. While
enjoying his morning urination and contemplating what reasonable
breakfast he could get away with, he looked down his mountainous
belly in his usual vain attempt to find his long-unseen appendage
and was suddenly shocked fully awake.
Seeping red sores covered his chest and abdomen, scattered randomly
as if spattered by a painter with a flick of a saturated brush.
Marvin sucked in his breath, lost control of his ritual and sprayed
the toilet tank. He swore,
finished, tucked it back in, then headed for the full-length mirror
he’d forced himself to hang right in front of his bathroom scale. At
first look, he could already see it was worse than he’d realized;
there must have been twenty sores spotting his front, and they were
all larger than the ones that had appeared on his back. Then he
noted one under his left arm, more toward the side of his torso, so
he turned sideways to investigate.
His left side was covered. So was his right. And his back. They were
everywhere. #
“I’m at a loss,” Orrin said, sounding nervous as he studied one of
the sores with a magnifying glass. “Honestly, they look like nothing
more than decubitus ulcers.”
“I’m telling you, it’s cancer,” Marvin said, shaking.
“I doubt it, although I admit I don’t know what it is. But I’ll have
the sample I took biopsied right away, and by tomorrow afternoon
we’ll have an answer.” An
ominous rumbling sound punctuated the doctor’s proclamation. Orrin
looked up in surprise. “Mr. Drucker… was that…?”
“My stomach, yeah, doc,” Marvin said. “If I don’t die from cancer,
I’ll die of starvation.” “Are
you eating at all?” “Yeah,
I’m doing that points system diet. I get thirty-six points a day,
but… it isn’t enough.” “I’m
sure it feels like it isn’t enough. Are you eating good food, or
thirty-six points of junk?”
“I’m eating all good food, and it’s killing me,” Marvin said, then
gave a start. “Hey, my skin is rotting off, and you’re worried about
my diet?” “Your skin is not
rotting off. Go home; apply the cream liberally, and twice as often.
I’ll call you tomorrow with the biopsy results.”
# Marvin passed restaurant
after restaurant on the way home. Every time one came in sight, his
stomach growled violently, as if he had some sort of
gastrointestinal fast-food radar. Finally, he couldn’t take it
anymore and turned with squawking tires into the parking lot of a
Burger Time. But when he got
out of his car, somehow he managed to cross the joint’s parking lot
to the Sensational Salad franchise next door, where he ordered a
Veggie Blaster with their fat-free French Wonder Dressing. He even
drank bottled water. He sat and dined, hating every moment of
it—every damn bite—and all the while his stomach gurgled with rage
at him for sending down all that crap.
His sores had begun to hurt. They hadn’t really felt like anything
before, unless he’d rubbed or chafed them, but now he felt all of
them. With every heartbeat, a tiny pain throbbed in each one, like a
dull needle pressing lightly from inside. * *
* * * * * *
*
They're not bedsores. They're much
worse. Order Tabloid Purposes IV
right here, in paperback or hardcover. It's 296 pages of great horror.
|
Tabloid
Purposes IV is the fourth (obviously) in an anthology series edited by
the loud, difficult-to-understand, madcap, but utterly aware of what makes
a great horror anthology, Nicklaus Pacione. I love this guy, even if I
have a hell of a time understanding what he's yelling at me on the phone.
Here's to you, Nick... but send me a copy of this, will you?