“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE E. R.
(written in the manner of one Raoul Duke)
Why am I here? Who is this woman in a giant muu-muu, standing before me squeezing what appears to be a copperhead snake in her hands? She spoke to me in some strange language – obviously disrespectful of the country that took her in after a long canoe trip across the oceans. I thought of screaming “Back! Get Back!” but suddenly sat bolt upright and remembered:
I am a doctor…on call in the emergency room of the world’s greatest hospital. My shoes were smeared with thick crusts of vomit and blood, as were my pants, except I wasn’t wearing any. I must find them, I thought. The lights above my head burned into my skull like the first kiss of the electric chair. I reached for my pistol to shoot at them, but it, too, was missing. The situation was rapidly deteriorating. I began to sweat like a champagne fountain at a coal miner’s wedding.
…
As I reached the lounge I realized that the sun was shining, meaning my hell-night was about over. All that was left to do was clean up the forty or so charts that I had tossed behind the soda machine, locate the rest of my clothes, sign in to the intern relieving me and slip out through the window in the men’s room. Before leaving I decided to eat – after all, being a servant of the needy gives one an appetite like a crazed Samoan wrestler. My forged I.D. card was good for at least one more trip through the outlet store for the local waste dump, also known as the hospital cafeteria….
Utterly inspired insanity, the best tribute I’ve read to the late Mr. Thompson.
via Shrinkette
