# 90

THE EVACUATION CHAMBER

'Morning, Sam.'
'Morning, Ralph.'
'How be the weekend?'
'Oh, the weekend be filled with boredom. You?'
'Pretty good, pretty good.'
'How so?'
'Check this: The wife says to me, "There's a new reiki healer in town. I volunteered our services. Let's go".'
'What's a reiki healer then?'
'Someone who heals damaged cells in the human body through the use of energy.'
'Nuclear?'
'Nah, nah, nah. It's all natural, except there's no touching involved.'
'You've lost me.'
'Imagine someone healing you without medication, electrocution, operation or physically touching the damaged parts.'
'That's the bit where it kinda went blank for me.'
'If truth be told, the how isn't really all that important.'
'What about the why?'
'That's not that important either.'
'I dunno, man. The how and the why are high on my list.'
'Are you interested in this or not?'
'Honestly?'
'Anyway, this woman, she must've been about seventy, pours two cups of orange juice out of a carton of orange juice.'
'That's freakin' amazing, man!'
'Hear me out. She asks my wife to hold her cup out in front of her while the healer runs her hands on either side of the cup. The healer whispers, "Power of the universe, change the flavour of this orange juice so it is to the satisfaction of this woman".'
'Power of the universe? Mate, that's pretty fucking funny right there!'
'It didn't end there. The healer says she's struggling to get the OJ to the consistency the missus prefers because she has a selective taste.'
'Does she?'
'Indeed she does. So, the healer zones in and wafts her hands up and down the cup a few more times. Then she says, "It's ready." My wife takes a sip from the cup and nods her head approvingly.'
'Did you take a sip?'
'Well, I wanted to. You know me: I can't get enough of OJ. The magnetism is amplified if it's free.'
'I'm the same with beer.'
'Never a truer phrase has been said. Is truer a word?'
'Can't say for sure.'
'Anyway, the time for my turn was upon us, so I pick up my cup, hold it out in front of my body with both arms extended as though about to be anointed as a Knight of the realm by the blade of King Arthur himself. The healer says the same words as before, substituting the word woman with the word man.'
'And?'
'I'm thinking all the while: "Please make it bitter, please make it bitter, please make it bitter".'
'Was it bitter?'
'Like a nine-year-old child without TV privileges.'
'But that's nothing. It could have been a batch of bitter OJ from the carton. So what?'
' "So what?" is precisely what I thought. "Now, exchange cups and take a sip from it," she says.'
'And did you?'
'No, we stuck nine-inch nails into our eyeballs and wrote a ransom note with our own blood. Of course we did!'
'And?'
'And her OJ tasted like Willy Wonka himself had squeezed a sponge of liquid sugar into the blasted cup. I almost puked poo.'
'The two were different?'
'Like chalk and tofu.'
'Well, I'll be damned.'
'You and me both, buddy.'
'Did she have any other tricks up her sleeve?'
'She told me to sit down and did a manual scan of my body. She said that my kidneys were crying out at being mistreated and that my "evacuation chamber" was at Level 4 damage control.'
'Your evacuation chamber!'
'The one and the same.'
'What was the diagnosis?'
'She says, "You need to drink more water".'
'No shit, Shirlock. This woman's gifted in stating the obvious; an irritation par excellence. Let me at her: I'll fix her voodoo shenanigans good and proper!'
'Fair suck of the cocktail frank, Ralph.'
'Sorry, mate. I've a short fuse for scammers. Don't mind me.'
'She continues with the body scan and says: "I'm receiving positive feedback. Your cells are healing. But I stress that you need to drink at least two ounces of water per every pound that you weigh".'
'What did you say?'
'What could I say? Unless I'm dealing with the metric system, I'm like a rock in water. I nodded.'
'It was the right thing to do.'
'For sure.'
'Was that it then?'
'Mostly yes. She took a scan of my throwing shoulder and diagnosed the damage to my trapezius.'
'All right!'
'And then told me to drink more water.'
'How's that working out for you?'
'Well, I figure I get up to forty-five minutes between visits to the men's room.'
'No shit?'
'For about a week, nothing. And now, I can't stop shitting. I don't know where it's coming from as I haven't eaten any more than the average heavyweight contender, but I assure you it keeps coming. There's no letting up: liquid from the front end, liquid from the rear end. I'm the human faecal sprinkler. When I'm not expelling solids or liquids, I'm doing night toots and day toots to make Elmer Bernstein proud. I am the night tooter, I am the gas man, goo-goo-gachoo!'
'It sounds to me like your evacuation chamber is firing on all cylinders.'
'If I had a big enough canvas, I'd drop my strides, shake my groove thang and continue the stoic work of expressionist art where Pro Hart left off. I could call it the Chocolate Diary period.'
'Yeah, or the Brown Movement.'
'Yeah, or Would You Like Sprinkles With That?'
'Yeah, or Spray That Funky Music Whiteboy.'
'Yeah, or Two Cheeks Clapping...'

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