Untitled Document
I need to rent a woman for Ben DeFray — nothing
sexual intended; no domestic duties; no companionship required; no
relationship need exist at all. All she has to do is stop by once a week,
look at him, and force him to go to a doctor — when he needs medical
attention. I need to keep Ben alive; he owes me phrases. Rented Woman: You need
to go see a doctor, Ben — you’re bleeding from your right eye,
and your left arm looks like past-its-sell-date asparagus.
Ben: Probably a cold. I’ll drink some
orange juice.
Rented Woman: Get in the
car now, you blithering idiot! We’re going to the emergency room.
It doesn’t work when I try it. Me: You need to go see a
doctor, Ben — you’re bleeding from your right eye, and your
left arm looks like past-its-sell-date asparagus.
Ben: Probably a cold.
I’ll drink some orange juice.
Me: Seems reasonable to
me.
The problem is that Ben has no women around to make
him not an idiot — and he’s so male, he has hair on the soles
of his feet. The only reason he has lived this long is that three, or maybe
four, wives have shared very short times with him over the years. “Two of the wives shot me with a large
gun,” Ben once told me, “or maybe it was one large wife with
two guns; I can’t remember.”
I need to rent a woman for Ben — the emergency
of it hit me last week. Me: Ben, you gonna make
the poker game this Friday? Ben: Probably not. When
I woke up yesterday, I was blind. Me: What did the doctor
say?
Ben: I’m gonna
wait until after the Super Bowl to see a doctor. Me: Seems reasonable to
me. Were it not for mothers, wives and daughters, all men
would be dead at age 18 — or 45. Ben is, without doubt, one of the smartest people
passing this way so far; he has so many Ph.D.s after his name, were he so
inclined, it’d take two lines to list ’em all. He is not so
inclined. He doesn’t care what people think of him; he only cares
what he thinks of himself — one of the many, many reasons women stay
in his life only for short periods. Ben has 14 plain white T-shirts and no
shirts with buttonholes. He invented most of the things that make it a better
world: the silicon chip, the propel-you-out easy chair, the umbrella hat,
high-top sneakers, the sky lounge, the big-screen TV, and the pizza wheel.
And yet, because of his “being all male” condition, he’s
health-care challenged. He only seeks medical help when a large bone at eye
level breaks or when there’s a hole somewhere where there ought not
to be a hole, as when his wife or wives shot him. “It was,” he told me, “an
uncomfortable experience. The insurance company forced ’em to
discharge me while I was still on the operating table — something to
do with either my second or fourth wife no longer carrying me on her
insurance. I was cut in half at the time, so, in a rare fit of compassion,
they let the bottom half stay hospitalized overnight and sent only the top
half home — at least, that’s how I remember it.”
Ben doesn’t remember reality well any more. A
few years back he quit inventing things and started inventing stories. He
ghostwrites autobiographies for small-time politicians now, and he followed
the market to Springfield. Ben owes me six phrases. Because I write stuff for
family-type publications, I oftentimes have phrases left over that
don’t fit the family genre, and I give them to Ben — and
because his genre demands nothing but lies, when a truth leaks from his
pen, he gives it to me. Last month I gave him this: “He woke up with a mouth full of dried whiskey and an ass
full of buckshot” and “If you think Bugs Bunny ever lost to Daffy Duck, you’re obviously undereducated
and probably a jack-legged communist.”
I think you’ll agree that two phrases as
poignant as those two deserve six in return. Ben owes me, so I need to keep
him alive. I phone Ben, to check one more time, before placing
the “Rent a Woman” ad. Me: Ben, you still
blind? Ben: Not sure,
’cause I can’t see the mirror — but, blind or not blind,
I’m only giving you one phrase back. The “Bugs vs. Daffy”
was invaluable, I can use it a thousand times over, but the “mouth
full of dried whiskey” one was just garbage.
Me: Did the orange juice work? Reason
I ask, my left arm has turned to asparagus.
Ben: I’m renting
you a woman — right after the Super Bowl.
Me: Seems reasonable to
me.
Contact Doug Bybee Sr. at dougbybee@sbcglobal.net.
This article appears in Nov 9-15, 2006.
