Pure Bedlam

“The lunatics have taken charge of the asylum.” Richard Rowland

I ran into a doctor friend at lunch, pulled up a chair, sat down. He was reading three newspapers and slapping his palm against the table and muttering things. “What’s up, Doc?” I asked. “Back on your own pills again?”

“March madness, that’s what…pure bedlam out there,” he said. “Don’t you read? The world’s gone mad.” That’s old news, I thought, and I also knew that the NCAA basketball tournaments were beginning. “So what’s new?” I asked. “Happens every year, heck, every hour of every day, in fact.”

“Well, let’s start with basketball. You know who’ll win, dontcha? The Bookies decide that. Las Vegas is wild with excitement, billions pass through that sleaze pit, half lose, half win. But the bookies always win. Just not fair,” he roared.

“Nothing’s fair,” I reminded him. “Life’s nothing but a chance, a roll of the dice. It’s a gamble with incredible odds against you. If it were a bet, you wouldn’t take it. Look, it’s all based on the natural law of cause and effect. Didn’t you learn that in med school? Or were you a vocational trade school grad?”

“Oh, don’t insult me. I know that. Aristotle advanced the theory, we affirm it in the Hypocritic oath. But there’s madness in America. We just can’t stand unanswered questions. It started, according to my grandfather, when King George released the lunatics in Bedlam Asylum and sent them to America in revenge for Cornwallis’ embarrassment at Yorktown,” he ranted, his eyes glittering, accentuated by spasmodic facial tics. Disconcerting.

“Say on, doc, I’m all ears,” I responded. With wild gesticulations that cleared several nearby tables, he tore into it. “Yeah, when they got onto our soil, they intermarried and assimilated throughout the land. They were like a virulent contagion, all our descendents are polluted with their blood. We’re all mad, you and me, too.” His body began jerking uncontrollably and I felt a twitch in my face as well.

“Forget the Washington, D.C. madness...the most non compos mentis always ends up there. Plenty of local psychopaths who are unhinged. Listen to today’s news: ‘Man steals pants, flees naked from Wal-Mart, pursued by manager in parking lot.’”

More. He read on. “In Macon a woman’s dog chewed off her lips while she slept. She reported she let the dog lick the sweet tea from her lips. They were replaced by fat from her butt.” Since Sherman, Macon has always been a Mecca for maniacs.

Another, he said. “‘Conyers woman stuffs husband into oven and bakes him. Claimed she’d been drinking.’ Look,” he said, “who can make up such stuff?”

I bought in and interjected, “Once, my wife, a blonde in those days, took some porcelain to an artisan in Atlanta for repair. She reported he was interested to know if she knew her heritage. He proceeded to tell her that several millennia ago an alien spaceship from Venus landed in Norway. The creatures had pale skin, blue eyes, blonde hair and low IQ. Over time they were assimilated into Europe, then America, and by 2050 they would be extinct.”

“Well, might answer some heretofore unanswered questions about blondes, huh?” he laughed. The blonde waitress saw no humor in the comment. The dessert never came.

“Doc, let me be sure I’ve got this straight. What you’re postulating is that all Americans are descendents of these nutcases from London? Hence, we are all off our rocker, more or less, which accounts for this madness. Right?” He rolled his eyes in a savage excitement, and answered, “You got a better answer for this bedlam?” I didn’t, so I left him drooling over a chicken bone. It was more than I could take.

I know, I know, I can hear you now…truly this is a pair of imbeciles. Who could believe such hallucinatory nonsense as this? But you have to admit for every cause there’s an equal and opposite effect. And as preposterous as it may sound, could there be some scintilla of plausibility hidden in it? You decide.

And should you detect some unexplained facial tic or some aberrant, atavistic tendencies in a family member, call me…I have just the doctor for you.

Bud Hearn
March 17, 2010