Excruciating Remedy

An account of a foolish youth who should not practice medicine.

   Steven was a handsome young man of twenty one, mature enough to drink in his Uncle Reed’s bar, and competent enough to open his restaurant in the mornings in the role of Assistant Manager of the Longbranch Saloon; a family run bar and eatery. He wore two-toned loafers, rayon slacks, a short sleeve shirt with a tie, and a proud look in his blue eyes of domestic success within his own mind. Plant City was a small town located twenty miles east of Tampa, and in the mid-summer heat and growth of 1981, it seemed that the semi-tropical environment had a tendency to produce an abundance of dilemmas that form on exposed walls, plants and trees, and even on a person’s skin in the form of fungus. Now inasmuch as Steven tried hard to fit the role he played as a decent, working member of the tourism community of the area, he could not help his preoccupation with women, booze, sex, and the evils of such criminal activity as smoking pot and driving in an otherwise proper state of mind. But he was able to maintain his position opening the restaurant six days and week, bussing tables and making sandwiches and frying French fries, setting the business up for the day when his mother, Dorothea, would arrive at two in the afternoon to take over operations of food and drink and repose for the crowd that walked through on a fairly steady basis, especially after Steven took his leave for the day.

            It seems that there is a common ritual in southern Florida that most men teach their sons and daughters. It was an easy habit that was utilized by the wise, defining the importance of washing one’s hands after using the toilet, but even more important to wash one’s hands beforehand, lest the lingering spores that cause the Florida fungus could erupt and grow to a rash in time, especially to a young man of self-apparent means in the midst of his endeavors with the ladies, the dusty old van he drove, and the natural environment of the area. It was in early August, after a fairly successful summer for our noble hero " Steven " who worked in the mornings and partied in the evenings from which an irritating itch developed in his nether regions, specifically on his scrotum.

Steven’s younger sister Millie was a beautiful blonde girl of nineteen who had the acquaintance of a young man who hailed from the Miami area whose name was ironically Steve, not to be confused with our young hero with which the irritating itch grew within the bounds of his underwear. Steve and Steven were talking one day while sipping on some beer and smoking cigarettes. Steve explained the indigenous fungal dilemma that can tend to plague the skin of people whom are unfortunate enough to encounter the free flowing fungal spores without washing one’s hands before visiting the urinal. Steve described a time-honored remedy to combat the fungus on one’s person by applying a diluted mixture of kerosene and water, meagerly applied to the affected area, and then subsequently washed off in the shower. This remedy was said, according to Steve, to eradicate the fungal invasion after a few days or so. So Steven, as he quaffed his third beer and lit his first doobie the evening (it was a Friday), annoyed by the ever increasing turmoil of the itch in his crotch, decided to try Steve’s suggestion and headed to the hardware store; his younger brother Budd, a stalwart young man of eighteen and an almost carbon copy of Steven, in tow.

            Steven’s rash was getting pretty bad, which is why he deferred to the older, wiser, stronger, and more experienced Steve’s suggestion of what he could do to ease the discomfort this new Floridian environment had given him. As the two young men drove to the hardware store, they consumed another small doobie, and when Steven and Budd entered the store, they were not in quite the right state of mind to remember Steve’s recipe correctly.

            “What was that stuff called again, Buddie?” Steven asked as they browsed the aisles of the store.

            “I don’t remember, Stevo.” Budd replied, his mind just as inebriated as a result of the smoke and the beer. They ended up in the paint section where there was ample supply of paint and thinner, and - wait!

            “Here it is!” Steven exclaimed. “Turpentine. And it’s only a little less than three bucks for this small can.”

            Budd was usually skeptical of Steven’s discoveries under such circumstances, especially when the guy was stoned. “Are you sure it was turpentine, Steve?”

            The rash was tormenting Steven’s mind and groin, almost desperate for relief from the itch that seemed to be spreading down his inner legs and to his phallus. It needed to be dealt with and who cared what had to be used? Turpentine, gasoline, thinner; the proper ingredient kerosene was lost on the floor of his van with the empty beer bottles and ashes and remnants of the evening’s festive activities.

            “I gotta’ try something bro’.” Steven answered as he picked up the four-ounce can of turpentine and strode to the front of the store to make his purchase. “We’ll figure it out man.” Budd knew better than to argue with his older brother once his mind was made up.

            On the way home more pot was consumed and more beer purchased. Budd was sometimes surprised at how Steven eluded getting pulled over for drunken driving by avoiding main thoroughfares to cross town. When the old, black van pulled up to their house it was empty. Millie and Steve previously left the house to go out somewhere on their Friday night together, so Steven and Budd had the place to themselves. After another beer and some more smoke, the itch between Steven’s legs reared its snarling head, resuming the attack on his mind, and he resigned to begin to deal with it once and for all. Taking the can of turpentine from the plastic bag and opening it, Steven was desperate to stop the itch by not only disregarding Steve’s original description of not only diluting it with water, but by using turpentine instead of the less compunctive kerosene.

            Sitting on the toilet with his pants undone, Steven tried to apply a meager measure of the virulent chemical on his forefinger, but the fluid splashed all over his hand, sending an attack of chemical fury to his nostrils. This unpleasant odor should have stayed our young hero’s hand from ignoring the earnest suggestion of remedy by his baby sister’s boyfriend, but the rash was searing on his inner leg and approaching the bounds of his penis. So Steven’s stained hand went to his balls to attack the irritating discomfort. The discomfort exploded to fire that shot into his scrotum, up the shaft of his penis, and leaked toward his anus in fiery fury that erupted in Steven’s howl of pain that alerted Budd, who was sitting in the living room watching TV, to Steven’s plight.

            The sound was like that of a yak calling out to its mate in the night, like the groan of coyote howling at the moon, and of such intensity that it could be heard by the African American neighbor kids who lived across the street. Budd stood and approached the bathroom door, beyond which his brother was wailing in agonized howls, well aware of what obviously happened. Budd had an elfish grin of glee on his face as he listened to Steven cry like a wounded dog as he ran water over the chemical burn on his package. The grin faded as Steven emerged half naked, holding the inside of his legs and his face grimacing with pain, racing around the couch looking for the telephone.

            “Auuueeeaaahhhhaaaaaaa….!!!”

            His voice sang out in broad phrases that reminded Budd of an opera singer whose tenor tune transformed to an evil roar of malevolent anguish that rose and fell and would rise again to crescendo with every beat of Steven’s heart. Finally Steven fell to the floor in front of the couch and sat down, leaning forward with his hands in his pants, closing his eyes and concentrating on enduring the burning of his groin.

            “Buddy!” he gasped. “Buddy, we gotta’ get hold of Steve and ask him what to do.”

            “But Steve, …”

            “Please, Buddie, call somebody. We gotta’ find him.” As pathetic an apparition Steven had become, writhing on the couch and holding his family jewels in agony, Budd loved his older brother and wanted to help him. He could think of nowhere to call to look for Steve, and his older sister, except the Longbranch Saloon, usually a crowded nightspot on the weekends. It didn’t occur to him what would happen once the call was made until his mother answered the phone.

            “Good evening, Longbranch Saloon, this is Dottie. May I help you.” Budd’s mom’s soothing voice answered.

            “Uh, mom, you’re not gonna’ believe this,” Budd began, “but…”

            Steven rushed from the couch to where Budd was standing in the kitchen and snatched the receiver from Budd’s hand. His wailing resumed, sending a wave of assaulting malevolence over the wire to be released, very audibly, out of the phone in his mother’s hand for all in the bar to hear. The barbaric howls of agony rebounded around the crowd of people drinking and having a good time.

            “Uuuuuaaaaaeeeeeeeeiiiiiieeeeuuuuuuu!!” Steven’s voice wasn’t discernable at first. “It buuurrnns! IT BURRNNS!!!!”

            Dorothea recognized her son’s voice. Her smiled transformed to gasps of laughter that flowed around the crowd of people listening as well to Steven’s screeches of agony. Her oldest daughter Paula was behind the bar and took the phone from Dorothea’s hand as Steven’s mom broke down into laughter.

            “Steven, is that you?” Paula asked, genuinely trying to determine what her little brother’s plight was. “Are you alright?”

            “PAULAAAA!!!” came the insidious reply for all to hear. “OH, IT BURNS PAULA. IT BURNS. AAAAAUuuuuuuuEEEEEEEEEaaaaUUUUUUUUAAAAAHH!!”

            Keeping her composure in the crowd of astonished laughter surrounding her, Paula still did her best to determine what the horrible dilemma was that plagued Steven.

            “What burns, Steven?” Paula asked, having to yell in order to be heard above the laughter and Steven’s screaming.

            “My BALLS!!” he answered in torment. “Oh my BAAALLLS!! Oh it BURRRNNNSSS!!” Steven had dropped the phone and was wailing on the floor, the sound of which transformed across the phone to be reverberated around the bar; the kids across the street could hear the wails as well.

            Budd picked up the phone and spoke to Paula, explaining that Steven had hurt himself by putting turpentine on his crotch to cure the rash. Then the laughter spread from all around the bar, from the howling laughter across the street of their house, to Budd’s lips and he, himself, dropped the phone as he lost it as well.

            Steven picked up the phone and resumed his audible screaming. The crowd guffawed until Dorothea calmed herself to address her injured son on the phone.

            “Steven, this is you mother.” Dorothea said as calmly as she could. “What has happened here?” She tried to sound as calm and soothing as possible in the midst of the calling and mocking howls of laughter flowing in torrents around the bar.

            “Mom!” Steven gasped. “I heard that kerosene and water would kill the rash.”

Steven bent over as another agonized wave of fire roared from his testicles to his mouth. “AAAAaaauuuuuiiiiiiiaaaa, oh IT BURRRNNNSS!!!”

            “Steven.” Dorothea replied, like Paula having to speak very loudly to be heard. “Did you put kerosene on your … on your…”

            “Not kerosene, mom; TURPENTINE!” came Steven’s anguished interruption. “And not just my balls but, but on … you know, EVERYWHERE!!!”

            Dorothea couldn’t help but chuckle a little as she tried to find a way to ease her son’s pain. “Steven dear, you didn’t put turpentine on your scrotum, now really!”

            “Yes, mom, and it BURRNNNS, IT BURRNNSS!!!”

            Dorothea put her hand over the mouthpiece as she exploded into laughter once more. Then she put the receiver back to her face and began to explain what Steven should do in as calm, collected, and loving manner as possible.

            “Now Steven, you must collect yourself, run a bath of cool water, wash yourself, and soak.” Steven’s mother explained to him. “There’s calamine lotion in the cabinet and apply it liberally to your …  to … yourself, and try to relax.”

            Steven dropped the phone and raced to the bathroom to run more water over his crotch and to take a cool bath. Budd picked up the phone and assured Dorothea that he would take care of his ailing sibling once again. Budd hung up the phone to the sound of mock howls and excessive laughter rocking and rolling from the walls and the ceiling of the bar. Steven came out of the bathroom about a half an hour later, lotion over most of his body. He did not sleep well that night.

 

 

            The next morning was a Saturday. Steven was tired, hung-over, and still in intense pain, but he went to work just like any other day. As he entered the front door of the bar, beautiful and buxom Penny was behind the bar, and was wiping it down with a bar mop. She looked at Steven as he waddled in towards the kitchen. She smiled, grinned, and started to laugh. She laughed so hard she lost her footing and fell on her butt. As Steven walked through the restaurant section he heard Penny howling in mock pain, hysterically snickering. Steven walked into the kitchen and out the back door to painfully get behind the wheel of his old black van. Needless to say he took the next few days off.

 

SR Urie

Reviews

[lissalovesyou]

Ah...sweet memories, huh, Steven?
Kinda funny. Write on!
lissalovesyou:)