be telling her these intimate secrets of his patients’ lives? But what were her troublesome little scruples compared to the totality of Dr. Norman Lewis? Any moment—any moment!—60 Minutes would be here to have Norm give them the last word on the “Porn Plague”—60 Minutes!—and Norman was all excited about something else entirely, some pictures of poor Mr. Fleischmann’s ravaged loins—as if he couldn’t care less about 60 Minutes and Ike Walsh—couldn’t care less!
Magdalena was in a panic for him—and cried out, “Norman! Show me later! 60 Minutes’ll be here any minute, like right now!”
Dr. Norman Lewis stopped in the doorway of his office and turned around and said, “Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart. It’ll take them an hour to set up.” He gave Magdalena a smile with a certain cynical twist of the lips. “They’re a bunch of unionized elves. Whatever they do, it takes them twice as long as plain elves. Fuck them. You’ve got to see Moe the First à la noue!”
“But, Norman! Ike Walsh—”
“Fuck him, too. He’s a textbook case of the Pissing Monkey syndrome.” Whereupon he turned to enter his office.
Fuck them… And Them was merely the highest-rated news show on television. And fuck him… And Him, Ike Walsh, was merely the biggest star in television news. “The Grand Inquisitor,” they called him. Magdalena was fascinated but frightened when she watched Ike Walsh on television. He was a bully. His specialty was going after people until they became flustered and broke down emotionally. ::::::But my Norman writes him off as a poor devil suffering from the “Pissing Monkey syndrome.” What in the world is the Pissing Monkey syndrome?:::::: She had never heard him mention that before… Pissing Monkey syndrome…
She knew he was in a hurry, but she couldn’t resist asking. “Norm!” she yelled after him. “What’s the Pissing Monkey syndrome?”
Dr. Lewis stopped in the doorway to his office and turned around again. He sighed in a way that said, “I can’t believe you don’t know what the Pissing Monkey syndrome is.” In a tone of put-upon patience, he said, “I assume you know that monkeys make terrible house pets. Okay?”
Magdalena had never heard anyone say anything about pet monkeys, but she nodded yes rather than risk exasperating him any further.
“But let’s say a man gets one anyway, a small monkey, a cute monkey, like a spider monkey, okay?”
Magdalena obliged with another nod.
“Well, that monkey, if it’s a male—as soon as he can get up high enough—and they can climb anything—he’ll start urinating on your head. Okay?”
“Urinating on your head?” said Magdalena.
“Right. Urinating on the man’s head. The man’s head. He’s not interested in women. He’ll urinate on the man’s head and then he’ll grin and go, ‘EE EE EE EE EE.’ ” He’s laughing at you, he’s mocking you, he’s telling you what a pussy you are. He’ll piss on your head night and day… while you’re in bed fast asleep, when you get up to go to the bathroom, when you’re getting dressed to go to work or whatever—all the time… And it’s no use trying to make friends with the little bastard, no use trying to pet him or coo sweet nothings over him, no use trying to get in his good graces by serving him fabulous monkey feasts, apples and raisins and celery and hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, all that stuff monkeys love. Any way you try to please him is only going to make it worse. He’ll play you for a hopeless pushover. Okay? The only thing that works is, you grab the little bastard while he’s at his bowl gorging himself, and you throw him in the toilet, and while he’s flailing about in the water and he’s disoriented and he can’t get any traction on the toilet bowl, it’s so slick, you piss on him. You deluge him with every ounce you’ve got. That fucking monkey’s going to think he’s trapped in a piss monsoon. The whole sky, the whole world is pissing on him. There’s no more air to breathe, only piss fumes. At first he’ll be going, ‘EE EE EE EE’—he’s mad as hell—and then the tone will change, and it starts sounding like a cry for mercy… and then it slows down to ‘EE… EE… EE… EE,’ and then the decibel level sinks, and nothing’s left but a pathetic little whimper, ‘ee… ee… ee… ee,’ and the next day he’ll be curled up on your lap like a little pussycat and practically begging you to pet him and