And The Dog Barks On Some More... A 21st Century Adult Fairy Tale Continued

By E. P. Lee

What's "normal" these days?

People around Eric are changing every day, starting over, remaking themselves, reimagining themselves in ways that were once unthinkable. New norms abound all over America now; “new norms” flourishing seamlessly amongst the old. Today, the familiar is mixed in with the new like antique furniture is loaded with modern electronics in a present day living room, or a girlfriend and “alternate” dating sites abide each other in a current emotional life. All are mixed in together as the story of an ongoing life in a “Leaving Las Vegas” meets “Madagascar“ dystopian America continues.

The familiar, and the new, together as one, as a 21st Century Adult Fairy Tale continues “And the Dog Barks On Some More...”

• Language: English
• Publisher: E. P. Lee
• Release date: Aug 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370544318

E. P. Lee

After a lifetime spent in his native New York Eric Paul Lee now resides in beautiful, tropical, Miami, Florida. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Coney Island, Eric often wandered the Boardwalk in his childhood. Eric frequently wasted his allowance at the now demolished Steeplechase Park and the other dated, dowdy and declining amusements that defined Coney Island... and much of traditional society... back then. The traditional was still IN back then. And the traditional like Coney Island had seen its glory days, its heyday, long passed. But the new hadn’t arrived yet. Just the old was fading... And so the forms still had to be obeyed. And with that Eric’s parent’s obeyed those forms and Eric was dispatched to college in Upstate NY to return to Brooklyn some four years later. Upon graduation from college Eric bounced from job to job until the Graphic Arts caught his creative eye and a new career began. With his first graphics production position under his belt Eric moved in to Manhattan some two years later never to live in Brooklyn again. Success built on success as corporate stints in California brought about even greater successes leading to Eric’s eventual New York City return and the opening of his own Graphics Agency in Manhattan. That enterprise ran successfully for over twenty years. Now out of industry entirely, Eric is happy to enjoy the perpetual Florida sun and write.

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Copyright © 2013 Eric Paul Lee.

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All characters, situations, names, places and locations are the product of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any and all resemblance to actual people living or dead, events, businesses, locations, or places is completely coincidental.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

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120

About the Author

1

OK... I’m bored.

Very... the holidays are over; the New Year has begun and it’s been ever so quiet since that beginning.

Quiet... ever so...

The silence on the surrounding neighborhood streets has been deadly, deadly...

All day long there’s been no traffic noise anywhere. There’s been no noise from screaming kids either, no screams from kids riding by the front of the house on their training wheel Christmas present bicycles with helmets on their heads and their parents in tow. No noise from children yelling out in pleasure as they gallivant by the house with their parents right behind them on a holiday weekend Sunday... there’s no noise at all.

It’s all so quiet...

So safe!

It’s so unlike my childhood holiday weekend memories, my youthful memories too, it’s all so unlike what I remember from my neighborhood as I grew up, so unlike... It’s completely unlike the life I lived.

Unlike...

Completely!

Who wore a helmet when riding a bike back then?

A helmet...

And my Parents on the street with me... or following me... or giving a shit about where I was between the hours of lunch and dinner...

In mid 20th century America...

Nah...

Not in my life...

And my time of youth was so unsafe... so deadly in general... no seatbelt laws, no child car seats, no alarms on doors, people smoking everywhere, packaged white bread... it’s amazing that I survived, grew, and progressed at all.

How did any child do that... survive, learn, play, and prosper back then?

No playdates...

What the fuck is a playdate?

So unlike the safety and security of today was life back then... Society is so safe now... I feel so safe today on this third day of the New Year...

So safe...

I’m starting to think that life in the 1980’s was positively bucolic.

Yes...

I now think that the daily workaday existence of decay, crime, and viciousness that was the day-to-day of life in New York City back then was positively bucolic.

Bucolic!

Of course it probably helped that my weekend house was in the actual country serenity of East Hampton, New York, on the eastern end of Long Island in far away Suffolk County...

East Hampton was bucolic...

It still is sometimes...

New York City... the 1980’s Sodom and Gomorrah of the North... with the drugs, the violence... the crime, the filth on the streets... the homeless everywhere, the countless beggars... Not bucolic in real time then... not bucolic at all.

Beggars...

The Homeless...

But in retrospect... by the standards of today... bucolic... life back then was definitely bucolic by today’s standards... And in truth today, in 2016, New York City is one of, if not the, safest major city in America... and possibly the World.

Unlike Miami...

Life here in Miami, with the police in SWAT and riot gear going in to slum neighborhood after slum neighborhood with each rat-a-tat of gunfire heard daily, is not bucolic...

Not bucolic...

The Miami Police in Swat gear riding into local Miami neighborhoods in surplus U.S. Army armored vehicles is a mainstay of daily Miami life... It’s even on TV weekly... on a cable channel... Discovery or The World TV Channel, or the US Crime Today network, some cable station of mi-nute repute, but it’s there: MIAMI SWAT... Damn what some people think other people want to watch...

Or what other people do watch...

But the content does seem to mirror life in the USA today. It’s all about events as current as a current moment in time can be current I suppose... Videos of the local Miami police riding in to local communities ready to hunt for bear... the local Police ready to shoot first and ask questions later... Not even a year after the events in Ferguson, Missouri, and the local Police are dressed in riot gear and ready to rock... Or similarly dressed Polizia are motoring into downtown Baltimore... or those same-attired officers are killing an unarmed Grandmother in Chicago.

Or San Francisco, Dallas, Des Moines...

Current events in safe America today...

Not bucolic...

Yes, the 1980’s in NYC were almost bucolic...

Bucolic...

The police weren’t in riot gear or armored vehicles back then...

Positively bucolic...

And the streets of my Miami neighborhood this decade and a half plus, post Millennial, January third morning, are silent still... and they’ve been silent for the past three days of this new year.

Silent that is ever since the rat-a-tat of the New Year’s Eve fireworks subsided.

What is it with Americans and explosives?

What is it with the American Police in riot gear and armored vehicles going in to residential neighborhoods?

This decade-and-a-half-old new Millennium is not bucolic...

It may be quiet today, but it is not bucolic...

Not bucolic...

2

It’s late mid-morning now and I’m still bored...

Freud is sleeping, noisily, on his favorite chair behind me. His girlfriend, his BGFF Sandy, my BFF Seth and his wife Ami’s ‘daughter’, a behemoth 107lb American Bulldog, just left, and my little guy, all 26lbs of his fawn-colored French Bulldog self, is just muy tuckered out...

Muy...

He’s out!

OUT....

Freud’s just snoring away on the green velvet damask chair behind me... oblivious to all around him, unless I move. If I move from my chair he’s up instantly and following me from room to room.

It’s either ritual or a game...

I’m not sure which.

Sometimes Freud goes right for a toy... usually for one of those ratty old stuffed Flamingo bird toys I gave him when he first arrived. Some of those Flamingos were from my first Frenchie, Ziggy. Ziggy loved those toys... and Ziggy played with them for the full fourteen years of his life... just as Freud, at five, plays with them now... yellow, pink, orange, black, yellow... gray (it used to be white) somewhat worn, decades old, ratty Flamingo dog toys.

Daily Freud drops one or two Flamingo toys at my feet... if I’ve sat at my desk too long there could be a flock at my right... and certainly one or two Flamingos on the bed at night. We should play...

We should always play...

And we do... and often; I may be bored, but why should Freud be bored?

And he’s not... he just wants to play, and go, and jump, and wrestle, and chase a Flamingo around the house... or go out to dinner.

I take Freud with me out to dinner often... dining out in Miami is so often alfresco and Freud is a great conversation starter. So often, frequently even, when I’m alone, I have company.

Now if Freud could only talk...

3

Ziggy died five years, four weeks, and three days ago today; Mitch died seven weeks and one day before that.

I thought my life was over then.

I was only 23 months in to recovery... I had just started to walk by myself... I had just started to walk unattended for the first time in two years and my human attendant, caregiver, lover, and my best friend (four-legged) were both gone.

Gone...

Dead...

OVER... my life...

I thought my life was over...

Over...

So I went on the Internet and I found Freud one week after that... And I had Freud, at barely 10 weeks old, here in Miami, three days later.

My previous ex-lover, Gal, flew to Knoxville, Tennessee that almost winter next Saturday morning, stayed overnight in the Knoxville airport Hilton Hotel, and flew back the next afternoon with the little fawn colored French Bulldog puppy, already named Freud, in Ziggy’s (Ziggy, the diminutive of Sigmund, think Sigmund Freud, as at one point there were going to be two Frenchies living together, so two names were needed... Sigmund and Freud... it didn’t play out that way though... and now Sigmund, Ziggy was gone, so enter Freud...) old faux Louis Vuitton, faux canvas, pet carryon.

Good that I didn’t throw a lot of things away back then... good.

And Freud hasn’t left my side since.

Or I haven’t left Freud’s side since... It’s a bit of both I suppose; a bit of both... as I still can’t stray too far from the house ... my injuries are so severe, so manifest, that I’m a prisoner of them, and Here.

A prisoner...

And it’s funny... no one would ever know it’s a prison or that I’m a prisoner... I work very hard at those illusions of freedom, and mobility, and security, and comfort...

Very hard indeed... and my prison is pretty beautiful, and my freedom is readily apparent to all.

Readily...

But it’s a sham...

A sham...

Whether anyone knows or not... it’s a prison... And I’m a prisoner... And I’m trapped. Trapped! Trapped in a beautiful prison...

And it is...

BEAUTIFUL...

But a prison still...

A prison...

My world... my life...

Pretty...

But a prison...

TRAPPED!

4

Freud just went and got Squawky the Chicken and dropped her at my feet.

CLUCK... CLUCCCCCCCCCK... Cluck...

cluck...

It’s time to play...

We’ve been sleeping on the chair for three hours or so and we’re now re-energized and raring to go... And so...

And so...

Squawky...

There are almost as many Squawkys as there are Flamingos... There’s Big Henrietta Squawky... Henrietta, a naked rubber chicken in a skimpy, purple polka dot bikini...

I’m not making this up either... Henrietta is a cult item.

Henrietta has spawned a whole family of spinoff rubber chickens and I, or should I say Freud, have most of them. And if you don’t believe me just Google: Henrietta Chicken, or go directly to Amazon, type in the name and see what turns up... I go to Amazon almost every month or so to replenish the stock as periodically Freud dismembers Henrietta completely... or he rips a squawk box out of a sibling, or worse... Freud beheads a sibling and brings the dismembered body to bed at three or four in the morning SQUAWKING HORRIFICALLY LOUD through it’s now headless torso.

Remember that scene from the original Godfather movie where the guy wakes up with a horse’s head in his bed?

It’s kind of like that only louder...

Louder...

Much louder...

SQUAWK!

5

Squawky is a favorite toy... an everyday diversion in time; a flamingo here, a flamingo there too, they’re all favorite toys.

Freud rules...

And so we play constantly. And if I won’t play, Divinity or Patricia, my Mother/Daughter Duo of Housekeeping Bliss, will.

I’d be bereft and dysfunctional without those two... Divinity, Patricia... they’re probably the only reason this place is so beautiful and well-maintained. Those two more than anyone... ANYONE, packed all the boxes... and then unpacked all of the boxes 18 short months ago when I had to leave home, There, and move to Here.

Only they knew where things were then... and only they knew where those things went back into... And they did it all.

All...

And I would have been LOST... lost... just as I’m lost today when I look for something I don’t use daily. Or just as lost as when I look for something that I do use daily and it was moved erroneously and now I can’t find it.

Like my dick... it was there, and now since Mitch... it’s not?

Or is it...

And no matter my dick... Divinity and Patricia aren’t involved with that... I meant the Windex... or my mother of pearl caviar spoons... or the tin foil, the paper towels, detergent... the stuff of daily life.

My dick...

Nooooo... not my dick... more on that later...

Or not...

So be it a flamingo or a rubber chicken... or a ball, or a stuffed tiger, or a snake... we play and we play and we play... Freud and me...

We play...

Here... and Here is this very beautiful, very well-maintained... very comfortable, prison.

Here...

6

Nine years ago I started to get somewhat frequent and painful headaches.

I didn’t think too much about it then as all people get headaches sometimes... and even migraines. I just attributed it to the stress and strain I was under working at the things I was working on for my daily survival and living through the mini disasters my life had become with some of the decisions I had made professionally and personally.

I thought it was pain caused by stress and emotional upheaval.

So I took a lot of aspirin and ibuprofen and dealt with the discomfort, and sometime pain, and trundled on...

I trundled for two full years... and then the pain got bad.

The OTC drugs had little to no effect now and the pain was impacting my ability to function daily and my sleep at night. So I went to the doctor. I flew up to New York City to see my Internist of 15 years duration. It was time for my regular yearly checkup and so, blood taken... X-rays of my lungs done... all superficial reflexes checked...

Diagnosis...

Normal...

All is normal.

Normal...

But these headaches, I have these headaches...

Take aspirin, or ibuprofen says the man in the White Coat... Everyone gets headaches sometimes...

And he sends me on my merry way back to Florida... And so shortly thereafter I journey off to Italy for the month of July in to August and when I return my head wants to split open some days... And I have no stress on vacation... NONE... So again I journey to New York City for a consult with my Guru in White and again he says...

"All is normal...

But it could be acute sinusitis of the back sinus cavities, so we’ll start you on antibiotic and see what happens..."

One antibiotic drug protocol later, no change... and then a second two-week protocol of the same powerful drug with still no change, there’s always pain now.

Always...

Pain...

There’s always pain now... PAIN... sometimes it’s bad pain... most times it’s just annoying pain, but always it’s some pain now.

Always...

Pain...

So a third trip up to the White Coat in New York City is made and again:

All is normal... so one more round of antibiotic therapy and if this doesn’t work to give you some relief you’ll have to go to a specialist, an Ear, Nose, and Throat, an ENT Doctor.

Two weeks later I’m looking for ENT specialists in Miami.

The pain is blinding sometimes now.

Blinding...

The pain is always ever present now and blindingly bad, sometimes.

BLINDING!

7

The Miami ENT listened to my description of my symptoms and noted all of the details of my previous treatment path; then he looked in my nose, scratched his chin in thought, and finally he gave me a prescription for a two week protocol of the same drug my White Coat in New York City had given me.

Well... at least I didn’t have to fly to New York...

Two weeks later he repeated the same process and made the exact same treatment decision.

But the pain is constant now... constant and debilitating... so bad is the pain that I can barely leave my bed to function for a few hours a day. And my description of same to the ENT God in a White Coat elicits his saying:

Let’s see what this next dose of antibiotics does... come back in two weeks...

And so I go home and get back into bed.

And thirteen days later, the day before my scheduled appointment, I thought my head would split open from the blinding pain I was now experiencing regularly and continuously. So I went on the Internet and I Googled my symptoms. And immediately pops up:

"There are two causes for head pain in that area of the back of the head:

1: Acute sinusitis

2: Very rare, a brain tumor."

Well... it was obvious... I had a brain tumor.

The very next morning I saw the ENT and I asked:

What are you treating me for?

Acute Sinusitis was his immediate reply...

No said I... I have a brain tumor...

MR. ENT IN HIS WHITE COAT LAUGHED... but he gave me a prescription for a CT scan of the brain at a non-hospital off-site facility to be taken the next day.

He never got the opportunity to review those results though... as the next day the Triage Nurse in the packed Emergency Room of the University Hospital itself admitted me to an exam room 10 minutes after I checked in at the E.R. desk... and 30 minutes later the Hospital did an on-site CT scan, and 30 minutes after that they admitted me to the Hospital formally and gave me a shot of morphine.

Some few minutes after that shot the pain abated... for the first time in six weeks I was out of pain... And some 15 minutes later I was passed out. I woke up the next morning in a hospital bed in a semi private room.

And then the games began.

And I played to win...

And I suppose I did win... it’s six plus years ago that shot of morphine, six years and three months ago to be exact... and I’m still here...

I’m still here...

So I suppose I won...

But I walked in to that hospital under my own power...

And I left that hospital in a wheelchair.

And it took me six full months to learn how to stand, and not fall... and then another six months to walk again, haltingly and barefoot, in my house, There. And it took another six months after that for me to be able to walk the steps up and down by myself to be able to leave the house of my own accord, and to finally bring my dog, Ziggy, back in to my daily life... and then six more months to be able to drive, to drive anywhere.

And once anywhere, to be able to leave the car...

But I never lost my dick... Mitch made sure of that.

On the second day I was home from the Hospital... the second day home after massive brain surgery on the largest tumor they had ever seen in anyone still walking around... on the second day home after dying twice on the operating room table, on my second day home after four weeks in a healing, drug induced coma, after a seven week Hospital siege overall... on my second morning home, when I could barely stand up from the bed and walk to the bathroom... On my second morning home Mitch let himself in to the house with his key, found me in bed, took his clothes off, and got in to bed next to me.

And the right parts functioned