Dr Jew

on his shoulder. His head agasp, aflame, inferno. A hand on his shoulder. Coming through. Coming through.
    "Swan."
    A hand agasp, his shoulder, clasped. His –
    "Swan. He's – he's gone – stop."
    Aunt Anne. He remembered her. Knew her once. But she had changed. His –
    "Stop it, Swan. He's dead. Vinny's dead."
    Vinny. Who was Vinny. Who was he. That sounded so. Who was Vinny.
    "Swan."
    And Swan. Gone. All gone. Where had they gone and left him with this cold hand on his shoulder, all gone. Why had they come only to go. All. All gone now. And ma. Mama. I can go back now. I'll go back now. I can leave. Nothing here.
    He rolled off the midget and lay on the ground his eyes upon the ceiling his face a wet snotty pond. His hands which he didn't see caked red all over, his knees bent and determined by a former state of choice and brief activity. The shivering cold of his bones. The day just went on and on, and if he couldn't sleep it meant it would go on longer. Now was a time to forget, and there would be a lifetime to remember.
    "Swan."
    To remember what he had done and what he had become. To remember Swan.

XXXIII.

    HEY POTENTIAL CHAMPION, welcome to the next episode in the fun-filled adventures of Dr. Jew, pseudoscientific neurotheologian and beleaguered battler of the malarial league! Sit back, grab your favorite beverage and let's get to it!
    "You can have everything, but you can 't have anything."
    Those were the words as I found them in the mucoused 14-karat dribble halls of my august brain, those were the words as I spat them on the diseased carcass of the woman, the wife.
    Whose wife? That is the question and here is your hint: I was in Mexico, existing on heat like a newborn spider. It thickened the blood to the consistency of jam. I was in Mexico, yes, like some petty 19th century coolie making house calls. The local swineherd had met me at the airport and said he had trouble finding me with the mask over my breathing apparati and I asked if he'd prefer a dead man which is what I might be if allowed to breathe the unfiltered soup passing as air among the brown ones where the Swine-AIDS cases numbered 5 or 6 per 100,000, more than enough to titillate my doctoral testicles in the interest of science blah blah blah and yet shrivel those same man-glands with terror when the prospect of being swabbed by the tentacles of nausea and delirium comes my way.
    I never want to eat that silica gel till I see "DO NOT EAT" and then it becomes a challenge.
    Skirted, cajoled, curdled along, with my luggage carted behind and filled with all that may be wafted through the smarmy gates of TSA. Even I did not foresee the lanky curvilinear course events would take and however much I may moan at the time, I would have it no other way. Hunger for certainty and safety is the modern world's Kryptonite.
    And so I set up my hotel room as a makeshift office and a pale substitute indeed to the quarters I 'd haunted for so many years plying my trade and halting all manner of cytopathogenic rampage in its tracks. Things were disarrayed and lacking, and the morphogenetic field I'd created through decades of academic investigations into orifices was millions if not hundreds of miles away in America, L'America.
    Ah Monsignor Mexicano let us dump the contents of the mini-bar onto the floor for the señoritas thy chiquititas to have them clean and have the cost charged to my benefactor's credito cardo as the RFID pasted to each goes beyond the fridgely reach that I might chill my instruments as need be and have a spot ready should I needs remove a spleen, heart, or whatnot and keep it on the cool.
    I 'd like to say I was comfortable in my temporary abode and the work shall always be of the finest ilk when Dr. Jew is at the wheel, but speaking frankly as I must since we are here among friends (by this I indicate YOU, gentle reader) I tell you I was not at the top of my game. Scratch one to the unseen enemy and knock a few hit points off me gunny.
    I did though and shall always do (yea) my best. Even in that hot groggy (my skin so dry and sinuses from flying) Mexico. Once our enemy and now our friend that had me in her floody mcbowels. As I said, I did my best and struggled with the beast. All the time in the world could have transpired, but I was as ready as I'd ever be. The swineherd came again through the human button and I told him I was ready.
    "Send in the Simpatico woman," I said.
    The fellow vanished.
    "Hello, my dear," I said to