Blazing Addles

Alan followed the numbers down the top floor of the west wing: 40W… 42W… 44W…. There it was, in bold block letters, printed on an index card slipped into a plastic temporary retainer on the door: 46W—Crane, Denny. Alan swung the door open and went in.

Directly in his line of sight was Denny's bandaged backside hanging out of one of those woefully inadequate hospital gowns that tie around the neck. Denny himself lay curled on his right side, facing a television suspended from a corner of the ceiling, clouded beneath billows of grey.

From above, Judge Joe Brown lectured a tearful defendant on taking responsibility.

Alan waved his way through the haze and flicked on the bathroom vent fan. "I don't believe that smoking is actually allowed in here." He set his briefcase down on the floor.

Denny pulled the cigar from his mouth. "Name's on the wing. What are they going to do? Shoot me? It's been done. Old news."

"While your prestige, or at least your payouts may well hold sway with the hospital administration, you might find that smoke detectors are frequently illiterate, immaterialistic, and shockingly unimpressed by the power of a name. Even such an illustrious one."

Denny jabbed the cigar straight up over his head. "Got it covered."

Alan looked up to the place where the mangled remains of a smoke detector dangled by one wire. Barely recognizable but for the confession, it had clearly been taken out by something much larger than a 0.38. "So I see."

Denny exhaled a generous cloud. "Have a seat." He gestured to the one between bed and TV.

Alan peered over. It was a bedside commode.

"Lid's down," said Denny.

"It's a mite low for my bad knee." Alan unlocked a bedrail and edged onto the mattress. There was not enough room on the Judge Joe side, so Alan took the side with the buttocks. He paused and rolled eyes around the wad of sheets. "The instrument of demise of that armed and dangerous alarm: would it be anywhere on the premises? I, myself, am rather fond of my body parts, especially the more," he sniffed, "sexually responsive ones."

Denny grunted. "Can't keep pistols in a hospital bed, man. Remember the sponge-baths! The water! You democrats don't understand anything about respecting the firearms that are at work keeping you safe."

"No doubt." Alan pulled onto the mattress. Leaning against the headboard, he stretched his legs out along the length of Denny's backside, ankles crossed, hands folded neatly atop his abdomen.

"This is nice." Denny blew out a puff. "Almost like old times."

"It seems to be lacking something."

"Scotch. Did you bring it?"

"I'm told it makes a poor mix with Percocet."

Denny grunted. "I'm not taking it. Percocet's for pussies. That's the problem with your generation—can't stand feeling a little pain—want to solve everything with a pill instead of—"

"Weaponry?"

"Exactly." Denny exhaled again. "Puff?" he asked. He extended an arm back to offer Alan the cigar. "It's my last one until Pamela smuggles me in a box after her break."

"Pamela? I have visions of come-fuck-me red lipstick meets crisp, starched nursing whites."

"Exactly. And the way she has with a thermometer. My temperature isn't the only thing that rises a few degrees."

Alan winced. "And so you have Florence Nightingale cum Linda Lovelace bootlegging for you?"

"Traded for the Percocet." Denny waggled the cigar again. " You want it or not? You know exactly where my mouth's been."

"Yes. And I'm surprised you've yet to cough up a fur ball."

"Last chance." A few ashes dropped off as Denny shook the cigar. "You're the weirdo. I should be the one to worry getting it back. What if that AB-CD thing is catching?"

"I think you mean AC-DC, and you would know by now."

"Don't be so sure. I don't know most of what I know any more."

Alan took the cigar and drew in deep.

"That's better. Real men shouldn't be afraid of germs. If you can't shoot it, it's not worth worrying about.

"Hey, speaking of, want to see my scar? I told them to make it pretty." Denny pushed the flimsy fabric off even farther and began fumbling with the edges of the tape.

"Thank you, Denny, but no." Alan hastened to pat the tape back down. "My weathered system can only handle so many joys in one day, and hearing of your anticipated recovery has somewhat exceeded my joy quota for the moment. Perhaps tomorrow."

"Offer's always open." Denny draped the gown flap down again.

"Denny, the partners are up in arms—"

"Mm. Shirley. She's just scared. Afraid Denny Junior was caught in the line of fire. He's fine, look." Denny flipped up the front of the hospital gown. Mercifully from that angle only the wall and Judge Joe could see.

"Generous, I'm sure, but do remember my joy quota. I'll need to save some for Christmas."

"You'll have to reassure Shirley. Give me your phone."

"I wouldn't describe the humor in which I left her as being a chit-chatty one."

"It's got a camera, right? The same one we used that night with the triplets."

"They weren't triplets; they were a chamber quartet. And yes." Still warm from his belt case, Alan passed the phone over.

"Quartet, huh? I'd had the feeling I'd been missing something."

"You don't say."

Denny held the phone out in front of his groin and pressed a button. "There you go. Take that back and show Shirley. Virgo intacta. She'll settle right down."

"I doubt that is precisely the meaning you intended." Alan took a moment to examine the phone before closing it and returning it to his waist.

"'Intacto.' Whatever. September 4th. Shoe fits; I'm wearing it."

"Actually, Denny, it's not so much Shirley as it is Lewiston."

Denny shrugged. "It's all right. You can show him too. Never figured him for a swish hitter—"

"Switch hitter."

"—but we are talking about Denny Crane. I've moved better men than him. I'm officially banned from Marine barracks, you know."

"Yes, but I understood that to be a different issue."

"That's their story. Cover up. Even the military fears Denny Crane. Go ahead; show Lewiston. Men looking at me doesn't make me gay. Fortunately, or I'd have to buy more pink. Much more pink."

Alan passed the cigar back. "My friend, this isn't funny. What Lewiston lacks in charm, tact, wit, liberal thinking, and fluidity of existence, he more than compensates with aim and potency."

Denny chuckled.

Alan refused to play along. "The partners are in a stir over this. Together, Lewiston and Shirley have the power, the politics and the persuasion to get the votes. While you stand there playing with your guns and your holsters and your saddlebags, the wagons are circling in the periphery. Can you hear them? Can you smell them? Can you feel them closing in? There is only so much that I can do. While my arsenal of chicanery, deceit, malfeasance, and plain dirty tricks remains –as always—at your disposal, I fear I shall have to say something I had though I never would: Denny, this time I am uncertain as how much I shall be able to help."

"They may ignore you, but they can't ignore Denny Crane."

"That is entirety of the problem. Denny, you shot Denny Crane. Even your Escherian ratiocination cannot present such an action in a favorable light. They consider this evidence that you are not only incompetent but a dangerous liability and that it is not only necessary but is an act of beneficence to buy you out and see that you are safe and comfortable. Like an endangered species being tucked lovingly into a 20x20 zoo enclosure with all the amenities for its own protection."

"Mm." Whatever Denny was thinking, the murmur was almost too soft to hear.

Alan took a breath. "Have you ever considered that laying your skull—whatever the relative condition of the contents thereof—next to loaded weapons might not be the best way to prolong your legal legacy?"

"Guns don't kill people—"

Alan rolled his eyes.

"—unless they're locked, loaded and immediately at hand the moment you need them."

Despite himself, Alan chuckled. Staring at the back of Denny's head, he could imagine the "gotcha!" on the other side. He should have had more faith. But that wasn't the point right now. He had come to save a friend, and he couldn't do that were he swept away in that friend's world. However much fun that might be.

He tried again. "You live in one of the most secure buildings in the city. You don't need Kirk or any of them. Why do you take such a risk?"

"Nah! You pansy-ass liberals, you never see: force and security demand more force and security. That's what weapons build-up is all about. Anyone who could get past the building guards and devices is no slouch. This city's full of robbers, rapists, and insanely—though understandably— jealous husbands who all want a piece of Denny Crane. Who can blame them? I don't, but I need to be ready for anything. Anyone."

"What did happen in that bedroom, Denny?" Alan asked in his fragile-witness tones.

"Oh, I could tell stories—"

"I'm sure that you could, and ordinarily such an offer would appeal immensely to the more prurient and strong-stomached aspects of my psyche, but time is at a premium. Even now Paul is surely making phone calls to others who are making phone calls to others until some critical telecommunicatory mass is reached, and a young man with a tenth grade education and his name machine-embroidered onto his coveralls will arrive to chisel "Denny Crane" off of the door. "

"It'll take more than one." Denny mumbled into his cigar.

"Perhaps. But Boston does not lack for the underemployed or the underpaid, and it will happen."

Denny pushed up on his elbow and craned his neck to glare over his shoulder. "You're just as bad as they are!" He spat the words at Alan's face.

"Denny, because you are upset, in pain, and likely still under the influence of a number of chemicals administered intra-operatively, I shall decline to take umbrage at that remark. I shall merely remind you that 'they' are concerned about you, whereas am concerned for you. If you can no longer appreciate the difference, perhaps I should put my name in the lottery for your office so I would at least have access to our balcony and revel in my memories of a friend I used to know and care for very much. "

Denny shifted fully onto his side again. "I see the difference. But when it smacks you in the face at ninety miles an hour, it hurts the same whether it's the bluebird or the shit."

"How you were passed over for Poet Laureate, I shall never comprehend."

"The Library of Congress is run by fairies."

"Which explains much, but is a subject for another time. Denny, what happened? They say that Kirk…Douglas went off unexpectedly in your posterior. As picturesque a scenario as that is, I find it implausible for a number of reasons. Is that true, or is there more to this story? Consider it privileged if you like, but if we are to stand against this together, I must know the truth."

"Privilege." Denny's voice sounded uncharacteristically bitter. "Friends shouldn't need privilege."

"Precisely."

Denny clicked off Judge Joe. He set the burning cigar down on the bare surface of the nightstand. He tried to roll over, but stopped with a sharp inhalation that was actually painful to hear. He rocked back onto his right hip, and instead curled and pivoted himself around in the bed until his head was at the foot and his eyes were face to feet with Alan's shoes.

With a sigh invoking all the martyrs of eons past, Alan maneuvered until he too was lying feet on pillow and face only inches away from Denny's.

"I slipped." Denny said the words impassively, but his gaze was unfocused, far past Alan's glossy leathers and many years beyond.

"Slipped?" Hand? Sock? Rug? This could be defensible. Alan ran possible ways to present such a scenario through his mind. "What slipped how?"

Denny shook his head. "No. I slipped. It's not the guns, Alan; it's me."

Alan raised eyebrows and waited.

"I've been sleeping with guns since I was thirteen. Never has anything like that happened. Never.

"Your answer is: I don't know. One second I was awakened by a noise. I thought— I thought— Alan, I don't know what I thought. I went for a weapon like I would in any trouble, but— But then…after that… I don't know.

"At thirteen, I could handle myself. Handle a weapon. But I've slipped beyond that, Alan. I've slipped somewhere back beyond thirteen. How pitiful is that, Alan? How sad, humiliating and pitiful."

Alan swallowed. "In the dark, the altered consciousness that is that state between sleep and wake and the next potential orgasm, strange things may happen. Men may not be responsible—"

"Don't!" Denny barked at him. "Don't. Don't belittle this. It's me. Don't belittle me. If you are my friend, face it with me. Don't pretend it's not real. If I have to live with the whole truth, so should you. A burden shared is doubled."

Alan bit back a laugh. "I play pretend in bed with lovers, and I'm not going anywhere." Mindful of the IV site, Alan squeezed his hand, once, likely too hard, then he let it go.

The room was quiet but for the steady hum of the bathroom fan.

"What does a man do," Denny wondered, "when he's slipping so far, so fast, that he can't even orient himself to the fall?"

"Generally he flails out, grabs the biggest branch he comes across, and holds on tight."

Denny reached between them, clutched at Alan's hand, and clamped on much harder than Alan had to his.

"Denny." Alan spoke very quietly.

"Don't get mushy. I hate that." It may have been the effects of the anesthesia tube, but Denny's voice was sounding increasingly rough.

"I'm not. It's just that your knuckles are scraping up against my…branch."

Denny glanced down through the space between them. "Oh. Sorry." Denny pulled their joined hands over against his own thigh and left them there.

***


Denny was almost asleep when the door swung open. A 40ish year old leggy blonde in nursing whites sashayed in with a package tucked under one arm.

"Mr. Crane, I brought you a big… Oh!" Nonplussed, her eyes darted between the two men lying wrong-way-round on the bed.

"Indeed?" Alan eyed her up and down like a pastry shoppe window display. She was everything Denny usually looked for in a woman—that is, unescorted and not currently divorcing him. "Denny, I must complement you on your choice of medical institutions. While it's reported that senior citizens are being screwed by our healthcare system, you seem to have made the situation work to your advantage."

"I'll just come back in a couple minutes." Eyes on the bed, she backed towards the door.

"Nonsense," Denny muttered, slapping Alan on the ass. "Alan's my plug-puller. Anything you have to say to me, you can say to him as well."

"I must say, I am particularly hoping for the phrase, 'It's time for your alcohol rub and enema, sir' but I don't see how I could be so lucky." Alan swung himself off the bed and entered well into her personal space. "Alan Shore." He extended a hand. "I take it that you must be… Pamela. And you have something that I want."

He reached straight toward her right nipple, halting less than a millimeter away from a sexual assault charge. He paused deliberately, then veered off toward the wooden box she carried pressed against her side. "I'll take…that," he said, tugging on it with a smooth, steady and surprisingly suggestive movement, so careful never to contact anything but the box.

Her eyes flicked to Denny, awaiting further instruction.

"Plug puller, remember," Denny repeated. "It's fine; he can handle my stogies any time."

Eww factor aside, Denny did have an almost fool-proof knack for getting the last word at a whim, Alan reflected with admiration.

Pamela tried a different tack. "Mr. Crane, doctor's orders: you're due for a dressing change and another dose of antibiotic." She bustled over to take a set of vital signs.

"Does it go in the ass?" Denny spoke around the thermometer in a way that even Alan found a tad disturbing.

"No; it goes in the IV," she tapped the catheter taped to the back of his hand. "And keep your lips wrapped around the thermometer." She jiggled it as a reminder.

"I admire a woman who gives clear-cut direction," said Alan.

She gave him the evil eye.

"Particularly to lie prostrate on a bed, extend one's arm, open one's mouth and wait. It is situation so rife with enticing possibilities."

She dropped Denny's arm and charted the numbers. "Listen, if I'm interrupting here…"

"Not at all." Alan stooped to collect his briefcase. "I am off for a bit. I take it that this antibiotic infusion will keep him safely in place for an hour or so."

"Unless he wants to wander the halls with a pole and his bottom hanging out a gown."

"Hmm—" Denny tilted his head.

"Denny, behave or I shan't bring you back that surprise I promised."

"Oh, all right. But where are you going? What's more important than your best friend being shot?" Denny grumbled as Pamela began to work on his backside.

"I must prepare for a deposition in the Holman case tomorrow. Frannie's Fancies. Women's undergarments have long been a puzzle to me—among other things, it seems the epitome of gilding the lily, something I cannot comprehend. And worse than that, this case is a miasma of disputed allegations, intent, awareness, temporal succession as well as the nuisances of feminine under-fashion detail."

"What's it about?" Denny asked.

"At its root, intellectual property."

"Intellectual…panties? They didn't have those in my day."

"A woman is alleging she sent our client unsolicited designs for a line of…fancies, and that our client produced and used said designs without recompense. Our client claims never to have seen these communiqués, but the prima facie evidence is not supportive. We have computer forensics investigating the emails in hopes of giving credence to her statement, but I fear we may have to argue independent development and significant differences in marketed product, which is hardly a promising tactic given the blatant similarities. Although examining the evidence should be a great deal more fun."

Denny waved him off. "Email, schemail. There's a reason it rhymes with 'female.' You get one, and it seems like a great idea, so you get a couple dozen more, and soon they're taking over your life. Taking you away from things you love: your friends, your alcohol—"

"Your panties."

"Exactly.

"Ouch!" Denny jumped as Pamela dabbed at the sutures.

"Frannie Holman, huh? I'll tell you what this case is really about," said Denny as he settled down again.

"Money."

"Sex. It always comes down to sex. Even when it is about money, it's only because the money can buy us things that lead—or might ultimately lead—to sex. Ow!" Denny flinched again.

"So far your proposition has merit, and you have my attention." Alan stared in the direction of Denny's bared ass. "You know something of this case?"

"The plaintiff is young, sexy, with boom-bas out to here." Denny stretched out his arms.

"You slept with her?"

"No. Well, I don't know. Bring me a picture—preferably a naked picture, I'm not good with faces—and I'll tell you.

"I slept with your client. Well, not slept. We had sex; I was being a gentleman with that eunuchism."

"Euphemism," Alan mumbled.

"Oh, the fanny on that Frannie—" Denny's drifted off a tide of nostalgia.

"Denny, I am certain that in your own little universe, this is all makes perfect sense, I however am not sufficiently of a mind to comprehend such warp jumps and skips. Would you care to explain in a little more detail?"

"Your client is Frannie Holman—married to Doctor Robert Holman, right?"

"Yes, and if you tell me that you had sex with him—"

"Of course not. He's a gynecologist. About twenty years ago, when obstetric premiums, skyrocketed, he asked me to set up a personal financial structure to allow him to go bareback—"

"Bare."

"—without malpractice insurance. I set up a series of trusts, and had him put the rest in his wife's name so that he is without assets—no financial exposure in the event of a lawsuit. "

"And then you had sex with his wife."

"Mmm. Why not? It's not like he could divorce her. She had all his money."

"Impeccably reasoned."

"And he still can't. He has to get his money back first."

"Or, have someone else do it," Alan mused.

"Forget the computers, the fashion, the panties—well, maybe not the panties; it's all about the people, the husband, the girl. That's where you dig in your deposition.

"Ouch!" Denny winced as Pamela made a final twist of her wrist between his buttocks and dropped the gown flap back down.

"Thank you, Denny. That may be of some use." Alan opened his briefcase and pulled out a zippered leather bag.

"What's that?" Denny asked. "Dear God, please tell me it's the panties."

"Toiletries," said Alan. He set it beside the sink. "I detest that not so fresh feeling, don't you? And I see no reason to continue to carry them around. I'll be back in a few hours."

"You're spending the night?" Denny jerked his head up.

"It is the Denny Crane wing. This is my big chance; I've always wanted to spend the night in Denny Crane."

"Who wouldn't?" Denny nodded gravely.

"Pamela, could you possibly arrange a spare cot in here? Perhaps one of those exam tables with the stirrups and warming drawer for the speculums and lubricant."

"I'll have to check with someone on that." Pamela looked skeptical.

"Denny Crane." Denny settled himself down amongst the sheets.

"Ah, well," Alan smoothed his jacket with a hand and addressed her. "If it's too much trouble, we can always share his. I'm small and don't take up much room, although should events turn to the sexual between us, I will claim that my meaning was misconstrued."

Pamela looked to Denny. "Plug puller. He gets what he wants. But I get the side of the bed by the window. My bullet, my room, my name on the wing."

Hand to his breast, Alan smirked at her.

Pamela fiddled with the I.V. "I'll see what I can do."