Eighth Street and Vine

Eighth Street and Vine

       by Mr. Gold Tattoo

                        out on the terrible deep

                        danger silently creeps

                        come to jesus today

                        let him show you the way

                        you're drifting too far from the shore

Sometimes one wishes for comfort from a comforter. One is not likely to receive comfort despite one's longings. What to do when caught in the rip current of such a desire? Here are some tried and true solutions.

       When one wakes on a morning and the sun shines through one's window, making the room glow like a lily in bloom, yet one feels an odd sense of detachment and sees a world gray and unattractive, one likely has found oneself in a state of melancholy. Melancholy must be distinguished from simple dementia for it displays symptoms decidedly more ferocious than the latter. Unlike dementia, which might be analogized as a fondling, melancholy more accurately appears as a being continuously kicked in the solar plexes and about the head and testicles. The individual overcome by dementia might yet smile and eat and exact retributions for the small wrongs done her of a morning. The melancholic, however, feels no urges except her pain, an inner sharp yet dull pulse of the absent pulse and a difficulty breathing, with repeated, awkward in-gasps of air replacing the normal and regular drawings of it.

       Where the dementiaic struggles most to determine that it was a bowel movement that she intended five minutes ago, the melancholic proves herself a failure by refusing bowel movements altogether for weeks on end. A great distending of the middle regions shows up as the main excrementory symptom of the latter. Her midriff presents itself distinctly and without flattery to one's person. Normally, when one suffers acute melancholomania one requires a physician to initiate remedial action. No remedy, however, guarantees the afflicted's health but only assists in the start of a journey long and arduous into the inner reaches of the ailing one's conflicted self.

       The demented one coughs ceaselessly, not so much for reasons of physical stricture but out of a need to wheedle and disturb those in charge of her care as well as fellow patients. When, say, a mother, aging and demented, lives with a daughter thirty years her junior, the former will be expected to defecate on her bed, refuse the inserting of her hearing aids, shout out vile names and epithets when visitors arrive, especially ones the daughter admires and wishes to show her best sides to, urinate on the floor during meals, require urgent assistance at night for two weeks running, and appear before children at breakfast with her nightgown unbuttoned from top to bottom.

       The melancholic, as we have suggested, seldom defecates, urinates with reluctance, may be relied upon never to swear, disappears when visitors arrive, shows respect for those attending on her, and feels awkward at even the thought of nudity, let alone the actual affecting of it.

       Much to the surprise of students studying both symptomologies, the demented one's behavior brings about outrage and despair in caregivers whereas the melancholic's brings about only utter weariness in the same. Certain divergent activities help to calm and achieve temporary reprieve in each case. Proffer one water laced with whiskey if one is demented. Supply no liquor whatsoever if one is melancholic but only teas and cakes. Sweets taken alongsider mild teas infused for short periods only smooth the edges of pain. The demented one finds relief in boxing and wrestling. Set up for such a one a pugilistic ring in which she may battle whomever steps up to engage her in physical combat. Ensure, of course, the proper wearing of protective gear since demented ones display

alarming levels of strength and tenacity. You may have one on the mat in a headlock and a bear hug and one may rise up bodily and slam you to the floor with sudden strength and rage precipitated by a flow of strange and euphoric energy. The melancholic, on the other hand, will never fight you. One will, however, long for sleep and the best thing to do to accomplish one's peace for the moment is to bring one to a bed and remove one's clothes and place one tenderly under a quilt thick and somnifulent.