Wooden Nickels and Eye Vampirism

 

One of the more famous wooden nickels,
and rare because the plows are usually broken
or tainted with crusted ear wax

 

No history of Eye Vampirism is complete
without referring to one of the biggest villains,
John "Suck 'Em Dry" Smith

I had to help a friend in need the other night. A friend in need being a friend indeed, this friend of mine is a huge friend, always being in need. Be that as it may, as needy as you are, you're never too needy for me to swoop in and try to save the day. Or die trying.

But this isn’t about how great I am — I’m modest enough to say I’m only modestly great — but about a moment of sharing I had with a doctor.

It started with my friend calling, saying he needed someone to take him to the emergency room. He didn’t want to call the ambulance — and I took this as a huge compliment — because he’d read my blog post on emergency workers basically being in it for the free pastries. I told him I’d be right over, right after I finished the last three quarters of a cinnamon roll. Seriously, it had nuts like a boar, along with about a ton of cinnamon drizzle!

Anyway, I got there. He was hanging by a thread. And we got to the emergency room, where — wouldn’t you know it? — they let him linger on and on while they helped other folks, and walked by laughing with pastries of their own. So we sat in the room. I kept checking his pulse to make it seem like something was happening.

Finally, a guy presenting himself as a doctor showed up. He held the stethoscope up to the patient's chest and said, "Cough," murmuring over and over to his phone, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, no — scratch that, insert yes.”

Even though I wasn’t on my friend’s HIPAA list — the folks they can legally confide in about the patient’s prognosis, everything from their temperature to their pulse, Dr. Yes-No was forthcoming: “Just as I feared...” “What is it, doc?” I pleaded. "This doesn’t look good...” “What doesn’t look good?” I demanded. “I haven’t seen a case like this in ages.” By now my friend was also interested in his case, which seemed dark and dire. “Just as I feared,” the doctor repeated, “You’ve got Wooden Nickel Syndrome.” Of course my friend repeated the words back to him, being generally clueless about these conditions.

I answered for the doctor: “He means you’ve been taking too many wooden nickels,” which means different things determined on a case by case basis, like interpretive dance. The doctor looked at me as a fellow traveler. Our eyes met with an intensity I hadn’t experienced since the time I was heavily advocating Eye Vampirism in early 2002, a hobby horse I abandoned soon after because of a lack of fellow travelers. It’s damned lonely, a life as the only openly-confessing eye vampire in town.

“Exactly,” the doctor said, “Wooden nickels. And there’s nothing I can do.”

At that point — and I’m not a man given to professional confrontation as you might think — I protested violently, saying, “This, sir, is where I must disagree! There’s lots you can do for Wooden Nickel Syndrome—

“True,” he said, “but I haven’t lost a patient yet and I don’t want to start with him.”

Hearing such a lame excuse, and because I had Eye Vampirism fresh on the brain, I stood up and walked directly toward the doctor. He saw the intensity of my Bela Lugosiesque stare and backed all the way to the corner. I trailed him, staring, staring, staring. At last he buckled, and spoke in the grayest shade of monotone, “Yes, Master, I see and I shall obey.”

I stood aside and watched with pride as that man of medicine — thank God for doctors who can be reasoned with — walked calmly to my needy friend and shared valuable information with him, no doubt going well beyond the Physician’s Desk Reference in scope. It's true what they say, the hidden truths of life are the most interesting.

“If you take wooden nickels...” he said, staring into his eyes as he explained point by point the prognosis, its cause and its cure, the positive steps my friend could take to recover once and for all, and many other truths, well known and daringly arcane, “...in the end you’ll be fine.” I myself have studied the hidden lore of Wooden Nickel Syndrome over the years, of course, but even I didn’t know that its modern revival is attributed to carnival freaks in the late 1800s, originating as a kind of curse against folks who tried to pay them with wooden nickels. I thought it had to do with laughing at them, meaning, if the doctor's right, I can resume going to carnivals.

All the way home, my friend manifested the signs of a swift and sure recovery, seeming in every way his old self. Upon separating for the night, I restrained myself and did not — DID NOT — say, “Don’t take any wooden nickels.” Naturally that would’ve been very harmful. I did, however, use about five seconds of Eye Vampirism on him as we hugged goodbye, knowing I could calm him down without a word and ensure him a good night’s sleep.

How To Be A Local Character

I've been a collector of local characters, like forever. Of course I don't bring them home; they're not butterflies to pin to the curtain. I only make note of them and observe them as much as is polite. And since they never seem to notice observation, you could stare all day and still be polite.

They're always out and about, the basic thing of the local character being the need for a public. You could stay home and be a local character -- depending on your mentality -- but you'd soon find there's little point in it. Let's say you're a wild guy waving all the time. It might be fun to prance around in the mirror waving for a while, but it'd have to wear off.

I think I could be a local character, except my mentality, alas, is still way too far on this side of the line. Try as I might, my normal brain power will not release its damned grip. So I'm doomed, it seems, only to watch from the sidelines and never know their full joy.

In researching the subject, I found an obscure book downtown, "How To Be A Local Character." It makes interesting reading. And makes me wonder, maybe these guys aren't all mental, just acting out the advice of the how-to author. ["How To Be A Local Character," Corky McDermott, Vantage Press, 1977.] But surely they haven't all had access to this book. So the only other possible alternative is they're mental. Or just doing it on their own initiative. There could be something to that. Instead of being mental in the negative sense, maybe they're mental positively, "with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men" (The Adventures of Superman.)

I remember a couple of the local characters downtown on the square from when I was a kid. One guy was called Paulie, and I'm not going to make any jokes about him, because I'm merciful. I'll just say his coordination was totally gone, and that's not meant as a joke. Then there was Hoyt, the guy who always stood on the edge of town, not putting his thumb up, but waiting till someone gave him a ride back to his own town. Talking to Hoyt, as I did many times, was an experience. There were actual words in what he said, but most of it sounded like bluster and babble. He was friendly, and I even saw his apartment once when I took him home, with waterlogged ceiling tiles hanging everywhere. Very memorable.

Anyway, our author, McDermott, sketches it out much like I would were I to write it. Which is to do a brief survey of local characters, then sketch what it takes to be one. I'll list just four of his points:

1) Something to make you stand out -- What you do as a local guy has to be unusual enough that people notice. I saw one local guy whose thing was to walk around in a white sheet, nothing underneath. He'd often lay on the sidewalk. And I still have retina burn from seeing his entire business while crossing the road one evening. His legs were up under the sheet in full childbirth pose. But the problem with indecent exposure is the police get involved, as they did that night. Interestingly, McDermott doesn't mention this as a possibility.

2) Something you'll be bold enough to do -- McDermott's book presupposes that you're doing these things by choice, not from a mental problem. This is a point I'd have a hard time with. I'm not really that bold. I can think of plenty of oddball things a guy could do -- carrying a toilet seat everywhere would be a fantastic one -- but where to get the boldness, I just couldn't. You have to find your boldness (or comfort) level. Maybe start with the flush handle and work your way up.

3) Something constant -- I see this as an important point. You might carry a big ugly doll one time and think it was funny, but you have to do it all the time. You need to settle on it. That's it. You can't be carrying a dead guinea pig tomorrow. It's got to be the doll. We have a guy downtown who's always got a doll with him. And he definitely turns heads and keeps us wondering. But so far I've never seen anyone ask him what he's doing it for. As for me, with my mental state being what it is, I would want more variety than that, and that'd be my downfall. They'd all know I was faking.

4) Something no one else is doing -- You need to study your environment. See what's going on and what's missing. Cross off your list what you see already being done. If there's already a guy who looks like a freak from R. Crumb comics waving at everyone, there's no room for two! You're going to have to do something different. I think it'd be cool to have a megaphone and walk around shouting things. I've never seen anyone do that, even though I've definitely seen local characters walking around shouting. Why they never thought of the megaphone, it could just be they don't know where to get one. Where do they sell megaphones?