DR. MAROON

William Walsh

Steve Osten is a man barely alive. He has a syndrome called Excess Blood Volume Syndrome. He has one-third more blood in his body than the average adult male. Since puberty, this syndrome has been misdiagnosed several times, most recently as diabetes. He was prescribed insulin therapy. First time he injected himself, he got a frighteningly fast erection, ejaculated instantly, and then passed out.

Julianna Fete is a knockout. She has a syndrome, too. She menstruates twice as much as a woman should. That’s twice a month most months. Those who know her think she is a grouch. But they don’t know why. Her religious beliefs, though not doctrine, prevent her from engaging in sexual intercourse while she is menstruating. So on the few days each month when she is free from her menstrual cycles, she is very horny. She’s made some bad decisions about men during these menstruation-free days.

David Decoder is Vice President of Sales and Marketing for a systems software giant named Giant Systems Software. He’s thirty, been married for eight years to a woman he met in college. Her name is Jennifer. They have four children, two boys and two girls (and Jennifer had two miscarriages between their third and fourth children). Decoder’s wife is a strict Catholic, and though she does not want to ever get pregnant again, she will not allow the use of contraception in their marriage bed. Once, Decoder asked her, “What if I went and got a vasectomy and didn’t tell you?”

She said, “That would be a sin.”

Decoder explained that she wouldn’t be party to the vasectomy if she didn’t know he’d had the procedure.

“Then it would be your sin and I don’t want to live with a sinner and I don’t want my kids to have a sinner for a father.”

Decoder is Catholic, too, but he has contemporized his belief system.

Steve’s new doctor is considered to be the number one blood man in the country. His name is Dr. Maroon. He is older than aspirin. He’s been reading Steve’s case history for three months, but they’ve met only once.

“I want to recommend something radical,” Dr. Maroon says with a twinkle in his ancient eyes.

“Radical?” Steve says, the word clogging in his constricted throat. “What?”

“Leeches.”

Julianna works temp jobs because she has trouble getting along with the other girls in any office. They all seem to know there’s something wrong with her. She believes it has to do with the thing where female co-workers, after a time, get on the same menstrual cycle. In her experience, office girls love this phenomenon. It makes them feel closer. It’s something they share that no boss can take away. Her presence invariably throws off the office cycle, and she becomes an outcast.

David Decoder is too handsome. That’s his problem. He is handsome the way some beautiful women are handsome. His facial features are preternaturally symmetrical. His eyes, nose, mouth axis are like that of a statue chiseled by a master. Women have always thrown themselves at David Decoder. Women who are not poets find themselves writing poems about his face.

“Lots of folks have blood deficiencies,” Dr. Maroon tells Steve. “They don’t have enough of this or that in their blood. You have a surplus of life fluid. It’s perplexing. Too much blood. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Julianna buys her tampons at a few different stores. She couldn’t buy her full supply at one store in a single visit. That would be too embarrassing. She grew up in Michigan, a state in which, it seemed to her, women didn’t menstruate. No woman in her family ever spoke of it. Neither did her girlfriends.

Decoder has a Saturday, a Thursday, an every other Monday, and a Wednesday once a month. He is faithful to his wife every other day most weeks. On Sundays he goes to eleven o’clock mass with his family. His wife and oldest daughter take Communion, but Decoders does not. He follows the words of the Mass with great attention, and he prays silently during those moments of the service when the priest gives his homily. He prays to God for forgiveness of all his extramarital affairs, and he means every word of his prayers. He prays to God for strength. God forgives him, Decoder is sure, but God does not give Decoder strength to end his sinning.

Two years ago, Steve completed his masters in media studies at Wadsworth University in Ampersand, Massachusetts. He wrote his dissertation on regional political talk radio, focusing mostly on Ampersand’s own John Land-Wong, who has a popular and long-running conservative talk radio show on WCHT—CHAT 98.6 FM. Steve sent a copy of his dissertation to Land-Wong, and a few weeks later he received an invitation for lunch with the host at the station. The lunch led to a job offer.

Julianna has three older brothers and three younger brothers. Her mother looked after the three older boys, and, growing up, it was Juliana’s job to take care of the three younger ones. All six of her brothers played college football at U of M, two were drafted to play in the NFL.

Her brothers used to tease her all the time. If she was acting depressed or irritable, they’d say something like, “Did you put your tampon in sideways today?”

Steve always wears a blue oxford-collared shirt, tan chinos, and brown loafers. All of his socks are beige. This is how he dresses every day. The only variance occurs when he wears his olive-colored chinos. And on days when he wears his olive-colored chinos, he generally wears his white oxford-collared shirt.

Amenia. To Juliana, the word sounds like an answer to a prayer. There are something like a thousand case studies about women with amenia, she discovers online. Gymnasts. Figure skaters. Long-distance runners. They workout so much that their cycles stop. They don’t menstruate for months, years in some cases.

Decoder promises only three things to woman: hard, fast, and long. Decoder can’t do tender. Decoder can’t do warm. Years ago, with his wife, when he was first convincing her to forsake her Catholic faith to satisfy his carnal pleasure, Decoder was able to do giddy because that seemed to do the trick for her. But giddy was a long time ago.

Dr. Maroon introduces Steve to the leeches and tells him to place each near his femoral artery. He points to a vivid anatomy poster on the door of his small examination room, indicates a spot high on the inner thigh. “They’ll find a purchase and set to work. They’ll feed until they can’t feed anymore. When they’re done, they’ll just drop off. Clean yourself good before and afterward. Alcohol swabs. Use a bandage if the bites are too deep to close. Do a session before you go to bed at night.”

“You’re not going to do the treatment with me here?”

“God, no,” says Dr. Maroon. “This is a home remedy, so it’s best you take care of it at home. I can’t provide a leech treatment in my offices.”

The gymnasts are all fourteen and four feet ten inches tall. They don’t translate for Juliana. They’re not women. And neither are the figure skaters. They’re all built like skinny boys with no hips but very muscular asses. She couldn’t catch amenia from these girls. But the long-distance runners—the marathoners—they make sense to her. Gaunt women with tireless legs, running till they shit themselves and continuing to the finish line with diarrhea running down their legs and into their running shoes. She could do that. She could train that hard. Start running again. Double her time at the gym. She would outrun her periods. Race through her childbearing years without another wet tampon or menstrual cramp. Stop menstruating. And then flash forward twenty years to her menopause.

Decoder has his doubts about Dr. Maroon. He had expected a more impressive man. Not an oldtimer who smells of toupee glue and denture adhesive. But the man knows blood like a vampire. As Decoder notes that the photos on Maroon’s desk all have a came-with-the-frame look, it occurs to him that many doctors have funny last names. He begins making a mental list of doctors he has known with funny last names: Dr. Bright. Dr. Bombay. Dr. Pie. Dr. Rung. Dr. Payne…

The leeches come in a rectangular Styrofoam container, like restaurant leftovers. They sit on a large, half-damp sea sponge. Six leeches, each about two inches long. They’re a bloody brown color, thick in the middle and almost translucent at each end.

Amenorrhea, Juliana learns, is another word for Amenia. Abnormal suppression or absence of menstruation. She doesn’t like the word Amenorrhea. Sounds like a sexually transmitted disease. Amenia is so prayerful sounding.

“Was I good with the ladies?” Dr. Maroon asks Decoder in a rising voice. “Oh, yes. I chased women like Harpo Marx—flat out sprinting after them as fast as I could run. And when I caught them they fell into my arms in a giggling heap and I’d make them lose their heads in my kisses. They say the man chases the woman until she catches him—you ever heard that saying?”

The leech treatments are painless. He applies some alcohol to each thigh in the general area of his femoral artery. Then he puts the leeches in place, one on each leg. After a few minutes of slow coiling on his hairy legs, they set to work. Their movements are rhythmic, pulsing.

He picks up a newspaper and reads about a state senator who has announced his plans to retire. He jots down some notes for the next day’s show, but before long he doses off.

When he wakes up he finds that the leeches, having gotten their fill of his blood, have fallen off his legs and lay inert on the floor between his feet. He returns the leeches to their container, adding a few romaine leaves and a small puddle of cold tapwater. He stores them in the fridge, alongside some day-old Chinese takeout.

Julianna re-reads Dr. Maroon’s article on amenia online and discovers a quote that she had glossed over in her excited first read. Talking about teenage girls with eating disorders. Dr. Maroon said, “These young women are starving themselves, forcing themselves to vomit. That’s a prescription for amenia.”
After world-class athletes, the second highest segment of women with amenia is anorexics and bulimics. She could do that, too. Starve herself, vomit whatever she eats. Stop menstruating through her childbearing years and flash forward to her menopause.

Decoder used to have a Friday and a Tuesday, and his every other Monday used to be every Monday. But by and by, they’d fallen by the way as, he figured, his current Saturday, Thursday, every other Monday, and monthly Wednesday would eventually.

He feels great after his leech treatments. Clear-headed and cool. The choked feeling in his throat is gone. He breathes in deeply. Exhales slowly. He shadowboxes, does a few squats, deep-knee beds, a dozen pushups. He feels energized. Hepped up, his mother would call it.

Juliana doesn’t give a second thought to Dr. Maroon’s last name. It doesn’t occur to her that the colorful name is ultra-appropriate for a blood doctor. She begins focusing her research on him. She reads an abstract of an article that he wrote on amenia some twenty years earlier. She can’t access the full-length article, but that doesn’t matter. She has become more interested in reading about Dr. Maroon than reading more about amenia. A few dozen articles are referenced online.. His work is footnoted in more recent articles by other researchers. She finds a copy of his CV from 1981. She reads a list of awards he has won from the medical community. She reads about his philanthropy. The one picture of Dr. Maroon that she finds on the web was taken in the 1970’s, from the looks of his clothes and his curly-haired perm. He was handsome, she thinks, but old even then. She never discovers that he lives just a few blocks from her condo and that he now practices in the office building across the street from her gym.

Decoder is a sentimental man, at heart. He gets teary when he looks at pictures of his children when they were babies. He also gets teary when he sees retired Boston Red Sox players on the field at Fenway, dressed in street clothes and sometimes in their throwback uniforms, to collect old-timer awards. At these times, Decoder tells himself that he will change his ways.

While waiting for his bus, Steve notices all the pretty, fit women coming and going at the gym. He decides to join the gym so he can watch these women exercise.

Dr. Maroon. Dr. Maroon. Dr. Maroon. She trances on his name. She makes his name a mantra as she masturbates. Dr. Maroon. Dr. Maroon. Dr. Maroon. Chants his name to control her breathing. Conjures the image of him. His curly perm and his turtleneck sweater. She wakes at 6:00 A.M. every morning and masturbates before she gets on the old treadmill in her apartment. Six miles, fast walking. Dr. Maroon. Dr. Maroon. Dr. Maroon. She’ll walk for thirty minutes at lunch. Then at the gym after work she’ll jog ten miles on an inclined treadmill. Amenia is a long, long road, she thinks. Can it be achieved if it is the goal? Can it only occur as a natural side-effect for athletes and anorexics?

“What about your children?” Dr. Maroon asks Decoder.Decoder tells him that his kids make him feel like he’s like living with cartoon characters. This is a joke he often uses with older clients, so he figures Dr. Maroon will get a kick out of it. But he doesn’t seem to get it at all.

Day three with the leeches. Steve is beginning to think of them as pets. He hasn’t named them. He’s not crazy. But he cares about them because their work makes him feel so much better physically. He checks on them in the fridge between his treatments. He cleans their water, which is filled with their poop, which consists almost entirely of his blood. He changes their lettuce.

She studies photos of long-distance runners. Running women. Graceful athletes who look amazing in their action photos—long strides, clear eyes. Strong but slender shoulders with wonderfully defined clavicles. Then she sees photos of a few of these long-distance runners in street clothes, giving speeches or showing off their children. And they don’t look right. Their skin looks different from others in the photos. They look tired. Pie-eyed. Awkward. Shapeless.

Decoder and Dr. Maroon start having lunch together every week instead of meeting at the doctor’s office. They always go to the same place, La Rober. Dr. Maroon orders from the dinner menu. “I don’t eat dinner,” he says. “I’m a lunch guy.”

He orders a steak, “Bloody rare,” he warns the waitress.

“I know,” she says. “Five Mississippi each side.”

She aims her smile at Decoder. He orders a soup and salad. Dr. Maroon groans.

“He’s operating with a different philosophy,” the waitress says to Dr. Maroon in a scolding tone.

As she walks away with their order, Maroon stares longingly after her. “She’s got what my colleague Dr. Seuss would call a circus behind.”

The guys at the gym all wear t-shirts that they got for free. Steve’s no different. He has a drawer full of WCHT t-shirts, but only two pair of gym shorts. The outward signs of his new conditioning are minimal, he believes. He looks a little less bloated, a little less over-inflated around the neck. He still feels a bit thick around the waist, knees, ankles, elbows, and wrists.

Julianna notices Steve at the gym. He’s always at the gym when she goes after work, and he appears to be shaping up quickly. She would say that Steve is cute, but he’s not the kind of man she would ever consider dating. She notices that one of the trainers at the gym seems to have a crush on him.

Dr. Maroon tells Decoder that he, too, used to run around on his wife. “I was a real cunt man,” is how he puts it. “I was once like you are now. And I know that it’s not easy to be calm when you find there’s something going on in your pants.”

From then on, their weekly appointments focus almost solely on their conquests: Decoder’s current ones and Dr. Maroon’s old ones. Mostly Dr. Maroon’s old ones. Maroon’s seductions were all from a similar pool of targets. In the order of volume: female patients, nurses, nurse practitioners, female doctors, the wives of colleagues, waitresses, female residents, stewardesses, the daughters of colleagues, and his ex-wife’s sisters..

A month into his new physical fitness regime, and one of the trainers at the gym, a pretty young woman by the name of Cassie, tells him he should increase the resistance on the elliptical. Steve doesn’t know how to do this, so he says, “I’m still establishing a baseline.”

If Julianna had become one of Dr. Maroon’s patients, he would have successfully seduced her.

“I can’t understand why so many gay guys never try vagina even once,” Dr. Maroon says to Decoder. “So many sluts in the world. Why not screw one just once for shits and giggles?”

Cassie’s back is narrower than the backs of the other women at the gym. Her shoulders, though slender, are squarer. Her hips and butt have more shape than the other women, even when compared to her fellow instructors. Her legs appear long, though she is very petite. She wears a thin-strapped tank top over a sports bra. Still, her nipples are plainly visible. Like most of the women at the gym, she rolls the elastic waist band of her velour sweatpants down her hips. Her waistband is rolled so low on her hips that Steve can sometimes see the part of her pelvic area that should have pubic hair, except she must shave her pubic hair because all he can see is shiny, smooth-looking skin. The muscles around her pelvis have the kind of definition—like a saddle bulge—that you used to only see on male Olympic swimmers. Steve discovers that she has a tattoo—two tiny dolphins flying in crossing paths—across the small of her back.

Julianna is twenty pounds lighter. Her periods hurt more than ever. Her cramps double her over. Must be, she thinks, the extra weight absorbed the cramps. Now the cramps twist her to the bone.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you about your mother,” Dr. Maroon says to Decoder.

“She’s dead.”

“I think I knew that.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“I want you to tell me about her.”

“You aren’t a shrink,” Decoder says. “You’re a blood doctor.”

“Your mother—that’s blood.”

From the bus stop, Steve studies the faces of the men and women leaving the gym. Many of them have the look of characters who survived to the end of a horror movie. He wonders if that’s how he looks after a workout. Cassie waves to him as she’s getting into her car. In her left hand she grips her cell phone and a pack of Marlboro Light 100s. In her right hand she holds an enormous water bottle by its neck, a lit cigarette pinched straight up between her index and middle fingers.“You need a ride somewhere?” she asks.

Julianna answers a personal ad that reads, “Help me to earn my red wings.” The man who placed the ad describes himself as a biker. His goal, as explained in the ad, is simple. He wants to perform oral sex on a woman at the heaviest point of her menstrual flow. The ad has been placed by Brian Galute. She speaks with him on the phone a few times before they arrange to meet at the Target near her condo.

Dr. Maroon calls Decoder to say he has a diagnosis for him. They confirm their plans for lunch the next day.

“You’ve got what I’m going to call Stiff Breeze Syndrome,” Dr. Maroon says, looking at some papers in Decoder’s file. “That is, you’re easily aroused at the slightest feminine stimuli.”

Decoder feels gypped. “That’s all you got?”

“Best I can do,” says Dr. Maroon. “Look, I ran every test there is on your original blood sample. White cell count, red cell count, protein analysis, glycemic index, genomic enzyme. I did everything short of a taste test.”

Steve quickly loses fifteen pounds. His throat feels clear, not phlegmy. His vision and hearing have improved. He is able to get a better grip on small objects likes pens, coins, shoelaces. His feet feel like they are his. His hair stays combed and doesn’t smell funny anymore. The color of his stool has changed from a stormy wine-dark purple to a neutral beige-brown. His memory is improving. His erections are harder, firmer, more erect, especially after a leech treatment and especially especially on the nights that Cassie sleeps over.

Brian Galute smells of leather and shampoo. He is a bear of a man, well over six feet tall, thick-legged and heavy-chested. His hair is long, buttery blond. His goatee is reddish, and he has closely trimmed red stubble high on his checks. He has sleeves of tattoos running up each of his big arms. He leaves his sunglasses on as they wander the aisles of the emptying Target.

Julianna needs tampons, and she thinks it will be a cute icebreaker to have Brian make the purchase for her. She stands by the exits and watches him wait in line at the checkout, tossing the box of tampons in the air several times and then spinning it on his right index finger like a basketball.

Later on at her condo, after a few glasses of wine, she happily let Brian Galute earn his red wings. Using a tiny digital camera that he’d brought with along him, she snapped a photo of him with his face posed between her thighs, his goatee and cheek stubble clotted red with her menses.

“Can I see you again,” asks Brian Galute. “Next month?”

“You don’t have to wait that long.”

“You think all these women let you have your way with them because they respect you?” Maroon asks Decoder. “No. They screw you because they don’t care what you think about them.”

Steve had been practically impotent on the few previous occasions he needed not to be. But now, with Cassie, he has never in his life felt so aroused, so alive. He feels both liquid and solid. And Cassie’s body feels like a puppy belly. Her entire body is firm yet soft. Like a puppy belly, all over.

The fact of Cassie is sometimes hard for him to reconcile. He can’t believe that she has become a part of his life. On their third date, there was a moment as they left the restaurant that he felt was a breakthrough. She directed him to a side exit that she said would deliver them closer to where she had parked her Bug. They walked toward the door side-by-side, his hand lightly resting on her neck. Just as they were five paces from the exit, he made a move to reach the door ahead of her in order to open the door for her. But this gentlemanly gesture came close to disaster as he noticed that the door had the kind of opening mechanism that consists only of a straight bar, not a simple knob or handle. He always had trouble predicting which way such a door would open. And this door compounded his usual confusion by having recessed hinges. So he couldn’t be sure until he began pushing if he should direct his push to the left or right.

He decided to push straight center as hard as he could. When he felt the door begin to yield left, he leaned into it and smoothly opened the door wide. Cassie kissed him on the cheek as she passed.

Julianna sprays a perfume sample on each wrist. Her left wrist smells like cotton candy and a wet vagina. Her right wrist smells like lemon and a wet vagina.

Brian Galute breaths in the scents from each wrist.

“Which one?” she asks.

“Either one,” he says. “No. Both.”

“We’ve talked about psychology before,” says Dr. Maroon to Decoder. “You know I’m not a believer in psychological cures, but I know a little bit about your problem, since I had the same problem myself. I could give you a blood transfusion today—remove every drop of blood in your body and replace it with the blood of ninety year old impotent man with late-stage type two diabetes, and you’d still be a satyr. The only thing that psychology can do for you is change your behavior so you don’t hurt others.”

Steve’s mother calls from Florida.

“Did I wake you?”

It is 9:00 P.M.

“No, Ma.”

“Listen,” she says. “I was just thinking that your health has never been the good since you got struck by lightening when you were nine.”

Brian Galute tells Julianna that he is not a biker biker. He’s an entrepreneur, a millionaire ten times over. He would be a millionaire fifteen times over, but he had two bad marriages to two bad women who were only after that portion of his wealth that he was willing to guarantee them in their prenuptial agreement. He has a Harley—that much is true. In fact he owns several Harley’s with loads of after-market customization.

Dr. Maroon applauds when his steak arrives. It is as big as a phonebook, hanging off the large plate in a puddle of peppery blood. He always gets two baked potatoes, which he eats entirely, skins included. Decoder has witnessed how Dr. Maroon lunches a dozen or more times.

“That steak looks good,” Decoder says.

Dr. Maroon slides the plate across the small table with one hand and with the other reaches for Decoder’s Cobb Salad.

“You eat it,” says Dr. Maroon. “You eat this steak for me today.”

“Are you coming to bed?” Cassie asks.

“I’m going to do my leeches first,” he says.

Cassie sleeps approximately three hours each night. She says that’s all she needs. After they have sex each night, she slips quietly out of Steve’s bed so she can exercise in his spare room, where she keeps a yoga mat and a few hand weights. He finds her there every morning, still working out.

Six months ago, when Julianna began her quest for amenia, she made an advance reservation for dinner at La Rober. She figured at the time that she would either celebrate the demise of her endless menstruations or she would dine on her resignation.

When the woman taking her reservation asked for a name, she said, “Julianna Maroon.”

“For two?” the woman asked.

“No,” Julianna said. “Just the one, actually.”

When the night of the reservation finally arrives, Julianna considers inviting Brian along, but she decides to keep the date alone. She dresses as if she’s going to a Broadway show. Black cocktail dress. Open-toed shoes and a little purse. Puts on a little extra eyeliner. Does her hair in a French braid.

The hostess at La Rober greets Julianna with a smile, saying, “You don’t look very much like him?”

“Who?” Julianna asks.

“Dr. Maroon,” says the hostess with a friendly laugh. “Isn’t he your father?”

Steve calls Dr. Maroon and says, “I have something to add to my medical history.”

“Shoot,” says Dr. Maroon.

“When I was nine years old, I was struck by lightening.”

Dr. Maroon laughs. “Get out of town.”

“It’s true.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“My mother just told me.”

“You don’t remember being hit by lightening?”

“I guess not.”

“Hmm.”

“Dr. Maroon,” Steve says.

“Yes.”

“Do you think getting hit by lightening could have caused my Excess Blood Volume Syndrome?”

“Sure,” says Dr. Maroon. “Could be. Could be.”

“I’m keeping with the leeches,” Steve says. “Every night.”

“That’s good.”

“I have a girlfriend now.”

“Good for you,” says Dr. Maroon. “That’s what it’s all about.”