SAM KIEHL, THE NAIN ROUGE, & MELANOMA

It starts out, fittingly enough, with divorced father Sam Kiehl sweating against a state-penitentiary-built recliner. He is “Patient 002,” the title of a Floyd Skloot novel. With a little help from an experimental drug Sam drifts back in time to a foot race against his offspring. He is a guinea pig, a test subject for Zomalovar. Nurse Kate pokes a needle into his ass. He is a fake-wall climber too, gripping what appears to be—if you step back and beautifully described by Skloot: POST MODERN ART, and since I like post modern art, or at least the word “post,” meaning “after,” my thinking “life imitates art,” or perhaps Skloot’s artistic endeavor (hey it came first) reflects my afterthought, or my life mirrors a guinea pig (over fifteen years in an isolation chamber will do that)—for whatever reasons … after, after, after … I am now physically and psychologically banged-up, reading “Patient 002,” page twenty:

Now if he were home Sam would probably just be sitting in his recliner with a mystery novel face down on his lap, gazing at the cobwebs where the ceiling met the walls. So it made no sense for him to be this impatient. For a year now he had been patiently working on his patience …

Subtle irony here, just like Skloot’s Dr. Fong telling his test subjects about the experimental drug they hope will cure their ills: “You’re going to help us answer the question is something better than nothing? And to do that, half of you are going to get nothing.” (p.22).

 Ha ha ha … I got the placebo, I got nothing.

 Note: I found my stolen hot-tub picture to boost interest in the Nain Rouge Journal. Coming soon. Coming real soon! Hot-tub pic. The Nain Rouge!!!