"NINE-ONE-ONE, what is your emergency?" the voice on the other end of the phone was saying, a raspy voice that seemed to be somewhere between cigarettes number nineteen and twenty for the day, a husky female voice that lost its femininity about two grandkids ago, one that was firm and authoritative without being happy to take an emergency call cause she was sitting there bored to death, playing her ninety-eighth game of solitaire in the last two hours.

   "Uh," Richard was saying into his phone, the cord on the handset stretched all the way from the kitchen cause why should he get one of them cordless ones when the phone he'd had half his life had always been able to reach anywhere he needed.  It could go outside to the deck, to the living room, to the bathroom, it could even reach all the way back to his bedroom but he already had a phone back there.  And with this phone, he didn't have to worry about the battery going dead in it every other week, didn't have to spend all that money on rechargeable batteries that kept dying while you were in the middle of a call.

   "Uh," he was saying, "you got any men operators?"

   "Sir, what is your emergency?"
 
   "Well, you see, it's kinda personal.  You ain't got no boss I can talk to?"  Richard getting fidgety on the couch, just wearing a pair of athletic shorts and his lucky Carolina hat with the N over top the C like it was one letter, stretching out from armrest to armrest cause it hurt less when he laid like that.

   "Sir, what is your name?"

   "Richard."

   "Your full name, sir."

   "Richard Ferguson."

   "Mr. Ferguson, what is the nature of your emergency?" the operator was saying, her voice steady and unemotional, like it could have been one of them computerized voices that tell you to press one if the problem is for the police, two for the fire department, three for an ambulance.

   "You ain't got nobody else I can talk to?  Nobody that's, you know, a guy?  You see, the thing is "

   "Sir, Mr. Ferguson, the sooner you tell me the nature of your problem, the sooner I can send someone out to help you."  She paused.  "Are you currently located at 5602 Staley Farm Road?"

   "Yeah," him answering, wondering how the hell this woman knew where he lived cause he sure as hell didn't remember telling her.

   "Good, sir, now please tell me what your emergency is."

   Richard thinking about it a second, drawing up his courage, finally giving in cause he was hurting pretty bad.  "Alright, first you gotta promise not to laugh."

   "Sir " the woman sounding impatient now.

   "You gotta promise, that's the deal."

   Her pausing, then saying.  "Okay, Mr. Ferguson, I promise."

   Richard took a deep breath, then another, then said, "It won't go down."

   Her waiting a second before saying, "I don't understand, sir, can you be more specific?"

   "You know, it won't go down … my wanger.  It's stuck."

   "Stuck?"

   "Stuck in the up position.  I got an eee-rection and it won't go down."

   Richard thought he heard a snort in the earpierce, then her saying, "Sir, are you trying to tell me that you have an erection that won't … return to normal?"

   "Yeah, that's what I'm saying."  Richard feeling his face turn warm, almost as warm as his wanger was.

   "And how long have you had this condition, sir?"  Her voice now not sounding as metallic as when she answered the call.

   "I don't know … the last coupla hours?"

   "A couple of hours?" Her saying just a little too fast.  "Have you taken any medication lately?"

   "You mean did I take one of 'em pills old men take?  Hell no, I ain't got no problem gettin' it up.  It just won't go back down.  Whatta I do?"

   "Have you done anything different today than any other day?  Eaten anything new?  Exercised a new way?"  Her click-clacking on her computer while she talked to him, asking him a few stupid questions he answered no to before her finally saying, "Okay Mr. Ferguson, we have an EMT unit on the their way, they'll be there any minute."

   "Thank you," Richard saying cause he didn't know what else to say.

   "You're welcome, sir, and … good luck."  Her voice rising on that last part like she'd been holding her breath the whole time and just now finally let it out.

   There was a commercial selling a turkey rotisserie that self-basted during the two hours it took for the thing to cook.  Hehe … basting your turkey.  You could cook chickens, game hens, hams with the bone still in.  It came with a free bottle of liquid smoke artificial flavoring, a free carving knife, a free carving fork and four easy payments of thirty-nine-ninety-five and if you called right now, you also got a free cooking manual with over a hundred free recipes.  Richard already had the machine that let you grind up meat and herbs and spices and make your own sausage.  Hehe … making the sausage.  It came with a lot of free stuff, too.  He was calling the 800 number on the screen when a knock came at the door.

   "Mr. Ferguson?  Are you in there?" a man was saying on the other side.

   Thank God, Richard was thinking, pushing the button to hang the phone up, muting the TV, then saying, "Yeah, come on in, the door's open."

   The door swung open and in walked a guy young enough to be Richard's little brother, and behind him was a girl even younger, both wearing matching uniforms, long blue pants with button-down long-sleeve white shirts.  He hadn't expected a girl EMT, he hadn't even thought about it, it wouldn't have mattered anyway, probably would’ve made his situation worse although he didn't know how it could get any worse.

   "Sorry we took so long, Mr. Ferguson," the girl was saying as she sat her toolbox down, not breaking her stride for a single second, even with him lying there on the couch tenting up his shorts like an overzealous Eagle Scout.  "You didn't have any numbers on your mailbox down at the end of the road."  Her looking him straight in the eyes, purposefully not looking any lower, keeping her sweet little voice steady, keeping her sweet little face straight as an arrow like he was suffering from a bad cough instead of a permanent hard-on.

   "Yeah, everybody around here knows where everybody else lives so I ain't never got around to puttin' the numbers back on."  Richard thinking about that Saturday morning three years ago when he was driving to the store to get some beer and saw his mailbox lying in the ditch, swiped clean off the post, a big ole dent in the side like somebody'd gotten drunk the night before and decided to play mailbox baseball.  Never did find the stickers with his street numbers.

   The EMT’s shirts had patches with their names embroidered on.  Jerry and Samantha.  Both of them younger'n him.

   "Okay, Mr. Ferguson," Jerry was saying, "how long have you been like this?"  Samantha pulling out one of those blood pressure bands, wrapping it tight around his left arm, telling him to relax and breathe easy.

   "I told the lady on the phone, a coupla hours or so."

   "Yeah, but we always like to double-check any information we get," Jerry saying as Samantha put a stethoscope in her ears, placed the cold disk on the other end to the inside of his elbow, and began pumping the ball thingee hooked up to the blood pressure band.  "One time we went out to this guy's place, told 9-1-1 his wife's water broke, only when we got there, she weren't pregnant.  Nowheres near it."  Samantha was pumping that thing hard and the band was getting tight, way too damn tight if you asked Richard.  "Turns out she had lockjaw and had this contraption around her head.  All it was, one of them wires broke, get it?  Her wire broke."  Waiting for Richard to smile at the wordplay, appreciate it as much as Jerry did.

   Samantha saying, "So that's why we always verify everything we get called on, just in case."  Her sneaking glances at his Coleman's two-roomer, thinking Richard wouldn't know she was dying to see it, check it out herself.

   She wrote his blood pressure down, ripped the armband off, put two fingers on his wrist, looked at her watch, counted silently on her lips.  Her lips, red with lipstick, full, young.  They weren't helping his condition at all.  Was making it worse so Richard closed his eyes.  Didn't work, kept seeing her lips.

   "Have you taken any medication in the last twenty-four hours?" Jerry was saying, looking at his own clipboard.  "No."  Have any allergies?  No.  Exercised?  No.  The same set of questions he'd already answered on the phone, them wanting to get it right so he didn't turn out to have lockjaw or be pregnant.

   "Well," Samantha saying, still looking down at her clipboard, scanning it so she looked like she was doing something, stalling to find the right words to say what was on everybody's mind.  "I guess we should … " leaving it open, hoping somebody would rescue the sentence, finish it for her, Richard waiting them out, making 'em earn their money.

   "Yeah," Jerry finally cutting in, "I guess we should, uh, you know, take a look at your problem now."  Richard looking at him, eyes all innocent like he wasn't quite sure what they wanted.

   Jerry reaching out with his hands, then pulling them back like the act of uncovering the beast would provoke it to bite, saying, "Maybe you should, um, pull your shorts down yourself?"  Ending it like a question, like Richard was gonna have a choice in the matter.

   So Richard finally obliged, thinking he'd put them through enough, ready to get his condition fixed cause it was hurting and he was supposed to be going out with his buddies tonight down to Handy's Bar, get drunk and maybe pick up a few women, screw in the back of his pick-up looking up at the stars.  He didn't want to scare 'em away before he could get 'em in the mood.  He grabbed the waistline of his shorts, lifted it up as high as he could so it wouldn't catch the top of his wanger, and pulled his shorts down gingerly.

   And behold, saith the Lord to his people, the Tower of Babel.

   Richard got his shorts down past his knees before he settled back on the couch, his soldier standing at attention like it was roll call and the sergeant would stick him with latrine duty if he caught him slouching.

   The girl EMT gasped when she looked at it, eyes widening like she was in sixth grade seeing one for the first time, like they'd snuck in the girl's bathroom after school and he pulled it out just for her.  Jerry just frowned at it, chewing his gum quietly, gum Richard hadn't noticed Jerry had until now.  Richard looked down at it, too.

   "How long didja say it been that way?" Jerry asking, still chewing his gum and frowning down at the hard-on.

   "Goin' on four or five hours now," Richard saying, looking at the Joe Camel clock over his TV, Joe's big sleepy eyes moving left and right with each tick-tock.

   "And what exactly were you doing when it first happened?" Jerry saying, the girl still staring at it with her mouth open, still not saying a word after that original gasp.

   Now here's the part Richard dreaded the most, even more than a girl EMT coming out to the house, and he even considered lying about it cause what business was it of anybody's?  But then he remembered watching those reruns of ER and how the patients at first left out something embarrassing and then their condition got worse and worse until they were almost dead, then they spill the beans what really happened and the doctors save 'em in just a few minutes but they still gotta lose a leg or a spleen cause they held out.  He needed the quick saving without losing any vital parts, cause he had plans tonight.  So he spilled.

   "I's watching Katie Couric on the news."

   "You what?" Jerry saying.

   "You know, Katie Couric?  Does the news?  On TV?"

   Jerry giving a look.  "I know who she is, you got this," nodding at his wanger, "watching her read the news?"

   "Well, not exactly.  See, there's this big hurricane coming into Florida and she's down there, reading the news outside while the wind blows her hair all around."  Richard looking down at his feet, not realizing it looked like he was staring at his wanger, still talking, explaining why everything happened the way it did.  "And well, that wind was gettin' pretty strong and her shirt was blowin' open and closed in the front, kinda like she was playin' peek-a-boo and then … well,"  Looking at Samantha who was still staring at his wanger.  "You see, that wind was blowin' and it got her nipples all hard and you could see 'em pokin' out through her shirt.  And before I knew what was happenin'," Richard looking back at his wanger, opening his hands like a car salesman showing a feature, "it got hard."

   Silence.  Just the sound of breathing.  Nothing else.

   "Watching Katie Couric?" Jerry asking.

   "Hey man," Richard getting testy now, "her nips got hard and she's not a bad-lookin' woman.  A man could do a lot worse."

   "I'm just sayin', man, the women on CNN are much better-lookin'.  I mean, if you were watching CNN, I'd understand it a little better."

   "Yeah, that redhead?" Richard saying, pursing his lips together like he was gonna whistle, rolling his eyes around once.  "Now, there's a hot one.  I've seen her nips hard once when she had an assignment in New York or somewhere."

   "I was watchin' then!  It was like a freak blizzard and she's standin' outside with no coat on and they just start pokin' out like they got something to add."

   Jerry nodding, smiling, saying, "Yeah, man, I's watching at home that day and I got this huge-ass HDTV screen.  Those things were almost in my lap."

   "Wow.  Those HD things that much better?"

   Jerry nodding, saying, "Way better, man, you can see the little freckles on her nose where they didn't get the make-up on good."

   The whole time, Samantha's watching Richard's wanger bouncing up and down, swinging back and forth, always coming back to rest, pointing straight up at the ceiling.  Then she finally says what's been on her mind since Richard pulled his shorts down and gave the thing some air.  "Is it always that big?"

   Richard looked at it.  Jerry looked at it.  Samantha was still looking at it.

   Richard thinking about it, saying, "I don't know, hadn't thought about it."

   Everybody looking at it in silence, the room as quiet as Sunday morning prayer, just the tick-tock of the Joe Camel clock.

   "Gimme that tape measure," Richard saying, pointing to the bar between the living room and the kitchen.

   Jerry walking over to the counter, Samantha still staring at the thing, Jerry searching around, finding car keys, a half-eaten package of Oreos, an empty bag of Wise sour cream 'n onion potato chips, 2 crushed Cheerwine cans, a bunch of mail, cut-out coupons, searching through all the mess til he finally finds the tape measure under an issue of Nascar Weekly with Dick Trickle on the cover.

   Jerry bringing it back, thinking about measuring the thing himself, then handing it over to Richard, Richard pulling the tape out about a foot, holding it up to his wanger, putting the end with the zero down in his pubes, squinting to read the number.  Then smiling, looking at Jerry, saying, "Eight motherfuckin' inches."  Smiling like he'd just won a year of free Bud Light from a scratch-off card.  Smiling like a proud daddy who'd just seen his little boy hit a homerun out of the park for the first time, telling everybody around him that was his boy that done that.  Smiling like he'd just asked the prettiest girl in the school to the prom and she said only if they got drunk and had sex afterwards, she didn't want to be a virgin no more.

   "Jesus, man," Jerry saying, "It always that big?"

   Richard wanting real bad to say yeah but then remembering those ER episodes.  "No.  It's usually about six or so."  Then throwing in, "I guess."

   "And Katie Couric did that?" Jerry asking.

   Richard shrugging.

   Jerry still talking, "So, you try to … you know?"  Holding his right hand in a fist, jerking it up and down real quick, raising his eyebrows like they's sharing a private joke and Samantha wouldn't get it.

   "Yeah, three times.  Still won't go down."

   Samantha finally breaking out of her trance, saying, "Well, it looks like we gotta real life case of priapism here."

   "Pry-a-what?"

   "Priapism.  That's when it gets hard and won't go down.  Pretty sure that's what you got, alright.  Pry-a-piz-em."  Her saying the word real slow, making each syllable real careful like she was in a medical spelling bee, Richard half expecting her to spell it out next.  It was her word-of-the-day, her favorite new word she had to say three or fours times in a sentence just to feel it on her lips, feel the way it rolled off them, like the word effervescent.  Or coercion.  Or even paraphernalia.

   "Well, whatta I do to make it go back down?"

   Samantha shrugging, saying, "I don't know, you try thinkin' of other things?  Football or huntin' dogs or parachutin'?"

   "Yeah, of course.  After nothin' else worked, I thought of stuff to make it go down.  My aunt Hazel."  Thinking about her now, all three hundred pounds of her, never wearing any shoes, her feet two big calluses of thick dead skin, the three warts on the left side of her face, her nose stubbed up like a hog's, always got a Butterfinger in her fat little hands, a diet 7up in the other.  "Paper factories."  Cause he worked in one before and it always stank there, almost as bad as Aunt Hazel after three days sweating in August with no bath.  "Plumbing."  Cause what's less sexy than a stopped-up toilet?  Especially one Aunt Hazel's stopped up after going to the Golden Corral dinner buffet twice in one day.  "You name it, I thought about it.  Look."

   Richard pushing a button on his remote, pointing it at the TV so they all looked.  "See that?  This is what I’s watchin' before you got here."  The TV showing a huge church choir, the words across the bottom saying it was the Holy Baptist Grace Singers, and when he hit the mute button, O Lord O God Almighty came blaring through the speakers.  It wasn't a pretty sight, the Baptists not ones to wear much make-up and not care who they put on the front row, since God loved everybody the same and all.

   "Yeah, okay," Jerry saying, wincing, "we get the picture."  Turning away from the TV.  "So I guess we need to take you in."  Samantha nodding her head.

   "What, you ain't got no pill I can take to make it go down?"

   "Nope."  Jerry shaking his head.

   "You mean to tell me they got pills to make it hard, but none to make it soft?"

   "Not that I know of."  Jerry shaking his head again.

   "Then how they gonna get it down?"

   "They'll stick a needle in and take out the blood," Samantha saying.

   Richard not saying anything, looking from Samantha to Jerry and back again, just moving his eyes, his face not showing any emotions.  Then saying, "I don't think so," while his eyebrows rose.

   Jerry shrugging, saying, "That's what they gotta do or it could stay like that forever.  Eventually kill you."

   Richard thinking about it a moment, realizing he didn't really have any choice in the matter.  Him saying, "Okay," then pulling his shorts up, being real gentle and pulling them up extra slow, up and over, making his Eagle Scout tent again; then reaching for his lucky Motley Crüe t-shirt that was crumpled on the floor beside the couch.

   They insisted he lay down on the gurney in the back of the EMT truck, cause it was procedure, and if they didn't make him they could get fired.  Jerry drove while the girl rode in the back with Richard, hooking him up to machines, taking his vitals and his personal information, writing it down on her clipboard, asking him things like when was the last time he ate or drank anything, what did he eat or drink, when was his last bowel movement, nailing him down to exact times like he kept a Jenny Craig diary or something.  Did she want to know how many ounces he shit?  How big it was?  Was it smooth or runny or hard?  Did he grunt when it came out?  Was it a two-flusher?  On a scale of one to ten, how bad did it stink?

   The EMT truck swerved, swerved again, slammed on brakes, turned sideways, flipped, hit something hard, real hard.  Scraping metal, burning tires, screaming Samantha, flying instruments, the world rotating funny, things hitting him, him hitting things, hard, real hard.  Then nothing, silence except for the EMT radio squawking, the motor idling, Richard upside-down, still strapped to the gurney, feeling wet on his forehead, something sticking in his leg, him laying on some beeping machine that was pushing his stomach in more'n was comfortable.

   He reached down and unhooked the straps holding the gurney to him, pushed it off him, got up on his hands and knees.  Samantha was laying beside him with some thing sticking out her chest, not moving at all.  Richard shook her, she still didn't move.  He took her pulse, but wasn't sure what he was doing cause he'd never done it before only seeing it on ER, then put his ear next to her mouth, listened for breathing.  Nothing.  She sounded pretty dead, looked it too, her eyes half-open, not moving, glossy, staring at nothing in particular.

   He crawled to the front cab, no better.  Jerry was half in, half out of the windshield, his neck looking like it was one breath away from forgetting to hold his head on, a human-size Pez dispenser open all the way.  No use checking for a heartbeat.
 
   Funny, these people supposed to help him, but not wearing their seatbelts.  Worried to death about strapping him in cause it's procedure but not giving a damn about themselves.  Richard wondering if that was stupid or heroic?  Maybe a little of both.

   He climbed out the side door, anxious to see what they hit, or what hit them, looking around, squinting in the bright sunlight, expecting to see dust or something in the air but everything was clear.  Then realizing something was different, real different, life-changing different.

   He looked down.  And there it was, or rather, there it wasn't.  His wood was gone, his wanger back to normal size, like all he had to do was knock it around a little, slap it hard, treat it like a twenty-dollar crack whore, and it'd shake something loose, allow it to go from standing-at-attention to at-ease-soldier.  No needles for him now.

   Richard was so happy he momentarily forgot the two dead people who'd come to save him.  Then, as he was jumping up and down, shouting at the world cause the little guy was flopping between his legs like it was supposed to, he saw it.  The car they'd hit, head-on, now looking like it was half the size it was supposed to be, the guy driving it smashed against his steering wheel, looking like day-old hamburger.

   The car, a Mercury Cougar cause that's what the logo said, had its passenger-side door blown open and Richard went over to it, looking in at the guy, still breathing, reaching toward him, clawing at the air, the radio playing that eighties song, "Everybody Have Fun Tonight".  Richard sat down beside him and realized the guy was actually clawing at the floor, not him, at a backpack on the floor.  So Richard picked it up, saying, "This what you want?"  The guy not saying a word, clutching at the backpack like his life depended on it, like he was an asthmatic and the medicine that'd save his life was in the bag.

   At least, that's what Richard thought, so he unzipped it, looking inside, blinking, looking again, looking at the guy, looking in the bag again.  Thinking, no fucking way.

   Everybody have fun tonight …

   Looking in the bag again, pulling out a wad of hundreds bundled together, pulling another wad out, then grabbing hold of some paper, pulling that out.

   On the edge of oblivion …

   It was a legal document, like from a will or something, had the guy's name on it, Franklin Pierce, Richard saying the guy's name and watching the guy's face perk up.  "This you?  Franklin Pierce?"

   Everybody, everybody have fun tonight …

   The guy still clutching for the backpack, the document, the money, reaching out like it was all he cared about, not the steering wheel shoved through his stomach, not the crumpled roof crushing his head between the dashboard and his headrest.

   Across the nation, around the world …

   The guy sputtered out his last breath, blood bubbling down his chin, his right arm still outstretched for the bag, the three million, or so the paper said.  Three million, right there in Richard's hands, with nobody around to say it wasn't his.  It wasn't that far to walk home, not far at all.  And what was this guy gonna do with the money anyway?  Nothing, he was dead, it was as much Richard's now as it was anybody's.  Right?  Finders keepers?  He put the money back in the bag, got out of the car, slipped the bag around his shoulders, like he was going hiking.  Hiking with three million bucks!

   Celebration so spread the word …

   Three million bucks!  It started to hit Richard.  He could get him a new Camaro, or better yet, get him a mint condition 1978 Pontiac Trans Am with the original T-tops, like in that Burt Reynolds movie, and get that HDTV now, the biggest one Circuit City had, with surround sound and a separate bass subwoofer, watch Katie Couric in larger than life size.

   Everybody have fun tonight …

   And then he realized he wasn't walking right, limping sorta funny, and he looked down.  And there it was, it was back, stronger than ever, harder than a steel rod, throbbing with each beat of his heart, the Coleman four-room special.  Shit.

   Everybody Wang Chung Tonight …