Oliver Benjamin
CHAPTER 23
We proceeded to the hospital to have our blood tested when I started
to panic. I had not yet come up with a solution to get around this
problem, and to make matters worse, the oppressive Indian heat was
turning my mind to molasses, making it increasingly difficult to
think. As we sat in the stuffy waiting room I realized that there was
no way I could allow them to get anywhere near my blood, so my
strategy had to be one of evasion, laced with a healthy dose of
deception.
The nurse announced my name, and a cold shiver came over my
sweaty back. In retrospect I suppose it might have been kind of
refreshing, but I didn’t notice at the time. We walked into a small
room and after sitting down and waiting for her to take out a needle,
I slipped into an act of unmitigated panic.
“Oh my God, no. No. I can’t do this. No NO!”
“What’s the matter Mr. Rippy?
“Put it AWAY! Please, please put it away!”
“What? What is wrong?”
“Needles. Can’t stand them. Please put it away. I had a very bad
experience with them as a child.”
“Why you won’t feel a thing, Mr. Rippy. If you’d just…”
“You don’t understand! My…my father is a doctor and when I
used to misbehave he would punish me by taking unnecessary blood
samples…Oh please no…”
“Oh my goodness, that sounds awful!”
“Yes, and when I was really bad…”
“What? What did he do?”
“Enemas. He made me take enemas. Big ones. Oh God, I can’t
stand it!” I did my best to fake a sobbing fit.
“But Mr. Rippy, how did you expect us to test you for HIV if we
couldn’t take a blood sample?”
“I—I don’t know, I thought that you’d give me a breath test or
something, it never occurred to me that…Oh, and I wanted to join the
Omniraja Ashram so badly. It seems that they have a special therapy
session for people that have been hygienically abused. This was my
last shot. No pun intended. I’ve got nowhere else to go…”
“But Mr. Rippy, what if you have the virus and someone picks it
up from you, then what…”
“But I couldn’t possibly have the virus, because as a result of the
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