Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The Snake, the Dog, and the Paramedic


Around 1989, I worked in casting at Ralph Edwards/Stu Billet Productions in Los Angeles. This job consisted mostly of Xeroxing scripts, and videotaping the auditions for cheesy day-time TV shows, like Superior Court, or the ill-fated Family Medical Center.

Since anyone who uses a copier regularly becomes well acquainted with the copy machine fixer person, I became friendly with Jon, the copier guy. He was a tall, broad-shouldered surfer-like dude (I don't know if he really surfed, it's just that most any native LA male under thirty looked like that). He had dirty-blonde, sun-highlighted curls, cut neatly around his face, but still kinda long. He was tan and always wore faded t-shirts, cut-off shorts, and sandals.

One day Jon came in with a cast on his arm. "Dude, what happened?"

"Oh, man ... It's a long story."

"Well, I'm gettin paid. Let's have it." I gathered he had grown tired of telling this story, but I didn't care. I just wanted to use up some minimum-wage time.

"Ok, so Saturday, I'm taking a shower ...", he started out slow, using the letter opener that I never used to relieve an itch down in the smelly, nether regions of his cast. "... when all of a sudden, I hear my wife screaming bloody murder. So I run out naked and soapy, thinking she is being raped or something and see her up on the dresser pointing under the bed - 'Snake! Snake!'"

Phyllis, the divorced, single Mom at the adjoining desk perked up at the mention of naked and soapy. She joined in enthusiastically, "So what did you do then?"

"Well", looking at Phyllis now, he bends over with his arms out in front of him, "here I go down on my hands and knees, trying to see what's under the bed." Phyllis' eyes grow wide behind her brown frames as she blurts, "Oh, my god!", but then quickly covers her gaping mouth with both hands.

A few office folk wandered in alerted by the Phyllis alarm. Jon was in a groove now, "It's dark and dusty under there and I'm not crazy about sticking my arm in, so I crawl slowly further while my eyes adjust to the darkness - only my butt and legs are sticking out now."

He gazes wide-eyed into the faces of his audience and pauses for effect. "I look around under there for a while, but don't see anything snake-like. So I'm just about ready to come out, when the dog comes up and sticks his cold, wet nose smack-dab right in my asshole!

The room erupts in giggles and smirks, as we look around at each other in disgusted amusement. Undaunted, Jon continues, "I scream and jerk up, hitting the back of my head hard on the metal frame of our antique bed, which knocked me unconscious.

So now, my wife thinks that I've been bitten by the snake and calls 911." Here's where the locations guy from across the hall with the comb-over interrupts in a mousey voice, "And that's when you broke your arm?"

"Well, when I come to, my wife tells me not to move - that I have been bitten by a poisonous snake and if I move, the venom will course through my veins, straight to my heart, causing severe cramping, violent convulsions, and finally...death.

I'm confused and light headed - and now scared, so naturally I obeyed.

"When the paramedics arrive, they crowd into the small room and start looking around my body for the puncture wound. One guy - this really big dude - says, 'So, where's the snake?' My wife shrugging says, 'I dunno.' and all three of them start darting their eyes left and right over their shoulders and to the corners of the room.

"Quickly, the captain says, 'Well, we better get him outta here so we can find the wound...' or something like that. So they put me on a stretcher and lift me up high to get past the dresser.

"That's when the snake reappeared.

"The poor thing just wanted to get out of this room that had become too crowded and so went by the quickest route, which just happened to be right between the big guys' legs. Seeing this, my wife thought it an appropriate time to summon another blood-curdling scream, pointing at big man's feet and holding her mouth with her eyes all bloodshot and bugging out.

"The effect of this was to make him do a little dance like one of the elephants in Fantasia. While not the ideal response for a trained professional, this was certainly more gallant than the other guy - the one at my head, who just dropped me, and holding up his hands, walked quickly right out of the house, into the ambulance, and shut the door.

"So now my heads on the floor, my feet are in the air, and it's too late to alter the forward motion of a three hundred pound dancing paramedic."

Jon paused again, but no one could talk, so he added, "My arm got caught in between the stretcher and the floor ... I landed on my arm and the big guy landed on me."

Finally, after catching her breath and wiping away the tears, Phyllis was able to utter, "And the snake?"

"Oh yeah, we both landed on the poor snake. It turned out to be what's commonly called a worm snake – about six inches long, pink, absurdly non-venomous, and in this case - flat."

Strangely, there now arose a polite applause and a few cheers as the crowd dispersed and everyone went back to what they were pretending to do before. This was Hollywood after all, and everything is a performance.

Ironically, Jon was later cast as a paramedic in an episode of Family Medical Center.