The Sad Plight Of America's Empty Clinics

In Danforth, Rhode Island (not the city's real name) (at least sources say), there is a Clinic For Hopelessness which also serves, perhaps appropriately, as the gathering place for Zumba refugees. Here, amid the stained, torn posters of Dance Dance Revolution & seventies teen icon Leif Garrett, a former doctor & television green-screen repairman named Henry Lickspittle remembers how to tie a shoelace & look directly into the camera.

"I am an odious man," he says, "but for all my life I've scorned people who collect aluminum cans."

When the Clinic For Hopelessness was thriving, dozens came to be treated & even more came to be mocked. Yet as the economy faltered - indeed, as hopelessness became its own world-view - the Clinic struggled, even once propping open its door to send the message that its doors were still open. This, says former janitor & part-time lisp dispenser Bald Hooligan, is how all the cats escaped.

"I miss them all," he says. "I miss Purrbox & Frown-Frown. I miss Snortstein & Speckles. I especially miss Too Much, Lap Dance, Flossylvania & Richie Rich. I didn't think I'd miss Gerberberry very much, & there were times I really wanted Salma Hayek to just run away, but I think," he sniffles as he wipes away a tear, "I miss those two most of all."

Across the country, in a clinic in the back of a grocery store in Van Capstan, Nevada, it's the pharmacists who have most to lose. Local pill-peddler Jake Potion shows a small delegation from Reuters where his former clients once got their prescriptions.

"The number of people who collapse in the aisles in our nation's supermarkets is growing," he says, tapping a picture of a brain on his tee shirt. "We don't know why it happens, or why it's always the Asian Foods section, or why everyone thinks it's freaking hilarious when the paramedics holler 'Clean-up on aisle ten!' We just know it's easier to wheel them back behind the dairy section & have a professional look at them there."

He has a downcast look. "Those robber-barons on Wall Street took all that away from us," he says.

But is that a fair estimation? One rich person, speaking pretty much on behalf of every rich person in America, says it's not. "Ha ha!" he says. "Tax breaks! Ha ha! Deregulation! Ha ha! Charter schools for our children! Ha ha ha! Job creation! Ha ha ha! I want a castle with a moat!"

In Texas there was once a clinic, called "The Never Say Die Clinic," inside the Alamo. In Louisiana, there was a clinic inside an alligator. In Nebraska, clinics could be seen for miles around after the corn fields had been harvested. Now, it's just a lonesome bison, perhaps, or a recreational vehicle being used to cook meth &/or make pornographic videos.

Bartbleby Oath said in a speech to children earlier this month, "If you want to see how broken is our health care system you can look no farther than fat children breaking their grandparents' arms & hearts with their obese kind of love. I have been meaning to say something about exercise but I am winded. Does anyone know of a low-cost place that doesn't cost an arm & another arm like a hospital emergency room, an intimate place where a health care professional might look at me without the need to be transported by ambulance? No? Not any more? Well, spit."

One of the last remaining clinics in the Pacific Northwest, the Hamster Clinic, survives thanks to private donations, mainly from wealthy rodents. But Lucius Hamster, the clinic's only employee & quite possibly a doctor, knows even his days are numbered.

"You can only make so much money treating pets," he laments. "I wish human beings would come in for health care. Perhaps I should change the clinic's mascot."

What will happen to all the empty clinics in this nation in decline? The "hazardous materials" trash receptacles do look, as some pundits have noted, rather tacky in a deli. Most are too small to support a roller rink. While many of the nation's mail carriers have eyed them voraciously, the postal service in Washington has reminded them they, too, are closing up many shops.

A troubled nation tries to find its insurance card &, with a sad sigh, drives to the nearest religious-themed hospital.