The Wizard 🧙‍♀️ of Ir: A Postmodern Fairy 🧚‍♀️ Tale 🌈

Dedicated to Britney “5150'd” Spears.

Second Intermission: The Doctor Will See You Now

[Exterior Middle of the Night. A Paramedic Vehicle driven by Andy Serkis pulls into the entrance drive to the Diablo Valley Ranch, a men’s rehabilitation center, south of the town of Clayton. TR Hoody is secured in the back in a gurney, with Dewey resting on their stomach in a wakeful but relaxed position. Upon arrival, a group of center staff arrive to wheel TR into the main receiving hall, where TR is issued an orange jumpsuit and given a can of Diet Coca Cola and single use plastic cup filled with ice].

[TR and Dewey are taken into a small, windowless room whose only items of furniture are two metal chairs and a small, wooden table painted white. The room temperature is noticeably warm, and TR begins to perspire in the ill-fitting orange jumpsuit, which appears to be made of a cotton synthetic blend. TR’s shoelaces have been removed and all their personal items placed into a large plastic Zip Lock bag, including their Bose pink headphones, Apple Watch and IPhone].

TR: (to Dewey) How long do think they will keep us here?

Dewey: Well, they’ll make you sign a form committing yourself to a 72-hour observation period. That’s the 5150 part. It’s a legal loophole to keep you on a voluntary basis, to protect you from doing something rash, like committing suicide or creating a viral social media scene in the event of a very public mental breakdown.

TR: You mean, like what happened to Britney Spears?

Dewey (helpfully): Or to our author, Bradley, in early 2020 when his wife called 911 on him in Redwood City, after he refused to leave the park where he was resting following his inability to get a timely appointment with his health care provider to assess the state of his mental health following two weeks without sleep.

TR: You know, sleep deprivation is basically a form of legal torture. It wrecks your mind temporarily and can lead to hallucinations and other disturbing effects.

Dewey: Presumably, this is what’s happening to the Family Trump right now at the Mount Diablo visitor center.

TR: Plus, there’s a Clockwork Orange element worked in, since they’re being forced to watch the Hollywood remake of The Ring on a huge ultra high def AppleTV while being chained to an IKEA couch with only Diet Coke and Ranch-flavored Doritos to eat and Ace Hardware buckets to defecate and urinate into.

Dewey: Have you been reading ahead in the script again?

TR: Well, I am curious. The whole sewing their eyelids open thing is pretty sick, though.

Dewey: That’s Vlad Drakul for you. He’s one cruel dude.

TR: Do you think Vlad knows we’re here already? Because this is a potential One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest situation here, and it could go bad. FAST.

Dewey: Right. There’s that. Plus, I highly suspect that the medical team will put me in a pet cage or something while you’re under observation. I will resist, naturally. But it’s not going to help.

TR: Will the escape scene be like the one in The Shawshank Redemption? I’d hate to crawl through human waste in this jumpsuit. It’s gonna wreck my nails, too. And I just had them clipped.

Dewey: Dude, this part isn’t supposed to be a walk in the park.

TR: Technically, it is. Mount Diablo is a California State Park, and we will be walking/hiking to the summit using an unauthorized and unmarked access route to avoid detection.

Dewey: Or paying the entrance fee at the main gates.

TR: That’s only if you drive up in a car.

Dewey (impatiently yelling into security camera mounted to the ceiling): Fuckers! Get the 5150 paperwork in here, stat. And tell Nurse Ratched she can suck my feline dick.

TR: You are one potty-mounted pussy.

Dewey: I prefer to think of myself as the next Notorious B.I.G.

TR: They are never going to invite you back to Spencer, Iowa after this. You’ll have to come with a trigger warning, or something.

Dewey: We creatives are always misunderstood by Middle-Class America. Too much time spent watching mass media. Their brains are fried.

TR: Right? They should be on Medium, or something.

Dewey: Or something.

[TR and Dewey are interrupted by the arrival of a middle-aged man in a white button-down Land’s End Oxford and L.L. Bean khaki pants with Bass loafers].

Dr. JOSH AXE: Hi. I’m Doctor Axe. You can call me Josh.

TR: Like, the dude who’s into keto and shit?

Dr. JOSH AXE: You wish. It’s just a coincidence. I work for Kaiser Permanente and oversee the Diablo Valley Ranch. You’ve been sent here by an anonymous 911 call based on reports of erratic behavior at the Golden Gates. Something about tossing empty sake bottles off the Campanile Tower outdoor omakase bar. And insulting Melinda French Gates. And cursing out Mark Cuban. And hanging out late at night with Mark Zuckerberg. Crazy shit like that. Sounds like you’re Level I bipolar, and you should be on drugs. (Pushes a form and disposable Bic pen towards TR) Sign this form, and we’ll get started.

TR: Well, that was subtle.

Dr. JOSH AXE: Also, the cat needs to be caged and kept in safekeeping while you’re under 5150 observation. Resistance is futile. We’re the HMO, and you’re not.

TR: Technically, aren’t you a PPO?

Dr. JOSH AXE: Who the fuck cares? I make mid 6 figures to do this shit. They can give me any acronym that they want, at this stage. We’ll just bill the government for this, in the end. The taxpayers will never know.

Dewey: Well, that’s what Netflix is for. To distract them, I mean.

Dr. JOSH AXE: You’re talking to a medical doctor, cat. I wasn’t born yesterday. I am super brain.

TR: Fine. I’ll sign the damn 5150 thing. Cage the fucking cat. Give me Depakote and Olanzapine to drug me into a semi-comatose state and then bill me for the co-pay. I would pay for it using my Apple Watch, but you assholes took that from me, too.

Dr. JOSH AXE: It’s to prevent you from killing yourself with it.

TR: With my fucking Apple Watch? How would that even work?

Dr. JOSH AXE: Dude, I don’t write the rules. I only benefit from them.

TR: No wonder your Instagram feed is so popular.

Dr. JOSH AXE: Well, I pay a click farm for most of that.

Dewey: Duh.

TR: Any chance I can request a ketogenic meal plan while I’m here?

Dr. JOSH AXE: Hardly. We’ll offer you high fructose corn syrup fruit drinks, pre-packaged highly processed snacks, and serve it to you on plastic trays with single use napkins and fake silverware and shit without sharp edges. So that you don’t kill yourself on our watch. Because that would mean a law suit. And my malpractice insurance rates are high enough already.

Dewey: Good thing you took the Hippocratic oath, or else I might actually be worried.

Dr. JOSH AXE: I must have had my fingers crossed. I was drunk and high when I took that oath, anyway. We all were. It’s a joke.

TR: Good thing that we aren’t posting this on social media. Or else America might get PO’d by your callousness.

Dr. JOSH AXE: As if we’d let a crazy bipolar bitch like you on social media. You get one phone call a day, and we listen in.

TR: Who would I even call? It’s not like I have parents anymore. No one gives a fuck about me. Except for Dewey. And I don’t need a phone call to tell him that.

Dr. JOSH AXE: Sign the God-damned document and let me show you to your isolation chamber, where you can fall into a drug-induced coma until we find an empty bed space for you in a local behavioral health center.

[TR signs the 5150 release form, providing the legal consent needed for the Diablo Valley Ranch to violate their privacy rights for the next 72 hours].

Dr. JOSH AXE (speaking into a walkie talkie): Operation Britney Spears is a go. Bring in the cat police. Get TR’s room ready. And double the dosage of Olanzapine. I want this fucker to suffer while she’s here.

TR: Technically it’s “while they’re here.” Because I identify as Two Spirit. Can I indicate that somewhere on this 5150 form, or something?

Dr. JOSH AXE: You can only pick Male or Female. Check a fucking box. Any box.

TR: Can I write “Other”?

Dr. JOSH AXE: It won’t help. Kaiser Permanente does not feel your pain.

TR: But the bathrooms are gender neutral, at least?

Dr. JOSH AXE: They are locked, single use shitcans with no sharp objects and security cameras. So you don’t kill yourself on our watch.

TR: No aromatherapy, then?

Dewey: Or scented candles? Or relaxing water features?

Dr. JOSH AXE: This isn’t fucking Betty Ford. It’s the Diablo Valley Ranch rehab center for men. Most of our patients are high on crack or crystal meth. We just babysit them until their worst withdrawal symptoms pass. And then we kick them out.

TR: I may be going through caffeine withdrawal already. Because I’m assuming you don’t serve single origin organic pour overs, either.

Dr. JOSH AXE: What the fuck do you think? If you’re lucky, you’ll get Lipton tea bags. With the staples and strings removed. In case you try to kill yourself.

TR: With a tea bag?

Dr. JOSH AXE: We can’t afford to take that risk. Litigation lawyers are the Bloods. We doctors are the Crips. It’s hard core white collar gang warfare out there.

Dewey: And we wonder why America is so fucked up. Become a doctor. Or a lawyer. That’s what they tell us.

Dr. JOSH AXE: Fresh troops to the front. Canon fodder for the trenches. It’s going to be the same with STEM, you know. The Internet titans need coders to keep their net worth comfortably above the $100 billion mark. Especially given how much fiat currency the Federal Reserve has been printing, lately.

TR: Yes, it’s a ticking time bomb. Their money is barely worth the tree pulp it’s printed on.

Dr. JOSH AXE: Well, that’s why they invented Apple and Google Pay and shit. Not to mention crypto and block chain technology. The more virtual the American dollar is, the better.

Dewey: We should issue a NeoDollar or something backed by a rare, durable, and precious metal. That would stabilize things.

Dr. JOSH AXE: You mean like returning to the gold standard, or something?

Dewey: That’s outdated, dude. I’m all about the iridium, these days.

TR (interrupting): Dewey! I told you not to talk about Bradley’s top secret iridium standard plans on social media. Elon Musk might be listening.

Dewey: Right. Sorry about that, dude.

[Suddenly, the door opens. A pair of muscular-looking security guards wearing “Pet Police” baseball caps and Kevlar body armor arrive with a metal cat carrying cage for Dewey. Another set of guards wearing “Anti-Suicide Squad” ball caps and Brooks Brothers suits arrive to escort TR to their isolation chamber, where a potent, sleep-inducing drug cocktail awaits].

Dr. JOSH AXE: Good night, moon. Sleep tight, TR. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.

TR: Do you think I’ll have a scary dream or something once my body starts to metabolize all those weird drugs with potentially serious side effects?

Dr. JOSH AXE: Dude, the pharmaceuticals lie about that shit all the time. Those side effects on the printed forms that come with the drugs and the shit they post online? That’s not even the half of it.

TR: So, there’s nothing I as a health-conscious consumer can do if my Kaiser Permanente doctor diagnoses me a Level I bipolar and puts me on Depakote or lithium for life?

Dr. JOSH AXE: Good thing they outlawed insulin injections and shock therapy and lobotomies and shit years ago. Basically, we want you on our drugs for life. It’s more lucrative for us, that way.

TR: What if I give my doctor the shaft and go off my meds and use alternative therapies for managing my natural ebbs and flows of energy that are characteristic of creative types like me and Billy Joel and other artistically-minded people out there?

Dr. JOSH AXE: Then you would be violating your doctor’s orders.

TR (holding up both middle fingers as the Anti-Suicide Squad guards drag them away) Please give my Kaiser Permanente doctors this for me, please.

Dr. JOSH AXE (Holding up his iPhone13 Pro Max to record a short video): And I’ll be posting this on Josh Axe’s YouTube Channel later. The real Josh Axe, I mean.

Dewey (from his cage): You mean you really are Doctor Josh Axe of Instagram and social media fame?

Dr. JOSH AXE: Obviously. That keto thing is a side gig to pay off my second homes in Florida and the Caribbean and shit. I enjoy torturing patients like you in my free time. It’s so fun, I’d do it for nothing, which is basically what Medicare and Medicaid pays this country’s doctors, anyway.

TR: I wish I could leave you a bad review on Yelp, or something.

Dr. JOSH AXE: Don’t think we haven’t thought of that. You’ve been banned from social media already.

TR: Even LinkedIn? Because no one takes that social media platform seriously, you know.

Dr. JOSH AXE: LinkedIn was the very first one.

TR: I am SO writing about this to MacKenzie Scott when I get out of here.

Dr. JOSH AXE: Diablo Valley Ranch is like Hotel California, dude. You can check out anytime, but you can never leave. TTFN, assholes.

TR: Go fuck yourself up the ass with a giant plush avocado, you ketogenic charlatan.

Dr. JOSH AXE: Don’t think I haven’t tried.

[End of Second Intermission].