I come to the conclusion that pride and safety are luxuries, not necessities, and decide it's time for a quick-cash solution (or two).

I amble through the hall of the Northwestern Clinical Research Center. There's no denying it: I'm a loser. It's clear to all why I'm there. Doctors, RNs and techs sweep past me. I'm the only person in the ward wearing street clothes.

Jill Slimko, the nurse I cold-called looking for research opportunities ushers me to an exam room. The door slams shut. I wrestle with the gaudy gray gown bearing blue and brown art deco designs. The bottom rear of the gown is wide open and my tighty-whitey clad ass hangs out for Jill to see. I should've seen this coming. Why didn't I wear boxers?

The good nurse puts me through the paces, an EKG, blood pressure cuff, and the ever-popular blood draw. The checklist follows: Hypoglycemia? Diabetes? High Blood Pressure, etc. These queries bore easy answers, except for one. "How many drinks would you say you average per week? I finger my chin and deliberate before answering: "Well, it depends on how busy I am." Jill scribbles my response on her notepad and asks what I do for a living. "I freelance in film and video." Her face begins to glow: "That's what my brother wants to do. He's coming in here next week."

My urine sample is a brilliant yellow thanks to the Chromium Picolinate Fat Burners I popped immediately before coming in. A man who ingests nothing but White Castles and Coca-Cola has to do something to maintain his girlish figure, and it ain't exercise. I was pretty worried that they would discover my secret, or worse, that somehow this over-the-counter drug would compromise my chances of getting accepted.

Jill tells me she'll schedule my 4 day stay for the 12th if the tests prove clean. But I'll have to return for a few more preliminary procedures before anything is set in stone. I shake her hand and head for the elevator. I leave the EKG tabs on my chest in order to immortalize them on film upon arriving home.

Upon pulling my shirt on, Jill enters and escorts me downstairs to Radiology where a technician suits me up, leaves the room, and takes an X-Ray snapshot of my ribs.

A few minutes after my third X-Ray within three days, the chubby hipster pounds through the door of the Chinese restaurant under the train as I balance a hot Wonton on my lip. He orders his food and stumbles over to my table. I ask him how everything went. "It was cool, but I think I may have failed the drug test." He reaches into his sweatshirt and pulls out a jar filled with a tarry liquid. "I've been trying to clean myself out with this Herbal Cleanser shit." The owner of the restaurant hands him his bag and he heads for the El. He tells me he'll see me later, but I have my doubts.

Jill calls me to say that the 12th is no longer in the cards. My test results are fine, but I'll have to bump my stay up to May 19th, which means I'll have a four-day turnover between the Northwestern and Evanston studies. This is not what I had planned, but being poor, I decide to accept the risks that come with taking two different sets of medication at approximately the same time.

I just hope all traces of whatever will be dumped into my system at Northwestern will be flushed enough from my system so that the Evanston CPU will never be the wiser.

I arrive at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital E.R. in downtown Chicago at 9:26 PM. After registering, I am escorted by an orderly to the 16th floor of the building across the street.

As Joe and I weave in and out of intermittent waves of frantic meds and pass through the spinal ward, I begin to get that feeling. You know that feeling. It eats away at your stomach, shaming you. The feeling that continually compels you to question if you're really the person you always dreaded you were.

In the morning, they're gonna have two IV lines in my arms -- an incoming line which transports Verapamil into my system and an outgoing line which dispenses blood for monitoring purposes. We enter yet another elevator. The bell rings. I round another curve and recognize my surrounding as the location where the preliminary screening took place.

A portly Ukrainian woman with a name tag reading "Sharon" smiles and takes my papers from Joe. "I'll be your nurse this evening. She asks if I'm a med student and I shake my head. "A lot of 'em do this as a hobby. I tell ya, we really don't have much for you to do this evening. Fill this form out and we'll get you to your room."

She shows me the TV and explains how to maneuver my bed into positions patented by Xaviera Hollander. "I'll wake you up at 6:00 or 6:30 tomorrow. Ring if you need anything. But don't ask for dancing girls. We don't have 'em. I could jitterbug with ya, but I don't think you'd like that." I complete the paperwork and wander back to my room.

I look around. A red "Sharps" bin containing discarded syringes hangs under the TV directly in front of me. Two boxes of rubber gloves hang off to the side. I turn my head past a painting of an antique French automobile to see a chair and a bright red "Bio-Hazard" bin. Behind the bed are various vacuum feed connections for oxygen and air. I crane my head again and take in an EKG rig: cords, a timer, a data recorder, and a needle-graph printer.

I channel surf. Delta Burke. A large schematic diagram of a fallopian tube. Henry Winkler. A chintzy graphic display which bears the message, "Bedside Bingo. Monday at 6:30. Tuesday at 2:00. Channel 31." I flip yet again. Channel 21. Elizabeth Berkley. No. Could it be? Yes, Showgirls!! And I'm just in time for the torrid pool scene with Kyle McLachlan. I haven't seen this since it was in the theaters but the guilty joys are all rushing back. And the nurse said that I shouldn't expect dancing girls.

I hear footsteps. Feeling like a 10-year-old watching soft-porn on Cinemax, I quickly change the channel. I'm 24 and I still worry that someone's gonna bust me getting an eyeful of tit. Another nurse enters and my vitals are taken. The television spits out a verbal and aural litany of symptoms: Diarrhea, Ulcers, Shortness of Breath, Hives... The nurse looks up at the in-house video loop and says, "What are they talking about?" It is soon revealed that PMS is the topic at hand. The nurse gets pissed and starts shaking her head. "Not for all women. That doesn't happen for all women." She pulls the thermometer from my mouth and exits.

I tuck myself in and flip back to Channel 21.

It must be 2:00 AM. I am startled from sleep by a young woman who looks 14. She asks why I was admitted so late and repeatedly proceeds to shock my weary body with a cold stethoscope. Damn interns

A few hours pass. This time I wake up on my own -- sweating. I've suddenly become obsessed with the impending IV insertions. I freak out, squeezing my pillow and voluntarily spasming for a few moments -- anything to get it out of my system. I flatten out my bed with the remote and resume slumber.

It ultimately doesn't matter. It was way too late to have them grope now. I was insulted. The 90210 crew had once again won me over, but lost me just as quickly. I go to bed angry.

I eat my breakfast, bare my veins one last time, and head for the big city.

I notice a patch of irritated skin left by the heplocks on each forearm and purple bruises left from the needles' entry and hope against hope that they will heal by Tuesday.

I raise the Rubbermaid "Servin' Saver" dish to my ass, and blush even though I'm alone. Godamnit. Diarrhea. Orange Diarrhea. This is unacceptable. I can't turn this in. If worse comes to worse, however, it will serve as a back-up, should I not be able to produce anymore within the next few hours. I click the cover on the ersatz Tupperware, wrap it in two Jewel Osco bags, head for the freezer, and rearrange the Steak-Umms, mini-Pizzas and ice-cream to make way for my petri dish of poo.

This is the big day. I hold my ass over yet another "Servin' Saver" container -- this one twice as big as the last one. It was purchased just in case I needed to deposit more stool for some unforeseen reason. But since I figured I probably wouldn't need it, I decided to buy the bigger container, as I could always use it for food.

Oh, well. Another go at this only assures that even more of the Verapamil I was injected with at Northwestern will have been flushed from my system.

The extracted specimen is still not as solid as I'd like, but it's better than the previous day's proceeds.

I scramble to pack for the days ahead. It's a split study, which means 3 of us will be randomly selected after checking in to do 10 days right away and 3 days later. The other 3 will stay for 3 days and come back after a break to do the other 10 days. Consequently, no one knows whether they'll be assigned to Group 1 or Group 2 going in. Everyone has to pack for 10 days. The reason for the split is due to the nature of the study: two different ingestion methods of an anti-inflammatory will be compared. One is a low-risk capsule ingestion. The other is a liquid administration which necessitates a radioactive tag for monitoring purposes. As such, great pains will be taken in the second phase to contain the radioactivity and ensure that all subjects return to a normal level of toxicity before being released.

I haul my laptop, backpack and a large suitcase into the CPU waiting room. I sign in and read the study literature yet again. By 4:00, myself and another 5 subjects are being inspected for suitability. Vitals are taken, and we're shuttled in and out of the exam rooms. I get naked for yet another physical.

I turn my arm at an angle to disguise the skin irritation on my forearm from the previous study.

The doctor nonchalantly asks me to pull my underwear down and lay on my side. He sticks his finger up my ass and wipes his glove on a slide. I am told that my feces is free of blood.

I continue to conceal the wound on my arm, but he catches a glimpse of my secret and asks what the what the bruise is from. I tell him it resulted from a troublesome stick during the screen a few days back. "And this red patch is from a particularly scratchy sweater." He nods and sends me on my way.

I return the waiting room where Nurse Linda, the Head of Research, takes my vitals. The blood-pressure cuff is placed on my arm. I can only think about what a bad person I am, how I am potentially undermining the integrity of the research and putting myself at risk. But what scares me most is that they'll find out I'm a liar. The cuff eases up and Linda pulls the thermometer out from under my tongue. Her face crinkles and her eyes harden. "Jesus, are you nervous? What's wrong?" I shrug my shoulders. "Nothing," I say. She moves the portable vitals cart to another potential inductee. "We'll try again in a few minutes." I nod and pull my sleeve down over the incriminating marks on my arm.

Needless to say, this only made me more anxious and I could feel my heart race even faster. Within the next 10 minutes, I somehow relax enough to pass the subsequent test. The first blood of the stay is drawn. I fill three vials. It's old hat to me.

At 4:30, a disheveled, stocky man in his late 20s runs through the waiting room doors and is subsequently put through the paces the rest of us endured moments ago. Linda busily thumbs through the forms in the front of the room, explaining every last detail of the ADME-65 experiment, presumably so the timid can make an early exit. A skinny man with glasses and large ears informs Linda that he gave blood a month back and wonders if he should step out of the program. Without missing a beat, Linda nods and says, "Yes. Wait another month or two and get back to us. There's no need to put yourself at risk." My heart begins to race once again as I think about the amount of blood I lost over at Northwestern just a few days ago.

15 minutes later, perhaps the ugliest human I have seen in the last year sprints in. He looks exactly like Garth, only his hair is as girthy as Crispin Glover's and his ass is planted in a pair of Daisy Dukes. His glasses are thicker than Henry Rollin's neck.

Now there are 8. My pager goes off.

I pick up my bags and am admitted into the inner-chambers. A pool table. A handful of men mill about aimlessly in front of a big-screen TV. The place is stocked with every board game imaginable and stack after stack of magazines. Other subjects from concurring studies inhabit the wonderland.

My bags are inspected and an intern places a book of matches, a bottle of Oxy 10, Carmex, and razors in a bag which will be returned to me upon check out. I enter my room. It has two bunk beds and a ceiling-mounted television. Another guy from the waiting room enters with his stuff. His name is Brian, an athletic, jocular 21 year-old who just graduated from a Christian College in Wheaton. He chooses the top bunk on the other bed.

I take out my calling card and return the page. It's Bob again. I have to turn down a day of work on Mercury Rising, a prospect which escalates an already overwhelming sense of distress.

Myself and the other ADME-65 boys do not get to eat that night as food may impede the impending dose and alter the all-important research data. We watch as the 3 session, 9-day BAH and 22-day FLU/KETO groups chow in front of the big screen TV in the rec room. Brian motions me over to the pool table and discreetly signals toward the two men who came late during the admission process -- the stocky guy with glasses and Garth. Talking to one of them, he learned that they are brothers (even though they bore little resemblance to one another) and both are professional guinea pigs. They go from one hospital to another making their fortune. The CPU called them in at the last minute because only 6 potential subjects had shown up. The hospital was expecting ten. They were serving as back-ups should one or two of us be ousted for any given reason.

I began to feel more comfortable for a while, but, after a few more hours had passed, I had reason to believe something was terribly wrong. Beau, the burly, balding lab technician and functioning warden asks me to produce another urine sample. Linda puts her hand on my shoulder and tells me that I don't need to provide another blood sample, even though the other guys in my study all are in the process of doing so. I feel nothing but unadulterated paranoia. I try to get a good night's sleep, but fear that I will be asked to leave come morning. Surely they've found something.

I make it through the night and am assigned a meal and schedule. I watch as Garth and his Sibling Scab eat their breakfast and check out. I'm in! Everything's OK! I'm one of the gang. Nobody knows a thing. I sit down on a folding chair and await protocol vitals. The nurse grabs my left arm and attempts to hook me up to the blood pressure pump. "What happened to your arm?" I tell her about the sweater. She decides to go with the other arm. I was invincible.

I dose at 9:26. I wash the white pill down with water and am pricked in the arm every half hour after that. The three "hot" guys wear a red smock to denote radioactivity. Those bastards get to do the 10 days right off the bat.

Myself, Michael, the emaciated hippy, and 50-year-old John don blue. We're the "cold" crew.

The blood draws are staggered after 4 hours. The subjects from another study check out and a few hours later new blood arrives. All individual meals and snacks are staggered and served at the same time everyday. I pick up my lunch at exactly 12:26:00 and have never been hungrier. I am not that picky an eater. I have preferences, of course, but I'll generally eat anything if I'm starved.

However, who the fuck thought that split pea soup, three potatoes without butter and augrautin chicken was a good idea? This is a PK day so we have to clean our plates. I harbor hatred for all those in positions of authority. One hopes that dinner will offer redemption. Nope. Fish and three more potatoes. Damn the screws.

My toothbrush falls behind a cabinet in the room. I heave the unit from the wall. Reaching behind, I feel piles of dust, my brush, and a plastic bag of some sort. I pull the thin plastic from the netherworld. It's a Butterfingers sack filled with all kinds of candy wrappers which someone had taken great care to hide. Clearly, experimental integrity was not all that important to whomever possessed the incurable sweet tooth.

But who was I to talk?

Brian and I relax watching MTV Jams in our room. We're both half asleep and intoxicated by B.I.G. and his posse, until the door bursts open and a paunchy 50 year old man limps in, a new guy from another study. "Hi, I'm John. I was told there was a spare bed in here. I don't like the one they gave me.î We turn back to the TV, but John keeps talking. "This your first study?" he asks. Brian nods. I lie. John smiles and starts to unpack.

Being polite, I return the query: "How 'bout you? Is this your first?"

"Me? Oh, no. I've been doin' these for years. I'm from Arizona and thought I'd cash in while visiting the family. The last one I did was in Tennessee. This is a good place, nice accommodations. Not as much money, but they treat you well. Been all around doing these after I messed up my leg. Clean. Off the record. Real money."

Another figure appears at the door. "Hey guys, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation in here." He flits through the darkness and steals a seat on John's bed. "I've got something you might be interested in." He pulls a thick, bound packet from his bag. "This is a comprehensive list of all the research institutions in the world."

John purses his lips. "May I?"

The man places the book in his hands.

John frantically thumbs through the Xeroxed treasure trove. "Even got phone numbers in here. Listed by state and country. Shit, this'll save a lot of time."

The man smiles. He leans into a slat of light and I can make out a graying ponytail. "My name is Tim. If you just want to jot a few numbers feel free. Otherwise, I can get you your own copy for ten bucks."

Brian and I sneak a peek at each other. First there's mutual horror, then stifled laughter.

It soon becomes clear that the entire cast of players has been in numerous studies before. Brian and I were the weirdos. Jeff, a young phlebotomist who plans to attend med school in the Fall, doublesticks my reluctant vein and apologizes. "I can relate." He tells me that he was a subject before he became a staffer and that he and Bob, another young phlebotomist, will be checking themselves in as subjects at Abbott Labs in a week "to make a wad of cash."

11 sticks today. One more left. I grasp my arm and fall asleep until 1:26 AM.

I wake from slumber after a series of kicks rattles my bunk. A red vest stands at the foot of my bed. Brian. I wipe the sweat from my brow and put some pants on. Brian, half-asleep, mutters "Be careful" as he hops back into his bunk. I pull my pants on and proceed down the hall.

Theresa the nightshift nurse jabs my arm with all the subtlety of a Greek chef splaying lamb on a kabob. I scream.

Only two blood draws today -- one in the morning, one before bed -- a considerable improvement over yesterday.

Brian's name is called as Boomerang fades to credits. I see him talking to a mousy woman in black. I walk to my room. Lab Coat Linda strides behind me. "Patrick. If you have any friends you can recommend for in here, we'll give you a finder's fee." She points to the lady with Brain. "She's the woman to talk to."

I think about calling my brother, but blanche at the thought of him walking around holding a gauze swab to his arm. On second thought, that would be pretty funny.

I ask permission to use the bathroom, an annoying ritual, but one which has to be observed, lest the radioactive boys forget about their special bathroom. The nurse pulls the key out of the lock and spins the sign on the door to indicate "Men's." I proceed into stall 2, where I see two moist lumps of shit stuck to the side of the toilet. Stall 1 it is.

Rodney, a young stuttering black man, commandeers the TV as he has since I began my stay. A nurse procures Beverly Hills Cop III from the video room. For the next hour and a half, staff and subjects alike ridicule young Rodney for his terrible taste. Still, we all watch the entire film. BHC IIIis like a midget porno. I defy you to take your eyes away, be you puritan or sodomite, low brow or high. Sam, the obese black man from the front desk, happens into the inner lair to ask a nurse a question. Before you know it, he's in Rodney's face, too: "You always watch this. Every single time you come in here. Do you really think it's funny? I mean, I never see you laughing. You just sit there. You just sit and stare. What the fuck, Rodney? This movie is atrocious."

Rodney mumbles some feeble comeback, but the damage has been done. The entire room has tears rolling down their cheeks.

Tears of a different kind came later. Some asshole thought it would be nice to start watching Philadelphia about an hour and a half before dinner. Next thing you know, everyone's sobbing into their turkey.

Damn Bible Schoolers. Where I come from a man says "fuck" when he means fuck.

It's a PK day. 12 blood draws await. And so does the dreaded drug administration. Last time was easy, no more difficult or threatening than popping an aspirin. But what will be done to me today is single-handedly responsible for driving the price of this particular study higher than the other short-term stints. It is now my turn to don the red smock.

Three medical technicians surround me in an far down the hall from everyone else. A clinical machine chugs in the background. I contemplate telling them to forget it, but I know deep down that I'm a whore. I'm not leaving this hospital without 80% of that $1700, but an involuntary freak-out is not entirely out of the question.

A phlebotomist carefully holds a bib under my chin. The radiologist tends to the vibrating machine and talks to a tech across the room. "I put a Geiger counter over this stuff, and it's barely doing anything."

I take a deep breath and relax. Yes, I knew full-well that he probably plays the same card prior to every dosing of this nature, but, in all fairness, it did serve to put some of my paranoiac demons at bay.

The digital clock on the wall reveals that it is 09:25:13. The radiologist grabs an Erlenmeyer flask from the machine's grip.

"The applejuice you're about to taste is a bit bitter. Please swallow the contents of the flask. We will follow that with two apple juice rinses to ensure that everything in the flask has been ingested."

I look around the room and down at my bib. Afterschool Specials always spoke of peer pressure, but I never really knew what that was...until now. The medical contingency's eyes were all on me. I knew that what I was doing was suspect, but there was no way out. Not now. I should've thought about this moment a long time ago. 09:26:03. Fuck it. I down the putrid apple juice and am escorted back to the playroom with the sorrowful realization that I just ate radiation.

From now until the end of my stay, I will have to relieve myself in a separate radioactive-material-designated bathroom.

It's a PK fiesta. Today, everyone in the ward is drugged and subject to frequent blood draws. They usually stagger these things as a favor to the staff. Not today. Yellow, Green, Blue, and Red Smocks litter the CPU. Everyone sporadically exits the "draw room" holding a gauze swab to their outstretched arms.

People have been calling for Corry all day. He's either sleeping or in some seldom visited study alcove. I learned that this affable guy has already been fined for tardy appearances to blood draws. He's going strong with two demerits. As far as I knew, you had to be a terminal fuck-up to have this honor bestowed upon you. I hear one of the techs calling his name, and I plop down on my bed. "They want you in the lab. You're pretty popular"

He smiles at me, climbing down from his bunk, "Yeah, I'm ubiquitous."

"I'm ubiquitous?" What an appalling misuse of the English language. To say "I'm ubiquitous" in the correct context would make one seem a tad pretentious, not to mention odd. To say it in an incorrect context merely makes one look like a boob. I'm all for descriptive grammar, but to make such a foolish mistake signals that one desperately wishes to be viewed as a master of the prescriptive, and, hence, should be judged by those stringent grammatical standards.

Due to this interaction and several others like it, I become aware of a great deal about Corry within a very short time. Clearly, this is a man who is trying to improve his vocabulary. He's seen commercials declare that a strong command of English is tantamount to power. Where there's a will, there's an "A." He's the kind of guy who is responsible for Anthony Robbins' and his pearly whites' unbridled popularity.

I hang in the room for a majority of the afternoon. A sour old black man with gray whiskers rests in the bed next to me. This guy is miserable, so cranky it's endearing.

"So Roger, You doing it for the money?"

He smiles before spitting out, "I'm doin ' it to get away from my wife."

I try to read as he bitches to the air about Rodney, the stuttering young Beverly Hills Cop fan. "That Rodney is one immature brother. He just juvenile. Mother fucker's been kicked outta other studies." I look up and we lock eyes. "Yeah, he stole a video game in Abbott Labs over there in Waukegan and they don't want him around no more. Juvenile." I smile, realizing that this outburst is the equivalent of office gossip.

Rog fingers the remote control in his hand to ESPN. "The Sox. Shits couldn't win a fuckin' game if the wind were blowin' fair. And that stadium. Shit, I remember when you could get a real beer there. Now they water that shit down. It's all watered down. Ripped off everywhere you look.

He starts mumbling something about Bulls games being fixed before I fall alseep.

I've always hated sports. I was the kid who skipped T-Ball practice to see the Flipper double feature. To this day, I can't understand how grown men can get excited over a winning team or an athletic hero. Men like this revolt me. How does an athletic outfit's victory improve their lives? Does it put food on their tables? Does it help keep them from beating or being beaten by their wives? Why does it give them such glee?

Nonetheless, tonight was what looked like, for all intensive purposes, the final play-off game. At least stuttering Rodney thought so. He bet a friend that there would be no seventh game. The wager? $350 bucks.

Rodney is in the BAH study which requires three separate three day stays. He's getting paid a total of $1100. In short, he's betting the equivalent of one three day stay. Now I had a reason to watch the game.

Brian and I signal each other with three, five and zero fingers throughout dinner and grin at Rodney.

A good 2/3rds of the ward crams into the rec room as The Bulls storm into the stadium. The TV is loud, louder than it's ever been, but a white, tattooed, baby-dreaded tough guy who looks like a member of Kris-Kross demands that the volume be turned up even more.

Several of us offer much-needed advice: "Hey, fucko, maybe you'll hear better if you sit closer to the TV." Rodney, once again the remote control master, leaps up and down. "350, man. 350 motherfuckin' dollars."

The volume guy screams from the rear, "Yo, let's not talk about capitalism and shit right now. We're watching a Bulls game." Did this kid graduate from high school? Does he even know what capitalism is? I crane my neck to catch his name tag. "Matthew." This stupid sack of shit is gonna be in here throughout my stay. I have no problem with idiots, except when they think themselves smart. The attitude on this kid is unbelievable.

Matthew continues: "If I were at my crib, I'd be watching this in Sur-round sound." He flails his arms while pointing his thumbs to the ceiling. "Yo, Rodney. Rod-ney . Louder, motherfucker. Up!"

The game is fairly dicey throughout. The Jazz leads the way a majority of the game. I could tell that Rodney was going through a major struggle. No matter how many times he touched Scottie Pippen's image on the TV or ostentatiously boasted, the fact of the matter was he had a woman at home and a baby on the way.

Over the course of the game, nurse and doctor, patient and patrol were glued to the various TV sets strewn about the ward. In the packed main room, farts are variously dispersed and angrily protested. I watch with hatred as Terry, a balding smart ass with a rat tail, passes gas and "wipes" it on Rodney.

Several streaks of sweat line the betting man's forehead before the Bulls score a game-ending basket. Brian and I taunt Rodney as he leaps to his feet to do a victory dance. "D-d-did you see Pippen dive for the ball. Did you see P-p-pippen?" I go to bed depressed. I really wanted to see Rodney glimpse the depths of his stupidity and flip out.

Corry informs me that he was up until 3:00 in the morning," talkin' theology, teleology, epistemology, eschatology" and all the other big words he can muster. I ask him if he discussed scatology and feign exhaustion to avoid becoming a casualty of further Happy Christian conversion attempts.

Another BAH group leaves. A new wave enters, among them The Chubby Pot Smoking Hipster. He made it in after all. That cleanser must really work!

I fall asleep and reminisce about life on the outside.

A few days back, when I was still on the outside, I stumbled across a video store in my neighborhood that carried old Beta Titles. For the past few months I've been sweeping up old Betamax decks and tapes for a steal. This was heaven!

After my first trip to Video Sonic , where the Indian owners invited me behind the counter to dig through hundreds of Beta titles and generally make a mess of the place, I went home with Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45, a film I had never before seen anywhere on video. Now it was mine. I was complete.

Then for some reason or other, I began to think about Traci Lords, the now "legit" actress who started her career at age 14 in hardcore porn and was busted in 1986 at the age of 16. The FBI ordered all video stores to clear their shelves of all Lords titles. To own these tapes was illegal. Yet not to own them meant you were deprived of a throbbing piece of video history.

A few hours of research later, I returned to Video Sonic with a full list of all 106 titles in which Lords appeared. If anyone still had some of these titles, it was The Sonic I left a few hours later, weary and full of dust, but with several coveted Lords titles under my arm. My mission was accomplished.

Later, I posted a message on America Online's Marketplace: "Two Words... Traci Lords"

Within several hours, I had people offering me top dollar for dubs. But I couldn't do anything about it. The hospital would not wait. And this is why I was now in a bad state. What the hell was I thinking posting a message like that? I'm just asking to be busted for harboring kiddie porn, not to mention illegal duplication. I was courting a double whammy. Not having done anything wrong yet, I resolved not to further traverse down this trail.

My current voluntary incarceration may have saved me from the real thing.

I tumble from bed and haul my piss bucket down to the radioactive john. On the way, I see Nora, a females in the FLU/KETO group. It's official visiting hours. I sneak a furtive peak of her hugging her 4-year-old son. She must really need the money.

Corry notices the large baggie and toilet bucket (a plastic pan that fits under the lid and curiously resembles a hat) sitting by my bed. He looks at me with a stunned expression and asks what it's for. I tell him that my stools have to be collected to contain the radioactivity in my system. His face relaxes and he says, "Oh, for I minute, I thought, nah, nevermind."

"You thought what?" I say, utterly confused.

"I--I thought you had a sex change, because girls collect urine in those, too."

I see Brian in the hall. He sees me with my bathroom tools in hand and he taunts me like a veteran. "Enjoy the sack."

Ever since the dosing, I've tried to avoid taking a dump. But I'll be here for 10 days, and there's no stopping a hearty potato diet. If the Servin' Saver maneuver rated a 6 for difficulty, the bag / pan set-up rates an 8 simply because it's much more complicated. Every drop of piss has to land in a jug. This is easy when that's the only matter at hand, but this becomes inordinately more difficult as Number 2 begs to be released as well. First, the toilet pan has to be lined with the bag, and you have to be careful not to dwell to close to the target zone in case your former innards pile up faster than anticipated. After that, you have to remove the bag, seal it with a rubber-band, and place it in another zip-lock bag. You then have to swallow all pride, drag the sack into the hall and hand it to a lab tech so that your crud can be weighed in, analyzed, and properly disposed of.

A man is never more aware of his humanity and ultimate insignificance than when he's handling his own shit.

I quietly plod from my room at 6:30 with thumping bowels. It's time for another hat trick. Two in two days.

I watch Brian and my other compadres head for the sunlight after breakfast. Their tour of duty is over. They've done both shifts. I'll probably never see those guys again, and will definitely miss Brian -- up until now, my best friend on the inside.

Corry and I go back to sleep until noon. All is fine until he gets up and makes so much racquet that I too am jostled from my crib. While Corry is off to the bathroom, I stretch and slip off my underwear while lying in bed. The door opens mid-motion and I impulsively grab my bare dick. I ask for the time even though I'm well aware of it. "2:07," he says without making eye contact. As far as Corry is concerned, I was jerking off. He'll never say anything to me about it, so the matter will be left unresolved. Count me among the ward's million or so stories.

Frustrated, I head to the pay phone in an adjoining private room. I call my dad to wish him a happy Father's Day. While I'm at it, I figure I might as well call a friend in St. Paul. I tell him about drinking radiation. For the next minute or so I endure claims that "I am the world's biggest loser and a real stupid kid." The people on the outside, they'll never get it.

Corry punches my foot. I take off my headphones and he whispers that one of the guy's checking in smuggled in The Stand . "It's immature, I know. But there's so much red tape otherwise." I nod, my head, pretending that deep in my heart of hearts I want to sit through a 6-hour Stephen King miniseries.

Come 9:00, it's clear that Corry has done a good job of convincing the posse that uber- entertainment awaits. I watch until my snack is served. Nancy, a nightshift nurse, asks if we're watching a tape from the video room and quickly surmises that it's contraband.

Rob Lowe is convincing as a deaf mute, but I'm bored to tears, so I return to my room where I flip channels searching for something to fall asleep to before finally settling upon an old woman practicing yoga.

At 09:26:00, I receive my final blood draw of the stay. No more blood, only excretions. I sleep.

A forty-year-old man with a half-formed double chin and pony tail introduces himself. "I noticed you had a laptop with you, too. My name's Dale." He's the kind of guy who ends every sentence with an aggressive wheeze-chortle combo. A full-throated guffaw escapes his throat as he shakes my hand.

The laughter stops as quickly as it began. "Say, you wouldn't know anyplace I can jack into a phone line, would you? They used to let us dial in, but with all this networking shit, it's hard to find any line in the place that works." I tell him I've been looking for the same thing.

He flits over to the counter and begins to good-naturedly berate the staff. "All I want is Part II of The Stand. Is there anyway someone can rent it for us? We watched Part I last night, so we only saw the first 2 tapes. Now we need the last two tapes."

"I know, Dale. We all know. You've told us. We're looking into it."

I saunter toward the snack counter to pick up my allotted goods and see the rest of the crew gathered around the TV with broad smiles. I sink into a recliner and notice a boom box and The Wizard of Oz video box next to it.

"Are you guys ready?" Everyone nods. Mario, a Hispanic dead-ringer for Steve Perry, starts the VCR. The MGM lion appears. "1-2-3." Dale starts the cassette. Dark Side of the Moon now serves as the de facto soundtrack for the film.

I'll admit: I was rather pleased at first. We could all now say that we had done it, too.

Time passes and several people beg to be released from this peculiar agony. Those who aren't pissed are asleep. All in all, the group has exhibited the only two healthy reactions that come with listening to Floyd.

There are only 1 or 2 moments of coincidence in the first 20 minutes. Something or other about a "magic spell" as Dorothy talks to the two-bit Wizard in Kansas and "Money" starts precisely as the film switches to Technicolor. But so what? I suggest that we crack out Thriller and start it precisely as the Flying Monkeys are introduced. "Wanna be Startin' Something" would be a marvelous soundtrack for this scene, no? Why not try any track on Slippery When Wet ? The correspondences between Oz and Dark Side are so remote, I begin to chortle and spray as if I were drinking milk at Chuck E. Cheese in the spring of my life. Anyone who's ever been in an edit suite realizes that virtually anything cuts to music.

I know what Roger would say: "Those damn Pink Floyd guys. It was them. On the top 200 list for over 15 years and they have to go trying to sell more. Those mother fuckers planted this shit all over the media. They fixed it real good." This time good ol' Rog may not be too far off.

After expending a great deal of effort looking for the dwarf hanging in the Oz forest, I suggest we pull Three Men and a Baby from the stacks to see the ghost on the ledge. Everyone agrees. I offer to fast forward to the scene, but Mario decides he wants to watch the movie in its entirety. The others start a rollicking game of Risk . I go back to sleep.

After lunch, Big Beau passes around the walk sign up sheet. Being pent up has begun to take its toll, so I tag along. I think it would be humorous to wear our smocks to the beach, but before I have chance to fully entertain the comic possibilities of such a situation, I see that John -- a 50-year-old fellow ADME inmate -- proudly wears his as we exit the hospital. I am suddenly ashamed. What must people on the street be thinking? I know I would peg this motley crew as a cult or a group of mental patients. Think of it this way: Would you be caught dead by Garth's side if you had the choice?

We reach the lake by the Bahi Temple, and I swear I can hear The Zombies' "Time of the Season."

Upon returning, I spy, Dale chasing Barb the nurse. "Can't we just go rent it? This is ridiculous. And there's only one quiet room. One quiet room. The other two are locked and not being used. Can't we at least see the rest of the movie?"

Barb looks him in the eye and spits forth: "Dale, enough. You deceived us in order to get the first part in. We're doing the best we can. We're working on it, all right!. You already have one fine. Do you want to go for a fifty dollar penalty?"

It's Routine Vitals time again. The arm cuff pumps my muscles and I hold the thermometer under my tongue for the umpteenth time. How have I convinced myself that this is normal?

Nicole, a pretty blonde in the 22 day study, shuffles from the stick chamber blue and a few millimeters this side of shock. She slumps into a chair in her room holding her arm and muffling tears. Apparently Richard has done it again. He's not the gentlest of men. When a needle doesn't want to go in, he jams it. I personally haven't had many problems with him, but several others refer to him as Doctor Slaughter. If I it were up to me, that title would still go to Theresa the night shift nurse.

Four hours pass. Another walk. I learn that some of the guys snuck out a window the previous night to buy smokes and headed to Burger King for a snack.

I sneak into the coveted quiet room, dragging the pay phone receiver with me. I talk to my mother and wish her a Happy Birthday. I peek through the glass in the door to see the gang engrossed in îThe Stand's î long-awaited second half. Apparently Dale's bullying paid off. Never mind that he checks out tomorrow and could've rented the tape at his own convenience with much greater ease.

Another wave leaves the compound. Gone are The Pot Guy, Dale, Mario, etc... There are only 9 of us left -- the FLU/KETO crew and John, Michael and myself. The ward is positively empty. There is no noise and I am the only one who does not return to bed. The large screen TV, the pool table, and video game center are mine! All mine. I feel like Ricky Stratton.

Several hours later, the ward is jammed to capacity. The staff frantically works to convert several lab rooms into bedrooms. People are everywhere. 20 more faces, among them is a man I have been on a set with before, a fairly well-known Chicago Steadicam Operator. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Dinner is served as all of us in the main room sit blankly in front of Jerry Maguire. I'm still the last to be served, so I wait patiently as everyone else monges around me. A whiny voice shatters the room's tranquillity. I look over to see terminal spaz Kevin comparing trays with the people around him. "Hey. Hey! How come he got grapes? I didn't get grapes."

Wigger "I Love it Loud" Matthew turns to me and suggests it's about time a few of us sneak into his room in the middle of the night brandishing bars of soap in our pillow cases. I'm starting to like this guy.

I wait for a nurse to open the radioactive containment room so I can piss yet another time. But with 30 people milling about, I don't expect her anytime soon. The gang in the lobby by the quarantined pissoir is watching Pulp Fiction. John Travolta yells, "Fuck me. Fuck me." Linda runs into the room and glances at the television before exiting, presumably to make sure that no one is wanking to hardcore porn.

After going on a walk at sundown, I quietly tell Bob The Phlebotomist that I have to take a dump. By the time the ziplock pouch reaches my paws, we're both singing: "Poo sack, baby. A poo sack, baby. Poo sack, that's where it's at. Funky little sack, funky lit-tle sack. Brown fecal worms wrigglin' just to get out."

After the act, I track him down and yell "Brown Poo Crusted" before handing off the goods.

For the first time since the new batch of 22 day FLU/KETO subjects arrived, the 50 inch TV is free. The four black men who guard the television and refuse to let anyone watch anything but BET videos are nowhere to be seen. Corry asks if we can check out A&E. "Sure. Channel 46," I say.

We click in the middle of a voice over. The screen bears a painting of a man with a long beard. "...Noah forsook foreskin..." Jesus. I was anything but excited about the prospect of a stodgy, late night documentary concerning the religious roots of circumcision. Corry has probably been planning to watch this for weeks. I should have feigned extreme interest in that DiDi 7 infomercial.

He turns to the gang playing cards behind him. "You should watch this. It's pretty cool. I gave a speech on Circumcision at school, and..."

I move on to my room, but a guy who just is already asleep, so I decide to check out what everyone's watching out in the lobby. I get two steps into the doorway and make out a man and a chunky alternachic lip-locked in the darkness. The light spills from the TV to reveal further detail: His hand gropes her tit. I decide to call it a night.

Corry bounds around the room as I drool into my dinner during Baywatch. Over the course of the hour, Corry introduces himself to the newcomers. "Yeah, the Harvard School of Theology is theology is top-notch, but Moody is excellent." I watch several victims escape, paving the way for new ones to walk into his trap "... I kinda wanna work on a Masters, but I also kind of want to form a Christian rock band. You know, an alternative to those satanic bands out there like King Diamond, Prodigy, and Morbid Angel."

Further off, Garth advises the new 22 day FLU/KETO subjects: "Your biggest obstacle right now is that the drug you're taking has no side-effects.î I stare at Elaine Eleniak and try to decide if she sports a monobrow.

It's become plainly obvious that Corry and I have little in common, but we remain friendly all the same. I even managed to keep a straight face as he soberly explained the derivation of the Vulcan hand 'V.' "It originates from an ancient Jewish symbol. Leonard Nimoy is Jewish. Isn't that cool?"

I make off with my stack of magazines before he has a chance to mention his "Jewish friend."