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Letters from IDANT

By Vic Colfari

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I walked into the office at 6:15 p.m., exactly on time for my appointment with the Good Doctor. It was the first time I had been there during the evening, there being the office on the 71st floor of the Empire State Building where I have a history of masturbating into plastic cups in exchange for money. But on this visit I was not scheduled to masturbate into a plastic cup; I had to get a physical. Or, somebody needed to feel my balls to make sure, I assume, that I wasn’t a hernia sufferer.

I had thought it peculiar to have been summoned at this evening hour, as all previous sessions had taken place in the early afternoon. But it never occurred to me that the waiting room would be cluttered with weeping children, let alone a heckling, devil-worshipping, gargoyle of a man. In my numerous prior visits to the sperm office I had never encountered any other civilians. It seemed something had gone terribly wrong.

There was one seat left in the waiting room and I grabbed it. Then I quickly realized that the guy sitting next to me was talking to himself. It was raw gibberish, though loud enough to disturb me (and I’m not easily disturbed). I tried to ignore this seeming lunatic by consuming a copy of Golf Digest, but it was impossible. This man, who might have been Henry Kissinger on a four-day meth bender, gradually began to direct his endless flow of sounds toward the rest of us. But this time he was actually making sense; he was tired of waiting, and he evidently decided that he wanted to get to the bottom of this.

This being that he had a 5:30 appointment and it was now 6:25. He asked us all, in a general though fanatical and determined sort of way, what time our appointments were. Nobody answered until I spoke up. After all, I had to find out for myself what the hell was happening here. As it turned out, we were all there to see Dr. Greenstein. Except these people were not sperm donors. There were women, kids, toys - regular people, here to take advantage of Greenstein’s post-work hours. I have worked a grand total of three months in my whole life at a nine-to-fivejob, so I didn’t quite get this concept at first. But I caught on.

The way I saw it, I was basically up shit’s creek. Three people had 5:30s, two had 6s and two others had 6:15s, all for Greenstein. I mean, fuck this shit, I’m a sperm donor. I’m not just some common patient. They pay me to be here, not the other way around. I nearly left. I had books to read, articles to write, White Horse to drink. I was seething with bitterness and rage as I placed Golf Digest back on the table.

6:35 – things had quieted down. The group discussion had ceased and the whacko had finished his ranting monologue on all the multiple talents of Dr. Greenstein. But he wasn’t done talking per se. The next thing I knew, he was muttering partially intelligible phrases with a whispering, conspiratorial tone: “Come with me”, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you” – he was talking to me! And nobody else could hear him. It was mantra after mantra and I couldn’t understand or keep track of most of it. There was some loose talk about Lucifer but I really don’t know what the message was. All I knew is that I was absolutely fucking spooked at this point.

Had the nurse not rescued me thirty seconds later, it’s difficult to imagine where his ranting would have led. “Vic Callfari?” asked the nurse. I sat bolt upright and I was off to see the Good Doctor. But the bloated, sinister sketchball was having none of it. He rose and protested. He shouted, “What’s this? His appointment is 6:15, mine is 5:30, hers is 5:30.” His demeanor was ominous. His violent approach lacked all consideration of tact. Hell was breaking loose. My recollection of this chaotic moment is fuzzy. It all happened very fast. I thought spontaneous combustion was occurring - people’s faces were melting off. Would they call security? This fucking guy had gone batshit.

The response was far from professional. This didn’t surprise me in the slightest. I have become accustomed, though no less startled and offended, by the unprofessionalism of this staff and its team of pseudo nurses. The nurse freaked out and this only perpetuated the pandemonium. Two mysterious guys then came out, pulled her away from the scene and then just ignored raving psycho. Nobody else added a word to the melee; out of fear they cut themselves out of the scene.

The company is called IDANT, a division of Daxor Corporation, whatever that is. It’s a “fully-accredited” semen bank. But it’s hard to believe the nurses are fully-accredited at anything at all. No social skills whatsoever to speak of. And the hapless patients waiting had no clue that his doctor heads up a sperm bank and that anonymous men jerk off right around the corner. What would they do if they found out?

Greenstein is an absent-minded intellectual. And he’s from the old school. He conducted the thirty-second physical right in his cluttered, personal office. I dropped my drawers one foot from his desk; he went down on me without any gloves and he seemed to have no inclination to wash his hands afterwards. Throughout I could hear the crazy guy in the offing, still bitching about how I cut in front of him. There was no end in sight to this harangue. As I raced out of there, he couldn’t resist one last taunt, and one last threat. “There he is. You’re lucky you were quick!”

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Vic Colfari is a writer living in New York City.  He can be contacted by sending a letter to mail@methree.net.

© 2003 Me Three