Free Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman Page A

us. Then two things seemed to happen at once. The fire alarm suddenly stopped sounding and Fox and Teddy emerged into the lobby from a side doorway.
    Teddy was one of the largest, most roly-poly black men I'd ever seen in my life. If I hadn't been looking for him, I never would've picked out Fox Harris. With his hair slicked back, wearing some kind of white butcher's apron, and a stethoscope around his neck, he carried a clipboard and some papers and looked every bit the part of a harried, rather supercilious shrink.
    "See how handsome Fox looks when he combs his hair," said Clyde.
    "I wouldn't have recognized him," I said.
    For his part, Fox pretended not to recognize Clyde and myself. He appeared to be quite absorbed in talking to Teddy and marking down little things on his clipboard chart. He gave a few instructions to an orderly and then began slowly moving Teddy toward the front doors. As he passed us, he stopped for a moment to study his chart.
    "I'm going to try to walk him out of here," said Fox quietly, still perusing his clipboard. "If you two will help facilitate Teddy's departure, I'll attempt to stall the powers that be."
    It looked for a moment like it might work. Then Teddy, who'd been standing placidly by, on Fox's left side, suddenly sprang to life.
    "DEY FOUND ME IN THE CONGO!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "BEATIN' ON MY BONGO!"
    "Relax, Teddy," said Fox. "Just take a few deep breaths."
    Fox had placed the stethoscope somewhere along the circumference of Teddy's huge stomach and was listening intently when a hospital administrator walked up. "You can tell a hospital administrator," Fox had confided in me later, "because they always wear a suit and tie and a constipated expression." This one certainly fit the bill. He spoke directly to Fox, ignoring the rest of us.
    "What's going on here, Dr.—uh-?"
    "Feintush," said Fox brightly. "Dr. Irving Feintush."
    "I AM THE KING OF THE ZULU NATION!" shouted Teddy so loudly that even a nearby exiting fireman jumped.
    "I'm taking him," said Fox, "for an EKG, an ERG, and a PBP, and, of course, the rather ubiquitous Rorschach test."
    "This man shouldn't even be in the lobby," said the administrator.
    By this time, things were spinning rapidly out of control. Teddy was chanting a highly realistic-sounding Zulu war chant and Fox was positioning himself between the administrator and the front door. Suddenly, Fox flung away his charts and grabbed the stunned administrator in a powerful bear hug, lifting him off the ground, and thereby at least temporarily deactivating him.
    "Run, children, run!" shouted Fox.
    And run we did.
    Out the front doors and down the steps and down the sidewalk with Teddy in the lead, running with the speed and intensity of a stampeding black rhino, also an endangered species, along the green veldt. In an odd way, it was a beautiful thing to see. A man that large, running with the determination and grace of an arrow aimed at the heart of freedom. I was winded by the time I caught up with him and got him safely in the backseat of the cab. I gave the driver forty bucks.
    "Where I take him?" asked the driver.
    "Anyplace," I said. "The Statue of Liberty."
    As the cab pulled away, I saw a big, peaceful smile on Teddy's face. He stuck his big head out the window and looked back at me.
    "Thank you, human being," he said.
    I watched the taxi speed away. Then I looked around for Clyde but she was nowhere in sight.

ten
    Some women look even more beautiful when they cry. Clyde was one of those. After I'd gotten Teddy safely shoehorned into the backseat of the cab, I hadn't been able to find Clyde anywhere. Against my better judgment, I'd crept back to the now-crowded steps of the hospital and, as casually as possible, tried to peer inside the lobby. The cops were swarming by this time and the focus of their activity appeared to be one Dr. Feintush, who was standing in the center of the lobby apparently trying to bullshit his way out of a situation that