Free Crazybone by Bill Pronzini Page B

say it because it’s true. It’s in the same class with massage, herbal treatments, and spiritual healing.”
    “Alternative therapies, every one,” Paula said with acid sweetness. “Isn’t chiropractic considered alternative therapy?”
    Red splotches appeared on Andrew’s puffy cheeks. “Just because the goddamn A.M. A. refuses to recognize the benefits of chiropractic medicine—”
    “ Or the benefits of acupuncture.” She swiveled my way again. “It really does work. For a while I had serious digestive problems, and they vanished, I mean completely vanished, after only three sessions with Dr. Dong. And what he did for my sciatica—”
    “Dr. Dong. My God!”
    “Andrew, the man can’t help the name he was born with. Besides, Dong is a perfectly common Chinese name—”
    “And he’s a perfectly common Chinese quack.”
    “He is not a quack! He has been in business twenty-five years, he’s a graduate of the Shanghai Chinese Medical School and diplomate of the National Board of Acupuncture Orthopedics—”
    “Diplomate. What the hell is a diplomate?”
    “It’s the same thing as a diplomat, isn’t it? Well, never mind. Dr. Dong has all sorts of degrees and testimonials—”
    “Bought and paid for, no doubt.”
    “—from satisfied patients like myself. He cured my digestive problems and he did wonders for my sciatica. You couldn’t do anything about my sciatica, could you?”
    “I could have if you’d let me use proper chiropractic techniques. But no, you screamed every time I tried to—”
    “You were hurting me. The pain doubled every time you poked and twisted—”
    “ You’re a double pain sometimes,” Andrew muttered. “And not in my sciatica.”
    She skewered him with the famous Hanley glare. “How dare you talk to me like that in public. You’re drunk, aren’t you? Gin on an empty stomach. How many times have I told you—”
    “Let me count the number.”
    “I’m warning you. Andrew...”
    I edged away from them — they didn’t even notice — and joined the party flow. Anything was better than listening to the Hanleys imitate that old radio couple, the Bickersons.
    I was now a floating island, but nobody paid any attention to me. I looked around for another corner in which to drop anchor, spotted one, and was on my way when two things gave me pause. Both were part of the same individual, a skinny, ascetic type in tinted glasses and a polka-dot bowtie. The bowtie was one of the things that stopped me; it made him even more of a dinosaur than me. The other was his voice, which he was using loudly to an audience of two older women.
    “The advertising racket,” he was declaiming, “is a prime example of what’s wrong with modern society. Strip away the fancy veneer and what have you got except hype and bullshit? Same bottom line for the federal government, state and local governments, big business, the media, the entertainment industry, pretty much anything you can name. Hype and bullshit, that’s what the country runs on nowadays. We’re bombarded by it, it shapes everything we see and hear and do. There’s no truth anymore, no sincerity, humility, honesty. All there is exaggeration, distortion, out and out lies. Hype, hype, hype, crap, crap, crap. You remember the Peter Finch character in Network? Saying he was sick and tired of all the bullshit? Well, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m sick and tired of all the deceiving, loudmouth, self-aggrandizing bullshit. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. Every chance I get I’m going to stand up and shout it like it is. You remember the John Goodman character in The Big Lebowski? How he kept telling the Steve Buscemi character, ‘Shut the fuck up, Donnie,’ every time he opened his stupid yap? Well, every time I hear somebody shovel up another load of hype and bullshit I’m going to stand up and say—”
    “Shut the fuck up, Harlan,” one of the women said.
    “We’re sick and tired of