Pump Up the Ink: Steroids and Unbeatable Writing! by Janie Mo

It is no secret that authors of present and past have puffed, banged, and snorted their way to epic and essential works. Bukowski drank. Burroughs shot up. Baudelaire smoked opium. And I’m pretty sure James Frey used crack and Novocain. But did anyone ever try steroids?

Yes, two hours ago, I downed five pills of Prednisone and one cup of coffee. Now it’s 3 am and I’ve never felt more alive, more wizardly, in my life!

This essay, just a simple mind-flex really, will no doubt align myself with Freud, Flaubert and the rest of those F’ers; only it will be better and faster. Time me. Afterward, I will request a green Adirondack chair and slam it to the ground. Then I’ll shout: “I HATE THE BEATLES!” from the rooftops. Or perhaps I will scoop my eyeballs out with a melonballer instead. And what about that Yorkie-sized rat lying prone with a frozen look of horror outside my building? Someone has already beaten it down, clubbed it to death.
That person should have been me.

For seven days and six nights, I’ve suffered an intolerable rash on my stomach and back, and it itches. It itches. Did I eat bad cheese? Did Lubriderm change its formula? No: It was Teddy, the boy who wore girl pants. Teddy lived in a loft with a puffy (much like my newly swollen “moon-face”) easy-chair and a twin-sized mattress. Luckily for Teddy, the bed was already in his room upon move-in day. It had lots of loose coils to spring you into action. When I sat upon it, I flew right off again and hit my head on the adjacent wall! BOING!

Teddy and I never actually had sex, mostly because of his erectile dysfunction. At first I thought, Oh great: more sub-par penis. But we still gave it the old college try. Perhaps he was a grower, not a show-er. Nope. Still, we pressed on. I think he went down on me, I forget. What I do remember is that he begged me to place his limpy upon my then thrush free tongue. I said, “Hells Nos!” and ran for the hills. And by hills, I mean Bushwick Avenue. The scary part. With disheveled hair and make-up and my libido unsatisfied, I teetered in red heels at five in the morning. How I would’ve killed for a gun, a taser, a stick of gum—anything! to fend off the early morning boozehounds. And that’s when I began to itch.

I called my father and told him that I had scabies. “Nah, this isn’t scabies,” he said. “I’ve had that shit. You don’t have that shit.” Whew! What a relief. Still, I thought it best to seek a professional opinion anyway. Finding affordable and competent dermatologists who welcome the uninsured is the latest in extreme sporting. Have you ever heard of the sliding scale? Weeeeeeeee! Once you actually find your dermatologist, the real challenge begins. Sitting in a dank and crowded waiting room, I found myself asking some troubling questions: If that guy’s scaly red arm brushes against mine, will I get one too? Did they forget about me, or is this a psychological test? Is my Guardian angel named Satan? Is that smell human? The clinic’s fire alarm sounded forcing its patients to shuffle outside in our open-backed gowns. I was accosted by an elderly man resembling Salisbury Steak while biding my time:

“What are you? A dancer?” he asked.

“A waitress.”

“A writer?” he confirmed.

“Well, yeah that too.”

“Huh. Anything published?”

The alarm subsided long before my temper did. We packed ourselves back into the elevator and your grandma’s medicine breath blinded me momentarily. Then, back in the waiting room, I listened again for my name to be called. A muted screening of Chicken Run was being shown with Spanish subtitles. I got three quarters of the way through when the nurse attempted my name: “Mo-Mo-Kee-Ya?” Yeah yeah yeah yeah YEAH. That’s me—but what about the chickens? Do they ever stop running?

Sweating and itching in a paper gown, I waited in room 11. Where the fuck was my doctor? I’d wait five more minutes, then I’d ask. Five minutes later, I gave him another five. Finally, I peeked out of my room and saw a man in a white coat.

“Are you my Doctor?” I asked.

“Just give me five minutes, Ms. Mocha.”

So I did and he came back twenty three minutes later and asked me to pull down my gown. Then he stared at my chest. “I’m going to need a second opinion on this,” he said.

Eventually the verdict was an “allergic reaction.” The solution? Prednisone. Yesssssss!

In conclusion: Steroids are not addictive. It’s just that mostly you want to take a lot of them all the time. And really, it’s for the best: I was afflicted with a horrific rash, terrible writer’s block, and a bad case of sexual frustration. Then I found steroids, or as I like to call them: God. And look at me now! My unsightly rash has been replaced with a shiny new hair coat, I’m writing like the pros, and the sex, well, let’s just say steroids took the envy out of penis envy!

All in all I’d have to say that I’m rising up. I’m back on the street. I did my time, took my chances. I went the distance, now I’m back on my feet. Just a woman and her will to survive. Rising up, straight to the top. Had the guts, got the glory. Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop. Just a woman and her will to survive.