Ray of the Star Read Free

something meaningful were to occur, be equally implicated by any eventual attentions, it struck him that he might well pay a visit to the acupuncturist whose more elaborate than average literature, which spoke of addressing just those things, had found its way into his mailbox, so he called and, almost before he had had a chance to finish his first explanatory sentence, was told to come over immediately, an injunctive that Harry was only too happy to comply with, and on the way over, sitting near the front of the bus, holding the acupuncturist’s literature in his hand, which featured a series of awkwardly rendered but nevertheless appealing body-mind slogans, e.g., in approximate translation, “Have a Happy Way!” not to mention, in each of the accompanying photographs of the doctor and his office, the presence of the sort of bell to be universally found on hotel front desks—at least filmic representations thereof—and which Harry had always found most compelling, he felt quite sure that he had taken a promising step indeed, one that couldn’t fail to help him, by dint of the renewed mental and physical vigor he would enjoy, to prosecute his assault,
    “Come in,” he was told by the very Doctor Yang pictured holding one of the bells in the literature he had carefully folded and accidentally left sitting on the bus,
    “Many thanks for seeing me at such short notice,” Harry said,
    “Fill this out,” said Doctor Yang, handing over a clipboard and asking him to ring the bell that sat on a little teak table next to a chair in the corner, for which request, despite its absurdity in the face of the petit office and Doctor Yang’s continuing presence in the room, Harry was grateful, because it sufficiently mitigated the impulse the clipboard inspired—which was to immediately make for the door—for him to be able to make his way through the five or six pages of questions about his mental and physical health, which seemed so very poor on paper that, he thought, he might just as well go and lay himself down in the nearest meat locker, rather than on Doctor Yang’s table, which is where, nevertheless, after dinging the bell, he found himself gazing up at a mauve-colored drop ceiling as Doctor Yang—who had looked at his chart, checked his pulse, and rather cryptically asked him if he ate a lot of pizza, “maybe too much pizza?”—inserted authentic thick needles into twenty-six points in his upper and lower body, which at least every other time made Harry jump, though Doctor Yang told him that this was a sure sign that the width of the needles and their placement was correct, that amateur acupuncturists who had not undergone sufficient training, or who were naturally sloppy—like the employees in a nearby practice he had recently infiltrated by posing as a patient and subjecting himself to their woeful ministrations—tended to use thin needles and incorrectly insert them, which was completely pointless, unlike what he was doing, which was serious and ancient medicine, whereupon, having offered these contextualizing remarks, he set one of the bells next to Harry’s left hand and, giving it a cheery little whack, instructed him to ring it if he needed anything, and although Harry didn’t do any more than tap the side of the bell with his left ring finger during the long hour he lay twitching on the table in the half dark listening to what he thought was Gaelic chanting coming through a boombox somewhere on the floor, the bell continued to accord him a sense not just of comfort, but also of well-being, so that even though he was sure upon leaving that—although he had been happy enough to have had the experience—he would not make a return visit to Doctor Yang’s offices for the long-term course of follow-up needlework that was recommended to him—what the fuck, in short, had he been thinking?—he did that afternoon procure a bell at an office supply store near his apartment, which he placed on his bedside