My friend Ray. Dead now, so I can use his real name. Tough old bird. Served aboard the Nevada, the only vessel to get underway during the Pearl Harbor attack. Survived the sinking. Served on the Nevada until her inglorious end. Nearly done in by a nurse.

Ray and I were schoolbus mechanics. He was the kind of guy that had a cigarette in one hand and a wrench in the other. After quitting time, it was cigarette in one and a beer in the other. Good guy, good father, good health... Except for the hemorrhoids.

After several unsuccessful surgeries, the doctors were going to make him (as he put it) "a whole new asshole." Some major cutting! Out in front of the VA hospital, chain-smoking (going to have to do without for a few days), making asshole jokes, until he disappeared in the bowels of the building. After the surgery, he was told he could leave (as he put it) "as soon as I shit."

The pain was more than expected. Ray did not want to crap until things had healed better, so he ate little, and drank even less. Everyone told him that constipation for that first movement was a horrible, terrible, dangerous idea.

Days went by -- and then SHE came! The VA night nurse. An immense, cookie jar-shaped woman, face like a thundercloud, with a five o'clock shadow. She rumbled in the room like a freight train. And with a foghorn voice: "You're still here? Well, you won't be tomorrow!" She disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a mug full of hot prune juice. "Drink it!"

The man that had faced down a squadron of Japanese Zeros lay trembling before this mountain of a woman. Was it that potent, hot, sweet, purgative liquid -- or was it the fear?

The intestinal percolations were audible from across the room. The screams from the bathroom were audible from, well, anywhere. When it was over, it was hard to tell where the white sheets ended and the pale skin of Ray began; only his dark eyes and gray hair were plainly visible.

I was not present the next morning when the doctor arrived. I was told he had an evil grin on his face. "I hear you had a baby last night! Boy or a girl? Wait...!" The doctor held up a finger. "It was a son-of-a-bitch, wasn't it?!" He signed the discharge and walked out.

Ray returned to work. His weight returned to normal. After six months, the 'roids returned as well. After a year, he was told that more surgery would be necessary. But that's another story.