The chiropractor’s small waiting room was crowded when I walked in for a second treatment for my lower back. His assistant, an older woman with dyed black hair, was behind the counter working the computer and answering a phone call while balancing a sleeping baby on her other arm. “Now that’s what I call multi-tasking,” I said. That was received with the silence it deserved. “I’m the 2:10 the appointment.” The baby, a girl less than a month old if I’m any judge, was pink and exquisite and just now beginning to wake. Her perfect little mouth opened wide and a weak, little wail began. I assumed her mother was a patient being attended to inside. I read somewhere that hearing that cry make a mother’s milk flow. The assistant, already stressed, got more so and kissed the infant and crooned soothingly without effect. “I’ll come back,” I said. She flashed me a look of gratitude; one less problem to contend with.
The last time I was in with back trouble was three years ago and she made it worse by asking me to turn on my stomach. This move caused the pain to skyrocket from merely severe to acute agony. “Arrrrrgh,” is as close as written language can come to the sound I made. It appeared often in the bubble over comic book characters when I was young. “Aieeeee” also was common, but that was usually reserved for variations on villains knocked or kicked to perdition by the superhero. The chiropractor, a big, friendly guy, hustled from the other treatment room and between us I managed to achieve a sitting position. Looking genuinely appalled, he said he couldn’t do any manipulation because of my pain and sent my wife off to buy one of those girdle-like back braces worn by deliverymen and others who bend with heavy loads. I crept out of the office with my wife’s help, embarrassed by the build-up of patients in the waiting room that left several without a place to sit. I wore the brace day and night for a long time. “Do you remember me?” I asked the assistant. She said no. “I do,” Dr. Dailey said. “It was a chiropractic emergency.”
The day before he had me lean against a table that stands on end. It slowly lowered to the horizontal and on the way I was jolted and there was a hiss like air brakes. Whatever was out of alignment popped back in and problem solved; I strode out like a sergeant major on the parade ground. In the old days, you lay on your back with legs up and a quick movement by the chiropractor grasping your knees did the job. One told me to have a glass of wine before coming because I was too tense for him to work with; I was happy to oblige, it being in the interest of health. These moving tables are another of technology’s blessings. Chiropractors have shed the shady reputation they had in years past when the medical profession pounded away at the interloper's treatments as quackery. And there were cultish aspects that did cling to it; some of its practioners said you needed regular adjustments for the rest of your life or something would happen... unhappiness, I think. Even now they are after you to come back two or three more times when it isn't really needed.

I had an old storage shed on our property torn down, a structure the previous owner put up in violation of the Property Owners Association policy. The boss of the wrecking crew was a 30-year Air Force veteran with a no-nonsense manner. With him was an old man who didn’t do much but look on with me as a young guy, early 20s maybe, did easily seventy per cent of the work. He was shirtless and wore flip flops and satin trunks like a boxer; they rode so low on his skinny hips that he was only an inch or two from indecent exposure. He was a dynamo of energy, attacking the walls like they were enemies and dragging the debris to the trailer at a lope. He did not have one single ounce of fat. “Yeah, I’m superman,” he said when I admired how speedy and hard working he was. He had a jabbering way of speaking that was hard to understand. I’m pretty sure he was on meth. He is going to marry his step sister in December. He said they’ve been sweet on each other since they were little kids. It’s Arkansas, folks.