The Undertaker

This week we meet Pete. Pete's a podiatrist. Pete does feet. Pete works for the New York State Department of Corrections. He does the inmates' feet. It's a tough job but somebody has to do it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator and author. We hear at the ten
Minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to

(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Pete. Pete is a podiatrist. Pete

(00:46):
does fete. Pete works for the New York State Department
of Corrections. He does the Inmates feat It's a tough job,
but somebody has to do it, the future under Undertaker.

(01:06):
Every Friday, Pete gets to visit Sing Sing, a New
York State correctional facility in Ossinging on the Hudson Sing
Sing is a maximum security prison housing a wide array
of violent characters, including rapists, pedophiles, arsonists, hit men, cannibals,

(01:26):
and serial murderers. Pete, doctor Peter John Locke, works for
the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
He is one of a half dozen pediatrists on staff.
Pete's beat is the Southern Tier and includes a dozen

(01:48):
prisons in Duchess, Putnam, Orange, Westchester, and Rockland Counties. Most
of these prisons, such as Otisville Correctional Facility out in
Orange County and Taconic Correctional Facility in Westchester County, our
medium security prisons populated with bank robbers, swindlers, dope peddlers,

(02:11):
and white collar crooks in for cooking the books and
maybe some grand larceny. Not a particularly violent crew. Pete
doesn't much mind visiting these facilities and taking care of
the inmates foot problems. Most of the men and women
he sees at Otisville and Taconic, at Woodbourne and Wallkill

(02:34):
remind him of the patients he encountered Daihi at his
private practice up in Syracuse. They generally look him in
the eye, engage him in a bit of normal everyday conversation,
ask a few questions about their condition, and inevitably thank
him for taking care of their bunions, planter fasciitis, hammertoes,

(02:57):
warts and ingrown toenail. You see, Pete used to have
a thriving private practice. He spent nearly two decades working
his scrawny butt off six days a week, twelve hours
a day. When COVID hit on on Dagga County in
twenty twenty, Pete owned and operated four pedietary clinics in

(03:21):
and around the city of Syracuse. He had ads on
TV and billboards lining the highways and byways. He was
the friendly, smiling star of these ads. Doctor Locke the
foot dock. You can trust Pete to treat your feet.
Pete was actually a pretty good pedietrist, but he was

(03:44):
a lousy businessman. He had spread himself way too thin,
too much rent, too many employees, too much overhead, too
many ads. Pete was just hanging on by a thread
when COVID struck and overnight it decimated his client base.

(04:04):
Whereas his clinics had been treating a hundred or more
patients a day in February of twenty twenty, by early March,
that number had dwindled to a dozen or less. Not
only were folks paranoid to leave their houses, but Pete
was only permitted to treat emergency cases. As the governor

(04:25):
had put the entire state in lockdown. New York and
really the whole country was one big giant prison. Well,
Pete went belly up. He had to declare bankruptcy, close
his clinics, lay off his employees, and ask his undertaker
father in law for financial assistance. The ancient embalmer, as

(04:49):
tight with a buck as a Highland clergyman, wrote Pete
a small check and grumbled to have my only grandchildren
under your roof. I want them warm and I want
them fed. And then he added, you should forget about
treating feats on no future at all, in feet, no
future death. That's the business to be in. Pete's wife

(05:14):
leaned on him, also, Daddy, you know he's made a fortune, Peter,
he really has, and you know he wants to retire soon.
McLeod funeral home could be yours. Well. Pete had about
as much desire to be an undertaker as he had
to stick a red hot poker in his eye, and

(05:35):
even less desire than that to work under his father
in law. So he searched and searched for a pedietary position,
and he finally found one with the New York State
Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. Well, Pete's wife and
kids refused to leave their bi level in Baldwinsville. So

(05:58):
Pete leaves home at three zero o'clock in the morning
on Mondays and heads south. He does his rounds and
then checks into the Day's Inn on the Jericho Turnpike
in Woodbury. Four nights a week. He spends there at
the Day's Inn, checking out Friday mornings, before completing his
Friday rounds and finally driving back to Baldwinsville for the weekend.

(06:23):
It's a crappy, depressing existence, but Pete, a perky an
optimistic guy, makes the best of it. He tries to
keep a stiff upper lip, though it can be tough
in his gloomy, dimly lit days in room. At three
point thirty in the morning, when he wakes up to

(06:44):
the sound of guests in the next room fournicating for
the fourth time since he returned from dinner at the
Olive Garden sing Sing Friday. That's what Pete calls it,
his least favorite stop on the prisons circuit. Driving across
the bare Mountain Bridge and down Route nine south of Peakskill,

(07:07):
Pete hopes his services will not be needed today. He hopes.
He parks his Chevrolet, enters the gatehouse, passes through security,
and finds out not a single inmate has a problem
with his feet Hallelujah. Of course Pete knows this is
magical and futile thinking. The inmates at Sing Sing, many

(07:31):
of them incarcerated for life, take every opportunity to meet
with people on the outside. Pediatrists, dentists, doctors, lawyers, aid workers, friends,
and even ex wives. They ain't picky about the company
they keep. Now it takes time to get inside. Pete

(07:52):
must pass through three checkpoints, show his credentials, and open
his bag. At each point, place his finger on a
fingerprint pad, have an eye scan, and correctly answer three
security questions. City were born Baldwinsville nickname of oldest child, Scooter,

(08:13):
favorite pastime playing with my kids. These are some very
bad dudes behind the bars and walls of Sing Sing,
dudes who have committed some of society's most horrendous and
hideous crimes. Terence Muller, for instance. Muller is Pete's first

(08:34):
patient today. The guards, who rarely have much to say,
gush over Muller. Well, you get a load of this cat, doc.
He's a fucking nut job extraudinaire. We'll be right there
with you though, in the room. But still you gotta
watch your ass. You gotta he's sneaky, he's crazy, and

(08:55):
he's just playing me. Well, what did he do? Ask
speed killing Spray barricaded himself in an office building with
a bunch of hostages, people he'd been working with for years.
He tied him up, tortured him, dismembered him, chopped there. Oh, okay,
I get the picture. That's good, that's enough. He's definitely

(09:17):
one of the birds who would have fried an old
Sparky had this state not abolished the death penalty back
and ought for old Sparky. Asks Pete. Well, that's what
we affectionately call the chair, you know, the electric chair
where we cooked the really bad guys like like Muller. Yeah,

(09:37):
that's it, docake Muller. So, so what's wrong with him
with his feet? Don't know, feet hurt? I guess, But doc,
listen one tip, one tip, Doc, So listen up. Okay,
I'm listening. Don't look at him. Don't look him in
the eye, dude, do not look him in the eye.
Make eye contact with him for even an instant and

(09:59):
he flips out batshit crazy. A few minutes later, the
guards bring Muller into the examining room. He's a short,
squat guy built like a brickshit house, as wide as
he is tall, square head, buzz cut, wild haywire eyes,

(10:19):
and all amped up, twitching and flinching, making weird throat
noises like a dude with turetts. The guards have his
feet shackled and his wrists cuffed behind his back. Good morning,
says Pete. I'm doctor Jones. Pete never gives his real name.
What seems to be the problem today? Now I'm in

(10:41):
for lifetoc now, no chance at parol, no chance at all.
The voice is high pitched, almost effeminate. It throws Pete
for a loop. I I'm sorry to hear that, mister Muller.
I didn't do it. Now, I didn't do it. I'm innocent.
I'm innocent. Pete wants to look at the man, but
he's afraid to make eye contact, afraid to raise the

(11:01):
convict's ire. Well, I'm just here today to have a
look at your feet, mister Muller. It's my big toe, doc,
both of them, both, my big toes. They throb night
and day. They throb, both of them, both, the big toes. Well,
why don't we have a look. The guards unshackle Muller's
ankles and remove his sneakers and socks. His feet stink

(11:23):
to high heaven. But years ago Pete learned to disconnect
himself from his old factory gland. He pulls on surgical
gloves and has a look at the murderer's big toes.
He says, I'm going to squeeze your toes a bit.
If that's okay, mister mullerhait. Whatever you gotta do, Doc,
whatever you gotta do, just just get rid of the pain. Doc,

(11:45):
get rid of the pain. Pete gives the right toe
a squeeze. Yeows ah, shouts Muller. Same reaction when Pete
squeezes the left toe. Both toes are red and swollen.
Has anyone mentioned gout to you, asks Pete. I don't
know nothing about no gout, says Mueller. Pete sits up,

(12:08):
pulls off his gloves. Well, it's a condition caused by
too much uric acid in the blood. Foods high in
uric acid are certain meats, especially organ meats like liver
and kidney, certain types of seafood, also sugary soft drinks,
and especially alcohol. These are all things you should avoid
if you were prone to gout. You know what, Doc,

(12:30):
you know what? What's that? Mister Muller, Everything you say,
every word, you know what, it sounds like. It sounds
like bullshit. The remark causes Pete to forget the guard's advice.
His head comes up, and an instant later, he looks
inmate number six sixty six, Terence Muller, directly in the eye.

(12:53):
Muller lets out a shriek, wrenches forward and headbuts the
pediatrist in the forehead. Pete flies back, smacks the back
of his head on the floor, and knocks himself out cold.
And when he comes to a couple of minutes later,
forehead gushing blood, eyes rolling around in his head, he

(13:13):
sees the guards beating inmate Muller to a bloody pulp.
Muller just laughs and laughs and laughs, a wild, raging
ear piercing well. For Christ's sakes, Doc shouts the guard,
I told you not to look the crazy bastard in
the eye. Later, on the way back to Baldwinsville, forehead

(13:36):
gash closed up with eight stitches, skull pounding, giant eggs
throbbing on both the front and back of his head,
Pete contemplates the pros and cons of becoming an under Undertaker.
The pros win the day. Hey, thanks for listening to

(14:03):
this original audio presentation of the future Undertaker narrated by
the author. If you enjoyed today's story, please take a
few seconds to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast,
and then go to Thomas Williamsimpson dot com for additional

(14:24):
information about the author and to view his extensive canon.
The Ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Plaglsi and
Josh Colotney and as part of the Elvis Duran Podcast
Network in partnership with iHeart Productions. Until next time, this

(14:44):
is Bill Simpson, your ten Minute Storyteller.