by Barbara Hall
Seeing him, suddenly, she screams. The scream makes him jump and he drops his briefcase.
“Why do you do that?” she demands. “Why do you sneak around on little cat paws?”
“I don’t mean to.”
“You scared me. Jesus.”
“I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. You don’t show up unannounced that often. And you never start cooking without me.”
“I couldn’t wait,” she says, hatcheting some broccoli.
He watches her and waits. He breathes into his rage, his triggers.
Eventually she slows down and turns to him, arms crossed.
“If you are interested,” she says, “I was attacked today.”
“Attacked?”
“Yes. By a nutcase at Oceanside.”
“I was there today. I didn’t hear about it.”
“It wasn’t on your side,” she says.
“What do you mean by attacked?”
“Jumped on. Manhandled.”
“My God. Are you okay?”
“Yes, obviously.”
“Are you hurt?”
“My back has been better. The wine is helping.”
“Do you want something stronger?”
“I’ve had half this bottle. I shouldn’t mix.”
“No, you shouldn’t. Do you want to go to the ER?”
“No, I’ll be all right.”
He moves to the counter and pours himself a scotch. He feels her watching him.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
“Please don’t use the therapist voice,” she says.
“I didn’t mean to use the therapist voice.”
She sighs and shakes her head and undoes her ponytail in a rapid, angry move. She flushes out her hair and runs her fingers through it. He waits.
“Okay,” she says. “Okay, if you want to hear I will tell you.”
He nods.
She takes a deep breath and a forward bend. She comes back up, turns off the vegetables and takes another breath.
“There’s this guy from your side. He used to be on our side. He was admitted for sex addiction. Then in group he started talking about suicide, so that idiot Susan Peltman decided he was probably more suited for trauma. To be honest, we were all relieved. None of us liked him. He had this thing. This way of hijacking group discussions. And it wasn’t about his sex addiction, it was about how he had been done wrong at his last job and no one understood him and he was never good enough for his father and blah blah blah.”
He takes his first sip of scotch and is grateful. It is thick and peaty and reminds him of playing in the woods as a child. Not here in L.A. so much but at the summer camp in Bakersfield where his parents sent him every year. The nearness of the earth, the call of the elements, the tease of fending for oneself, the rumbling of a storm far off which reminded him that he was not in charge. All of that in a glass of copper-colored liquid. He sips again for the purposes of grounding.
“So this guy went to the trauma side for a while, then decided he didn’t like it there and came back to group today. He was all ready to admit to his disease. That’s why they let him back in to group. They were so convinced they let him into my group, which, as you know, is for the highest functioning addicts. Those who have admitted to their disease and want to move on to the next step.”
“Getting their lives in order.”
“Exactly.”
“So if this guy talked his way back in, he must be very convincing.”
“Oh, he is convincing. He’s also handsome. I swear, that’s why Susan Peltman capitulated. She would let a serial killer into group if he had bedroom eyes and a square jaw.”
“All right.”
She sighs and deflates a little. “I know it’s not rocket science. Attractive people always move mountains.”
“So he’s attractive.”
“He’s tall and has a full head of hair. It’s almost white, even though he’s in his early forties. His name is Kit. Though that’s not entirely the truth. His name on his admittance form is Christopher Kelly.”
“Kit sounds like a reasonable nickname.”
“You know how I distrust nicknames. It’s a form of hiding.”
He stares at her for a moment. The scotch has unleashed his tongue.
“You go by Jen,” he says.
“I do not! I go by Jennifer at work. Dr. McCrady if anyone cares but they usually don’t. They are so fond of first names at this place.”
“I have a rule about that.”
“Yes. I know. I am starting to understand your rule. I used to think it was anal but now I see the point.”
She takes a breath and another sip of wine, putting her glass down with a loud clink.
“So we’re in session and this guy, Kit, is trying to take over the discussion. I’m talking about authentic actions and such. You know that’s what I’m in the business of. Authentic actions rather than complaining.”
“Yes.”
“And most of the group are hearing me, following me. But he keeps resisting. He says, ‘What the hell is an authentic action? What if I wanted a drink? Or meaningless sex? Wouldn’t that be an authentic action?’ I said authentic actions are different from defensive actions, all that stuff, and soon the group starts to speak against him. ‘No,’ he says, ‘no, I don’t want to hear rhymes and theories. We are talking about authenticity. I authentically want to go out and get hammered and fuck someone I don’t know.’ Now a small subsection of the group begins to applaud.”
David feels the danger building in her story. He wants to be in the room to stop what’s happening.
“Susan Peltman tries to weigh in, saying, ‘Let’s redirect our focus,’ or whatever nonsense she says. But the next thing you know, the whole group is baying for blood. They want the authentic action of taking a drink. Susan stands and starts yelling at them, calling them bargain-basement drunks, which I guess is emergency language for addicts. They ignore her. Suddenly it’s like a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and she is Nurse Ratchet.”
Jen sees the smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
“Is this funny to you?”
“Not at all. It’s just the way you are telling it. I thought you were trying to be funny.”
She is diverted momentarily, as if imagining herself as a good storyteller. She shakes it off and continues.
“Now this guy Kit is on his feet and he is clapping and doing that cheer from…what is it, Meatballs? The one with Bill Murray?”
David nods, remembering. “It just doesn’t matter.”
“That’s right. He’s clapping and saying, ‘It just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter.’ Now everyone in the group is clapping and chanting, ‘It just doesn’t matter.’”
David is engaged now. He feels as if he’s watching a movie.
“Then what?”
“Then what do you think? The whole group is on their feet. They are walking in a circle, chanting, ‘It just doesn’t matter.’ Susan finds her walkie-talkie and asks for security. They don’t answer. I can see this is going nowhere good. But I can also see that the leader has to be brought down. It’s like some tin dictator. If I can get rid of him, I can restore peace. So I stand and approach Kit and I say, ‘Sit down or this will end badly.’ You know what he says to me? Do you want to know what this guy says to me?”
“Of course.”
“He says, ‘Lady, it’s all going to end badly. That’s how it ends.’”
David feels the smile creeping up again.
“David,” she says, “I’m appalled by you. You think this is funny.”
“No. I don’t. But I think it’s accurate.”
“Accuracy is not the point.”
“I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
Jen takes a long sip of wine and then holds the glass tightly in her hand. She stands very straight and looks him in the eye.
“Thi
s guy Kit grabs me. Grabs me by the arms. I try to wrestle away but he is too strong. He puts me in a choke hold. I feel like I am dying. My life flashes before my eyes. Susan is screaming into the walkie-talkie and the others start to mumble and cry. But Kit keeps on pressing into my neck. I look in his eyes. I see he wants to kill me. I have never seen a thing like that before. I have never seen a thing, let alone a person, that wanted to kill me. But he did.”
David puts his glass of scotch down. He reaches for her without touching her. He is afraid to touch her. He is aware that she is afraid of being touched.
“Jen, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
She sniffs and shakes her hair, and finally peels back the collar of her starched white blouse to reveal plum-colored bruises around her neck.
“Dear God,” he says. “He did that?”
“He did that,” she says, then bows her head and cries into her hand. “I didn’t want to show you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Why are you embarrassed? Can I touch you?”
She shakes her head, still covering her face. “It hurts too much.”
He puts a hand on her arm anyway and asks again why she’s embarrassed.
“Because I know you don’t respect what I do,” she says. “And it’s like I’m getting what I deserve.”
“Don’t say that. How could you think that about me?”
“I don’t. I think it about me.”
“You’re just in shock. Sit down, please.”
She allows herself to be led to a chair. He hands her the glass of wine but she’s still crying too hard to even hold it. He puts it on the table next to her. He waits for a cue from her.
“I’m just a life coach,” she sobs. “I’m just trying to help them learn how to live.”
“I know.”
“I’m not like you. I’m not nice. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck about what hurt them or derailed them. I just want them to get well. I want them to have a chance.”
“I know. I know.”
She sobs for a few more seconds and still he doesn’t know what to do.
Finally she looks up. Her face is wet and ruined like a six-year-old’s.
“I don’t think I can go back there.”
“You shouldn’t for a while.”
“I mean ever. And I mean my profession.”
“You don’t have to make that decision right now.”
“But how am I going to get through my days?”
“Let’s just worry about this one.”
He sits down beside her and takes her hand.
“I guess you can try to hug me,” she says.
He puts his arms around her. She leans in to him.
A sliver of a poem he remembers from freshman English floats up out of nowhere:
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.
Chapter 17
The day after Kit tries to kill the doctor, Willie’s wife Emily comes to visit him. I stand at a window in the common room, watching them out in the garden. They’re sitting on a bench next to a fountain and she is talking fast and touching his knee and his arm and his hair, grooming him like a simian mate, and he is staring at the ground and flicking his cigarette. Sometimes he nods. Emily is a short perky woman with surfer-girl hair and a button nose and perfect posture. I like her energy. I can almost see her aura. I don’t see auras and I’ve never wanted to learn because I don’t need even one more superpower and because I secretly believe people are lying when they say they see auras the way they think I am lying when I say I hear from guides. We don’t believe in what we can’t experience. And we are always jealous of other people’s powers. That’s one of my many theories. I can’t share them because no one ever asks. Maybe Dr. Sutton will ask one day but I think he’s more interested in his own theories, which leak out from time to time even when I don’t ask.
I have the common room completely to myself except for the attendants. The regular crazies wanted to be in their rooms today and the suicidals all asked to see their doctors. I didn’t. That has made the attendants circle around me with watchful eyes. I never mind seeing Dr. Sutton but I also never feel compelled to see him. The head of Oceanside, a Hillary Clinton type in a structured suit of unfortunate color, called an emergency meeting to explain to us what happened with Kit and to tell us that we should all take special care of ourselves in this difficult time. Some of us might get triggered, she said. Some of us might be retraumatized just by hearing the story, she said. That is how PTSD works, she said. Some of the crazies wanted details. Did the guards really shoot Kit? Real bullets or rubber or a tranquilizer dart? Is the doctor really paralyzed now? Was it the life coach lady or Dr. Peltman? Was there a riot? Was it really some Bill Murray cult thing?
Hillary Clinton (her name is actually Dr. Frankenheimer and everyone calls her Frankenstein or just Frank) pushes the manic energy back down with the palms of her hands and says, “It was Dr. McCrady, who has a number of degrees including a PhD, so let’s not call her ‘the life coach lady.’ She is recovering from minor injuries. Mr. Kelly was not shot with anything. He was subdued by the guards and later given a sedative in the clinic. He has been transferred to another location and you need not worry about him. There was no riot and no cult of any kind. It was just a group session that got out of hand because as we now know, Mr. Kelly’s condition was far too advanced for us. He needs stronger supervision and serious medical attention. We’re sorry this had to happen but at least Mr. Kelly can move on to make progress and order is restored here at Oceanside. It is still your safe place. But we encourage you to take the steps you need tomorrow and the rest of the week to reassure yourselves of that. We will be offering any of the individual services you request.”
She went on to say that the common-room hours would be extended and a special meal was being donated by Spago and I can’t even remember what else because it all sounded like bribery. The subtext was “don’t sue.” As if any of us were motivated enough to find a litigator and as if any judge would take something we had to say seriously. Then I remembered that most of the crazies had families and families do like to sue on behalf of their problem children. It’s better when there is someone to blame. It’s better when the problem child can be some sort of cause célèbre. “I did this so that no one else ever has to feel this kind of pain again.” That’s what people say when they exploit their misfortune.
I remember looking at Willie during this meeting and he smiled at me and shook his head as if he found the whole ordeal ridiculous. Later, sitting together over the Spago meal, he leaned into me and said, “Go, Kit. Too bad he didn’t kill her.”
“Did you know her?”
“She’s a cunt.”
“So you know her.”
“I’ve seen her.”
“How do you know she’s a cunt?”
“You can tell. Just the way she walks.”
I smile. “I don’t think they zapped all that rage out, Will.”
“Nah, they left a little just for me.”
“That was nice of them.”
“I think of taking that lady, what’s her name? With the stiff hair and the flapping hands?”
“Dr. Frankensomething.”
“I think of taking her and putting her head through a wall.”
“It might only hurt the wall.”
He laughs hard, then abruptly stops as if he’s forgotten the conversation.
“You’re completely nuts, you know that,” I say.
“Oh, yes.”
“I like that in a person.”
Now I am watching the gentle giant, who might not be so gentle after all, sitting like a great blond Wookie, listening to his wife talk about—what, I wonder? Her work? I can’t remember what he says she does. I can’t remember if he ever said
. She looks like an accountant. Like the bookkeeper for some company full of men and she loves keeping them in line and making fun of them and they like telling her their problems and making her laugh. Is she telling him stories from her work? Is he trying to listen or just pretending to listen?
I have thoughts about Willie that disturb me. I have pictures. I picture us kissing behind the ceramics shed. I picture us stealing a car and running away. Robbing banks across the country. Living in Mexico in a clay hut. Crazy outlaw pictures. I have no idea where they are coming from. They don’t feel like visions. They feel like temptations. When the pictures come I don’t hear the voices and I don’t miss the voices. These pictures are the only things that make me not miss the voices. I hope Willie will leave soon. I hope he will never leave. Paradoxes dance in my head.
“Ms. Lange?”
The voice makes me jump. It is not a stern voice but it is loud. Feels loud, breaking into my paradoxes that way.
It is Dr. Sutton standing in the common room. For a second I feel as if I am seeing him through a fish-eye lens. His face is wide and his nose protrudes and his glasses have a life of their own and he’s wearing a nerdy professor suit from the fifties. Then the distortion eases and it’s only Dr. Sutton with normal features and normal glasses but the same nerdy professor suit from the fifties.
“We don’t have an appointment,” I say.
“I know.”
“That’s why I’m in the common room. Because we don’t have an appointment.”
“I’m aware.”
“So I can’t be in trouble.”
“You are not in trouble.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because of the incident.”
I have momentarily forgotten, caught up in my outlaw dream.
“Oh, the thing with Kit?” I ask.
“The incident with Dr. McCrady.”