Albert’s handsome face became a mask of disdain. I understood that in fact he was embarrassed and frightened, but his strong features and dark skin would appear scary to a stranger, especially a white stranger. “Shit,” he mumbled.
“What did you say, Albert?” the judge asked.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to talk out of turn.”
Torres nodded for me to proceed.
I asked, “Albert, would you like to have sex with Shawna?”
Albert frowned. He snapped his fingers three times quickly, as if summoning a waiter. “That what she mean?”
“The judge would like to know if you want to have sex with children.”
“That what she think of me?” he asked, not demanded.
“No, Albert,” Torres said. “I don’t know. I’m asking.”
“Don’t she know?” Albert continued talking to me as if we were alone in the room. I’m sure that rudeness seemed arrogant. I knew it to be fear.
“You should tell the judge everything. That’s the only way you can be sure she knows what she needs to know. You can’t count on us.”
Albert faced Torres like a soldier reporting. “I can’t do it, you know? I can’t have sex. They say my …”he gestured, shyly, at his crotch, “they say it’s fine. But not in my head, you know? It’s uglified. Rafe—I mean, the doctor—he thinks it will change. But I don’t know. I can’t fuck anybody.” Al realized the word he had used and quickly added, “Sorry, I don’t mean to disrespect you. That’s just the word, you know. I’m sorry.”
Embarrassed, Bartell averted his face from Albert to stare at Torres’s shelves. He had read my report so I assume his reaction was to the spectacle of Albert’s admission of impotence, not to the fact.
Torres, however, reacted well. She was matter-of-fact. “Albert, I see now how I misunderstood you. I don’t think I asked you the right question. Let’s say Dr. Neruda is right. I’m sure we all have confidence he is, and your problem eventually goes away and you can have sex whenever and with whomever you wish. Okay? Can we suppose that?”
“Yes, ma‘am,” Albert said.
“Would you then try to have sex with a child?”
“Course not.” Albert was insulted. I knew because he sucked in his left cheek as if to bite it. “I thought I said that.”
Torres looked down at the papers on her desk. She spoke with a lowered head. “Dr. Neruda, at your clinic there is no security, correct? Any of the young men could simply walk out?”
“Yes.”
“Your Honor,” Stoppard began, “they are supervised at all times—”
“I know, Counselor. I meant, specifically, that they are not locked in at night or during the day for that matter. Their presence and time is accounted for, but they’re on their honor in terms of leaving the grounds, is that correct?”
I answered, “They are not permitted to leave the grounds without us and they are supervised, but there is no physical barrier to escape. Of course, Albert has lived within those rules for the past six months.”
“There was a seven-month gap between Albert’s attack on Shawna and the child at the shelter. What makes you confident that Albert will continue to be responsible?”
“I’ve worked with Albert five days a week and sometimes on weekends for six months. That is the equivalent of years of therapy for most people. I believe I know him well, perhaps better than anyone but Albert himself. His desire to live a productive self-sufficient life, a life where he can be a useful member of our world, is very strong. In fact, I believe his violence against Shawna was a perverted expression of a desire to be helped out of the hopelessness and violence of his family. I don’t think Albert will run from his friendships and his work at our clinic because it’s a safe place for him. As you know, he and the other boys are tutored daily. They have the opportunity to make friends in the local basketball and soccer leagues. He has a life with us that he would miss. That’s the best barrier against violence and escape anyone can create.”
Judge Torres opened a folder and gestured at a paper. “I have an amicus brief filed by the Yonkers Adolescent Center and Metropolitan State. They both endorse your therapy, Doctor, and recommend Albert stay at your clinic. But they also decline to agree with your statement that Albert isn’t dangerous to himself or others. Met State goes so far as to recommend that you install security measures. I’m sure you understand, Doctor, that my concern for Albert’s well-being must be secondary to the well-being of society. Besides what you have already said, what further assurance can you give me that Albert won’t do harm to others?”
“I can’t think of anything, Your Honor, except that I am putting my clinic, both its federal and state funding, as well as my own money, at risk. If Albert runs away or is violent then our work and my reputation will be severely damaged. May I also comment that, in my opinion, the reservations expressed by Yonkers and Met State are a statement for their self-protection, rather than a prediction of Albert’s behavior.”
Torres smiled shyly. “I’m afraid, Doctor, that as a jurist I can’t read beneath the lines as you do in your profession. I must take them, as I take you, at face value.”
“I understand,” I smiled back. “As I say, I’m prepared to stake my reputation and the survival of our clinic on Albert. That’s as much confidence as I’ve got in me.”
Torres said, “And that’s as much confidence as the law has a right to expect.” She opened her hands in a gesture to Albert. “It’s up to you. You have a chance to make a good life for yourself, Albert.”
CHAPTER TEN
Change
A WEEK PASSED WITHOUT GENE APPEARING. FINALLY HE LEFT A MESSAGE saying he would come in at his regular time the next day and I should call back if there was a problem. I cleared the hour—Diane and I had planned to have lunch—but didn’t respond, curious to see if he needed reassurance to show up.
He didn’t. He entered with a determined air, a new attitude, striding to his chair, sitting upright, eyes unflinching. “You’re right,” he said. He waved a hand. “I thought about it for days and days. I practically crashed my car into a tree going back to the office—you know, the day I walked out. By the way,” he said, glancing away briefly, then forcing his eyes to me, “I’m not paying for the two sessions I missed. You threw me out. I mean, that’s what seems fair. I know I left, but you pushed me out.”
Gee, that meant I would be out one hundred dollars. “I agree,” I said solemnly. “Does this mean we’re resuming therapy?”
“If you’re willing,” Gene said. “You’re right. I’m weak. I’m scared. I’m chicken. I’m going to start behaving differently, but I could use a friend—” He stopped. “But you’re not a friend, are you?”
“I feel friendly toward you. Friendship is different than being a doctor and a patient, though.”
“I need your help,” Gene said boldly, not sounding as if he needed anyone. “Is that bad? Is that part of what’s wrong with me?”
“In a way.”
“So I shouldn’t be here?”
“If you are going to make a serious effort to change your life, it’s reasonable to want an ally. I’m happy to be in my comfortable boat rowing along while you swim to a new land, Gene. I won’t get wet. I won’t drown. I don’t think you’ll drown either. What I don’t want is to stand beside you on the shore wondering if the water’s safe. It isn’t safe. And I can’t do the swimming for you.”
Gene became thoughtful and silent for a while. He crossed his legs, rubbed his chin, and then commented, “I think I should ask for a raise.”
“So do I.”
“Stick has invited me to his house. I mean Pete and Cathy too. For a barbecue. Black Dragon has a green light. We have to have a prototype in a year. I know what that means. In a month, he’ll cut the deadline to six months. I’m going to be working like a dog. And I’m the project director. He can’t trust me with the company’s biggest new product and pay me fifty thousand.”
“Sounds
right.”
Without any transition, Gene said in a rush of words, “I’ve been going to prostitutes.”
I waited for him to elaborate. He shrugged and seemed to wait for me. “This past week?” I asked tentatively, “Or … ?”
“No, for the whole time I’ve been seeing you. I’m up to about once a week now. I’ve been seeing this one—uh, she’s a blonde—her name, well, she says her name is Tawny. That’s not her real name.”
“Doesn’t sound it.”
“I’ve lied to you about it.”
“Okay.”
“Ever since that time in Boston, I’ve been going to whores. And I never told you.”
“Gene, that’s your privilege. You want to lie to me, you’re going to succeed.”
“You’re not angry?”
“Not about your going to prostitutes.”
“But you are angry?”
“I’m annoyed you didn’t tell me, because that meant you wasted some of your time here, and that means you wasted some of mine as well.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Okay. Do you want to talk about it now?”
He did, in a detailed narrative, with relief and some enthusiasm in his voice. While still living in Massachusetts, he noticed ads in a giveaway paper at the mall’s drugstore. He called one, telling himself he was curious if it was real, incredulous that an illegal activity could be solicited openly. He hung up on hearing a woman’s voice ask if she could help. That fascinated him, the way the prostitute answered. “Hello? Can I help you?” He phoned four more times, he estimated, cutting the line on her greeting. Eventually he answered, asking for details. She described her body in numbers, said what she would do (some of her offerings were in code words he didn’t understand) and named her price. Her blunt manner wasn’t a turn-off; it was his own reaction that appalled him: he was eager to try her. The only thing about the whore’s sales pitch that daunted him was the cost—one hundred and twenty-five dollars for an hour. There were a few weeks of temptation before he tried one and there was another month or two, when he moved to Westchester, before he found another giveaway paper, made calls, and settled on seeing “Tawny” regularly. I asked if he was concerned about AIDS. “Oh no. They’re clean and also they make you use a condom. Even when they give you head.”
I offered no comment or judgment. He seemed to be deliberately draining sex of passion as well as emotion. Also, there was anger in his actions. That was immediately clear, at least to me, when I asked Gene to describe how it became a regular habit.
“I didn’t go a lot at first. But since I started seeing you last summer, and especially since we talked about how little sex …” He interrupted himself with an irritated outburst, “I’m sick of begging my wife. Instead of begging I just go and get what I want.”
“And you like blowjobs.”
That was hard for him. He swallowed and answered grimly, “Yeah, I like blowjobs. I guess that makes me a creep.”
“A creep? I think it makes you a normal, ordinary man.”
“Why am I going more and more since I started seeing you? You’re supposed to make me better. I’m getting worse.”
“Well, for one thing, you didn’t talk about it. You didn’t deal with it here.”
“That’s true.”
“And there’s also the possibility that you’re doing what you want, that you don’t want to have sex with Cathy, that you like having an accommodating partner with no emotional complications.”
Gene stared at me angrily, but what he said was, “No, I don’t. I feel bad about it. I feel like a loser. If I’m doing what I want, why does it make me feel bad?”
“If you’re not doing what you want, why are you doing it?”
“Because I’m a loser.”
“Maybe that’s what you want. To feel pleasure and then feel like a loser afterwards.”
[I did not offer a full analysis of the visits to prostitutes. I did not tell him outright, nor lead him to what I suspected, namely that this was another avoidance of expressing anger, secretly punishing his wife without risk of counterattack or rejection. There was also the rebellion and anger at me, for making him face his sexual deprivation. Each time we met and he didn’t tell me that a twenty-two-year-old girl had been bobbing her head on his erection the day before, he no doubt felt a secret victory over me, that I was not all-knowing, that he was not merely the mild-mannered Gene Kenny, but a competent man who knew how to get what he wanted when he wanted. Why didn’t I probe this area? It’s a paradox of therapy. I didn’t because Gene wanted me to for the wrong reason: to punish him for his anger and his self-gratification. I chose to expose the cause: his need for pleasure; and the neurosis: his fear of seeking it openly.]
Our talks stayed on the surface, a cool, somewhat superficial review of his behavior, rather than searching for underlying conflict or motive. We had moved from character analysis to reports of action and effect. In a sense, the therapy was over. He wanted me to coach him, to cheer him on, to be an eavesdropper as he wrestled with the self he had known all his life, in particular the inclination to thwart his own desires. If Gene asked me to supply a judgment, such as going to whores is bad, I declined. When he said he wanted to wait until Black Dragon was under way before asking Stick for a raise, so that he would have more leverage, I said, “I don’t think he can replace you anytime.” Rather than explore the rationalization, the power of his fantasy of punishment by Stick if he made any demand, or its origin in his relationship with his parents, I emphasized the here and now. The notion was simple: force Gene to act more confident than he felt, hoping that behavior would tow feeling.
[How is this different from behavior modification? First, because of the years of analysis that preceded it. Second, I never dictated any action, I merely cut the ropes of fear.]
Gene’s prediction about Stick moving up the schedule for Black Dragon was accurate. At the barbecue, Stick asked Gene to help him with the cooking. While assembling trays of chopped meats and chicken, Stick admitted he had lied in his estimate to the marketing and sales VPs, as well as to the Dragon Team, so that when they needed more money than was budgeted, as he knew they would, he could offer a quicker finish as the inducement. And Stick confessed to a darker motive. Another group, led by Copley’s main rival at Minotaur, was at work on a machine slated to be their next new product. Were Black Dragon to be ready as soon as January 1990, it would knock out his rival’s machine. If Stick’s accelerated schedule became known at this stage, his rival and the marketers in the company—the men Copley hoped might one day name him CEO—would disapprove: Minotaur couldn’t sell both machines simultaneously.
Excited and flattered that Copley confided in him, Gene overlooked the manipulation and deception involved, satisfied to be an intimate. And, thrilled to be at a gathering with no one else at his level (the other guests included only Minotaur management) Gene became convinced if Dragon worked Stick would promote him. On top of all these delights was a bonus. Gene met Stick’s twenty-six-year-old daughter for the first time. He brought her into his account of the splendid afternoon repeatedly: “Then Halley said something great. I can’t remember exactly how she put it, but …” he went on to paraphrase her observation. They were cynical, one a smart crack about her father being so ruthless he used to cheat while playing Candyland with her. “She’s really beautiful,” Gene told me. “I mean, she’s incredibly beautiful. And so fucking smart. I couldn’t believe how smart she was.” His open enthusiasm was unusual; as an isolated interest, I paid it little attention. She was the daughter of a man he more or less worshipped, for one thing. And he was switched on sexually in general, full of anger at his rejecting wife, made more confident by the illusion of successful sex “Tawny” provided, as well as by the glamour and excitement of the event itself. He was giddy—Gene even spoke admiringly of Stick’s barbecue sauce.
“What about the raise?” I asked.
He went deaf, a familiar defense. “What?”
; I repeated the question. Again, he said, “What?”
“You said you were going to ask Copley for a raise,” I elaborated to improve his hearing. “Did you bring that up?”
“It was a party,” Gene protested.
“Sounded like you had a long business talk in private while making burgers in the kitchen. You could have brought it up then.”
Gene scowled, raised his right hand to his thick eyebrow, and stroked it thoughtfully. “Cathy told me not to.”
“She was in the kitchen?”
“No,” he almost groaned the word. “Before we went. I told her what you said I should do and—”
“Hold it. I didn’t tell you to ask for a raise. You told me you wanted to ask for a raise.”
“You know I could buy a book for this kind of stuff. What You Want and How to Get It.”
I laughed, delighted. “You’re right. Assertiveness training. We can go on Donahue together. Gene, I’ll be the first to admit that we’re no longer doing traditional therapy. Anytime you want to stop is fine. Anyway, I’m surprised at Cathy. I thought she feels Stick is taking advantage of you.”
“Yeah, but, after all, I’ve worked for Stick for seven years and this was the first time he had us to his house. She thought it was rude to ask him for money the very first time he had us over. I mean, she didn’t know he was going to have a private talk … you know, and I had promised her I wouldn’t bring it up so …”
“Did you want to bring it up?”
“Yeah I did.”
“But you didn’t because you had promised Cathy not to?”
“Okay, I’m a schmuck. I have to have Mommy’s permission.”
“See? That’s why we’re not doing traditional therapy anymore. You already know the answers. You know you need Mommy’s permission and I’m sure you remember that Don didn’t ask the gallery owner to pay him for the shelves.”
Gene smiled. “I wish I could throw up on an art book right now,” he said. He conceded he ought to discuss his salary with Stick. In fact, I wasn’t especially concerned about his work relationships. Stick had trusted Gene to be Black Dragon’s project director and Gene seemed to have little trouble with the men under him. Perhaps his experiences as an unfairly treated employee taught him to manage subordinates well. More likely, the comfort of having authority allowed him to assert himself, and his gentle nature inspired others to be independent and creative. Gene often praised the kid hackers under him, commenting that they had all the ideas, he merely got out of their way and occasionally checked their homework. “I’m like a kindergarten teacher with a classful of geniuses. I just make sure they don’t eat the crayons.” His desire to wait until Stick admitted the importance of Black Dragon—as he had at the barbecue—before asking for a raise seemed to me to make good sense. That he didn’t seize his first opportunity was no crime.
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