Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

by Rafael Yglesias

  I turned to go.

  “No!” Joe shouted. Looking back, I saw Harlan had stepped away, off to the left. My friend was on his feet, yelling at me. “Come on! Give me something.”

  Harlan, Diane and Joseph were positioned on three sides of me, a triangle that felt like an ambush. I couldn’t hold down my sadness at my friend’s condition much longer. I knew right away what his death would mean to me. He was, the last connection to my childhood, the last person who knew me when I felt normal: the son of loving, energetic parents, part of a world that made sense.

  “Remember Portnoy’s Complaint?” I said and giggled nervously. I had lost control.

  Joseph lifted his glasses to wipe his wet face. “What?” he mumbled.

  “Remember how much you liked it? You said it was your autobiography.”

  Joe’s mouth hung open stupidly as he nodded.

  “Philip Roth fucks women. He loves fucking women. Maybe he’s really gay and you’re really heterosexual. It doesn’t matter, Joseph. Theory is garbage. Ideas are white noise.” I smiled and opened my hands to the triangle of questions, gesturing to each, showing them that’s all I had to offer. They didn’t seem satisfied. I let my arms go wide and then slapped my chest hard with my palms, shouting, “We live here! Here! In our bodies.”

  Harlan returned to Joseph’s side, putting an arm around his small lover’s shoulders. They looked at me as if I were a performer and they hadn’t made up their minds if they were enjoying the show.

  “You’re not dying because you’re gay. And I won’t tell you why you’re gay. I know, but I’m not gonna tell you. Why not? Because you’re happy about it. You’ve always been happy about it. We’re not supposed to look at happiness, Joseph. It’s the face of God.”

  He said something. So did Diane. I don’t remember what. I think I ended up crying more than Joseph, I’m not sure. I do remember that he teased me about it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Adjustment

  PHIL SAMUEL CAME TO NEW YORK ON OTHER BUSINESS. HE SUGGESTED we meet for breakfast in Greenwich Village at Elephant & Castle, a restaurant whose clientele, wobbly wood tables, piped-in classical music, and menu of spinach omelets, croissants, and espresso provides the sort of atmosphere a tourist would expect from the neighborhood’s bohemian reputation. Actually, it’s a dowdy relic of the sixties, a haven for the now decidedly bourgeois population of aging gays, radicals and artists who live in the expensive town houses nearby. Phil beamed at our surroundings. He was dressed in a white Brooks Brothers button-down shirt, a single-breasted blue blazer that was an inch too short in the sleeves and beige corduroys smoothed at the knees.

  After we ordered, he said, “I love New York. My wife and I came here for breakfast on our honeymoon.” He leaned forward to ask in a whisper about our waitress, “Is that a woman?” Her skinny body was covered in black, her head shaved to the nubs of a crew cut, and a diamond was embedded in her right nostril.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Lesbian?” he asked, eyes restless, scanning the patrons.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But not necessarily. Fifteen years from now she could be living in Scarsdale raising three kids.”

  He laughed heartily.

  “Although,” I added, “even raising kids in Scarsdale, she might still be a lesbian.”

  “Right!” he said and laughed again. Our waitress reappeared. She plunked our coffees down with a sullen attitude, as if we were her boring male relatives and Mom had nagged her into helping out. “Thank you,” he said, trying to be friendly.

  “Un huh,” she said and wandered off.

  “Don’t the kids at Webster dress like that?” I asked.

  “Not that far-out.”

  “Far-out,” I said.

  “Groovy,” he said and laughed again.

  I asked after his family. Listening to him talk cheerfully about how he strained his back rollerblading with his seven-year-old daughter, or describe rising at dawn to take his nine-year-old son for hockey practice, I both envied him and felt I couldn’t understand him. This was a contented man, rounded so as not to bruise on the world’s sharp corners. What made him want to be a psychologist, albeit a researcher, specializing in child abuse? Was Diane right not to trust this kind of removed scientist, living in suburban academia? Was this man driven to find proof that children were unreliable witnesses to abuse because, for him, the thought of adults savagely tormenting children was unthinkable, as difficult to imagine as the gender of our waitress? And what did it say about me that a paradigm of normality seemed as odd—and as unlikely—as a little green man from Mars?

  I asked whether he had helped the defense in the MacPherson case, as Diane’s friend Jonas claimed.

  “They saw the mouse study and asked me to testify. Tell you the truth, the case is so bad, I almost did. But I couldn’t do it in good conscience. The mouse study doesn’t prove anything about testimony of sexual abuse. Who told you they contacted me?”

  “You did. You told Jonas, and he told a colleague who told me.”

  “No kidding. I was only teasing Jonas. I wanted to get under his skin. He attacked the mouse study at the San Francisco conference. Don’t tell me he took me seriously.”

  “Apparently.” Gossip among professionals is always suspect and I decided not to press this point. Anyway, I hadn’t trusted Diane’s information.

  “I was stunned by the results,” he said when I brought up my reaction to the mouse study and the question at hand—whether I would give him the videotape of Diane’s work with the Peterson girls. I told him no on the phone; I reassured Diane that my purpose in seeing Phil was to sound him out. She hadn’t convinced me that her work with the Peterson girls was her private property and should be withheld from science at her whim. I agreed to see Phil to give him a chance to convince me of his objectivity (relatively speaking, of course); then I could give him the video with a clear conscience, although I would be risking a bitter quarrel with Diane. That was the dare. Could I oppose her when I knew disobedience might destroy our relationship, a relationship I valued more and more every day? The old Rafe (or should I say the young Rafe?) had been roused from his long sleep and now he whispered that the way out was to be secretive, to slip the tape to Phil without telling Diane, and accomplish both objectives, the testing of our methods and the preservation of my love.

  “You expected the kids not to make up stories?” I asked.

  “No. Kids are always making up stuff. I expected them to be sloppy. You know, not consistent from one account to another. Fantasy becoming reality, or really memory—that I didn’t expect.”

  “Maybe they’re just being stubborn.”

  Phil frowned and shook his head. “With all us grown-ups telling them it’s okay to admit they made it up? No punishment, no questions asked? What’s to be stubborn about?”

  “Perhaps they’re being stubborn about their pride in themselves, in the integrity of their identities. I think children care much more about their dignity than truthfulness. Truth doesn’t count for much in their world. In their world, the hypocrites are in charge.”

  “What?” Phil had taken a bite of his croissant. Flakes lingered on his lips. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, swallowed and said, “You’re not going in for that.”

  “Going in for what?”

  “You know, that old sixties nonsense—the world’s corrupt so no one can make rules. Parents have to set limits. These kids come from good homes. Consistent parenting. Reasons always given. They aren’t being raised by hypocrites.”

  “Really? Then they’re truly exceptional. Hypocrisy is the logic of parenthood.”

  “Come on. What the hell does that mean? That’s an irresponsible statement.”

  “Phil, it’s merely an observation. Adults tell what we call white lies or break trivial rules at least several times a day in front of their children. The phone rings. Don’t say I’m here, you shout to your spouse. You order them not to cross against a red light, but you do it
when you’re in a hurry. They overhear you complain bitterly about your in-laws and you don’t let them show even a flicker of irritation at Thanksgiving. You complain your boss is an idiot, but they can’t say a word against their teachers—”

  Phil cut me off. “That’s a ridiculous comparison. The lie about the mouse is elaborate and has no value. Children understand the difference between lies of convenience and make-believe.”

  “I wasn’t making a comparison, Phil. I was merely saying that truthfulness is not highly valued by children. And there is a motive for the mouse lie. They’re preserving their right to be believed, a very important thing to establish once a child is going to school and has a life outside the home. Very few parents react to controversies over fact between their child and the outside world with complete faith in their child’s version. And yet children want their parents, of all people, to have blind faith in their veracity. Admit you lied about the mouse and you might not be believed ever again.”

  Phil frowned, pushed his plate away—there was only a hard nub of croissant left—wiped his mouth, took a sip of coffee, and stared down at the table. He was thinking it over—a hopeful sign. “I don’t know … I’m not sure I buy it. Anyway, it’s not subject to proof. It’s in the realm of speculation and I don’t—I’ve never had much faith in pure theory.”

  “It’s no more of a theory, Phil, than your study’s conclusion.”

  He sat up straight and stared at the top of my head. “Our conclusion is based on the data.”

  “No, there’s a leap of faith, namely that children don’t know the difference between fantasy and reality, that it isn’t a willful lie. And you’re not consistent, Phil. A moment ago you said children know the difference between lies of convenience and make-believe. Your mouse study created an unrealistic situation: there was no penalty for telling a lie. Phil, how many adults do you think would tell the truth if there was no consequence to being caught? Why do we have perjury laws? When you first brought the kids in to be asked questions, were they impressed with the need to be honest? Were they sworn in? No, a friendly stranger was playing a game, the kind of conversational inquisition that children experience every day, that they frequently spice up with their fluid imagination. Then, they’re doubted. Suddenly the rules have changed. Accuracy and truth are paramount.”

  “But that’s the point. That’s how we interrogate children about child abuse. We don’t bring them to a police station or make them swear on a Bible.”

  “Sure, but we don’t say we’re merely asking some questions to while away an afternoon. Disturbed kids are brought in to see doctors to help make them better: it’s not a casual situation from the start. And we don’t ask questions casually, giving no more weight to whether an adult played with their genitals than to whether they’ve ever been to a baseball game. Children are not that insensitive to their surroundings. They know saying their father sodomized them is of a different order of importance than whether they accuse a make-believe mouse of biting them.”

  “That’s exactly why we’re doing the pediatrician study. That’s exactly why I need to copy you technique. I need to test the real situation.”

  Now he got me thinking. I looked into his eyes, earnestly searching mine, and felt convinced of his sincerity.

  He pressed me. “Look, I haven’t come to any conclusions. It’s easy for a kid to make up a story about a mouse. They’ve got all the information they need for the invention. I don’t see how a kid who’s never been molested could know how to make it up. But we need to do a study to confirm that, or the mouse results will seem to prove kids aren’t reliable.”

  “No one’s reliable, Phil. That’s the point. Anyone, at any age, can tell a willful lie.”

  “Too unreliable. I think you’re splitting hairs, I really do. Anyway, if we follow your clinic’s technique you should have nothing to be afraid of.”

  I stared at the empty chair beside me. On it, inside a manila envelope, was a duplicate of the tape he wanted. I hadn’t brought it prepared to be convinced. At least, I told myself that. I tasted the old fear and weakness in my belly, the suspicious lonely adolescent revisited: unsure of anyone’s version of the truth, frightened to pick a side, wanting to know and yet scared of the answer.

  I made him repeat his promises. He would view the tape twice that evening, make thorough notes of Diane’s technique, and drop it off at my apartment on his way out of town the following morning. No one would know. It would be our secret.

  But deceiving Diane was worrisome; and of course, as the cliché tells us, it is a tangled web. I was caught in it immediately, on my way into the clinic. Diane followed me into my office to ask how the breakfast had gone and I had to make up a different ending to the meeting. Even so, the partial truth I told—that I was convinced of Phil’s sincerity—provoked a reproof. “He’s bullshitting you,” she said. “He says he’s objective and when his study is done, he’ll point to his skewed results as the reason he’s changed his mind.”

  “I don’t believe that,” I said and yet her conviction left me in doubt. Underneath, despite layers of education, training, and the scars of experience, was I too trusting: a simpleminded child in a world of devious adults?

  Anyway, it was done. The video was returned as promised with thanks and a note that he was impressed by the technique.

  In the months that followed things went well at the clinic; the severe cases we took into round-the-clock care made excellent progress. We were losing money, but not so much that I couldn’t make up for the deficit. I signed a contract to write a book about our in-residence therapy of disturbed children that would cover the losses for two years. Reports from and about Albert were encouraging. His grades were good—B’s—and he had made many friends at Dorrit House. Diane’s involvement in the Peterson case finished with a settlement that forbade visitation to the grandparents and included their paying for ongoing therapy for the girls. (Because they had moved, Diane was not going to be their therapist.) The grandfather refused treatment for himself, in spite of the fact that if he had agreed there was a promise that the visitation ban might be lifted.

  In February of 1990, after a five-month silence, Gene called. He was ebullient. Black Dragon was finished. He and Halley—he had to remind me she was Stick’s daughter—were presenting it at the Annual Computer Convention in a few days. Could he come see me before he left?

  I offered the end of that day, six o’clock. He arrived fifteen minutes late—an unprecedented event. I was about to leave, convinced his tardiness meant an emergency cancellation.

  “Wow, you’ve sure made a lot of changes,” he commented. He could have been speaking about himself. He was dressed differently, in pleated rust corduroys with wide wales and cuffs, a black turtleneck, and an expensive-looking jacket, also black, yet decorated with subtle flecks of white. His shoes were fashionable too, black oxfords with orange stitching and thick soles. Though each item, taken separately, was eclectic, the whole came together and made Gene appear at once an academic and a retired millionaire. His hair style had also changed—the thick locks were trimmed and moussed straight back, showing off his high forehead, surprisingly small delicate ears and lending an impression of forcefulness that was helped by the direct look in his eyes. He hadn’t entirely overcome his tendency to avoid contact, but his glances were surveys, rather than shy downward demurrals. “Looks like you’re running a hotel.”

  “We house some patients here now and we keep staff overnight as well—hence the dorm.”

  “Oh …”he nodded and continued to look boldly at his surroundings, including me, although he didn’t linger. His legs were active, bouncing up and down; his fingers were restless also, intertwining, cracking, then drumming on his knees.

  “You’re late, Gene.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. But there was some last-minute stuff at the office and I rushed over, thinking I could just make it. When I realized I was going to be late, I thought about calling from the car, but I didn’t h
ave your number and I couldn’t remember it. Isn’t that weird? That means something, right?”

  “You’ve never been late before, Gene.”

  “And that means something too, right?”

  “Probably.”

  “Yeah, it definitely means something, because in the past I would have been so worried about getting here on time, I would have left ridiculously early and they wouldn’t have found me with their so-called emergency.”

  “It wasn’t an emergency?”

  “Well, now that I’m a VP in charge of R&D …” Gene smiled and spread his arms, asking for applause.

  “Congratulations.”

  “They need me round the clock. You know how it is. You run a big organization.”

  “Is that why you have a car phone now?”

  “You don’t miss a trick. I’ve got a cellular and a beeper. Don’t ask me why I need both. Well, to save on the batteries. Anyway, since I’ve lost so much time, I’d better get right to the point. I think I’m in love.”

  He was moving so fast I wanted to laugh. I was tempted to ask if he was on amphetamines. That sarcastic thought provoked a real suspicion. “Are you taking Prozac?” I asked.

  “What?” Gene shook his head as if waking himself. “What did you say?”

  “Are you taking Prozac?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think I am. Isn’t Prozac some kind of psychiatric drug?” I nodded. “God, that is a strange thing for you to say. No, I’m in love, that’s what I’m on. Or don’t you believe in love?”

  “I think it was you who said you don’t believe in love.”

  “Did I? Well, that’s because I didn’t know what love is. Man, it’s great. It’s the best.”

  “You’re having an affair with Halley?”

  “No. I mean, not yet—Hey, you knew.” Gene pointed at me, like an athlete signaling to a teammate that he had scored a big basket. I can’t begin to express my surprise at this gesture: in the context of his hampered body language during our sessions over a thirteen-year span, the movement was a rude obscenity. “I’ve talked to you about her?” he asked.