I don’t mean to disparage the good intentions in Diane’s position. Her defense of her own beliefs, her willingness to blind herself to the possibility of error, may well be the only way to function effectively in our society. My problem was that I wasn’t sure I wanted to function effectively anymore. Out of respect for her sincerity, I put up no resistance to her demand that I turn over management and all the assets of the clinic to her. My lawyer howled at my sudden impoverishment—the buildings and grounds were worth millions and they were all I had left of my inheritance. I knew, however, that Diane had no intention of cashing in: she was going to continue the fight and I felt, right or wrong, she deserved to be armed.
As to her perception of my motive, I have no satisfactory answer. Perhaps I was beating myself up, or acting out my parents’ drama, or one of the other psychological dysfunctions she taunted me with that night. Perhaps ideas had nothing to do with my leaving the clinic and ending our relationship. I am certainly aware of the basis for such a conclusion. I was not convinced.
In the tumultuous weeks of bitter argument that followed, I lost track of Gene. He called twice. I missed the first and forgot to return it. The second time he reached me.
“She’s dumped me,” he said with hardly any introduction. His voice was enervated. “She says there’s no one else, but I don’t believe it. She’s fucking some guy in Paris. But that’s the least of my worries.”
It was late April by then. In deference to Diane, I said publicly that I was taking a sabbatical, rather than talk about my real situation: not only did I wish to sever my connection to the clinic, as the new boss, Diane didn’t want me to continue in any capacity. I repeatedly refused to respond in the press to Phil’s study. Diane, cleverly I thought, went on the offensive right away, denouncing Samuel for using our technique improperly. In so doing she neutralized his ability to make an impression with the revelation that the techniques he tested were ours. In fact, the study wasn’t causing as much of a fuss as I had feared. Diane’s side of the argument was as well-organized and funded as Phil’s. They called each other frauds and scoundrels in polite scientific terms and the predictable groups chose up sides. Whatever the outcome, this fight was going to be long and bloody. Diane was barely speaking to me by this time. She told me in our last extended conversation that she couldn’t stand my holier-than-thou attitude; that I was worse than Phil: at least he had the courage to fight for what he believed. I was cleaning out my desk the day I spoke to Gene, preparing to leave the next morning for the Prager Institute in Baltimore. They had offered a year’s grant for me to do any work I chose. At first, I planned to edit Amy Glickstein’s first four chapters on Joseph’s work, as well as check the final galleys for my book on our in-house therapy for the severely abused.
“What’s the most of your worries?” I asked Gene. I happened to have my address book in my hand. I flipped to find the number of a therapist near Gene. He obviously needed attention.
“Cathy’s moving out of New York. She’s going to live with her mother in Arizona.”
“Can she do that?”
“I never thought—fuck.” Gene sighed. “Oh God, fuck me.”
“What is it, Gene? Can’t you stop her legally?”
“I was too impatient about the divorce. My lawyer told me to fight for some kind of clause, but Halley convinced—oh fuck, I can’t even think about what an asshole I was. Cathy says Pete can visit me in the summer.” He coughed. He sounded congested.
“Why does she want to move? Is it money?”
“No, no,” Gene was weary of the subject. “Money won’t keep her here. She says Petey’s not doing well in school and her mother will help and anyway, she wants to go back to medical school.”
“Maybe she’ll give you custody.”
“Are you kidding? She’s punishing me. She’s furious at me for Halley.”
“What does your lawyer say?”
“He says if she goes, we can sue, but, you know, that doesn’t mean we’ll win and, in the meantime, I’ve lost him. I’ve lost everything.”
“Well, not everything.”
“Yes, everything.” Gene sounded very faint all of a sudden. He said something too low for me to hear.
“What?” I asked.
This time the answer came loud. “I was fired.”
“You were fired?”
“God,” he said, more to himself.
“When, Gene? When did this happen?”
“Yesterday.”
“By Stick?”
“Yeah. He fucking fired me. Can you believe it?” He breathed heavily into the phone. “I can’t leave New York now. Not to go to Arizona, anyway. I’ve got to get a job fast. I’m sure I can. I mean, even though the business is in the toilet. No matter what Stick says, my reputation is great. I’ve already got one lead and I’m sure I could get something over at Apple.”
“When did you and Halley break up?”
“It’s not connected. She didn’t dump me because he was going to fire me. She hates him. I mean, she’s obsessed with him, but she still hates him.”
“When did you break up?”
“Two weeks ago.” That would have been around the time of the call I had missed. “Jesus, I wish you hadn’t asked me that,” he said in a sad whisper. “Why?”
Gene sighed. “Why do you always have to think the worst of people?”
“That’s my job, I guess. Gene, I’m leaving tomorrow for a long time. Maybe a year. But there’s a terrific guy whom you should see—”
“Stop that!” Gene shouted. I looked at the phone I was so astonished. When I returned it to my ear he was saying, “If you don’t want to see me, fine. You want me to hang up, I’ll hang up.”
“I don’t want you to hang up. But I can’t—” I gave up. “Look, let me give you the number where I’ll be, okay?”
“Okay. Hold on. Okay, shoot.” I told him the number. He repeated it back to me and said, “I’m fucked. I can’t believe how fucked I am. I mean, what else can happen? Is a building gonna fall on me?”
“I think you should see Cathy.”
“What?”
“Go and talk to her. Don’t use lawyers for this. Explain to her how much it means to you to be able to see Pete. Explain that, at least until your job situation is settled, you need everything else to stay the same.”
“I can’t tell her I’ve lost my job. You have no idea how vindictive she is. I don’t know what she might do with that information. Maybe she could get full custody and keep me away forever. You don’t understand.”
“I’m sure she’s angry at you. But you’re still Pete’s father. It’s worth a conversation. If you don’t think you should tell her about the job, okay. But talk to her. At least tell her about you and Halley breaking up.”
“Huh. That’s a thought.” He breathed heavily for a moment. Then he coughed again. “Maybe. Maybe I could make it seem like I broke up with her and … I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll try. I’ll call her. You’re gonna be at this new number tomorrow?”
“Yes. Call me anytime, Gene. Okay? And I’ll call you in a few days if I don’t hear from you.”
He made sure I had his current number. He sounded a little calmer. At least, he said, “Thanks, I feel better.”
An hour later, when I left the office, Sally asked me to step into Group Room B to check whether I wanted some files she had put aside. She opened the door for me and I saw a computer-generated banner; COME BACK SOON! before I heard the chorus of, “Surprise!”
All the kids I had treated were present, along with our full staff of therapists and resident counselors, including Diane. I think the biggest surprise was Albert, huge now, soon to be a freshman at Notre Dame, holding a champagne bottle in the air, threatening to douse me with its contents.
“I haven’t won anything!” I complained, shielding myself.
The Prager Institute provided a secluded cabin for me to use as a study. The next day I was there, organizing Joseph’s papers. I certainl
y didn’t feel I had won anything at all. I started to work on Amy’s chapters right away, but it proceeded slowly and painfully.
Gene never phoned. I tried him three days later and got a machine, leaving a message. Two weeks passed before I got the call. A high-pitched voice with a Queens accent introduced himself as Detective O‘Boyle from the Westchester County Police. “Do you have a patient named Gene Kenny?” he asked me.
“What’s this about, Detective?”
“Well, I can’t tell you what this is about, unless you tell me you got a patient named Gene Kenny.”
“I’m not treating him right now, but yes, he’s a patient.”
“Twenty-nine years old? Black hair, brown eyes. Married to Cathy Shoen. Nine-year-old boy named Peter. Worked at Minotaur Computers?”
By now I was alarmed. I straightened in my chair, found a yellow pad, and wrote on it, “May 12, 1991. 11:37 A.M.” I thought to myself, No, it can’t be. I said to the detective, “Yes, that’s him. What’s wrong?”
“Mr. Kenny committed suicide last night. He left a note addressed to you.”
I shut my eyes. Some plant or weed growing around the cabin irritated them and kept my nose running. I had taken an antihistamine but my eyes were burning anyway. Again, I thought, No, it can’t be. Then I opened my eyes.
I don’t remember in which order O‘Boyle recounted the facts, but I remember the facts. Gene went to his wife’s house late the previous evening. Pete was asleep. They had a quarrel. At some point Gene hit Cathy. He didn’t stop hitting her until she was dead. He woke up Pete around one o’clock. Concealing from the boy what had occurred, Gene walked his son to a neighbor’s house. He told them Cathy was ill and he was taking her to the hospital. He asked if they would bring Pete to school in the morning. They were suspicious, but they were also sleepy and they agreed. Gene returned to Cathy’s house, wrote two notes, one to me, another for the police. He turned on Cathy’s car, closed the garage door, and waited in the front seat to die.
I asked O‘Boyle if he would read Gene’s note to me. He said he wanted to. He hoped I could explain it.
“‘I’m sorry, Rafe,’” O‘Boyle recited. “‘I tried to convince her, but she just wanted to hurt me. Anyway, she was right to want to hurt me. Would you do me a favor? I don’t know if you can keep Cathy’s mother’s hands off Pete. I’m sure my father will do nothing. But could you try to help Petey? Only you can help him. None of this is your fault. You did everything you could. You cured me. I’m not a neurotic anymore. It’s just that I can’t bear the normal misery of life.’”
O‘Boyle asked if I could explain the last two lines. I had trouble talking at first. I cleared my throat several times before I could manage to say, “I guess he must have read Freud at some point. It’s a paraphrase of something Freud wrote about the goal of therapy.”
“Oh yeah?” Considering the subject of our conversation, the detective seemed remarkably at ease with me. “What’s that? What did Freud write?”
“‘The goal of therapy is to replace the neurotic’s unrealistic misery with the normal misery of life.’”
“No kidding,” the detective commented. He read aloud the last few sentences of Gene’s note one more time. “‘You cured me,’” he quoted Gene in a mumble. “‘I’m not a neurotic anymore. It’s just that I can’t bear the normal misery of life.’” O‘Boyle raised his voice. “I still don’t get it. Can you explain it to me, Doc?”
I didn’t try.
Postscript
I WENT TO NEW YORK THE NEXT DAY. THE FIRST PERSON I SAW AFTER Gene’s death was Susan Bracken, but an account of that meeting, as well as her surprising judgment of my work with Gene, belongs to the next section. I found out there would be no public funeral, no public memorial, no event that would mark Gene’s passing. That was understandable. He had murdered his ex-wife and committed suicide. One could hardly expect a big family funeral. Gene seemed, from our therapy, to have no close friends; other than the Copleys, the intimacies he formed at work didn’t penetrate his personal life. Halley and Stick wouldn’t and didn’t feel obliged. That left Don Kenny.
Detective O‘Boyle told me Gene’s father had arranged for the body to be picked up that afternoon to be cremated the next day. Perhaps Don planned to have someone say a few words; perhaps his friends would accompany him in his hour of grief and that would be Gene’s memorial. I still don’t know. I checked on Pete’s whereabouts right away. Sure enough, Cathy’s mother had come and would take him to Arizona.
After talking with Susan at her clinic in Greenwich Village, I walked down to the Bullshot gallery. I knew from my conversations with Gene that they represented Don’s photography exclusively. The gallery is typical of SoHo, on the ground floor of a cast iron building. The ceilings are high, the walls are white, the space wide and deep, its openness interrupted only by the supporting columns, which are sometimes painted white to fade away into the background or a bold color to make them stand out. Here they were done in black, which seemed to accomplish neither. A half wall divided Bullshot into two rooms. The front was devoted to a new photographer whose work seemed to be blowups of microscopic things, although I didn’t stop to find out.
In back there was a retrospective of Don’s work. The Garage Years,” they called it. Thanks to Gene, I understood the reference. This was the first time I had seen the pictures that figured in my early sessions with Gene. They were straightforward portraits of people, traditional to my eyes. That surprised me. It’s true they were not formal poses, the setting was always outside, and there was invariably an object at the center which provided drama or at least a comment on the person. The truth is, I didn’t linger to appreciate them. I spotted what I hoped to find right away and moved to it.
The photograph was large, perhaps two by four feet. Black and white, of course, processed into a sheen that reminded me of old Hollywood movies. At its center is the white stone head of a lion. I’ve never bothered to check, but I assume it’s one of the lions outside the Forty-second Street Library. A young, not beautiful, but apparently contented Carol Kenny leans against the side of the lion’s head. Standing on the statue’s base and partially in her arms is Gene, no more than five or six years old. Carol has a grip on his little wrist, feeding his clenched hand into the open jaws of the roaring lion, positioning it between the sharp canines. This dominates the center of the photo, and naturally your eyes drift to the boy’s face to see his reaction.
He’s not looking at his threatened hand, but at his young mother’s face. His hair is wild and thick. His big eyes shine and his skin is smooth. All that is to be expected. But his expression is remarkable. And that’s the surprise. There’s no mock fear, and certainly no real fear. His mouth is wide open, showing the different-sized teeth of a growing child. And he’s laughing. He’s laughing with all his heart. He is full of trust and joy.
I decided then, that at least for me, the passing of this soul would not go unnoticed.
PART THREE
Evil:
Diagnosis and Cure
CHAPTER ONE
Case Review
“HOW MANY PATIENTS HAVE YOU KILLED?” I ASKED SUSAN. WE WERE walking through the Farmers’ Market in Union Square, carrying takeout cappuccinos we bought at Dean & Deluca’s on University Place. Flanking us were stalls of fresh fruit, vegetables, and home-baked pies, tended by men and women who didn’t look like farmers. The goods are grown and baked upstate and sold three times a week in this open-air market, handwritten signs proclaiming their organic and healthful origins. New Yorkers are eager buyers. Susan and I were obliged to progress in baby steps because of the tightly packed crowd.
“Stop that,” she said, whacking me on the shoulder. She diverted to the right to examine a row of apple bins. She backed off quickly, mumbling, “No, not Harry’s favorite.” She was fifty-three years old. Because she allowed her hair to be completely gray, demurely pulled back into a bun, she appeared older. Otherwise, she was hardly changed: tall, hunched over, all
bones and limbs. Her flat forehead had a few more lines, but her muddy eyes remained friendly and always curious. Harry and Susan still lived in their loft on Sixteenth Street. Her clinics continued to operate in the Village and Brooklyn. “Let’s go into the park,” she said.
“Yes, ma‘am.”
We crossed between the stalls to reach Union Square Park. It was lunchtime and there too were mobs of people: students and office workers eating sandwiches off paper bags spread on their laps, aiming hot dogs at their mouths, or catching the tips of pizzas between their front teeth. One couple necked passionately, their feet ringed by pigeons searching for crumbs. “You didn’t kill anybody,” she said. She perched on an empty stretch of wall dividing the park from the market. She opened her container of cappuccino and licked the foam on the underside of the lid. Her long legs kicked slowly back and forth, a grungy pair of New Balance sneakers brushing the pavement.
I stayed on my feet facing her and raised a lumpy manila envelope in my right hand. “I have tapes of all my sessions with Gene.”
“You do?”
“I mean, for the adult period. Not from your clinic.”
“You taped every word?” I nodded. Susan sighed. “Yet another reason to hate technology. So now you’re going to torture yourself listening to them?”
“Actually I was hoping to torture you.”
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