Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

by Rafael Yglesias

  “I’m glad we had this lunch,” I said, interrupting their staring contest. “Before I decide whether to stay on and lead the fall retreat, I’d like you, Edgar, to answer a question as carefully and precisely as you can.”

  He whistled. “Wow. This sounds good. What is it?”

  “You’ve made a big bet on Stick’s management abilities, is that right?”

  “Medium-sized bet.”

  “Congratulations, Edgar.”

  “On making money? That doesn’t sound like you, Rafe.”

  “Congratulations on the scale of your world. Here’s my question. What if—remember, this is hypothetical—what if I told you that I believed Minotaur could run just as well, perhaps better, without Stick?” Didier, who was facing me, opened his eyes very wide. I didn’t check on Stick’s reaction. I smiled pleasantly at Edgar and continued, “That he isn’t responsible for creating their products or how they are marketed?”

  Edgar tried to lean back. He bumped his bald spot against the mirrored wall. The breezy blustering rich boy was gone. He frowned at me with the disgust of a commander-in-chief confronted by a deserter. “That’s your question?”

  “Assuming you believed me, what would you do?”

  “I don’t run Minotaur,” Edgar said, winking at Stick. “I’m just an investor.”

  “If you could,” I insisted. “Are you scared of answering truthful—?”

  Edgar cut that off. “Nothing,” he said grimly.

  “Take your time, Edgar.”

  “I don’t need time. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Just because I don’t need a man, you think I should fire him? Jesus, you haven’t fallen for this downsizing crap, have you? If you fired every American who isn’t obviously necessary half the country would be unemployed.”

  “I don’t believe you. You’re not taking my question seriously. Let me ask it another way. Granting my premise—entirely hypothetical of course—that Stick doesn’t contribute to how Minotaur’s products are made or sold, what use is he?”

  Edgar laughed. “Maybe you should withdraw your offer, Stick.”

  At my elbow I heard Copley’s low tones, barely above a mumble, “It’s an interesting question. I don’t mind him asking.”

  Didier shook his head. “This is strange,” he commented.

  “Well, Edgar? You promised an answer.”

  “You’re right. Let’s see … He is useful …” he paused, thinking, and then came out with an answer as if it had just occurred to him, “because he’s greedy.”

  “No joking, Edgar.”

  “I’m not joking. As you would say, he’s all id. Stick came to me for the money to take over from bozos who were too chicken to take on IBM and Toshiba toe-to-toe. If you’re right and he’s got no talent, then his coming to me is even more impressive—imagine having the balls to ask to run a company with someone else’s money when you really don’t have any skill at making or selling its product? The people under him at Minotaur may be talented but they’re not greedy. Or, at least, I don’t know that they’re greedy.”

  I slapped the table. I was pleased that all three of them jumped. “Well. Then I’m in for the fall retreat. And I’ve got a basis for a psychological defense of greed, Edgar. I may write that book for you after all. Thanks a lot.” I put my hand on Stick’s bony shoulder. I squeezed. “I’ve got my mandate. I should head back to the labs to get started.” I squeezed harder.

  He didn’t wince although it must have hurt—I’m not that weak. He looked at my fingers and smiled as if their presence was a delight. “Tennis on Saturday?” he asked. “There’s a round-robin tournament at my club and I’m allowed a guest for a partner.”

  I let go. His eyes closed halfway, showing relief. “Definitely,” I said. “Together we’ll crush them.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Countertransference

  THE GREATEST SURPRISE OF THIS TREATMENT WAS THAT IT WAS BOTH RAPID and effective. The difficulties of its unorthodox nature, such as how to create the regular, defined sessions of psychotherapy, were easily surmounted. I had already established a twice-weekly meeting with Stick, supposedly to debrief him on employee morale. In addition, we had the doubles game one night a week and I became a regular on Saturdays at his country club in Westchester. Each of these four weekly encounters had the shape of a therapeutic hour. It was a simple matter to feed Copley’s sadistic tendency to paranoia, as opposed to exploring its irrationality.

  A typical exchange would go like this: “Andy is excited about presenting Centaur at the convention,” I said and frowned.

  “Of course,” Stick commented.

  “I guess it’s because he has many old friends he’ll get a chance to catch up with.” I maintained the frown.

  “Old friends?”

  I laughed. “He is a little young to have old friends. Do you have many friends in the business?”

  “Not many.”

  “How about George Jellick? He hired you at Flashworks? Do you get together?” This was a reminder of Copley’s betrayal of a boss. Stick had left Jellick’s company abruptly, taking with him the training and sales contacts he had acquired and raiding Flashworks for half the staff of engineers, including Gene, and several key marketers, Jack Truman being one. “Jellick’s retired,” Stick said. “Who is Andy excited about seeing?”

  “Are the names important?”

  “I’d like to know.”

  “I’ll find out. I guess it’s natural that there’s a lot of socializing between rival companies at the conventions. Much of it seems to be competitive, not really friendly. There’s one reunion Andy isn’t looking forward to—with a buddy from college who’s made millions designing video games. Andy says he used to be brilliant at programming. He regrets going into machine design. ‘It’s a dead end,’ he says.”

  The next day, much to Andy’s dismay, Stick announced he would be attending the convention. Andy had looked forward to being the sole representative.

  Intensifying Stick’s innate pattern of excessive vigilance led naturally to exploring his anal fears of aging and weakness, and also to probing his homophobic modesty—another symptom of sadism. I took tennis lessons to sharpen my game and bought myself a new racquet. For a while I concentrated on playing my best. Stick became accustomed to our beating the men he found for opponents. Within a few weeks, I had sufficient control to contrive that we lose the second set in a way that seemed to imply Stick was tiring. Playing the net behind his serve it was a simple matter, by not poaching as aggressively as usual, or by making my volleys an easier get for our opponents, to arrange that our defeats seemed to happen because his serve was less effective.

  Three losses of this kind and Stick complained. “After we get one win under our belts, we stop concentrating.”

  I said, “I don’t think that’s the reason.”

  He was in a shower stall at the Wall Street Racquet Club, talking to me by shouting over the noise of the running water. I was toweling off. He dawdled when undressing, waiting until I was in a stall before he stripped. He always brought his own kelly green towel with him to the club, although they supplied clean white ones, not as large or as thick as his, but sufficient. I assumed this was a mild version of the sadist’s fear of germs. There were hooks on the outside of the shower door to hang a towel, but he always entered with his lower half wrapped up, to conceal his privates all the way, despite the fact that carrying the towel inside meant it would get wet. “What did you say?” he called.

  “I know why we’re losing the second set,” I said, moving beside the stall door. “You’re getting tired. Your serves lose power and I can’t get as clean a volley on their returns.”

  “Bullshit,” he said.

  I said nothing. When the silence had lasted long enough to be uncomfortable, I yanked the shower door open.

  Stick backed against the tiles, chest smeared with soap, eyes blinking from the rain of water. I stared at his genitals (of course, there was nothing remarkable about them, the
y were of normal size) and said, “Is my sweatband in here?”

  “You didn’t use this shower,” he complained.

  “Sorry,” I slammed the stall door. I had seen the secret, so I made my judgment, “I’m pretty sure you’re getting tired in the second set. Maybe it’s my volleying, but I think your serve is too short.”

  He chose not to continue the argument. He liked to eat after playing and that same evening afforded an opportunity for further infiltration of his subconscious. He showed a rare curiosity about my work with children. Appearing to ramble, I told a story about a boy who was anally abused. I didn’t have to invent it; unfortunately, my work provided many examples. I used Jeffrey Y, from one of my published case histories, who was repeatedly sodomized by his father and his uncle.

  Stick’s one question about Jeffrey Y’s case was revealing, although not a surprise. “Do they usually end up becoming homosexual?” he asked.

  I told a half-truth. “Once a boy has been anally stimulated, especially between the ages of five and ten, there’s a good chance he will continue to want,” and here I was deliberately crude, “to be fucked up the ass.”

  He surprised me, not for the first time, and it was a warning that I had to be careful with him. I had provoked him, anyway, that night with the shower stall invasion. He stared into my eyes; his looked black and dead. He said, “Halley told me your mother had sex with you when you were a boy. What does that do to a man?”

  He meant to devastate me with this sideways revelation that Halley had told him my “secret.” Of course my incest story came from my first dinner with her, not our recent encounters. I was taken aback, nevertheless. It was another reminder that I shouldn’t underestimate the depth of their connection. I don’t know how well I covered with my face, but my spoken answer was quick and effective. “It makes you a very confident man. It’s every boy’s dream, after all.”

  [I hope I don’t have to explain why the above is a ridiculous lie. If Copley was enough of a scholar to check, he would have known from my book on incest that I was full of it. The latter didn’t overly worry me: in reverse therapy, if I may so label my new technique, Stick discovering I was untrustworthy might work to our advantage. He was probing for my weakness. That is the dynamic of this new therapy for an unneurotic sadist. We repeat the ancient drama: Copley searches for a way to defeat me, hoping for the same ending rather than a new one; while I, instead of replacing the villain with a caring parent, play my role better than the original.]

  “Every boys dream?” he repeated, squinting and frowning. The lines of his face wrinkled with pain. I almost felt sorry for him.

  “I never had any performance anxiety with girls, never worried about the size of my penis, and I never had to worry about competition with my father. I was a winner in the Oedipal game very early on, so I didn’t have anything to prove.”

  He was disappointed at the result of his counterattack. He sipped his herbal tea. His eyes and attention wandered off, forgetting our battle. “I guess all boys worry about the size of their cock,” he said quietly, more to himself.

  “Not all. Not even the majority,” I commented grimly. He looked up, startled. “Only the ones with small penises,” I said. Stick winced. I laughed, reached over and kneaded his shoulder. He disliked male-to-male physical contact—for obvious reasons, given his father. I took every opportunity to invade that barrier. “Just a little shrink humor. Of course everybody does,” I patted him. “It’s natural.”

  I frustrated his bribes, threats, tests and ambushes of employees on the one hand, and I aided or provoked their ambitions and demands on the other. There were too many instances to catalogue; besides, they are repetitious. The examples I’ve provided should suffice. I ended Jack’s obsession with Halley by reinforcing his wife, Halley being one of the ways Stick knew someone was safely in his grasp. I encouraged Andy’s development as a manager, both with his own men and by introducing him to Jack and the other salesmen, just as I had once encouraged Gene to try for more responsibility, only this time—and this was also true in my defense of the Truman marriage—I had a diversion to keep them safe. The diversion was me. Copley was convinced I was the threat to his control of the company, by virtue of my relationship with Edgar, not Andy’s growing confidence and maturity. Halley was convinced we were having a love affair; so was Stick and that meant I was under control. In this first, and most crucial stage of therapy, only by presenting myself as a potential victim could I hope to be their healer.

  This brings us to an aspect of the treatment it is crucial I warn other practitioners about. Two dangers exist in reverse therapy that, although they have corollaries in traditional psychoanalysis, are more present and intense. The first should be familiar, namely countertransference: I had to struggle to avoid forming a real attachment to Halley and I had to be careful not to want to harm Stick. The second danger, which unfortunately I did not fully anticipate, is that, since the treatment moves toward disintegration of the patient’s personality rather than greater control, caution must be taken not to push the patient into outright psychosis.

  Halley was the tougher assignment in terms of countertransference. I don’t mean to make a vulgar joke of it, but my sexual frustration alone would have tested the patience of a saint—the pleasure was all one-sided and it was a mockery of lovemaking. I don’t suppose I need to explain how I found relief for my physical forbearance, and I won’t pretend fondling Halley was all work. The emotional frustration was another matter. I underestimated its danger. Although I limited physical contact with Halley to two nights a week of incest fantasy and my role demanded, when we were in public, that I treat her with stiff formality, almost contempt, nevertheless I had to (in order to play the part of lover/father) telephone her every day and maintain a deep emotional connection.

  The routine was rigid. I telephoned her apartment at seven-thirty every morning, greeting her in a loving voice, “Hello, little one. How did you sleep?” The daily conversations, once she came to expect them so she picked up instead of her machine, lasted roughly half an hour. On weekends they sometimes continued for an hour or more. They allowed me to monitor the residue of my interference with the sexual and emotional dynamics of her relationship with her father; more importantly, however, I repeated the assurances her narcissism demanded. She’d rustle the sheets, groan sleepily, and ask plaintively, “Do you love me?”

  “I love you,” I’d say.

  “Then why aren’t you here?” she’d whine.

  “Because yoü don’t love me,” I’d say.

  “But I do!” she answered on the second week of these morning calls. The first week she tried teasing me with the reply, “Tough,” but I would only laugh at that.

  “You don’t love anyone,” I said.

  “Maybe I love you,” she said sweetly, playing the innocent music of a little girl. It was hard to remember that she was lying.

  “If you love me,” I said, “then you’re going to have my babies and get fat. You’re going to be covered with spit-up and men won’t want you. If you give me a beautiful daughter, I won’t bother to look at you. If you give me a strong son, I won’t bother to talk to you.”

  For a moment there was no reply. Then I heard a thump—I decided later it was her feet landing on the floor as she got out of bed. She said in an efficient tone, “That’s right,” and hung up with a bang.

  The next morning she picked up and answered my, “Hello, little one. How did you sleep?” by saying, “I have a guest, I’ll call you later.”

  She tried to make me jealous for two weeks, either by not picking up or answering only to say she had company and couldn’t talk. I ignored the taunts so thoroughly that (and maybe Stick proposed this or she intuited his desire) she appeared in the labs and invited Andy to lunch, using the ad campaign for Centaur as the excuse. She took him out twice more before giving up on him, probably when she figured out that Andy was gay. I half expected her male secretary to call him next, but evidently Halley wa
s not a delegator—and besides, that would hardly have upset me.

  During the jealousy resistance phase, one night she told the doorman not to allow me up for an incest session. That alarmed me, but it shouldn’t have. The physical craving for so complete a physical satisfaction—a narcissistic ecstasy that no one else could or would supply her—was addictive. The next morning she answered my greeting with a grumpy, “I didn’t sleep well.”

  “Is that my fault?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You missed your bedtime story,” I said.

  “Come here now,” she insisted.

  “No. Thursday night.”

  “What’s your phone number? You know, it’s outrageous that no one can call you at home. If you won’t give me your number, I’ll get it from Laura.”

  That was the first time she tried to bring her father in as a greater authority figure than me. “Stick doesn’t have this number. This isn’t my home,” I said. “And I don’t really work for your company. I’m doing research.”

  “Come here,” she groaned. “I’ll read you a story,” she added brightly. “I’m a good lover, you know.”

  “You’re a great lover—but you’re not sincere.”

  She whispered, “Let me make you happy.”

  “You don’t want to make me happy,” I said. “I’ll be there Thursday. The next time you don’t let me in will be the last time I’ll come to see you.” I hung up. There were no more cancellations.

  Despite the unprecedented intimacy my daily feeding of her narcissism required, I was convinced that she was nothing more than a patient to me until an interruption in our work proved otherwise. In late August, Aunt Ceil, Julie’s mother, suffered another stroke and died. Since my family was told by the institute that they didn’t have my New York number, Edgar, of all people, informed me on their behalf and offered a ride in his limo to Great Neck. He had joint real estate investments with Jerry, Uncle Bernie’s son-in-law, and would be attending the funeral. This was another reinforcement to Copley of my dangerous connection to the larger business world. I made sure to tell Stick who was providing my ride when I canceled our Thursday meeting.