He Said, She Said

by John Decure

  Mindy rolled her eyes as if still irked by her mom’s encroachment. “Yeah. And that’s when things really got weird.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Minute she walks in, he’s fawning all over her, telling her how great she looks, her outfit, her hair, ‘is that a new hairstyle, I really love it on you!’ Oh, and he announces to her, ‘Now that you aren’t a patient any more, we can be friends.’”

  “And how did your mother react to the attention?”

  “She had that confused face she gets, like when she’s driving and suddenly realizes she doesn’t know where she’s going.”

  “Lost.”

  Mindy nodded in commiseration. “I’ve seen the look. So has every man who ever took advantage of her, I guess.”

  “Did she participate in the rest of the session?”

  “Truth is, I can hardly remember what we even talked about after she came in. I can say it wasn’t about me, that much I do recall.”

  “Did you and your mother meet for further conjoint sessions with Doctor Fallon after that?”

  “No. No way was I gonna go through that sh—that stuff again. I didn’t care what he said about my mom having to be there, I wasn’t going for it.”

  “Why didn’t you think it would work?”

  Mindy gave me that incredulous stare again. She was right where I wanted her to be, and all I needed was for her to finish this thing—which she did.

  “Because it was a scam. Any woman with two eyes and a pulse could see Doctor Don had the hots for her. He didn’t want to listen to my problems, he wanted to get down my mother’s pants.”

  That last comment got Heidegger going with a hot objection, calling for speculation—which sounded funny to me, at the time. As I watched Heidegger wind down, his neck as white and veiny as a jellyfish, I looked back to see how Rue Loberg was doing. She’d just absorbed a blast of resentment from her daughter, but I saw no signs of distress. The woman had been through plenty, losing her family and her dignity. If she wanted to feel sad and weepy and victimized, she had a right. But for now, she wasn’t exercising any such prerogative.

  Just then, as I was reflecting on Rue Loberg’s apparent newfound poise, things got a little strange… for, seated in the row behind Rue and Deshaun Fellows was a beige, concrete, winged creature. One of several gargoyles that guard the Water Department tower on the corner of Third and Broadway. His face was elfin but fierce, with wolflike teeth that seemed even hungrier when he cackled at me. Which he did, just before he spoke, his voice a quiet hiss.

  Bradlee Aames, you’re a painted fraud, a flimsy fabrication of faulty metaphysics, a—

  I turned back toward the bench and the judge, who was in the process of calming down Heidegger before telling him he was going to allow Mindy’s observation to stand with the caveat that it was noted by the court that she could not know what Dr. Fallon was actually thinking.

  –charlatan, a phony, a fraud, a sick-in-the-head poser—

  I closed my eyes to concentrate on rescuing my soul from my troubled mind.

  Stone gothic beast, with your curled tongue and fans of folded wings, you may sit there forever and a day, if you want, but you do not impress. This is a public proceeding, and the gallery is open to all comers, be they occupants of flesh-and-blood reality, or trick-of-the-mind fiction. So sit over there, sit there and watch a very good lawyer put on rebuttal evidence you wouldn’t even understand, but I don’t care. Compared to young men in the street armed with loaded guns and twisted personal agendas, a hand-carved relic faux monster like you is overrated and not the least bit intimidating.

  He didn’t care or my impertinence.

  Bradlee Aames, crazy psycho-bitch hack liar-lawyer! You dare to—

  My right hand remained under the table, the palm down but the index finger pointing like a large-bore rifle at the gallery.

  I place you, hunched leering gargoyle, on another path, file you in the drawer marked Phantasmagoric Comic Book Figures. Make no mistake: we say our good-byes as I shut your mouth, fold your wings, place you in the file, and slide the fucker shut.

  Which I did.

  The judge asked if I had any more questions on direct. I told him I had just a few.

  “You never saw your mother having sexual relations with Doctor Fallon.”

  “No,” Mindy said.

  “But you gave a statement in the civil lawsuit your father brought against him?”

  “That’s right. Pretty much what I said this morning.”

  “Is it true that you and your mother are no longer close as a result of what happened between her and Doctor Fallon?”

  “I guess. I don’t really talk to her anymore.”

  “Is that because you think she’s responsible for what happened?”

  Mindy was not happy I’d put the question to her, and for a second I thought she’d bolt from the stand, but it was done. Mindy opened her mouth, then hesitated, then began again. Nothing but a strangled noise came out. Then a gush of tears.

  The judge patiently sat by, offering Mindy a tissue, then another, telling her to take her time. Two rows back of me, Rue Loberg was as much a wreck as her daughter.

  “I do partly blame her,” Mindy said finally.

  “Why?”

  “’Cause she’s a woman. Maybe one with a lot of problems, God knows she had a hard life growing up, I get that. But any woman in her right mind should’ve been able to see what that man”—Mindy pointed a straight arm at Dr. Don—“had in mind.”

  I had one fairly risky question left for my rebuttal witness. She was raw, but I had to push her a step further.

  “Did you ever consider that perhaps your mom is not in her right mind, which is why she’d been a patient of Doctor Fallon’s in the first place?”

  Mindy wept again quietly. Then she looked past me at her mother. “In my anger I might’ve forgotten that. I forgive you, Mom. And I… hope you can forgive me.”

  Rue was losing it back in the gallery, and the judge had no choice but to sit through another stretch of tearful acknowledgment. Maybe two more minutes passed like this.

  “Cross-examination?” the judge asked Heidegger, who smiled like he hadn’t in days. Mindy shifted her weight in her seat as if to hang on tighter before the ride got bumpy. I turned to check on the gargoyle, who was still in graceful repose, his batwings framing his peaceful grin. Was ready to tuck him right back into the phantasm drawer when another shock jolted me—a million or so volts right to the forehead.

  Another spectator, a man, was shuffling into the back row a few chairs over from the gargoyle. My father, taking a seat, a nice gray suit and thin navy foulard tie suiting the formalized surroundings perfectly. He winked at me like: look at the two of us—government shit-kickers, half-mad but righteously backed by the power of the law and fully arrayed to fight whatever evil may otherwise put asunder on another sunshiny feel-good morning in this, the greatest fault-ridden broken-down overdeveloped teeming gorgeously ruined city the world has ever seen…

  I was knocked back, flattened by a blast of pure love and sadness and longing for the past, my irrepressible energies bursting every which way.

  Oh, Dad—why now?

  Shut my eyes hard, I did. Still, I knew Dad was pointing at Dr. Don.

  This one is bad news, like a black hole sucking up inside himself, inverting back, back through the past and decades of denial and near misses and mind tricks and diversion and subterfuge. I’ve glimpsed his force field, and it’s black on the inside, inside and out, like a dead wound—

  Thanks, but not now. Two paths, Dad.

  Angel.

  So sorry, but I’ve got a trial to tend to here.

  Another phantasmagoric beast filed away—different cabinet—and I was back.

  But then the courtroom tilted, and I gripped the table, certain my skull cracking open from the base of my neck on up, until a faint, icy breeze escaped just above my eyebrows. Coming here was a mistake, I thought, quite sure I’d never m
ake it to the next break. I closed my eyes, which were sore and still swollen from my yearning to see something, anything, those protracted days and nights I lay passed out in a hospital bed.

  Opened them… and by some miracle, the room leveled off. I turned and sneaked a peak behind me. My father—my psychological grounding wire—was there, his huge feet planted wide, knees slightly bent, long arms spread, holding the entire courtroom steady for me, grinning because we were both in on the joke that is my frayed mental circuitry. With a nod toward the nighttime wandering girl in the kitchen, he held up two fingers like a hippie making a peace sign.

  Two paths.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  I’ll be going now.

  Love you, Dad.

  He’d let go of the courtroom, handing off the task of leveler to me.

  As a surfer, I rely on instinct and a ten-thousand-wave history to locate balance; so closing my eyes, I sighted a perfect swell roping along a cobbled point, swiveled my board toward shore, stroked once or twice, and was up and gliding in perfect harmony with the elements.

  When I opened my eyes, Mindy Loberg was alone on the witness stand, clinging to her sliver of a toehold in the universe as if the Earth’s rotation might knock her clean off. Heidegger was thanking her for coming in to testify, ingratiating her like a hunter making friendly with the hunted as he adjusted his rifle scope. An overwhelming urge came over me to look behind me and take another inventory of the gallery. Surfing my way down the point a minute ago, I’d sensed Dora’s presence in the lineup. Had he, too, stopped into the court for a gander?

  Don’t turn around.

  Hell no, why should I?

  I kept my eyes on Mindy, who would no doubt need rescuing when Heidegger was done.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Twenty-one.”

  “You just had a birthday three weeks ago, didn’t you?”

  Mindy looked at me as if she knew where this was going to go. I hadn’t a clue, but Heidegger was a good enough lawyer to always have a direction in mind. I studied the blank sheet of legal pad on my desk, careful not to make eye contact with the witness. For now, she was on her own.

  31

  CRAIG WEAVER, MD

  She was Lazarus, back from the dead, out of the crypt and straight into the courtroom.

  How Bradlee Aames did what she did, navigating an unreliable mindscape without chemical assistance, overcoming head and bullet wounds in a few days’ time, surely defying the expectations, recommendations, and dictates of any number of huddled, white-coated disciples of modern western medicine at her hospital, well… I have no explanation. Personally? She is… well, unpredictably extraordinary. Psychiatrically? Defiant of, and ever-resistant to, every established empirical carefully catalogued categorization. Historically? Utterly unique and—

  Cut the rambling! Honesty, man, even if only with yourself—

  Okay, right, this isn’t a dictated note to chart.

  Just admit it.…

  I—okay, yes, back off, I’ll say it. I think I’m in love.

  You “think.” Really going out on a limb there, aren’t you, Mama’s Boy—

  I—am—in—love. There—happy?

  Not quite. Mildly satisfied, for the time being. For a head-shrinker, that was way too much heavy lifting to accomplish so little. But hey, you do have to bill hourly for this wonderful service to mankind you provide. It’s not like you’re used to setting any speed records.…

  So there you go—I’ve got a few of my own internal struggles. Every minute of every day, to be precise. Psychiatrists may be highly trained in the study and understanding of human consciousness, but mastery of one’s own interior life is not a built-in fringe benefit.

  Back to the state prosecutor on my mind. She should have been lying down, resting in bed, under medical observation. Not in court, duking it out with the most destructive psychiatric practitioner I’d ever seen.

  Was this just me being protective of a woman who, but for her arm’s-length attitude and my lack of professional resolve—but for that kiss we shared on PCH—should probably be my patient? Hard to say. Yet I could scarcely believe she was here this morning, jawing with the slick-suited row of Dr. Don legal advocates across from her, the judge’s eyes flitting from side to side as if he were officiating a noisy tennis match marred by one disputed call after another. The argument flew back and forth; I spectated in awe. She was more banged-up than she appeared; the staples the doctors had used to close the gash in the back of Bradlee’s head were invisible under the thick sheath of hair. She’d devised a way to brush it more from front to back to provide more coverage. An inch of white bandage could not be hidden, though, and the sight of it brought me down. This should not be happening. If only I could step forward and address the judge myself, make him call this thing off.

  Sure, cowboy. Do it and she’ll never speak to you again.

  I know, I know, not in this lifetime…

  Her voice cut like a razor; her logic marched from point to point inevitably, as if the conclusion was ours to claim. The pitifully inert frame I’d seen crimped into a hospital bed a few days ago now displayed perfect posture, the shoulders squared for battle. Her demeanor: Don’t-mess-with-my-success—and I’m putting it nicely. Reclining briefly behind a table papered over with files and documents and legal pads as the other side took their turn with the judge, Bradlee executed a teeny, tiny hair flip, her back arched in a brief flash of curvy-girl fluidity.

  I was dumbfounded by her allure.

  Is it possible to be turned on by the way a woman sends a pen slip-sliding between her fingers before jotting a note?

  Yes. So there you have it: she’s not your patient.

  Thank God for that.

  Back and forth the arguments flew, careening off the walls, the court reporter taking it all down with no visible emotion—just another contentious day in paradise. Back and forth I looked on in wonder, an MD—and a red-blooded man with a thundering pulse—comprehending the basics but nothing more.

  The defense attorney with the big head and liver spots was aggressive as always, but he seemed… worried somehow, and I could tell it was galling him.

  Bradlee gave it right back to the man. The last time I’d seen her she’d looked like a mannequin, propped up like a peaceful dark princess felled by a poisoned apple. I’d wanted to lean in and kiss her lightly, soothingly on the lips—which, beyond the creep factor that goes with kissing an unconscious patient—

  Yo, Craig, we’re creeping ourselves out, here.

  —would have also set a god-awful precedent as my first intimate gesture toward her. I chided myself to even think it.

  Nice, Weaver, always the smooth operator with the ladies. Good thing you lacked the spine to do something that stupidly impulsive.

  Yeah, good thing. I’d been miserable last weekend, seeing her that way—so helpless and vulnerable and incapable of receiving any of the care or support that I so badly wanted to provide. Nothing I could do to aid her, no gift to give but my presence; so I stayed, hung out, sniffed around like a friendly puppy, persisted by her side until visiting hours were long over and a beefy nurse in creaky rubber soles came along, staring me down for the trespasser the clock had made me.

  Oh, so you’re a doctor yourself? Uh-huh, I see. And you think the rules don’t apply to you, is that right?

  Maybe I shouldn’t have played the MD trump card with the nurse, but quite often that one card wins the whole game, so what the hell, no regrets. She’d escorted me to the elevators, warning that next time, I could bet security was going to be involved. Fair enough. I wanted to see Bradlee, and if all I could do to help was sit at her bedside, talking or reading or humming a song to provide the stimulation her neurologist swore she needed most, then I’d check right back in the next morning, knowing the beefy nurse would be home by then, sleeping off her late-night power trip.

  I did—on four hours sleep, a quick shower, and a shave. Oh, and a cup o
f coffee from the cafeteria downstairs that tasted like used motor oil. I got past the nursing staff, but my timing wasn’t altogether good, as I was told that a specialist was in with the patient.

  Has she recovered? I asked, but the morning nurse, as whip-thin as her nighttime counterpart was barrel-thick, told me nothing.

  So I played the doctor card again.

  The morning nurse folded her arms with a practiced toughness, as if she’d spent years fending off countless well-meaning friends, siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, priests, executors, and trustees alike.

  Sorry, Doctor Weaver. Unless you’re her personal physician—which you don’t claim to be—patient confidentiality prevents me from telling you anything.

  I stopped her before she could retreat to her fortress of files arrayed behind the long front desk.

  “Would you please just tell me whether she’s improved? I am a friend. A good friend, and I… think you know, she’s got no immediate family.”

  The nurse softened her stance and came closer again. “Young lady’s got a strong constitution.”

  “So, she’s improving?”

  The nurse gave me a nice-try shake of the head. “You said it. Not me.”

  I reached out and thankfully shook her hand, I was so relieved. And… happy.

  “Now you go.”

  Right. It was back to the elevators, but with a click in my step.

  Wow, Craig, a spontaneous gesture with the nurse, and apropos at that. You surprise me.

  Yeah, thanks, I surprise myself, too….

  By then, I was ready to give in to that wonderful expansive feeling you get when your ego boundaries extend beyond your own sense of self, the id’s recognition that—

  Please, man, cut the psychobabble!

  I know I know—trust me, I can hear it myself.

  —I was ready to welcome the euphoric ache that comes from being in love, but duty and responsibility intervened.

  Saturday, noon, I got a distress call from the mother of Evie, one of my most troubled patients, a twenty-year-old Filipina with suicidal tendencies who’d gone to visit her auntie and stepped out onto the apartment’s tenth-floor balcony, straddling the railings as she wept. They talked her back down, but the police came, and when she told them—in Tagalog, which they mistook as her speaking in tongues—she wanted to fly away from her mistake of a life, they put a 5150 hold on her and routed her to a county hospital. No competent psychiatrist would allow his patient to endure such an ordeal without being present to provide input to the medical staff and support to the patient. I spent the balance of the afternoon and evening with Evie, counseling and assessing and reassuring her, conferring with county staff as they titrated her meds with my previous prescriptions.