by Dan Josefson
He nodded toward the chair for her to sit back down, and Tidbit wondered if maybe she’d overstepped. He took a sip of his tea and placed the saucer next to him on his comforter. “Thank you.”
Tidbit nodded.
“Shouldn’t I have gotten a phone call or a knock on the door by now? Shouldn’t someone be looking for you? Who was watching your dorm when you ran up here?”
“June.”
Aubrey rolled his eyes. “I’ll be long dead before she gets the nerve to come looking in here for you. You should call her and tell her you’re with me. Or, actually, no, don’t call her. It’s her job to find you.”
“Okay.”
“How’s your mother? You heard from her lately?”
“I got a letter a couple of weeks ago. She seems good.”
“Good. Did your mother drink, Tidbit? Was that a problem she had?”
“Not really, no. No. Unless you count tea.” Tidbit smiled. “She drinks a lot of tea.”
Aubrey raised his teacup and took a sip. “My mother drank. Not tea. And you know, I was thinking about things, and I realized the other day that two of my favorite passages in the world are about mothers and drinking. There’s that part in the Confessions where Monica and August—do they have you read Saint Augustine here?”
“I don’t think so,” Tidbit said.
“God, it’s like they’re raising barnyard animals.”
“We read The Decameron.”
Tidbit had never actually seen someone’s jaw drop before, and she giggled when Aubrey’s did. “Saint Augustine was traveling with his mother, Monica,” he said after a moment. “And she was dying, but there’s this beautiful moment that comes a few days before she passes. She and her son are standing by a window, and they share a vision. Augustine says that they drank from the spring of life, with the mouths of their hearts wide open.”
Tidbit leaned back and put her feet up on the edge of the bed. Aubrey patted them and continued, “The other bit I thought of is from the Odyssey. I’m just going to assume you haven’t read that so you don’t have to assure me that you read The Sea-Wolf or some such thing instead. Odysseus was lost in the land of the Cimmerians, I think, and to find his way needs to talk to a particular ghost named Tiresias. So he digs a pit and slaughters a sheep and fills the pit with the sheep’s blood. And a crowd of hungry ghosts begins to crowd around the blood, but Odysseus won’t let them have any until Tiresias arrives and answers his questions. After that, Odysseus lets the other ghosts in, and one of them is the ghost of his mother. He didn’t even know she had died until he saw her ghost. And there’s this moment when he stands there and watches his mother’s ghost crawl up to the pit and drink this blood. It’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever read.”
Tidbit didn’t know why he was telling her this. She wasn’t even sure what he was trying to tell her or if he was just talking. But they seemed to be things he wanted to talk about, and it was nice sitting in an armchair in a quiet room with no one calling her names or trying to stick a needle into her.
“My favorite memory of my mother,” Tidbit said, “was when we used to go to temple on Friday nights. I had these two velour pullovers that were this really, really dark blue. One was a crew neck, and one was a V-neck, and I used to sit on the floor of my room looking into the bottom drawer of my dresser, where I kept them, trying to decide which one to wear. I remember running my hand over them, just staring. I always wore my pink skirt, which I loved. Although now that I’m picturing it, it was really more peach than pink.” Tidbit shifted in her chair. Aubrey patted her feet for her to continue.
“This was when my dad was still living with us, but he would come to services from work, so when we went home afterward I’d have to choose who to go home with. I don’t know if it upset my dad, but I always went home with my mom. Mostly because she drove the Beetle, which was so much more fun. She would play these old Patti Smith cassettes, and I’d sing with her. But the best part was she’d let me put on the dome light, so it felt like we were in this little space capsule, just the two of us. That’s my favorite memory, me and my mom going home from temple Friday nights. That car was like a lit-up igloo rolling through the dark.”
Aubrey’s eyes were shut, but he nodded and smiled. That memory had actually been of her father driving her home, and he never listened to music. But Tidbit knew what Aubrey was looking for, and she was happy to make him happy. The truth was, I never really knew how much of what Tidbit said was made up, and when she told me about this conversation with Aubrey, she said that she wasn’t sure either. Her dad did drive a Beetle, she said. And the pullovers and skirt were real, she was certain. She remembered them.
She sat there quietly for a while. Aubrey fell back to sleep. His face looked like a little fire that had just been doused. Tidbit knew she should go back, and going back on her own made it seem easier. No one could say anything to her, because she’d been with Aubrey. Tidbit wondered if Claire really had scars on her leg where she had bitten her.
She collected the cup and saucer from Aubrey’s bed and rinsed them off in the kitchen sink. Tidbit turned off the lights and headed downstairs to Alternative Girls’ dorm.
9
Ken was anxious to hold his first workshop. He had spent plenty of time getting to know the students, the faculty, and Aubrey’s system. He had sat in on meetings. He had gone out on Reciprocity Details. He and Aubrey had even put on a performance during dinner one night, a duet with Aubrey playing piano and Ken on the clarinet.
But now things were set. It was Friday, and classes were letting out early so those who wanted to could attend. He had found two students whom he thought he could help a great deal. Anyone could benefit from psychic mending, Ken believed, but there was a particular workshop that had truly astounding results, and he wanted that to be people’s first impression of him here.
People were beginning to arrive. He was doing this workshop in the Campus Community room because it required space. He didn’t want too many watching, because that could disrupt the session. But most of the Regular Kids would be there, and the therapists, and some of the dorm parents. Ken and Aubrey had had a long talk about whether Aubrey should be there. Ken very much wanted him to be. Aubrey thought it better that Ken have the room all to himself—to help people get used to the idea of his being in charge. Ken wondered, though, whether Aubrey was maybe just too tired. He checked to make sure the right equipment was there. The cushions, the camera.
Ken was anxious to begin, but teachers and dorm parents were trickling in, and he knew that he should give everyone time to relax, for the energy in the room to settle. He went over and talked to Jenna, the Regular Kid who was going to be filming the session. Ken stepped outside for a moment to see if any others were still on their way. He didn’t see anyone. He returned to the room and began.
“All right, hello, everyone, and welcome. I’ve met you all, I know, but I’ll start by saying that I’m Ken, and I want to thank you very much for being here. I think that this is going to be an interesting and eye-opening experience for many of you, and hopefully also a helpful one for our subjects, but also on a personal level”—here he smiled and ran his hand over the bald part of his head—“it’s really very gratifying to feel so much support and interest.
“What we’re all going to be taking part in this morning is a psychic mending workshop, of course, but of a very specific nature. This is a ReBirthing session that I’ve organized, and before we begin I want to explain how it differs from a typical psychic mending exercise. ReBirthing involves only two figures: the subject”—and here he pointed to Beverly Hess and William Kay, who were seated with their dorm parents—“and the Ideal Mother, whom the subject will choose and who will enroll at the appropriate time.
“Generally in psychic mending, many more figures are enlisted. For example, if we were dealing with the repercussions of, say, a divorce, we might have various members of the workshop enroll as the Real Father, the Ideal Father, the Real Mothe
r, and the Ideal Mother, as well as, possibly, the Voice of Loyalty to Past Pain or the Voice of Hyperbolic Disappointment. But today there will just be the two figures, as I said.
“Now, ReBirthing is used specifically in cases where we suspect that a subject’s difficulties result from an attachment disorder. The theory goes that individuals experience attachment disorder, which is the inability to form strong, reliable connections with other people, especially with people in positions of authority, the theory is that this results from the failure to bond properly with the mother at birth. Some experts tell us that the absence of bonding even just during the first fifteen minutes of life can have lifelong repercussions. And of course the fear is then, the question is, that if it happens, if this bonding fails to happen, what can you do? Because how could you go back?”
Ken had been pacing back and forth across the front of the room as he was talking, but now he stopped and looked at the group assembled before him, his arms at his sides, his long fingers splayed. He sat down cross-legged on the carpet.
“That question, how could you go back, always seemed to me like such a failure of the imagination. You know, like a lot of you kids, I was very imaginative as a young person. Back in my day it was what the teachers used to call woolgathering, I was always off somewhere in my head. It’s part of what gets us into so much trouble, right?” He looked around the room, smiling and nodding at the students. “And it always drove me bonkers when someone, usually some grown-up, would say, ‘Oh, that’s just imaginary,’ or ‘That’s not real.’ Because to me, what I imagined was more real than most of the so-called real things they were talking about. And when I became a therapist I discovered that there’s a whole body of research that supports this, that says that for us as humans”—he made a gesture to encompass the whole room—“what we imagine has profound and measurable consequences.
“So all that ReBirthing does is it applies this insight to the problem of attachment disorder. If bonding has failed to occur, rather than simply saying ‘Oh, well, what can we do,’ what we do is to imaginatively re-create the experience of birth, so that this time bonding can occur.”
Ken hopped up and grabbed two of the cushions from the large pile that lay on the floor. “How do we do it? We use a bunch of cushions like these to represent the birth canal, and Beverly and William will, one at a time, have to fight their way through a kind of gauntlet, just like a baby trying to be born. And when they get through, they’ll have the opportunity to bond with the Ideal Mother of their choice.
“Now, it’s important that no one improvise during this session, because it is delicate. You need to imagine that we’re dealing with actual newborns, since that is essentially what William and Beverly will become. And it’s important that while they are bonding, which will go on for ten minutes, that everyone is silent. Please. So before we begin, are there any questions?”
There were none. Ken arranged things to his satisfaction. He placed the cushions in a line at the front of the room, and he made sure the camera was in position to get the best possible shot. “Whenever possible, I like psychic mending sessions to be videotaped,” he explained as he did this. “That way, the subject can go over them again, with a therapist or alone, and gain further insights.
“Now, of our two subjects, who wants to go first? Beverly? William? No? Beverly, why don’t you come up here. I want to talk to you for a moment before we begin.”
Bev looked at Marcy to see if it was all right, and when she nodded, Bev got up and stood next to Ken. She felt as though she were onstage. She looked back and forth from Ken to the rest of the group, her eyes wide open, nervous laughter bubbling through her wild smile.
“Beverly, your dorm parent explained to me that right now you’re on a structure called ghosting because members of your dorm found you to be too needy. Well, that neediness is a sign that you don’t trust that your needs are going to be met. You’re constantly agitating for attention because you fear that you’ll be forgotten, isn’t that right?”
“Okay,” Bev said, the tone of her laughter deeper now, incredulous.
“I’d like you now to choose someone from the group assembled here to be your Ideal Mother. If you could choose anyone here to be your mother, whom would you choose?”
“Marcy?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“Telling you?”
“Good. Marcy, would you please sit at the end of the birth canal? No, the other end. Good, thank you. Now say, ‘I enroll as the figure of your Ideal Mother.’ ”
Marcy tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I enroll as the figure of your Ideal Mother.”
“Excellent. When Beverly emerges from the birth canal, I’d like you to hold her and look her in the eyes for ten minutes. Don’t worry, I’ll keep time. It’s important that you look each other in the eye for as long as possible. I know Beverly isn’t a baby, so you can’t exactly hold her like one, but find the closest position that feels comfortable.
“Beverly, you come here with me.” He walked to the other end of the line of cushions. “Excuse me—Aaron, is it? I’ll need your help with this if you don’t mind. Beverly is going to try to crawl from this point to where Marcy is sitting, and we are going to surround her tightly with cushions and make that journey as difficult as possible. Do you understand? Beverly, are you ready?”
As soon as Beverly began crawling, Ken and Aaron pressed the cushions against her from either side. Bev stopped and sat still until Ken explained that she should continue fighting until she got to Marcy. So she pushed against the cushions and giggled when she got pushed back. She ducked her head and pressed forward again, squeezed between the cushions. Bev breathed in the chemical smell of the stuffing. The rough wool covers scraped her face. She tried to get some traction, leaning forward and pressing her feet against the carpet. But she wasn’t wearing shoes, and her feet slipped. She burrowed down, beneath where Ken and Aaron were pressing, and crawled on her elbows. A zipper cut her over one eye, but she crawled on. She saw a small triangle of carpet in front of her, where the pile of cushions ended. When she emerged, her, face was red and she was panting. Marcy was smiling down at her, and Bev smiled back. Bev climbed into Marcy’s lap, and they stared at each other, Bev giggling intermittently. Marcy wiped a small drop of blood from above Bev’s eye.
For ten minutes they sat there, the only distraction Ken’s palpable excitement at how well his session was going. When ten minutes were up he exhaled loudly and told Bev that he would set up a time for them to talk later. For now she should just feel what she was feeling. Then it was William’s turn. He chose Ellie to be his Ideal Mother. He said it with a note of triumph, as though he were making her do something she didn’t want to. And the kids all laughed, because Ellie was gorgeous, and they knew William was taking advantage of the chance to lie in her lap and stare at her.
Ellie made an effort not to roll her eyes. “I enroll as the figure of your Ideal Mother,” she said. Ken motioned for her to move to where Marcy had been sitting. She did and wondered if he would expect her to hold William in her lap.
“We’re going to make this a difficult journey, William,” Ken told him. “Because the most difficult journeys are the most valuable. Now I’ll need another volunteer or two to help me and Aaron.” Most of the boys at the session raised their hands while Ken rolled up his sleeves. He chose Tyler and Eric Gold. “A couple of big boys,” he said. “We’ll make this a real challenge.”
William took a few steps back to get a running start. Ken nodded at him, and William ran at the cushions he and Aaron were holding. Ken knocked him to the ground and pressed him with the cushions. “Now move, move, William! Move to the end of the canal!”
Aaron leaned down on a bunch of cushions and pillows he piled on top of William. Eric kneeled on the cushions near William’s head.
“You fuckers are smothering me,” William called out.
“Remember, you’re a baby now. You can’t talk.”
William worked his legs and crawled on his elbows, trying to move under the cushions. Aaron laughed as he felt William lurch forward. Tyler called out to Eric to stop him, and from opposite sides of the canal they pressed the cushions together.
“I think we’ve got his face,” Eric said as William punched against the pillows around him.
“Hold him,” Tyler said. The boys laughed together, kneeling on the floor. Aaron was enjoying this. He imagined what he might say if they had a meeting later to discuss how the session had gone. He would say that what he liked was that Ken showed that you could deal with your issues but that it could also be fun. William twisted under the cushions. The boys had let go of his head, and he tried to find a place between the cushions where he could get a breath. But everything pressed down all over, and there wasn’t any air anywhere. He felt an enormous pressure welling up inside him. He struggled to find some release, scraped at the carpet with his fingers. Aaron felt William’s shoulder jerk forward and pushed him back, only to feel William lurch again.
About halfway through the canal, William stopped the way Bev had and lay there. Ken told him to go on, but William didn’t. “Come on now, no giving up,” he called. A few moments went by, and Ken told him again. The he lifted up the cushion and saw William’s upper lip covered in blood. William was still. The students watching drew back instinctively. Purple spots were spread across his cheek and neck.
“Oh, goddamn it, goddamn it. We need to call an ambulance right away,” Ken said. “Right away. Who knows where there’s a phone? Could someone go?” He seemed calm, but what he felt was an overwhelming exhaustion laced with fear.
Aaron moved to check for a pulse at William’s throat, but Ken knocked his arm away. “We shouldn’t touch him. We need to get an ambulance. They know what to do.”