The Last Collection

by Seymour Blicker

  Hankleman had a feeling that Bregman was trying to tell him something.

  “You know, Morrie, regarding your little problem with this guy Kerner. . . . Well, it’s just possible that Solly might be able to . . . you know . . . help you out.”

  Hankleman nodded again.

  “He might help you out . . . just to sort of keep in shape.”

  Hankleman kept on nodding his head.

  “Why don’t you talk to him, Morrie?” Bregman said, smiling.

  Hankleman kept on nodding.

  Chapter Two

  Artie Kerner walked down the corridor until he came to the door marked ‘Harold Lehman, M.D.’ He looked around quickly and, seeing no one, darted inside shutting the door behind him. He was nervous. He didn’t want anyone to see him going into a psychiatrist’s office. He looked around the waiting room and saw it was empty.

  He could hear the murmur of voices coming from behind a door marked private. He pressed closer to the door trying to hear what was being said. He could hear a woman’s voice.

  “Thank you very much, Doctor,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” a male voice said. “I’ll see you back here the same time tomorrow.”

  Kerner could hear the sound of footsteps. He moved quickly away from the door towards the far corner of the waiting room.

  The door marked private was suddenly opened. Kerner pretended to scratch the side of his face, attempting to hide it. With his hand in that position he stole a glance towards the doorway as a pretty, thirtyish-looking woman came out, followed by a gaunt-faced, bespectacled man.

  “Oh hello there,” the doctor said. “You must be Mr. Kerner?”

  Kerner tried to acknowledge the greeting and, at the same time, still keep his face hidden. He half-turned and forced a distorted smile, feeling his stomach churning.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Kerner, as soon as I say goodbye to Mrs. Griff,” the doctor said.

  Kerner turned so he was looking directly at the wall.

  “Anyway,” the doctor said in a loud voice, “don’t worry too much about your husband, Mrs. Griff. Maybe he’ll come around soon. Don’t forget, there are some women whose husbands haven’t serviced them in ten years. Yours has only been holding off for a year.”

  Kerner heard the sudden slamming of the office door, followed by the sound of a woman’s heels clacking quickly away down the outside hallway.

  “Now then, Mr. Kerner, step in here, please,” the doctor said.

  Kerner turned and followed him into the office. For a moment he felt dazed. He couldn’t believe the sight. It was the biggest private office he had ever seen. He estimated its dimensions to be at least 30′ by 40′. In one corner was the doctor’s desk; a huge walnut monstrosity shaped like a fat boomerang. It was easily four or five times the size of a normal executive-type desk. It was so large that Kerner estimated a dozen people could have lain on it without any trouble.

  The entire left side of the room was given over to a setting that reminded Kerner of the play South Pacific. There beside him he observed a reproduction of a South Sea lagoon, complete with real palm trees, a thatched-roof hut and a waterfall with real water coursing down into a pond. Soft lights played on the water.

  “I like to have a pleasant atmosphere where I work,” said the doctor, walking towards his desk.

  Kerner nodded, still slightly stunned.

  The doctor sat himself behind the gigantic desk which at that moment seemed like a piece of lethal war machinery to Kerner.

  The doctor reclined his huge leather chair by pressing a button on the desk. Not only did the chair go back, but it went down as well, so that in a moment only the doctor’s head and shoulders were visible. To Kerner he looked like a commander in the turret of some strange wooden tank.

  “Sit down, please, Mr. Kerner,” the doctor said, pointing at an area about twenty feet in front of his desk.

  Kerner observed a small cot and a tiny wooden chair.

  “Or lie down if it’ll make you more comfortable.”

  Kerner had a sudden urge to turn and bolt for the door, but he remained. So far everything seemed a little crazy, but who was he to judge what was crazy, given the problem that he himself was plagued with.

  Kerner sat down on the little chair, which wasn’t much bigger than the kind he had when he was four or five years old. His knees came up almost to his chin. Maybe he should have chosen the couch, he thought. It might have been a little more dignified.

  Suddenly the doctor pushed another button and a spotlight came on directly over Kerner’s head. A circle of light surrounded the little chair. Kerner again felt an urge to get up and leave, but again he restrained himself. He had heard about this Dr. Lehman. Many of his ideas were extremely avant-garde, but he had a high reputation and apparently there were people who claimed he had cured them of the most bizarre ills.

  Kerner looked up at the doctor nervously, feeling like a fool, exposed, out in the open on his little chair, while the doctor sat half-hidden and protected by his massive fort-like desk. Kerner didn’t know what to expect. He had never been to a psychiatrist before and felt embarrassed, even ashamed, about being there.

  It was hard having to admit that he had a problem that he couldn’t solve by himself. For the first time in his adult life, he needed help and he didn’t like the idea at all.

  Kerner sat waiting for the psychiatrist to say something, but the doctor just sat quietly in his enormous chair with his head back and his eyes closed as though he were sleeping.

  After a few minutes of silence, Kerner said, “Aren’t you going to ask me anything?”

  The doctor looked up as though he had just been rudely awakened. “Um? What?” he grunted.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me anything?” Kerner repeated.

  “Me ask you? Who’s the patient, me or you?”

  “Me . . . I mean, I’m not actually a patient,” Kerner said hesitantly.

  “So if you’re not a patient, Mr. Kerner, do you mind telling me what you’re doing here wasting my valuable time?” the doctor said, a note of controlled anger in his voice.

  “Uh . . . well, there are a few things . . . no, actually it’s just one thing that’s bothering me, which I thought I should discuss with a competent person.”

  “Like what, for instance?” the doctor said, pressing a button so that his chair suddenly rose a foot higher.

  “Like . . . well . . . it’s sort of . . .”

  “What? What! Get it out already,” the doctor shouted, moving his chair even higher.

  Kerner felt very unprotected. “It’s this problem I have . . . you see it . . .”

  “What? What is it already! Don’t be selfish, Mr. Kerner. Share it with me.”

  Kerner hesitated. He was finding it very difficult to begin. He was finding it much more difficult than he had thought it would be—in fact, he was finding it almost impossible.

  “Well,” said the doctor.

  “Well . . . I have this problem,” Kerner said.

  “Yes, we’ve established that. Now just what is this problem, Mr. Kerner?”

  “Well, it’s nothing much really . . .”

  “So if it’s nothing much, is it really necessary to pay me $50.00 an hour?”

  “I thought you said it was $35.00 an hour,” Kerner said, caught by surprise.

  “Before, yes, but now that you’ve aggravated me, I’m raising it to $50.00 an hour. You got me angry just now, Mr. Kerner, and I believe in giving expression to my anger; ventilating it, as it were. It’s a lot healthier than keeping it in.”

  “But you told me $35.00!”

  “So I lied. Big deal. Sue me.”

  Kerner stared at the doctor in disbelief. He could feel a tightness in his chest. He prayed that he wouldn’t get an attack of nausea until he could get out of there.

  “Lying is good now and then,” the doctor continued. “A little deception on occasion never hurt anyone, right?”

  Kerner sh
rugged noncommittally. “Well, I don’t know, but I just don’t think it’s fair to charge me $50.00 when you told me on the phone it would be $35.00.”

  “How do you know it was me on the phone, Mr. Kerner, eh, eh, eh? Answer that one.” The doctor shouted, half-standing on his chair.

  Kerner’s nervousness increased. Was this typical? he wondered. Perhaps this was some type of avant-garde technique employed by the doctor to provoke some childhood memory.

  “You can’t prove it was me on the phone, can you, Mr. Kerner?”

  “No,” Kerner said meekly. “But . . .”

  The doctor cut him off. “Okay. . . . Now if you keep arguing, Mr. Kerner, in another minute I’ll raise my fee to $55.00 an hour, and every minute of arguing after that, it will go up another $5.00 an hour.”

  “I’m not arguing anymore,” Kerner replied.

  “Good.”

  “Maybe . . .”

  “Yes? Yes?” said the psychiatrist.

  “Maybe you could make it $40.00 an hour instead of $50.00.”

  “Look, what do you take me for?” the doctor asked angrily, pressing a button so that his chair was suddenly pushed forward. “You think this is the old Rachel Market on Main Street or something?” he asked, propping himself against the desk top. “I don’t bargain.” He pressed a button and the chair went back. “If I say $50.00, it’s $50.00. I’m a man of my word,” the doctor said and gazed up at the ceiling.

  “Maybe we could saw it off at $45.00?” Kerner asked quietly.

  The doctor’s seat jerked forward. “I said $50.00, and it’s $50.00.” He slammed the top of the gargantuan desk and then, pressing his button, was carried down and almost out of sight behind his battlements.

  “Okay, how about $47.50?” Kerner suggested, knowing that with his problem every penny counted.

  “It’s $50.00 or nothing,” the doctor said, suddenly coming back into view. “It’s a matter of principle!”

  “Well, okay, but I just don’t think it’s fair.”

  “Look, Mr. Kerner, in life one has to pay for one’s mistakes. You got me angry. You have to pay for that. Now enough talking about money. Let’s hear about your problem.”

  Kerner’s nervousness increased. Now he suddenly felt the first suggestion of nausea and that made him determined to try and discuss his problem. He fought down a slight panic which the sick feeling provoked in him.

  “I want to discuss my problem with you, Dr. Lehman, but I’m finding it very difficult to start. . . . Maybe you could ask me certain questions about what you think it might be, and then if you hit on it, I’ll just answer yes, and maybe then I’ll be able to discuss it.”

  “All right, Kerner, if you want to act like a two-year-old child, we’ll accommodate you and do it that way.”

  Kerner was about to protest the insult as well as the fact that the doctor had dropped the Mr. from his name, but he held himself back.

  “Now let’s see,” the doctor said, rubbing his head. “You’re in love with another woman.”

  “No, I’m not married and I’m not in love with anyone.”

  “All right, you’re in love with another man!”

  “No,” Kerner replied. “I’m not queer.”

  “Are you sure about that, Mr. Kerner?” the doctor asked, fixing Kerner with a hard stare.

  “I’m definitely not in love with any man.”

  The psychiatrist looked at Kerner suspiciously, squinting his eyes. “Are you trying to tell me you’re not a fag, Mr. Kerner?”

  “Look! I’m definitely not! What is this? I mean, come off it. What kind of therapy is this?” Kerner half-shouted, raising himself out of the little chair.

  The doctor appeared unperturbed. “I’m hardly ever wrong. The minute I saw you in my waiting room, I thought, Oh, oh, possible latent homo . . . of course, I could be wrong.“

  “Well, you are wrong, as a matter of fact,” Kerner said angrily. “I’m no queer.”

  “Well, I’ll take your word for it for the time being. Now let’s go on and see if I can hit on your particular perversion, shall we?”

  “It’s not a perversion,” Kerner said, reacting with defensive quickness.

  “Let me decide that when I hear about it, okay?” the doctor snapped.

  What am I doing here? Kerner wondered. Not only was the doctor making him nervous, but he was starting to feel the sickness coming over him. This man could never help him, he thought; but still, if there was the slightest chance that he could be aided in this strange office with its South Sea setting, he must take it, no matter what.

  The doctor suddenly pushed another button and water began to fall from the ceiling into the pond like a sudden rainburst. “Could your problem be that you can’t get it up?” the doctor asked, hunching forward across his desk.

  “Get what up?”

  “Your cock!” the doctor said.

  “Are you serious? I’m very potent.”

  “Very potent, huh? Can you make it hard at will, like I can? . . . Eh? . . . Well?”

  “I don’t know,” Kerner replied, flabbergasted.

  “You don’t know!” There was an incredulous sound in the doctor’s voice.

  “No, I don’t know. Is that a crime or something?”

  The doctor ignored Kerner’s counter. “If I said to you, ‘Raise me a hard-on in sixty seconds,’ could you do it?”

  “I’m not sure. . . . I’ve never tried it. . . . Well, maybe I could. . . . Yes! I think I could.”

  “You think you could?”

  “Yes, I could. I definitely could.”

  “Are you absolutely positive?”

  “Yes, I said I could. Don’t you believe me?”

  “Believe you? Why should I believe you? You’ve already lied to me once.”

  “What? I haven’t lied about anything!” Kerner shouted.

  “Yes, you have,” the doctor said calmly with a light tone in his voice.

  “About what?”

  “You lied to me about being a fag.”

  “I’m not a fag, goddamn it! I have no reason to lie to you,” Kerner said angrily. He stood up and grabbed the little chair. “And what the hell do I have to sit in this crazy little thing for?” Kerner threw the chair aside. “It’s for a midget!”

  “If you don’t like the chair, you can always lie down on the cot.”

  “I’ll sit on it,” Kerner said.

  “As you wish,” the doctor replied. “Just, please, no more lies, Mr. Kerner.”

  “I didn’t lie. I’m not queer or impotent. Those are not problems of mine. Mine is . . .”

  “Yes? Yes, what? Tell me! Get it out already. Let’s hear it! Yours is . . .?

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I just can’t seem to start talking about it . . . it’s sort of . . . humiliating. Maybe you could ask me something else?”

  The doctor pressed a button and sank almost out of sight again. “You’re getting me very angry, Mr. Kerner.”

  “I’m sorry. Believe me, I’m trying. I can’t help it.”

  “You’d better help it because it doesn’t pay to get me angry. Now I’m going to ask you a few more pointed scientific questions relating to what your problem may be. If we fail to get anywhere with these, we’ll have to take another approach.”

  Kerner shivered, afraid to think what that other approach might be.

  Why? Why? Kerner wondered, why did he come here? Why did he have to be so unfortunate to have a sickness so unique and so bizarre that it seemed beyond cure? He felt all alone, helpless. He wanted to cry.

  The doctor was now pressing a series of switches. The sound of thunder suddenly burst out of hidden speakers, and a strong wind coursed through the room as though a large fan had been turned on somewhere. The rain continued to fall on the lagoon and Kerner was now rapidly getting drenched from the sheets of rain that were being swept across the room by the hidden wind-making machine.

  Kerner got up and, dragging the couch with him, moved several feet
to the side and sat down.

  The doctor came into view again. Kerner fixed him with an angry look.

  “You know,” the doctor said, “I think I know what’s bothering you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes,” said the doctor. “One of the most common problems that my male patients seem to have is penis anxiety.”

  Kerner waited.

  “In effect, they feel that the size of their tool is inadequate. . . . Now is that it?”

  “No,” Kerner said. “No, I don’t want to talk about anything like that. That’s not a problem of mine.”

  “Good. I’m actually sick and tired of hearing about the problems guys think they have with their petzels. Every second guy starts off like, ‘Uh, Doctor . . . it’s about my organ,’ or, ‘Doctor, it concerns my genital member,’ or, ‘Doctor, it sort of has to do with my whatchamacallit.’ Then they all proceed to tell me that it used to be a lot bigger but that somehow when they weren’t looking it shrank.”

  “No, I don’t have a problem with my thing,” Kerner said, self-satisfied.

  “With your what!” the doctor shouted incredulously.

  “With my thing.”

  “What thing? C’mon out with it. Say it!”

  “Say what?” Kerner asked, confused.

  “You know what I mean. Give your thing a name. Don’t be ashamed to call it what it is. It’s not dirty. We’re in the midst of a sexual revolution, man! Don’t be embarrassed. Now call it something appropriate.”

  “You mean, like prick?” Kerner asked.

  “Right. Very good. Now we’re getting somewhere. What else?”

  “Cock?”

  “Good, good. What else?”

  “Rod?”

  “Yes, yes. Very good.”

  “I know a lot more,” Kerner said, feeling a sudden surge of enthusiasm.

  “It’s enough, it’s enough,” the doctor grunted. “Don’t you feel better now?”

  “No. I didn’t feel bad to begin with, at least not about that. I told you. Besides, you said you were tired of hearing about guys with that type of problem.”

  “That’s true, I am tired of it. But my professional responsibilities compel me to deal with this problem, if and where it exists, no matter how aggravating and distasteful I find it. So then, Mr. Kerner, what is the length of your prick?”