by C. P. Boyko
Q. You are familiar with the practice of bleeding, Professor, which was practiced for two hundred years even though it was ineffective and wrong?
A. If that is a question, then yes, I am familiar with it.
Q. Did the doctors or barbers or whoever performed those bleeding or leeching operations know they were wrong, Professor, or did they believe they were helping their patients?
A. If you mean is it possible that I am wrong even though I think I am right, yes of course, but the same could be said for anyone at any time in human history.
Q. That is very generous of you, Professor.
A. I think perhaps you could stop calling me Professor now.
The bar was not open yet. He knocked on the front door, then went around to the back of the building, picking his way past garbage cans and garbage.
On the back wall, someone had spray-painted the words SPICK KILLERS.
He knocked.
A large man opened the door and looked at him.
“Is this … Does Mike work here? Mike Burger?”
The large man closed the door.
“Good union,” Strickland muttered. He was picking his way back through the garbage when the door opened again and Mike came out.
“Shit, man. What the fuck?”
A group of men were seated around a pool table covered with piles of paper. One of them rolled a toothpick back and forth in his mouth without seeming to move his tongue. They all looked at Strickland as if they had been waiting for him.
Mike shook his thumb at Strickland and said, “Aw, shit, this guy’s okay. Friend of mine. We’ll be in the back, okay, Andy? Shit.”
Strickland waited in a dirty, derelict kitchen stacked to the ceiling with cases of alcohol. Mike came in holding a VCR in one hand, its power cord dragging behind like a tail.
“Here,” he said. “I wanted to give you this.”
“A VCR?”
Mike pulled at his teeth and said, “Roz said I should get you something, you know, so I thought: shit.”
“Thank you,” Strickland said. “Actually, we don’t own a television.”
“Aw, fuck it. Pawn it if you want. You know how women …”
“We’ve been thinking of buying one, though. And now we could rent movies. It’s very thoughtful.”
“Aw, fuck off, man. It was just an idea.”
Strickland put the VCR down on the edge of a dusty grill. “Listen, Mike.”
“But you should blow out, man. You shouldn’t really ought to be down here right now anyway.”
“I’m dropping your case, Mike.”
“Come back some night, I’ll run you up a tab.”
“I said I’m dropping the case. I just came from Massick. I’m not going to do it.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not going to testify. Go to court. Say that you’re insane. I don’t think you’re insane.”
“Insane?”
“I can’t do it. I’m sorry. It wouldn’t be honest. I want to help you but … Jesus, my life is more fucked up than yours right now. I have no right to sit in judgment on … anyone. I’m sorry.”
“But it starts next week. I’m on trial next week.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But it wouldn’t be right. I don’t think you belong in a ment—I don’t think you have a psychol—I don’t think you’re crazy and it would be dishonest, unprofessional, and, and, and wrong for me to pretend otherwise. And probably illegal.”
“You saying you ain’t gonna testify.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“But man, I’m going to court next week!”
“I heard you the first time. I don’t think you heard me.”
Mike put his hand delicately on a stack of Jack Daniel’s boxes, as if it were the head of a child.
“I understand if you’re angry.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He was breathing heavily. “You talking about quitting?”
“I am quitting.”
“Man, what the fuck you talking about? Who said you could quit? Who the fuck hired you? Who the fuck pays your bills?”
“Well,” said Strickland, “Massick.”
Mike began tapping the lowest box in the stack with his shoe; bottles tinkled. “Let me just get this straight here for a minute. I gotta go and get my ass dragged into court next fucking week and you want to blow off?”
“I was hired by Massick, and I never promised that I would— Everything was contingent on whether or not I, on the results of— I’m sorry it took so long, but these things take time.”
Mike kicked the box; glass broke.
“Man, what, the fuck, you talking about! Who you think hired Massick, man? Who the fuck you think pays his bills?” He kicked the box again. “Not me! That’s for sure as fucking sure. You think I got money? I don’t got shit. It’s that motherfucker out there who’s got the money. I don’t got shit, I ain’t shit, unless that motherfucker says I’m shit.”
He punched the top box and the whole stack came crashing down. Jack Daniel’s came gurgling out of the boxes and spread slowly across the floor.
“There! That’s what I’m talking about! Now who the fuck you think’s going to pay for that shit? It sure, as fuck, ain’t gonna be fucking Massick!”
He began kicking and stamping on the fallen boxes.
“And I sure, as fuck, ain’t going, into, fucking, clink again, and getting my other, fucking, kidney, cut the fuck out, by one of that spic, fag, DiRosa’s, fucking, brothers!”
Panting, fists clenched, he turned on Strickland.
Strickland took a step back and said, “I don’t think this is a very intelligent way to discuss this.”
*
As the sound of breaking bottles reached them, the men around the pool table looked at one another, then at the man with the toothpick. The man with the toothpick took the toothpick out of his mouth. He placed it on the edge of the table. He said, “Shit.”
Mike went limp when the door opened, which allowed Strickland to get out from under him and grab him by the throat.
“What’s all this fuss?” said the man with the toothpick.
Strickland let go. They got to their feet.
“You need some help with this … friend of yours?”
“Naw, Andy,” said Mike.
Strickland tugged his shirt into place. “We’re fine, thanks.”
The man with the toothpick said to Mike, “You need to take a little time out?”
Mike said, “Naw, Andy.”
“Let me see. How about this. Take yourself a little time out. Work whatever this shit is out. Just be back before first rush. Then clean this fucking mess up.”
Out in the street, they shuffled towards Strickland’s car, blinking and shielding their eyes from the sun. Strickland had the VCR under one arm.
“I just about had you there,” Strickland said.
“Aw man, forget that.”
“No kidding. Another two minutes … Did you like that hold?” Strickland cocked his free arm to show which hold he meant.
“You fight like a fucking school kid. Kicking a guy’s fucking legs out.”
“That’s because I haven’t been in a fight since school!”
They stood next to the car, looking down at the city as the sun set.
“So what am I supposed to tell them?” said Strickland. “I can’t— I won’t lie.”
“Shit, man. Who the fuck said shit about lying? Tell them the fucking truth. Tell them that asshole got what he fucking asked for.”
“Mike,” Strickland said. “What happened on July ninth?”
“Man, what the fuck do I know from July ninth? How the fuck do I know what I’m doing July ninth or tenth or any other fucking day? That shit’s a long time ago.”
“You know what day I mean.”
“Man, you mean the night I killed that motherfucker, say so.”
Mike Burger and Antonio DiRosa in the foyer of The White Grape, shouting into each oth
er’s faces.
Man, what you fucking looking at, man?
What you think you looking at?
I’ll look at whatever the fuck I feel like, my friend.
I’m not your friend and you better back off, man.
Yeah? Or what.
I’m just telling you now, you better just about back the fuck off, man.
“Nobody talks to me like that, man.”
Strickland said, “But what did he say?”
You think you can tell motherfuckers what they can or can’t look at, motherfucker?
Who you calling motherfucker, motherfucker? Go fuck your own mother.
Mike’s friends, who have been holding him back, suddenly meeting no resistance.
*
“Some punk piece of shit spic motherfucker tells me to fuck my mother, what the fuck you expect me to do? Take that shit lying down? Fuck that. Nobody says shit about my mother, man.”
Mike got back in the car. Strickland joined him.
“She got enough of that fucking shit when she was alive.”
“All right,” said Strickland. “All right, all right, all right,” he said. “Tell me about your mother.”
Q. Are you familiar with the phrase begging the question? Strike that. How do you know when your treatment has been effective? Do you do follow-up studies? Do you get other psychologists to assess your results? Do you in fact make use of any of the tools of science? Analysis, comparison, evaluation, validation—do these play any part in your clinical work, Dr. Strickland?
MR. MASSICK: Now I do beg Your Honor’s pardon but—
A. Let me explain something to you, Ms. Lattimann—
THE COURT: Now just a minute, Doctor. There is I believe going to be an objection to what was clearly a compound question.
MR. MASSICK: Thank you, Your Honor.
MS. LATTIMANN: Your Honor, with all due respect I would appreciate it if you left the objections to the defense counsel. I have my hands quite full enough without—
THE COURT: Ms. Lattimann, I would advise you to stop right there. Anyone can see that that was a compound question and therefore improper. You may rephrase, provided you limit yourself to one question at a time.
DR. STRICKLAND: May I say something, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Jesus and Mary. No you may not, until you are asked a direct question.
DR. STRICKLAND: It seems to me I was asked several, and it seems to me that everyone else in this court is given a chance to speak up whenever they like whereas I am not even allowed to elaborate on my answers, when it should be obvious to anyone with a, it should be obvious to anyone that there are some questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no, and I would also like to say for the record in respect to Ms. Lattimann’s, well I don’t know, I want to say argumentative and sarcastic question that yes—
THE COURT: I will decide what is argumentative, Doctor, thank you.
DR. STRICKLAND: As a matter of fact I do know what begging the question means, and furthermore that if she means to imply that my method is not scientific because I do not use double-blind studies or choose to hop my patients up on speed or downers or goofballs—
MS. LATTIMANN: Mr. Massick, perhaps you could please control your witness.
THE COURT: Ms. Lattimann, it is not for you to make requests of that nature to Mr. Massick.
DR. STRICKLAND: You give a hundred people a drug in a double-blind placebo-controlled study and lo and behold, sixty of them seem to do a little better, so the drug works, and a hundred doctors start prescribing it to a hundred patients each, but what about the forty it doesn’t help, or makes feel worse? That’s modern medicine. The individual is swamped by the average. And that’s what you’d have us turn psychology into, Ms. Lattimann. Let me tell you, there is more wisdom, and compassion, and insight in one good case study of one unique and troubled person than in any number of tables of figures added up and smoothed over by mathematical frippery …
THE COURT: Thank you, Doctor, that will do nicely.
DR. STRICKLAND: All right, Ms. Lattimann, we all see what you’re trying to do. You want to discredit psychology as a science? Fine. I’ll do it for you. Not just clinical psychology but I’ll throw in experimental, and popular, and social and personality and depth and all the other kinds of psychology for free. They’re all bunk. Of course they are. They’re just stories we make up to explain why we do things, but none of us even knows why we do things ourself so how can we expect to make a science out of why everyone does everything that they do?
THE COURT: This is not the way things are done in a court of law, Doctor.
DR. STRICKLAND: You think if you find it in the DSM then it’s science? Do you know anything? Yes, let me ask you some questions for a change. Did you know, Ms. Lattimann, that the manual was produced by committee consensus? That means they chatted about the different categories and decided by vote what should be included and what should not—isn’t that correct? And isn’t it true that there were disagreements, and that in fact a few years ago, wasn’t there a big outcry when the Committee on Nomenclature voted that homosexuality was not a mental disorder, and wasn’t that controversy resolved by sending ballots out to members of the American Psychiatric Association and having them vote on whether or not homosexuality is or is not a mental disorder? Now, that is not a scientific procedure, is it, Ms. Lattimann?
MS. LATTIMANN: Your Honor, I trust that you will instruct the jury correctly when the time comes to strike this tirade from the record if you are not going to clear the courtroom now or hold Dr. Strickland in contempt of court.
THE COURT: Ms. Lattimann, the next person, male or female, white or black, witness or counsel or juror or bailiff, who tells me how to do my job, will be the one held in contempt of court. As for you, Professor, Doctor—
DR. STRICKLAND: All right. Just let me say one more thing. Ms. Lattimann wants to quibble over definitions and diagnoses. It should be clear by now why I do not. Call it impulse dyscontrol or explosive personality type or any of the hundreds of things it’s been called. None of the names says anything. A label isn’t an explanation. The point is this. Could Mike Burger have acted differently? Could he have conformed his conduct to the law? My answer, in my professional, clinical opinion, is no. He could not. Not when you know who he is, what he has been through, how he relates to the world. A man in a restaurant told him to fuck his mother. So he beat him up, and the man died. He had no choice, when you consider his upbringing. His father was a violent, hateful man who beat his wife when their children—her children, he called them—acted up, or acted out, or did not behave exactly as he wanted them to behave—that is, as blocks of wood. Mike Burger as a child saw his mother thrashed till she was black and blue for his mischief, for his misdeeds. So when Antonio DiRosa told him to fuck his mother, something snapped. Maybe DiRosa became in that moment Mike’s father. Maybe the man’s unfortunate choice of words seemed to accuse Mike of himself being his father, or like his father. In either case, he was not a child any longer and he was not going to stand for anyone insulting or harming his mother anymore. So he attacked. What else could he do? Now tell me, Ms. Lattimann. Where are you going to find any of that in a textbook of psychological disorders?
THE COURT: Now we’ve simply got to have some kind of order and reason here. This isn’t the way things are done. We’ve got to have order, or we’ll be left with nothing but chaos.
MIKE BURGER: I’m sorry, man, but that’s a load of fucking shit. I hated that bitch.
The judge cleared the courtroom.
SIX WEEKS LATER
The anxious young man said nothing for a long time. “It helps me sleep, too.”
“Well, that’s fine,” said Strickland. “Just, you know. Be careful. Those things can be addictive.”
“I guess.”
“… Should we work on relaxation?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m probably relaxed enough already.”
“Well … I’m moving to a new off
ice. So, if you want, we can meet there from now on.”
The young man looked around his kitchen. “I don’t mind.”
Melanie and Ben helped Strickland carry boxes from the interview room out to his car.
“Blind corner!”
“Beep beep, coming through!”
“Oops—head-on collision!”
The phone rang. Melanie ran to get it.
“It’s … the police,” she whispered.
They both looked at the box in his hands. On top was the VCR that Mike had given him.
“Joy ride,” the cop explained. “Probably dumped it hours after they grabbed it. Drove it halfway into an aqueduct, otherwise somebody’d’ve spotted it sooner.”
Strickland looked at the car. “And this—you’re sure it’s mine?”
The cop handed him the registration. “Glovebox,” he said.
On the little stage, Ben said, “In the skirts of Norway, here and there, sharked up a list, of lawless res-o-lutes …”
Beryl stood at the back of the room, squeezing her hands.
Later, alone with Strickland, she cried.
“They were terrible. So terrible! I always thought bad acting was bad directing, but those children … They’re not even believable when they’re being themselves!”
Strickland told his class, “Don’t ask them how they are. Don’t ask them how they feel. Though their problems come from inside, they don’t feel it that way. Ask them how life is. Ask them how the world is treating them.”
The girl in the black turtleneck wrote everything down.
Strickland sat at his new desk in his new office, thinking.
He wrote something down, sighed, and rubbed his neck.
“Despite its appearance,” he muttered, “it is actually a reaction to distressing feelings of weakness, Ms. Lattimann …”
There was a tap at the door.
“Mind if I come in?”
Martie sat on his couch and said, “Such an unbearably tedious woman. Her only contact with the outside world is the six-o’clock news, and she only watches that so she can have something to be afraid of. The other night—this is good, you’ll love this—she heard some pundit say that the only reason there’s a recession is because everyone says so. You know: everyone is told there is a recession, so they don’t spend anything, and so there is a recession. Oh, she puzzled over this for nearly the entire hour. She couldn’t understand why we didn’t just call it something else, use a different word— something ‘upbeat,’ she said. As if, instead of a recession, we could all agree that what we were in the middle of was actually a carnival, and if everyone just said it and believed it, it would come true …”