by Evan Dara
Look I Don’t look in the Trib in the Sun-Times in Sunset and MidWest Jour Chicago MAGazine and me here the Trib again and dozens, OK, dozens! and hundreds and cover stories on television all the time, ALL THE TIME I’m not scared of you, I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid of ANYthing – much less anything YOU a little fucking cock-a-roach like YOU OK? – I Fear Nothing! – it’s alien to my constiTUtion much less from a niggling smeared jackanapes I don’t how can anyone, ANYone could fear a path little when there’s nothing, there’s nothing there TO fear – I Would despise you, but there’s nothing there Worthy of despition – of—
So OK, OK, that’s just take your time, think about what you’re going to do, that’s it try to get your path little mind into gear and turn the ratchets and keep on realizing your total pathetic non-existent POWER until the Cops! come thundering in this door, right in here hundreds of them I hit the button, I have a LASer system and the button and they’ll be here in Ten Minutes!, a redline to the police, they’re they know me, I work withfor them All The Time, we’ve for twenty years They’re already on their Way! – dammit I’m giving you a CHANCE Goddammit, I am giving you and Tommy Bevelaqua, OK?, I’m Tommy Bevel – I two years ago I I saved his neph his Nephew from a stevedore’s from the docklands a sting where he – I got him off!, I found the rule the police violed when in setting him up, seventeen-dash-twelve, City statutes, illegal inFormant – and now he owes me, OK?, he told me he owns me, he shook my hand right here and said and when he finds out I am saving you from the fucking MOB, OK?, From The Fuck Ing Mob! – you there’ll be no Question, their code merciless will Force! them Force! them to slice your ass into prosciuto with without even Thinking! – do you? – do? – Cretin! – Tommy BevelAQUA—?
O I’m laughing now, I’m ho ho, I am you are you STINK you are, you ’cause my son is coming, he’s coming Right now, he’s he’s picking me up in fifteen minutes and what are you going to kill him too? – Are you going to lay waste my a guy a hundred, a hundred thousand times what you, what you EVer could – Five-ten, every Thursday night, Never fails, he comes, he picks me up and we In Fifteen Minutes! we over to La Cantina and then candlepins – and a great and a GREAT and he lets me win!, OK? – And he picks up the check La Cantina Ev-Ree Time, that kind of a – And my son He NEVER misses an appointment, NEV and a key here and All my numbers, All My You have no power over me! You have no NOTHing over you have Nothing! – I’m an ALLderman Goddammit I sit on fift-seventeen separate I’ve dined My Name On A Bridge! – It was I found the message-bearer who poisoned Chief Buthelezi!, I! found the wall-eyed hairdresser who harpooned Christopher Hitchens!, I! wrote the collected works of Ford Maddox Ford! – In My OFF Time!, when between all the meals I’ve had with Terry Hillard, OK?, police superintend Hillard!, I’ve known him for Great Buddies Great BudsI know Everyone in the police force they’ll be all over you like paparazzi on shit! – Hillard, he’ll! – My Friends Will Wipe You Off The Map—!
I mean some nerve I mean some I can I Can Buy And Sell You ten a Hundred and Ten Times!, A MILLand Still have enough to take Rose Kennedy to Slovenia again – a great business a Great! business that’s what it’s all aThat’s what YOU, You stinking little stuck me with Stuck Me! with six bills in YOU STUCK ME WITH SIXty-four hundred and fifty thank GOD the practice can just great, just really great my practice for Months! now better than ever, off-the-boards/meters better than EV! – Revenues up one hundred and seventeen, seventeen point two perCENT since March, through the roof, through the bloom-ing ROOF, amazing doubledigit growth, impressive dibbledudgit so jump on board, y’know, get in on the ground and the IPO, OK? – I’m readying I’m prepping the IP Here’s your Chance! I just have to find the time! With Warren calling and Buffet calling and twice a day and all the dinner invitations, I’m, I – it’s Too Much!, I, I’m getting bogged down with all the DINner invitations! – and the offers, all! the, Paul, please!, no more – no more offDinner invitations! – Please don’t Seattle private-jet in any more to deliver, to Hand-deliver a dinvit they Need your attention at Vulcan, OK? – Your CFO called and – And don’t worry, OK? – you’ll hear from me – you WILL So you Can’t kill me!, You Can’t too many people depend, too many people NEED my OK?, my practice is going too well and too many and OK?, People! Are! Counting! On! Me!—
OK listen I’ll give you every cent I got, OK?, every last loads of six and Seven figs in the Cayman Islands, in Andorra or the Seychelles in Guernsey Weehauken JERsey OK!?, ANyjust tell me, O? – Please JUST TELL ME WHERE O WHAT YOU O Spare Me, Spare Me, Spare Me PLEEEze!, have pit have pity A Son, A Wife, A Son and a Wife so much to so little is THAT what you want?, Is THAT what want to see/hearDo you want to see me Grovel? – To, To, Knees and beSeeching?! you cretin you loser you lowball punter Just Do It, OK?, Just go ahead and I Beg You but Not for yourself, Not for You!, Do it for ME!, OK?, Don’t Be So Selfish!, do What’s What’s holding you back, Shitstool? Do you want my confession? Do you?, OK I ConFESS—! I confess that I have NEVer seen a more pitiable turd than the one who’s standing in front of me threatening to do me harm – and not doing/being/doing ANythinI have heart disease you know – I have a weak, a leaky mitral I’m wracked by type II adult-onset diabeemy mother’s medicine has run out – she has, she needs, She Has Mictural Hyperparesis man, OK? – I ten minutes before the pharmacy clo It’s Urgent man, it’s urge she’ll crumple like a – and chlamydia, man, I’m crawling with chlamydia trachomatis you shoot me and I’ll splatter you with deadly oozy sterilizing it’s conTagious, Man!, it’s THAT’S WHY I SHAVED MY HEAD!, That’s why I’m my wife, you know – why I’m going to shave my My wife won’t make it, you – she won’t – really, she’ll never – she needs and I all the nice smells when I get home – the muted heavy low Click of the hanger hitting the bar in the front closet, holding my coat – merge from a cloud of steam – so OK?, OK?, will That do it? and the fact! that my son used to take out your files and Laugh at them? – that he used to take out your picture and your aunt’s picture and hold them up and howl away? – Look at the pathetic little and Look at the disgusting old and then he would tape them to the window RIGHT THERE, OK?, and laugh at them and throw Cheerios at them – one Ping! then another Ping! then laugh and laugh and – o it was marvelous, O! it was so I didn’t mind cleaning up! – the carpet, the crumbs, fingers filling a cupped palm she was a lovely woman, you know – elegant, just lovely – understated – very good-hearted, your aunt, generous – radiant in her goodness – quick to smile, still one dimple – lustering that long face – she worked she volunteered at the at Little Village branch library – three afternoons a week, and one Sunday – a month – behind the front desk there Wednesday afternoons she would read to, to the kids – on the ground around, sitting around her feet – sitting, a low wooden bench, a Cézanne cushion on top – lovely lady – she, she always had a moment for everyone – she would always take, find the time to help someone out, make them feel comfortable – even contributed office supplies – small little pencils, paper clips – when it was taking too long to replen – and she always, every, wore nice elegant dresses – simple, knee-length, pleats – flower patterns – that was in all the reports, All the reports – what Everyone – and her pride for you – what had become of you – coming to Chicago, breaking away – studying, doing all those All those things – she so proud – very human, and so immortal – like I am immortal – Like I am, OK?! – I! – Am! – Immortal! – I! – AM! – imNever, OK?, I’m Never! – I will NEVer – die – My Soul will live foreEVer – God loves me and All of my kind – O am I’m THRILLED to see you again – do you know you remind me of – in a—
What a great what a mag o my son, sweet Jesus I am so blessed by, with – o yes just burning up this business, taking to my practice magNif – ly – a Princeton man, you know, went east, study poli sci – and economics – had a real flare for – graduated, you know – graduated salutatorian – up there on the dais, the podium – the hat flat and shining big afternoon sun – right next to
the prez of and the poli department – and BB King, getting an honorary – hundreds of people parents – so beaming and bright that day – and when he told me he wanted, my God I was so – could have gone to law school to biz to ANything school – but holy cow, you know, sweet Jesus he – and my practice, you know, through the ROOF since he – Good at organization, Good at research and implemen, Good at inter-pers – loved by my clients, LOVED – so more and more, you know, more and more I give – but my God he’s good – just, like – Wow! – prelim interviews, Brilliant! – like this one, few months back – this woman calls, comes in – all proper – and it doesn’t seem urge, no tears tissues, no rushing, pleading – just this 35 woman, nice shape, Versace, light blue eyes – glubby mascara – so I have my son do the initial meeting, the factual – in his office, down the – real real good at that – and he takes down the and listens and fills out the I-19’s – police forms, we still gotta – sweet Jesus do we gotta, ho – and that night he briefs, he tells me – that case and all the others he’s – 6 PM, every night, right before candlepins – and the case really sounds light, really incon – I mean this woman is bored, OK?, the woman is Bore!d – nothing to do all day, husband at the reinsurance co, sits around watches does her gets on the ab machine the cross-trainer and then she comes in here and wants to find out why her marriage is going so WELL, OK? – dear God this chick is Really!, she’s concerned that things at home are going Good! – they hadn’t been, for two years absly falling apart, really bad, scattered glassware and verge of, and now they Really Very Well, and – and a nut, you know, just a – so I tell my son OK, go ahead and give her, help her – and Hey if she really, if she wants it and she thinks it’ll do her marriage some good the best way to shut her up is to—
And that’s what happens, you know, we go ahead and launch a lightweight inqui speak to her take her date – and it’s just routine, just run-of-the-mill right when we were doing some redecorating here why not – the lino in the staff area was a lit so why not – and then this other guy comes in and he’s he’s the same thing! – Now a guy, OK?, not the husband of the first but anoth! – aNother with the marriage on the rocks and the marriage on the rocks and now it Isn’t! – scowls and silence then footsie and flowers on the pillow! – and Never, before, just Never, before, and now all Over, she’s all Over! him – and he hasn’t changed at all, he says, that’s the one thing he Is sure of – still the same flooring business same rose soap still thinking of salsa lessons – but he’s concerned about what’s happening, you know, he’s worried – the happiness, you know, the getting-along-so-well, the poised-to-launch laughter, he can’t explain it, it worries him, it frightens, he’s afraid it’s going to break up his Marriage – so my son, you know, my son, brilllllliantly – he hears this and notices sims and – and he asks me if he can – and of Course he can, of Cour – He Brilllll the similarities – so he moves, he calls both clients back in, separately – and he goes to Crispin III cross-analysis – and ups to low-interventionist questioning – but the two, the woman and the man, sep – Nothing, just noth – no help of any kind – both just I have no idea I’m not doing any diff nothing new in his/her the partner’s life no new revenue/recipes That’s why I came to You! – Well, my son – brilll, he – so, per usual, he asks the clients, both, for maps of their partner’s day – and names of best friends colleagues – and permission to survey – and the last three months of charge-card statements phone bills – and, if they’re comfortable, bank states too – and my son – he – well, he gets, to, Work!—
And as usual he’s just amazing, he finds nothing – no one, no patterns, colleagues calls friends even bosses, nothing – unTil he checks the clients’ Visa slips – monthly statements – and there – only there – both – Both – a shrink – the Same shrink – and neither of the clients had said a about seeing a – even though a question re: same is number 68B on the standard first-view fact-gathering form – the one published by Collins, Joist – so this is touchy – this is trick – Does he ask them? – Does he confront? – two schools on this – one entailing risk, the other entailing risk – my son, Brih, decides on risk – he’ll immerse, directly – they want reSults, don’t they? – so the same day, doesn’t wait a, he puts in a call, to this shrink – sorry, no name – and makes an appointment for the following Tues – speaks to the shrink’s secretary, actually – and spends the weekend, well Saturday after, prepping his spiel—
That Monday night, he limits his sleep to three hours – so he’ll look – and makes sure to arrive eight minutes late – reluct, resistance, you und – The shrink has an office in Bucktown, one floor in a Victorian – and nice guy, nice guy – slim, wavy brown hair – and he leads him into a back room, all curving out – lots, big, aquarium windows – and they talk, you know, they – real professional – how are, and how did you find, and – and my son has all the answers – and then of course Why and What can I – and so my son swallows – looks down – pauses and looks at his – and tells the shrink about Jenny – she doesn’t exist – about how their marriage, how it had, it had, really bad – especially after he’d started working the lobster shift at the pharmacy – the 24-hour, over on – but it’s just a couple of nights a week!, he said – so they could, he and Jenny, we wanted a and wanted a needed – no children – and this job is in adDition to the forty hours a he fills prescriptions at – at the other branch over in – But she was in Favor of my doing taking another position, he said, she Ask!o9ed me to – She – and then, you know – just Down, you know, just Dow – She’s with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, office admin – and likes it – but cold when we see – and noth, nothing, impossible just to Talk any more – torture over dinner, all clenched, spast, can’t – all looking swerving stam and – and down – mostly looking down – and it was such a Nice setting, fennels, nonfarm salm – defly Scottish – but all just knotted-up, inside, glued, tense – then Off, you know, right immediately off to the den – e-mail her sister – not even a movie, not even one night in the car to a movie when everything passing is changing you’d think we – we could find Some!thing to talk a – but Tenser, but Glue-er, awk!, choke-up Stiffer! – and a vacation, we’d I’d hoped, Dominican Republic, over Thanksgive – but the same, the Same – just Torture – and – and – and at night – and—
The shrink leaned back, high swivel chair, and the shrink took pad notes – and was sensible, pensive – looking, concentrating at his jots – and said Yes – and said So – and recommended weekly sessions – he asked more questions, offered possibilities for consideration – touched the bases – then scheduled the next Tuesday – a half-hour earlier, if poss – shook hands warmly – of course my son accepted – had to follow the trail – could expense it all, no problem there, bury it somewhere – because he suspected, he Sensed, as he does, that here was the Nub of the – so by the next Tuesday he had more tales, more stories to – and they sat, same, and talked – loomed the big windows – and my son about the prior Friday at the patio-furniture shop, and about the side of cauliflower that never showed at the Italian, and about how it, she – just – just worse – worse, Worst, she! – No, and Never, and just, just spazmo-terrEEbilay! – he used Umbrian dialect – and the shrink puts down his pad – and looks, and looks deeply – deep into the analytical distance – and smiles – and then says he has heard enough – not enough to finally, definitively – but enough – enough to – and he puts down his pencil – and says I think you should go get fucked – not you, my son – the Shrink says this – all face-straight – and he nods gravely – pushes back in his chair – and says Really, if you’re asking for my op – professional, of cour – and it turns out this shrink – soma-based therapy – Reich, Wellbeck, others of same – puncture the armor, he says, smash go and break through the plating – Liberate your vital – and my son, you know, by that time he – such a fine guy, just so Fine fine – so proud – he’s a leading, an eminent – my son he’s a psychologist himself – O yes – studie
d for Years – at the New School, New York, Sullivan and Fromm, objectionable relations theo – and research, clinical – two years at Johns – made Big strides in the field – a Giant, known all throughout the – like he, He led the study – that study, Well known, with the schiz – with the schizophrenic, the guy in the clinic, where my son was work – a schizophrenic with 118 separate personalities – and my son – He led the – He found that each personality, simulTaneously, could receive a separate cable channel – and o it was a break=through – a Breakthrough!, just what the sideband people were Waiting for sent remote-control stocks PLUMmeting! – and THAT was the moment, you recall, when all of a sudden schizophrenia became Hep! – Featured in all the Magas – when Geor Clooney came out and said that He – and also – Also! – he, my son – he’s a bio-, a leading bio-Ethicist! – an Act!ivist bio-ethici – leading the charges, blazing the trail! – did the research, did the science, Led, the, Way! – and so he, finally, after all the years – he was able to patent the gene for Gene-patenting – a complex rapacity propase – did it as a deFensive measure – well, if you recall – all Over the newspapers – Uproar!, Tumult!, CondemNation – a whole consortium of bio-engineering firms that held patented genes came After him – declared, Threatened! – said Couldn’t! – said Mustn’t! – stormed imMoral! – Ethically and Legally imperMissible! – against the Ways of Nature! – and quick!, launched a Suit! – an eight-figures Suit! – in which they declared, affirmed!, that their position, their action, was entirely legitimate and enforceable – as they had alReady patented the gene for hyPocrisy – and aGain, a landmark – a Landmark! – That’s – that’s my Son! – won it, you know, won the case Hands Down – what a – What! a—
A Legal degree, you know-Also! – What! a – Triumph after tri!umph – yes, he, the boy – walks on chamPagne! – like this one little – this sweet little case – o this was just a lovely – started some years two years ag – a Monday, and this attorney comes in – and he’s Wracked, you know – Wracked – like only a lawyer Can be – so he comes in heard about us from somewhere Everywhere – and my son takes charge, does the initial does the int – and this lawyer, he says he’s got a case of his own, you see – works over at Funkhouser, Verblungit on Webster Street – straight out of U Penn, him – nice young guy, nice no name – dark brown suit, bow tie, brown hair swooping high hairline down, pastyskinned from too much fluorescent I’ll call him Gil – and he’s sitting there far forward in his chair, elbow on the arm – the chair arm – all hand-gesturing – and he’s perturbed about this client – this client of His – this a Man came in – came into His office – a man in his sixties – working as an office manager thirty years – local polling firm – right here in Chicag – round-faced, he said, jowls, a little portly not a dumpling but puffly, round – tufts white hair still a little there – and he wants a lawyer – a good one – it’s a Private matter, this man says – Emmett says – let me call him Emmett – Emmett wants Gil to be his Lawyer – and Gil says, OK, you know, what’s up, what hap – and Emmett says he wants to sue his mirror for slander – and Gil says Ah, you know, Ah – what-? and the man spluts How?, How can it Say those things about me? – Where does it get the Nerve? – and now Gil is taking notes – and What did I ever Do to it, that – that it would say such, such horrend! – that it would make All these unjust unjustified, unwarranted! – it’s not True!, not a Bit of! – I mean I, I Still, some days – I still can’t beLieve what I’m Heading – How DARE it say these things about me!—