The first time I met the doctor, he made me sit and wait alone in his office
for fifteen minutes. (I assumed it was poor time management and not a
deliberate power play, but after it turned into a regular habit, I began to
wonder.) The room was clean and cold and smelled like fake vanilla, and it
was clear that somebody had put a lot of effort into decorating. The walls
were covered in paintings of majestic red and purple sunsets. The furniture
was soft and plush and undoubtedly expensive. A matching sofa and
loveseat, brown velvet, took up half the space. Nearby, a stack of shelves
displayed fake plants and sand gardens beneath the doctor's impressive
collection of framed medical degrees. But like the cheap plastic castle at the
bottom of an aquarium, the ornamentation felt empty and out of place.
The other half of the room was a more traditional office space, with two
chairs on opposite sides of a bare wooden desk. For me, it was an obvious
choice. There was something about sitting on velvet furniture during a
psychiatric visit that struck me as a little too creepy, so I stuck with the
chair.
With nothing else to occupy my mind, it didn't take long for me to
wonder if the doctor was the type of person to lock his drawers. It only took
three visits before boredom and curiosity got the better of me, and I
checked. Turns out, he wasn't.
I already knew he wouldn't be sloppy enough to leave a stack of
nudie Polaroids or a receipt to the annual furry convention where his
patients could find them, but the content of the drawers turned out to be
even more unsettling. There wasn't anything salacious to be discovered
because there wasn't anything at all to be discovered. The drawers were
barren, as hollow as the rest of the room's decor. No scissors, pencils,
staplers, or anything else that might serve as a potential weapon in a
desperate situation.
I
soon came to realize that there was an eerie safeness to this
windowless office, and the closer I looked, the more apparent it became.
The electrical outlets were all walled over. The art pieces were glued into
place. Nothing could be lifted or pulled off the walls or shelves. Even the
desk corners were rounded and coated in a wood-colored foam, and the
only writing utensil to ever enter the room was the flexible rubber prison
pen the doctor kept in his front coat pocket. It made perfect sense, I
reasoned, and I couldn't take any offense. A man in his line of work
required certain precautions.
Before any of you start to get the wrong idea, let me assure you that
I'm not living in an insane asylum somewhere, staring at a miniature gas
station inside of a snow globe and hallucinating this entire thing. Let's just
say I had to go through a lot of trouble to write up this account of events
and get it published, and if I am hallucinating everything, then that would
make this book and all of my readers part of that hallucination too. Whether
or not you are a hallucination is absolutely none of my business, and I'll
leave that up to you to decide.
This was all just another part of living with a defective brain. Once
every month, I would drive four and a half hours, across the state line, to
visit this hospital. The friendly folks would draw some blood and do a
lengthy bombardment of tests to see how my illness was progressing, then
I'd have a short talk with Dr. Vicedomini before turning around and driving
back home.
The doctor was a specialist, dealing in rare and unusual cases like
mine. He was professional enough not to speak of his other patients, but
like any reasonable person, I Google-stalked him before our inceptive
meeting. That's how I learned he had a reputation as the go-to guy for cases
involving the cream of the crop of the criminally insane.
In person, he was a tall, thick man in his late fifties with salt and
pepper hair and horn-rimmed glasses. He cultivated a friendly impression,
but I suspected his kind smile and perpetual positivity were mere niceties,
same as I'd receive from a used car salesman or flirty waitress. All the
same, I didn't mind going along with it and pretending we were friends for
an hour each month.
The first thing he ever said to me was, "It's good to meet you, Jack.
My name is Doctor Henry Vicedomini, but you can call me Dr. V."
When he came into the room to see me sitting in the chair across from
the desk, he didn't hesitate to take his spot on the other side.
The first thing I ever said to him was, "Why would I do that?"
And so began our relationship.
"Sorry?"
"Why would I call you 'Dr. V'? I have no problem pronouncing
Vicedomini."
"Oh, it's just a nickname. It's my little way of letting you know that
you can be comfortable here. We're going to be breaking down barriers,
getting really close to one another over the next few months, and I think
'Doctor Vicedomini' sounds a little too formal. Don't you?"
"You want me to refer to you by a nickname?"
"That is correct."
"But you still want to maintain your title?"
He forced a short laugh and held up both hands, saying, "Would you like to
call me 'Mr. V'? Or just 'V'? Would that make you feel more
comfortable?"
"I could call you Henry."
He bit his bottom lip, never losing the smile, before responding, "Do you
want to call me Henry?"
"If I'm being completely honest, I can't remember the last time I used
somebody's name in a conversation with them. Only when I'm talking
about them. And no offense, but I doubt I'll be talking about you to anyone,
so really it doesn't matter what I call you. It wouldn't be for my benefit to
call you anything other than Doctor Vicedomini, but now I think we're
spending a lot more time on introductions than either of us had originally
intended."
"I agree. Maybe we should move right along to some ground rules. How
does that sound?"
"Sounds great, Dr. V."
We quickly established three rules that would guide our relationship from
then on:
First, the doctor made it abundantly clear that his office was only big
enough for one psychoanalyst, and because he had more training and
experience than me, I should leave the heavy lifting to the professional. I
assured him I would quit doing it out loud. (Honestly, for a doctor with four
medical degrees, he sure was easily threatened.)
Second, we both agreed to continue these meetings, once per month,
until one of us was no longer able to do so. The implication in the "one of
us" part was quite clear, but I appreciated the courteous wording
nonetheless.
Third and last, we decided exactly how honesty would fit into our
relationship. Apparently, the doctor's opinion of truth was less what I'd
expect from a mental health provider and more what I'd expect from an
emotionally abusive boyfriend with a philosophy diploma from an online
college.
"Truth and deception are fluid concepts, but trust between us is
pivotal. I understand that you can only share what you feel comfortable
sharing. I understand that you will need to keep some secrets. However, I
can't help you or treat your case properly if you fill in the gaps with
anything less than total sincerity. So I propose an agreement. To the best of
our abilities, may we never directly lie to one another. Agreed?"
For some reason, the doctor left a loophole in his "tell the truth" rule
big enough to drive a truck through. It didn't make any sense to me, but
then again, I wasn't the one with four medical degrees.
"Can I assume that the reason you added the word 'directly' in that
last rule is because, as part of the case study, you may have to test me every
now and then?"
"Jack, what you're doing right now is called 'metagaming.' You're
trying to figure out what I'm thinking. As a result, you're changing your
own behavior to fit your impression of what I want. It's deconstructive in
the purest sense of the word. In order for either of us to get anything out of
these sessions, I need you to stop worrying about me, and focus on being
your own authentic self. Try to forget why you're here, and talk to me
simply and honestly."
I promised him I would try.
The months went by, and the doctor did his best to break down those
barriers, but I don't think he ever got whatever emotional breakthrough he
was looking for. There were times when he slipped up and let the cracks in
the facade show. There were times when he lost his patience, got frustrated,
grew annoyed. At one point we ended up talking about his ex-wife for half
an hour. It was interesting, but I couldn't help but wonder how much of his
behavior was real, and how much was just a deeper fabrication. Was he ever
really frustrated? Did he even have an ex-wife? Or was it all just part of the
analysis?
One emotion that was undeniably real was his growing surprise at how long
I had lasted. Month after month, we ended our sessions and parted ways
with the understanding that it could very easily be the last time either of us
would see the other. After I blew past my expiration date, Dr. V. was quick
to remind me that I was not getting better, I was simply dying much slower
than anticipated.
But when you think about it, isn't that all anyone can really ask for?
***
Wednesday morning came, and I did a quick report with Tom, the white
haired sheriff's deputy on gas station duty. I let him know I was in a hurry,
because it was time for my monthly trip into the city, but I still tried my best
to give an accurate description of the robbers. He told me to try not to
worry too much about it, and that it was highly unlikely they would ever be
seen again. Tom had some leftover cable and tools in his squad car from the
last time somebody cut our phone lines, so he stuck around long enough to
do a quick repair job. Then he asked if I needed to borrow any money. I
thanked him and told him I was okay. A while back, I'd created a rainy-day
fund by stuffing a few twenties under the sole of my right shoe. (In my
experience, thieves almost never steal your shoes.) After Tom had gone, I
handed off my till to one of the part-timers, gassed up my Nissan, and hit
the road.
Six hours later I was in another state, sitting inside the windowless
doctor's office with Band-Aids on my arm and finger from where the staff
had taken blood samples. I was uncomfortable and cold, and as always, the
thermostat was locked at sixty-seven degrees.
I sat in my usual chair, doing my best to ignore the inhospitable temperature
and fight off the boredom. On most days, I would have filled this time
reading a book, but that jerk in the wife beater had taken away my entire
summer reading collection along with my backpack. (He didn't even seem
like the type of person to appreciate the books he stole.)
I might have taken this extra time to stretch my legs and explore these
limited surroundings, but I had already seen all there was to see on my
earliest visits, and I had no reason to think anything had changed since then
(least of all the doctor's annoying habit of arriving fifteen minutes late), so I
sat in my seat and counted my breaths until he finally showed up.
"Good morning, Jack."
(One hundred and fifty-one.)
He said the words as he opened the door, and I heard him before I saw
him.
"Hey Dr. V."
"How do we feel today?"
"Same as every day. With our hands, mostly."
He took his seat on the other side of the desk and pulled out his
rubber pen, then scribbled some notes in my file before looking up and
giving me that good old Dr. V smile and small talk, "Sorry I'm late. It's
good to see you again. How's the job going?"
I considered telling him about the armed robbery, but we only had an
hour together, and it didn't feel important enough to bring up.
"Same old same old." Rule three. We didn't lie to one another.
Omissions of truth, on the other hand, were fair game.
He nodded.
"How'd you get those marks?"
I looked at the blue spots in a line on the back of my hand.
"Oh, this? An old woman grabbed me and forcibly administered a
palm reading."
"Did she now?"
"Yeah."
"Well, how's your fortune look?"
"Not great."
"Well, what does she know, right?" He wrote something else in my
file. "Okay, you know the routine. Before we get started, I'm going to give
you five words. Try and remember these: Hammer. Star. Question. Face.
Perhaps. Got it?"
"Got it."
"Do you still remember the five words from last month?"
"Apple, saw, carrot, tiger, north."
He checked off something on his sheet, and then we went into our
regular session. For the next hour, we discussed whatever thought popped
into either of our minds. As always, this was a bland facsimile of a real
conversation. I knew what he wanted to know, but I let him pretend to come
upon the questions organically.
Eventually, he got down to business. He asked if I was still taking all
of my medicines. I told him I was. He asked if I'd noticed any new
symptoms or side effects. I told him no. He asked if I'd had any thoughts of
harming myself or anyone else. I told him I did not. He asked if I had made
any new friends. I shrugged. Not really. Any new hobbies? Nope.
"Do you think maybe you're finally ready to talk about," he paused,
as if he were carefully considering asking the second half of his question,
but I didn't let him. Before he could say another word, I informed him in
the simplest terms that I did not want to talk about her. Not today. Probably
not ever. He was kind enough to change the subject quickly.
"I'm interested in your caffeine intake. How much coffee would you
say you drink in a given day? On average?"
I thought about this for a moment. "Like, maybe two or three."
"Two or three cups?" He waited for me to answer, but I said nothing
and avoided eye contact.
Rule three.
He squinted his eyes and asked the follow up question, "How long
has it been since you've seen a pillow?"
I shrugged.
The doctor changed the subject one last time.
"I'm going to be completely honest with you, Jack. You have what I
would consider a hyperlogical approach to dealing with grief. In some
ways, that's great. In others, it's not. I worry that you may have already shut
down emotionally as a means of coping with your impermanence. You
aren't dead yet, but sometimes you act like you don't know it."
"Okay," I responded, "Cool."
"No, not really. I want you to try something new for me. I want you to
start keeping a journal."
"What, you mean, like, a word journal?"
"You know what a journal is, don't you?"
"Sure. It's like a diary, right?"
"Yes and no. A diary is just a record of events. I want you to write
down how things make you feel. This is a way for you to organize your
memories as well as your thoughts and emotions. This will also give you a
chance to reflect upon events after the fact, which is something I think
could really benefit you. Does that sound good?"
"I guess."
"Alright. Do you still remember those five words?"
"Hammer, star, question, face, perhaps."
He ticked another box in my file, then asked, "How certain are you
that those are the correct words?"
"One hundred percent."
He scribbled something down.
"Well?" I asked.
"Well what?"
"Was I right?"
"You told me you were 'one hundred percent' certain you had the
correct words. If that's true, why do you need me to validate what you
already know?"
"I think it's weird that you never tell me one way or the other if my
memory is as reliable as I think it is, although I would assume you're just
trying to establish a pattern so that if I ever do start to lose my memory you
won't feel obligated to tell me that I'm remembering the words wrong." He
made a face that was somewhere between a frown and smile yet conveyed
the emotion of neither. I continued, "Or maybe you're doing this on
purpose. Maybe there's nothing to the memory tests, and you're using
language like this to measure my reactions so you'll know when or if
paranoia finally sets in."
Dr. V couldn't hide his frown this time. "Metagaming."
"Sorry."
We quickly wrapped things up, and he walked me to the door, saying
"Get yourself a journal and write at least a page a day. And don't let any
more old ladies read you your fortune."
I picked up my prescriptions and hit the interstate. Four and a half
hours later, I was back at the gas station, getting ready to start my next shift.