Dora: A Headcase (7 page)

He sighs like this is all annoying him. But I know better. He loves to answer my questions. “A roman à clef – literally translated, is a novel with a key. But what it means is a novel that is based on real people from the author’s life. With the names changed.”

“Gimme an example,” I go.

“Charlotte Brontë’s
Jane Eyre
. Or Charles Dickens’
David Copperfield
.”

I stare at him with lockjaw, arms crossed over my chest. Unimpressed.

“Each is a novel with a kind of … secret at its center. The secret is the author’s life, embedded in fiction.”

I consider this. “Does
On the Road
count?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Tard. Please tell me with all these goddamned books lining the walls you know who Jack Kerouac is. “You know, Jack Kerouac?”

“Ah. Well, yes I suppose. And to answer your earlier query, psychotherapy is not a novel.”

“But you already told me you write … what are they called … case studies? What are those?”

“Clinical recitations of patient pathologies.”

“Right.” I click my heels together like Dorothy and close my eyes and recite, “There’s no place like home” a few times.

I don’t know why. Just feel like it. I stop and open one eye and give him a stink eye for a second. “So you don’t take people’s lives and make them into books? With different names?”

He coughs some more. He sounds a little asthmatic. I see my opening. I do random jumping jacks.

He goes, “Ida, wouldn’t you like to have a seat?”

“Thanks Siggy, I’m kinda fond of the ass I have already,” I say patting my girl butt.

He scratches something invisible on his chest.

Keep it moving. They hate that. They like you best on the couch.

I kid skip over to the window and pull back the curtain and look down at the street. If only I had a lollipop.

“Is there something out there that interests you?” he asks.

“No,” I go, looking down at the street, “But I bet you get a big fat boner when you see the tops of your patient’s heads from here.”

He does the church and steeple thing with his hands. “Ida, I really don’t see where you are going with this,” he grumbles in the I’m the doctor voice with his chin down.

I don’t know either, but I am willing to wait for it.

I saunter over to the bookshelf and run my hand over the spines of his books.

He sits upright. His eyebrows knitting. “Is there a title there of interest to you?” he asks a little too hopefully. Talk about nerdoid.

“Yeah,” I say, pulling out a bright yellow one, “Wasn’t this Magnus Hirschfeld dude known as ‘The Einstein of Sex?’ That so rocks. Didn’t he do dudes?” I turn to face him, waving the book in the air between us. “Do you do dudes? Siggy?”

Eyebrow drop. Hands between legs. Heavy exhale of
irritation. More coughing. Score. Bought myself a speechless on that one.

Next I walk casually over to his desk and turn on the desk light and let him talk to my back for a bit. Blah blah blahbiddy blah repression repression repression. Blah Blah consciousness-subconsciousunconscious. Broken record.

That, my friends, is how I find the blow.

While he blathers on, I drag my finger dramatically across the surface of his desk. You know, that ol’ check for dirt number. Too bad I didn’t wear a little maid outfit. It’s just a gag. But when I look at my finger, it isn’t dirt. It’s white. Powder white. Very faint, but true. If you know what you are looking at. When I suck my finger, I smile the smile of a girl who knows things. Siggy. You old dirty dog.

Uh huh, I’m saying the Sigster is into booger sugar.

Well all righty then. He knows things about me, but two can play at that game. I turn slowly around, and in the middle of his gloriously wordy smarty guy sentences, I notice something he has not. With my finger still in my mouth, I say, looking at the clock on the wall just behind his head with its stuck cuckoo, “Um, Sig? I’m afraid our time is up.”

That’s right. Knockout walking out the door.

OCCASIONALLY AVE MARIA’S RICH AS FUCK MOTHER “treats us to lunch.”

On the top floor of some mega-lame high-rise downtown. About once a month. I’m pretty sure that’s how often Ave Maria sees her moneyspawner. But I don’t care. Rich people food is fun to photograph with your iPhone and you can steal drinks off of peoples’ tables when they get up to relieve themselves.

But check it: lo and behold, just on the other side of the faux indoor garden in the center of the restaurant … like a mini Eden but without the snake … through the shitty ass ficus leaves, is Sig. He’s with some slick-looking business joker with ferret hair, ferret eyes. Because their backs are mostly facing us, I can see him, but he can’t see me, so I do exactly what any self-respecting girl patient in my predicament would do. I pretend I have to go pee while Ave Maria’s mother sucks down her third Pomegranate Tini. I stealthily remove my Zoom H4n from my Dora purse and nonchalantly embed it in the river rocks at the base of the fake Eden. With a 32 Gb SD card, it can record for days. Or when the batteries give out, whichever comes first.

Nobody watches girls like me in restaurants like that. We’re somebody’s daughter they pay to leave home. Whatever it is Sig and the Ferret are talking about, I’m gonna get the sound.

Lunch proceeds retardedly as usual … Ave Maria chucks cold shrimps over her shoulder when her motherpuddle isn’t looking … one even hits some old bag whose earlobes look like
they might fall off of her head from the weight of the pearls. Hey! Jewel drops! When the cold shrimp beans her, the gasbag looks up briefly at the ceiling fresco as if God has crapped on her. I sip on a white Russian I snagged off a table absent of humans on my way back from the pisser.

Ave Maria’s mother looks like a puffer fish. She is blowing bubbles at us … talking about something at us … something about travel abroad. Ave Maria is no doubt about to be shipped off to some private school far far away from the word “family.” I look over at Ave Maria. Ave Maria is bending and unbending her spoon and making her own spit bubbles with her mouth.

As often as possible, I steal peeks at the Sig scene. The slick business weasel is waving his little rodent hands around. Siggy’s shoulders look slumped to me. And his hair is all birds’ nesty. He puts his head in his hands. Is it bad news? Good? It’s so hard to read old people. Old men all look kinda like spent balloons to me. Happy just looks the same as sad on their faces. Wrinkled and sucked.

But then a whole man drama happens.

This other dude comes into the restaurant. I don’t mind telling you, he’s a head turner. Literally. You can see him coming from all the heads turning one by one to look at him. The kind of guy who looks like he deserves his own theme music. Basically to me he looks pretty much exactly like Paul Newman in “The Hustler.” Which Marlene showed me. Dang. Hotcha. They don’t make ’em like that anymore. Though it’s a tossup really … I could also go with Steve McQueen in “Bullitt.”

When this guy walks, he walks slowly, one shoulder at a time. His hands sorta … swing … not like your hands or my hands. Treasure hands. He has on a brushed silver suit coat and black pants and a crisp, white shirt. No tie. All the other mantards in the place have ties on. Not this guy. Silver hair cut close to his head. But what gives me a pinch of glee is, he walks straight into the Sig scene. He puts his treasure hand on Sig’s shoulder. I pull my iPhone out to short film it.

I kick Ave Maria under the table and lean over and go, “Hey. That’s him.”

She looks in the direction I’m pointing my iPhone. “Him who? Your grandpa?”

“My shrink.”

She turns to look. “The hot guy or the geezard?”

“Geezard.”

That’s when god really does crap.

Sig, bless his deflated balloon self, stands up, embraces the man in that weird guy on guy pretend hug way, stares into his eyes for a moment, sways slightly, and fucking faints.

Yep, you heard me. The Sig drops like a log to the floor.

I know. “Holy shit holy shit,” I go, slugging Ave Maria in the bicep.

“Awesome,” Ave Maria goes. Her lushofamother burps and looks around making fish lips in confusion.

I suddenly feel like jumping to my feet and yelling “Herr Doktor!” at the top of my lungs. Ave Maria gets a contact high from my excitement and starts her random high notes thing. I’m telling you, I almost pee my fucking pants.

The Sig … my Sig … is out cold.

All kinds of hell breaks loose in the swank restaurant as crowwaiters descend to clean up the scene. It’s easy to retrieve my beloved H4n. I’m invisible. I can’t fucking believe my luck. Whatever that ferret dude said to Sig, it was big. And whoever that silvery guy is, he made Siggy … swoon like a goddamned little girl. Whatever my H4n has on it is gonna be really, really good. I’m smiling so big it’s obscene.

You know what? Fuck the mix tape. Things have changed. What I’ve got is way bigger than that. That’s kid stuff. What I’ve got on my hands is real material. I’ve got … oh hell yes. I’ve got a roman à clef. And the key, is Sig. I’m not making a sound mix for a rave. I’m making a motherfucking man movie. Of him.

As we exit the room, Ave Maria’s mother swimming us to the door and Ave Maria shooting her high notes, I turn to face
the eaters in Eden one last time, high kick the air for effect, and yell KAPOW.

IN MARLENE’S KITCHEN I TAKE THE ZOOM H4N OUT OF my Dora purse and stand there sort of bouncing from foot to foot like a tard kid. I’m excited. You know, excited like kids are when they wake up and see snow. The H4n – it’s black and sleek. It’s got a shock-resistant rubberized body. About the size of a spy rat. If rats were spy cyborgs. There’s a bitchin’ LCD display and the two mics are on the top – one points left and the other right – towards each other – two little silver cocks.

Marlene’s got an indigo silk kimono on and a blonde braid helmet – like Heidi. I mean if Heidi was a black tranny. Marlene showed me the Shirley Temple “Heidi.” It’s awesome. Orphan Heidi is left at her grandfather’s mountain cabin by her mean aunt Dete. The old man is a grump. Slowly, he grows to love Heidi. Evil Dete returns and farms Heidi out as a companion for Klara, a rad wheelchair girl. The housekeeper, Frau Rottenmeier – yeah, I know – fucking hates Heidi. When Heidi teaches Klara to walk again, Frau Rottenmeier tries to sell Heidi to gypsies. But her grandfather sacks up, sells all his shit, and finds her.

Heidi should have gone with the gypsies.

I don’t have braids. Or hair. I’m still bald … more than a chemo head though. I rub my head for luck. “You ready to hear it?” I go, holding my finger over the playback button.

“Yes Lamskotelet,” Marlene goes, but then she says “wait!” and she runs around the kitchen gathering two fluted glasses and some red shit in a bottle from the fridge.

“Um, what’s that?” I say, pointing to the cough syrup looking stuff.

“Kirsch! We are celebrating your capture!”

Kirsch, it turns out, is German for cherry water. Distilled from black morello cherries and their pits. You’d think it would taste sweet, but it doesn’t. It tastes like almonds and pepper. We toast. She pours again. We toast again. She pours again. My head’s kinda hot and my cheeks flush. She laughs the Marlene laugh. I laugh a laugh I’ve never heard come out of me before.

Whoever we are right then, I suddenly wish it wouldn’t end. I grin so big I feel air all through my teeth. I push playback. The first voice is the ferret guy’s from the restaurant.

The H4n goes, “ What are you drinking, you wily bastard? Scotch? Lemme get you a scotch. Sigmund, I gotta tell you, you’re gonna want a stiffie when you hear what I’ve got. It’s hot, baby, I’m telling you it’s hot.”

“Am I to infer that the publisher has purchased my collection of case studies?”

Sound of an old man’s hands rubbing briskly together.

I hit pause. I’m nervous. Who knows why. I take a deep breath. I look across the kitchen table at Marlene. She smiles. I finish off my cough syrup. I can feel it sticky on my upper lip. I hit play again.

“Think bigger, Sigmund.”

Sound of ice spinning maniacally in a glass.

“I told you, I’ve found the ultimate case study. This is the one that will prove to be the pièce de résistance – this exquisite plum,” the recorder says.

I jam my finger on the pause button of the H4n. It scoots across the table. “Plum? Which one of us is his plum?”

I sit staring at the H4n on Marlene’s table. Marlene wears an expression of concern. I stand up. I sit down. “Gimme another shot of that cherry shit. I think I’m going to need it.” She pours. Rain beats on the kitchen window. My head itches. My cheeks suddenly feel like fucking burning plums.

I hit playback. Siggy’s voice sounds tight and screechy.

“What ‘bigger picture?’ Is it the publisher? Jackasses. The prestige I have brought to them over the years!”

Sound of old man fist hitting table.

“Sigmund. Sig. My friend. Settle down. Will ya? It’s not even about the book anymore. Books are dead, Sig, books are dead.”

Sound of dishes being cleared at nearby table.

“Do you mean MY book? Is MY book dead? Listen you little money-grubbing weasel – ”

Sound of table wear rattling.

I hit pause. This time I’m laughing. But my laugh sounds tight and raw.

Marlene tilts her head. “Liebchen,” she asks.

“Yeah?” I go.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

I cough. “I’m sure,” I go. Something in my head ticks. Then I punch the playback.

The H4n jumps to life. “Sig! Calm down, calm down! Here – here’s your drink. Drink it. No, really. Get a good gulp down. Stop waving your arms around! You don’t want to make a scene, do you? Cheers, old man. Raise a glass. It’s a celebration.”

Sound of gulping.