Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil (49 page)

Gene brushed his long bang off his brow and glanced at me. This time, as he smiled, some teeth showed. “The Vomiting Boy?”

“Ah,” I said, understanding.

“You changed a lot, but that was me, right?”

“No,” I said. “You’re not the Vomiting Boy.”

Gene looked directly at me. He swallowed. His Adam’s apple seemed very prominent, more than I remembered. He uncrossed his legs. “Really?” he said, astonished; and a little sadly, I thought.

“It’s discouraging,” I said. “I had the same shock as a medical student. There are so many commonalities in human experiences. Vomiting is often a release of suppressed rage, especially in children. The Vomiting Boy was a different patient. I asked if he minded that I use his story and he agreed, provided I change facts that would identify him.” I paused. Gene continued to stare at me with a mix of confusion and sadness. I added softly, “I would never have written about you without asking first. And of course you could say no.”

“I never want you to write about me,” he said. He pressed his knees together and crossed his arms. He looked at my chest.

“Fine.” An observer might think he was in my office under duress. Of course, I hadn’t asked to see him, I had discouraged him. This apparent contradiction didn’t confuse me. For one thing, I believed he was disappointed that he wasn’t the Vomiting Boy.

“There’s stuff …” Gene looked out my window and fell silent. The Venetian blinds were open. Vans, a Dumpster, and a wheel of electronic cables dominated the view.

“Do you want me to close the blinds?”

“What? Oh. No.”

“There’s stuff—you were saying.”

“That’s why I couldn’t talk to Toni. You know. There’s stuff I just can’t have anyone else know.” He smiled. “It’s not kid’s stuff anymore. Just the work things alone are big secrets. I don’t even want them to know I’m seeing a shrink.”

“No one has to know anything. I won’t write anything about you or discuss your case with anyone. But, as I think I’ve said before, I’m not treating adult—”

“I can’t,” he cut me off. He shook his head well after saying the words, back and forth, again and again, denying it over and over.

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t see anyone else. I don’t trust anyone else.”

“And yet you thought I had betrayed you?”

“No.” He frowned.

“No? You thought I had written—”

“Yes, yes you’re right. Are you always right?” His tone was intensely annoyed. That was new to me.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I think you’re always right.”

“Well,” I said, smiling, “you’re wrong.”

Gene didn’t get the joke. “I know. I always seem to be wrong.”

“What are you always wrong about?”

“I’m always wrong with women. Does any man ever win a fight with a woman?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Whom have you been losing fights to?”

Gene shifted in his seat. It was a captain’s chair, comfortable, but plain. My seat was an indulgence, a black leather Knoll Pollack swivel. Behind me were built-in book shelves, to Gene’s right were built-in filing cabinets. The door was solid pine, the walls and ceiling soundproofed, as were all of the consulting rooms. I had grown weary of white noise machines. Gene looked at all these things, as well as the halogen standing lamp, the other armchair. “There’s no couch,” he said, looking out the window. A worker walked past with a take-out container of coffee, smoking a filterless cigarette.

I got up to shut the blinds. “No, there isn’t,” I agreed. “They’re distracting me,” I said about the workers as I rotated the Venetians halfway, enough to block the view, yet allowing strips of sunlight to penetrate.

“You don’t use the couch with kids, I guess.”

“Sometimes. I don’t plan to see children in this office. Maybe some of the adolescents. I warned you, I’m not set up for traditional long-term therapy. Do you want to lie down? There’s—”

“No, it’s okay,” he said quickly.

I was amused by a recollection of our first conversation, the desires reversed about lying on couches, but the attitudes almost identical. “You’re a man, now, so it’s time to sit up,” I said. My tone was unusually lighthearted. Why? Did I think he was taking himself too seriously? How would I know?

Gene nodded. He continued to look around; at my phone, a typewriter on a side table, photographs of my mother, my father, Uncle Bernie, Julie, Grandma Jacinta and Grandpa Pepín, framed diplomas and a drawing in charcoal by “Timmy.” It was a representation of one of his dreams—a boy playing soccer on a frozen lake, standing atop blue water and kicking a gleaming white ball over a blood-red horizon.

“Why are you here, Gene? What’s on your mind?”

“I still can’t sleep.”

“Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep?”

“Both.”

“Have you had a checkup recently?”

“Yeah. I had to when I changed companies. For the insurance. I’m fine.”

“What wakes you up?”

He was looking at “Timmy’s” drawing, frowning at it.

“Dreams?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“What dream wakes you up?”

“I don’t know if it wakes me up.”

“What dream do you remember best?”

“I’ve had this one many times.” A saw revved up close by my window. Evidently they weren’t as soundproofed as I hoped. Gene jerked to look in its direction, but he kept talking, “I’m in a gym. I
think.
It’s a little like the gym at One Room. Big and empty, with windows at the top. It was in the basement so the windows were almost at the ceiling.”

“Are you alone in the gym?”

“At first. It’s very still and peaceful. I think somebody wants me to do something, but I don’t know what.”

“Does not knowing worry you?”

“I’m not worried at first. And then she appears.”

The saw whined and shut off. Its silent aftermath added drama to my question: “Who is she?”

“I don’t know,” he was quick to say. He held his breath for a moment and added, “Just the sight of her scares me.”

“What does she look like?”

“Sometimes she’s blonde. Kind of, you know, sandy blonde hair like my wife. But she’s not my wife. Sometimes she has black hair, but it’s the same shape. You know, the same hairdo.”

“Long hair?”

“No. More like a helmet. She’s wearing a dress, a long print dress, but it has no top.”

“So it’s a skirt?”

“No. It isn’t. I don’t know how to explain, but it’s a dress with the top off.”

“So she’s bare-breasted?”

“Yeah.”

“What do they look like?”

“They’re huge. I mean, you know, like
Playboy
centerfold breasts, only they’re not pretty. The nipples are big and hard and very brown, sticking out at me.”

I wrote down—nipples/penises. Gene noticed and frowned. Anyway, it was silly to take notes. I opened my drawer and put the yellow pad inside.

“Does it excite you?”

“No.” The no was said defensively, fast and too loud. I said nothing.

Gene glanced at me, brushed his bang, although it hadn’t fallen back across his face. He took a breath and said, “She walks toward me and opens her mouth wide.” He stared at nothing. The skin under his eyes was darkened by fatigue; and the eyes were bloodshot.

“Un huh. And does she say something?”

“I think she’s going to.”

“What do you think she’s going to say?”

“What?”

“What do you think she’s going to say?”

“She never says anything.”

“I know.”

“You do? How?”

“You would have said already. What do you think she’s going to say?”

“Something nice. I don’t know what.”

“Something about her breasts?”

“Her breasts are gone now.”

“Gone? Or she’s clothed?”

“No. I don’t notice them. She spits at me.” Gene looked down at his lap. He fit the fingers of both hands together and twisted. “She doesn’t say anything. I’m sure she’s going to be nice, but she spits at me.”

“What happens to the spit?”

Gene looked up. He cracked his knuckles so hard that the noise made me queasy. “What?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Well, I don’t know. I guess—No!” Gene sat up, fingers separating, eyes up toward the ceiling. “I scream—‘Go away!’” Gene blinked fast and said in a rush, “I don’t wake up. I thought I woke up when I yell, ‘Go away,’ but actually the room disappears before the spit hits me. That’s what happens. I couldn’t remember why I didn’t think the dream wakes me up. It’s the second part that wakes me up. They’re connected.”

“I see. What’s the second part?”

A pause. Gene interlocked his fingers again. I hoped he wouldn’t crack them. “I’m at my terminal,” he said finally, as if he were making a judgment.

“Your terminal?”

“Yeah, before the spit lands I’m at my terminal, going over the board design for the, well it should be Black Dragon, but it’s not. I’m still working on Flash II. Black Dragon is the—”

“Don’t explain now,” I cut him off sharply. “You’re at a terminal … ?”

“Yeah. Mine.”

“And … ?” I was urgent.

He answered quickly, “The specs don’t make any sense to me. They should. They’re simple stuff. Just the memory chip locations and—well, it doesn’t matter. I should be able to understand them, but I don’t. And then I realize all I have to do is hit Escape—That’s weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“Well, I use a mouse—you know, I mean, in reality. I don’t hit keys when I’m touring the machine.”

“Un huh. But in the dream you think about hitting Escape …”

“Escape. Pretty obvious, huh?”

“Maybe. Go on.”

“Okay, so I realize if I hit Escape, the screen will clear and I’ll understand everything, I’ll understand the whole machine, in one clear image, you know, I’ll have it all and we’ll be golden.”

“Do you hit Escape?”

“Yeah,” he said sadly.

“What happens?”

“The garbage freezes on screen, the whole machine freezes. So I go crazy. Do something you’re not supposed to. I make a terrible mistake.” He stopped, panting breathlessly.

I waited. Gene rubbed his chin, then frowned. “What do you do?” I prompted.

“I turn it off. That would erase all the garbage—but it would also erase the answer.”

“And then you wake up?”

“No. Not yet. I turn it off, but it doesn’t go off. The screen clears, though.”

“And that’s what you wanted.”

“Yeah—”

“You made a terrible mistake and got what you wanted.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. A message comes up, like one of Skip’s practical jokes.”

“Who’s Skip?”

“One of the hackers at Flash. He liked to play practical jokes. Bug your program so you think it’s malfunctioning and, just when you think you’ve got it licked, he’d have a message come up in Calligraphy letters. Very elegant and obscene.”

“What’s the message in the dream?”

He said the words slowly, with portent and doom in his voice: “You are a son of a bitch.” Gene nodded and spoke to himself, “They’re connected. Not different dreams but the same.”

“After you see the message, you wake up?”

Gene nodded. “They’re connected,” he said in a mumble. “I wonder how many times I’ve had this dream.”

“Me too,” I said.

Gene smiled. “Aren’t you supposed to know?”

Again the hostility at my all-knowingness. I had failed him—that was the message. But he couldn’t say it straight out and the judgment was uncertain or else why had he returned to see me? Unless he had come for a refund. “No,” I said. “You know everything. There’s only one expert on Gene Kenny and you’re
it.”

“Then I’m in deep shit.” Gene sat forward, lowered his head and rubbed his cheeks, pulling the skin down so I saw more of his red, exhausted eyes.

“Are you under a lot of pressure now?”

“Yeah, that’s why I took the job.”

“You took the job to be under pressure?”

“No, no.” He was impatient. “That’s stupid,” he said. He looked up abruptly, shocked at himself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t mean you’re stupid. That’s one of my problems. I keep snapping at people. Saying things I mean.” He snorted. “I mean, saying things I
don’t
mean.” He banged the side of his head with his right palm. “I’ve gotta get some sleep.” Now he looked at me, imploringly, a child asking for desert. “My wife thinks I should get some sleeping pills.”

“Let’s go through a typical day, Gene. Let’s go through your schedule.” I had to coax him into taking this inventory seriously. He repeatedly tried to summarize. His summaries, when we tracked each hour carefully, turned out to be wrong. He felt he was selfishly wasting time. In fact, Gene was busy at work (I couldn’t judge then how productively) and always doing things for other people. His wife complained so often and repeatedly of how early their son, Peter, woke up that Gene took it upon himself to rise with him, usually about six A.M. Gene made breakfast for Peter, dressed him for school, packed his school bag, made his bed (although there was a cleaning woman who came two times a week), and brought a cup of coffee to his wife before leaving for his office at seven-thirty. There he worked without a break—often without lunch—until at least six in the evening. During crunch time he would work until midnight. That period would be coming up in a year or so on the new machine—Black Dragon was its in-house nickname. On Flash II, working right through until dawn was common. When he came home, he summarized that he did nothing but sit around like a zombie. Zombie was his word. In fact, he cleaned up the dinner dishes, gave Peter a bath and played a game with him, read him bedtime stories, and then returned to studying specs or other matters related to work.

“When do you make love?” I asked.

This question made him apprehensive. His legs crossed defensively; hands also covered the region. [Some therapists would have made much of the instant armoring of his genitals; but these movements are routine, exhibited by many people in an awkward interview. I note them and consider them significant only when I detect a distinctive pattern, such as Gene’s unwillingness to look directly into people’s eyes.] His face opened, eyes wide, the skin smoothing. He seemed more boyish and ashamed than usual. “Well, you know, it’s hard. We can’t do it until Peter falls asleep and my wife often falls asleep before he does or she gets too tired. Pete doesn’t sleep much and he wakes up a lot. He comes into our bedroom around one or one-thirty almost every night.”