Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil (55 page)

“Cathy or your mother?”

“Cathy. My mother was dead.”

“Gene, you’re running from what we’re talking about. Your problem isn’t the deadline or the shakeout in the computer business. Your problem is, you think you killed your mother because you were glad she died. Not
you,
the wide-awake Gene. Your unconscious does. It’s confused about your anger at her and what happened. But you didn’t kill her. Cancer killed her. And you aren’t the good daughter of a son of a bitch, no matter how hard you try to be. Being afraid of Cathy and not having sex with her isn’t going to stop her from rejecting you or dying. You have to listen to yourself. You’re afraid and guilty about things that don’t exist and never happened. Your mother felt abandoned—” I shut up because Gene was crying.

He cried silently, face scrunched up, cheeks red, like a kid bawling; but he was a man, so the effect was grotesque. “I loved my mother,” he stammered and sobbed out loud at last.

“Of course you loved your mother. In fact, you
still
love her.”

Again, abruptly, his aspect changed. The sobbing ended. He peered at me through wet eyes, with hope.

“This isn’t about whether you’re a good person, Gene. Forget goodness. You did nothing to your mother. No matter what your secret thoughts or feelings, you did everything a good son should do. It’s because you loved her, because you wanted her love so much, that you were glad she died. She had become a vengeful woman to you and that was too painful so you wished she would go away and then fate took her away. But you are not the center of the universe: you did not kill her.”

Gene took a long, deep breath. “But what you’re saying—”

“Who’s saying it, Gene?” I interrupted. “Who’s doing the dreaming?”

“Okay. So, then, I wanted her to die—”

“You wanted her to stop hating you. You wished the rageful, disappointed mother would go away. But you didn’t want the real woman to die. In fact, you’re so scared of losing her again that you won’t confront Cathy about the fact that you don’t have sex, that you think she doesn’t love you.”

Gene pouted. He was quiet. He settled back in the chair, hopelessly, shoulders slumped. “We have sex.”

“How often?”

He answered reluctantly, “Not very often.”

“Do you think Cathy loves you?”

“No.”

“Do you think she wants to make love with you?”

“No.”

“I don’t know, Gene. I’ll be honest. Maybe Cathy doesn’t love you. Maybe she doesn’t want to have sex with you. I don’t know. I don’t know because you don’t ask her to love you. You’re too scared of killing her if she becomes an angry, rejecting woman. You’re scared to be a man because you’re supposed to be a good daughter.”

I waited. Gene’s fingers were locked together, hands resting in his lap, his tearful face solemn, eyes on me. He was as attentive and uncomfortable as a scolded child. He nodded after a while.

“How are your ears?” I asked with no mockery.

“I hear you,” he said.

“Okay. But so far I—Rafael—I haven’t said a word. That was you talking to yourself. Now I’m going to speak.” I opened my desk drawer and took out twenty-four tapes. “This is the audio record of our sessions. I lied to you. I’m not smart enough to remember everything you say or how you say it, so I use the tapes to review every word. In your case, I’ve listened to them several times.”

I waited for a reaction. He didn’t speak or break his penitent pose.

“Here’s more from me, your therapist. You have me appear at the end of the dream to fulfill a wish. It’s a wish you have about coming here. You have me say, ‘You are a good daughter.’ That’s what you want from me. You don’t want me to help Gene Kenny the man. You want me to certify the crippling image of your childhood. You want me to sustain your unhappiness. I don’t want to do that. I won’t collaborate with your parents’, your wife’s, and even your desire that you be a good daughter. You’re not a daughter. And, more to the point, you’re not good. You are the man who wants to build machines that tell the truth, you want a woman who is passionate and wants to make love to you, you want to be free of guilt and timidity and that man is suffering. I’ll help him but I won’t help that other weakling.”

I pushed the tapes at him.

“Take them if you disagree. Remember, in the end, this is merely one opinion. I admit I could be wrong, but unfortunately I’m stuck with my beliefs. I’m not your father, I’m not God, I may not even be a competent psychiatrist.”

Gene’s eyes went to the tapes. And stayed on them.

“But if you want to continue, I need them. You’re a very clever man, even when you don’t want to be, and I need all the help I can
get.”

I waited. He took his time deciding. When he left, the tapes were still on my desk.

C
HAPTER
N
INE
Detoxification

I
HAVE REVIEWED MY DECISION TO CONFRONT
G
ENE MANY TIMES. I WAS
physically and mentally exhausted that day. My empathy for him, thanks to my distress over the fate of Albert and other abused children, was at an all-time low. And yet I still find many objective reasons for my open declaration of war on Gene’s character. I can’t say that the attack, although my motives were compromised, was poor technique.

For three months I had listened to a passive, unhappy life: a man who hadn’t had regular sex with his wife since the birth of their son; a man working overtime for a boss who was seductive in his verbal flattery, but unrewarding financially; a man who, when he managed to sip joy, immediately poisoned it with his dismal self-valuation.

Gene had been instrumental in the creation of a machine—Flash II—with worldwide sales of eight hundred million dollars; he received a Christmas bonus of fifteen hundred and didn’t complain, although the fact roiled. When Stick Copley lured Gene to move to Minotaur he was promised a six-figure salary. After Gene accepted the new job, resigned from Flashworks, and bid on a house in Westchester, Copley informed him that for the first two years his salary would be merely fifty thousand, promising, without offering a contractual guarantee, to double Gene’s income when Black Dragon was finished successfully. This time (unlike the bonus incident) Cathy made life so uncomfortable for Gene that he did protest to Stick. Copley soothed the Kennys with an offer of a no-interest loan from Minotaur to buy their Westchester ranch house. Gene did not perceive that this perk was, in a sense, as dangerous as a coal miner buying groceries on credit at the company store. I goaded him into checking the promissory note; sure enough, the no-interest loan could be called if he left Minotaur or was fired. Of course, Gene hadn’t bothered to have the agreement looked at by an attorney because Stick advised him not to, saying Gene would save a small fortune in legal fees. To be blunt, my patient was a sap: more eunuch than husband; more slave than employee.

The one light of his life—his six-year-old boy, Pete—was nevertheless a guilt-ridden and debilitating relationship. At least it wasn’t one-sided. Pete adored Gene. And why not? He was a generous gift giver; he was a consistent and reasonable disciplinarian; he provided unconditional love. Gene felt guilty that he had spent many evenings at the office while on deadline for Flash II, thus he volunteered to be the night nurse when Pete responded to the move from Massachusetts to Westchester with a series of ear infections and attacks of strep. At his new job, Gene was often distracted, worrying over Pete’s desires, his feelings, his struggles at school; Gene was as preoccupied by pleasing his son as a prince courting a beautiful maiden. Gene bought Pete favorite desserts on the way home; he dreamed up and programmed games on their home computer to help Pete make friends. Gene attended all school events, despite Stick Copley’s thinly disguised contempt for the absences that resulted. Gene worked through lunch and on weekends to be let out to hear Pete play four notes on a recorder in his school assembly. Did he resent his son’s neediness? No. Did he feel his boss was unfair? No. Did he dispute Cathy’s repeated intimations that Pete’s illnesses (she assumed they were psychosomatic, although I didn’t) were really Gene’s fault, since he had forced them to move? No. Gene did not defend himself when he shouldn’t, as most do; and he did not defend himself when he should, as all must.

How did he describe himself? “I’m a lousy father. I’m not helping on Black Dragon. I’m a lousy lover. I’m selfish. I’m lazy. I’m inconsiderate.”

After I confronted him about his dream, I made a rule for our future sessions that turned Freudian-based psychology on its head. I refused to discuss past events. By the past, I mean his mother and father. We stayed with his contemporary relationships, only going as far back as his courtship and marriage to Cathy. This raised, with an intensity that was remarkable compared to our previous work together, the subject of Gene’s sexual life.

“I was a virgin when I met Cathy,” Gene said.

“No you weren’t,” I replied with my new attitude: direct, almost impatient.

“Well …” Gene’s problem of eye contact became hilariously exaggerated whenever sex came up. Typically, he looked at a point near my body or at least in my general direction. Now he turned to the Venetian blinds. But he couldn’t face them either. Gene lowered his head to stare at the gray industrial carpet. “Practically.”

“You slept with your girlfriend in high school.”

“Only twice.”

“Still, Gene. There’s no such thing as being practically a virgin. What are you saying? That other than your first two times, the only woman you’ve made love to is Cathy?”

He was thoroughly embarrassed. And humiliated. He grunted, covered his eyes with a hand. Usually, I would work to deal with that emotion first. But, and I’m sorry if this makes the lay reader dislike me, I persisted heartlessly: “Is that correct, Gene? Or have you slept with anyone else?”

“I can’t …” Hand still over his eyes, he shook his head.

“Sure you can,” I said.

Long silence. The hand dropped. In a low, shamed voice, he said, “Remember when I saw you in Boston?”

“Of course.”

Gene looked up boldly—right at the Venetian blinds. “I went to a prostitute.”

I didn’t react to what he thought was significant. “And that’s it?” I asked. “Your high school girlfriend twice. Cathy, I don’t know how many times. Not very often from your hints. And one visit to a prostitute.”

Gene’s mouth pursed angrily. He breathed through his nose. He sat still, fuming.

“I bet you’ve counted them up, Gene. Have you? Do you know how many times in your life you’ve had sex?”

A wonderful thing happened. Gene rotated his head—only his head—to look right at me. He delivered his line with a sarcastic smile, “Counting masturbation?”

He was fighting me. The flag of his manhood might be tattered and absurd, even to him, but he had raised it anyway.

“No,” I said. “Not counting masturbation.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you have counted?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“You have a mathematical mind, Gene. Do you have an exact number, or an estimate?”

“A very close estimate.”

“I’d love to hear how you made it.”

“Well, we need to establish criteria,” Gene said. “Are we talking about intercourse?”

“Intercourse?”

“Yeah.” Gene was having fun now. He shifted his body to face me, leaned forward, head up, eyes shining. “Do I leave out blowjobs?”

“The prostitute was a blowjob?” His face fell. I cursed myself silently. That was a mistake. I meant to goad him a little: to rouse his pride, not rout it. I did my best to recover. “Yes, all sexual encounters meet the criteria. Mutual masturbation, oral sex, anything that involves someone else and results in a climax.”

Gene’s stricken look was erased. But the gleam didn’t return to his eyes. “A climax for one or both parties?”

“Just you. Only you count as far as I’m concerned.”

“You’re a sexist, Dr. Neruda,” Gene said. He was valiant, after all, striding on the deck of his new boat, brandishing a sword at the guns of my battleship.

“That’s right,” I said. “When it comes to you I’m a sexist. So how did you arrive at your number?”

“Well, the first three months we did it every day. And I remember doing it twice a day at least three times. So that’s ninety-three.”

“And the two times in high school.”

“Right. Ninety-five.”

“Why don’t we call it a hundred?” I proposed.

Gene’s energy ebbed. He didn’t really want to continue. He dropped eye contact. “Well … That’s not …”

“Okay. Ninety-five,” I said. “Go on,” I prodded.

He sighed. “I have to guess for the next year.”

“You mean, until Cathy got pregnant with Pete?”

“Right. Best I could do was a steady decline. You know? Four times a week for a month, then three, then two, then once a week for the rest of the year.” He brushed his thick eyebrows with the thumb and ring finger of his right hand; his dark eyes stared moodily into space.

“So, that’s what? Sixteen the first month?”

“It’s a total of sixty-two until she’s pregnant.” Gene’s voice descended and his body sagged in the chair.

“What’s the total?”

“One hundred and fifty-seven by my senior year at college.” His enervated tone had no humor, or hope.

“And then?”

Gene rubbed his eyebrows faster, lowering his chin, until his eyes and mouth were shielded by the palm of his hand. He sighed again.

“And then? Pete is six and a half, right, so that’s—”

He cut me off, testily. “Maybe once a month. That’s a little optimistic, but we did have one week in Florida …” he trailed off.

“So that’s twelve times six and a half—”

“No.” Gene’s hand dropped. He sat up, turning to the Venetian blinds. “I’m lying. Maybe once every two months. Maybe.” His chin tightened as if to keep his mouth from trembling. “Thirty-nine. Six and a half years. Maybe thirty-nine. Probably more like thirty-five.”

“What’s the total?”

“One hundred and ninety-six.”