Lying on the Couch (45 page)

Shelly was by far the most active bettor at the table and seemed to know what he was doing. Yet when he had a winning hand, few players stayed in on his bets. And when he bluffed, even with the best possible table position, one or two players with marginal hands always called and beat him. When someone else bet a lock hand, Shelly foolishly stayed in. Though Shelly had above-average cards, his stack of chips steadily declined and, at the end of ninety minutes, he had gone through his five hundred dollars. It didn't take Marshal long to find out why.

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Shelly stood up, threw the dealer his few remaining chips as a tip, and headed for the restaurant. Marshal cashed in his chips, left no tip, and followed Shelly.

"Pick up anything, Doc? Any tells?"

"Well, Shelly, you know I'm an amateur, but it seems to me that the only way you could have told them more about your hands is semaphorically."

"Huh? Come again,"

"You know, that flag system ships use to signal other ships."

"Ohyeah. Thatbad, eh?"

Marshal nodded.

"How about examples? Give me specifics."

"Well, to start, you remember the very big hands you had—I counted six: four full houses, a high straight, and a high flush?"

Shelly smiled wistfully, as if recalling old loves. "Yeah, I remember every one. Weren't they gorgeous?"

"Well," Marshal continued, "I noticed that anyone else at the table who had big hands always won more money that you did with comparable hands—a lot more money: at least twice or three times as much. In fact, I shouldn't even call your hands 'big hands,'maybe just high hands, because you never won a big pot with any of them."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning when you had a high hand the news spread like wildfire around the table."

"How'dlflagit?"

"Well, let me go over my observations. It seems to me that when you have great cards you squeeze them."

"Squeeze 'em?"

"Yeah, guard them as though you've got Fort Knox in your hand. Squeeze so hard you bend the bicycle wheels. And another thing, when you've got a boat you keep looking at your chips before you bet. Let's see, there was something else ..." Marshal studied his notes. "Yeah, here it is. Every time you've got a great hand, you look away from the table, off into the distance, as if you're trying to watch one of the TV basketball games—trying, I guess, to make the other players think you aren't too interested in the hand. But if you're bluffing, you're right in everyone's face, as though you're trying to stare them down, intimidate them, dissuade them from betting."

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"You're kidding, Doc? I do this? I can't believe it. I know all this stuff—it's all in Mike Carols Book of Tells. But I didn't know I did it." Shelly stood up and gave Marshal a bear hug. "Doc, this is what I call therapy! Big-time therapy! I can't wait to get back to that game—I'm going to reverse all my tells. I'll put such a spin on it those jokers won't know what hit them."

"Wait! There's more. You want to hear it?"

"Of course. But let's move quick. I want to make sure I get that spot back at the table. On second thought, let me reserve it." Shelly trotted up to Dusty, the pit boss, slapped him on the shoulder, whispered something to him, and slipped him a ten. Quickly back to Marshal, Shelly was all ears.

"Keep going—you're on a roll."

"Two things. If you look at your chips, maybe do a quick count, then no question—you got a great hand. I guess I already said that. But I didn't say this: when you bluff you never look at your chips. And then something more subtle—low level of confidence in this one . . . "

"Run it by me. Anything you have to say, Doc, I want to hear! Let me tell you, you're spitting gold!"

"Well, it seems to me that when you've got a good hand, you put your bet on the table very gently. And very close to you—you don't extend your arm very far. And when you bluff, you do the opposite—more aggressive and you plunk the chips exactly in the center of the table. Also when you bluff, often—but not every time—you seem to look at your hole cards again and again, as though you're hoping they've changed. One last thing: you hang in there to the end when everyone else at the table seems to know the guy's got a lock hand—so I guess you're playing your cards too much and not playing the other guy. Well, that's it." Marshal started to tear up his page of notes.

"No, no. Doc. Don't tear that. Let me have it. I'm going to frame it. No, no, I'll seal it in plastic and carry it with me—good luck charm, the touchstone of the Merriman fortune. Listen, I've got to go—that unique opportunity ..." Shelly beckoned toward the poker table they had just left, "that unique gathering of pigeons may never come again. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Here's the letter I promised you."

He handed over a letter, and Marshal scanned it:

To Whom It May Concern:

This is to testify that I have received excellent treatment from Dr. Marshal Streider. I consider myself completely recovered from all ill effects I suffered from my treatment with Dr. Pande.

Shelly Merriman

"How's that?" asked Shelly.

"Perfect," said Marshal. "Now, if you would just date it."

Shelly dated the note and then, expansively, added a line:

I herewith drop any legal claims against the San Francisco Analytic Institute.

"How's that?"

"Even better. Thank you, Mr. Merriman. Tomorrow I'll mail you the letter I promised."

"That will make us square. One hand washes the other. You know, Doc, I've just been thinking—early stages, not planned through yet—but you might have another whole career in poker counseling. You're fantastic at it. Or I think you are—let me see what happens when I get back to the table. But let's do lunch sometime. I could be persuaded to act as your agent. Just look around this place—hundreds of losers with their little pipe dreams, dying to improve. And other casinos are much larger . . . Garden City, Club 101 .. . they'd pay anything. I could fill your practice in an instant— or could fill an auditorium for a workshop—couple hundred players, hundred bucks a head, twenty thou a day—I'd get regular agent's fees, of course. Think about it. I gotta go. I'll call ya. Opportunity beckons."

And with that Shelly sauntered back to the hold 'em table, singing, "zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay."

Marshal walked out of Avocado Joe's and into the parking lot. The time was eleven-thirty. In a half-hour he would call Peter.

TWENTY-ONE

he night before his next session with Carolyn, Ernest had a vivid dream. He sat up in bed and jotted it down: / am rushing through an airport. I spot Carolyn in a throng of passengers. I am glad to see her and I run up to her and try to give her a big hug but she keeps her purse in the way, making it a bulky and unsatisfactory hug.

As he thought about his dream in the morning, he remembered his resolution after the conversation with Paul: "the truth got me into this and the truth will get me out." Ernest decided to do something he had never before done. He would share his dream with his patient.

In their next session, Carol was intrigued by Ernest's relating his dream about hugging her. After the last session she had begun to wonder whether she may have misjudged Ernest; she was losing hope that she could ever entice him into compromising himself. And here, today, he tells her he dreamed about her. Perhaps this might

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lead somewhere interesting, Carol thought. But without conviction: she no longer felt she had any control in the situation. For a shrink, Ernest was entirely unpredictable, she thought; almost every session he did or said something that surprised her. And almost every session he showed her something about herself she hadn't known.

"Well, Ernest, this is very strange because I had a dream about you last night. Isn't that what Jung called 'synchronicity'?"

"Not exactly. By 'synchronicity' I think Jung referred to a concordance of two related phenomena, one occurring in the subjective world, the other in the physical, objective world. I recall he described somewhere working with a patient's dream involving an ancient Egyptian scarab and then noting that a Hve beetle was flying against the windowpane as though it were trying to get into the room.

"I've never understood the significance of that concept," Ernest continued. "I think that many people are so uncomfortable at the sheer contingency of life that they find comfort by believing in some form of cosmic interconnectedness. I've never been drawn in by this. Somehow the idea of randomness or nature's indifference has never unsettled me. Why is simple 'coincidence' such a horror? Why must it be viewed as something other than coincidence?

"As for our dreaming of each other, is that worthy of wonder? It seems to me that, given the amount of contact we have and the intimacy of our connection, it would be surprising if we didn't enter into each other's dreams. Sorry to go on like this, Carolyn, I must sound like I'm lecturing. But ideas like 'synchronicity' stir up a lot of feeling for me: I often feel lonely trudging in the no-man's land between Freudian dogmatism and Jungian mysticism."

"No, I don't mind when you talk about these things, Ernest. In fact, I like it when you share your thoughts like that. But you have one habit that does make things seem Hke a lecture: you keep using my name every other minute."

"I was absolutely unaware of it."

"You mind my saying that to you?"

"Mind? I'm delighted. Makes me feel you're starting to take me seriously."

Carol leaned over and gave Ernest's hand a squeeze.

He squeezed back for a second and said, "But we've got work to do. Let's go back to the dream. Can you tell me your thoughts about it?"

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"Oh, no! It's your dream, Ernest. What do you think?"

"Fair enough. Well, often psychotherapy is symbolized in dreams as some form of a journey. So I think the airport represents our therapy. I try to be close to you, to hug you. But you put something in the way: your purse."

"And so, Ernest, what do you make of the purse? I feel a little weird—it's like we're switching roles."

"Not at all, Carolyn, I encourage it; nothing is more important than our being honest with each other. So let's stay with it. Well, what comes to mind is that Freud points out repeatedly that a 'purse' is a common symbol for female genitals. As I've mentioned, I don't ascribe to Freudian dogma—but still I try not to pour out the baby with the bathwater. Freud had so many correct insights that it would be foolish to ignore them. And once, years ago, I participated in an experiment where women were asked, under hypnosis, to dream that a man they desire comes to their bed. But they're instructed to disguise the explicit sexual act in the dream. A surprising number of women used a purse symbol—that is, a man coming to them and inserting something into their purse."

"So then, Ernest, the dream means ... ?"

"I think that the dream is saying that you and I are embarking on therapy, but that you may be inserting sexuality between us in a fashion that prevents us from truly being intimate."

Carol fell silent for a few moments, then commented: "There's another possibility. A simpler, straightforward interpretation—that, deep inside, you want me physically, that the hug is a sexual equivalent. After all, wasn't it you who initiated the hug in the dream?"

"And," Ernest asked, "what about the purse as an obstacle?"

"If, as Freud said, a cigar can sometimes be a cigar, what about the feminine equivalent—that a purse can sometimes just be a purse ... a purse containing money?"

"Yes, I see what you mean . . . you're saying that I desire you as a man desires a woman, and that money—in other words, our professional contract—gets in the way. And that I feel frustrated with that."

Carol nodded. "Yes, how about that interpretation?"

"It's certainly more parsimonious, and I have no doubt there is truth in it—that if we hadn't met as therapist and patient, I would have enjoyed knowing you in a personal, nonprofessional way—we talked about that at our last session. I've made no secret that I think

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you're a handsome, engaging woman with a wonderfully lively, penetrating mind."

Carol beamed. "I'm beginning to like this dream more and more."

"Yet," Ernest continued, "dreams are generally overdeter-mined—there's no reason to think my dream isn't depicting both wishes: my desire to work with you as a therapist without the intrusion and disruption of sexual desire and the desire to know you as a woman without the intrusion of our professional contract. That's the dilemma I have to work with."

Ernest marveled at how far he had come in his truth telling. Here he was—matter-of-factly, unself-consciously—saying things to a patient that he would, a few weeks ago, never have imagined saying. And, as far as he could tell, he had himself under control. He no longer felt he was being seductive to Carolyn. He was being open, but at the same time responsible and therapeutically helpful.

"What about the money, Ernest? Sometimes I see you glance at the clock and I think I just represent a paycheck to you, and that each tick of the clock is just another dollar."