Psychology and Other Stories (30 page)

“Melanie.”

“What.”

“You know what.”

“Anyway,” said Strickland, “if he had
no
impulse control, he should have flown off the handle right away, there in the foyer.”

“What about his attachment pattern?”

“What's a tachment pattern?,” Ben asked.

“Don't interrupt,” Melanie told him.

“Melanie.”

“Now what!”

“You know what. We agreed you're not to mother him.”

“All I did was tell him not to interrupt.”

“I think it's for the individuals talking to decide whether or not an interruption has taken place.”

“Well, I was talking too, wasn't I? Or don't I count?”

Martie put down her fork. “Daniel,” she said, “may I bring you in as mediator at this point?”

“That's fine. Let's all just take a little breather.”

Melanie said, “Forget it.”

“Ben,” said Martie, “an attachment pattern is the way you relate to people as a grown up, because of the way you were related to when you were a child, especially by your mother. Now, you need some orange on your plate to go with the green and brown.”

Melanie made a choking noise. “I wonder what kind of attachment pattern I have.”

Martie put down her fork. “Melanie, if you are looking for a reaction, you won't get one here. You had a perfectly healthy and loving upbringing, as you well know, and if you are finding it difficult to relate to people with respect and on a footing of equality then the reason must lie somewhere in the five years you lived under your father's roof.”

“It was only a joke!”

“Fuck fuck fuck,” said Ben.

“Daniel,” said Martie, “did I raise my voice just then?”

“Well, I don't know …”

“Never mind. I think I know when it is time to calm down and consider alternatives. In fact, I will excuse myself, I have a late appointment with a client, thank you for a lovely meal. And look into this man's attachment pattern is my advice to you. Goodnight, Ben. Goodnight, Melanie.”

After a long silence, Ben asked, “Where is Mom going?”

“You heard her,” said Melanie.

“You don't know what he heard,” said Strickland, then told his son, “She has a late appointment with a client.” After a pause, he added, “She has to go to work.”

“If you believe that,” Melanie muttered.

“Will you two wash up?,” Strickland asked. “At least run them under the tap. Then it's easier later.”

Q. What exactly is your specialty, Professor? You do have a specialty?

A. I am a clinical psychologist.

Q. So you run a clinic?

A. I use the word ‘clinical' to distinguish it broadly from so-called experimental psychology, which is the sort generally done in a university setting, usually on undergraduate students, and usually with some form of pencil-and-paper multiple-choice questionnaire, to determine for instance whether men or women have better willpower and burning questions like that.

MR. MASSICK: Now Your Honor, I think I must object. Ms. Lattimann has already agreed to accept Doctor Strickland's credentials as an expert witness.

MS. LATTIMANN: These questions, Your Honor, are not about the doctor's credentials but his method. I am trying to get a clearer picture of what his general method is when assessing someone.

THE COURT: Which I do not doubt you will use to shed light on the particular method of this particular case, Ms. Lattimann. Objection overruled.

Q. Now, I don't think you answered my question, Professor.

A. I'm sorry, I've quite forgotten your question.

THE COURT: I think the doctor can be forgiven for that. Let the record reflect that there was laughter in the courtroom, Miss Reporter. Not a lot, but some. And would you kindly read out Ms. Lattimann's last question.

REPORTER: You run a clinic.

A. Thank you. No, I do not run a clinic per se. I see patients in various settings, and these meetings are all clinical in the sense that I provide a form of cognitive and behavioral therapy, or counseling, but I do not have a clinic, no. To answer your question.

Q. People who are insane or who have mental disorders come to you and you cure them.

A. Ah. That is a mouthful. I would perhaps object to the term “insane” and to the concept of “cure.” But otherwise, in general, you could say that yes, people with mental disorders or psychological disturbances come to me for help and I try to help them.

Q. You help people.

A. I do my best.

A frail, perspiring young man with thinning hair sat slouched over a tidy kitchen table and said rapidly, “I even explained it to her, I said very clearly—I know I can have a tendency to mumble but I said it quite clearly—I said Hi, my name's Robin but most people call me Coby, she said All right I'll call you Coby, I said Actually I prefer Robin, she said Okay I'll call you Robin, but now already she's calling me Coby like everyone else.”

Strickland frowned and nodded.

“That doesn't matter I realize, but it gets under my skin. I try not to let it get under my skin but I can't help thinking about what I could have said differently. It's the same as at the grocery store last week. I have to park out at the edge of the parking lot—I told you about this—where there aren't any cars around or I feel hemmed in, but then on the news the other day I heard there was this warning to women about some guy who was going around supposedly selling perfume and when you smell it it's actually chloroform, I couldn't get it out of my head even though it was broad daylight and I'm not
a woman.” He gave Strickland a quick defiant look. “Actually to tell you the truth I think I get all worked up because I'm actually afraid women will think
I'm
the guy, one of these guys going around trying to abduct them with a bottle of fake perfume. But what can I do? I need groceries,” he finished miserably.

After a long pause, Strickland said, “I think that's probably an urban myth. Chloroform, to the best of my knowledge, does not operate so quickly.”

“That doesn't matter. That's not the point. It sounds true.”

Q. As a doctor of psychology—I'm sorry, as a clinical psychologist, you do your best to help people.

A. That is correct.

Q. And is that what you've done in this case?

A. I beg your pardon?

Q. Shall I have the reporter read back the question?

A. I heard the question correctly, but I do not understand the question.

Q. What you have said to Mr. Massick's questions, what you have told the jury and the honorable judge and everyone else in this courtroom—it will help Mr. Burger, won't it?

Massick stood up.

A. I don't know what will help Mr. Burger, Ms. Lattimann. I am a doctor, not a lawyer.

Massick sat down.

Strickland sat at his desk, thinking.

Mike, as a child, holding his mother's hand, waiting with his mother and her friends for a table in a posh restaurant.

The maitre-d' saying, I'm sorry, but we have a table for only eight at the moment.

His mother dropping Mike's hand and laughing, That's okay, we'll take it, the boy can wait, I'm starving!

Mike, as a child, being left behind.

“Ridiculous,” Strickland muttered, rubbing his neck.

A crash came from the living room.

Martie told her daughter, “Well, that wasn't a very intelligent thing to do.”

Melanie stomped out of the room.

“What was that about?,” Strickland asked. Glass shards were scattered across the floor.

“That girl has a serious punishment complex. She needs to be told that she's doing everything wrong. You know, her father was always correcting her posture …”

“But what's it all about?”

“Oh, evidently I was insufficiently appalled to learn that my daughter is a bisexual. Or thinks she is. Or wants to think she is. Or wants me to think she is.”

Strickland tapped on Melanie's door, then opened it. The room was empty.

He tapped on the closet door, then opened it.

She was standing there, almost hidden by clothes.

“Hey,” he said.

She groaned.

“Look,” he said. “Your mother …”

“Aw,
fuck
my mother!” she said, and slammed the door in his face.

Strickland wandered the halls of the courthouse.

“Excuse me,” he asked a sharply dressed woman pulling a trolley
stacked with boxes of files, “is there a list somewhere of the cases, the court cases, currently in session?”

They stood before a list posted to the wall.

“What are you in the mood for?”

In a small courtroom with mahogany paneling, a police officer in uniform sat in the witness box, his face pressed against the microphone, and read tonelessly from a report he held in his lap.

“At which juncture Officer Daniels and myself—it says Officer Miller here, but that is myself—Officer Daniels and Officer Miller proceeded to question the suspect, period. New paragraph. The questioning began at seventeen fifty-four—that is written as one seven, uh colon, five four—and continued until one eight four five, that is one eight colon four five, open parenthesis five one minutes, close parenthesis period. The suspect gave the officers—and here is a typo, it says notal, N O T A L, but it should say—well, I'll just read what it says. The suspect gave the officers notal cooperation in answering the questions put to him by officers Daniels and Miller, comma …”

Strickland stood and, with little gestures of apology and gratitude, shuffled out past the other spectators.

The corridors were suddenly bustling. He heard his name called. But there was no one here he knew.

Someone shouted “Dan!” again, right in his ear, and grabbed his arm.

“You!” he said.

Trace smirked at him. “‘You,'” she mimicked, then sighed. “You, he said. He remembered where she worked, but not her name.”

“Actually,” he grinned guilelessly, “it's exactly the opposite.”

*

“I never told you I was a court reporter?” She bit her lower lip. “Then it's just a coincidence.”

She sat on folded legs, leaning over the table. With the base of her cup she made little overlapping circles of coffee on the tabletop.

Strickland sat stiffly upright, one leg draped neatly over the other, knee atop knee. “Is that so bad?” he said.

As if changing the subject, she said, “I thought you were going to call me. After all …”

“But I don't have your number,” he protested.

“I left you that note.”

“But no number!”

“You were supposed to track me down. That was supposed to be the whole fun of it. Really, with your big brain …!”

“I'm actually not very smart sometimes.”

She withdrew a pen from her purse and scribbled on a napkin. “There,” she said, sliding it across the table like a poker bet. “Now you don't have to be smart anymore.”

“Come on,” she said.

“Should we be in here?” he asked, entering the courtroom cautiously.

“It's a public building. Anyway, I work here. Right here, as a matter of fact.”

She showed him the equipment she used.

“And you can get down everything everybody says?” he asked.