"Well I guess we won't try that again," Dr. Mullin said. "I've heard of bad side effects from that drug but I thought we'd take a chance. I don't really know what to tell you Mrs. Nailles unless you want to try psychotherapy. I work with Dr. Bronson who has an office in the village if you want to call him."
The psychiatrist was even more reluctant than the general practitioner to leave his office, but when Nellie made the situation clear he finally agreed to come. Nellie was standing at the window when he drove up at three. His car was a bright-blue sports convertible with a peculiarly long hood, determined, it seemed, to give an impression of bestiality and expensiveness. It confused Nellie that a man whose profession was to cure melancholy and sorrow should have such a worldly car, but when the doctor climbed out of his racer he seemed unworldly. He seemed a little browbeaten and indecisive. He closed the door, wrung his hands and examined the car from end to end with a deeply worried and suspicious frown. Then he climbed the stairs and rang the bell.
He carried no bag, of course-no identification of any sort. He had, she thought, some of the occupational mannerisms of a dentist. His manner was weary and kindly and he wrung his hands. While she described what had happened he circled the living-room floor as if a dentist chair stood in the middle of the rug. He was a little stooped as if he were accustomed to spending his time in the company of prone patients and his voice had a sad and a healing tone. Nellie led him upstairs to Tony's bedroom and closed the door. Fifty minutes later he was back in the living room.
"I'm afraid he's quite sick, Mrs. Nailles, and the worst of it is that he's uncooperative. I think you may have to send him to a hospital."
"What hospital?"
"Well there's a sanatorium called Stonehenge in the next town where I often send patients. He might respond to electric shock."
"Oh, no," Nellie said. She began to cry.
"Electric shock isn't fatal Mrs. Nailles. After the first treatment he won't know what's happening. The treatment does not build up anxiety."
"Oh, no," Nellie said. "Please."
"Well he's deeply troubled, Mrs. Nailles. It would take months of intense therapy, with his cooperation, to begin to understand what's gone wrong. Men of his generation, coming from environments of this sort, very often present us with problems that resist analysis. I suppose you give the boy everything he wants?"
"Within reason," Nellie said. "He doesn't have a car."
"I see that he has a tape recorder, a record player, a closet full of expensive clothes."
"Yes."
"There is a tendency in your income group to substitute possessions for moral and spiritual norms. A strict sense of good and evil, even if it is mistaken, is better than none."
"Eliot goes to church nearly every Sunday," Nellie said.
How poor and transparent the fact seemed now that she had stated it. She knew the lassitude of Eliot's prayers, the indifference of his devotions, and that it was habit, superstition and sentimentality that got him up for Holy Communion. "We don't tell lies," she went on. "I think Tony's never told a lie." The doctor gave her an offensively thin smile. "We don't read one another's mail. We don't cheat. We don't gossip. We pay our bills. Eliot loves me. We drink before dinner. I smoke a good deal…"
Was that all? It seemed like a poor show but what else was expected of her? Prophets with beards, fiery horsemen, thunder and lightning, holy commandments inscribed on tablets in ancient languages? "We are honest and decent people," she said angrily, "and I'm not going to be made to feel guilty about it."
"I don't intend to make you feel guilty, Mrs. Nailles. There is nothing reprehensible about honesty and decency, but the fact is that your son is very sick."
The telephone rang and when Nellie answered it someone asked to speak with the doctor. "I will not sell that property for less than fifty thousand dollars," the doctor said. "If you're looking for a cheaper place I have a nice modern ranch on Chestnut Street. I know the property is assessed at thirty thousand but that assessment was made eight years ago. Fifty thousand dollars is my final price. Excuse me," he said to Nellie.
"Certainly," Nellie said, but the conversation had nettled her. Did this healer sell real estate on the side or was the healing of madness his sideline?
"Will you come again?" Nellie asked.
"Not unless he asks for me," the doctor said. "It would simply be a waste of your money and my time."
When the doctor had gone Nellie climbed the stairs and asked Tony how he felt.
"About the same," he said. "I still feel terribly sad. I feel as if the house were made of cards. When I was a little kid and sick you used to make me card houses and I'd blow them over. This is a nice house and I like it but I feel as if it were made of cards."
The third to come was a specialist on somnambulatory phenomena. He came by train and taxi and looked to Nellie like a mechanic. He carried a suitcase and a larger case filled with instruments. When she asked if Tony might be harmed he assured her that he had nothing but gentle electrodes that recorded body temperatures. She showed him up to the guest room and was about to introduce him to Tony when he said: "I think I'll take a little nap. You see, I'll be up most of the night."
"Is there anything I can get you," Nellie asked.
"Oh no thank you. I'll just lie down." He closed the door.
When he came down at five Nellie offered him a drink.
"Not me," he said, "no thanks. I'm AA. I've been off it for a year and a half now. Oh, you should have seen me. I weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, most of it gin. The first group I joined was in the Village. That wasn't much help. I mean they were all freaks. Then I switched to a group in the East Sixties and believe me, Mrs. Nailles, there's not a clinker in that crowd. All important businessmen. Lawyers. Doctors. We get our kicks out of talking about withdrawal symptoms. What it feels like to hit bottom. It's like talking about a trip to hell. We've all been there and we talk just like travelers talk about places where they've been. It's a great crowd. Then when the meeting's over we say a prayer. I suppose," he said, "that ministers and priests think about God all the time. I suppose they think about God when they wake up and I suppose everything they see during the day reminds them about God and of course they say their prayers before they go to sleep. It was just like that with me except that I didn't think about God; I thought about the hootch. I thought about hootch the first thing in the morning, I thought about hootch all day long and I always went to bed with a skinful. Hootch was just like God to me, I mean it was everywhere the way God is supposed to be. The clouds reminded me of hootch, the rain reminded me of hootch, the stars reminded me of hootch. I used to dream about girls before I got on the hootch but after that I just used to dream about hootch. I mean dreams are supposed to come from some very deep part of your mind like sex but with me it was hootch. I'd dream that I had a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. Then I'd dream that I poured two or three inches into the glass. Then I'd drink it and dream about that wonderful feeling I used to get as if I were beginning a new life. I used to dream about bourbon and scotch and gin and vodka. I never dreamed about rum. I never liked rum. Just sitting there drinking and watching comics on TV I'd feel as if I was sliding down a greased pole, just sliding and sliding so nice and easy. Then in the morning I'd wake up with the shakes and the blues and start thinking about hootch again."