“Mom. I could have . . . look, this isn’t getting us anywhere. I could sit here and come up with shoulda-woulda-coulda’s until we’re both old enough to retire.”
“Since I’ve got all the letters after my name and several degrees hanging in expensive frames on my office walls, could you let me be the judge of that?” “Do you talk to all of your patients this way?” “Only those I watch vomit and buy café mochas for.” “You’re quick.” “And you’re good at evasion.” “It’s a gift.”
“So is compassion, so is intelligence, and so is the desire and ability to create. Let me ask you something, Martin: why is it that someone of your intelligence—and I had a friend check into your records at OSU, I saw your grades, saw that you’d won three separate scholarships, one of them for creative writing, so I know you’re smart, and I know you’re talented—why is it that you never went back to school? Why is it you chose to stay in a profession that—while a good and honorable job—doesn’t challenge you or require any use of your talents?”
He stared at her for a few moments, sat back, and rubbed his eyes. “Because I’m scared.”
“Of what? About what?”
“Of being rejected—and I’m not talking about just the writing, okay? I’m scared of being be rejected by people, possible friends, lovers, all of it.”
“Why?”
“How the fuck should I know? Sorry, sorry . . . I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”
“That’s all right.”
“It all sounds so . . . so whiny when I say it out loud.”
“No one’s judging you. And, no, it doesn’t.”
“Look . . . I’ve had friends, and I’ve had girlfriends, and for a while it’s all good, but eventually they all start to drift away. I used to think it was something I did—maybe I wasn’t open enough, or honest enough, or affectionate enough—but that didn’t hold up. Maybe in individual instances it might apply, but when the pattern kept repeating over and over . . . it took me a while, but I finally figured it out: I am just not an exciting person. I’m not the life of the party—and, no, I never wanted to be the life of the party. I am not one of the happy people, okay? I realized a long time ago that whatever mechanism it is that enables people to embrace and trust happiness is just not part of my make-up. I don’t get upset about it, I don’t sit around and cry and do the ‘Poor-poor-pitiful-me’ routine, I just accept it and try to get on with things.”
“But you’re not getting on with things, Martin; otherwise, you wouldn’t have planned your suicide so thoroughly.”
“Oh, and it would’ve worked, too.”
Dr. Hayes nodded. “Yes. Based on the recipe you had written down and the dosages of the various medications and how you planned on ingesting them, there was no room for error. You’d be dead right now if you hadn’t walked through that door last night. Why does that make you smile?”
“Because it’s nice to know I got it right.”
“And you’re proud of that?”
“Not particularly. Not now, anyway.”
“Does it scare you, that you almost succeeded?”
Martin thought it over for a few moments. “No . . . and I know it should. What’s that say about my frame of mind?”
“You tell me.”
Martin sighed and rose to his feet. “I’m really grateful for all the trouble you’ve gone through to help me, Dr. Hayes, but I don’t feel like talking to you any more.”
She pointed at Martin’s chair. “You don’t get to make that call, not in here. If this were my private practice and you made that declaration, I wouldn’t push it, I’d just smile and say, ‘See you next week’ and then charge you my three-figure fee for the full hour, anyway. In here, you’re done when I say you’re done. I have tentatively recommended you for a 4-day stay; that can be either increased or decreased, depending on how much you cooperate in our trying to help you. Just because this place is considered the fast-food franchise of mental health doesn’t mean we don’t try our best. Now please sit down and let’s finish this.”
Martin complied. “I’m only doing this because you bought an extra coffee for me.”
“And providing you don’t piss me off, I’ll buy an extra one for you tomorrow, as well.” Her tone was light but her eyes were serious. “Listen to me, Martin; it has been my experience that most people who seriously attempt suicide don’t do it because their spirit has been crushed in some single, massive, cataclysmic blow, but rather because it has bled to death from thousands of small scratches they weren’t even aware of. You’re right to insist that dealing with the death of your parents and the incredible hole it left in your life isn’t what drove you toward your decision; it was however, I think—and excuse my resorting to a tired cliché—the straw that broke the camel’s back. If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else—a really bad night at work, a flat tire, burning your dinner, an obnoxious telemarketer, who knows? It’s not necessarily the thing itself—it’s everything that has led up its suddenly taking on this profound, symbolic significance that you’d never attribute to it under everyday circumstances. Do you understand?” “You’re pretty good at this. Ever think of doing it professionally?” Dr. Hayes sat back. “Does that mean you agree?” “Yeah . . . yeah, it does.”
“Good. Now I’ll make a deal with you. I’ve got a really busy day waiting for me when I walk out that door, and I could use an extra half-hour, so I’ll meet you halfway about your not feeling like talking to me anymore: if you will tell me, to the best of your recollection, where you were and what you were doing when you first made the decision to start planning your own death, we’ll call it a day and take up at that point tomorrow, all right?”
“What’re you going to do with that extra half-hour, just out of curiosity?”
“Nothing. I am going to do nothing. I am going to sit in my car and listen to a classic rock station while eating something that’s bad for me that I plan on picking up at the first choke-burger drive-thru joint I pass on the way. And I will love Every. Minute. Of. It.”
“Damn, that sounds great.”
“It will be.”
“Far be it from me to keep a person from a higher cholesterol count.”
Dr. Hayes smiled, put down her pen (she’d filled both sides of the file cover with notes, anyway), folded her hands, and said: “So, what were you doing?”
Martin thought about, then answered her question, surprised at how easily and quickly it came out, surprised even more with how much he realized while telling it to her, and found that he actually felt a little better once he finished. Dr. Hayes seemed equally pleased, and promised to bring a croissant along with the coffee tomorrow morning before she thanked him for a good session and went on her way.
It was ten-thirty. He had ninety minutes to himself. What to do, what to do?
He leaned forward to turn on the television, remembered what he’d seen the last time he tried to watch something, and decided to take a stroll around the gym, instead.
The stroll took all of ten minutes and lost its appeal in a hurry; the gym itself was less than half the size of a standard basketball court, and had only one window, a single basketball hoop, several folded risers, and a bunch of folded tables. Even though Martin had turned on the lights before entering (almost falling down the four stairs, which he’d forgotten about), the place was still awfully dim. It was the middle of the morning; there ought to be more light. Maybe it would look brighter at night. He could come back this evening and check.