“Maybe I am,” I said. “And maybe I’m not.”
From there our sessions repeated themselves or ran downhill until time ran out and I went home feeling worse than when I came in.
Maybe I should stop seeing Klotzman, I thought, but I continued to believe that help, if there was any, was his to offer. Perhaps I needed to ask the right questions.
It was not that I felt guilty all the time. Just most of the time. The rest of the time I felt innocent of the obscure charges against me. I had a stubborn streak too. I would not be bullied by false charges. Not even in my dreams would I allow myself to be bullied. In one I stood up in court and insisted on my innocence. The judge, who looked like my father, stood up and said, “It is only the guilty who need to insist on their innocence.” “It follows then, doesn’t it, I said that it is only the innocent that insist on their guilt. I am so innocent, I will tell you I am guilty just to throw you off the track.” “That’s the rub,” the judge said, “it is also the guilty that insist on their guilt.”
When I was ten — this may have been a dream or a dream of a dream — I was at a rigid private school. I was put in detention, a prison-like room because I had hit a boy in the face. He had hit me first which is what I tried to explain to the interrogator.
“You hit him harder than he hit you,” “he said. In fact, the boy was in the hospital.”
“I hit him hard so he would not come back at me.”
“When someone hits you,” the interrogator said, “you turn around and walk away.”
“I’m sorry I hurt him. Can I get back to my room now.”
“Rules are rules,” he said. “You are obliged to serve out the terms of your punishment. Besides, he says he didn’t hit you.”
“He’s a liar,” I said.
“There were no witnesses. It’s his word against yours.”
“I wouldn’t have hit him if he hadn’t hit me first.”
“There’s physical evidence that you hit him. You broke a bone under his eye. There’s no evidence that he hit you.”
“I didn’t mean to break a bone,” I said.
“You admitted that you meant to hurt him. Isn’t that so?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so?”
“Yes. I hit him so he wouldn’t hit me again. Isn’t it enough to say I’m sorry.”
“You’re being punished so you won’t do anything like it again. That’s why you’re being punished. I hope that’s clear.”
“I want to go back to my room. You have my word it won’t happen again.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Out of the question.”
I was close to tears, toughing it out. “Don’t you people believe in forgiveness?”
“You’re not understanding me,” he said. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I hadn’t already forgiven you. That doesn’t mean I can rescind your punishment. I hope the distinction is clear.”
“No.”
“You have your interment to think about it.” And with a nod, he left the room and locked the door behind him.
The room seemed smaller after I had been abandoned.
A few days later I had another dream in which I was on trial for murder of a yet-undiscovered corpse. Not wanting to leave my defense to a stranger, I decided to defend himself. It was my intention to prove that I was not present when the murder took place but was at home writing a speculative treatise on murder, which was the subject of the charge against me. I put myself on the witness stand and questioned myself, moving back and forth from the witness’s chair to the interrogator’s space. The prosecutor complained that I was making a show of a serious matter, but the judge, a pleasant elderly man, overruled his objection, saying a trial was always a bit of a theatrical event. The treatise I wrote was purely theoretical, I said. “Not only did I have no intention of killing anyone, I in fact, did not, which was what counted.”
The prosecutor said it was not unusual for theorists to put their theorizing into practice besides how could I insist I wasn’t there without knowing who the victim was.
“Good question,” I said. “It so happens I was speculating on the possible victim. I don’t know his identity but I know I wasn’t there. How can you even have a trial without a corpus delicti.”
“The rules have changed,” the prosecutor said, winking at the judge. “We’re trying you under the new rules under which intention and deed are virtually interchangeable. I have in front of me your so-call speculation which is tantamount to a confession.”
“Not fair,” I said. I was in a hole here and I looked to the judge who looked away.
“Go on,” the judge said.
“Whatever the apparent evidence,” I said, “you have my word that the man sometimes seated in the witness chair is innocent.”
“That’s for the jury to decide,” said the judge. “Do you have any other witnesses?”
I hadn’t planned on other witnesses, but I went back to my lawyer’s seat to reflect on the matter. All seemed lost. What was the punishment I wondered for the theoretical murder of a theoretical victim? I stayed with the question until it woke me.
The dreams embarrassed me and I waited a few weeks before sharing them with Klotzman. I told him the second, which was a more troubling dream, first.
His reaction was odd. He merely nodded sadly when I finished the story.
“What?”
“That’s a sad story,” he said, “but not unexpected. It’s a fairly literal dream, wouldn’t you say?”
I didn’t know how to answer that so sat glumly, waiting for him to say more. “It’s not a surprising dream,” he said, “which doesn’t make it any less disturbing.”
I wanted some wisdom from him and was getting bromides in its place.
We both waited for him to say something that would put the world in an acceptable orbit. His brow was wrinkled. I could tell he was trying.
We often had silences between us but this was a longer silence than usual. Perhaps we were each waiting for the other to say something profound.
I ventured the following. “How can someone be charged for the murder of someone who is not known to be dead?”
“That’s just it,” he said. “He can’t. They changed the rules in your dream.”
“That’s right,” I said. “They have no legitimate case against me.”
“It’s only a dream,” he said.
“Of course.”
“It seems real to you, doesn’t it?”
“It seems as real as anything.”
“You have to be able to distinguish between dream reality and the real world.”
“I know that.”
When I left the doctor’s office, I felt no better, perhaps even worse than when I came in. It was the same old story.
One day, my mother, whom I hadn’t seen in six months, showed up at my apartment unannounced.
“I’m always a little surprised to find you still alive,” she said. “You look no worse than I expected.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You manage so badly,” she said. “It must be hard living alone. You ought to get married so someone would look after you.”
“I was married for awhile, as you know.”
“You have a big place. Get yourself a roommate.”
“I don’t want a roommate. I’m fine by myself, mother.”
“I thought I’d stay for a while and look after you.” This all before she had taken her coat off.
“Please, mother, no. I appreciate the offer but I like being alone.”
“Three home-cooked meals a day. Doesn’t that sound good?”
“I’m eating all right,” I said.
“Tell me what you eat on a typical day,” she said.
“Well,” I said, “I usually have cold cereal with fruit for breakfast.”
“And lunch?”
“On a busy day, I sometimes have cereal for lunch also. Not the same cereal. I mostly go out to a restaurant for dinner. When I eat at home I make myself a hamburger.”