I said, “So now they’ve got their backs against the wall and they send you to me. You know what kind of doctor I am?”
Grunt.
I waited.
He said, “Head doc.”
“Everyone’s hoping I can find a trapdoor into your head and crawl in and tell your brain you need to be a good boy. Problem is, even if I wanted to do that, I couldn’t ’cause there’s no, no trapdoor. Your brain is yours. No one can control you.”
“You don’t want to?”
“To go into your head?”
Nod.
“No way, Efren. I’m thinking it’s a complicated place.”
He whipped around, faced me.
I said, “There’s a lot going on in your head because you’re a lot more than diabetes.”
He mumbled. Inaudible but the placement of crooked upper teeth over lower lip suggested something beginning with “F.”
He glanced at the couch.
I wheeled my chair back, stretched.
He said, “Why you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Psycho stuff. If you don’t wanna … if you don’t care.”
“Once I get to know someone, I care plenty.”
He smirked. “You don know a dude you don give a shit?”
I said, “Do you care about people you don’t know?”
“I don’t care about nothin’.”
I got up. “You drink coffee?”
“Nah hate that shit.”
“I like that shit, wait here.”
Leaving him alone in the office, I took time filling a mug from the kitchen. When I got back he was perched on the arm of the couch.
I sipped. He licked his lips.
“Thirsty?”
“Nah.” He swayed.
I drank some more, sat back as far as the desk chair would allow.
One of his hands gripped the couch. A second sway, wider. His eyes began to roll upward. “You got like juice, man?” Weaker voice. Fading.
“Got orange.”
“Yeah.”
I filled a glass quickly, returned to find him slumped on the couch, pale and sweaty. He drank slowly, revived quickly. I returned behind the desk, worked on my coffee.
Suspending the empty juice glass between his palms, he gave the office another examination. “You make a lot of money?”
“Enough.”
“For what?”
“Some nice stuff.”
“That like picture you got,” he said. “Guys hitting each other.”
“That’s a boxing print by an artist named George Bellows.”
“Cost a lot?”
“I got it a long time ago, so not so much. Also, there are a lot of them. The painting they’re based on is worth millions.”
“Who got it?”
“A museum.”
“Where?”
“Cleveland.”
“Where’s that?”
“About two thousand miles away.”
His eyes glazed. Apathy, now, not low sugar. I might as well have said Venus.
I said, “Too far to walk.”
He began to smile, checked himself. “You always work in your house?”
“Sometimes I go to hospitals. Or to court.”
He stiffened. “Court? Like a cop?”
“No, I get paid to be an expert.”
“About what?”
“Mostly it’s people divorcing and fighting over who gets the kids. I get paid to say what I think. Sometimes it’s kids getting hurt — like in an accident — and they pay me to say that’s a problem.”
He stared at me.
“Yeah,” I said, “it’s a sweet deal.”
“Who gets ’em?”
“Who gets who?”
“The kids they’re fighting for.”
“Up to the judge.”
“So what do you do?”
“Tell the judge what I think.”
“You’re smarter than the judge?”
“I know more about psychology — about how people think and act.”
His soft little chin pushed forward. What would’ve been a jut had he had more to work with. “How?”
“How what?”
“How do people think?”
“Depends on who they are, what’s happening to them.”
His expression said I’d failed some sort of test.
I said, “Like you, Efren. Sometimes you think you’re in charge of the world, you’re huge and powerful.”
Black eyes remained fixed on me.
“Other times, you think you have no control over anything. It just depends.”
His hands faltered. The glass fell to the floor, thudded on my Persian rug. Scooping it up, he said, “Sorry, man.”
I said, “It’s the same with everyone. Sometimes we’re feeling big, sometimes we’re small. I get paid to be smart because I’ve had a lot of schooling and experience. But I don’t have magic and I don’t have trapdoors.”
“What do you got?”
“What people tell me.”
“I’m not telling you nothing.”
“Your choice.”
Head shake. “Right …”
“You don’t think you have a choice?”
Silence.
I said, “Unlike the other doctors who poke you and probe you and tell you what to do, I won’t order you to do anything.”
“Right.”
“I mean it, Efren. You’ve got enough forced upon you. I don’t want to be part of that.”
He looked down at his knees. “You don’t want it, huh?”
“What?”
“Being my — doing the doctor thing.”
“I want to do my job,” I said. “I love my job. And you seem like an interesting guy and I’d be happy to work with you. But to be part of that mountain of noise? No way.”
He stood. Hefted the empty glass, put it down hard. “You got that, man. I don’t need no more shit.”
Zipping past me. End of session.
I figured I’d never hear from him again, was rehearsing my sad call to Sheila Baxter when the service rang in.
“A Mrs. Casagrande wanting to talk to you, Doctor.”
“Put her through.”
A beat. “Hallo?”
“This is Dr. Delaware.”
“This is Efren mother.”
“Nice to talk to you. How’s everything?”
“Actually,” she said, “a little good. Efren test himself twice after he come home from you.”
“That’s great.”
“He still find the candy and sneak but he at least test and take the shot … when you wanna see him again?”
“He wants to come back?”
“He forget to pay you,” she said. “I give him money, he forget. I send double, okay?”
“Sure. So Efren—”
“He say next week. That okay?”
I found a slot, made the appointment.
Rosalinda Casagrande said, “Thank you, Doctor. Effo say you a mean guy.”
“Really.”
“That good. To him, you know? Mean is strong. He live all the life with girls, everyone thinks he the little kid, you know?”
“He gets babied.”
“I think now he need someone to kick his butt. He come next week.”
For the next three months the gold low-rider arrived punctually for weekly sessions. I never set Efren’s appointments in advance, offering him a choice each time — requiring him to make the choice explicitly.
But keeping his slot open because he’d become high priority to me. A fact I’d never let on.
With the exception of one instance when he had a cold and canceled personally with seventy-two hours’ notice, he opted to come in.
The first few sessions were more question than answer. His questions about me — my education, how much money I made, the places I’d lived. I gave out very little information and my reticence pleased him: Someone who protected his own privacy could be trusted to respect his.
I dealt with the confidentiality issue early on, being clear that at fourteen, he couldn’t be guaranteed secrecy. But pledging that I’d never divulge anything he didn’t want divulged even if pressured.