“You,” RD gasped. “I see you. Help me.”
Jeffers asked him again and again what he was seeing, but it didn’t change. Jeffers was in disbelief that he was awaiting a man so given to lies as RD to tell him the truth. RD tried to crawl. Jeffers struck him, and then again, thrashing like a man at labor. The little man curled tighter and clutched his head after each blow.
Finally both men were still. Jeffers leaned in. He turned RD’s head and held his crumpled cheek tenderly as a nurse might do. “What’s there? What do you see?”
There was no answer. RD was dead.
Jeffers sat for a spell in the recliner. With his index finger he pushed at the pile of dry chicken bones and withered fries. He could no longer smell the stench of the dog rotting in the chimney. He could feel his legs and feet, but knew it wouldn’t last long. He could sense the numbness creeping in again, and he removed his shoes and socks so he could rub his toes. We are perched atop nothingness, Jeffers thought, we make up heavens, but we are atop nothing. He didn’t want to go home. He called his son.
They took his pistol, his belt, and the laces of his shoes and put him in the back of the patrol car. His son was running his mouth to the police. He couldn’t hear what was being said. He wanted his pipe, which still rested on the porch railing where he’d left it.
He was numb up to his waist.
As Jeffers began to close his eyes, the glimpse of a specter stopped him. In the distance, crouched between pine trees, he saw something beautiful. She was unmistakable, with an ornate flourish of hair, her round pregnant belly. She had come to his house, had come to see him, to help him. Jeffers stared at her, hoping that she would turn and look his way, see him behind the glass, give some forgiveness. He needed that gift. But she looked past him, watching James and the police. He wept dryly, knowing that he had earned nothing today. She turned to walk back into the pines. Jeffers watched the disappearing carnival of hair and the bubble of a cry burst from his lips.
Fifty Minutes by Joe Donnelly and Harry Shannon
FROM Slake: Los Angeles
THE CLIENT IS a balding, sunburned man with soft, forgettable features. Running late, he enters the office at 7:02 p.m. and nearly knocks a small Buddha statue from its wooden base. He closes the waiting room door behind him and pauses, unsure of the protocol. From behind his desk, Dr. Bell watches intently. Experience has taught him that a new client will give you 90 percent of what you need just walking through the door. Dr. Bell sees that Mr. Potter is mildly agitated-perspiration rings the armpits of his Hawaiian-print shirt and his breathing is rapid. Not unusual for a first-timer, Dr. Bell thinks. The psychotherapist smiles wryly and motions for Potter to sit on the green couch. Mr. Potter collapses into the cushions and sets his leather shoulder bag in front of him. His khaki slacks are a size behind the times.
“How long does this last?” Mr. Potter asks. “An hour?”
“Fifty minutes,” Dr. Bell says pleasantly.
The new client stares at Dr. Bell for a moment, takes a deep breath, and pulls a small-caliber pistol from under his shirt.
“Fine,” Mr. Potter says, waving the gun at Dr. Bell. “Then you have fifty minutes to live.”
An aluminum taste floods Dr. Bell’s mouth. Trauma patients have told him this is what true fear tastes like, but until now he’d never taken them literally. Sure, every shrink has stories about unhinged patients. A client in the middle of a manic episode once threatened to scratch out Dr. Bell’s eyes with her car keys if he didn’t introduce her to her soul mate, Johnny Depp, but nothing has prepared him for this.
Coherent thoughts vanish in the vacuum of fear. Struggling to find a way back, Dr. Bell takes a quick inventory. The landline is across the room on an end table, and besides, what would he do with it? Propped against the wall, also out of reach, is his souvenir baseball bat, a gift from a professional ballplayer Dr. Bell helped get back on track after he washed out on coke and hookers. Should I yell, scream, lunge for the gun? Or can this guy be reasoned with? Dr. Bell wonders. Despite the beads of sweat on Mr. Potter’s upper lip, he appears relatively stable. His eyes aren’t darting and he’s not pumping his legs. His resolve appears to be genuine, possibly deadly. Dr. Bell tries to remain calm and go with what he knows. Talking.
“Clearly, you’re quite upset. I’m sorry.”
“You are?”
“I don’t like to see anyone in pain.”
“Really, Dr. Bell? Is that so?”
Dr. Bell looks into Mr. Potter’s eyes, trying to project empathy.
“Yes. I believe that’s why I chose this profession, Mr. Potter, and why, I suppose, I’m so highly regarded in my field.” Dr. Bell thinks he sees Mr. Potter relax just a bit. He presses on. “May I call you by your first name?”
“No, you may not,” Mr. Potter says firmly. “I know what you’re trying to do. It won’t work. I hated seeing her in pain, too, Dr. Bell.”
“Who, Mr. Potter?”
“You know.”
“Forgive me, I don’t believe I do. And needless to say, for the purposes of this discussion, that places me at a serious disadvantage. Please, tell me who you are talking about.”
Mr. Potter crosses his legs and his pants ride up too high, revealing short black socks. Dr. Bell can see that his new client’s shin is badly bruised and a bandage covers a fresh wound. Dr. Bell takes a long look at the man’s shoulder bag. A slot on the front flap has a laminated name tag of the sort frequent fliers fill out. Mr. Potter glances at his watch, purses his lips as if about to give the time, but says nothing. Dr. Bell tells himself to stay in control of the situation.
“Okay, Mr. Potter,” he says, as evenly as possible. “Let me try a different question. Why do you want to kill me?”
“Oh, I think you know.”
“I really don’t, and I must confess I have little experience with this. No one has ever threatened to kill me before. At least not seriously.”
“There’s always a first time, yes?”
“Mr. Potter, did you make this appointment in order to kill me?”
Mr. Potter does not answer.
He’s giving me a blank screen, no expression, no emotion, Dr. Bell thinks. Perhaps he’s imitating a trained therapist, maybe a therapist who has something to do with why he’s here? A bit of a reach, but…
“May I ask who referred you to me, Mr. Potter-another professional?”
“I’m not the type who feels the need to talk incessantly about his feelings, Dr. Bell. You’re the last therapist I expect to see in my life. And the clock, as they say, is ticking.”
It suddenly comes to Dr. Bell that Mr. Potter must have booked this appointment, the last available on a Friday, at least a week ago. He’s planned this well. A joke about needing to better screen first-time clients sweeps through Dr. Bell’s brain like a tumbleweed. He thinks better of sharing it. He has to crack Mr. Potter’s shell delicately, if it is in fact a shell. Fifty minutes isn’t a lot of time to do it. But Dr. Bell is starting to realize his life depends on it.
The second hand on the grandfather clock ticks away and Mr. Potter seems to grow larger, more intimidating. Despite the urgency of the situation, Dr. Bell knows it is imperative not to let the clock rule him. He wants more than to just kill me or he’d have done that already. Let him have his theatrics for now. The need to speak will build. He’ll tell you why he’s here eventually. He’ll have to, or what’s the point?
Dr. Bell flashes back to his student days, when a gifted supervisor used father transference to reduce him to a whimpering puddle. Dr. Bell crosses his legs, struggling to appear above it all, but his knees feel weak and his fingers tremble slightly.