I passed him the relit pipe when he'd finished talking and he took it and inhaled and passed it back to me. He didn't
look at me.
`And you, what's your game?' he said. `You're not smoking pot, with me just because you feel like smoking pot.'
`No' I said.
`Then why?'
`Just chance.'
He stared at the green ceiling until I passed him back the pipe. When he finally exhaled he said again as if from very
far away: `If you want to follow me you must give up everything.'
`I know.'
`Pot-smoking doctors who get stoned with mental patients don't stay doctors long.'
`I know.'
I felt like giggling.
`Wives and brothers and fathers and mothers don't usually like my way.'
`So I gather.'
`Someday you will help me.'
We were both staring at the ceiling now, the hot bowl of the pipe resting unused in the palm of my hand.
`Yes,' I said.
`It's a marvelous game we'll play - the best,' he said.
`For some reason I feel I'm yours,' I said. `Whatever you want me to do, I'll want to do.'
`Everything will happen.'
`Yes.'
`The blind bastards [his voice was quiet and serene and remote] will panic and kill, panic and kill, trying to control the
uncontrollable, trying to kill what can only live.'
`We will panic and kill.'
`And I'll,' he interrupted himself with a chuckle, `I'll try to save the whole fucking world'
`Yes.'
`I'm Divine, you know,' he said.
`Yes,' I said, believing it.
`I've come to wake the world to evil, to goose mankind to good.'
'We'll hate you-'
`To slash the mash-potato minds until their sirs is seen.
'We'll be blind-'
`Try to make the blind see, the lame walk, the dead live again.'
He laughed.
`And we'll try to make the seeing blind, the walking lame, the living dead.'
I smiled.
`I'll be the insane Savior of the world, and you'll kill me.'
`Whatever you want will be done.'
I eased out a slow motion bubbling of mirth.
`I'll be…'
He was chuckling too, in slow motion. `I'll be . . . the Savior . . . of the world . . . and do nothing, and you .. .'ll kill … me.'
`And I . .' Goddam it, it was funny! How beautiful it was `… I'll kill you.'
The room was a beautiful blur bouncing up and down on the bubbles of our laughter. Tears were in my eyes and I took of my glasses and put my face in my folded arms and laughed, my big body rumbling from cheeks to belly to knees, laughing, tears wetting my jacket, the soft cotton material caressing my wet face like bear's bristle, and crying with an ecstasy that I hadn't known before that moment, and looking up because I couldn't believe I was crying and Eric's face blurred, blurred bright but blurred and I looked for my glasses - such terror that I might never see again - and after groping for forty days I found them and put them on and looked at the blurred brightness and it was Eric's holy face flowing tears like mine and he wasn't laughing.
Chapter Twenty-one
[Being an edited tape from one of the early analytic sessions given by Dr. Jacob Ecstein to Dr. Lucius Rhinehart, neurotic. We are cutting into the tape about half way through the analytic hour. The first voice is that of Dr. Rhinehart.]
- I'm not sure why I entered into this affair but I think it may partially be aggression against the husband. How have your relations with Lillian been? - Fine. Or rather, about as usual, which means up and down but essentially
happy. I don't think it was or is aggression against Lil. At least I don't think it is.
But against the husband.
Yes. I won't use names or go into details because you know the people involved, but I find the husband too ambitious
and conceited. I experience him as a rival.
You don't need to hide the names. You know it would make no difference outside this office how I treated them.
Well, maybe. I suppose you're right, but I don't think the names should be necessary if I can present everything else
honestly. - The details.
Yes. Although I suppose you will know then immediately the people I'm talking about. But still, I'll omit the names. How did the affair start? - I followed . . . a whim one night and went to her place, found her alone, and raped her. Raped her?
Well, there was a good deal of cooperation. Actually, she enjoyed it more than I did. But the original idea was mine.
Mmm.
We've been seeing each other off and on now for about half a year.
Mmmm. I go to her place when her husband's away, or occasionally we meet in a room I rent in a Puerto Rican neighborhood.
Ahhh.
Sexually it's been rewarding. The woman seems totally without inhibitions. I've tried just about everything my
imagination can cook up and she seems to have more recipes than me.
I see. The husband doesn't seem to suspect a thing. He doesn't suspect a thing.
No. He seems completely wrapped up in his work. His wife says he pulls off a quick one about once every two weeks but with about as much passion or pleasure as when making an extended bowel movement. Mmmm. I once finished an orgasm in her while she was handing a towel in to her husband in the bathtub.
You what? I was pumping away from behind while she leaned into the bathroom and talked to her husband and handed him a towel.
Look here, Rhinehart, do you know what you're saying?
I thought I did.
How could you … How could you possibly…
What's the matter?
How could you possibly miss the significance of this affair?
I don't know. It seems just…
Free associate.
What?
I'll feed you words and you free associate.
Oh, okay.
Black.
White.
Moon.
Sun.
Father.
Mother.
Water. Ah. . . bathtub.
Road.
Roadway.
Green.
Yellow.
Fucking from rear.
- Ar . . . ah . . . ah . . . artificial.
Artificial?
Artificial.
How so? -How should I know? I'm just free associating.
Let's go on. Father.
Figure.
Lake.
Tahoe.
Thirst.
Water.
Love.
Women.
Mother.
Women.
Father.
Women.
White.
Women.
Black.
Negresses.
Well. That's enough. It was just as I expected.
What do you mean?
That was your father in the bathtub.
It was?
Obviously. Item number one: you associate father figure. You may consciously explain this as a result of the psychoanalytic phrase and it does refer to this, but the association also implies you associate a `figure' - naturally a female figure - with father.
Wow.
Item number two. You associate `fucking from rear' with artificial and you can blurt it out only after a significant
delay. I challenge you to tell me what first flashed through your mind.
Well …
Go ahead.
To be frank with you, I thought that the fucking was artificial, unnecessary, irrelevant. I was aiming to hurt someone
… someone bigger.
Precisely. Item number three: from the rear is obviously the position of sodomy, or male making love to male.
But Item number four: you associate lake with Tahoe. Tahoe, even if your conscious mind denies it, means in Cherokee `Big Father Chief.' Lake obviously means water and you associated water with bathtub. Ergo: Big Father Chief was in the bathtub.
Wow. Finally, although these are but trivial confirmations of what now is obvious to you, you associate with `thirst', `water.' You thirst not for women but for water, for bathtub, for your father. At the end, the free association seems to break