Twice Melvin

by James Pumpelly

  “Need you ask?” the irate doctor fumes. “I mean…after the debacle of the century, that ruinous party that has folks second-guessing everything from the past life cause of their present ailments to the karma of their long failed loves-“

  “Ah…so it’s Melvin,” a dispassionate George observes in his most professional tone. “From what I’ve heard – and you admit – the stage of those goings-on was a frivolous party, not a forum for serious research; and as such, I suggest you’re overreacting.”

  “Hear my complaint before you conjecture!” bellows the doctor. “If I treated my patients with such disregard, presuming their maladies before hearing their symptoms, I’d be-“

  “Dishonoring my oath,” George finishes for him. “But the difference here is that we haven’t a malady worthy of treatment. And should there be those who think otherwise…placebos should set them aright.”

  “Go ahead,” Doctor Brigham grumbles, “sugar-coat it all you want; but in my expert opinion as a doctor of psychiatry, your son’s party, whether intended or not, has had ill effects on our community…on my patients…well, on one of my patients, for certain. Specifically, Miss Dorothy Compton.”

  “Melvin’s fiancée, no less,” George nodding thoughtfully. “And short of violating a trust, what dilemma, may I ask, has my son’s party caused? For if a ‘cause’ is to be acknowledged,” he appends prudently, “it would certainly be the party, not its host.”

  “It’s a case of mistaken identity,” the doctor redirects, his ire subsiding to controlled discontent, “…of misplaced affections. Dorothy - uh, Miss Compton - is unaware of her true feelings, the myth of her past-life personality superimposed on her persona till her judgments are no longer her own. To be quite candid, Mr. O’Malley, she thinks she’s in love with your son.”

  “And I suppose you’re here to attest otherwise?” George parries, his big gray eyes growing larger with surprise and amusement. “Or is there some dark side to my son of which I’m unaware?“

  “Oh, heaven forbid!” exclaims the fidgeting doctor, “this has nothing to do with skin color!”

  “Then to what does it pertain?” George prods, pressing the young man’s point, “is she in love with you?”

  “She is!” the doctor resounds, getting to his feet as though a salute is in order.

  “A-And you?” George genuinely surprised by the “problem”.

  “In love with her,” he affirms, still standing at full attention. “I am, indeed. And I’m here to beg your permission….”

  “Yes?” George manages, befuddled by the doctor’s admission. “Go on….”

  “Well…not so much your permission as your cooperation,” he continues, relaxing enough to reclaim his seat. “I think it would be better for all concerned if you spoke to Melvin about this; let him hear it via the safety of family, rather than the competitive challenge of a suitor. But we must act with haste!” he adds, the hint of a smile alerting George that the doctor assumes his complicity.

  “Haste? In psychotherapy?” George acquainted enough with the science to know haste is considered quackery. “To discover Dorothy is under your care is surprise enough; but now that I know, all that’s warranted is my support for her choice of disciplines. Of course, had I been in your shoes, I’d probably be looking for the hypnotists again, searching for another past life to dispel all the problems in this one! In the interim, we have the moment, don’t we: the here and now to laugh and cry; to err and amend; to fail and succeed? And that includes our institution of marriage, Doctor Brigham, of which I am a most grateful alumnus. So…no, I cannot be party to your haste; nor, can I interfere in another’s choice of heart. In your profession, doctor, you should know such a pursuit will fail,” George’s tone stern, but paternal. “You should know that the heart can never be coerced.”

  “But that’s just it!” an animated Doctor Brigham argues. “It’s not her heart that’s making the call here. It’s her pseudo-personality; the dupe, if you will, of her own suggestibility.”

  “Correct me if I’m mistaken,” George replies, after a moment’s reflection, “but didn’t Melvin and Dorothy announce their engagement months before the party? And if so, then just who are we to surmise responsible? the hypnotists? Is that good doctor the practitioner of magic, as well? Might he have transubstantiated into an idea? one he foisted on the couple in question? only to come round many months later as the hypnotists who ‘discovers’ his ‘victims’?”

  “You’re going heretical on me, Mr. O’Malley,” the dumbfounded doctor rejoins, “postulating the preposterous, suggesting what even the hypnotist wouldn’t dare.”

  “It would be interesting to know who you were supposed to have been before…how your past life, or lives, may have interrelated with the others. Perhaps you were Dorothy’s suitor ‘way back when’; perhaps you’re unwilling, now, to accept that you’re not.”

  “For your information,” Doctor Brigham retorts haughtily, the friction of George’s suggestions heating him anew, “in my profession, some of us learn the art of self-hypnosis; and being personally prepared, I took the liberty of regressing myself the other night – set up the session in advance on two tape recorders: one, with the instructions and questions; the other, for my responses, my pleasant trip back, my waking refreshed.”

  “And?” George quizzes, enjoying what he has no belief in – or at least, no pragmatic regard for, his long ago encounter with Marvin the Medium tainting any future opinions.

  “As it turns out, my subconscious received a suggestion from my conscious mind even before I put myself under. I ‘recalled’, as the true believers phrase it, a past life as Dorothy’s benefactor…well, sort of. I imagined I had been the old bachelor who willed his farm to her parents, creating a home for Dorothy.”

  “Fred Compton?” George delighting in the coincidence. “I met that old gentleman before he died…Melvin’s father introduced me to him…one of my first clients here. In fact, I prepared Mr. Compton’s will.”

  “Melvin’s father, did you say?” the doctor poses, half standing as if the conference is concluding. “I’m too young to remember him, but my folks say he was quite the charmer; a dashing young man. And wealthy, too, as I recall…something about diamond mines back in Africa-“

  ”Another case of mistaken identity,” George banters benignly. “But I will - if you want me to testify ex parte – mention our little meeting to Melvin. Or better yet, to Melvin and Dorothy jointly. That way, there can be no secrets; no mistakes wrought by misunderstandings. I think that’s what we have here, Doctor Brigham: your misunderstanding of a very charming, but complex young lady.”

  “It’s my field, Mr. O’Malley!” the doctor defensive, stepping stiffly to the door, “…not yours!”

  “Agreed,” a grimace replacing George’s smile, “…and one that needs plowing under, I’m afraid. But with psychology being your ‘field’, as you so ardently assert, surely you’re familiar with Sigmund Freud’s admission: The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?’ ”

  Dr. Brigham’s mouth agape as he quietly closes the door behind him.

  But there’s no time for reflection. As campaign manager for Melody, George is busy enough on the complex issues threatening her reelection. A sweeping tax reform (the legislature’s euphemism for ‘increase’) has constituents up in arms, as well as the recently enacted civil union law allowing gay marriages.

  And as though native voters can’t decide for themselves, there’s been an influx of out-of-staters in recent months, militant special interest groups picketing in front of the capitol, their bible-backed chantings and evangelical rantings making Thelma’s remembered antics seem, if not tame, at least comedic.

  One out-of-stater in particular seems to have a monopoly on the media, her charisma charming newspaper editors and newsroom producers alike;
her compelling rhetoric attracting even the learned. Melvin among them. That she’s an ordained, Pentecostal revivalist counts least among the reasons he lobbies the Church of the Good Shepherd for her invitation to speak.

  A kind of special edition, it is; a Wednesday night prayer meeting with “Wednesday” and “prayer meeting” deleted; “night”, by the gifted tongue of the beautiful young orator, taking on the wild grandeur, the hunt-or-be-hunted forest peril of the Appalachian Mountains from whence she hails. “Minister, helpmate, mother,” she declaims, “and in that order. Such is my purpose in life; anything more of transient worth-” all the men in the attentive congregation imagining otherwise.

  Putting aside her physical charms, suggest some of the old-timers, her spirited delivery brings back memories of an earlier minister. If you close your eyes, you can imagine young Melvin’s grandfather back in the pulpit, they say; Rev. Moses Morrison stoking hell’s fire with the plentiful sins of parishioners.

  Melody sees it differently. When the young firebrand retires to her parlor for cookies and milk - as is the family custom after Wednesday night meetings - that sweet soul allays her smitten son’s fear: my concern that Miss Minnie Ruth Taylor is incorrigible.

  “Her redemption is fait accompli,” Melody promises, soothing my troubled brow. “With a mind so searching, so engaging, the discovery of a higher path is inevitable. Besides,” she adds discerningly, “if you’re that bothered by this pretty West Virginia belle of yours, I’d suggest some missionary work is in order. Heap ‘coals of fire’ on her head, like the good book says, and before you know it, ‘the lion will lay down with the lamb’.”

  “Which might be just what the missionary has in mind!” George Senior contributes, his gray eyes twinkling. “You’re fortunate to have a Bible scholar for a mother, young man,” he teases. “When I was young - and could have used such a line - I had no one to tell me the Bible could be employed as a romantic adviser. However, since we’re on the subject-“

  “Which we aren’t,” my mother interposing with one of her infectious laughs, “but since you are, what wisdom have you to share?”

  “The wisdom of modern science,” George parries, “or in your case, Melvin, modern séance.”

  “George!” Melody scolds, looking about for any sign of injury on my siblings’ faces. “It was just a gala, dear, not a galactic encounter.“

  “Ah! But you misjudge me. All of you,” George compounding our suspense. “I wasn’t referencing the party at all; only the aftershocks felt by a certain sensitive young doctor in town…though I promised him I would only discuss what he ‘felt’ with Melvin and Dorothy. In private.”

  “Yeah, Private Dawson was making eyes at me in church tonight,” Pamela alleges, “must think I prefer a man in uniform to a-“

  “Learn to listen, will you?” Little George scolds, reaching to slap his sister playfully on the back of her hand. “Now, what’s this about Doctor Brigham?” he asks, turning to George.

  “Who said it was-?“

  “I saw him leaving your office this morning,” Little George explains, “and then later, with Dot.Com at the Montpelier coffee-house. Serious as a double espresso, he was…leaning over his demitasse, staring hungrily into Dot.Com’s eyes like they were the last two sugar cubes on Earth.”

  “Oooo, steamy!” Pamela eyeing me for a reaction.

  “I’m ahead of you all on this one,” I say, my blush suggesting otherwise, “…but it’s not something amenable to oatmeal cookies…not a treat to be passed round-“

  “I wouldn’t pass on a treat like Doctor Brigham, either,” Pamela spouts, inaugurating the salvation of laughter; my secret, if I have one, tucked safely away in the shell of propriety - even George Senior saved from breaking a trust.

  “So, what do you propose we do about this Miss Taylor, Melvin?” George asks, making a mental note to arrange a meeting with Dorothy and me as soon as possible. “I happen to know Judge Whittaker will grant a rapid ruling on the legalities of ‘preaching on public property’. Perhaps, if you take the sermon away from the sermonizer, the message away from the messenger-“

  “Or the law away from the legalist,” I quip defensively. “Maybe we’d have a workable solution, a common sense approach to the public good.”

  “Does that mean I can be bad in private?” Pamela sponsoring another laugh, “or does that apply only to ministers?”

  “It did at one time,” George responds, regaling us with the story of the long deceased Rev. Rolundo and Helen the organist.

  “B-But I thought I told you about those two,” I gush, “…thought it was on my tapes.”

  “Oh, it was, son,” Mother assures me, “but Dad and I knew about it years ago; or at least suspected it, the late hours the reverend sometimes kept with his organist not unnoticed by the village faithful.”

  “There’s my proof!” I cry, jumping triumphantly to my feet. “My story’s validated in the patchwork panes of the village church, its windows stained by the sins of a minister whom even you admit was guilty - the old reverend’s indiscretion something I’d never heard of before!”

  …And if I perish, I perish. (Esther 4:16)

  XXIX

  It’s not without difficulty my stepfather persuades me to bring Dorothy in for consultation, what I learned from Pamela at my Black-N-Blue bar, and from Little George after church, convincing me my fiancée might be grazing in other pastures. “Marriage is a ceremony invented by man to honor a rite ordained by God,” the winsome Miss Taylor had preached so persuasively the night before; her definition of “rite” - limited to the purpose of conception - sending me on a flight of fancy, imagining what it might have been like had the evangelist and I been raised as neighbors, as Catholics, the thought of our marriage, of our twenty children (all asleep in other rooms), overwhelming me with bliss.

  Church is supposed to be inspiring, I rationalized, a moving experience, a kind of coming together of flesh and spirit – such “togetherness” making me blush conspicuously on the aisle end of a front row pew.

  Recalling my blush prompts me to analyze my engagement to Dorothy, or more specifically, my relationship with Dorothy; for she, too, has made me blush - though never from thoughts like the ones I had in church. Rather, my blushes are usually brought on by her faux pas, or her overindulgence; the latter, I’ve heretofore accepted as my fault for allowing her too much of a good thing: superior gin on an all-you-can-drink-for-free tab. But suddenly, I’m shunning the blame, taking to heart some of Miss Taylor’s more convincing arguments - her hazel eyes mysteriously demure, as though embarrassed by what I’m thinking; her long, auburn hair drawn tight in a perfect French twist; her pouting red lips so ready and wet they can only be kissed in French; all this adding to my admission, to my acknowledgment of a gnawing, corporal desire - the kind to be found in French novels.

  Being thus inspired, I’m a new man indeed when I meet Dot.Com at my stepfather’s office, my offer of a chair about the only offer I’m not prepared to withdraw.

  “Have a seat…both of you,” George commands cordially, my reluctance to sit broadcasting my anxiety. “Now, I don’t know if Melvin has told you, or not,” he begins, pausing to order us coffee over the speaker phone, “…but regardless, I’ll take it from the beginning.”

  “That would be appreciated, Dad,” I respond flippantly, “especially since I don’t know what it is I may or may not have shared with Dorothy.”

  “Aaah…you’re right,” George says slowly, clasping his big hands behind his head to lean back in his tufted leather chair. “I haven’t told you, have I? Well…shall we begin with a third party? and why not?” George drawing Dorothy ever so gently into the trap, “why not, indeed? For that’s how this whole thing started, a third party coming to me with a proposition; a proposition that I be the one to relate his feelings regarding Dorothy, here - and you, too, Melvin, in as much as his feelings appear to conflict with certain sympathies of your own.”

/>   “Doctor Brigham, I presume?” I interject, overanxious to be done with the matter-at-hand, if not the tender manner by which it’s being introduced, my well-informed guess bringing Dorothy to the edge of her chair.

  “Not my shrink!” she wails, George instantly castigated by the abject disappointment in her cry, the two of us feeling guilty for even broaching the subject, let alone revealing the culprit.

  “I’m afraid so,” George leaning forward to rest his muscled forearms on the desk, the nuance of paternity in his deep voice calming her to a more manageable volume.

  “But he promised!” Dorothy’s black eyes shining with tears.

  “Promised what, my dear?” I ask; a woman’s tears always my certain defeat.

  “That he wouldn’t tell,” she sobs. “And now he’s gone and done it…the one thing I asked him not to do. It was…well…it was a secret I believed could prove you right, Melvin, that’s all,” she blubbers, “and now he’s trying to turn it into some kind of magic bullet, a weapon to turn you away-“

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I interrupt, regaining my earlier composure while earning a disapproving frown from George. “And when, pray tell, did you ever think I was right?”

  “Your party!” she bawls, “your party, stupid!”

  “Doctor Brigham and I discussed the party,” George maneuvering between us. “He had some very definite…no, let me rephrase that: some very intractable opinions about the…shall we say, the effects of Melvin’s party. The doctor thinks you, Miss Compton, came away with a false identity - a ‘mistaken identity’, I believe he called it - leaving you confused about your affections.”

  “Well!” she huffs, extracting a tissue from her purse, then shaking her head in refusal of coffee as the receptionist sets a serving tray on George’s desk, “all I’ve got to say for him is that his memory’s about as short as Melvin’s member; his promise not to-“