Into the Darklands

by Nigel Latta

  He looked at me. Ice. ‘Well I don’t know why you don’t like me then.’

  ‘I don’t like you because you’re schmoozing me.’

  He frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You’re schmoozing me. I don’t like that. It’s disrespectful. If you don’t want to talk about your offending, just say. If you want to lie, then lie, but don’t schmooze me. It insults my intelligence.’

  ‘I do want to talk about my offending, Nigel. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘No it isn’t. You’re here because you want a report that might keep you out of jail. The last thing you’re here to do is talk about your offending.’

  ‘Well, what have I been doing for the last half-hour then?’

  ‘Schmoozing.’

  A tense silence follows. This may all look a bit confrontational from the outside, but you have to bear in mind that the most common comment I’ve heard from offenders when talking about other shrinks is some variation of ‘He was a nice bloke, but I never really told him the truth because he was too nice.’ Not something I sincerely hope anyone will ever say about me.

  ‘Well then, what should I talk about?’

  ‘How about the stuff you used to do as a kid?’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘The stuff you did to animals.’

  Now he does look offended. ‘I never did any…’

  ‘I don’t mean the sexual stuff, I’m talking about the mean things you used to do, the cruel things. Stuff with insects, birds, pets. All that.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he says, but he’s shaken. I can see the lie in his eyes.

  ‘Look, Tony, all kids do mean stuff to bugs and things. That’s normal. But for you it was more, wasn’t it? For you it was different. Cruelty was your special place.’

  At this point I’ve got him well and truly hooked. Tony was a narcissist and a sadist. He was the centre of his world. Everything revolved around him, the moon and the sun. The fact that I’d been able to seemingly randomly reach inside him and pull out one of his nasty little secrets intrigued him. I was holding up a special kind of mirror, and he couldn’t help but look.

  So how did I know about the cruelty to animals? Magic? ESP? Unfortunately it’s nothing that mysterious. In truth, I guessed as soon as I’d read he’d taken pictures of his victim’s face. We’re all different, but there aren’t that many different kinds of different. There are patterns, lines you can follow if you know the signs. If you spend enough time down here, eventually your eyes get used to the dark, and then you start to see details that were hidden before. It isn’t magic, it’s just practice.

  Tony looks cool, but I know he’s enjoying this. The intellectual challenge of the game we’re playing appeals to him. He’s just decided I’m not a complete fool, and he wants to know what else I can see. He is unable to resist the narcissistic urge to see himself reflected through me. If he could he would look until his eyes bled.

  ‘Maybe I did a few things,’ he says.

  I shrug. ‘Like what?’

  ‘The usual, burning ants with magnifying glasses, throwing stones at birds, that kind of thing.’

  I’m not blinking, giving him my I-know-what-you-really-did look. ‘And?’

  He giggles, and it’s as if he’s suddenly 10 years old.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head. ‘There was this one thing,’ he says, giggling. ‘I don’t know why I’m laughing because it was pretty horrible.’

  ‘Cat or dog?’ I ask.

  ‘A dog. A little spaniel.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I was about ten or eleven and my family was on holiday up north. I was fishing on a dock and this little dog comes up to me, sniffing around, and wagging its little tail.’

  ‘And?’

  He giggles again. ‘And I just sort of pushed it off the dock into the sea. It wasn’t very far down but it made a huge splash.’

  I’m playing it cool, letting him talk. ‘Then what did you do?’

  ‘It could swim; it wasn’t like it was going to drown or anything. So I went down these steps to pull it out, but then it just looked so funny swimming around that every time it got a leg up on the step I pushed it off again.’

  ‘Was the dog upset?’

  He giggles. ‘Yeah, I guess. It was huffing and puffing and its little legs were going like pistons.’

  ‘What were you feeling as this was happening?’

  Tony sits up straighter in his chair, his face suddenly serious. ‘Nothing,’ he says.

  I shake my head. ‘No. What were you feeling?’

  It has to be like this with guys like Tony; quiet, polite. You can be as rude as hell, as long as it sounds polite. The challenge has to be steel wrapped in velvet. He has to ask for the explanation. I can’t push someone like him. If I do that I’ll lose him. Tony has to come to me.

  There’s a long pause.

  ‘Well then, you tell me what I was feeling.’

  I look back at him, letting the moment draw out. Silence is a wonderful way to bring a sharp focus to your words.

  ‘You felt free,’ I finally say.

  ‘Free?’

  I nod. ‘Free.’

  ‘Free from what?’ he asks, a slight smile on his lips. Tony is loving this. I shrug, an I-know-but-I’m-not-telling shrug.

  ‘You think you’re very clever, don’t you, Nigel?’ he says with that same little smile, as if I’ve just presented him with a particularly amusing riddle.

  I return his smile, matching him. ‘Do you think I’m clever?’

  The truth is I already know he thinks I’m clever. If he didn’t he wouldn’t have bothered giving me the time of day. He certainly would never have told me about the spaniel. In Tony’s world a stupid person wouldn’t warrant a second glance.

  ‘I think you’re probably fairly clever, Nigel.’

  ‘And I think you’re probably fairly perceptive, Tony.’

  He laughs.

  ‘Tell me why you took the photographs,’ I say, punching it in over the dangling end of his laugh.

  He goes very still. ‘What photographs?’

  I just look at him. There’s no need to repeat the question.

  He shrugs. ‘She’s very pretty.’

  ‘Why did you take the photographs?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

  ‘Why did you take the photographs?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he repeats.

  I lean over to the small table of bizarre toys I use when I’m working. Plucking a little doll from the top I throw it on the floor between us. This particular doll is an ugly little thing, its face screwed up into a permanent sad frown. Plastic tears glisten on its plastic cheeks. As luck would have it the doll lands on its back with its small legs spread in a vaguely pornographic pose.

  I raise my hands to my face, miming holding a camera, pointing it down at the doll lying spread-eagled on the floor. ‘Click…click…click.’

  In between each click I pause, letting the silence add weight to the next, like fists hitting soft flesh. Still holding my imaginary camera I turn to him again. ‘Why did you take the photographs?’

  He stares at me for a long moment, then back to the doll on the floor. ‘I don’t know,’ he finally says. ‘Honestly.’

  Liar, liar, pants on fire, is what I think to myself. Freedom, I mouth at him, exaggerating the movements.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he says.

  That’s enough for now. The art in all this crazy shit is about knowing when to stop. With a narcissist you always need a cliffhanger. You always need a hook. ‘Time’s up,’ I say, standing.

  ‘What?’ He sounds almost hurt.

  ‘Time’s up.’

  We make another time for the following week and he leaves, looking as reluctant as a little boy being pulled from a toy shop.

  I could write the report now, but I see him a couple more times anyway, just to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Tony is a sadist. He enjoys other people’s suff
ering, animals too for that matter. He took the photographs of the girl because he liked seeing her upset. He drank her suffering like some people drink a fine wine. The sex was an adjunct to the sadism, a means to the real ends. In his case the way he made his victim feel bad was predominantly through his psychological torture. He didn’t so much inflict physical pain as he did emotional pain.

  Tony had a very well-developed sense of empathy for his victim; in fact, that was what sustained him. It was only when he experienced the power that came from his sexual punishing of the victim that he was free from the crippling self-hatred that underlay his sexual pathology. He hurt her to feel powerful, because feeling powerful was what made him feel better.

  All I had to see was the fact that he’d taken the pictures of her when she was upset and then I knew who he really was. It didn’t take much to see that my initial theory was backed up by his clinical presentation. You don’t need to be able to read minds in my game, but you do need to pay attention to detail, and in particular the detail of the offender’s behaviour. It’s not about being particularly clever or insightful, it’s just a matter of noticing the patterns that underlie all behaviour in the Darklands.

  Look at what he did. That’s where you’ll really find him.

  SERIOUS SHIT

  IT SEEMS INCONGRUOUS, particularly given the nature of the things I have to deal with a lot of the time, that there should be so many things to laugh about. I’m sure there are many other mental-health professionals who are terribly serious most of the time, but I’m not one of them. I struggle to take most things seriously.

  I could give you a lecture about how humour is important because it demonstrates that the brain is an asymmetrical self-organising pattern-making system, but Edward de Bono has said all that stuff far better than I ever could. If you haven’t read his book Lateral Thinking I strongly suggest you do. In the meantime I’ll simply eschew all the academic hand-wringing and send you off in that direction if you want some meat in your porridge.

  My own explanation is, surprise, surprise, more simple: I laugh with the devil because it feels right. There is a danger in taking serious things too seriously. In that direction lies burnout and endless sleepless nights. If you can’t laugh about this work, then you won’t last long, or far worse, you’ll become as soulless as some of the people you work with. Just because you laugh doesn’t mean you’re not taking the work seriously.

  I only work with other professionals who have a sense of humour. The earnest ones prompt two immediate responses in me: overwhelming flippancy and itchy feet. My first response when I encounter earnest types is to take the piss. The more seriously they take themselves, the more flippant I tend to become. Maybe that demonstrates a lack of maturity on my part, but I prefer to think of it as a survival mechanism.

  I once ran a training workshop for an organisation that worked with adolescents. The workshop was about engaging resistant teenagers, the ones who don’t want to be there. I’d just demonstrated the versatility of playing Highland pipe band marching tunes with these kids and was being hammered by a very earnest man who was concerned that the young person wouldn’t feel ‘heard’ as I was marching round the room to the sound of the pipes.

  ‘You don’t have to take it all so seriously,’ I’d said.

  ‘But Nigel,’ he broke in, with obvious gravity, ‘it is serious.’

  ‘Yeah, but does that mean you have to take it seriously?’

  I might as well have been talking Yiddish. He was never going to get it because he didn’t understand the difference between being earnest and being effective.

  Being earnest is dull, lifeless and passionless. It sucks the colour from everything it touches, it turns the volume down on the music, and it squashes the good clean laughter from a really dirty joke.

  I go out on a social occasion and a woman leans over the table and, with a pronounced squiffy slur, asks me what the difference is between a fridge and a woman’s vagina.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I answer.

  ‘A fridge doesn’t fart when you take the meat out,’ she says, then accidentally flicks an orange peel across the restaurant, hitting a startled woman sitting at another table in the forehead. At such moments you just have to laugh till it hurts.

  Sadly, nothing like that has ever happened when I’ve been to ‘professional functions’. There are small pockets of irreverence, but as a profession we generally take ourselves far too seriously. No one flicks orange peels and no one asks me the difference between kitchen appliances and sexual organs. In fact—apart from one obvious exception who shall remain nameless—no psychologist has ever even told me a dirty joke. I know a fair percentage of us probably tell them to other people, we just don’t tell them to each other.

  I’d prefer not to be one of that crowd, so I’ll take a laugh anywhere I can get it.

  Johnny was 15 and robbed people for a living. The only problem with his career choice was that he wasn’t very good at it. He kept getting caught. The last robbery was hardly the crime of the century. He’d burst into a dairy with an associate who had a sawn-off .22 rifle. It wasn’t loaded. They yelled at the guy for a bit and then took his change from the till and some tobacco pouches. The cops got him two days later. About a month after that he ends up sitting with me.

  One look is all it takes. As soon as I walk out into the waiting room I know who he is—not literally—but in broad terms. He’s wearing the uniform of the stereotypical urban delinquent. He has the look in his eyes, the slouch and the usual fuck-you attitude.

  We sit down and I give him the talk about confidentiality and what I’m doing. After that’s out of the way I pause for a moment, trying to decide where to start. I generally don’t plan anything. Nothing. Every time is different and I like to get my feet on the floor first then decide which way to play things.

  Given that I could probably write the report just from the background stuff and what I’d seen thus far I decided to try something a bit more meaningful than just another blah-de-blah psychological report.

  ‘So you’re a robber,’ I say.

  He does the little quick flick of his eyebrows which is kid-speak for yes.

  ‘So did you do a course on that or what?’

  He sneers. ‘What?’

  ‘Did you do a course at tech on being a robber?’

  ‘Na,’ he says, still with his little sneer.

  ‘So where did you learn how to be a robber?’

  ‘You don’t learn it, man. You just fuckin’ do it.’

  ‘That’s your problem then,’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You never did a course, which explains how come you’re so shit at it.’

  ‘Who says that?’

  I pick up his file. ‘How many times you been caught?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Says here you been caught three times, right?’

  He shrugs again.

  ‘And how many times have you tried to rob people?’

  He doesn’t say anything but instead he looks down and bristles a bit.

  I was guessing he’d tried three times and been caught three times. Not the best CV for someone aiming for a long-term criminal career. ‘See,’ I continue as if he’d answered the question, ‘your problem is you’re using the wrong approach.’

  He looks at me, sneering. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I say. ‘Your problem is that you’ve been using things like knives and guns. That shit is going to get you in some serious trouble. You should use a fish.’

  He frowns. ‘What?’

  ‘A fish. If I was ever going to rob a bank I’d use a fish. No way you’d catch me robbing with anything other than a nice fresh fish.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘Well think about it, is it illegal to carry a fish?’

  He pauses for a moment. ‘No.’

  ‘There you go, so if you walk into a bank then pull out this big fish and ask for money, what are they going to d
o? Think about it, all you’ve done is present a large fish and ask for some money. It’s up to them whether or not they front up with it. Right? Unless you’re holding a great white shark, it’s hardly an offensive weapon, is it?’

  He laughs. ‘Yeah but why would they give you money if all you got is a fuckin’ fish, man?’

  ‘Just think about it, who tries to rob a bank with a fish? You’d have to be either one crazy motherfucker, or have some kind of seriously bad-ass fish.’

  He laughs again. ‘You’re fucked up, man.’

  I shrug. ‘I may be fucked up but I’m not stupid enough to rob people with guns and knives. You don’t seem like such a bad guy—how come you’d do such a shitty thing to someone just trying to make a living?’

  I’m not saying this in an accusing way. I’m just curious because he really doesn’t seem like such a bad guy. I phrase the question that way because that’s how people speak in his world.

  This time he shrugs and looks ashamed. ‘I dunno.’

  And we’re off.

  It turned out he wanted to rob people for all the usual reasons. No one ever gave a crap about him so he didn’t give one in return. Before he left we called the local polytech and checked out a builder’s course, something he’d always wanted to do. As far as I know he did the course. And as far as I know he never robbed any banks with a fish. If he ever does, though, I better get a cut because it was my idea.

  We could have had a very serious conversation about this very serious matter, but if we had he’d just think I was another dickhead counsellor who didn’t have a clue. And he’d be right. When you work with the kind of people I do, you’ve always got to have a generous helping of bullshit up your sleeve. This is especially true when you’re working with I-don’t-give-a-shit adolescents. Most of these kids have had truckloads of earnest, polite, well-meaning counsellors who tried very hard to make the young person feel ‘heard’. Me, I just try and get a laugh.

  Ben was 13 and screwed up in just about every way imaginable. His family could have been the subject of a whole season on The Jerry Springer Show. He’d been in and out of care since he was seven years old, and was engaging in almost every antisocial behaviour you could imagine. He was currently facing over 20 burglary charges, he’d been standing over kids on the street for clothes and money, he fought almost constantly, and he ran away from foster homes so often he should have got frequent-flyer points.