“So then tell me what it describes.”
“Huh?”
“A description has to describe something, right? So tell me what it describes.”
“You’re playing fucking games with me.”
“So why don’t you play along? You’re good at games.”
He knows how to play to my vanity.
“I’ll say depression and you say whatever comes into your mind. You’ve got one minute. I’ll time you.”
“Look, Matt,” I say, “I’m not one of your juvenile delinquent pinheads. If you want to play a word association game, just ask.”
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. He actually blushes.
He looks at his watch.
“Hold on. I need to smoke to do this.”
“Go!”
I waste the first twenty seconds finishing a drag on my cigarette.
“…Okay. Depression. Black. Block. Box. Weight. Dead-weight. Sink. Drown. Float…”
I’m stuck on float.
“Float…I see myself on my back, floating, bloated, bluish.”
Dead. No, not dead. Just not alive.
“Time’s up.”
“How’d I do?”
“Great! You won,” he says, clicking his pen.
“What did I win?”
“This.”
He scribbles on the prescription pad and hands me my prize.
“You’re going to take these, right?”
“Doctor’s orders!”
At the door, he does something he has never done before. He hugs me. I’m too surprised to hug back.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he says. “I promise.”
Manipulative bastard. He knows just how to get to me. I had no intention of filling the prescription, let alone taking the damn things. But the hug has broken my resolve. I can’t let him down. Spooky, I think as I drive away, I wonder if I’m becoming one of those creeps who falls in love with their therapist.
The Bride of Frankenstein
If I’d remembered tonight was Halloween I would have found some excuse to stay over in Davenport, Iowa. I could have called Matt to tell him I needed to cancel our session so I could take in the International Sofa Museum. What? They don’t make couches in Davenport, you say? This great city must be famous for something! Agriculture? Okay then, I don’t want to miss that exhibit of the world’s largest ear of corn. Who would? Sorry. See you next week.
Instead I dutifully boarded my flight to Charlotte, only vaguely aware of the black crepe paper and orange twinkle lights draping the airport newsstand. Even the pumpkin on the porch of Matt’s Queen Anne didn’t set off any alarms. I made it through the hour—no breakthroughs, no new insights, another buck and a half that would have been better spent on a blow job from an Iowa farm boy trying to make ends meet. Afterward, I trudged home, grabbed a bottle of beer, kicked off my shoes, and flopped on the bed, ready to tackle the mail that accumulated during the week.
Let’s see. Four envelopes from (who else?) the law firm of Dugan, Castor, and Mullen, LLC. One enclosing an invoice, the second several pleadings requiring review and signature, a third forwarding copies of correspondence from the enemy firm of McNamara, Kerrigan, Whiteside, and Greenberg, the gist of which is that I am a deceitful, repugnant lower form of life. The fourth, the bulkiest, is stuffed with mail addressed to Andrew Nocera, 12 Virginia Dare Court, High Point, North Carolina. Not much of interest. An alumni solicitation from Davidson College. A notice that my subscription to Baseball America is about to expire. (God damn it, Dugan, Castor, and Mullen, where are my back issues? What the hell am I paying you for?) Finally, at the bottom of the pile, is a letter from Kuperstein’s Jewelers asking me to please contact them to arrange to pick up the inscribed gold bracelet ordered July 7. Failure to respond within the next thirty days will result in the forfeiture of my (substantial) deposit.
It was going to be a surprise, not a gift tendered out of obligation to observe a birthday, an anniversary, or a holiday. I was going to smack my forehead halfway across the Pont de la Tournelle, berating myself for, once again, forgetting something, something so important I’d even tied this thread around my finger to remind myself, see? What now? Alice would ask, rolling her eyes, exasperated, resigned to losing our reservation at Les Bookinistes because, as usual, I’d left my wallet on the dresser. This, I just remembered this, I’d say, handing her a small box tied with a white ribbon. I’d smile and wait for her to throw her arms around my shoulders, overcome when she discovers an eight-thousand-dollar piece of armor worthy of Wonder Woman, inscribed with the silly words of the Barry White song I liked to croak in her ear. You’re the first, the last, my everything.
I can hardly afford to lose the four-grand deposit in my current circumstances, but I certainly don’t have the spare cash to ransom the bracelet from those nasty Kupersteins. Ah well, easy come, easy go. Anyway, Alice might have raised a skeptical eyebrow, unmoved by sentimentality and a Gallic backdrop, suspicious of my motivations. Naw, I’m sure she would have grabbed my shoulders and covered my face with kisses, murmuring in French, thanking me, even though, lout that I am, I don’t understand a single word of the language.
Goddamn it, go away, I mutter, irritated by the shrill, insistent bell summoning someone to the front door. I can’t imagine who could be harassing my mother, who I assume must be in her room finishing dressing for a bridge game or a night at the movies with friends. I haul myself off the bed to investigate; I need another beer anyway. Halfway down the stairs, I hear my mother shrieking in joy.
“Oh Lord, I think you’ve just taken three years off my life!” she claims, thrilling the pint-sized Casper in a cheap, off-the-shelf costume.
“Boo!” he (or she) trills, turning to run down the walk.
“Be careful!” my mother calls. “When did you get home?” she asks, turning to me.
“A while ago. I came in through the kitchen.”
“Well, welcome home.”
“Do you want to go out to dinner?”
“I made lasagna. If you’re starved, I can heat a piece now.”
“Let’s go out. It’s my treat.”
“It’s Halloween, Andy! I wouldn’t miss this for the world!”
Three little Jedi warriors and Yoda race to the porch. My mother is hopeless, not recognizing their costumes. She thinks Yoda is some kind of frog.
“Star Wars, Ma. They’re characters from Star Wars.”
“How the hell would I know that?” she carps. “Obviously I could use your help here.”
I’d like another beer but anticipate a gentle rebuke about setting a good example. But if I’m going to be roped into doing this, I ought to be given some slack.
“Just let me grab another beer.”
The kids come and go in spurts. I tell my mother I don’t remember Town Watch patrolling on Halloween and none of us ever wore silver reflecting tape over our costumes. Times have changed, Andy, she says, it’s a different world now. Years ago, my mother would have known all the kids by name. The masks are pointless since they’re all little strangers now. The costumes are disappointing. Only a witch or two, not a skeleton all night. Halloween belongs to Disney and Warner Bros. It’s trademark protected.
“Andy, leave some for the kids,” she scolds, catching me with my fist in the candy bowl.
“Ma, you could restock Wal-Mart with the candy you’ve got! Anyway, let’s eat.”
“Trick or treat isn’t over.”
“It will be if you shut the door and turn off the light.”
“Andy, what’s wrong with you?” she asks, chafing at my irritability. “You used to love Halloween!”
Did I?
Like you said, Ma, times have changed. It’s a different world.
Other boys collected Matchbox cars. For me, there were only the Famous Monsters of Filmland. And I was more than just a collector. I built my monsters with my own two hands from model kits.
My mother would cover the kitchen table with newspape
r and I would spread out the airplane glue and little vials of enamel paint. I’d pick a time when I knew she’d be working in the kitchen. I wanted a witness to the creation. Patience, she’d say when I got too excited and tried to rush, you need to let the glue set and wait for the paint to dry.
My clumsy hands could attach the arms and legs to the trunk and mount the head on the neck. It didn’t take a lot of skill to slap paint on the body. But the face needed her delicate touch. Wow, she’d say, this is the best one yet! She would promise to do a really good job so she didn’t spoil it. My little heart would race as she very, very carefully, painted the eyes and the lips and the brows. When she was finished, my monsters looked just like the picture on the box.
The old man put shelves above my bed for my collection. I slept under their vigilant eyes. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman, the Phantom of the Opera, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Creature from the Black Lagoon. I loved them all. But there was a special place in my heart for my favorite. The Bride of Frankenstein. Regal, silent, austere, she was the most fascinating creature I’d ever seen. I never tired of watching her make her grand entrance in the last minutes of the movie, always hoping that this time, she would walk away from the rubble when the castle collapsed and escape into the horizon as the credits rolled. When I was nine years old, my mother asked me who I wanted to be for Halloween and I shouted, without a moment’s hesitation, the Bride of Frankenstein, of course!
Our costumes were always her October project. That year, my sister was a chubby little Tinker Bell in tights and buckle shoes spray-painted silver. My mother spent a week turning chicken wire and cheesecloth into gossamer wings. My costume was simpler, several yards of muslin for the shroud and ACE bandages to cover my arms and legs. She bought a cheap wig at a discount store, shellacked it into a beehive, and painted skunk stripes at the temples. She gave me a chalk-white face and black brows and red lips. She drew raccoon circles on my face since nature hadn’t blessed me with Elsa Lanchester’s pop eyes. I looked in the mirror and saw the Bride of Frankenstein.
She took our picture and warned us one last time to watch out for cars and not to touch the candy until we got home. Regina was scratching and twitching, already anxious to shed her costume. The shoes pinched her feet, so she kicked them off and tossed them in her trick-or-treat bag, ruining her tights on the sidewalk. She approached the whole thing as a job, an annoyance to be suffered, the price for the payoff.
It was the best night of my life. I zombie-walked the streets, arms stiff, pointing straight ahead. I rotated my head counterclockwise, leading with my chin, doing all of the Bride’s jerky robot bird moves. I let my sister do the talking when the neighbors answered the doorbell. Trick or treat, she said without enthusiasm. Then it was my turn, after the candy was tossed in the bag. I dropped my jaw and did a perfect imitation of her high-pitched squeal. EEEEEKKK! I was a hit. Everyone laughed and told me what a good Bride I made.
My sister shredded every vestige of Tinker Bell as soon as we got home. I stayed in my costume, wanting this night to last forever. We were upstairs in my room fighting over Milky Ways when we heard the old man’s voice below. I couldn’t hear what my mother was saying, but the tone of her voice was explanatory, conciliatory. Her words made my father angrier. He said she was responsible, that she indulged me, that he was the laughingstock of the neighborhood. The guy down the street had just accosted him in the driveway, taunting him about my performance.
“You know what they call him?” the old man screamed, so angry he was near tears.
“Annie, ANNIE!”
That’s how I learned the difference between laughing with you and at you. I stood up and ripped off the wig. I tore it apart and stomped on the pieces. Gina looked up from her trick-or-treat bag, mouth full of chocolate and eyes full of wonder.
“I like your costume, Andy,” she said. “It’s better than mine.”
She dumped her candy on the floor and stacked all the peanut butter cups, our favorites, in neat—for her—towers of orange and brown wrapping. I knew she would eat all hers first, the opposite of me, who saved the best for last, after the popcorn balls and hard candies and plain milk chocolate.
“Here,” she said, pushing the peanut butter cups toward me. “You can have them.”
The next morning she would crawl into her daddy’s lap and he’d ask if she had a good Halloween. She’d say it was okay, but she didn’t get any peanut butter cups, knowing he’d drive to the Piggly Wiggly and buy her an entire box.
“Is it broken?” she asked, looking at the pieces of wig on the floor.
“I think so.”
“Mama’s going to be mad.”
“No, she’s not.”
“Yes, she will. She yelled at me for ruining my stupid costume.”
It was the first time I understood the mother Gina knew was different from my mama just as her daddy wasn’t my old man.
“Do you wanna play Clue?” she asked.
“Okay.”
“You can be Miss Scarlet,” she said as she pulled out the box. “I promise I won’t tell.”
Let’s Pretend We’re Married
Hot damn! What’s the chance the station scanner would find this oldie but goodie pulsating down at the left of the dial? It’s radio, of course, with the lyrics scrubbed squeaky clean, no forbidden words permitted, but not even the FCC can ruin this little seven-minute masterpiece. I intend to sing along to every syllable, even if means sitting in a parked car with the engine running while my counselor twiddles his thumbs, assuming some barely sublimated hostility is the only possible explanation for my chronic tardiness.
“You’re in an awfully good mood for someone who’s been sitting on a plane the last six hours,” Matt remarks when I finally stroll into his office, still humming Prince’s brilliant chorus.
“I heard a great song on the car radio tonight.”
“What?”
“You probably wouldn’t know it.”
“Of course not. The only music I listen to is Gregorian chant.”
“Are you serious?”
“No. Are you?”
Apparently my counselor has been following the career of the Artist Formerly Known As since catching an early gig at First Avenue in Minneapolis. Well, la-di-da. This goddamn priest always knows how to put me in my place.
“So which song was it?” he asks.
“Let’s Pretend We’re Married.”
Why did I bring this up? The arched eyebrow and skeptical smile can only mean the simple act of enjoying a song is about to be infused with portentous analysis and provide him with a perfect segue to an inquisition into personal responsibility. Yes, I insist, I was always safe during my little extracurricular activities. Of course I didn’t use condoms with Alice. Was he crazy? I might as well have branded Unfaithful on my forehead.
“Did you ever worry about passing along a disease?”
“I told you I was always safe.”
“That’s not the question I asked.”
“Of course I worried about it.”
“Did you ever think she suspected?”
And so on and so forth for the next fifty minutes.
Jesus Christ. I don’t know how I’m going to survive missing a week of browbeating and emotional intimidation. Next Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and I have a reprieve.
“Have a great holiday,” he says as I hand him the check.
Fuck you, I mutter as I walk out the door. What makes him such an expert on marriage?
Alice sighed and crawled into bed, a glass of chardonnay in hand to fortify herself for the challenge of plowing through the latest trade paperback selected by her book club to educate and edify. Fifty pages before lights out or else! I rolled on my stomach and grunted, too restless to sleep. I used to nod off at the drop of a hat. My wife would accuse me of narcolepsy and threaten to inject me with caffeine. That was another lifetime, before falling asleep meant having to wake up and crawl out of bed, shave and bru
sh my teeth, put on my game face, convince the King of Unpainted Furniture I was obsessed with lumber prices and consumed with mortgage rates, higher rates equating a drop in residential home sales meaning fewer empty rooms begging to be filled with the affordable products of Tar Heel Heritage Furniture.
How the hell had I ended up a salesman? Worse yet, a successful salesman! The best goddamn salesman in the history of Tar Heel Heritage, better even than the King himself. Who would have believed I’d be a two-time runner-up for the national sales award by the American Home Furnishings Society? Who could have predicted I’d be recruited for a seat on the board of the North Carolina Furniture Association and chair its Government Affairs subcommittee, lobbying for protective tariffs on insidious foreign imports and testifying in support of legislation to decimate the right to collectively bargain?
It’s all Alice’s fault I’ve ended up tossing and turning in a bedroom in a suburban cul-de-sac, I thought, irritated by the dry, chafing sound of thumb against paper as she turned the pages of her novel. We should have parted ways when I started graduate school. She shouldn’t have followed me to Durham and taken that job at the Montessori School, teaching music appreciation to the precocious offspring of Duke’s junior faculty, being paid less than even my measly stipend from the Department of Comparative Literature. At least once a day, I would accuse her of resenting our shabby circumstances. She’d just laugh and say, “Not as much as you do.”
“It’s completely up to you,” she said while I pondered her father’s job offer. Always a pragmatist, he’d decided if Alice was going to be so goddamn stubborn, if she was going to insist he accept me, then at least he would co-opt me. I was floundering anyway, insecure among the pretensions of more impressively pedigreed academics, and highly susceptible to the power of suggestion. Curtis never missed an opportunity to make it obvious he questioned how a man could call teaching four hours a week “work.” Alice assumed I had a choice. The King knew better. All he needed to do was impugn my masculinity and it was good-bye Duke and hello Sales. He made only one condition. No more living in sin. We slipped off to City Hall before he could initiate the tactical maneuvers that would climax with the Big Church Wedding.
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