Mr. Monk Goes to Germany

by Lee Goldberg

  I watched the men playing tennis and thought about Nick climbing mountains by himself. He must have been a very strong, physically active man. So how did it feel to be disabled now? How was he coping with the fact that he would never be that man again?

  All those unanswered questions made Nick fascinating to me. And very attractive.

  I was pretty certain Monk wasn’t asking himself what Nick was thinking and feeling. That would require tolerance, empathy, and understanding.

  Monk looked at Nick and saw imperfection, disorder, and horror. I looked at Nick and saw mystery, character, and emotional complexity.

  We’d be having that coffee together very soon, preferably without Monk around.

  I figured Monk would be okay with that.

  I finished my ice cream and headed back down the hill to Dr. Kroger’s building. I walked into the waiting room just as Dr. Kroger and Monk were coming out of the office.

  “You were a big help today, Doctor,” Monk said.

  “I am pleased to hear that, Adrian,” Dr. Kroger said. “I think you’re in a real good place right now.”

  “I’m moving,” Monk said.

  “I meant emotionally and psychologically. I wasn’t talking about your apartment. You’ve made so much progress, Adrian. I don’t think running away is the best way to cope with your fears.”

  “It certainly is when you’re being pursued by a one-legged cannibal,” Monk said. “We can talk about it next week, if he hasn’t eaten me.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Dr. Kroger said.

  “You don’t think I can outrun him?” Monk said. “He’s on crutches.”

  “I meant that I’m not going to be here next week,” Dr. Kroger said. “I’m leaving tomorrow for Lohr, a small village in Germany, to attend an international psychiatric conference.”

  Monk looked at him in shock. “You’re leaving me?”

  “I’ll be back in a week.”

  “How could you do this to me?” Monk said.

  I was tempted to ask the same question. Without Dr. Kroger to support him, Monk would have a complete mental meltdown and I would have to deal with it on my own.

  “This isn’t about you, Adrian,” Dr. Kroger said. “I have a life of my own beyond my sessions with you.”

  “I believe you are mistaken,” Monk said. “And if you really think about it, I am sure that you will agree.”

  “I haven’t taken any time off in years,” Dr. Kroger said. “This trip will enrich my understanding of human behavior and give me a chance to relax. It will be good for me and for you. In a way, it’s perfect timing.”

  “How can you possibly say that?” Monk cried out. “Didn’t you hear anything I told you today? I am in crisis. I need help now more than ever.”

  “And you’ll get it,” Dr. Kroger said. “I’ve arranged for Dr. Jonah Sorenson to see you while I am away.”

  Monk gasped. “The one-armed guy?”

  “He’s an exceptional psychiatrist and a wonderful human being.”

  Monk had seen Dr. Sorenson for one session last year when Dr. Kroger briefly flirted with retirement. The session lasted less than five minutes.

  “But he’s got a big problem,” Monk said.

  “Not that I can see,” Dr. Kroger said.

  “He’s only got one arm!” Monk shrieked.

  “I don’t see that as a problem,” Dr. Kroger said.

  “Are you blind?”

  “In fact, I see his disability as an asset in your treatment. By sharing your feelings with him, and discovering what a sensitive and knowledgeable person he is, you’ll feel less threatened by people who are physically different from you.”

  In theory, that was a great idea. In practice, it was never going to work. I knew it with absolute certainty and I had no psychiatric training whatsoever, except for what I learned listening to Dr. Laura on the radio. So why didn’t Dr. Kroger realize it? Then again, maybe he did and just didn’t care. All he wanted was a vacation from Monk.

  I could sympathize. I almost got away for a Monk-free week in Hawaii but he showed up uninvited on the plane. He was armed with a fresh prescription from Dr. Kroger for Dioxynl, the mood-altering drug that relieved his phobias and enabled him to fly without fear. I’ve always suspected that Dr. Kroger put Monk up to it to avoid being harassed night and day while I was away.

  “Dr. Sorenson is unbalanced,” Monk said. “How can you leave your patients in the care of an unbalanced person? That’s a clear case of malpractice.”

  “I’m going to Germany tomorrow, Adrian, and nothing you say or do is going to change that.” Dr. Kroger stepped into his office and closed the door in Monk’s face.

  Monk didn’t move. He just stared forlornly at the door.

  “We have to go now,” I said.

  “I’m staying right here,” Monk said.

  “What good will that do?”

  “If he thinks about it for a moment, I’m convinced that he’ll come to his senses and cancel his trip.”

  “He seemed pretty adamant about it to me.”

  “I felt that I got through to him at the end,” Monk said. “As he was closing the door in my face, I could see that he was wrestling with some major doubts.”

  “There were no doubts,” I said.

  “We’ll see when he comes out,” Monk said.

  “He’s not coming out,” I said.

  “Great,” Monk said. “I’ll stand here until my next appointment. If you want to see real endurance, and the true strength of the human spirit, just watch me.”

  Monk put his hands on his hips and planted his feet in place and stared firmly at the door. I guess that stance was supposed to mean he was in this for the long haul. I’m sure the door was very intimidated.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Monk yelled. “And neither are you.”

  There was no response. Monk shifted his weight.

  “You’ll thank me later,” Monk yelled.

  There was no response.

  “Or you could thank me now,” Monk yelled. “Either way is fine with me.”

  “Doesn’t the back of his office open onto an atrium?” I asked.

  Monk nodded.

  “And doesn’t that atrium have a door that leads to the tenant parking garage?”

  Monk shifted his gaze to me. “You don’t think he would do that, do you?”

  “I think he already has,” I said.

  Monk opened the door. The office was empty. Dr. Kroger had fled.

  “I’m doomed,” Monk said.

  I was, too.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mr. Monk Falls Apart

  As soon as we got in the car, Monk wanted me to drive him to Dr. Kroger’s house. I refused.

  “That would be invading his privacy,” I said.

  “I’m family,” Monk said.

  “You’re one of his patients,” I said.

  “It’s the same thing,” Monk said.

  “No, it’s not, Mr. Monk. It’s crossing a line. He is a doctor and you are his patient. You are not his family. He is paid to listen to you and offer his guidance and advice.”

  “We’ve gone past that,” Monk said.

  “You have,” I said. “He hasn’t. He’s a professional and I’m not going to help you stalk him.”

  Monk sulked for a long moment before speaking up again. “He doesn’t see me three times a week because he’s paid to. He cares about me.”

  “I’m sure that he does, Mr. Monk. He wouldn’t be much of a doctor if he didn’t care about his patients.”

  “It’s more than that. I share all my fears and anxieties with him.”

  “You share them with everybody,” I said. “The ones you don’t exhibit in your behavior you have listed, indexed, and leather-bound for people to reference.”

  “But he knows them all by heart. He actually listens. He’s there for me,” Monk said. “Or at least he was.”

  “He still is,” I said. “But he has a life. That’s his priority. You are his
job.”

  “I see,” Monk said. “The only reason he cares about me, listens to my problems, and offers me emotional support is because I pay him. If I didn’t, he’d be gone.”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said.

  “That’s the way it is,” Monk said.

  “Yes, it is,” I said.

  I felt like we had made a real breakthrough. Perhaps, I thought, I should consider becoming a shrink. I seemed to have a knack for it.

  “Is that how it is with you?” Monk asked.

  So much for my knack. I didn’t see that question coming. The car suddenly felt very cramped to me. I broke into a sweat.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  I knew what he meant, of course. I was just trying to buy some time to think of how I was going to talk myself out of this one.

  “Would you still care about me if I wasn’t paying you?”

  “You hardly pay me as it is, so it’s a moot point,” I said with what I hoped was a lighthearted smile, which is hard to pull off when, in fact, you have a heavy heart. A two-ton heart.

  Monk stared at me. I cleared my throat.

  “You aren’t just a job to me, Mr. Monk. I honestly care about you. And I would whether I worked for you or not.”

  “Then is it so hard to imagine that Dr. Kroger might feel the same way?”

  He had a good point. I pulled over and looked at him. I didn’t want what I was going to say to appear tossed off.

  “You’re right, Mr. Monk. I’m sorry. I don’t know how Dr. Kroger feels about you and it was wrong of me to assume that I did.”

  Monk nodded. “Apology accepted.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and glanced over my shoulder to check for traffic before moving back into the street.

  “So will you take me to his house now?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Fine,” Monk said. “I’ll just have him arrested.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Abandonment,” Monk said.

  “That’s not a crime,” I said.

  “It is when you go off on a vacation and leave your children home alone unattended and unsupervised,” Monk said.

  “You aren’t his child. You’re his patient.”

  “Same thing,” Monk said.

  “You’re an adult,” I said.

  “That’s open to debate,” Monk said.

  I couldn’t argue with him there. Monk started to make a strange mewling noise.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m weeping,” Monk said. “Can’t you see that?”

  “There aren’t any tears,” I said.

  “I’m tearless weeping,” Monk said.

  “You can’t weep without tears,” I said.

  “Then what am I doing?”

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  “Dr. Kroger would know,” Monk said.

  I took Monk to his apartment. He told me he was too depressed to work, not that we had any cases anyway, and he sent me home. I watched him creep in the back way to avoid the cannibals, and then I drove away.

  I made pork chops and Caesar salad for dinner. But when I set the plates down on the kitchen table, Julie rolled her eyes theatrically and groaned. I don’t know where the audience was that she was playing to, but the performance wasn’t entertaining me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “We always have the same things for dinner,” she said.

  “Last night we had spaghetti.”

  “With salad,” she said. “And we had chicken the day before.”

  “Chicken isn’t pork,” I said.

  “It’s meat,” she said. “With a salad.”

  “You don’t like meat and salad?”

  “It’s boring,” she said.

  “What do you want instead?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. That’s what she always said. I was expected to read her mind.

  “You always have complaints, but never any suggestions. How am I supposed to know what you want to eat? I don’t have a crystal ball.”

  No sooner did I say that than I cringed. My mom used to say the same thing to me. Is it inevitable that we all eventually become our parents? Would Julie be saying that to her daughter in fifteen years?

  “We could go out,” she said.

  That’s all she ever wanted to do. Food wasn’t good unless you ordered it off a menu.

  “We’re eating at home. This is what is being served. If you don’t like it, there’s cereal in the pantry.”

  I started to eat. It was tasty, if I do say so myself.

  She glared at me. “Cereal is breakfast food. You don’t eat breakfast food for dinner.”

  “Now you sound like Mr. Monk,” I said.

  Julie gave me a withering look, with all the wither a teenager can muster.

  “You always have to blow everything out of proportion. I don’t like the culinary monotony in this house, so you compare me to a crazy person. That’s really mature.”

  “Culinary monotony?” I said. “Where do you get this stuff?”

  “I read, Mom.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I saw you open a book or a newspaper.”

  “I don’t read cave drawings either,” she said. “There’s this new thing called the Web—maybe you’ve heard of it.”

  “When did you become so snotty?”

  She was talking her way right into being grounded when my phone rang, sparing her. I answered it.

  “Help,” Monk croaked.

  “What is it, Mr. Monk?” I glanced at Julie, who poked at her food with her fork like she was preparing to dissect a frog.

  “He’s up there,” he said. “I can hear him hopping around on one foot.”

  “Good,” I said. “You should feel secure knowing exactly where he is.”

  “It’s the incessant beat of imminent death,” Monk said. “Hop. Hop. Hop.”