by T Cooper
“Anna? Really? You would ignore all your pain to face your torturers with compassion, treat them as human beings?”
“They are human beings. Ignore? Never. I would treat them. Of course I’ve often thought of this. In German, die Deutsche Sprach. Our shared language.”
“In German.”
“That is the way that I reason, remember. I hope someday to work with patients in German again. It is in German that my life took place and in German it was destroyed. It would be a return for me.”
“You would analyze a Nazi?”
She hated the way he said that word. Not knowing the difference between Nazzi and Natsi. “I would treat any brute. We have to. It is the only hope.”
“That’s ironic. They benefit from your grace.”
“Grace and culture,” she spit with bitterness. These were the basis for German values. Grace meant not responding no matter how cruel the other’s actions. It was a disorder passing for etiquette.
“What do you fantasize teaching your Fascist patient?”
“That feelings are symbolic. They don’t have to be acted out in order to be taken seriously. They can be spoken. You can say, ‘I am afraid,’ instead of fleeing, instead of demonizing, instead of killing. Find out first if the thing you are destroying is really the cause of your fear.”
“That’s what you would say to a Nazi?”
She was picturing Georg Osterman. The boy she had hated in first grade, who she later saw wearing a swastika. After the war he became a dentist, she’d heard. “Yes.”
“And to me?”
“Yes.” She knew he was using Nazis as metaphors for his own emotional life. An increasingly common distortion among Americans.
“Doctor,” he said. “I really don’t agree with you. It feels like you are … you are, in some way … romanticizing mental illness. Almost as some kind of historical emblem. It’s not like loneliness, saved by love.”
“It’s a special kind of loneliness.”
“But it’s not just a feeling.” Larry was pacing now. Gesturing. This was a speech he had probably given in his living room, to his social worker wife. Now he had a chance to deliver it to its intended audience. “Like God. God doesn’t exist. It is just a feeling. But mental illness is real, like a molecule. You look at the pain and unhappiness, contradiction and conflict, in the person’s life. You analyze the events in that person’s past of which these breaks are consequences. You discuss and discuss, and the patient makes some headway. Perhaps a lot. But at some point, in some cases, understanding is not enough. The patient bravely faces all his truths and still he is haunted. Knowing, knowing is not all. There are biological sources of pain that cannot be cured by knowing. Knowing your arm is broken does not mend it.”
“No.” Anna was fed up now. This was beyond her responsibility to coddle. “It is the acting out of pain that is the illness. That is how the illness controls the person. Awareness, consciousness, the creation of choices. That is the healing.”
“But then the patient doesn’t get better,” he insisted. Whining, really. “And you look like a horse’s ass. You feel like one. A failure. You are a failure. Like my child, I want nachus. I want my child to marry a good man, to be a good mother, it reflects on me, on my manhood. I don’t want to wake up one day and my child is a schizophrenic or homosexual or alcoholic. Some of these diseases may have biological origins. They may be equal parts the failure of parenting and bad genes. So, talking will never resolve them. The patient really needs medication to get better.”
“No.” Anna was facing the truth now. Larry would not make a good doctor. He was lazy, lazy about himself and other people. “It is not the trauma that makes someone psychotic. It is the repression of the trauma that causes the illness. A person must face the truth, not deny or repress it. They must, or there is no healing. Otherwise, the repression poisons all future relationships. He constantly causes more pain by trying to protect himself from dangers that aren’t there. That lie only in his past.”
“You.” He was pointing now. “You expect that every person can simply have the revelation.”
“Yes, through relationship.” Anna was suddenly exhausted. She had invested so much in this man. But he was still a boy. He could not heal others. He was looking for a way out of himself, not a way to himself.
“You think that a person can just wake up one morning and get it, snap out of it. Well, Anna, they can’t. Some of them are under such a cloud of pain that they can’t see the revelation, even if it is staring them in the face. They need the medication to lift the cloud, so that they can see their own choices.”
She had to put a stop to this. “Is that how you feel about yourself?”
“How do you feel?”
Anna had a choice. He was being a bratty child, trying to stand up to his parent, his teacher. She could indulge him by answering, or just refuse.
“I feel …” she said. “That my sadness is …” She looked into her own heart to be honest. “Is slowly … subtly … that it is … transformed every time I speak truthfully with another human being.”
“I don’t feel that way.” He refused her gift. Again. No point then in offering anything else.
“Larry, there is so much sadness in you. This is our final supervision. I respect you. I trust your ability to face your limitations and overcome them.”
“Don’t manipulate me, doctor.”
“You feel manipulated because I believe in you.”
“Don’t convince me that I can overcome something that can’t be overcome. Then I will be a failure and you won’t be. It’s a setup. A trick. For you to remain superior, despite all your tragedy.”
She sat for a minute. Quiet. Once the volley ceased, he didn’t know what to do. He posed, then had to sit down. Now things were calmer.
“Let’s not try to obstruct right now,” she said softly. “We’re at a crucial moment. The understanding is within reach. Larry, of course you’re afraid of your wife and your daughter. Your parents didn’t know how to love and support you. How are you supposed to know what to do? It takes courage to love. You can love them. It’s just anxiety. Understand, and you won’t need drugs.”
“Anna, I’m surprised. You’re panicking. You’re desperately trying to manipulate me.” He jumped up then. So quickly, she was startled. He was in a fury, a rage. He raised his arms and voice. He grimaced. “You’re the one who is afraid,” he insisted. “YOU!” He pointed. “You’re afraid that your method won’t work with me. And if you can’t cure me with compassion, how can you save your family from the camps? If I need a pill, talking to the Nazis isn’t going to get you anywhere, and then your little revenge fantasy goes down the drain, doesn’t it?”
“You are very angry, let’s—”
He grabbed his overcoat and stomped to the door, pulled it open.
“Larry, what are—?”
“I’m leaving.” He looked like he wanted to hurt her.
“You can’t leave,” she said calmly. She feared nothing. “Not in the midst of the conflict. Talk it through and alternatives will be revealed.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Healing is just around the corner,” she said. “We’re almost there.”
He slammed the door behind him. She heard him stomp down the hallway and ring for the elevator. She heard him pound the elevator button and then stomp back down past her door again, to the staircase. She heard him flee down the stairs.
Anna sat in the chair for about twenty minutes. She rested. In that time, the sky finally opened and lightning cracked over the gray rooftops. It rained down onto the roofs, splattering them with its cleansing weight. An hour after napping in her chair, she took out her Underwood typewriter and set up some carbon paper and three sheets of onion. She typed the words, Manic Flight Reaction. And stared at them for a while. Yes, this was right. Then she wrote the following:
The courage to love does not pretend away the truth of human experience through manic flight
reactions. The courage to love endures the distress of disillusionment and frustration so that new value can be found. The courage to love is inexhaustible in its resources of general repentance, repair, and reconciliation, since this process of negotiation is the essence of dignity and creates the healing wholeness of the flawed and mortal we.
That night Anna ate dinner in a coffee shop. She had brisket and a boiled potato. Canned beets. It was a lonely night.
Too wet for a walk. When she came home she tried to listen to the radio but it depressed her. Her son was sick, but he could get better. Healing others was the key to his own salvation.
1968
THE RECRUITERS
BY RON KOVIC
THE RECRUITERS
When I was still in high school, about a month or so before I was to graduate, the Marine recruiters came down to my school with hopes of getting as many young men as possible from my graduating class to put on the uniform. I was so excited that day that for a few minutes before they arrived, I sat in my seat in the Massapequa High School auditorium wondering how I was going to react when they finally walked in. At first I thought I would stand up and salute, but after a while I figured that might look a little silly, so I then thought of maybe just sitting in my seat and humming a few bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I practiced a few, much to the dismay of a guy sitting next to me, who nudged me with his elbow to let me know it was time to stop. At about that moment, two smartly dressed Marines came marching into the auditorium.
“God, look at that,” I said.
“Yeah,” agreed a kid from the back row, “they’re really something.”
The Marines quickly walked to the front, climbed the stage, and suddenly to our surprise began tap-dancing right there in front of all of us. After a furious little jig, they started singing a song about a young man who loses his penis in the war but is still alive.
“Oh, if you lose your penis in a war,” sang the one Marine.
“Oh, if you lose your penis in a war,” sang the other.
“And you can’t make love with sexy girls no more,” sang the first one.
“Then don’t blame it on the old Marine Corps,” sang his partner.
“Yes, don’t blame it on the old Marine Corps …”
The entire auditorium began to boo.
“Hey, we don’t want to hear that part!” shouted a little fat kid from the front row.
“That’s not supposed to be part of the bargain,” said another boy.
“Yeah,” I found myself shouting from the back row, “I thought the Marine Corps built men—body, mind, and spirit!”
“I’m getting out of here,” said another kid not far from where I was sitting.
“You said it!” a kid in the front row shouted, throwing his books and pencils up in the air.
At that exact moment, both of the Marine recruiters pulled their pants down.
“What are you doing?!” shouted one of the teachers who had put the assembly together and had bragged about serving in the Marines during World War II and killing so many Japs he couldn’t count them all. “That’s against regulations!”
But by now both Marines had their pants all the way off.
“Their penises are gone!” shouted a boy from the back.
“They’ve been castrated!” yelled another boy.
“How’d you lose them?” said a voice from the front row.
“In a pool game,” said the one Marine.
“What kind of romantic battlefield wound is that?”
“It wasn’t too romantic,” said the Marine, pulling his pants back on.
“No penises,” I whispered to the guy next to me, who was slouching deep in his seat, holding onto his penis to make sure it was still there.
“God,” said the guy next to me, “I never thought the Marines were like that.”
“What happened in the pool hall?!” the teacher then shouted.
“Well, we just went in there to shoot a game of pool—”
“We were confident as hell,” interrupted his partner.
“Yeah, we had never lost a game of pool in our lives. We were Marines.”
“WE HAD TRADITION!” screamed his friend.
“So we went in there swaggering, two drunken Americans with a mission.”
“To win that pool game!” yelled a boy from the back.
“You’re damn right!” shouted both Marines as they zipped up their flies in unison.
“We were pretty cocky. Before the game even started, we bought drinks for everybody in the place.”
“Then what happened?” asked the teacher.
“Well, that’s when this little Vietnamese guy walked in and told us we were fucked and he was challenging not only us but the entire United States to a game of pool.”
“A championship match?” asked one of the boys in the front row.
“Yes,” said the one Marine politely. “This little short shit who couldn’t have weighed over ninety pounds is standing there in the bar telling everybody that he’s sick and tired of being pushed around by bullies like us and that he’s taking no more shit. We just laughed at him.”
“He was such a nobody,” said his partner, putting his hands on his hips.
“He was acting real uppity and arrogant.”
“So we accepted the little gook’s challenge. I racked the balls. We were playing eight ball. We grabbed our cue sticks, and that’s when the guy said he wasn’t using one.”
“Wasn’t using a cue stick?” said the teacher.
“Yeah, he whipped out this machete and announced to everybody in the bar that he was using it instead.”
“To play pool?” said the teacher.
“That’s right,” said the one Marine, “and he promises in front of everyone in the bar that if he loses he’ll be our servant for life. But if he wins …”
“He tells everybody he’s gonna cut our balls off.”
“What happened then?” asked a little boy in the front row, now standing up.
“Well, we just kept laughing at him.”
“Everybody in the bar laughed at him,” said his partner.
“Yeah, who did this short fucking shit think he was?”
“And besides, we had never lost a pool game. We didn’t know what losing meant.”
“So you bet your balls?!” I shouted.
“That’s right, we bet them without even thinking.”
“The crowd moved around the table and the game began. My partner broke. We had the high balls and the little Vietnamese guy had the low ones. For a while we were in the lead, but then the little guy started making these incredible shots with his machete that made everybody in the place become really quiet. I started to get a tingling sensation in my groin area.”
At that moment, every boy in the high school auditorium grabbed hold of his penis.
“I had never felt anything like it before in my life. We had never lost,” said his partner.
“It came down to one last shot. The Vietnamese guy had to sink the eight ball to win. It was an impossible shot. Everybody in the bar was betting against him. I’m telling you, nobody in the world thought he could make it. And then he just grabbed that big machete of his, closed his eyes—”
“Closed his eyes? He closed his eyes?” someone shouted.
“That’s right, he closed them, and there was this tremendous hush in the bar. You couldn’t hear a thing … and then it happened.”
“WHAT HAPPENED?” yelled the auditorium.
“He sunk the eight ball.”
“And then he made us put our penises up on the pool table.”
“And after a couple shots of whiskey …”
“And the crowd roaring like crazy …”
“HE CUT OUR DICKS OFF!”
“You let him cut them off?!” screamed the teacher.
“We had no choice …”
“We made a bet. It was a COMMITMENT!” shouted his partner, now starting to cry.
The auditori
um emptied very quickly after that, and when the final bell rang that afternoon, the Marine recruiters still stood crying on the stage of the auditorium.
1971
THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS
BY KEITH KNIGHT
1989
THE RESURRECTION MEN
BY THOMAS O’MALLEY
THE RESURRECTION MEN
I have sometimes dreamed that from time to time hours detached themselves from the lives of the angels and came here below to traverse the destinies of men.
—From Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
Mother sang Elizabethan madrigals and Catholic hymns and Baptist choruses and the low blue notes of Muddy Waters from the bottom of the Mississippi Delta. And in all of this she searched for the divine, those notes and measures that could hold the soul, make the heart ache, and break it in two. These songs shared a special grace, for in them my mother found her way to God.
When I woke screaming in the night she soothed me with music. Listen to this, she would say, taking my hand. The antique Victor crackled in the corner, a record humming from the old speakers. What do you feel? And I would close my eyes and gradually sway with the sound until the humming filled me and there was no clamor or thought or worry in my head. Until I felt completely at peace, until all the monsters were gone.
Monsters, she said, was from the Latin word monstrum, meaning omen, meaning portent. A monster was a messenger, and in olden days they were considered to be divine messengers. A monster, she said, was something very special and important given to people, it explained that which could not be explained, and only the very blessed received such aid. A monster was not something that could hurt you. Next time you dream or have a nightmare, try to think of it as a message, it is telling you something, if only you can listen and hear what it is that it is trying to tell you. It is not always about bad things, she said, most often it is something good.
I looked at my mother and said: Like hearing God speak to you when you’re born? Or believing Daddy is really alive, or hearing Elvis sing “Blue Moon,” or watching Neil Armstrong take one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind?
