by Philip Smith
Emergency basis? I knew it: things were really bad, much worse than I anticipated. My few times in bed with a bunch of hippies had led to a crisis of epic proportions. My concerns of living in a spook-filled house were quickly forgotten. Thank God I came to be diagnosed just in time! Now I needed to be cured of this horrible psychiatric problem. I was definitely a case. This might even be one for the medical journals.
I had imagined our session to be something more along the lines of slow, deep hypnotic conversation in which every word and every sentence revealed profound truths. When I was ten, my mom had taken me to see a black-and-white movie about Freud with startling closeups, which had permanently formed my image of psychiatrists. Mom loved anything having to do with the drama of tortured psychology.
“This is going to be tough and a lot of work, but we will get you on the right track,” the psychiatrist promised. “As soon as you leave, I will call the other doctor and make the appointment for you. Now, what else is on your mind?”
“Um, I guess we’ve covered just about everything for today.” I thought this was an appropriate closing statement for my first session with this doctor. As I left his office, I realized I had used up all my savings on this one visit, and I couldn’t figure out how I was going to pay for two doctors. I was in a state of shock at what a mess I was. Needing to see two psychiatrists simultaneously five days a week sounded pretty bad to me.
Because of the severity of my illness and my compromised financial status, I had no choice but to talk to my father about seeing the psychiatrists. How else could I continue my very necessary mental health treatments? I was now concerned that if I didn’t go through with treatment, I might end up emotionally damaged for life. Even though I knew Pop wanted the best for me, I was positive that he would veto any further visits to the shrinks. There was no way the son of a psychic was going to be lying on the couch when the spirits could do a better job for free. However, because of my critical psychiatric situation, I felt that I needed urgent intervention that was beyond the scope of the spirits. I wanted to try something really unusual—like professional medical care.
That night, after dinner with my mother, I went next door to speak with my father about the seriousness of my condition. He was upstairs in the loft bedroom, sitting at his desk. I climbed the circular staircase and sat on the couch behind him. Using what little courage I had, I blurted, “Pop, I need to see a psychiatrist.”
He didn’t seem the least surprised by my statement. But then again, why should he? Most likely someone or something had already informed him that I had seen a shrink. Still, he asked, “Why? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t tell you. But I have to go. It’s very important. If I don’t, I’ll go crazy.” As soon as the words “I can’t tell you” left my mouth, I realized I had made a huge mistake. There was no point in not telling my father anything, since he already knew or could easily find out. One way or another, I was going to have to come clean with the whole story. But before my father could even respond, the lamp above his desk blinked rapidly three times as if the bulb was about to burn out. “Uh-oh, here we go,” I thought. This was the signal to my father that his friend Arthur Ford was trying to contact him with an important message.
When Arthur was alive—and even after he died—he would communicate with my father via psychic means. Instead of ringing my father up on the phone, Arthur would blink the lights to initiate the communication. Sometimes we would be having lunch in a restaurant, and the lights in the room would stutter three times. Startled, people would look up from their meal, look at each other, shrug, and go back to eating, unaware that my father was receiving a psychic message. It didn’t matter if we were driving on the highway or in a movie theater, Arthur found a way to blink a light and let my father know that he wanted to talk to him. Arthur always checked in when he had some timely comment or urgent lifesaving information about one of Pop’s patients. Sometimes Arthur would blink the lights when my father was in midsentence in order to help clarify what my father was saying. Like a good secretary, my father would then take out a pen and patiently write down Arthur’s message on a napkin or any other handy piece of paper.
In one of his communiqués, Arthur explained the blinking lights this way: “I discovered that the energy force I was able to tap into was more powerful than the power used for lighting, and that if I directed this power to the light source, it interrupted the flow and cut it off momentarily and caused a blinking effect. I merely use it as my calling card and a means of alerting you that I am with you.”
The instant the lights blinked above his desk, my father casually announced, “Oh, Arthur’s here; he has a message for me.” He began to write down Arthur’s words on a yellow legal pad as if taking dictation. The timing of the blinking lights made it obvious to me that somehow Arthur had been listening in on our entire conversation. Now he was going to disclose every detail about my sex life and my visit to the psychiatrist to my father. This was extremely embarrassing. Arthur’s presence made me realize that there were probably spirits in the room as well, also listening and watching. I hated this intrusion into my personal life. Why couldn’t I just talk to my father in private without eavesdropping spirits? Why was Arthur sticking his nose into my affairs at this very uncomfortable moment? My father remained hunched over the desk and filled pages of his pad with this very long message.
For the first time since I had known Arthur, I became really angry at his presence. Didn’t this guy ever sleep or go spook other people besides my father and me? While Pop continued to write, I said under my breath, “Stupid know-it-all assholes, get the fuck out of here.” I didn’t care who heard me. I felt cornered and betrayed, as if someone I trusted was tattling on me.
Minutes later, my father swiveled around in his chair to face me with several pages of notes, as if he had hot news right off the teletype. Without any introduction, he began to read what Arthur had dictated. “On his own, Philip went to see a psychiatrist because he is worried about the interference of spirits in his life. He doesn’t realize how fortunate he is to have them watching out for him so he can avoid the problems usually confronted by other mortals. However, they understand his desire for independence and will respect that. Because of this visit, Philip now incorrectly thinks that he has a psychiatric problem because he is experimenting sexually. This is normal and nothing to be concerned with. He thinks seeing a psychiatrist will help. It won’t. In fact, it may make things worse. I wish he would reconsider. However, he should make his own decisions. The doctor has recommended that he see another psychiatrist named Dr. Edwin. His office is located at 1945 Twin Lakes Drive, phone 983-1407. I do not approve of this doctor or his methods. Only Philip can decide what it is that he wants to do. As always, he has free will…”
“Free will?” I thought to myself. “Since when do I have free will, with every damn spook and psychic in the universe poking his nose into my business?” It was not surprising that Arthur knew not only Dr. Edwin’s name and address but his phone number as well. Plus, now my father knew the latest installment of my sex life. All I wanted was the money to see this psychiatrist. I couldn’t wait to get on that couch and complain about these fucking spooks hovering all around, bugging my mind and telling my father my every secret. I wanted them to go away and leave me alone, but I knew there was no escape from these guys.
Pop continued to read the rest of the message, which went on in detail about my various “problems” for several pages. After he was done reading, Pop said, “Well, you heard what Arthur said. What do you want to do?” My father and I were allowing this dead person to participate in the decision making regarding my psychological well-being as if he were a psychiatrist himself.
“I want to go to the psychiatrist,” I said somewhat petulantly. Anything seemed better than dealing with these busybody mind-readers. I didn’t care what it cost or how much work was involved. I was desperate for someone to hear me out, to take me seriously and not laugh at this situation that
was driving me nuts. Besides, the doctor made it seem as if I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown (which was in vogue at the time—usually suffered by rich housewives). As much as I appreciated alternative lifestyles and creative personalities, I did not want to become a mental ward of the state.
“You don’t have to go.”
“Yes I do.”
“Maybe you should think it over for a day or two.”
“No. I know that I need to go. I have to.”
“But if you gave me a few minutes, we could get to the bottom of what’s bothering you, and we could finally fix it. You don’t have to go through all of this—primitive—psychiatry, which really doesn’t work anyway. It’s very easy, if you’d just let us—”
I wanted no part of my father and his friends in my head. “No. I think it’s better if I go to the doctor; this is all kind of complicated.” I was looking forward to finally saying to a sympathetic ear, “How would you feel if you were having sex with your girlfriend and felt your father or one of his invisible buddies watching you?”
Not only was I genuinely concerned for my mental well-being, but I also thought that going to a psychiatrist was very sophisticated—even though the one I had chosen was an idiot. He was, nonetheless, a psychiatrist. I couldn’t wait to say to Maya in conversation, “My psychiatrist said…”
Despite Arthur’s warning, my father reluctantly agreed to pay for the doctors. A day before my first visit, Dr. Edwin called to confirm the appointment. My rabid desire to see a psychiatrist was cooling down. Now I was not so sure that my supernatural problem would be understood by anyone. My whole situation was not something that was easy to explain in a forty-five-minute session. The longer I stayed away from the psychiatrist, the less disturbed I felt. Before he hung up, Dr. Edwin said, “I’d like you to look through magazines and cut out pictures of men you find attractive.”
I wasn’t quite sure what the point of this was, but it sounded like some sort of art project, so I agreed. “Oh, okay. Any pictures?”
“Just pictures that you like. Maybe you want to paste them on a board.”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
That evening I had Maya come over to help. She seemed excited that I was going to a psychiatrist. “My psychiatrist wants me to tear out pictures of good-looking men,” I explained. Something about saying “my psychiatrist” made us both feel very grown up.
“What for? Don’t you think that is a little strange? What does this have to do with you and your father?”
“I don’t know, maybe this is like a Rorschach test or something.”
“That makes sense. Okay, let’s get started.” Maya opened Newsweek to a picture of a gray-haired gentleman drinking scotch. “What about this one?” she asked.
“Nah, I don’t know; something’s not right there. He looks kinda old to me. Let me get my Playboys down from the closet. I’ll bet there might be some in there.” I kept my treasure trove of Playboys carefully hidden. For the next several hours, we cut and pasted pictures of men from shaving ads, hosiery ads, and English Leather cologne ads. By the end of the evening, we had about sixteen guys nicely mounted on pieces of colored cardboard.
“This looks like enough,” I said as we flipped through the pictures.
“I still think you should have gone with that skinny guy in the jeans ad.”
“I don’t know, he just didn’t do anything for me. This whole thing is sort of stupid.”
“Yeah, but going to a psychiatrist might be helpful.”
“I guess so. Now I’m not so sure that this is going to do any good; it’s just too weird.”
“You’re used to weird.”
Dr. Edwin was an average-looking guy in his mid-forties. Despite his apparent blandness, I sensed something shadowy about him. In the barely lit room, I could hardly make out his features. He reminded me of Dr. No—dark, manipulative, and evil. The office had no windows, dim lights, and the thermostat was set at a chilly sixty-five degrees. The place had the feel of a cave.
On my first visit, I sat across a large desk from the doctor, and we exchanged brief pleasantries for a few minutes. I was waiting to show him my handiwork and ask for an explanation as to what we were going to do with these images. He didn’t say a word about the pictures. Instead he motioned to a large, black, and somewhat ominous leather recliner at the far end of the room and asked me to take a seat. I was swallowed up by this anonymous La-Z-Boy. Without any warning, he quickly strapped me down and then fastened electrodes to each of my forearms with Velcro straps. With the touch of a button, the lights were lowered almost to complete darkness. It all happened so fast that I didn’t even have a chance to ask what was going on.
Taking the chair next to me, Dr. Edwin held up the first of my pictures. It was a guy from a Chevrolet ad. In a flat, mechanical voice, Dr. Edwin said, “Imagine having sex with him.” Just because I had a couple of encounters with a group of women and men, Dr. Edwin assumed that I wanted to have sex with men from magazine ads. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get excited looking at pictures of guys combing Brylcreem through their hair or smoking a True Blue cigarette.
Now that I was strapped down, I thought that this was my opportunity to talk about what Arthur said last night in a message to my father. I figured I had nothing left to lose. As I was getting ready to speak, Dr. Edwin insisted, “Imagine having sex with him.” Clearly, it must have been showing on my face that I wasn’t trying hard enough. I was beginning to think that these psychiatrists were a lot stranger than my father.
Next to the doctor was a small black metal box with two dials and wires leading from the back directly to my arms. Seconds later, while I was supposed to be deep in sexual fantasy, Dr. Edwin pushed and held a small red button on the face of the metal box.
This unleashed a cascade of electric shocks through my body. Just as in the Frankenstein movies, where the monster receives massive dosages of electricity, I bucked as the voltage surged through me. My mouth flew open, my eyes rolled backward, and my mind went numb. On cue, I made a low guttural sound of controlled pain: “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” He must have forgotten that there was a skinny kid attached to the end of those wires as he kept his finger on the button for what felt like hours. After running through all the images (that’s a lot of sexual partners in forty-five minutes, more than even I could handle), I was unhooked, unstrapped, and told, “See you Thursday.”
On the way home, I felt both oddly optimistic and extremely nauseous. Maybe those jolts of electricity could burn away the demons, and I would be spook free. I imagined that the electricity would somehow destroy the circuits in my brain that allowed the spirits to eavesdrop on my life. I decided to let Dr. Edwin continue his aversion therapy. I needed something, anything, to help me make sense of my life. So far the drugs and the sex had not really worked. As crazy as Dr. Edwin’s methods seemed, I wanted to believe some good would come of it. Besides, at that point, I didn’t see much difference between a doctor using electricity to cure my demons and my father harnessing invisible energy to cure disease. This just seemed like a more modern way to go about it.
It seemed pointless to discuss this first session with my father, since most likely his spirit spies were in the doctor’s office with me and had already filed their report. I also decided that it was best not to tell my mother. I didn’t know how she would react, and it was just too long a story to have to tell her. Frankly, I did not feel like explaining why I was getting hooked up to a machine to get shocked while looking at ads of men smoking cigarettes. Anything I would have said to her would have been analyzed by her crystalline logic, making the whole enterprise seem ridiculous, so I kept the entire experience to myself. Besides, I was already a professional secret keeper; what was one more item tucked away from public scrutiny?
There was just one problem with keeping my latest secret. The next day my forearms were covered with raised red circular welts where the electrodes had burned into my skin. These burns made me look like a junkie or
a botched suicide case. I immediately went out and bought some long-sleeved shirts—a rarity in Miami—which I wore in the 94-degree heat. Maya assumed that I was shooting drugs. At the time, any kind of addiction was considered extremely cool, so I never had to explain the red sores on my arms when we were naked.
After a few weeks, I dropped Betty’s father. No matter how many times I tried to steer the session toward discussing my father and his healings, the doctor would start screaming at me about my disgusting sexual perversion. Since I was already getting shocked for my disgusting sexual perversion, I figured I didn’t need to spend more money to hear it in stereo. The aversion shocks were a sufficiently bizarre therapy that I convinced myself that it was somehow reorienting the circuits in my brain and making me immune to the supernatural influence.
I stayed with Dr. Edwin for another two months until I realized that the whole exercise was pointless, just as my father and Arthur had warned me. I was tired of the welts on my arm, the nausea, and feeling like a trained dog. The magic cure-all for an undiagnosed illness was not forthcoming. Drugs, sex, and shocks had all failed to create a desired state of blissful unenlightenment. I was running out of ideas as to how to self-medicate or self-analyze myself into a nonsupernatural existence.
eleven
Futurama
While buying a pack of cigarettes in Super X Drugs, I noticed a small pile of tickets left on the windowsill by the door for a free lecture offering “a release from all problems through the science of Dianetics.”
“Wow,” I thought, “I could certainly use a release from all problems through anything available, especially something legal.” Hopefully it didn’t involve jolts of electricity.
Whatever Dianetics was, it seemed to be what I was looking for to set me free. I put the ticket in my pocket and knew with absolute certainty that I was ready to convert to Scientology. Just the name, Scientology, sounded like the future to me. I imagined high priests guarded by men in black rubber space suits with ray guns. Somehow I sensed that the premise of Scientology was instant erasure of who you are, followed by an instant creation of who you would like to be. My father’s spirits seemed so ancient and creaky compared to the futuristic appeal of Scientology. Yep, this was it. I was going to become a Scientologist. Good-bye hocus-pocus, good-bye séances, and good-bye nosy spirits. Hello futurama.
