Ben Soul

by Richard George

considering?”

  “None.”

  “Oh?”

  “I am aafraid my patient would be ignored in an institutional warehouse. And, I’ve become very close to him.” Dr. Field put his hands behind his head and locked them. He stared up at the ceiling.

  “Close in what way, Chester?”

  “Most of the time like a father, or an older brother.” He continued staring at the ceiling. Dr. Tory waited. She sensed Dr. Field was at a break-through point. After a while Dr. Field continued.

  “I’m also attracted, a lot, to one of the personalities. Sexually attracted, I mean, and romantically.” Dr. Field let out a long breath; it almost whistled as it came out of his throat. “One of the personalities is attracted to me.”

  “And the other two personalities?” Dr. Tory inquired, and scribbled furiously in her notebook.

  “The personality who attracts me, Beau, doesn’t seem to feel one way or another for me, or for anyone else. Juan is the one who has propositioned me.” Dr. Field’s face was almost as red as his hair.

  “Chester,” Dr. Tory said, “you’ve got two or three threats to your license and your practice of therapy buried in what you’ve just told me. Do I have to list them for you?”

  “No,” Dr. Field said. “I know, doctor/patient liaisons are forbidden. With good reason.”‘

  “The twisty truth is, that’s probably not as serious as your admitting an attraction to another man.” Dr. Tory sighed and stared at her notebook, looking for words. “I know there’s controversy in the profession about whether homosexuality is a disease or a natural occurrence. It was only three years ago, in 1973, that the APA removed it from the list of mental disorders.” She gestured toward the journals racked on her bookshelves.

  “You know how it is, Chester. Many professionals will accept it in patients, but not in colleagues. I’m not sure what position I hold on the subject. I do know it’s a syndrome no one wants in a professional therapist, especially the institutions that hire therapists.” She frowned at her notebook. “What do you want to do about this mess with your patient?”

  “The right thing. I don’t want to have an affair with any of the personalities. I don’t think that’s right, for any of them or for me.” He sighed, turned it into a cough, and sat up. He looked at her. “How do I dissuade Juan’s romantic impulses? As he puts it, he’s proposed to me.”

  “I presume you mentioned doctor/patient relations are forbidden?”

  “Yes. It didn’t have much effect.” Chester rubbed his forehead with one hand. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  “All you can do is tell him ‘no’ until he runs out of yesses. Or turn his ttreatment over to somebody else.”

  “What about Juan’s argument that he isn’t a patient?”

  “Holds no water. The various current understandings of this disorder don’t permit the therapist to separate the personalities into separate persons. Either turn this ppatient over to another therapist, or get this romantic entanglement out of your system by finding somebody or something else to focus your sexual needs on.” Dr. Tory’s stern face hardened into stone. “Keep me posted. You will need to work on this for some time.”

  “Thank you, Amanda, for reinforcing my own understanding of ethics.” Dr. Field stood. So did Dr. Tory. His face was on a level with her modest bosom. He realized he was looking right at it. He stifled the distaste he suddenly felt for her anatomy. He raised his eyes to her face. “I’ll make an appointment with your secretary on my way out,” he said.

  Juan’s Fear

  Dr. Field welcomed Juan into his treatment room. Juan didn’t wait for the usual helloes and other social amenities. His face fixed in a worried frown, he asked, “Did you talk to your peers, Doc?”

  “Yes, Juan, I did,” Dr. Field said. “Please, sit down.”

  Juan took his place in the client’s chair. It was large enough he could have curled up in it (some clients did—the one time Luis had emerged, he’d curled up like a small child and avoided looking at Dr. Field, or anythin in the room). Juan perched on the edge of the chair. He had his knees pressed together. His elbows were tightly wrapped against his sides. He clasped his hands in his lap; his knuckles went white with the tightness of his grasp. Dr. Field read anxiety in every one of Juan’s muscles. Even the scalp muscles on his shaved head seemed knotted.

  “My peers agree with me that three personalities in one body make up just one person.”

  “So?

  “So, you are, just like Beau and Luis, my patient. I cannot have a different kind of relationship with you than I have with them.” Juan sagged. Dr. Field could think of no other word for it. The man’s shoulders slumped, he hunched forward, and the muscles in his jaw went slack. For a moment Dr. Field worried another new personality might emerge, so great was the change in Juan. Even Beau at his most casual, legs spread wide and leaning back in the chair, never had seemed as boneless as Juan did now.

  “What to do? What to do?” Juan said to his feet. He had gone somewhere that shut out the room and Dr. Field.

  “I’m sorry, Juan,” Dr. Field said. He doubted Juan heard him. Juan drew his knees up to his chest, clasped his arms around them, and commenced rocking on the edge of the client chair. Dr. Field waited. Either Juan would calm down, or one of the others would emerge. Occasionally, Dr. Field looked out the window. No pigeons pecking the ledge today.

  Juan rocked for several minutes before he stopped. He looked at Dr. Field. “What will it take?” Juan asked. His stare fixed on Dr. Field. The doctor wanted to cringe under the veiled anger and fear in that stare. He steeled himself to remain the calm therapist.

  “What will what take?” he asked Juan.

  Juan went on staring at him, now as immobile as a catatonic patient. Long minutes passed while Dr. Field waited.

  “What will it take to get a safe place?” Juan said suddenly, and in a loud voice. He stood up, waving his arms in agitation, and began pacing back and forth in the small space between the client chair and Dr. Field’s chair. “What will we do to be safe?”

  “Juan,” Dr. Field said with authority, “sit down!” Juan collapsed onto the floor, a heap of troubled person.

  “What do you need to be safe from?” Dr. Field went on in his reasonable therapist mode.

  “Want, starvation, homelessness, the cruel ways of the world.” Juan drew his knees up to his chest again and began rocking. This time he moaned a three-note tune as he rocked.

  “Juan!” Dr. Field said sharply. He repeated Juan’s name three times before the man stopped rocking and moaning. Juan looked up at the doctor.

  ‘Now, Juan, a question. Did you proposition me because you have romantic or sexual feelings for me, or because of something else?’

  “Something else,” Juan said. “I don’t know much about how things work,” he said, “but Beau always got food or money or shelter by having sex.”

  “There are other ways, safer ways. I’m understanding you correctly, if I say you propositioned me because you thought I’d make a good meal ticket?”

  “Yes,” Juan said. “I know you and trust you. I don’t know anybody else, not well enough to trust them.” He smiled ruefully at the doctor. “To tell the truth, I don’t want to have sex with anybody, really. That’s Beau’s bailiwick, not mine. But I’ve got to keep this body going. We both know Beau will only run it to ruin in no time, and Luis doesn’t even know what to do with it.”

  “And you feel responsible for the body?”

  “Yes, and the other two, also. They can’t take care of themselves at all. I guess I’m not much smarter.’’

  “Juan, get up. Our session’s almost over. I promise you I’ll find a way to help you make your safe place. No more sex offers, though. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” Juan stood up. “See you later, Doctor.”‘

  “Yes. Later.” Dr. Field walked him to the door.

  Late
r that week, when he went for his follow-up session with Dr. Tory, Dr. Field happily reported the resolution of his patient relationship problem. Dr. Tory advised him such complex interpersonal interactions seldom resolved themselves in a few days. She urged him to seek further therapy around his lack of professional distance from his patient. She also urged him to seek treatment for his “latent homosexuality” before it cost him his career, and offered to refer him to a discreet male therapist. Dr. Field wisely declined the opportunity. Some treasures he wished to keep for himself.

  Some months later Dr. Field wrote to Dr. Tory.

  Dr. Chester Field

  Memorandum to: Dr. Amanda Tory

  July 10, 1980

  Amanda,

  You have been a good friend and colleague. I bless you for it. I have completed my official resignation letter from the City Institute for the Mentally Destitute. I plan now to retire. My income from my maternal grandmother, Eva Green’s, legacy will provide a comfortable, if somewhat austere, living for myself, and Luis-Beau-Juan. Additionally, a friend, Señora Salvación Mandor, has offered me a low-rent cottage in a seaside village north of the City. I think it will be an ideal place for Luis-Beau-Juan to heal as much as he/they can heal.

  Be assured, I still maintain the doctor-patient relationship, or at least, a father-son relationship. I’ve moved myself, with your excellent therapuetic help, beyond any unseemly behavior with Luis-Beau-Juan. He’s now convinced, I hope, that my care and concern for him will