Psychology and Other Stories (31 page)

“We use a kind of shorthand. And you always got to compare it with the tapes before filing anything officially. But yeah, mostly everything.”

“Show me.”

Her fingers hovered above the typewriter. “Say something.”

“Uh … The world is too much with us. Uh, late and soon, getting and spending, we uh, lay waste our powers. Little we see in … nature that is ours.”

She rolled her eyes. “Say something
quick
.”

With an effort, Strickland babbled, “Once upon a time there was a boy who got his foot stuck in a radiator and some cats then came along and jousted one another with the footballs in the heart-attack revelation of the final days of September and all the mothers were whimsical so whimsical in their summer dresses. How's that?”

Trace read it back to him. He clapped his hands and she curtsied.

There was a moment of silence. They looked away.

“You know, it's funny,” he said.

“What?”

“It's only now that I feel like … Although technically …”

“Yeah?”

“Never mind.”

“Well, hell's bells. I gotta go.” At the door she turned back and said, “When you call …”

“Yes?”

“
If
you call … let it ring once, hang up, then call again. That way I'll know it's you.”

“All right. When I call.”

He sat in the witness box. Furrowing his brow, he leaned forward and said, “That is correct.” The loudness of his voice in the empty room startled him. He smirked, allowed the smile to grow cold, then said sarcastically, “Yes, I suppose you
could
say that.”

In the cafeteria, Strickland said, “And potatoes and the steamed vegetables.”

“It's only zucchini today, that all right?”

“That's fine. I don't mind.”

Strickland stood at the front of a small classroom, listening to a debate among his students.

“Yes, but self-reflectiveness can be conceptualized as a self-organized subject-object relation where both the subject and the object of attention are the self.”

“We all know what introspection is, there's no need to define it.”

“What I would like defined is this suicidal ideation. Why not just say thoughts of suicide?”

“So … he killed his family because he was depressed and wanted to die?”

They looked at Strickland, who said, “It's not a true story. You tell me.”

After a pause, a girl in a black turtleneck said, “Quite probably his ego boundary had expanded to include his family, so naturally suicide would include them as well.”

Strickland raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

She said, “He just never got around to himself.”

Strickland sat in his office, watching a video. On the screen, Orson Welles said, “Well thank you, Doctor. Now uh, can you tell us how far this tendency to what you call schizophrenia had progressed with Artie Strauss?”

The distinguished, goateed man on the witness stand crossed his legs and said forcefully, “Not with any degree of exactitude. We do know that the habit of lying, indulging in fantasies, and telling stories which the boy developed in infancy had progressed to the stage where he himself was having difficulty distinguishing between what was true and what was not true …”

The girl in the turtleneck appeared in the doorway.

“Oh, hi!” Strickland jumped up and fumbled for the remote control just as the phone rang. They both laughed. “Sorry, Marianne, I'll just—hello?”

“Come now,” cried the television, “you are an expert and under oath, is your diagnosis insanity or not!”

He gestured for her to wait but she shook her head, mouthed an apology or a promise, and was gone.

“Under oath I cannot answer that, sir. Insanity is a legal term, not a medical one. I am a doctor, not a lawyer.”

“Yes, sorry, hello?”

“Daniel Strickland?”

He trotted up the wide steps of the school. “I must have gotten my days mixed up. Howdy, Sarge.”

“Hi.”

The boy's teacher, a young woman in a yellow floral-print dress, wrung her hands in satisfaction at this successful reunion. “He was no trouble, Mr. Strickland.”

“What'd you learn today, Benderson?”

“Buts.”

“I often stay a bit late on Tuesdays over my correcting.”

“Butts?”

“Conjunctions,” she explained. “Ands and buts and what else?”

“Ors,” said Ben.

“Very good. One little matter,” she said, dropping her voice. “Since you're here.”

Ben went on ahead to the car, alternately clomping and scuffing his feet like a zombie.

The teacher wrung her hands. She had a smattering of freckles across one clavicle.

“Ben,” she said, “likes to eat … dirt.”

“Yes. We know.”

“Oh!”

“It's called pica.”

“I thought that was only pregnant women.”

“Apparently not.” After a moment he elaborated: “We think perhaps it came about as a result of little tidbits left in some of the houseplants by his half-sister. She believes in composting.”

“Tidbits?”

“Teabags and carrot tops and egg shells and things.”

She looked with dismay at the boy buckling himself into the back seat of the car.

“Egg shells too?”

“My wife assures me it's a phase.”

“Yes, but is it … healthy?”

“Oh,” Strickland sighed, “a lot of them at that age toy with the idea of saving the world. Especially the ones from so-called broken homes. Form of compensation, presumably … But she'll grow out of it. We all do.”

“Melanie? Martie?”

Ben said, “Nobody home.”

Strickland said into the phone, “Is Stephanie there? Daniel Strickland. Yes, Ben's … No, it'd be for now. Yes. No. Thanks anyway.”

He looked at his son.

He stopped the car but did not get out.

“It won't be more than a couple of hours,” he said.

“Okay,” the boy said.

“Just be … nice to her, all right?”

“I'm nice to everyone.”

“All right. Good man. And stay away from the pool.”

Beryl cooed, “What a lovely surprise. Come in, young man, come in.”

Strickland said, “It won't be more than a couple of hours.”

“That's fine, of course it is, we'll be just fine won't we young man.”

“Well, see you later, Sergeant.”

“Okay,” the boy said. “Thanks.”

When Strickland was gone, Ben said, “This is a big house.”

“It was my husband's. He was a faaamous movie director. Do you like movies?”

“I like documentaries.”

“Good! I'll show you some photographs.”

“Do you have a …” He gazed out the tall windows, then pulled himself away. “Anything to eat?”

Strickland walked along the narrow sidewalk, looking at addresses.

He noticed a young man proceeding methodically from car to car, trying the door handles. Strickland opened his mouth, closed it, then stepped out into the street.

“Excuse me,” he called. “Can I help you?”

The man looked over, his face blank.

“Are you … Are any of these cars yours?”

“… Yeah.”

“Well … which one?”

“I don't know, man.”

Strickland came closer so he would not have to shout. “I'm afraid I don't understand. You don't know which is yours?”

“I forget where I parked,” the man said.

“But … This will sound stupid of me, but … that doesn't make any sense.”

“I locked my keys inside.”

“But … is one of these cars yours or not?”

The man cast a thoughtful glance over his shoulder. “I might've parked on a different street, I guess.”

“Wait a second.”

“I'll keep looking. Peace, man.”

He disappeared around a corner, and Strickland stood there, frowning at the parked cars.

As he came up the walkway, a child ran out the front door and across the street, calling out in a loud whisper to a group of others, “He's coming!”

The building was even more rundown inside. The corridors were dim, the walls peeling. The sound of an argument filtered down the stairwell.

Mike's wife, Roz, threw open the door, holding it for a moment at arm's length as if ready to slam it shut again. “Oh good,” she said.

Strickland hesitated. “I'm …”

Mike's bellow came from inside the apartment: “It him?”

“Well, come on in. He's in the den.”

Mike came bounding across the cluttered room to shake his hand. “Well,” he said. “Sure enough.”

“Hello again, Mike.”

Mike kicked a toy truck across the room. “Fucking kids' fucking shit,” he apologized.

They sat down.

“So here you are. My turf.” He whistled some. “Doing all the whistling I can while I'm still in the world,” he explained. “Don't let you whistle in the clink.”

“That seems harsh.”

“Naw,” said Mike. “It ain't respectful. Some of those guys there for life. Man, get the fuck out of here!”

Strickland turned his head. One of the children he had seen in the street ducked out of sight.

“Man, I told them motherfuckers two hours. What's it been, five fucking minutes?”

Roz said, “Your pop is gonna whoop your asses something good.” To Strickland she said, “We don't uh, have no uh, any coffee. Mike can't drink it, on account of his kidney.”

“Kidney, shit. I got stomach problems.”

“You want some tea instead?”

“That's just fine. I don't mind.”

“That bitch thinks she knows everything because her sister is a big-shot fucking nurse, but she don't know shit.”

“You had these stomach problems long?,” Strickland asked.

“That
is
it
!” Mike leapt to his feet, stomping noisily in place. From the hallway came screams and the clatter of fleeing footsteps. Mike sat back down. “Fucking monsters got minds of their own.”

“You may as well tell them to come in,” suggested Strickland.

Mike said, “Huh?”

Strickland sat with Mike, Roz, and five of their children in the den. A sixth appeared in the doorway.

Roz said, “Well, come on over, dopey.”

Without taking her eyes off Strickland, the little girl crouched at her father's feet and pressed her face against his leg.

“Clamantha,” Roz told Strickland.

“Well, that's all of them,” said Mike. “The whole goddamn brood.”

The children fidgeted. Their parents stared at the floor.

Strickland sipped his tea. “What would you all be doing right now if I wasn't here?”