Psychology and Other Stories (36 page)

Then he drove home.

Martie was sitting in the kitchen over a cup of coffee.

“Good,” she said when he came in.

Strickland went to the window. “Your friend give you a ride home?”

“No.
Your
friend. Nigel was drunk. So were you.”

He turned around. “The guy is a … He pushes his glasses up with his ring finger, Martie. His
ring
finger. Any other finger would make sense—”

“What about
her
? She collects polar bear knick-knacks.”

“We didn't even sleep together.”

“Oh no?”

“No.” After a pause he said, “It's worse than that.”

“You like her.”

He sat down at the table. “I liked the idea of liking someone again.”

She slapped him, then laughed through tears at the look on his face.

He tried to slap her, but she blocked him, then slapped him again. He reeled back, knocking his chair over. He righted it, then pushed it across the floor at her. She jumped out of the way, grabbed the nearest thing to hand—half a loaf of bread—and threw it at him. He swatted it out of the air and ducked the toaster which followed.

“You're crazy!”

“
You ‘re
crazy!”

She emptied the cutlery drawer onto the floor at his feet. He tore the dish tray out of the dishwasher and threw it at her legs.

Ben sat up in bed, in the dark.

“I wasn't sleeping with him either!”

“Oh, come on!”

“For someone with such a big brain you can be a real idiot. I only kept going with him because he was the only one who said we didn't have to!”

The phone rang.

He said, “Is that true?”

“I'm not getting that,” she said.

“Well, neither am I.”

They sat at opposite ends of the table, the floor around them scattered with broken dishes.

Martie said, “Why can't we make each other feel like that again?”

“You mean anymore?”

“I mean again.”

He touched her arm.

She said, “I don't know what I want.”

“Maybe that's because you don't want anything.”

The phone rang again.

Martie returned and said, “That was the hospital.”

In the bright, cluttered waiting room, Martie said, “Atrocious the way these places are run. Like a bus station.”

Strickland frowned and nodded. Ben wriggled in his lap.

A doctor entered and Martie stood up.

“Mrs. Esposito?”

She sat down and muttered, “Do I look like a Mrs. Esposito?”

“They're doing the best they can.”

“That's what they said at Auschwitz.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Endicott?”

“Can she hear us?”

Melanie said, “I can hear you.”

The doctor said, “She'll be a bit groggy for the next twenty-four hours or so, but no harm done.”

“Thank you,” said Strickland.

“A … psychologist will want to talk to the three of you, before she checks out.”

“I am a psychologist,” said Martie, “and so is my husband.”

“Then you'll understand.”

“I understand that you must have a bloody good union here.”

The doctor left and Martie sat down beside the bed.

“Oh, you stupid, stupid girl.”

“Leave me alone.”

Strickland said to Ben, “Let's wait outside.”

“What were you thinking? You little idiot. You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid—”

In the waiting room, Ben ate dirt out of a potted plant. Strickland slapped his hand.

“You … You'll spoil your appetite.”

The boy looked at his father in amazement, then started to cry.

After a long pause, Massick shifted his bulk behind the desk and said, “With all due respect, I think you've got the wrong end of the stick on this one, Doctor. I don't believe I ever said anything about insanity.”

“But,” said Strickland, “you're pleading insanity. You're pleading Mike not guilty by reason of insanity.”

“That's a technicality. What we fundamentally have here is a jury trial. That means twelve bozos deciding guilty or not guilty. Simple as that. Never mind this by reason of insanity bushwah. Juries don't understand it. Remember, they're laymen—another word for bozos. Every day of every year a jury somewhere finds a crazy man guilty and a guilty man crazy. If they like you, they find you not guilty. If they don't, you're going to jail. Simple as that. What sort of people
do they dislike? Monsters. Weirdos. Madmen. Sickos. People
not quite right
in the old nobby-noodler. People they fear and hate because they don't understand them—because no one was able to
help
them understand them. In other words, the very sort of people who should be in a mental hospital. They're the ones who get sent to jail. What sort of people do they let off? I'll tell you. People they feel sorry for. People they recognize. People like them. People who did what they would have done themselves in the same circumstances. So you see. This isn't about sane or insane, or even guilty or not guilty. There is no guilty or not guilty in this case—the guy did it. All there is is a yay or a nay. Is this guy a bad guy, or is this guy a good guy. All you have to do is show them that this guy isn't a bad guy.”

“But I don't think Mike belongs in a mental hospital.”

“Neither do I. Neither does he. I know and you know and probably even he knows that he'll be a lot more miserable in the nuthatch than in the slammer. In the slammer he'd have regular exercise and phone privileges and conjugal visits and a shot at bail. In the booby hatch—who the hell knows? And they might keep him in longer than he would have spent in jail anyway because they won't be able to figure out what's wrong with him. But what can we do? The guy wants a trial and is entitled to a trial. He wants to go before a jury of his so-called peers and what does he want? He wants them to give him the thumbs-up. He wants them to say he's not a bad guy. Do you think he's a bad guy?”

Strickland said, “No.”

“All right. There we are. So tell me, Doctor. What's the story?”

“Story?”

“Why did he do this thing? What was he thinking? If they're going to understand him they're going to need the story. What made him do it?”

“I don't know.”

“Then you haven't done your job.”

Roz opened the door. “Oh,” she said. “He ain't here.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Well, I don't know. I should just about guess he's probably at work.”

Q. Professor, can you offer any scientific evidence that your psychological diagnoses are in fact correct?

A. Well, in my clinical opinion, I would say that as a general rule one knows one's diagnoses are correct when the treatment offered for the diagnosed disorder is effective. I think it would be difficult for anyone to go on practicing psychology if they were wrong most of the time.

Q. You are familiar with the practice of bleeding, Professor, which was practiced for two hundred years even though it was ineffective and wrong?

A. If that is a question, then yes, I am familiar with it.

Q. Did the doctors or barbers or whoever performed those bleeding or leeching operations know they were wrong, Professor, or did they believe they were helping their patients?

A. If you mean is it possible that I am wrong even though I think I am right, yes of course, but the same could be said for anyone at any time in human history.

Q. That is very generous of you, Professor.

A. I think perhaps you could stop calling me Professor now.

The bar was not open yet. He knocked on the front door, then went around to the back of the building, picking his way past garbage cans and garbage.

On the back wall, someone had spray-painted the words SPICK KILLERS.

He knocked.

A large man opened the door and looked at him.

“Is this … Does Mike work here? Mike Burger?”

The large man closed the door.

“Good union,” Strickland muttered. He was picking his way back through the garbage when the door opened again and Mike came out.

“Shit, man. What the fuck?”

A group of men were seated around a pool table covered with piles of paper. One of them rolled a toothpick back and forth in his mouth without seeming to move his tongue. They all looked at Strickland as if they had been waiting for him.

Mike shook his thumb at Strickland and said, “Aw, shit, this guy's okay. Friend of mine. We'll be in the back, okay, Andy? Shit.”

Strickland waited in a dirty, derelict kitchen stacked to the ceiling with cases of alcohol. Mike came in holding a VCR in one hand, its power cord dragging behind like a tail.

“Here,” he said. “I wanted to give you this.”

“A VCR?”

Mike pulled at his teeth and said, “Roz said I should get you something, you know, so I thought: shit.”

“Thank you,” Strickland said. “Actually, we don't own a television.”

“Aw, fuck it. Pawn it if you want. You know how women …”

“We've been thinking of buying one, though. And now we could rent movies. It's very thoughtful.”

“Aw, fuck off, man. It was just an idea.”

Strickland put the VCR down on the edge of a dusty grill. “Listen, Mike.”

“But you should blow out, man. You shouldn't really ought to be down here right now anyway.”

“I'm dropping your case, Mike.”

“Come back some night, I'll run you up a tab.”

“I said I'm dropping the case. I just came from Massick. I'm not going to do it.”

“Huh?”

“I'm not going to testify. Go to court. Say that you're insane. I don't think you're insane.”

“Insane?”

“I can't do it. I'm sorry. It wouldn't be honest. I want to help you but … Jesus, my life is more fucked up than yours right now. I have no right to sit in judgment on … anyone. I'm sorry.”

“But it starts next week. I'm on trial
next week
.”

“I know. I'm sorry. But it wouldn't be right. I don't think you belong in a ment—I don't think you have a psychol—I don't think you're crazy and it would be dishonest, unprofessional, and, and, and wrong for me to pretend otherwise. And probably illegal.”

“You saying you ain't gonna testify.”

“That's what I'm saying.”

“But man, I'm going to court next week!”

“I heard you the first time. I don't think you heard me.”

Mike put his hand delicately on a stack of Jack Daniel's boxes, as if it were the head of a child.

“I understand if you're angry.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He was breathing heavily. “You talking about quitting?”

“I am quitting.”

“Man, what the fuck you
talking
about? Who said you could quit? Who the fuck hired you? Who the fuck pays your bills?”

“Well,” said Strickland, “Massick.”

Mike began tapping the lowest box in the stack with his shoe; bottles tinkled. “Let me just get this straight here for a minute. I gotta go and get my ass dragged into court next fucking week and you want to blow off?”