Chapter Eight
Oh, for the good old days of 1980, Doc thought. There was so much great stuff in the mirror then. All those horrible painful disasters that I did not see and had never heard of little more than a decade ago. Now they’re everyday life.
The worst problem, back then, was that if people did not do something dramatic, immediately, the future would be awful. But they didn’t do it. Doc experienced this lack of action as a terrible personal embarrassment. It just reminded him, once again, of his and all human inadequacies.
Now he couldn’t face himself because he didn’t know how to act. And spirituality wasn’t going to do it this time. The only leftover from Jewish theology in this doctor’s life was an aversion to Jesus Christ. He had no other religion. Not even the Shirelles.
Then it was time for his next patient, the Complainer.
“Mexico was too hot,” he said. “The people weren’t fun. I’m tired of being poverty-stricken. I need money to buy new furniture for my apartment.”
“How did you get your apartment?” Doc asked, knowing it was his responsibility to pose probing questions.
“My parents paid for it. I had to do all the organizing. I had to work and work. I had to supervise the people who did the labor. It was terrible. I was a victim. My parents paid for it, but I deserved it.”
The Complainer was utterly lifeless. He was the bland kind of guy they used to show on Alka-Seltzer commercials. His lips were scrunched into a permanent sneer of distaste while his eyes looked puppy-dog-like and begged for sympathy. He wasn’t what you’d call a good time.
“Who pays your dental bills?” Doc asked.
“My parents do. They have to because I don’t know how to work. I have no idea of what supporting myself really means. How am I supposed to get a job without experience? Especially in this economy?”
“You mean you’ve never worked?”
“Of course I’ve worked. But, I’ve never been paid for it. That’s because an artist is the most undervalued person in this society. At least if I was black I could get a grant. But no one gives a shit about a white guy like me.”
“Why not?”
“Doc, let me explain it to you. I am a victim. Get it, Doc? A victim.”
The Complainer sat there. His name was John but Doc called him Cro-Mag because he was so unevolved.
“Do you know what poor means?” Doc asked.
“I am poor. I am poverty-stricken. I have nothing except for an eighty-thousand-dollar co-op. Do you know that means on today’s market? It means nothing.”
“Well, what would give your life more meaning?” Doc asked, quietly, repressing his own desire to strangle this guy.
“You know, I’d like to do something heroic, have an adventure. Like Francis Ford Coppola making Apocalypse Now. I’d like to take a few million, go down to some Third World country, hire a couple thousand natives at a dollar a day and really take a risk.”
“What risk did Francis Ford Coppola take?”
“Doc, he mortgaged his house!”
“Well, John, you can have life-shattering experiences in your own neighborhood. You could … well, you know … you could do something for … someone else.”
“Politics is boring,” Cro-Mag said in a drippy way. “It’s hopeless. I wouldn’t have any fun. Besides, I’m too poor. I don’t have time to be political.”
“There are people sleeping in the park in shelters made of plastic and cardboard,” said Doc. “There are people living around the park in co-ops and condominiums like Christadora House and Eastbeth. The police tear down the tents of the homeless. Now, I’m going to ask you a trick question.”
Doc was using cognitive therapy.
“Who are the victims?”
“I am,” said Cro-Mag. “I am the biggest victim.”
“What are you going to do tomorrow?” Doc asked.
“Tomorrow I will sleep till noon. Then I will go to a coffee shop and pay someone else to cook and serve me breakfast. Then I will go home and do errands and make notes. Then I will make phone calls. Then I will do something else. Then I will go to the gym. Then I will eat dinner in a restaurant. Then I will go to an art event. Then I will go to a bar or watch TV and get drunk or maybe I will find a twenty-one-year-old who will feel sorry for me and have sex with me. Then I will go to sleep.”
“And if you were not a victim, then what?”
“If was not a victim I would wake up around noon and have sex with someone who did not have a job to go to either. Then she and I would talk about what geniuses we are. Then I would get a phone call from a fancy museum and mail from a foundation. Then my girlfriend would do the vegetable shopping. Then I would go to the gym. Then she would tell me that I am brilliant. That I am a great artist.”
“How are you going to get from here to there?” Doc asked.
“I don’t know,” Cro-Mag said.
“I can see why,” Doc said.
Later Doc placed Cro-Mag squarely in relation to his other issues. Was mankind de-evolving? Survival of the least interesting? Doc was willing to continue this study of the stupefaction of the privileged, but he had to be careful. Too much time with Cro-Mag was like watching television. Like holding a magnifying glass to a bottomless pit.
They became what they beheld, he remembered, and gave Blake the last word.