Chapter Twenty
Doc’s mind was opening irreversibly like a banana or a can of Tab. He was realizing, quite specifically, that all over the world people are looking for and comparing themselves to others who don’t exist. It’s the international invisible.
We are each other’s worst fears, humanized, he thought.
This placed him solidly in relation to everyone else and, therefore, the universe. Badly, but superbly, he imagined comets, planets, satellites, asteroids, space stations, and telecommunications technology still unknowable from the street.
Doc had recently been contacted by a new set of clients, a couple that were having problems loving each other. He saw their arrival as a wonderful opportunity to try out his new perspective on people giving themselves and each other a break.
Of course this reminded him of his own experiences with that woman. Then it occurred to Doc that everything fit together. All along he had believed, instinctually, that his broken heart had something to do with the collapse of the culture. He had wanted to blame it on economics instead of on the fact that she was a fucking bitch.
Eureka, I found it, Doc thought, so gleefully. I’ve solved my own and other people’s problems.
Doc needed to get his shit together. That couple was coming in a few days. What exactly did he have to offer them? In preparation, Doc reviewed what he already knew about fighting couples. Usually, Doc observed, one of the members was destroying with more rapidity than the other. These types of situations are very difficult for the therapist, because long ago a propaganda evolved claiming that they could not exist. “It takes two to tango” isn’t even true on the dance floor. One person can do a lot of evil all on his or her own. But the Theory of Mutual Blame arose sometime before Doc was even born. Perhaps it was a takeoff on Freud’s seduction theory or the more generic practice of blaming victims for being alive. Its origins were unclear, but no one had ever had to take full responsibility for their own actions since.
Doc relaxed. If he could only get that woman in the white leather to stop interrupting and be kind instead, all America would change. She would have to think about things and America would have to too. All his life Doc had been told that America was the freest country on earth. America is the most powerful country on earth. We’re number one. We’re number one. And Americans believed it because, after all, what did they know? To the north there was nothing and to the south there were people who wanted their jobs. All they could look in the eye was each other. It was just like that woman in white leather.
One day Doc and she were walking around Manhattan. It was a cool day, crisp, one of those days where the buildings stand out in the sunlight, shining like a razor. Doc was filled with love. He turned to her, the leather cap white, like the clouds, and said, “Isn’t it exciting that now that we’re both finishing up big projects, the whole world is open before us and anything can happen?”
But she, she acted just like America. She said, “Don’t compare yourself to me.”
They both think they’re so great but there’s not one ounce of truth in the whole shebang. The country is so big now anyway no one can know what’s really going on in there. No one’s got a grip on it. The TV is run by God. What do all those blondes have to do with us? The newspapers have football on the front page. The only thing Doc knew for sure about the United States of America was that virtually everyone in it used to smoke pot.
When the phone rang this time he glanced at the magazine beckoning from the corner but got distracted by the silence on the other end. The person was still there but they would not talk. Doc felt a twisted excitement.
“Hello?” Doc said. “Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?”
He recognized the tactic and wanted power because he was so afraid of the person attached to it.
“Hello?” he said, wanting to keep it going as long as possible. “Hello? Hello?” as though he had never said it before because he was unwilling to let on that he had. If she would just answer he would let it all go.
When he hung up Doc had an emotional reaction, the kind that is hypnotizing. He was trapped in a brick. He was the subject of a million stories. He went to the other side of the street. He was too far from the racetrack. He had egg on his hands.
It was quiet. Doc sat in his chair. Outside there were people in the street trying to murder one another. Doc listened carefully. None of them were his clients. Once he’d stopped paying attention there was an illusion of silence. Finally other lives and their murmuring had ceased to penetrate. Doc fell asleep.
Four hours later, he awoke resolving to give more to his clients.
Doc had an appointment coming up with the couple, and this time he really wanted to make a difference. So he decided to take the dramatic step of consulting with his mentor, the elderly Herr K.