I AM IN ANOTHER waiting room in Harlem, and this terrapin…I mean therapist—a terrapin is a turtle. I must ask this therapist, a Dr. Malgodown, about this. Perhaps it is a bit of a Freudian slip? This will be an icebreaker. Perhaps I see therapists as characteristically hidden in their shells? Interesting. Perhaps I question why the client must be the vulnerable one? Perhaps I question that model of therapy? I will ask Dr. Malgodown. I still don’t know thon’s gender. I can’t even guess since thon’s first name is Evelyn. Dr. Malgodown pokes her head out of her office. She is a white female. It is an assumption, the female part, but a fairly safe one, I believe, as she presents as typically female: pleated skirt, red blouse, heavy wooden beads around her neck, which I believe to be Malawian in origin.
“Mr. Rosenberg?” she says.
She is a trans woman. Again, an assumption, but this is what the timbre of her voice suggests.
“Yes,” I say.
“Please. Come in.”
I do.
“I prefer ‘thon’ as my personal pronoun,” I tell her in the hopes that she’ll reciprocate.
“Thank you,” she says, “but I don’t think there will be any necessity for me to address you in the third person during our sessions.”
She smiles, having won this round.
“Touché,” I say.
“So, what brings you here today?” she asks.
“I’m having issues with my memory.”
“That is a fairly common occurrence as we age,” she says.
“Yes, I agree. I was, however, hoping for some assurances in my particular case—as I have had a near-eidetic memory previously—and also, perhaps, some tools.”
“Do you get lost on your way home?”
“No. That’s not an issue.”
“That’s a good sign. I’d like to administer a memory test, if that’s OK.”
“Sure.”
“I’m going to give you a list of ten…things—we did call them ‘items,’ but an email has been circulated suggesting that ‘things’ might be a more therapeutic word choice—after which, I will ask you to repeat them back to me.”
“OK.”
“Orange, flypaper, pencil, heartthrob, Raisinets, Purim, charm bracelet. Pinking shears, platelets, stocking cap.”
“Orange, flypaper, pencil, heartthrob, Raisinets, Purim, charm bracelet. Pinking shears, platelets, stocking cap.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Number five is Raisinets not raisin heads.”
“I said Raisinets.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“OK. Raisin heads would not have indicated a memory problem so much as it would a hearing problem anyway. So…memory good. Hearing…not certain. You’re mostly fine.”
“Yet I can’t remember this film and I need to. Are there techniques you know of that can help me locate buried memories?”
“Perhaps we can attempt to discover why this particular memory is repressed.”
“Do you think it could be repressed?”
“Yes. That is indeed a thing or, rather, item. Was this film traumatic for you?”
“It was revelatory.”
“Revelations can be traumatic.”
“I don’t think it was traumatic. It was the most inspiring three months of my life.”
“Three months?”
“The film was three months long.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I do not kid. It is unethical.”
“How could you expect to remember a three-month-long film? I don’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.”
“I am not you. I have an eidetic memory. You had scrambled eggs.”
“How could you possibly—”
“I see a remnant of it on your blouse.”
“But that could be from this morning.”
“Your blouse is embroidered with Wednesday above the breast pocket. Wednesday was yesterday. I could tell from your level of malodorousness that you first donned this blouse yesterday morning, and I gleaned from the small crimson stain on your cubital fossa, or inbow as you call it, that you had a blood panel performed this morning—I do hope everything is OK—which means you’ve fasted since last night and therefore did not eat any breakfast today.”
“Amazing. OK. What did you have for breakfast five mornings ago?”
“Cherry granola, plain yogurt—which I pronounce yah-gurt—coffee with half-and-half.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
“Why would I lie?”
“To impress me,” she says.
“I have no need to impress anyone.”
“Methinks thou doth protest too much.”
With that, I start to weep. Dr. Malgodown has an uncanny ability to reach into my soul, to unmask me, to pull my still-beating heart from my chest and show it to me. Perhaps this is a result of her struggle as a trans woman, or perhaps her life as a trans woman is a result of her struggle with this profound intuition, which has no place in the life of a male in this culture. Get out of here, it is told by our society. Men are rational. Men believe in science. Leave this witchcraft to the womenfolk. And so Dr. Malgodown came to believe this. I am, of course, just an armchair psychologist myself (with both upholstering and social work minors at Harvard), so I cannot know if my theory holds water. And it is too early in our relationship to suggest it to the doctor, so I keep mum. Best to see how this plays out. Besides, I am beside myself with whatever deep nerve she touched. Best to let her have the insights for the moment. There will be time enough for me to help her down the road.
“Why do you cry?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Because your intuition does not allow you to be housed in the body of a man?”
“What?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. I am sad.”
“Why are you sad?”
“Because I protest too much?”
“Ah. Yes,” she says. “Exactly.”
Again I weep.
“It is a little sudden, though. Like a switch. That can be a symptom. I wouldn’t say you should be worried at this point. But it might be prudent to have some tests run.”
“Symptom of what?”
“Sudden mood swings. Can be a sign.”
“Of what?”
“Well, it’s too early to say. Dementia. You did very well on the memory test, though. Almost perfect.”
“I did perfectly.”
“Agree to disagree.”
“Well, what do you suggest I do?”
“Might be value in a scan.”
“Of my brain?”
“To look for signs of organic damage. Now I’m not saying there are any signs of it, but I always prefer to leap to the worst-possible scenario simply to rule it out.”
“That seems to be a somewhat hysterical approach.”
“Are you intentionally using the word hysterical to poke at me?”
“Poke at you?” I ask.
“The word hysterical,” she says.
“I understand, but how?”
“You know the root of the word, I take it. You seem to be a somewhat educated man.”
“Of the womb,” I say.
“And are you mocking me?”
“No.”
“There are different ways to be female. Not all rely on possessing the approved set of body parts.”
“I’m not saying—”
“Let me ask you this: Would you ever suggest to a biological female who, out of medical necessity, has had a radical hysterectomy that she is no longer a woman?”
“That would be cruel.”
“But would it be accurate?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then you acknowledge that to be female one does not require a uterus?”
“Yes.”
“I rest my case.”
“I’m not certain I understand what just happened,” I say.
“I think it best that we cease our sessions. Effective immediately.”
“But I’ve only been here for ten minutes.”
“You may stay for the remaining forty, but I will not engage you. It is not my job to do your work for you. It is not my job to make you woke. That’s on you.”
“Isn’t it your job, though? Isn’t that precisely your job?”
“If it ain’t woke, don’t fix it,” she says.
I decide to wait the remaining forty minutes in silence. Therapy is not for me, but I will not let Dr. Malgodown win.