As the world turned to darkness, I waited in the room all by myself, through the page-sized window I saw dark gray blackening from the top of one building to the top of another. Then the door opened and smacked into the wall. Sorry, she said, embarrassed, almost giggling, as she strolled amiably into the room. She casually introduced herself as Jeannie, I’m one of the counselors here, she said, bubbly voice, It says here, gesturing to the form in her hand, that you wish to see a psychiatrist because you’re having problems, let’s see if I can help first. She lowered herself onto the opposite chair, the office was so small that I could practically smell her mouthwashed breath and the hand lotion she used. Everything about her screamed high school, her chestnut pigtails, the three-tiered gingham skirt, the blue leggings, the black ankle-high boots, she was all reined-in energy, a cheerleader anxiously waiting to cheer a touchdown. Don’t be fooled, Satan with the insanely blue eyes said in my head, look at the tightness around her eyes, no makeup can cover pain if you know how to look. Her eyes were blue as well, watery blue, like a baby’s.
What brings you to our happy home, she asked, her voice, her tone changing, she might have looked young, but in an instant she seemed less so, she had an ease and effortlessness about her that I envied, I wanted to tell her everything, everything from the beginning, not just mine, but the beginnings of this very world of ours. I can’t afford to fall apart, I said, I just can’t. Just then, a light outside the window went on and the room felt fresher. We work with metaphor, Satan said, a translucent slick of sweat lay on his Adam’s apple, tell her you’re afraid of remembering, terrified of this bubbling well of memory, tell her.
How can I help, she asked, opened her notebook, uncapped her ballpoint, and leaned forward. I told her I talked to imaginary people, mostly you, Doc, my partner who had been dead for almost twenty years. She waited, as if what I had just said was not enough to certify me insane, but just in case, I emphasized that I was not insane in that I knew you and all the rest resided only in me. A seam in my mind had come undone, but the dress still held its shape.
She smiled and scooted back in the chair, the streetlamp threw faint light upon her, if I moved my head just slightly, I could see the high stanchion the lamp dangled from outside. Do they talk back, she asked. Sometimes, I said, yes, sometimes the imaginary people talk to me, but not you, Doc, you’re just there, silent, shunning me, I live while you died. Tell me about him, she said, and I wanted to know what she meant. What could I tell her about you? I don’t know, she said, anything, maybe start with his name so we don’t have to just call him your boyfriend. What an odd way of putting it: name you and lose you, the banality of demystification.
What was your name? His name was John, but he went by Doc, we always called him Doc, he was in med school when we met, became a pediatrician because he liked children except he didn’t like the work that much, he hated how awful the parents turned out to be, he didn’t consider that when he was in school and when he began to work he thought adults with ill offspring behaved awfully, he received the hurricane brunt of their anxiety, but then, you know, he didn’t get the chance to practice much because he became quite a bit sicker than the children he ministered to and died. How did he die, she asked, and Satan replied before I could, Heartbreak, he said, AIDS, I said, AIDS killed all of us.
She hesitated, looked down at her chart, then her well-worn notebook, When did he die, she asked. A long time ago, middle plague, I’ve always thought I handled it well, all the deaths, but then this denial thing is amazing, I mean, I was hospitalized, I had a breakdown, I had to get cleaned up, get all the drugs out of my system, I replaced them with prescribed ones, I’m clean now, of both kinds, no Haldol, no Stelazine, no weed, no meth, are you going to put me back on antipsychotics, I’m sure you have new ones now, Stelazine used to drive me crazy, and the Haldol, oh my, Haldol turned the whole universe into elevator music, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Barry Manilow and Yanni got gay-married.
We do have new drugs, she said, I would probably recommend that you start a new regimen, but let’s see how this goes and what the psychiatrist says, no drugs at all, she asked, you didn’t write down any antivirals in your chart. I was never infected, I said, I deserved the disease most, but the virus never visited me, or maybe it did, and then the Fourteen Holy Helpers cured me, kicked the virus and its malicious affiliates out. What was that? Oh, nothing, I said, in those days I had saints as imaginary friends but then Doc’s mother stole them.
She scribbled in her notebook, at least a paragraph or two, when she concentrated, she was the one who looked insane, And how did John die, she asked again. Badly, I said. Very badly, Satan said, snickering, funny you should credit the silly saints with healing you, and not me, Death came for you and I intervened, busy man he was those days, I sat him down, told him your soul was mine, a long time ago I claimed you, you child of pestilence, you squashable worm, after all I have done for you, you ungrateful Arab, I sat Death down in the corner, told him he’d accompany you to Sheol over my dead body, we negotiated your survival, I offered much.
I told Jeannie the counselor that you died over a period of eighteen months, and I felt so helpless, you were the fifth, in order, Lou the lovelorn was first, I’m not sure who voted me primary caretaker, maybe you guys thought of me as the natural servant, every nonwork moment was devoted to loving Lou into the next world, changing his diapers, besmeared with shit and shame, I so hated that, and then Chris, then Pinto, bless him, and then Greg, that was so awful, I loved my redhead Curmudgeka, work gave me a three-month leave, he was the attorney who hired me after all, and then it was you, not two weeks later, and then Jim after that, which was unfortunate because poor Jim always got lost in my mind since your death made everything else seem minor, although, God knows, your death was anything but minor, you couldn’t go quietly into the night, could you, you want this, you want that, I’m hurting you, you think I’m happy you’re dying, I’m poisoning you slowly, you think I think you’re not dying soon enough, Doc, I wish you could just shut the hell up.
Finally, Satan exclaimed.
Why now, she asked, the two words announced with a long breath in between, almost a sigh. I can’t afford to lose my job, I said, I wouldn’t know what to do, I have nowhere else to go. She wrote in the notebook. I understand, she said, but what I meant was why has your boyfriend returned after all these years. I have been feeling more alone lately, I said. She remained quiet, observing me, waiting for me. Triggers, Doc, she was looking for triggers, maybe she was hoping for just one, but they were numerous, so many, where would I start. This morning, I said, when I walked into the office, I usually arrive early, long before anyone else, I wake up at four in the morning so I can put in my eight hours without being disturbed too much and I wake up early anyway so it’s not much of an inconvenience, I walked in at five thirty, which is an hour and a half before Joanna comes in, the other two word processors at nine, and today she was there earlier, like me, because she had a lot of briefs to work with, but what surprised me was not her presence as much as what she looked like, what she wore, an old-fashioned dress, a French one, I presume, from the sixties, maybe even the fifties, she’s much younger than I so she must have bought it used or inherited it from some relative, it was gorgeous, white dotted with cerise fleurs-de-lis, tight only at the belt, and the way she pinned her hair back, bunched up with lots of unhidden bobby pins, she looked so young, yet matronly, from a time long past, she looked like a number of my aunties, and I stood there rooted, gobsmacked, she looked like my mother. Joanna asked me if anything was wrong, and I replied that the dress was lovely, she twirled coquettishly but I had already sat down at my monitor.
I was tired for some reason, and at noon, when all four of us were there, I must have slept while sitting, which had happened before, certainly not often, maybe twice, and while sleeping I dreamt I was in front of the monitor watching a YouTube nature video of an unnaturally large snake slithering along asphalt, I could see only part of its trunk, and then there was a little bunny eating out of a small bowl and the snake swallowed the bunny and the bowl in one bite and kept on slithering, except I noticed that the body was viscous, mucusy gray, and it was not a snake but a snail with its proportionally large gastropod shell, spirally coiled, of course. I was frightened, it seemed so unnatural, I might have screamed, and this voice in my head, this Satan with insanely blue eyes began to laugh, and I told him to shut up and that was when my officemates called the office manager with her high nasal Oklahoma accent and it was decided that I should take the rest of the day off, which was basically a little more than an hour, and maybe seek psychiatric help, so here I am.