As he spoke, he frequently grimaced as if he were softening a jawbreaker in his mouth before crushing it, which was not a good tic for a psychiatrist, if you asked me, but there he was, I had successfully moved up the system. I took a deep breath to pacify my mind, I wanted to be calm, or at least appear to be. You’re not serene, Satan said, you’re depressed. What little could be seen of the doctor’s brow was bright red and his nose a purplish potato shade, he had big black eyeglasses and big white hair that he raked away at least three times between introduction and interrogation. He asked how he could help.
I’m unable to cope, I said, I can’t bear life right now, I don’t know what to do. He asked me if I lived alone, what my day-to-day routine was like, I wake up early on weekdays, I said, I go to work, I come home and go to bed, I read, I write prose and non-poems, do yoga, watch bad television, obsess about government surveillance, count the number of drone killings, get upset with Obama and curse Bush, watch my dreams wither on the vine, things like that, dull this life of mine. Oh, and I told him about you, about Greg, Pinto, about Saint Catherine and Satan, who clung to my ear like a limpet, but I was weary of explaining the unexplainable. I walked through the world like a dead man who cared not at all about the petty miseries of the living, I was tired of scars and stains, of bleared pains and panes.
He seemed particularly interested in Satan, probably because the beast talked so much. What does he sound like, the doc asked. Tell him, Satan said, tell him I sound sophisticated and erudite, I, the star of day, the son of morning, the angel of worship, and the heart of Heaven, I sound like a Miles Davis trumpet, like a Bach partita, no, wait, a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeare sonnet, whereas you’re a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop, but baby, if you’re the bottom, I’m the top. He sounds weird, I said, says the oddest things, he has a deep voice, as you’d expect, slightly nasal, as if he hasn’t completely recovered from a mild cold, doesn’t sniffle though, he speaks English, his mother tongue, but with a slight angle to his pronunciation, which makes it difficult to pinpoint his origins, upper-class Jamaican would be my first impression. Kiss my ass, Satan said, can’t believe you said Jamaican, such an ingrate, why are you diddling, all this psychiatrist wants to know is whether you’re suicidal, he’s obviously going to prescribe antipsychotics, but if you want three days of rest and recreation, tell him you’re thinking of suicide, contemplating, that’s even better.
I’m not suicidal, I said. That’s good to note, the psychiatrist wrote in his leather-bound booklet. I could not lie, Doc, I have never thought of suicide, during dark night or deep abyss, it never occurred to me. And every morning, Satan said, you blunder along this slushy path like everyone, look at him frantically writing, wearing that translucent shroud of composure, but you’re not suicidal enough, he’s not going to commit you, you’re failing, I’m winning, no insane asylum for you today.
Seventy-two hours, Doc, that’s all I wanted, at St. Francis Psychiatric. I loathe Francis, Satan said, the tree-hugging, animal-loving, organic-eating, leftist pretender, he’s the saint of all things banal, whereas I, Iblis, I am the angel of light, the lord of this temporal world of yours, listen to me. The doctor kept writing and writing, wouldn’t look my way, into his copious notes he spoke, something about a mild antipsychotic and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and I should come back and see him sometime. I felt my heart sink, no restful seventy-two hours for me, and I heard Satan hiss Yesssssssssss.