The sharp tang of dust assaulted Michael as he fumbled behind the chunky TV for the remote control. It wasn’t there either. It was missing, another disappointment in this strange room.
He wanted—no, needed—a distraction as the seconds ticked away.
He turned on the TV by hand, and the black of the screen flickered into a shimmering gray. Then, through a checkerboard of static, a man appeared, slumped in a leather chair as if the world had beaten him into submission. His sagging suit clung to him almost in apology, and his eyes flitted around the TV studio beneath lowered lids, apparently seeing everyone but also no one.
Sitting across from him was a familiar face: Dr. Gabe, trusted confidant dispensing homespun wisdom to millions, a ratings bonanza dispensing cash for TV executives. The man was a knowing toothy smile and chiseled haircut in a suit jacket and T-shirt, piercing eyes hidden behind half-shell glasses that could pinpoint emotional pain from twenty paces.
Dr. Gabe eased back in his leather chair, his eyeglasses perched on the tip of his nose like an old-school principal’s would. He stroked his chin as he sized up the wreck of a man sitting opposite him.
Michael munched away on his last sandwich, the saltiness of the ham and the tang of tomato biting into his tongue. Say what you like about their decorator, but their caterer was great!
Dr. Gabe tapped his top lip with a forefinger, a thought-provoking posture that flagged to his millions of viewers that life’s answers were imminent. “What you’re telling me, then, is that you’re terrified of doing anything with your life because you’re sure you will fail.”
The man’s head snapped up, his stare on high beam like a deer in headlights. “That’s not what I said.”
Dr. Gabe slipped off his glasses and pointed them at his patient. “But that’s what your body language is screaming out to me.”
Michael, suddenly self-conscious, sat taller on the sofa to hide his slouch.
“And it’s disagreed with everything you’ve said so far. But may I give you some advice?” A rhetorical question. The advice was coming anyway.
The man offered a meek nod above the arms he’d crossed as a wall of defense.
“You will fail.”
The man’s arms relaxed under the spotlight of truth. People in the audience gasped as they edged forward on their seats.
Dr. Gabe wasn’t finished with him. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy you’re doomed to repeat.” Heads nodded across the studio audience and applause rippled across the seats in appreciation at this golden nugget of insight.
Dr. Gabe cocked his head and changed tack. “What do you do for a living?”
The man mumbled his response into his chest. “I work in sales.”
Michael skulked to the fridge for another sandwich, his eyes glued to the TV.
Dr. Gabe again tapped his top lip with a forefinger. “No, that’s what you do for a job. I asked you what you do for a living.”
The man threw a confused look at the studio audience, then the camera, where it crashed into the confused look Michael threw at the screen.
“What do you mean?”
“What you do every day . . . Does it fulfill you?”
The man gave a pathetic shrug. “Not in the slightest. I despise it.”
Dr. Gabe leaned into the man with a conspiratorial whisper. “Then why do you do it?”
Michael made this a three-way discussion. “Yeah, why?”
Dr. Gabe pointed his glasses at his patient in accusation. “You’re miserable, and yet you keep doing what makes you miserable. Does that make any sense to you?”
With a slow shake of the man’s head, tears sprang free.
“What do you want to do with your life?”
“I want to be an artist.” Michael answered by reflex and then pulled himself up short. What am I doing? I’m talking to a TV show.
Dr. Gabe continued his cross-examination. “How old are you?”
The man wiped away the tears and stared hard at his shoes. “Thirty-seven.”
Michael’s chewing slowed as his future materialized in front of him. This could be me in twenty years’ time. The thought lodged under his skin like a splinter and prodded him to reach for his comfort zone—his happy place, which was always stocked with graphite pencils and sketch pads. His memory flicked through his portfolio and his drawings, and they did their usual trick as he settled. He flicked through portraits of himself, his mother, his art teacher, wildlife from his backyard, his mother’s hands, his girlfriend, Jack Nicholson, his mother . . .
Dr. Gabe zeroed in on the man opposite him. “You tell me you’ve turned down opportunities to write music, which is your passion, not because you’re bad at it, but because you’ve been told your whole life that writing music isn’t a smart career choice.”
The eyes of the man on the TV couch welled with more tears. Michael fought to hold back a rising tide of emotion. He glanced around again for the remote—to change the channel, to turn it off. To stop the discomfort.
Dr. Gabe threw his hands wide. “I’ve got some good news for you. I’m here to tell you that’s not the case. Let me ask you something: what would you say to your seventeen-year-old self?”
The man fought back tears. “I’d say believe in yourself and that your dad’s not going to make decisions for you.”
A chunk of tomato fell from Michael’s open mouth and landed in his lap. The studio audience whooped its genuine, spontaneous response to the applause sign.
“Let me tell you something.” Dr. Gabe replaced his glasses and leaned forward, hand on hip, chin in hand—a sure sign the advice was about to reach its climax of wisdom before a cut to commercial.
“Yes?” Again Michael responded by reflex and leaned forward.
“People all over our country are missing out on life, not because they can’t achieve their dream, but because they’re forced to live someone else’s.”
The camera swept across the studio, capturing the occasional tear and several knowing nods. Michael nodded along with them.
Dr. Gabe stared down the barrel of the camera, right at Michael. “Including you.”
Michael’s jaw froze as he was caught in the doctor’s steely-eyed gaze.
“The message today is that if you’re self-sabotaging your future, it’s not because you want to, but because that future may not be yours.”
The audience again whooped its appreciation as Dr. Gabe broke eye contact with Michael and hugged his patient in an awkward embrace. He discarded the man and faced the faithful. “We’ll be back after the break to talk to Jenny, who believes she has failed her children because just three of them are doctors. Join us for ‘Why you should stop with mother guilt.’”
Michael lifted the piece of tomato from his leg, Dr. Gabe’s words ringing in his ears. His drawings were good. Maybe his art teachers were right. He did have talent. Michael allowed the slightest sense of achievement and a feeling of pride.
Two football players on the TV screen scowled at Michael and then turned to face each other. They scowled again and were obliterated by an exploding stamp across their faces that announced the Tigers would destroy the Rams this week at the Dome. The advertisement for the upcoming football game crushed sprouting pride in his artistic ability as his dad trampled back into his thoughts.
He quickly returned to his refuge and flicked through his mental design portfolio again. But now his drawings looked bland, the color washed from the pages. The pencil strokes more hesitant and less sharp. The poses he’d sketched less intriguing and more derivative than they’d looked five minutes ago.
He was looking at them through different eyes.
Critical eyes.
Eyes that didn’t understand the value of art, the sweep of the pencil, the detail he’d spent hours crafting or the emotion he’d been mining.
Eyes that belonged to his father.
Maybe Dad was right.