A super-short work of fiction by Mark Sherman that the Woodstock Times called “a great, psychodrama-short story (involving psychoanalysis, no less).”
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“So how are you doing today?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I replied.
He was silent. Why the fuck am I here? I said to myself. I know why he’s here. He’s getting two dollars a minute. Even when he says nothing. He’s making money just sitting there.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked.
Still silence.
The motherfucker.
I don’t want to say anything. My life is going okay. Why do I have to talk about everything?
“Go ahead,” he said. “Whatever comes to mind.”
I couldn’t stand it any more. My brother said it was okay to express anger at your therapist, that he did it all the time. What was I afraid of?
“Whatever comes to mind?!” I said. “Whatever comes to mind? Well, here’s what comes to mind. What the fuck am I doing here?! I was doing fine in my life. I was writing and singing and being alive. I was even happy sometimes. And now I come here every week, for what? For your silence, your staring at me? I have the same problems I had when I came in. And you’re a lot richer. I hate this.”
“So why do you keep coming?” he asked. “No one’s forcing you. You could leave right now if you wanted to. Go ahead. Leave.”
“Sure,” I said. “And get charged for the whole session. What a racket. Shit, what a racket.”
“No,” he said. “No charge for today, if you leave now. I’m not saying I want you to, but you can. With no charge.”
“Sure,” I said. “And then I can’t come back, right? Like my dad with his patients. ‘Get yourself another doctor,’ he’d scream at them. He didn’t need them. They needed him.”
“You could come back next week,” he said. “I’m not your dad. Your dad is dead.”
I could feel the tears starting to come.
“You want me to cry, don’t you?” I said. “That’s what you want. That’s the therapist’s orgasm, isn’t it? Shit,” I said, feeling my eyes moisten.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Don’t be afraid of it. Let it out.”
“Why?” I said, practically sobbing now. “Why? It doesn’t help. I want to get somewhere in my life, not keep thinking about my father.”
There was silence again.
I took a tissue from the table and blew my nose and dried my eyes.
“So let’s talk about your dad a little,” he said.
“Why? He fucked me up. Yeah, he had his problems, but he was a father. I’m a father. I’m not destroying my kids.”
Silence.
“What? Are you saying I’m not a good father? That too? The one area I thought I was okay?”
“I didn’t say anything,” he said.
“I don’t hit my kids,” I said. “And I don’t humiliate them. And I tell them all the time that I love them. What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“What about your father,” he said. “Did he ever tell you he loved you?”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “Not that I can remember. My mom barely ever said it either. But he must have loved me. I saw letters he wrote to my mom when he was overseas. He kept asking about me, and saying how much he missed me. He called me his little sweetie-boy. He must have loved me. He must have. He did, didn’t he?”
Silence.
“Say something. I can’t stand this silence stuff. That’s what he used to do when he was really angry at me. He’d just stop talking to me. He’d tell my mother what he wanted to say to me, and she’s say it. She’d say it! She’d say it! Why didn’t she just say, ‘You tell him. Don’t ask me to do this.’? What was she afraid of?”
“What do you think?” he asked.
“She was afraid of him, wasn’t she?” I said. “We were all afraid of him. Fuck him. How could he do that? What was wrong with him? Why was he so angry all the time?”
“Angry all the time?” he said. “Who does that remind you of?”
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Copyright © 2003 by Mark Sherman
Originally published in The Other Face: Experiencing the Mask (Bliss Plot Press, 2003)
Photo: miss_millions / flickr