I breathed in deeply and walked into Dr. Kim’s office. Her door was open and she was scanning the New York Review of Books while waiting for me. She looked up—her small, brown, inquiring face creased with a tight smile.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, closing the door behind me, flopping into the armchair across from her. That the office was serenely anonymous always helped me relax before we began the sessions, but today she jumped right in, and her increasing worry about my “abuse problems” was soon dominating the conversation. This probably due to the Kleenex I kept reaching for and the bloody ropes of snot I kept blowing from my sore and damaged nose. Then she wanted to talk about Robby and if I was still resentful of him, and next it lurched to Jayne and exactly what I was aiming for with her, and soon my patience expired and I had to interrupt what now resembled an interrogation. She balanced a legal pad on her lap and furiously kept writing notes.
“Look, I’m only here because I promised my wife I would try and get help and so I’m here and trying to get help and I don’t need another lecture about how I’m wasting everybody’s time, ‘kay?” I reached for another Kleenex and blew my nose. The tissue came away red and glistening.
“So why are you here, Mr. Ellis?”
“Well, I have anxiety and these, y’know, anxiety disorders.”
“About what?”
“Um . . . plane crashes . . . the terrorists . . .” I paused and then added genuinely, “Those missing boys.”
She sat up. “Mr. Ellis, I much more concerned about cirrhosis of liver than plane crash for you.” She sighed and marked something down, then immediately segued into: “So, any fresh dreams?”
“Yes, a major one,” I said, trying to hide my reluctance as I handed her the printed-out sheet.
Dr. Kim looked over the words typed hastily earlier this afternoon and got to a particular sentence where she blanched and then stared at me from where she was sitting. I was casually admiring a small cactus on a shelf, humming mindlessly to myself as I waited.
“This dream seems very, very fake to me, Mr. Ellis.” She glared at me suspiciously. “I think you make this dream up.”
“How dare you!” I sat up indignantly—a posture I realized that I adopted quite often in her office.
“You expect me to believe this dream?” She glanced back at the page. “Large-mouthed bass chase you into pond where you escape onto floating airplane and then are flying business class—a plane that has your father’s name on side of it?”
“This is my unconscious, Dr. Kim.” I shrugged. “These just may be legitimate concerns.” I sighed and gave up.
“You have not told your wife that you are using drugs again,” she said.
“No.” I sighed once more and looked away. “But she knows. She knows.”
“And are you still sleeping on the couch?”
“It’s the guest room! I’m in the f**king guest room! You can’t sleep on our f**king couch.”
“Mr. Ellis, you do not need to shout.”
“Look.” I sighed. “It’s been really hard fitting into this whole world, and all these pressures about being the man of the house or whatever you wanna call it are getting to me, as well as the fact that, yeah, I’m using again—but only a little—and drinking again—but only a little—and yeah, okay, Jayne and I aren’t having sex and I’ve been flirting with this girl at the college and I think another student’s pretending to be a character from one of my novels and Jayne’s little girl is, I think, really messed up and she thinks that her doll’s alive and attacking her plus she keeps calling me ‘Daddy’ and Harrison Ford wants me to write this script for him and I’m getting these weird e-mails from L.A. that have something to do with my father, I think, and all those missing boys are scaring the hell out of me and it’s all causing enormous conflicts within my psyche.” I paused, mid-rant. “Oh, and our golden retriever hates my guts.” I let out a huge sigh. “So, I’ve got a lot on my plate—chill out.” And then I reached for the page she was holding and said, “Give me that.”
She kept a firm grip, glaring at me. I kept pulling. She wouldn’t let go. Our eyes locked. I finally sat back, panting.
She waited patiently. “Mr. Ellis, the main reason you are here is to find ways to get to know your son. That is essential. That is necessary. That you connect with your son.”
There was nothing to say except “I’m getting a grip on that situation.”