Key in anger (1200 cycles) and demand “How old are you?” Since anger does not exist unsupported, an episode must emerge; the anger has an object, which existed at a time and place; and there’s your episode. “I’m six,” says your patient. Key in the “You are six years old” note for reinforcement and you’re all ready for significant recall. Or start with the age index: “You are twelve years old.” When that is established, demand, “How do you feel?” and if there is significant material in the twelfth year, it will emerge. If it is fear, add the “fear” note and ask “Where are you?” and you’ll have the whole story.
But not in Newell’s case. There was, of course, plenty of conflict material, but somehow the conflicts seemed secondary; they were effects rather than causes. By far the largest category of traumas is the unjustified attack—a severe beating, a disease, a rejection. It is traumatic because, from the patient’s point of view, it is unjustified. In Newell’s case, there was plenty of suffering, plenty of defeat; yet in every single episode, he had earned it. So he was without guilt. His inner conviction was that his every cruelty was justified.
The doctor had an increasing sense that Newell had lived all his life in a books-balanced, debts-paid condition. His episodes had no continuity, one to the other. It was as if each episode occurred at right angles to the line of his existence; once encountered, it was past, like a mathematical point. The episodes were easy to locate, impossible to relate to one another and to the final product.
The doctor tried hard to treat Anson and Newell in his mind as discrete, totally unconnected individuals, but Miss Jarrell’s sentimental remark kept echoing in his mind: “He’s good; he’s only good—nothing else,” and generating an obverse to apply to Newelclass="underline" He’s evil, he’s only evil—nothing else.
This infuriated him. How nice, how very nice, he told himself sarcastically, the spirits of good and evil to be joined together to make a whole man, and how tidily everything fits; black is totally black and white is white, and together the twain shall make gray. He found himself telling himself that it wasn’t as simple as that, and things did not work out according to moral evaluations which were more arbitrary even than his assigned audio.
It was about this time that he began to doubt the rightness of his decision, the worth of his therapy, the possibility of the results he wanted, and himself. And he had no one to advise him. He told that to Miss Thomas.
It was easy to do and it surprised both of them. He had called her in to arrange a daily EEG on both facets of the Newell case and explain about the resultant, which he also wanted daily. She said yes, Doctor, and very well, Doctor, and right away, Doctor, and a number of other absolutely correct things. But she didn’t say why, Doctor? or that’s good, Doctor, and suddenly he couldn’t stand it.
He said, “Miss Thomas, we’ve got to bury the hatchet right now. I could be wrong about this case, and if I am, it’s going to be bad. Worse than bad. That’s not what bothers me,” he added quickly, afraid she might interrupt, knowing that this must spill over or never emerge again. “I’ve been through bad things before and I can handle that part of it.”
Then it came out, simple and astonishing to them both: “But I’m all alone with it, Tommie.”
He had never called her that before, not even to himself, and he was overwhelmed with wonderment at where it might have come from.
Miss Thomas said, “No, you’re not,” gruffly.
“Well, hell,” said the doctor, and then got all his control back. He dropped a film cartridge into the viewer and brought out his notes. Using them as index, he sat with his hand on the control, spinning past the more pedestrian material and showing her the highlights. He presented no interpretations while she watched and listened.
She heard Newell snarling, “You better watch what you’re doing,” and Anson pointing about the room, singing, “Floor, flower, book, bed, bubble. Window, wheel, wiggle, wonderful.” (He had not known at that stage what a wonderful was, but Miss Jarrell said it almost every hour on the hour.) She saw Newell in recall, aged eleven, face contorted, raging at his fifth-grade teacher, “I’ll bomb ya, y’ole bitch!” and at thirteen, coolly pleased at something best unmentioned concerning a kitten and a centrifuge.
She saw Anson standing in the middle of the room, left elbow in right hand, left thumb pressed to the point of his chin, a stance affected by the doctor when in perplexity: “When I know everything there is to know,” Anson had said soberly, “there’ll be two Doctor Freds.”
At this, Miss Thomas grunted and said, “You wouldn’t want a higher compliment than that from anybody, anytime.” The doctor shushed her, but kindly. The first time he had seen that sequence, it made his eyes sting. It still did. He said nothing.
She saw it all, right up to yesterday’s viewing, with Newell in a thousand pieces from what appeared to be a separate jigsaw puzzle for each piece, and Anson a bright wonder, learning to read now, marveling at everything because everything was new—teaspoons and music and mountains, the Solar System and sandwiches and the smell of vanilla.
And as he watched, doors opened in the doctor’s mind. They did not open wide, but enough for him to know that they were there and in which walls. How to describe the indescribable feeling of expertness?
It is said that a good truck driver has nerve-endings which extend to the bumper and tail light, tire tread to overhead. The virtuoso pianist does not will each separate spread and crook of each finger; he wills the notes and they appear.
The doctor had steered this course of impossible choices by such willing and such orientation; and again he felt it, the urge that this way is right now and there is the thing to do next. The miracle to him was not the feeling, but that it had come back to him while he watched the films and heard the tapes with Miss Thomas, who had said nothing, given no evaluation or advice. They were the same films he had studied, run in the same sequence. The difference was only in not being alone any more.
“Where are you going?” Miss Thomas asked him.
From the coat closet, he said, “File that material and lock it up, will you, Miss Thomas? I’ll call you as soon as I return.” He went to the door and smiled back at her. It hurt his face. “Thanks.”
Miss Thomas opened her mouth to speak, but did not. She raised her right hand in a sort of salute and turned around to put the files away.
The doctor called from a booth near the Newell apartment. “Did I wake you, Osa? I’m sorry. Sometimes I don’t know how late it gets.”
“Who . . . Fred? Is that you, Fred?”
“Are you up to some painful conversation?”
Alarmed, she cried, “Is something the matter? Is Dick—”
He mentally kicked himself for his clumsiness. What other interpretation could she have put on such a remark? “He’s okay. I’m sorry. I guess I’m not good at the light banter. . . . Can I see you?”
She paused for a long moment. He could hear her breathing. “I’ll come out. Where are you?”
He told her.
She said, “There’s a cafe just around the corner, to your left. Give me ten minutes.”
He put up the phone and went to the corner. It was on a dingy street which seemed to be in hiding. On the street, the cafe hid. Inside the cafe, booths hid. In one of the booths, the doctor sat and was hidden. It was all he could do to keep himself from assuming a fetal posture.
A waiter came. He ordered Collinses, made with light rum. He slumped then, with his forearms on the table and his chin on them, and watched bubbles rise in the drinks and collect on the underside of the shaved ice, until the glasses frosted too much for him to see. Then he closed his eyes and attempted to suspend thought, but he heard her footsteps and sprang up.