Better he had kept on with the dope.
6
The machinery of divorce chewed Fat up into a single man, freeing him to go forth and abolish himself. He could hardly wait.
Meanwhile he had entered therapy through the Orange County Mental Health people. They had assigned him a therapist named Maurice. Maurice was not your standard therapist. During the Sixties he had run guns and dope into California, using the port of Long Beach; he had belonged to SNCC and CORE and had fought as an Israeli commando against the Syrians; Maurice stood six-foot-two inches high and his muscles bulged under his shirt, nearly popping the buttons. Like Horselover Fat he had a black, curly beard. Generally, he stood facing Fat across the room, not sitting; he yelled at Fat, punctuating his admonitions with, "And I mean it." Fat never doubted that Maurice meant what he said; it wasn't an issue.
The game plan on Maurice's part had to do with bullying Fat into enjoying life instead of saving people. Fat had no concept of enjoyment; he understood only meaning. Initially, Maurice had him draw up a written list of the ten things he most wanted.
The term "wanted," as in "wanted to do," puzzled Fat.
"What I want to do," he said, "is help Sherri. So she doesn't get sick again."
Maurice roared, "You think you ought to help her. You think it makes you a good person. Nothing will ever make you a good person. You have no value to anyone."
Feebly, Fat protested that that wasn't so.
"You're worthless," Maurice said.
"And you're full of shit," Fat said, to which Maurice grinned. Maurice had begun to get what he wanted.
"Listen to me," Maurice said, "and I mean it. Go smoke dope and ball some broad that's got big tits, not one who's dying. You know Sherri's dying; right? She's going to die and then what're you going to do? Go back to Beth? Beth tried to kill you."
"She did?" Fat said, amazed.
"Sure she did. She set you up to die. She knew you'd try to ice yourself if she took your son and split."
"Well," Fat said, partly pleased; this meant he wasn't paranoid, anyhow. Underneath he knew that Beth had engineered his suicide attempt.
"When Sherri dies," Maurice said, "you're going to die. You want to die? I can arrange it right now." He examined his big wristwatch which showed everything including the positions of the stars. "Let's see; it's two-thirty. What about six this evening?"
Fat couldn't tell if Maurice were serious. But he believed that Maurice possessed the capability, as the term goes.
"Listen," Maurice said, "and I mean this. There are easier ways to die than you've glommed onto. You're doing it the hard way. What you've set up is, Sherri dies and then you have another pretext to die. You don't need a pretext -- your wife and son leaving you, Sherri croaking. That'll be the big pay-off, when Sherri croaks. In your grief and love for her -- "
"But who says Sherri is going to die?" Fat interrupted. He believed that through his magical powers he could save her; this in fact underlay all his strategy.
Maurice ignored the question. "Why do you want to die?" he said, instead.
"I don't," Fat said, who honestly believed that he didn't.
"If Sherri didn't have cancer would you want to shack up with her?" Maurice waited and got no answer, mainly because Fat had to admit to himself that, no, he wouldn't. "Why do you want to die?" Maurice repeated.
"Well," Fat said, at a loss.
"Are you a bad person?"
"No," Fat said.
"Is someone telling you to die? A voice? Someone flashing you 'die' messages?"
"No."
"Did your mother want you to die?"
"Well, ever since Gloria -- "
"Fuck Gloria. Who's Gloria? You never even slept with her. You didn't even know her. You were already preparing to die. Don't give me that shit." Maurice, as usual, had begun to yell. "If you want to help people, go up to L.A. and give them a hand at the Catholic Workers' Soup Kitchen, or turn as much of your money over to CARE as you possibly can. Let professionals help people. You're lying to yourself; you're lying that Gloria meant something to you, that what's-her-name -- Sherri -- isn't going to die -- of course she's going to die! That's why you're shacking up with her, so you can be there when she dies. She wants to pull you down with her and you want her to; it's a collusion between the two of you. Everybody who comes in this door wants to die. That's what mental illness is all about. You didn't know that? I'm telling you. I'd like to hold your head under water until you fought to live. If you didn't fight, then fuck it. I wish they'd let me do it. Your friend who has cancer -- she got it on purpose. Cancer represents a deliberate failure of the immune system of the body; the person turns it off. It's because of loss, the loss of a loved one. See how death spreads out? Everyone has cancer cells floating around in their bodies, but their immune system takes care of it."
"She did have a friend who died," Fat admitted. "He had a grand mal seizure. And her mother died of cancer."
"So Sherri felt guilty because her friend died and her mother died. You feel guilty because Gloria died. Take responsibility for your own life for a change. It's your job to protect yourself."
Fat said, "It's my job to help Sherri."
"Let's see your list. You better have that list."
Handing over his list of the ten things he most wanted to do, Fat asked himself silently if Maurice had all his marbles. Surely Sherri didn't want to die; she had put up a stubborn and brave fight; she had endured not only the cancer but the chemotherapy.
"You want to walk on the beach at Santa Barbara," Maurice said, examining the list. "That's number one."
"Anything wrong with that?" Fat said, defensively.
"No. Well? Why don't you do it?"
"Look at number two," Fat said. "I have to have a pretty girl with me."
Maurice said, "Take Sherri."
"She -- " He hesitated. He had, as a matter of fact, asked Sherri to go to the beach with him, up to Santa Barbara to spend a weekend at one of the luxurious beach hotels. She had answered that her church work kept her too busy.
"She won't go," Maurice funished for him. "She's too busy. Doing what?"
"Church."
They looked at each other.
"Her life won't differ much when her cancer returns," Maurice said finally. "Does she talk about her cancer?"
"Yes."
"To clerks in stores? Everyone she meets?"
"Yes."
"Okay, her life will differ; shell get more sympathy. She'll be better off."
With difficulty, Fat said, "One time she told me -- " He could barely say it. "That getting cancer was the best thing that ever happened to her. Because then -- "
"The Federal Government funded her."
"Yes." He nodded.
"So she'll never have to work again. I presume she's still drawing SSI even though she's in remission."
"Yeah," Fat said glumly.
"They're going to catch up with her. They'll check with her doctor. Then she'll have to get a job."
Fat said, with bitterness, "She'll never get a job."
"You hate this girl," Maurice said. "And worse, you don't respect her. She's a girl bum. She's a rip-off artist. She's ripping you off, emotionally and financially. You're supporting her, right? And she also gets the SSI. She's got a racket, the cancer racket. And you're the mark." Maurice regarded him sternly. "Do you believe in God?" he asked suddenly.
You can infer from this question that Fat had cooled his Godtalk during his therapeutic sessions with Maurice. He did not intend to wind up in North Ward again.
"In a sense," Fat said. But he couldn't let it lie there; he had to amplify. "I have my own concept of God," he said. "Based on my own -- " He hesitated, envisioning the trap built from his words; the trap bristled with barbed wire. "Thoughts," he finished.