He stood up. “That’s enough for now, I think. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
“More questions?”
“Hopefully, more answers.” He gave a little chuckle. “It appears I’m going to have to do some further reading tonight.”
“Well, good luck to you. And pleasant dreams.”
“That’s the title of one of your books, isn’t it—Pleasant Dreams?”
“I’ve written a lot of books,” I said. “And a lot of stories.”
“I know.” He walked me to the office door. “Oh, one final thought. Did it ever occur to you that all fiction writing is a form of lying? And that the only major difference between an author and a psychotic is that the former puts down his fantasies on paper? You might think that over.”
“I will,” I told him.
And I did, all that day and during the night which followed. In the end I arrived at one firm conclusion.
I disliked Dr. Connors intensely.
It was late in the afternoon next day before Miss Frobisher came to my room and said that Dr. Connors was ready to see me. The long wait hadn’t been easy on the nerves, and I’m sure she noticed how uptight I was. Miss Frobisher was a good nurse, I suppose, and treating patients like naughty children was just a part of her job. The fact that she was a little on the butch side probably contributed to her kindly authoritarianism, but I found her manner irritating.
“And how are we today?” she greeted me. “Are we ready for our therapy session?”
“Speaking for myself, I’ve no objection,” I said. “But I happen to be alone. If you insist on addressing me in the plural, perhaps you need therapy more than I do.”
Miss Frobisher laughed professionally (never show anger, never let them get to you, that’s the secret) and guided me down the hall.
“Doctor’s waiting for you in surgery,” she said.
“Don’t tell me I’m going to have a prefrontal lobotomy,” I murmured. “This I need like a hole in the head.”
Miss Frobisher laughed again. “Nothing of the sort! But the painters are doing his office and won’t be finished until sometime tomorrow. So if you don’t mind—”
“Fine with me.”
She led me into the elevator and we got off on the third floor. I’d never been up there before, and was a little surprised to discover that Dr. Connors had a very efficient and compact medical unit installed. I knew, of course, that he was a neurosurgeon as well as a practicing psychiatrist, but I found myself quite impressed by the completely equipped modern surgery which I glimpsed beyond the glass wall of the outer room where Dr. Connors waited for me.
I smiled at him as Miss Frobisher left. “We’ve got to stop meeting this way,” I said.
“Sit down.”
One look convinced me he wasn’t in the mood for fun and games. I seated myself and faced him across a small table on which rested a note-pad and a book.
“Aha!” I murmured, glancing at the book. “So you did read Pleasant Dreams.”
“All last evening.”
“I see you made some notes,” I told him. “Since when did you become a critic?”
“I’m not here to criticize, only to discuss.”
“Go ahead. We writers like to hear people talk about our work.”
“I was hoping you might do the talking.”
“What’s to say? It’s all in the book.”
“Is it?”
“Look,” I said, “is it really necessary to talk like a shrink?”
“Not if you’re willing to stop talking like a patient.” Dr. Connors smiled and glanced at the note-pad.
“But I am a patient,” I said. “According to you.”
“According to Pleasant Dreams you’re quite a number of things. For instance, a collaborator of Edgar Allan Poe’s.”
“ ‘The Light House.’ ” I nodded. “A Poe scholar back East found the unfinished story and suggested that I complete it.”
“Do you frequently get plots or ideas from other people?”
“None that I can use. Most of my stuff comes from my own background or interests. I wrote ‘The Dream-Makers’ because I was always a silent-movie fan, and ‘Mr. Steinway’ represents a similar preoccupation with music. I like to use locales I’ve visited or lived in. Milwaukee, in ‘The Cheaters,’ New Orleans in ‘The Sleeping Beauty,’ upstate Wisconsin in ‘Sweet Sixteen,’ ‘That Hellbound Train,’ and ‘Hungarian Rhapsody.’ ” I grinned at Dr. Connors. “But that’s the bottom line. I’ve never owned a pair of magic eyeglasses, slept with a skeleton, ridden a motorcycle, made a bargain with the Devil, or had an affair with a vampire.”
“Granted,” Dr. Connors squinted at his notes. “So far we’ve talked about things you like—now, let’s get on to what you dislike.”
“That’s easy,” I told him. “Formal dinner parties inspired ‘The Proper Spirit.’ And I suppose ‘The Hungry House’ represents an aversion to mirrors. In fact, if you really want to probe, it means I’ve always been self-consciously displeased with my own looks. Is that candid enough for you, Doc?”
“Not quite.” He stared at me. “Why don’t you want to discuss the real problems?”
“Such as?”
“Your attitude toward children.”
“I’ve got nothing against children.”
“That’s not what your stories say.” He tapped the note-pad with his pen. “In ‘Sweets to the Sweet,’ a little girl is a witch. ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ deals with a mentally retarded youth whose delusions lead to murder. ‘Catnip’ is a thoroughly vindictive portrait of adolescence. ‘Sweet Sixteen’ is an indictment of an entire generation—you were writing about Satanist motorcycle gangs almost a decade before others picked up the notion for films. Even in a comparatively gentle story like ‘That Hellbound Train,’ your protagonist starts life as a runaway, a drifter who steals hubcaps and gets stoned on canned heat. And in ‘Enoch,’ your central character is a psychotic teenager who becomes a mass murderer.”
“Kids aren’t my hangup,” I said. “Don’t forget, I write horror stories. And in a youth-oriented society, people are more apt to be shocked by having children depicted as monsters. The trick lies in violating the taboos we hold sacred—that’s what I did to the mother image in Psycho.”
“Trick,” said Dr. Connors softly. “Lies.”
I grinned again. “So now we’re playing word games, right? In that case, let’s just call it a Freudian slip.”
He shrugged. “That reminds me of another element in your work—not just in this collection, but in literally dozens of your stories. The hostility toward psychiatrists.”
“I don’t hate psychiatrists.”
“Your characters seem to. There are disparaging references to psychotherapists in ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,’ ‘I Kiss Your Shadow,’ and other titles in the book. And in ‘Enoch,’ your Dr. Silversmith is a caricature, a gross libel of the profession.”
“But that’s just another way of shocking people,” I said. “Psychiatrists have become the high priests in a society that worships science. Showing them as incompetent or powerless to prevail against the forces of evil is an effective gimmick.”
Dr. Connors stared at me. “Effective gimmicks—that’s what you look for. Meaning things that induce fear in the reader. Your entire career has been spent in finding ways to shock people, horrify them.”
“It’s a living.”
“Which you yourself chose. Nobody spends a lifetime frightening those he loves. Why do you hate people?”
“I don’t.”
“Think about it. Think about it seriously. I intend to.” He glanced at his watch. “Until tomorrow, then.”