Anomic Pieces of Discombobulated Plasma

Three or four decades, I’m not quite certain anymore. But definitely more than a full generation of being a therapist. Listening to problems. Helping people. Going to conferences. Spending countless hours on the phone. Countless hours in traffic.

At one point or another, though, I got to the point where I couldn’t do anything else. What am I going to do? Take thirty some odd years of analysis and therapy and become a stunt person for the movies? A professional gymnast? A police officer?

Damn. 

I think I might quit, either way.

I think I might retire.

Maybe burn the building down for the insurance money? Did I pay the insurance company? I should really keep updated notes. Maybe hire someone for that. I will probably spend the remainder of the afternoon looking up if paying the wages of an employee could be used as a business expense tax write off.

After eating a potato taco from Taco Bell for lunch and feeling like I might spend the rest of the afternoon in a state of rectosigmoid motility, a young woman walks in pushing a wheelchair of what appears to be an incapacitated companion. She looks expended. Huffing. Puffing. Probably about to try to knock my office down.

If only.

Would insurance cover an act of fairy tales?

Do you have time for a drop-in appointment? she asks.

She is wearing a pair of bright lululemon yoga pants with a cardigan that is three sizes too big, or maybe it’s the perfect size and my judgment for propositions is off. Her face is angular. Too angular. She looks like a geometric shape metastasizing. 

The figure in the wheelchair that she is pushing around is dead. At first, I thought maybe I was imagining things. Perhaps the figure was doing their best interpretation of a comatose patient. But the longer I had to study their body, the longer their body’s odor had time to permeate my office; I realized this was not a person of the living realm.

Did you bring someone dead in here?

Yeah. This is my brother, Steven. He needs therapy. He committed suicide.

Needed therapy is more like it. As in the past tense. As in, I can’t do anything for him at this point. I’m not a psychic. I wouldn’t be able to communicate with him.

That’s fine. I just need him to go through some sort of therapy. 

Okay, well, let’s first start off with what happened to your brother?

He took a whole bunch of Ambien. Like an unhealthy amount.

I’ll say.

But he didn’t ask anyone if he could kill himself. He didn’t leave a note. He just made an executive decision to end his life. No communication, nothing. Seems rather selfish, if you ask me.

I get the impression that she needs therapy more than her brother. But that’s only my professional opinion. Not something I can say out loud. Especially since she comes across as the type of person that would write a nasty yelp review about me.

I’m not going to lie, Ms.—

Fletcher.

Ms. Fletcher, I don’t have any specialty in talking with the dead. I don’t think any therapy would help your brother.

You sound like the other therapists. It’s like you all don’t even want to try.

Well, perhaps that’s because, like I’ve said, we cannot resurrect or talk to the dead. If it’s grief counseling that you’re wanting, then I can help.

Grief counseling sounds fine, if that’s all you have to offer. I’m not sure if he needs it exactly, but if that’s the best you can do for him, then I suppose beggars can’t be choosers. 

And with that, Ms. Fletcher exited my office before I could object. It happened so quickly, and the entire interaction was far and beyond my comfort level; I froze. I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t even think to chase after her and tell her that she needed to take her brother with her. I was left in my office with a dead man that had killed himself a few hours ago. I wondered if there was a specific protocol for these sorts of situations. Was I supposed to call the police, have them pick Steven up? Wouldn’t that lead to criminal charges being filed against Ms. Fletcher for disturbing a dead body? Improper mobility of the deceased? I dunno, something in that vein. While I’m almost certain that Ms. Fletcher and I wouldn’t get along in any social setting, I still didn’t think she deserved to be criminally punished. She was clearly going through emotional turmoil over her brother’s death, if not other life events and traumas.

Steven appeared to be in his late twenties to mid thirties. Appears as in my best approximation, and nowhere close to an accurate determination since his body and spirit had degraded since he’d passed. His eyes were glazed over. There was no more color in his skin, other than a few bruises here and there that were probably caused by his sister maneuvering him around in the wheelchair.

Despite rigor mortis setting in, he looked rather limp, like a mound of clay folded over onto itself.

While I knew Steven was dead and could not hear me, I did feel a bit awkward. I felt as if I should say something, as if I was embracing the idea that he was now my patient.

I’m sorry, Steven. I’m at a bit of a loss for words. But it’s like I told your sister, I can’t help you. I wish I could, but I can’t.

…

I don’t know what I’m doing. Talking to a dead man, apparently. That’s what my career has come to. Maybe I can put up fliers all over town. Even rent a billboard. They’ll advertise that I’ll psychoanalyze your dead loved ones. That will become my entire business model; sitting across dead people while trying to give them unneeded and unwanted therapeutic advice. Fuck. I mean, fuck. What in the actual…?

…

It’s not your fault. I’m a bit frustrated today. Not with you. It’s this whole thing. My life, I mean. I just don’t know if I did it right. In fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. But it’s not like you can wake up when you’re sixty and change a whole bunch. I should be thinking about retiring. Maybe travel. Maybe reading more. Maybe learn a different language so I can eavesdrop in the Dominican barbershop I get my hair cut at. But no, instead…instead I’m talking to a dead guy about my problems. I think this might be the lowest point in my career. Maybe the lowest point in my life.

…

That’s not true. I almost got married, if you can believe that. It was a lifetime ago. I was still young. I could run 5 miles each morning without feeling winded. I could bench press. Not much, but I could lift something. But I haven’t kept up with any exercises. I keep telling myself I need to do yoga or something. Bare minimum, stretch my limbs. But yeah, I dunno, I haven’t done any of that. But that’s beside the point. My point is that there used to be another person, you know, besides my parents and extended family, that said they were willing to commit to loving me.

…

She was a poet. We met after one of her poetry readings. I hadn’t actually attended her reading. It just happened to be at a venue in which there was a psychology conference in the adjoining room and I had wandered out towards the bar area to get some fresh air from all the shrinks doing, you know, their shrinking business, and I came across the most wonderful woman. She wore a tattered band t-shirt and a thick ring of mascara encasing her eyes like jewels falling down a pit of darkness. And she had such a way with words. I mean, I guess that’s why she was a poet. Still is, I should add. It’s not like she died or anything.

…

I hope I’m not upsetting you. In fact, I don’t really know much about you. At all. That’s quite strange, you know, in my line of work. I tend to know a little bit about the person I’m analyzing. Sure, I know you killed yourself. But your sister didn’t really give me much else. I have no idea why you killed yourself, what your life was like, what your dreams and aspirations were. None of that. Makes my job a little more difficult. I feel like I’m in a George Bernard Shaw play right now. Like a really bad plot for some artistic pomo play being put on by some small indie production company that no one’s heard of and, ultimately, no one cares about either.

…

Damn, I need to figure out what to do with you. 

Without knowing who I should call, I pick up the phone and call the person I want to call. After a few rings, she answers.

Hello.

Liz.

Yes. Hello? Who is this?

It’s Burt.

Burt? she sounds as if she doesn’t recognize my voice. I can imagine her now; a book in her lap that she put down in order to answer the phone. She might be enjoying herbal tea in her sunroom. Not a care in the world. Maybe she has kids now. Gawd, does she have kids? I would be too afraid to ask. It feels like one of those probing questions like asking a woman her age without, you know, directly asking her age.

Yeah, Burt, you’re ex-fiance. 

Burt?

Yeah.

What? How? How have you been? It’s been…

Thirty-two years.

Yeah. My gosh, I can’t believe it. It’s good to hear from you. You might now believe this, but Ryan and I were just talking about you the other night.

I don’t know Ryan, but I know I don’t need to ask. Ryan’s probably her husband. She met him maybe a few months or years after our engagement ended. I seethe with jealousy over the idea of her moving on, though I know it’s stupid as hell to think that she’s spent all these years alone, I dunno, pining for me or something. She would have had to move on. She’s the most beautiful person I have ever met. Everyone loved her instantaneously. 

How have you been?

Fine. I’m doing alright. Still a therapist. Still helping people figure out their problems rather than working on my own.

Always the giver. 

How about you? You got married to Ryan, you say?

Yes, I did. He’s been great. We’ve been married for almost thirty years now come this June.

That’s great. That’s great. I’m happy for you.

…

I don’t mean to be rude, Burt, but did you call for a specific reason?

It sounds like you have something on your mind.

It’s nothing. I don’t know. I didn’t really know who else to call.

What is it?

This new patient…It’s a new one for me. I’m at a loss here. 

Well, I don’t know if I can be of any help. I was never a great student of the human condition like you are. I just write silly poems that no one reads.

I read them. I’ve been reading them, I mean. I never stopped.

That’s sweet. I appreciate it.

There’s a room in my house that I rarely go into. It has a handful of bookshelves lining the walls, and all which contain every chapbook, magazine, anthology, book, and print out of her poems that she’s written. I guess it’s my melancholy room. I know I certainly feel sad as shit whenever I go in there and re-read through her work.

Though it could also be allergies since I’ve never actually dusted or cleaned the room either.

My patient’s dead, I blurt out.

Dead? Like, they just died in your office?

No, no, nothing like that. They were dead when they came into my office. This girl, I dunno, I forget her name, but she brought her brother in here. He committed suicide some time ago. Probably recently, I’m not sure, it’s been a while since I’ve studied anatomy and postmortem. 

But there's a dead person in your office then, right?

Yeah.

Then they’re no longer your patient, I would imagine. You’re a therapist. You only help people that are still living.

That’s what I said. But I dunno, this guy's sister sister, she seemed rather insistent that I help her brother.

But how can you?

I’m still trying to figure that out.

What can I do to help?

I don’t know. I guess I was hoping to get your opinion.

My professional opinion?

Yeah, I guess. 

We share a tepid laugh. It feels like a familiar moment, something we’ve shared over and over in the past, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is exactly. I guess I was hoping that she would tell me what I needed to do. Not just in this moment, as unusual as it was, but for the rest of my life. Or maybe she could tell me that I’ve lived wrong, confirm a suspicion I’ve had for quite some time.

But perhaps what I was really hoping for was to not feel as if my career, my life, or this specific moment even, was just me talking with a dead guy that killed himself.

Are you still there?

…