as a unique entity, special, nonconforming, and somewhat set apart from ordinary specimens of
Having reached the entry arch of his destination, John Garrett quickened his pace, rapidly climbed the single flight of stairs, and found himself face to face with the glass-paned door that bore the black legend, L. D. KELLER, M. D. As before, he wondered why psychoanalysts did not print PSYCHIATRIST instead of M. D. beside their names, and then decided that as long as there remained so much fear and resultant hostility toward analysts, discretion was the better part of honesty.
Opening the door, Garrett stepped into the office, then paused to close the door softly behind him. He moved through the empty blond reception room, and entered the spacious main office as unobtrusively as possible. He could see at once that they were all present, sitting, compulsive and neurotic, in the same chairs as ever, and that the session was in full swing. No one turned to greet Garrett as he tiptoed to his chair, for it was understood that he was always late (‘tardiness may often be a resistance to the embarrassment of discussing taboo topics in the presence of others,’ Dr. Keller had once remarked), but now Dr. Keller, from behind his oak fortification of a desk, acknowledged his arrival with the slightest flicker of his eyes.
Garrett sat stiffly a moment, then consulted his watch. The group therapy session always lasted precisely one hour and twenty minutes. Since Garrett paid ten dollars for his weekly attendance, this meant that he was paying twelve and a half cents a minute. Because he had been sixteen minutes late, there remained only one hour and four minutes. The delay had cost him two dollars. Still, there was eight dollars’ worth of time left. He needed part of that time, today, especially today, but there were six others who needed it, too. Perhaps a close search of the faces of his fellow patients, he decided, would tell if their urgency matched his own.
They were seated in a crooked semicircle before Dr. Keller’s desk, and Garrett began reading from left to right. On the beige divan to the far left were Mr. Lovato and Mrs. Perrin. Mr. Lovato, a slight, homosexual artist with a growing reputation for painting children in the chocolate box style of Thomas Gainsborough, sat with his knees awkwardly crossed. Garrett recalled that when he had first come into group therapy four months ago, Mr. Lovato had always sat with his knees pinched together, like a prim parochial-schoolgirl. But a month ago, apparently somewhat liberated by analysis, he had begun to cross his legs in the more masculine manner. Mrs. Perrin, a top-heavy matron in her fifties with purple grey hair, sat with lips compressed, worrying a small handbag with her hands. She was recovering from a nervous breakdown. Although married to a wealthy citizen of Van Nuys, her problem was a neurotic inability to spend a penny, even on the necessities of life, even on laundry or a loaf of bread, without becoming agitated. She rarely spoke, perhaps once in three weeks, but when she did speak, it was about her tiny triumphs in managing a purchase for fifty cents or a dollar.
Garrett shifted his gaze to the next patient, handsome, young Adam Ring, the rising actor, now slumped lazily in the easy chair, monotonously swinging a charm which was a rabbit’s foot. Ring, whose bronzed face in profile resembled that of a head on a Greek coin, was in therapy because of a sexual difficulty. He spoke of it lightly, jokingly, but Dr. Keller was not deceived. Adam Ring’s virility was redoubtable when he seduced young women of foreign race or colour-Oriental, Indian, Mexican, Negro-but his virility was questionable and impaired when confronted by a Caucasian.
Directly to Garrett’s left, in a straight chair, sat the incredible Mrs. Zane. A plain and freckled housewife in her middle thirties, given to gingham and shirtwaisters and a certain helplessness, she had been complaining steadily (at least as long as Garrett had been in the group) of the sexual excesses forced upon her. A Catholic with five youngsters in junior school, she had revealed that her cross was an economically inept husband, too incompetent to hold a job a month. At last, by chance, this husband had obtained a well-paid job with a garment manufacturer. When it had appeared that he would lose this job too, Mrs. Zane had desperately tried to prevent the catastrophe by inviting her husband’s employer, and his wife, to dinner. The result had been that the employer, long disinterested in his mate and bored with golf and high finance, had been sufficiently moved by Mrs. Zane to make her his extracurricular activity. Instead of being fired, Mr. Zane was promoted to chief salesman, at a higher salary, and sent out of the city four times a year on extended trips. In return, although it had never been spelt out in so many words, Mrs. Zane was expected to be receptive to the advances of her husband’s employer. A pliable and generous young woman, Mrs. Zane had not resisted. For the past year, she had entertained her husband’s employer regularly, and because he was insatiable, her view of him was curiously horizontal. Her guilts kept the church confessional busy, and her doubts led her to Dr. Keller.
John Garrett enjoyed Mrs. Zane, but today he was in no mood for her. She had the appearance of one who had much on her mind, and was restlessly awaiting her turn, and Garrett knew that he would have difficulty obtaining the time that he required. Turning slightly in his chair, he saw Mr. Armstrong, the stocky, beetle-browed compulsive gambler, rocking slowly, lost in his own deep broodings. Garrett always regarded the gambler as an ill-starred Branwell Bronte doomed by circumstance. He liked to consider Mr. Armstrong in soap opera serial terms: Will Armstrong’s new roulette system smash the Nevada syndicate tomorrow? Will he save his job in the nick of time? Will he rescue his mortgaged house? Will he win the respect of his complaining wife and children and relatives? Will he ward off debt and destruction? Alone, of all of them, Mr. Armstrong recorded and read aloud his fantastic nocturnal dreams.
Beyond Mr. Armstrong, leaning intently forward, sat Miss Dudzinski, who had a mare’s face and a body all unpadded bone, and who chattered on with the rapidity of one who feared to be overtaken by interruption. Miss Dudzinski was in her late twenties, and definitely old-maid material. She lived in a three-room apartment with her frail, hypochondriac mother, who had a worn heart and bad bladder and practised the savage tyranny of the weak and the old. Miss Dudzinski supported them both by working as stenographer in a large real estate office. She was in group therapy because she was in the midst of a triangle-the dramatis personae consisting of a shy bachelor, who toiled as a drugstore assistant and was sufficiently lonely to consider Miss Dudzinski as beautiful; of Miss Dudzinski, whose entire life had been a search for a shy bachelor who was a drugstore assistant; and of Mrs. Dudzinski, enjoying her fortieth year on the brink of death.
Considering Miss Dudzinski now, and conjuring up the appalling picture of someone wishing to sleep with her, and in action with her, John Garrett suddenly realized that Miss Dudzinski was leaning forward because she was speaking and probably had been speaking for some time. With an effort, for he had his own problem, one less trifling than these, Garrett pretended to listen.
‘-well, I tell you, Dr. Keller, I’m at the end of the rope. I don’t know which way to turn,’ Miss Dudzinski was saying, the words tumbling out, each one close on the heels of the last. ‘It’s the horns of a dilemma. Clarence told me plainly last night, he’s not going to wait another six months to see if I make up my mind to marry him or not. He was pretty outspoken for somebody who’s an introvert. He said if I wouldn’t tell him right away-well, he was going to quit his job and go back to Cleveland. He said you’ve got to choose between your mother and me, or something like that, but that was what he said. I told him it’s easy for you to say, but I’ve still got my responsibilities to Mother, she’s human, I can’t abandon her just like that to run off and marry and only think of myself. What’ll happen to Mother? If she died, I’d never forgive myself. I’d carry it to the grave. But still there’s on the other hand-Clarence-’
She looked around the room, almost imploringly, at the others, and before anyone could speak, she resumed, addressing the group as well as Dr. Keller. ‘You all know me. I don’t have to lie. I’m not beautiful and I know it, besides I don’t think that’s the important thing because spiritual is more important. But we all know men hold more store by looks than anything, and Clarence-I’m not ashamed to admit it-I guess I’ve told you-he’s the first man who ever proposed to me, and besides he’s nice and I want to have a respectable husband, too, like everyone.’ She swallowed. ‘But what’ll I do with Mother?’
She sat back, and eyed the others hopefully. Dr. Keller straightened his bulk, put down his pencil, and pinched his broad nose. ‘Well, now, Miss Dudzinski, this anxiety-’
Before the analyst could continue, Adam Ring, from deep in his chair, swinging his rabbit’s foot still, spoke up. ‘I’ll tell you what to do with Mother,’ he said. ‘Drown her.’
Miss Dudzinski gasped and Ring was pleased, for he liked to shock. Irreverence was his attention getter and
