Silent Partner

Dear Alex,

Gone up to San Luis. Cousin Terry had a baby. Going to help her, be back in about a week.

Don’t hate me.

Love,

R

3

One of the cases I’d just finished working on involved a five-year-old girl as the hostage in a vicious custody battle between a Hollywood producer and his fourth wife.

For two years the parents, encouraged to wage war by lawyers on retainer, had been unable to reach a settlement. Finally the judge got disgusted and asked me to come up with recommendations. I evaluated the girl and asked that another psychologist be appointed to examine the parents.

The consultant I recommended was a former classmate named Larry Daschoff, a sharp diagnostician whose ethics I respected. Larry and I had remained amicable over the years, trading referrals, getting together occasionally for lunch or handball. But as a friend he fell in the casual category and I was surprised when he called me at 10:00 P.M. on Friday.

“Dr. D.? It’s Dr. D.,” he shouted, cheerful as usual. A hurricane of noise roared in the background- squealing tires and gunshots from a blaring TV competing with what sounded like a schoolyard during recess.

“Hi, Larry. What’s up?”

“What’s up is Brenda is at the law library cramming for her torts course and I’ve got all five monsters to myself.”

“The joys of parenthood.”

“Oh, yeah.” The noise level rose. A small voice whined, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

“One second, Alex.” He put his hand over the phone and I heard him say, “Wait till I’m off the phone. No, not now. Wait. If he bothers you, just stay away from him. Not now, Jeremy, I don’t want to hear it. I’m talking on the phone, Jeremy. If you don’t cool it, it’s no Cocoa Puffs and twenty minutes off your bedtime!”

He came back on the line. “I’ve become an instant fan of aversion therapy, D. Fuck Anna Freud and Bruno Bettelheim. Both of them probably locked themselves in their studies to write their books while someone else raised their kids. Did old Anna even have kids? I think she stayed married to Daddy. Anyway, first thing Monday I’m sending away for half a dozen cattle prods. One for each of them and one to shove up my own ass for encouraging Brenda to go back to school. If Robin ever comes up with a creative idea like that, change the subject fast.”

“I’ll be sure to do that, Larry.”

“You okay, D.?”

“Just a little tired.”

He was too good a therapist not to know I was holding back. Too good, also, to pursue the issue.

“Anyway, D., I read your report on the Featherbaugh mess and concur in every respect. With parents like these, what would really benefit the kid would be orphanhood. Barring that, I agree that some half- assed joint custody arrangement’s probably the least terrible way to go. Want to take bets on the chances of its working out?”

“Only if I can wager on the down side.”

“No way.” He excused himself again, yelled for someone to turn down the TV. No compliance followed. “People are really fucked up, aren’t they, D.? How’s that for a major insight after thirteen years as a mind prober? Nobody wants to work at anything anymore- God knows I’m no day at the beach and neither is Brenda. If we can stick it out all these years, anyone should be able to.”

“I always thought of you two as the perfect couple.”

“One born every moment.” He chuckled. “We’re talking Italian marriage- mucho passione, mucho screamo. Bottom line, she puts up with me because of my erotic prowess.”

“That so?”

“That so?” he mimicked. “D., that was pretty damn shrinky sounding, not up to your usual level of sparkling repartee. Sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“If you say so. Anyway, on to my main reason for calling. Get the invite to Kruse’s big bash?”

“It’s gracing the bottom of my wastebasket- that sparkling enough?”

“Not by a long shot. Not planning on going?”

“You’ve got to be kidding, Larry.”

“I don’t know. It could be fun in a mondo bizarro kind of way- see how the other half lives, stand on the sidelines making nasty analytic comments while suppressing our bourgeois envy.”

I remembered something. “Larry, weren’t you Kruse’s research assistant for a while?”

“Not for a while, D. Just one semester- and yes, I’m being defensive. The guy was a sleaze. My excuse is that I was broke- just married, slaving over the dissertation, and my NIMH stipend ran out mid-semester.”

“C’mon, fess up, Larry. It was a plum job. You guys sat around all day watching dirty movies.”

“Not fair, Delaware. We were exploring the frontiers of human sexuality.” He laughed. “Actually, we sat around all day and watched undergraduates watch dirty movies. Oh, for those licentious seventies- could you see getting away with that today?”

“A tragic loss to science.”

“Catastrophic. Truth be told, D., it was total bullshit. Kruse got away with it because he’d brought in money- a private grant- to study the effects of pornography on sexual arousal.”

“Did he come up with anything?”

“Major data: fuck films make college sophomores horny.”

“I knew that when I was a sophomore.”

“You were a late bloomer, D.”

“Did he publish?”

“Where? Penthouse? Nah, he used the results to go on talk shows and cheerlead for porn as a healthy sexual outlet, et cetera, et cetera. Then, in the ‘uptight eighties,’ he made a complete about-face- supposedly, he’d ‘reanalyzed’ his data. Started giving speeches about porn promoting violence against women.”

“Lots of integrity, our new department head.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“How’d he climb this high, Larry? He used to be parttime help.”

“Part-time help with full-time connections.”

“The name on the endowment- Blalock?”

“You got it. Old moolah- steel, railroads- one of those families that gets a penny every time someone west of the Mississippi breathes.”

“What’s Kruse’s connection?”

“Way I hear it, Mrs. Blalock had a kid with problems, Kruse was the kid’s therapist. Must have made it all better because Mommy’s been pouring money into the department for years- on condition that Kruse administer it. He’s been promoted, given everything he wants. His latest want is to be department head, so,