Wombat Strategy

I was curious to see the others' signatures, so I made sure I got it last. Ariana Creeling's name was in clear angular script; Lonnie's was a long scrawl with a couple of dots floating above it; Harriet had scribbled her initials.

I began to read the document.

'Kylie, what's taking you so long?' Lonnie demanded.

'I never sign anything till I know what it is.'

'It's the standard form,' said Lonnie. I didn't look at him, but he sounded like he was rolling his eyes.

Harriet hadn't even glanced at the form before she initialed it, but she still rushed in to defend me. 'I think it very wise to read a document before signing.'

'Finished.' I handed the clipboard back to Lonnie.

'Okay,' he said, punching a button. 'This is the demo sent to therapists committed to buying a Slap! Slap! franchise from Deerdoc Enterprises.'

It started with a blare of classical music, followed by warnings of dire consequences if any portion of the following program were to be copied or viewed by unauthorized persons. Then Dr. Dave Deer himself appeared in a white coat, which nicely set off his tan.

'What you are about to view,' he intoned, 'is a demonstration of my innovative therapy, Slap! Slap! Get On With It. I must emphasize this is a simulation. The patient is an actor. His responses are an amalgam of those most often encountered in a real-life session. That said, the technique itself is exactly as used with genuine patients, with the proviso that slight adjustments may be necessary to suit the specific needs of individuals.'

The view switched to a white-and-black windowless room. The thick carpet and ceiling were white; the walls and sparse furniture were black. On one wall hung a large flat-screen TV. There were two straight-back chairs facing each other in the center of the room. An uncomfortable-looking couch was placed diagonally across one corner.

In voice-over Dave Deer said, 'Black and white, the essential noncolors, and also the absolutes, provide a paradigm of the patient's worldview. During therapy, the illuminating realization-white and black combine to make shades of gray-will flower in the patient's essential inner self.'

I thought I heard Ariana snort, but when I glanced her way her face was blank.

The picture now showed the room with Dr. Deer in his starched white medical coat and the actor playing the patient seated facing each other. 'You will note the patient has a clear view of the screen,' Dave Deer commented in voice-over, 'and I, sitting in the opposite chair, have my back to it. This arrangement of the chairs is vital.'

The actor playing the patient was a hollow-cheeked, intense sort of bloke with dark, burning eyes behind little oval-shaped specs. He wriggled around a bit in psychological agony. 'Doctor, I'm deeply troubled.' Pause. 'Deeply, deeply troubled.'

'Don't lose your day job,' Lonnie advised the actor.

Dr. Deer's face was impassive. 'You're deeply troubled,' he agreed. 'Deeply, deeply troubled.'

The patient nodded. 'Deeply. I have fame, fortune, but inside I'm empty. A husk of a man.'

'You have fame, fortune, but inside you're a husk of a man. An empty husk.'

Harriet hooted. 'Who wrote this dialogue? I could do better myself.'

The patient opened his mouth to speak but was transfixed by the screen behind Deer's head, upon which had appeared in block letters: don't come the raw prawn with me. I smothered a laugh.

'What's that for?' the patient said.

The screen went blank. Dr. Deer looked behind him, then back at the patient. 'There's nothing there. Do you believe you saw something?'

'There were words up there on the wall. Something about a prawn.'

Dr. Deer had another look. 'I don't see anything. Possibly an electronic malfunction…' He gave the patient a meaningful stare. 'Or a projection of your troubled, inner child.'

SOOKS NEVER PROSPER.

'There it is again!' exclaimed the patient. 'What's a sook?'

I answered him. 'A crybaby.'

The words had obligingly disappeared by the time Dr. Deer looked over his shoulder. 'Have you had hallucinations before?' he asked.

Harriet said, 'What's coming the raw prawn?'

'Aussie slang,' I told her. 'Means don't try to trick me, slip something past me, like putting a raw prawn in with all the cooked ones.'

Dr. Deer's patient was becoming more and more agitated and didn't cope well when no hide, no chrissie box appeared.

The bloke leapt to his feet, screaming, 'Look at the mother-fucking wall! And don't tell me I'm seeing things!'

The action froze, and Dave Deer's voice-over remarked, 'You will note these Australian colloquial sayings, presented to the patient, have a function something akin to Zen koans, which challenge the audience to make sense of nonsense. The patient's struggle to discern meaning facilitates the development of a potential that dwells in all of us-that is, the perception of true selfdom.'

A close-up of the patient's contorted face, caught in mid bellow, appeared. 'Note the frustration, the lack of control, the almost childlike behavior of the patient,' said Dr. Deer. 'This marks the seminal, the determining, the shaping point of my therapy.'

The frozen picture jerked into life. The patient, spluttering with rage, confronted his therapist, still sitting relaxed on his chair. 'I've paid a small fortune for this…for this…'

As words failed him, Dr. Deer stood, drew himself to his full height, slapped the patient very hard on one cheek, then backhanded him equally hard on the other, while saying in a loud, commanding voice, 'Slap! Slap! Get on with it!'

'You hit me! You physically assaulted me!'

Dr. Deer smiled, warmly, compassionately. 'Your terminology is faulty. What you experienced was not assault. It was, in fact, an enlightening, freeing, clinically controlled, physical gestalt.'

'Say what?'

Deer bent to pick up the patient's specs, which had been sent flying at the first hearty slap. 'How do you feel?' he asked solicitously, handing them over. 'What thoughts are arising from your deepest, innermost, most profound self?'

'That you're an asshole.'

Dr. Deer beamed. 'Excellent. Your healing process has begun.'

SIX

As the screen went blank, Lonnie said, 'I know I'm going to be sorry I asked, but what does 'No hide, no Chrissie box' mean?'

'It's a bit complicated,' I said. 'See, the day after Christmas is Boxing Day. In England it was the day the lord and lady of the manor came around to give food and other goodies to the peasants. See? They handed out Chrissie boxes.'

'I'm already sorry I asked,' said Lonnie.

'You've lost me,' said Harriet. 'What's this to do with hiding?'

'Not hiding. Having a hide. Like a rhinoceros. You, know, being thick-skinned, so you don't get discouraged easily.'

They looked at me blankly. This was uphill work. 'Okay,' I said, 'here it is in a nutshell. If you're not pushy, you don't get a reward. Got it? No hide, no Chrissie box.'

'Then I guess you get a lot of Chrissie boxes, Kylie,' said Lonnie with a grin.