Dan snorted. “Don’t listen to everything I say. Or to your Uncle Donny. Some days I like it here just fine.”
“Oh.” Ked thought about this apparent contradiction. “But then other days there are too many androids, right?”
Dan smiled. “Something like that.”
In the distance, Ralph stirred up a flock of pigeons that flew off over the trees. Ked watched for a moment then turned back to his father. “Mom says you like to be miserable.”
Dan looked at Ked. “Do you think telling me that is going to make me think better of your mother?”
Ked shrugged. “I guess not.”
A very determined-looking boy of two or three went past dragging a reluctant stroller, seemingly already aware of the great responsibilities life held in store.
“So why are you telling me? Do you want me to move away?”
“No, but it might make you think about what’s bothering you so much.”
Dan stopped to consider his son for a moment. “Should I be paying you for this advice?”
Ked smiled. “Nah. You couldn’t afford me anyway.”
“Smart-ass.” He gave Ked a loose punch on the shoulder. “So how am I doing with this father-son heart-to-heart thing?”
“Pretty good.”
“What else does your mother say about me?”
Ked paused. Dan could see the lightning flashes of thought flitting over his face, wanting to say whatever it was and wanting not to hurt him at the same time. “She says you’re unforgiving.”
Dan considered how to answer. Was it true? All that came to mind was a question: “Do you think I am?”
Ked looked away. He took so long to speak that Dan thought he might not answer. “I’m just afraid that one day I’ll piss you off and you’ll stop loving me, too.”
Dan placed a hand gently on the back of his son’s neck and pulled him closer. “That will never happen.”
Ked looked up. “Promise?”
Dan nodded. “That’s one thing I promise. It will never happen.”
“Okay,” Ked said uncertainly.
Seventeen
Meet John Doe
The blinds in Martin’s office were drawn, the desk lamps pointed down in little penumbras of shade and brightness, as though he’d a developed a light sensitivity. Dan waited for an explanation, though none was forthcoming. He turned down the offer of water and proceeded to describe his break-up with Bill, weaving in strands of the conversation with Donny in which he’d nearly ended their friendship.
As always, he was leery of how much to tell Martin. Was it just paranoia that whispered in his ear and said Martin might label him a psychopath or a menace to society? As Dan’s psychiatrist, he’d been granted the authority to judge Dan’s ability to function at his work. Maybe that extended to other areas in his life, like his suitability as a father. He imagined Martin standing at the gates of Auschwitz, pointing to various doorways: a set of twins directed to the left for experimentation, others to the right for a more succinct end. Though maybe that wasn’t fair. Perhaps Martin wasn’t the monster Dan believed him to be, but he wasn’t willing to take the chance. That he exhibited not a single sign of having emotions while isolating and observing emotions in others made him suspect. It was people like Martin who inspired books like Blade Runner.
Dan brought up his concern for Bill, explaining how he’d struggled to understand what Bill was going through being in love with his best friend while attempting to maintain a relationship with Dan. He thought Martin might award him a gold star for his efforts, as he had when he tried to get Dan to understand Ralph’s needs.
For once, Martin didn’t ask Dan how he felt about the situation. Instead, he said, “That’s a lot of responsibility you place on your shoulders — anticipating other people’s needs as well as your reaction to them. Are you trying to be perfect?”
Hardly, thought Dan. No one going for a good behaviour award would have done what I did afterwards. “No, I’m far from perfect. I have no illusions there. I bashed in a filing cabinet, remember.”
Martin scribbled something in his book. Was he marking the reference to the incident as mocking or simply noting that Dan had a sense of humour about it? He looked up. “Do you think you might be trying to make up for your perceived lack of perfection?”
“How is that?”
“You said Bill was particularly hard to please, ergo, you were never able to function to his satisfaction. You probably saw yourself as imperfect in Bill’s eyes….”
Dan interrupted. “I think Bill saw everyone as imperfect in Bill’s eyes. I never thought that was my fault.”
Martin smiled his patient smile, the one he wore when he wanted to coax Dan toward a conclusion of some sort. “Was there another relationship in your past where you tried to please a man who couldn’t or wouldn’t be pleased by anything you did?”
“I tried to make my father love me.”
“But you failed, didn’t you?”
“Miserably.”
“Because — as far as you believe — your father never loved you.”
Dan nodded.
“But you won’t accept that perhaps your father was incapable of love. You prefer to take on the responsibility for his lack of affection toward you.”
“Maybe. Does it matter now?”
Martin’s pencil poised over the pad. “It might help if you saw that Bill is another version of your father: a man impossible to please.”
Dan looked at the clock — twenty-five minutes left — then glanced at the framed diploma in psychiatry awarded to Martin Sanger. Googling his therapist in the early days of their sessions, along with a list of publication titles to his credit, Dan had come across the German translation for Martin’s last name: pincer. He envisioned a giant set of pliers tugging at the neurons in his brain. “Yes, I can see the connection,” he said.
Martin leaned forward. “Do you think that might be why you get angry with Ralph when he messes the floor or why you dent filing cabinets with your fists when something goes wrong at work? Is that why you want to cut off your closest friend when he tells you the truth about yourself? You want everyone around you to be perfect, because otherwise you feel you can’t love them.”
With a chill, Dan remembered his son’s words in the park: I’m just afraid that one day I’ll piss you off and you’ll stop loving me, too.
Martin looked pleased, as though he’d just inserted the last tile in a ten-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, completing the image of a damaged man unable to express love. Dan wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
“Is that what you think, Martin?”
Martin’s eye blinked, a lizard sunning itself on a rock. “I’m asking you.”
Dan swallowed. “I don’t have an opinion,” he lied.
He wanted to say, Don’t think you know me, to this grotesque impersonation of a man bent over his notepad beneath his Mondrian reproduction. Wasn’t it Mondrian who despised nature? Hated trees?
Dan wondered about the others who sat in this chair revealing or hiding themselves from this man and his bloodless, probing intellect — a collection of damaged beings going through the motions of expressing their desires and fears, before letting themselves out the big doors to stand deflated in the hallway beside the elevator that never came.