Fiction by Oliver Cassidy
Author of The Spectaculars (Part 1)
Her eyes moved across the page, same as a moment before, same as five minutes before, then she stopped. She didn’t say anything for the longest time. She’d read half the story, then just stopped cold. I heard the ticking of her desk clock and nothing else.
She was my doctor, a psychiatrist I’d been seeing voluntarily. She’d assigned some work to help with my depression. Write down your feelings, she’d said. Write them in a story, and don’t hold back. Create a fictional character – you’ll feel comfortable making him say whatever it is you want to say. He can say things you’re afraid to say. That was the assignment. So she stops dead in the middle of my story and doesn’t say a word for the longest time. I focus on the ticking clock, refusing to assume the worst. But it comes.
"I suppose you’re exaggerating here for effect."
"Here?" Blank face. Feigned ignorance. She lowered her eyes and said, "If Trent fell twelve stories to his death, I think I'd be fine with it as long as I wasn't responsible."
"Oh,
that," I said. I smiled my most reassuring smile. I’d guess the doctor and I were roughly the same age, yet I’d felt so much younger than her in that moment. In the bad way, the inexperienced way. I’d felt like a kid in the principal’s office. I made a mental note not to discuss my recurring fantasy of being spanked by a principal whose legs were the shape and length of the doctor’s. Is it wise to tell your doctor you want to lick her legs? I also became angry because – in general – I hate having to answer for my feelings. And I felt duped. Here was a real fucking bait and switch if there ever was one. A situation of emotional safety turned into an ambush of the sneakiest order. She
told me to write the fucking story!
"Of course," I said. "An exaggeration." Boy, was I smiling and shaking my head. I looked pathetic.
"Is your son’s name really Trent?"
"No, no. It’s Kyle."
She leafed back into the story, read a bit, then spoke while keeping her eyes on the page.
"Do you consider Kyle – the name Kyle – a trendy name?"
I was so fucking pissed. You have no idea. I never expected to have to answer for the details of what I’d written. I thought the whole point of the assignment was to let the words flow and just spit out feelings and not get bogged down or frightened by the details. I swear to god, I wished I’d written what first occurred to me – a three-page epic about a guy named Stan who bangs his shrink on her desk.
"Not really," I said.
"You mention that your wife calls you gay. You say… here: ‘She told me I was gay.’ Is there-"
"It’s a story," I said. "With fictional characters. I’m making stuff up just to get through the story. To put words on paper. I mean yeah, there’s real feeling behind it, some real feelings, but no, there’s nothing to the gay remark. Sometimes my wife says I’m gay as a joke. I shouldn’t have put it in there. It’s like this minor detail you’re focusing on and it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t even remember writing it."
"Your remark, the one about the babysitter being black. You connect being black with being irresponsible."
"Doctor, this is a fictional character, okay? Intentionally different from me. Intentionally different so I could maybe get to some things I want to say… in, like, an indirect way. Right? Like you said. When you told me to write the story. Right?"
"I’m simply determining what you’re trying to say."
"You should finish the story then." I figured in the time it took her to finish the story, I could form some sort of summary of what it was I was trying to say. I honestly didn’t know, and I’d already decided this would be my last session, so I racked my brain for an intelligent interpretation.
She found the spot where she’d stopped. She continued reading. I knew I had about five minutes.
NOTE FROM IVY:
The third and final part of the story will arrive in April.
