Benchley, Peter - Novel 07 (30 page)

 
          
 
"Last night? Off to the side. Why?"

 
          
 
"I was way in the back," Marcia
said. "I couldn't see too well. But the way he was fumbling, it sure
looked to me that either he had a bad cold and was juiced on decongestants, or
else he'd been putting some goodies up his nose."

 
          
 
"Stone?" Dan huffed. "Be
serious. You want to believe that. What're you saying? We should blow the
whistle on him? We can't even set foot in the place."

 
          
 
"True." She rubbed her foot on his
stomach. "But we have spies. Oh my, do we have spies."

 
          
 
"I don't think you people want to get
better," Gwen said, her smile by now a caricature of a death rictus.
"You know why? You're all still lying and still denying."

 
          
 
Lupone had refused to retract his story about
the source of his itching, despite Gwen's insistence that it was a fantasy made
up to glamorize his drab life as a low-level marketing executive.

 
          
 
By the time she turned to Twist, a tacit
understanding had spread among the patients that since truth had no value in
this forum, since Gwen had no intention of believing anything they said and was
interested only in proving them all liars, they would each invent a fine lie
that would be supported by all the others.

 
          
 
All this they agreed with their eyes.

 
          
 
Gwen asked Twist why he persisted in denying
his Arab-African heritage, which was obvious to her because he had refused to
accept either his Moslem name or his black name.

 
          
 
Feigning remorse. Twist said that his drug
problem was grounded in sex. "My aunt, she fell in love with my . . .
weapon . . . took to callin' it Lawrence of Arabia 'cause it conquered all that
come before it, and I knew God would strike me dead for porkin' my mama's
sister so I started sniffin'."

 
          
 
Preston
attempted to corroborate Twist's story with a colorful description of
Lawrence
's magnitude, but Gwen cut him off and said,
"Junius, your problem isn't sex. It's mendacity."

 
          
 
Hector, confronted with the accusation that
the reason he spent his life in treatment centers was that he was obsessed with
the attention lavished on him by doctors, psychiatrists and counselors, that
his problem could be reduced to one word—''egomania"—said, "Wrong. If
you knew to read my record, you'd see my real papa is Cesar Chavez, and them
grape pickers is worried that if it gets out he's been fuckin' around, no more
huelga. So they gotta keep me locked up. You think I like it here?''

 
          
 
Preston
opted for simplicity. When Gwen asked him when he had first known he was an
alcoholic, he said, "I'm not. I've been trying to tell people for three
weeks, especially Marcia, but will she listen?" He spread his arms: Saint
Sebastian at the stake.

 
          
 
Gwen sat stonily and looked at each of them,
and each of them looked at the floor, like twelve-year-olds caught peeping into
the girls' locker room.

 
          
 
"None of you," she said at last,
"none of you will get your medallions. You'll leave here and go out in the
world without that symbol of success, and I guarantee you within a week you'll
all be in the gutter. I could give you that medallion, that comfort, but I
won't. Do you know why? Because God is not pleased with you, not pleased at
all." She stood up. "Now get out of here."

 
          
 
At the door,
Preston
looked back and said, "Hey, Gwen, do
me a favor? Next time you talk to God"— he winked—"give Him my very
best. I think He's aces."

 
          
 
"What an asshole," Duke said to
Preston as he watched his new counselor—a young man in a dark suit, white shirt
and dark tie, who looked like a Seventh Day Adventist canvasser—walk from Dan's
office (now his) into Marcia's office (now Gwen's) and close the door.
"The guy tried something called the Hot Seat."

 
          
 
"Yeah, so did Use Koch."

 
          
 
"You should've heard Priscilla. This dude
gets on her case about being a rich bitch and all, and she gives him that look
like he's something the toilet forgot to flush and says, 'Mr. Crippin, I don't
know who you are or why you're here, but if you think you can intimidate me
with your petty proletarian snobbery, you're very much mistaken.' "

 
          
 
"You know what happened?"

 
          
 
"You mean happened happened? No
idea."

 
          
 
"Let's go find out."

 
          
 
Guy Larkin wasn't in his office.

 
          
 
Nurse Bridget was typing labels for blood
samples.

 
          
 
Preston
poked his head in the door and said, "D'you know what happened to
Marcia?"

 
          
 
Nurse Bridget kept typing. "Did something
happen to her?"

 
          
 
"Her and Dan," Duke said.
"Where are they?"

 
          
 
She shook her head. "Nobody tells me
anything."

 
          
 
She knows.
Preston
said, "What you mean is, they told you
not to say anything."

 
          
 
"Have it your way, dearie."

 
          
 
They walked down the corridor of
administrative offices, hoping to find an unsuspecting secretary they could
surprise into revealing something.

 
          
 
A voice behind them said, "You haven't
been murdered in your bed yet."

 
          
 
It was Sandra, the counselor-tech. She wore
slacks, not shorts, a blouse, not a T-shirt. But she still carried her
dog-eared copy of Beyond the Chains of Illusion.

 
          
 
"Hey,"
Preston
said. "Working days now?"

 
          
 
"Promoted. Assistant counselor." She
smiled. "One more step and I’ll have a license to get inside your
head."

 
          
 
"Somebody leave?"
Preston
asked, all innocence.

 
          
 
"Nice try, Scott." She punched him
lightly on the shoulder.

 
          
 
"C'mon, Sandra. Tell me what
happened."

 
          
 
"Not sure. All I know is they moved
Crippin up and that Gwen, thank God. She was on me like fleas."

 
          
 
"But you hear things," Duke said.

 
          
 
"Everybody hears things."

 
          
 
"Like what?"

 
          
 
"Like"—serious now—"like,
they're paying me more money and giving me more to do, and I don't want to blow
it by shooting off my mouth. Have a great day."

 
          
 
The psychologist was sitting at his desk,
reading.
Preston
tapped on the open door and said, "Dr.
Frost..."

 
          
 
Frost looked up. "Ah!
Preston
, isn't it? Scott Preston?"

 
          
 
"Right."
Preston
took a step inside the office. Duke
followed.

 
          
 
"And . . . ?" Frost looked at Duke.

 
          
 
"Duke Bailey. Self-loathing. Probable
suicide. You remember."

 
          
 
"Of course. What can I—"

 
          
 
"Two counselors,"
Preston
said, realizing suddenly that he had never
known Marcia's last name. "Marcia and Dan. Do you know what happened to
them?"

 
          
 
Frost hesitated, clearly—obviously, no
question-deciding whether or not to lie.

 
          
 
At last, he said, "I do."

 
          
 
Bless the headshrinker's oath,
Preston
thought: I will dissemble, I will
circumlocute, I will refuse to answer, but I will never lie.

 
          
 
"Tell us."

 
          
 
"No."

 
          
 
Die, shrinks!

 
          
 
"Why not?"

 
          
 
"You don't need to know. All you need to
know—"

 
          
 
"She's my counselor!"

 
          
 
"—is she's gone. You have a new
counselor. Develop a relationship with her. You've become too dependent. Both
of you."

 
          
 
"How do you know?"

 
          
 
"It's common. Everybody does."

 
          
 
Duke said to
Preston
, "Shall we beat the shit out of
him?"

 
          
 
Frost tensed, and his hand went behind his
desk.

 
          
 
"No satisfaction,"
Preston
said. 'You can't make a shrink beg. They
just lie there and bleed and say"— here Preston raised his voice to a
falsetto whine— " 'How does this make you feel?' "

 
          
 
They quit. Who else could they ask?

 
          
 
They walked back toward Chaparral, wondering
aloud what transgressions Marcia and Dan could have committed (for Frost had as
much as acknowledged that they had been fired). Had they refused an order? Had
they been judged too hard or too soft on their patients? Had they (Jesus!) been
caught drinking? As they passed the staff parking lot they saw Chuck buffing
the hood of a fire-engine-red Porsche.

 
          
 
They drew closer, and
Preston
said, "He's not polishing that car.
He's punishing it."

 
          
 
Chuck was rubbing one spot about two feet
square—nibbing and rubbing and rubbing. The muscles in his shoulders rose and
fell like ripples in a pond.

 
          
 
"Hey, Chuck,"
Preston
said.

 
          
 
Chuck turned his head an inch, saw them and
grunted.