Doctors (59 page)

“Excuse me, Barney, this is a little more than transference. It’s more like transportation. Apparently they’ve just spent a weekend in South Carolina.”

“Do you believe that idiotic fantasy?”

“She wrote me on Hilton Head stationery.”

“So she went there on her own to fantasize.”

“And I suppose the Polaroid picture of the two of them by the pool is also a figment of her imagination.”

“So it might have been a conference.”

“Then why are they twisted around each other like a pretzel?”

“Jesus, that’s terrible. I’ve heard this sort of thing sometimes happens. I mean, he’s not the first to violate the Hippocratic Oath.”

“No. But he’s the first to violate Grete and that’s a whole lot worse.”

“Castellano, if this is true, Himmerman deserves to be bounced. But I also think that you’re yelling at me because you wanted a good reason to scold somebody else for wronging another woman.”

Laura thought for a minute.

“I guess you’re right, Barn,” she answered quietly.

“Is Palmer screwing around?”

“Well, let’s just say at the moment he’s dabbling in promiscuity.”

“You don’t deserve that, Laura,” he said softly.

“Forget it, Barney. I called to talk about Grete.”

“I’m sorry, Andersen can take care of herself. She’s a big girl.”

“I’m a big girl too, Barn.”

“No, you’re not,” he said affectionately. “You need someone to take care of you.”

There was a sudden silence at her end.

“It’s okay, Laura. It’s okay to cry. That’s what pals are for.”

“Oh God, Barney,” she said. “What did I ever do to get a friend like you?”

“Moved to Brooklyn,” he answered cheerfully. “Now go to sleep and we’ll speak again tonight.”

P
sychoanalysis differs from all other medical disciplines in one major respect. While fledgling cardiologists, for example, do not have to lie on the table and have their chests cut open in order to qualify for their specialty, a psychoanalyst
must
learn what it feels like to be on both sides of the couch. Again, as opposed to the surgeon, he will be dealing not with a passive patient etherized upon a table, but with an active individual, agonizing with him.

At its best, psychoanalysis can be the most exciting and humane specialty of medicine. At its worst, it is unquestionably the most destructive.

Barney was accepted as a candidate for the Psychiatric Institute and began a Training Analysis with its president, Fritz Baumann, internationally renowned for his incisive writings and respected by his patients as a wise and caring therapist.

But Barney quickly discovered that analysis itself is far from enjoyable.

Freudian analysis, Dr. Baumann explained, is like a repertory company of two actors, with the patient playing himself at various ages and the analyst playing all the other characters in his psychological development (or lack of it). By analyzing the
scenes he recreates, the patient is then able to understand how long-ago incidents might have influenced the behavior patterns of the rest of his life.

In the abstract this sounded like fun to Barney. But all too soon it became clear that repressed thoughts are painful. And there is no way that the analysis, even of an ostensibly “well-balanced” candidate, as he considered himself, can be anything other than brain surgery without knives.

Barney arrived for the first session jaunty and high-spirited, certain he would impress Dr. Baumann as the best adjusted patient he had ever had. He was determined to transform what is traditionally a marathon into a hundred-yard dash.

He had, in a sense, been studying for this exam from the first moment he had taken Freud’s
Interpretation of Dreams
from the Brooklyn Library to read during the summer nights at Camp Hiawatha. From then on he had consciously tried to analyze the motivations for significant actions in his life. And he was determined to show Dr. Baumann that
he
really knew what made him tick.

He entered the brown-carpeted, wood-paneled office with the narrow leather couch against the far wall, eager to dispense with the preliminaries and get down to the business of inner exploration.

Dr. Baumann asked the usual questions—family history, siblings, childhood diseases, etc. He went on to explain that the bill (at a special discount for candidates) would be rendered monthly. Finally, he inquired if Barney understood the procedure.

“Yes, sir,” he answered. “I’ve got to say anything and everything that comes to my mind, to repress nothing and get down to the primary material.”

He then got on the couch perfectly prepared to disclose any number of repressed (or so he thought) secrets, the “shameful” sexual things he had done as an adolescent. Even the erotic fantasies about his kindergarten teacher. Surely that was the sort of stuff an analyst would have difficulty in dredging from a recalcitrant patient with a psyche sealed in cement.

And so he filled his first fifty-minute hour with what he proudly regarded as the most generous exposition of carnal activities since Krafft-Ebing’s
Psychopathic Sexuality.

It took him eleven sessions—and one or two subtle hints from Dr. Baumann—to recognize that he was offering spicy revelations simply to show that he was a “good analysand” and thereby currying the analyst’s favor.

“Why the hell should I be so uptight just because I want you to like me? I mean, it’s perfectly normal, isn’t it?” he finally asked.

Barney suddenly became aware that despite the air-conditioning in the room a cold perspiration bespangled his brow.

“Can you explain that, Dr. Baumann?” he reiterated.

When there was still no reply on the part of the master psychiatrist, his apprentice realized that they had struck analytic pay dirt. And that he himself would have to wield the pick and shovel to mine it.

Gradually, and with surprising difficulty—and Baumann’s total silence—Barney came to understand that he had recreated the most troubled relationship of his life.

It was a discovery made through anger.

“Why the hell don’t you ever say anything?” he repeated with growing frustration. “I mean, I’m paying out good money and you won’t talk to me. And don’t think I haven’t noticed you don’t even say good morning. Christ, all you’ve given me to take away is ‘Our time is up.’ Now what the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

Dr. Baumann did not reply.

“Okay, now I’m catching on, Fritz,” said Barney with undisguised hostility (as evidenced by his irreverent use of the distinguished doctor’s first name). “You actually want me to get pissed off. Well, you’ve succeeded—I
am
pissed off.”

Dr. Baumann did not reply.

“Okay, okay, I’m clued in now. I mean, I’ve read all the literature. And I know what’s coming next. I’m supposed to say that it’s really not you I’m angry at but the person I’ve turned you into. You know I’m right, Fritz. You should at least give me some credit for self-awareness.”

Dr. Baumann did not reply.

“Of course,” Barney snapped, continuing his tirade, “you want me to say that—” He stopped, unable to finish his sentence. For he was not yet capable of articulating who in his life had behaved to him as he imagined Dr. Baumann was acting now.

Oh shit, he thought to himself, maybe I should go into dermatology. You don’t even have to get a rash for that one. Why am I putting myself through this stupid exercise? What do I care if Baumann likes me or not? He’s just a fat, balding old man.

“What are you thinking?” Baumann asked.

At first Barney was startled by the unexpected sound of the doctor’s voice. He then replied with a feeling of cathartic aggression, “I was just thinking you were a fat, balding old man.”

There was a pause. Then Baumann asked quietly, “What is your association?”

“None, none. I have no association.” Barney simply could not reveal the embarrassing connection he had made.

Finally, he remarked, “I don’t think this is getting us anywhere, Fritz.”

There was another silence, before at last the doctor said, “Our time is up.”

It took Barney over a month of daily sessions—and innumerable repetitions of the same scene under various guises—to summon up the courage to admit to Baumann that the phraseology he used to denigrate his analyst had a significant association.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, “I know what you think I’m thinking—that ‘old man’ is just a slang way of saying ‘father.’ But you’re wrong. That’s a stupid idea.”

Once again, he could not come to full grips with it.

“Jesus,” he complained, “I sure haven’t gotten much for nearly three hundred dollars.”

And suddenly he thought to himself, Why am I behaving exactly like a typical textbook patient? Why am I bitching about the fee? That’s so goddamn classic, Why can’t I be different?

Then a new idea struck him. Maybe Fritz will like me better if I fit into the usual pattern.

In 1965 the impending storm in Southeast Asia finally broke. Indeed, the first series of President Lyndon Johnson’s bombings was ominously codenamed “Rolling Thunder.”

In June the White House announced that General Westmoreland could commit U.S. Army troops to battle as he saw fit.

To say that a small flame would grow into a conflagration would be more than metaphorical. For this was the year in which the first antiwar demonstrator reached into his wallet, pulled out a small piece of paper, and put a match to it. It was the first burning of a draft card—and far from the last.

While their contemporaries were now too old to be conscripted as foot soldiers, those who had become doctors still owed a debt to the military. And they were asked in increasing numbers to honor it by service in Vietnam.

At first there was no opposition of any magnitude. Perhaps
it was because the Administration was attempting to obscure its growing involvement in this little Southeast Asian country.

Curiously, the classmate least likely to be drafted was the most eager to serve. Hank Dwyer volunteered. His domestic situation had become intolerable. Since there was no peace at home, he decided he might as well go to where there was a real war. Cheryl at first saw no objection. In fact, she—and the folks back home—admired Hank’s display of patriotism. And besides, she was sure that a gynecologist would be posted to some stateside Army camp to care for the officers’ wives. None of them anticipated the extent of Hank’s zeal, which led him to sign up for a special Army program that instructed physicians in the treatment of battlefield trauma.

As preparation for this, Army sharpshooters would fire at partially anesthetized sheep and then the doctors would race to try to “save” them. This was difficult at first—especially for young men brought up on such tender melodies as “Little Bopeep” and “Mary had a little lamb.”

As it turned out, Hank was motivated by more than fervent patriotism. In the Officer’s Club at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, he had heard fascinating accounts of the exotic delights of Saigon.

One experienced Regular Army captain, who had already been on a brief inspection tour, put it in a nutshell.

“You guys remember what Havana was like before that prick with the beard stopped all the fun? I mean, fantastic—right? Like one long party. It was like their primary resource was rum and cooze. And I mean the most beautiful girls you ever saw in your life. I always wondered what became of all that when Fidel Shithead took over—and now I know. They just transferred their operations lock, stock, and barrel to Saigon.”

“Is it really that good?” asked a wide-eyed colleague.

“No,” the captain insisted, “it’s ten times better. I get horny just talking about it. Let’s have another beer.”

“It’s my turn,” volunteered Captain Hank Dwyer, U.S.M.C. As he stood watching the barman siphon out three more glasses, a tall captain strode up. And motioned to the bartender. “Two gin and tonics, Horatio, and take it easy on the tonic.”

“Be right with you, Captain,” he responded politely.

Hank turned and saw a familiar face he could not put a name to.

“Excuse me, don’t I know you from someplace?”

The captain looked at Hank and immediately noticed, “You’re in the Medical Corps?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you may have known my wife at Harvard.”

It all came together for Hank. “Now I remember. You’re Laura Castellano’s husband, aren’t you?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Palmer answered.

The two men reintroduced themselves and shook hands.

“What brings you here, Palmer? Thirty-day reserve stint?”

“No, I’ve gone back on active duty.”

“Gosh,” Hank remarked, “Laura must be pretty unhappy about that, huh?”

“Well, matter of fact,” Palmer replied, “she’s so busy healing the sick I don’t think she’ll notice I’m gone for at least a month.”

“Yeah. My wife complained that I was spending so much time at the hospital, my children were forgetting what I looked like.”

“I know the feeling,” Palmer commented.

“Got any kids?” Hank asked.

“Uh, no.”

“Well, you’re playing it smart,” Hank offered. “We have a menagerie at home. I can’t get anything done. Frankly, I envy you. It would’ve been great to spend a few years alone with Cheryl—just the two of us. You know, every night like Saturday night—if you get my meaning.”

“I get your meaning,” Palmer replied curtly.

“Laura’s a great-looking girl,” Hank continued, undeterred. “She’s cute as any cover girl—and I really mean it.”

“Thanks. I’ll be sure and tell her.” At which point Palmer was rescued by Horatio’s arrival with the beverages.

It had been nearly two months since Barney had moved into a huge if somewhat seedy SoHo loft, and he still did not have the slightest clue as to what had provoked Vera Mihalic’s paroxysm of bottle breaking.

When he had angrily inquired the morning after the event, Vera had snarled that she had only wrought devastation on his toiletries “because I couldn’t get ahold of your head.” This was the behavior of a trained psychotherapist? He began to wonder if she probed her patients’ brains with a hammer and chisel.