Сэмуэль Шэм - Mount Misery

"Of c-c-course you can talk to him," Dee said, returning to my question about Schlomo. "Do you know him well? I mean is this possible?"

"He was my a-analyst. I saw him five t-times a week for six years. D-do I know him well? No. But your p-patient, Cherokee?" He looked down at his hands. "B-being with sick people is sc-scary. You start to wonder, 'Am / s-sick? Why is he the p-patient, and I the d-doctor?' " He smiled at me. "Roy, psychiatry is n-not only a science, b-but an art. More than in any other medical specialty, you learn by working with others. Day after t-tomorrow, August first, I start my vacation. I've arranged for a t-terrific third-year resident, Dr. Leonard Malik, to t-take over and supervise you when you move to the b-b-borderline ward, and-" The intercom buzzed: "Mary Megan Scorato is here." Mary was a patient on our depression ward. Ike shrugged. "Sorry. It's urgent. She's ac-acutely suicidal again. Have to see her. Will you be at the seminar t-tonight at my house?"

"Sure will."

"Good. I'll save our g-g-good-byes till then."

"But it's impossible, isn't it? Someone like Schlomo? Doing this?"

"Our patients come in with seams," he said, "and they go out seamless."

"What does that mean?" I asked, amazed at the seamless flow of words.

But the buzzer buzzed again and I was history.

AS I FINISHED lunch and was taking my tray to the garbage, I saw Schlomo eating. Head down, fork up, it was not a pretty sight. The hell with it. But then I realized that, being a Freudian, he would vanish the day after tomorrow, for the

month of August. I approached him. There was an empty seat on either side of him, and across the table too.

"Dr. Dover'

He raised his head. Those tiny eyes popped out a little from under those slitty lids, and he said, "Call me Schlomo. Everybody else does. Including myself." He laughed. A trickle of red gravy from the Misery Lunch Special, a "Sloppy Joe," oozed from the corner of his mouth.

"Schlomo, can I-"

"Good. Schlomo likes being called Schlomo by cute young psychiatrists."

"Can I see you later today for supervision?"

"Oy what a joy! Schlomo Dove will see you at two."

Later that afternoon I found myself wandering through the wet heat down the hill and around the lake to the swampy end, wending my way through the mosquitoes and cattails reaching high overhead and the muddy path sucking at my shoes, to the Misery Outpatient Clinic, where I asked to see Schlomo Dove. His office was filled with fragrant plants- narcissus and jasmine-and bananas of all degrees of ripeness, some green, some yellow, some black. Schlomo, with a huge yellow plastic watering can in his hand, was doing his plants. He smiled broadly-showing teeth with severe gaps from a childhood where orthodonture was not an option, clenching a fizzled fat half cigar. He gave me a big "Hello, Dr. Roy Basch!" urged me down into a leather chair beside the leather Freudian couch, and said, "Nu?"

Schlomo was the kind of man who seemed happier to see you than you were to see him, and I was caught off guard. Given this reality of Schlomo, there seemed to be no way that Cherokee's suspicion could be true. I half decided not to tell Schlomo anything. But he stood there so open-faced, seemingly so anxious to hear and so able to hear whatever I'd say, that I plunged in, telling him that Cherokee Putnam thought he was having an affair with Putnam's wife Lily, Schlomo's patient.

For a second Schlomo just stood there, the oversized spout of the watering can arching at me like, yes, a big, thin yellow penis.

"What a great case!" he said. "Oedipal. Boy thinks momma

is schtupping Poppa Schlomo, boy goes meshugge. Great case for you. Schlomo will supervise you on it." "Wouldn't that be a conflict of interest?" "Nu, so I won't supervise." He laughed. "If you can get another supervisor with balls instead of one of the goyim around here who think their shit don't stink, good luck." "So there's no truth to what he's saying?" "You believe the patient?" Schlomo said. "I shouldn't believe the patient?" "Never."

"Not even what they say in therapy?" "Especially not in therapy. The patient is unbelievable. Someone like you is unbelievable too, because you haven't been analyzed. When you decide to do it, does Schlomo have the guy for you."

"Ed Slapadek, I know, I know." Ed was the analyst Schlomo always recommended to new residents. "So I shouldn't believe what my patients are telling me in therapy?" "No Slapadek for you, bubble. Better. Patients spend their time in therapy lying, and thinking they're telling the truth. Your job is to show them they're lying. When they stop lying, you terminate. Therapy is simple: they fall in love with you, they get disappointed-sad and lonely-they work it through, they get better. It takes chutzpah to be a shrink. Does Schlomo have it?"

"No question," I said, chutzpah reminding me of the rumor that Dershowitz the lawyer was a Schlomo patient, lying there lying and-

"Call me Schlomo." "No question, Schlomo." "Do youT'

"What are your thoughts about if I do?" Schlomo laughed heartily and then suddenly threw his watering can into my lap, soaking me. I leaped up. Schlomo cracked up. "Asshole!"

"I know, I know, it kills me." He took a terrible-looking hankie out of his pocket and tried to get at my crotch, but I was heading for the door. "Royala, Royala," he said, wiping the tears of laughter away, "you might have chutzpah too. Don't let 'em kill you here. In this Christian shithouse, somebody

farts, they call the fire department. God's Chosen People meets God's Frozen People. You got a spark, a little outrage. Like Schlomo. Keep it. Schlomo can help."

This startled me. He was right. Already, after only a month in this buttoned-down place, I was feeling hemmed in. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Don't mention. Good thinking, about not believing that patient. I know all about that joker from his wife."

"You believe her?"

The slits of his eyes widened. Dark beads glittered in there. And then he recovered. "What a mensch! To fool Schlomo is not easy. See? You might have chutzpah too. Great case. Keep Schlomo posted. A cliffhanger. Bye-bye. Call Schlomo to make you a match, with that very special analyst, just for you. You got two choices: call Schlomo now, or call Schlomo later. When you're halfway into all that sad and lonely, you're halfway out too. Mmm-such a cutie. I'd like to sink my teeth into that tender little ego myself. Ciao!"

I left feeling like a few convolutions of my brain had been unrolled, not knowing whether I'd just met with a moron or a genius or if it mattered. This clown, Ike White's analyst? Sex with this! You'd have to be crazy.

Exhausted, I floated around the grounds and found myself at the tennis courts. I sat on an iron bench in the shade of an immense copper beech tree, watching two patients play. One, a white-haired man dressed in the long white pants and long-sleeved white shirt of gentlemen's tennis of Bill Tilden's era, stood at the baseline and hit smooth perfect ground strokes. The other, a thin man, young, with jet-black hair and black-framed glasses tinted amber, was clearly self-taught. He seemed manic, gifted with jittery quickness and speed. The older man would hit a shot deep to the right side, and the younger would run it down and take a mad swipe at it, starting his stroke as if his elbow were attached to his hip and then lifting like a man loading something onto a truck-say a fresh-killed turkey. The return would be deep to the left side, seemingly out of reach, but with fanatical effort the young man would be there, and back it would go again, for long, thrilling rallies, on and on. The older man seemed imperturbable, calm and businesslike; the younger tireless, never failing to run a shot down, making incredible saves. Diagnosis? The younger,