Сэмуэль Шэм - Mount Misery

"It was nothing," I said, startled at Heiler's neat lie, wondering suddenly if all along he'd assumed we'd been lying and had been lying right back.

"It proves Borderline Theory and Technique work rather beautifully on borderlines. The downside risk is empty beds. Half our beds on Emerson are empty. McLean Hospital, today,

has no empty beds. None. How can I run my hospital if people

like you insist on discharging patients?" "It does make trying to treat patients difficult." "We don't treat patients anymore, actually. We process

them." "It's good to know."

"Dr. Heiler's evaluation says you are too self-centered, too confronta-"

"I was upset about a patient's suicide, a woman named Mary Megan Scorato."

"Yes, and I called you in here to talk about the luncheon."

"The luncheon?" "

"The Misery Capital Campaign Luncheon. You have yet to respond."

"You see, Dr. Heiler abused Mary Megan Scorato in front of all of us, and three days later she got admitted to Men-ninger 's and killed herself. As chief you need to know about it. Here's the report."

"Yes," he went on, dropping it onto his desk, "and as her administrator, she was your responsibility. Now. About the luncheon-"

"Dr. Heiler says that since I reflect on him, he's responsible for me."

"Yes, quite. He informs me that he takes full responsibility. So-"

"He can't."

"Why can't he?" Lloyal said, with the British pronunciation, "cahnt."

"Because he reflects on you, and you reflect on Misery, and

Misery-"

"Yes, yes," he said, narrowing those red setter eyes even further. "Now, about the luncheon-"

"You see, Heiler is so vicious to patients that people won't refer patients to him anymore-which means empty beds. I've heard there's a movement to ban him from seeing patients or teaching residents and med students at all."

"Ah, but he publishes. The Zephadon/Placeryll data are rather smashing."

"I thought the preliminary data were inconclusive," I said.

"Quite-the preliminary. But about a month ago the patients on Emerson Two and Three began improving. Not on Emerson

One, though, Depression. These medications work-though not in depression. Because of our work-Blair's, mine, and yours-borderlines all over the world will soon be put on these medications."

"Which one worked?" I realized that Mr. K.'s taking everyone off the drugs on Emerson 2 and 3 might result in everyone being put on the drugs worldwide.

"Both. Both worked equally. An elegant study." "And both worked better than the placebo?" "Slightly. The placebo effect in borderlines is quite strong. Dr. Errol Cabot is doing a more sophisticated statistical analysis to heighten the difference. I don't understand these maths. I was born in Luxembourg and-"

"Were you?" I said, as if impressed, trying male station-identification.

"I am European," he began, his eyes drifting toward a coat of arms on the wall that looked like nothing so much as a Rorschach of two birds of prey joined at the waist clawing each other to shreds, "born in Luxembourg, raised in-" But then he caught himself, and I saw that he hadn't risen to the top of Misery by falling for such blunt flattery. Lloyal specialized in psychopaths and money. He was so skillful in slipping the knife into your back that you didn't know you had been stabbed until a few days later, when, as if a fuse had burned down, your balls fell off or guts plopped out onto your shoe tops and you realized that what you thought of as a benefit to you was in fact a detriment, a promotion a demotion, a rise a fall, a good a bad, and the most skillful part of it was that you couldn't remember who did it to you, and at the top of the list of suspects would not be Lloyal von Nott. Your memory of your interaction with him might in fact be pleasing. You would gladly pay his astonishing fee. "But more of that some other time," he said. "Just think: all over the world, borderlines will soon be put on these medications, and Misery will get the credit. All over the world. Just think of that."

I just thought of that and felt slightly ill, and slightly nodded.

"Yes, psychiatric disease is every bit as predictable as

medical disease."

"Medical disease isn't predictable," I said. "Who says?"

"In my year as a medical intern, nothing was predictable. Mostly the ones who ought to have died lived, and the ones who ought to have lived died."

"Sounds quite predictable to me. Yes, psychiatry is a medical science. Ordered and predictable. Like a healthy self. Like America itself."

Did these guys really believe this shit? In order to rise to the top of the Mount Miserys of the world, did you have to leach out your heart of care and concern, your head of doubt, so we're left with ventriloquists' dummies for leaders in business and religion and government and education, leaders with an eleven-year-old boy's sense of what matters in life? What do all our chiefs have in their heads-Swiss cheese?

"Actually I called you in to address the luncheon. The Capital Campaign Luncheon. You've not signed up for a luncheon."

"My lawyer says it's unethical to reveal the names of my wealthy pa-"

"Your lawyer?" A startled reaction. I wanted to laugh.

"Ever since you and Misery lost that malpractice suit to the tune of 3.2 million, we all have to be extra careful, don't we?"

"We have paid out nothing. It is under appeal. Chief Counsel to Misery, Nash Michaels, has it well in hand. Misery is robust today. Robust."

Nash was a noted sleaze. "Good. Quite a guy, that Nash Michaels."

Von Nott turned away and looked out the window at a beefy man clad in combat fatigues who had just started cracking branches off a bare bush. "When one is chief," he went on, "people are always trying to rape you. Not only insurance executives, not only staff and residents. Even Buildings and Grounds are raping me." I had an urge to say, The trees raped you? The bushes and trees raped you? He turned back to me. 'Trying to unionize. Dr. Basch, I went to your file today, pulled your papers. Your behavior is so different from your papers. On paper you look so… so strangely promising. Frankly it's as if, perchance, there's been some mistake."

"A mistake hi Misery, sir? In a robust institution like this? Could it be?"

"None of this goes any further, Doctor, understand?"

I did not say I understood.

"Dr. Heiler," he went on, "concurs." "I'm sure he does. He wouldn't want to jeopardize his career."

"You needn't fret about his career. He is on the verge of being promoted from Associate Assistant Professor to Assistant Associate Professor."

"Quite an honor. But then why does he seem so insecure? One of the best borderline experts in the world, and still he's insecure?"

"Precisely. Blair's one of the best, but not the best." "Like Misery's one of the best but not the best either?" "Cut the crap, Basch!" he shot back, his British accent cracking. "Or else! We are watching you-we know all about what you're doing, even about your little trysts in the on-call room. Is your brain in your dick? Eh?"

I had an urge to laugh. I smiled, with a sense of triumph. "If you're not impotent yet, you will be. Believe me, I

know."

"Oh I do believe you, Lloyal," I said, "just about as much as I believed you when you told us that Ike White died of a fatal disease."

"GONNA GO BACK TO THE HOUSE, cut my wrists a bit; Take a buncha pills, call my stupid doc, Borderline… ya-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-daaaa, Borderline…"

Later that night Solini and Nique Nique and Jill and I were driving toward Misery in Solini's red Geo, singing these lyrics at the top of our lungs to the tune of the rock-and-roll golden oldie "Get a Job." We'd come from Henry's reggae gig in the city. Solini had been terrific-his hair in dreadlocks, his voice full, his body free. When he came down from the stage, I hugged him and kissed him.