Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“My God,” Gene said in a husky whisper.

I waited.

“My God,” he said again, still whispering. “My God, you’re smart.”

“Not me, Gene. You. You’re the gifted punster. You’re the one with the insight. Years ago, I missed all this. Your deep sexual frustration and fear, the emotional confusion about gender, I dismissed all that because I didn’t want to seem to be criticizing who was earning money in your parents’ household. I was so politically correct that I overlooked the emotional confusion of your relationship to your parents. I had no insight, Gene. It’s all you. ‘As a son of a bitch, you are a good daughter.’ Your castrating mother wants you to be a weak man. The dream is your creation, your judgment, your desires, and your joke. It’s quite witty.”

“I can’t hear what you’re saying.” Gene bent forward, hands rubbing his thighs. He shook his head in despair. I peered over the desk. His knees bounced up and down. “I hear the words. But I don’t — I can’t understand them.”

“You’re scared.”

“Everything you said was right.” Both hands went to his forehead and pushed up his thick hair. “But I can’t remember a word you said.” He jerked his legs together and apart, over and over, fingers massaging his temples. I was impressed by the suddenness and intensity of his anxiety.

“Okay, Gene. I’ll go through it step by step. You don’t have to remember anything. Forget everything I’ve said and I’ll go over it again.”

“You must hate me,” he mumbled.

“Why?” I couldn’t help expressing astonishment. “Why would I hate you?”

“I wanted my mother to die?” Tears welled in his eyes; his mouth drooped stupidly.

“No,” I said firmly.

“No?” The hands dropped. The legs ceased. Relief was coming.

“You were glad she died.”

I might as well have kicked him in the stomach. He doubled over, lips pushing in, and he groaned.

“She was furious at you, she was spitting at you, and you wished she would go away. And she did. Like magic. Actually, you’re very guilty about it. You think you killed her and you’re punishing yourself for it. That’s why you can’t concentrate at work and you can’t sleep. You’ve murdered sleep and your machine is frozen. The only escape is to admit you’re a son of a bitch. And you hope I’ll tell you that you were a good daughter.”

“I’m doing okay at work,” Gene said with so serious and gloomy an expression it was comical.

“That’s what you say to me. That’s not what your dream is telling you.”

“We’ll get Black Dragon done no more than two months over schedule. Maybe three. But I can debug the machine faster than anybody in the world. That’s why Stick brought me over.” Stick was the nickname for Gene’s boss, Theodore Copley. “But I think I’m concentrating okay. I just need to sleep.” Gene slid forward to the edge of his chair and held a hand out to me, pleading. “That’s why I can’t let them know I’m in therapy. If Stick thinks I’m a burnout, he’ll dump me. These are bad times for computers. I don’t know … I mean, I moved the whole family down here and she said it was dangerous.”

“Cathy or your mother?”

“Cathy. My mother was dead.”

“Gene, you’re running from what we’re talking about. Your problem isn’t the deadline or the shakeout in the computer business. Your problem is, you think you killed your mother because you were glad she died. Not you, the wide-awake Gene. Your unconscious does. It’s confused about your anger at her and what happened. But you didn’t kill her. Cancer killed her. And you aren’t the good daughter of a son of a bitch, no matter how hard you try to be. Being afraid of Cathy and not having sex with her isn’t going to stop her from rejecting you or dying. You have to listen to yourself. You’re afraid and guilty about things that don’t exist and never happened. Your mother felt abandoned—” I shut up because Gene was crying.

He cried silently, face scrunched up, cheeks red, like a kid bawling; but he was a man, so the effect was grotesque. “I loved my mother,” he stammered and sobbed out loud at last.

“Of course you loved your mother. In fact, you still love her.”

Again, abruptly, his aspect changed. The sobbing ended. He peered at me through wet eyes, with hope.

“This isn’t about whether you’re a good person, Gene. Forget goodness. You did nothing to your mother. No matter what your secret thoughts or feelings, you did everything a good son should do. It’s because you loved her, because you wanted her love so much, that you were glad she died. She had become a vengeful woman to you and that was too painful so you wished she would go away and then fate took her away. But you are not the center of the universe: you did not kill her.”

Gene took a long, deep breath. “But what you’re saying—”

“Who’s saying it, Gene?” I interrupted. “Who’s doing the dreaming?”

“Okay. So, then, I wanted her to die—”

“You wanted her to stop hating you. You wished the rageful, disappointed mother would go away. But you didn’t want the real woman to die. In fact, you’re so scared of losing her again that you won’t confront Cathy about the fact that you don’t have sex, that you think she doesn’t love you.”

Gene pouted. He was quiet. He settled back in the chair, hopelessly, shoulders slumped. “We have sex.”

“How often?”

He answered reluctantly, “Not very often.”

“Do you think Cathy loves you?”

“No.”

“Do you think she wants to make love with you?”

“No.”

“I don’t know, Gene. I’ll be honest. Maybe Cathy doesn’t love you. Maybe she doesn’t want to have sex with you. I don’t know. I don’t know because you don’t ask her to love you. You’re too scared of killing her if she becomes an angry, rejecting woman. You’re scared to be a man because you’re supposed to be a good daughter.”

I waited. Gene’s fingers were locked together, hands resting in his lap, his tearful face solemn, eyes on me. He was as attentive and uncomfortable as a scolded child. He nodded after a while.

“How are your ears?” I asked with no mockery.

“I hear you,” he said.

“Okay. But so far I — Rafael — I haven’t said a word. That was you talking to yourself. Now I’m going to speak.” I opened my desk drawer and took out twenty-four tapes. “This is the audio record of our sessions. I lied to you. I’m not smart enough to remember everything you say or how you say it, so I use the tapes to review every word. In your case, I’ve listened to them several times.”

I waited for a reaction. He didn’t speak or break his penitent pose.

“Here’s more from me, your therapist. You have me appear at the end of the dream to fulfill a wish. It’s a wish you have about coming here. You have me say, ‘You are a good daughter.’ That’s what you want from me. You don’t want me to help Gene Kenny the man. You want me to certify the crippling image of your childhood. You want me to sustain your unhappiness. I don’t want to do that. I won’t collaborate with your parents’, your wife’s, and even your desire that you be a good daughter. You’re not a daughter. And, more to the point, you’re not good. You are the man who wants to build machines that tell the truth, you want a woman who is passionate and wants to make love to you, you want to be free of guilt and timidity and that man is suffering. I’ll help him but I won’t help that other weakling.”

I pushed the tapes at him.

“Take them if you disagree. Remember, in the end, this is merely one opinion. I admit I could be wrong, but unfortunately I’m stuck with my beliefs. I’m not your father, I’m not God, I may not even be a competent psychiatrist.”