Lidia Yuknavitch - Dora - A Headcase

If I was a painter I’d paint her face melted with sedation and the ups and downs of a wife gone to zombie.

The batmobile stops at stoplights and makes its stealthy turns. The rain smears the windows and makes passing buildings and cars and people look blurry. The back of my father’s head says, “Ida.”

I can tell by the sound of his head voice he is going to say something lame. I start with a little “A-hem.” A little, gosh, I perhaps have a slight tickle in my throat.

He says “Ida, this is important. Your mother … Ida you’ve got to stop doing these … these things to yourself. It’s upsetting your mother, what you are doing.”

Here he goes. He’s revving up his story. He looks at me in the rear view mirror. I surmise he’s talking about my new head. He strokes his head subconsciously with one hand. I’ve learned a lot lately about these little gestures — absentminded actions and facial tics and nervous habits. I stroke my head too. Mirror image. But I know what’s coming. He’s going to try to talk himself clean some more. He’s going to talk right over my knowing, right over my role in his story like the smooth purr of a car engine lying about global warming.

“This thing with your head,” his head says, and I let out a hack burst that jumps his shoulders.

“It’s important that you take these visits seriously.”

Cough.

“I paid a lot of money to get you the best help.”

Cough cough.

“This doctor is the best money can buy.”

Coughity cough cough.

“Ida, that’s enough — ”

I start really wolfing them out now. I start coughing up phlegm and hacking away, drowning him out like I am choking on something — and get this — he starts talking louder. Using a bogus father authority voice.

“Ida,” he says all stern, as if using the fake father voice is somehow after all this time going to mean something. “This is no way to behave. You are too old to be acting out like this.”

I go to the full-blown tears in your eyes face turning red mode. If I’m too old to be acting out like this, what does that make him?

Coughingcoughingcoughingcoughingcoughing. If I wanted to, I could cough loud enough to shatter the Lexus windows, I could explode the fancy dashboard and eject him from his seat.

“IDA!” he yells.

“You’ve got to start taking responsibility for your behavior,” he yells out full fake dad volume, as we pull up in front of Dr. Sig’s office — only I’ve stopped coughing, so my father’s just yelling like an idiot into dead air — his words hanging there between us. He looks at me in the rear view mirror. I shrug. We stare at each other in the little reflective surface. He unlocks the batmobile doors. I open the hermetically-sealed father mobile — where his stories of himself glide along roads effortlessly — and exit into rain. As he drives away I close my eyes and put my face up to the sky. The rain is cool on my head and face.

Every Thursday my father delivers me like this.

So he can drive away from what he’s made.

I KINDA WONDER IF THE SIG WATCHES HIS CLIENTS approach from his upper office window. Maybe grabbing at his crotch like a dirty old man. His office is on the second floor of a chic Seattle restoration, and it has a long thin window with creepola floor-length drapes. I swear I’ve seen his beady little peepers just beside the drapes before. It’s hard to tell though from down on the street. Looking up. If he is looking down today, he’s in for a treat. What with my new head and all. I give myself a head rub for luck.

I walk toward the entrance of the office building. I stop. I look up, smile and wave, blow a kiss just in case.

This is my seventh meeting with the Sig. I have learned a few things, boy howdy. If anyone ever tells you that going to see a shrink is therapy? Tell them to suck a fart out of your sweet asshole. It’s not therapy. It’s epic Greek drama. You gotta study up. You got to bring game.

Inside the office building, I push the button and the soft coo of elevator happens. I bet he listens for the coo. I bet he pictures my combat boots when I walk down the hall to his office. Who can resist red leather docs and teen girl calves?

Lemme lay out the stage for you — the inside of Sig’s office, I mean. First of all, there are way too many Pottery Barn lamps. Trust me. The ’rents have our condo all decked out in PB and Restoration crap, so I recognize bouge hell when I see it. Now picture all those lamps with the lowest wattage bulbs in the world. So that the room isn’t really “well lit.” It’s just sort of endlessly brownish yellow, everywhere you look. What they call “warm” light. Probably meant to keep all the nutcases calm. More like swamp glow, if you ask me.

Then there is this gigantoid mahogany man-desk. Can we say over-compensating? If there’s ever a second flood, the Sig’s ready. That thing could carry lots of fucking animals. On the man-desk is an ashtray — so old school — so not PC in our smokeless, faux, eco-friendly workspaces. The Sig? Apparently he’s a stogie man. I’ve seen a half-smoked brown stub.

I think the only place I have ever seen cigars being smoked is in black and white movies and old folks homes. Weird.

OF COURSE the office walls are lined with about a gazillion books, because we wouldn’t want anyone to miss his über smarty-pantness or big-brained balloon head, now would we. Sometimes he saunters over to the books and — I shit you not — strokes the spines . Ew.

What else. Two absurdly expensive looking Persian rugs, no doubt woven by terrorists, another little table with coffee maker shit on it, a high camel-backed sofa chair that he sits in when we do our thang, and some bizzaro abstract painting of … a forest? Hard to tell. The trees would only look like trees if you were tripping. “Art” for over the hill rich people.

But the pièce de résistance? The couch. Yep, you heard me. The Sigster has a giant couch. It stretches out for client nuts as the only option — all Italian brushed leather.

“Dude, what’s up with the couch? I gotta sit on that thing?” was my first commentary. He went off on some crap about reflexology — some batshit theory about how peoples’ subcon-sciouses are more easily released when they are in reclined positions.

“Isn’t it also easier to see up girl skirts?” I went.

“That is not the matter at hand,” became his regular defense. Man if I had a Vicodin for every time he’s said that to me … I could fill one of my mom’s prescription bottles.

You might say we set the rules in that first exchange. Like I say, I’ve learned a lot about our little dialogues since we began. Now I come prepared.

I never travel in the world defenseless. First off, I wear a Dora the Explorer purse everywhere I go. You know, from kid TV? It’s pink and shiny and hangs across my chest on a long-frayed string. I got it as a kid, but I’ve made modifications since childhood. Two safety pins where my little cartoon chica’s eyes used to be. And I gave her a blowup doll’s mouth with a red sharpie. And I painted a little gun for a hand. Sweet, really. That dumbass little blue monkey that hangs around with her though — I had to make him into a death skeleton.

Inside my Dora purse I don’t have mascara or lip gloss or gum. I don’t have breath mints or tampons or a joint. I don’t have candy or condoms. What I have, is my beloved Zoom H4n audio recorder. At all times. Everywhere.

Especially here.

I knock.

He opens the door.

“Ida,” he goes.

“Sig,” I go. How it’s never occurred to these folks how AWKWARD the fake-o greetings are is beyond me. Hi. It’s me. Your 4:00 nutter. Hello, won’t you come in and let me explore your genitals by pretending to talk about your family origins. What a load of crap.