Jaimy Gordon - Bogeywoman

“Miss Bogeywoman, I want you should explain me something. Let us sit down.” She led me to the chairs in the back of the room. She lit a Gitane. “Now. Why you want I should be your psychiatrist?” she asked in a gravelly voice. “What put this idea in your head?”

So that was it. How had I ever had the nerve to ask? “You look like somebody who’d be interesting to talk to, that’s all,” I mumbled. “I think you are saying you want to talk. Yes? That is what I hear?” “Well, not to just anybody,” I said. Didn’t she see the pressure I was under? If I had a claim to fame in this dump it was my one year, seven months and eight days of silence-going on nine. And my dreambox mechanic was Foofer, the world-famous diagnostician-probably the best known doc in the place. Word of this had gotten around, we all knew the royals had case supervisions and case retreats, case manhattans, case hardenings and case bakeoffs, case jousts, summits, progresses and councils of war. I narrowed my eyes at her: Could she be Foofer’s Injun scout? The thought that they might be in cahoots, that her special interest in me might be for Foofer’s sake, filled me with such bilious jealousy I almost puked.

“I’m never going to talk to Foofer, in case that’s what you’re after. You might as well forget it, I ain’t talking to that fuddy till I buy my frozen Milky Ways in hell. In other words never ever.” “Good. Okay. Then please, Miss Bogeywoman, you will explain me the difference between somebody you want for talk and somebody you will never ever talk?”

I curled a chunk of oily hair on a finger. “Ahem. I got certain private business which I would never discuss with a fuddy dreambox mechanic. Hey, it’s none of his beeswax, he’d just tell Merlin and don’t tell me he wouldn’t, I know he would. Merlin chose him and I know these famous fuddies, they’re all in the same club.” “So it is nothing that Dr. Feuffer has done or said, but whom he will tell?” “It’s nuttin he said cause he hardly says nuttin.” “Maybe you are angry at him he doesn’t say more?” I just shrugged. “What you would like him to say?” I glared at her. “I have get the feel,” Zuk said, “you don’t like Dr. Feuffer no matter what he says. Is fair to call this a pree-judice?” I stared at Zuk and suddenly I saw straight into her dreambox, as through the peephole of a diorama. I wouldn’t talk to Foofer cause Foofer was a fuddy-that’s what she was driving at-cause Foofer was a hairy-onions, a grizzle-bearded, frog-dangled male. She was right of course, but I wasn’t telling them that-lemme die first.

“You think it’s cause he’s a fuddy-well you’re wrong. Even if he was Margaret Meat I wouldn’t like him,” I sneered, “under the circumstances.” “Ah! Not even… Margaret …!” she exploded softly, as if she knew Margaret Meat poisonally. (Suddenly I was sure-my heart drowned-she did know Margaret Meat poisonally.) “Why do we have to talk about Foofer, anyway?” I muttered, “like I said, all these famous fuddies play in the same band, and speaking of bands, that’s the main reason: Even if I wanted to say sumpm to Foofer, now I never could, because my rock band, I mean the Bug Motels, is watching me. I’m famous for not talking to my dreambox mechanic. So now the only way I can talk is if I get a brand-new dreambox mechanic. And soon’s I saw you I knew it oughta be you.”

Doctor Zuk sank her fingers into her spiky hair and scratched energetically. “So-is important for you to be famous for something , like your father is famous,” she said. “How do you know he’s famous?” Her eyebrows flew up. “You have just said so!” “Yeah well I thought you might at least have to ask who the hump Merlin is…” “I can ask, if you wish me…?” I narrowed my eyes at her. Of course she knew who Merlin was, they all did: wasn’t he one of Baltimore’s three television ambassadors to the world, along with Miss Sally of Romper Room and Doctor Tom the chimpanzee from This Is Your Zoo ? Of course she knew! Even in the steaming borscht jungles of Russian Costa Rica, the village TV set was tuned to Merlin’s World . And he was the tragic one of the trio, the one with the wife who died in the trainwreck-probably Zuk knew that too-and she was famous herself-good godzilla they were all in on it!

“Let’s just drop it about Merlin,” I fumed, “I’m not talking to Foofer and that’s it.” “Good, is okay,” Zuk said, with a sly smile, “only explain me, if you can, what is big difference between Dr. Zuk and Dr. Feuffer? Listen, my dear, I tell you big secret. Dr. Feuffer is famous doctor, not me. I come many thousand miles for work and study with Dr. Feuffer. Every psychiatrist of adolescence wants to be Dr. Feuffer. I want to be Dr. Feuffer. What is big bloody difference between me and Dr. Feuffer?” “Maybe you need glasses,” I suggested. “Ach! So that is big difference-how I look?” she gushed-because of course madame-too-beautiful-on-her-horse knew exactly that she was beautiful and more than beautiful, she was counting on that. “This is the answer? I am look different from Dr. Feuffer, and this is why you want me, not him?”

“Cheese,” I said, staring hard at the floor for this lie, “you don’t look that different from Foofer. You’re both old.” There, that shut her up. I stole a glance at her. Her crackly old lips were pursed. But then I had to come crawling back or maybe lose her altogether. “Course, you do got sumpm on Foofer. A little sumpm that everybody needs every once in a while. I mean a little of, er, uh, la beauté. Not much,” I added carefully, “but that’s what I need, some old person who’s got la beauté. Some old person to talk to who’s got la beauté like, like a piece of the lost chunkagunk, so I can stand to live to be old-cause what the hump, maybe, just maybe, I’ll turn out to be her not me.”

“The lost-excuse me, what it is?” Like I said, Doctor Zuk had a thousand cracks around her lips-she was beautiful but she looked maybe forty fifty years old-and they all cracked deeper on contact with the lost chunkagunk. “You have make up this word?” “Not exactly,” I said. “ Choleria , English already has water from seventy-two valleys,” she muttered, “how I will learn if patients make up words as they go…”

“All I mean is, that’s why I need you instead of Foofer. Cause he reminds me of a fart, his walk is a fart for instance, his itchy brown suit is all puffy with hot farts and, and-” (Doctor Zuk’s face turned oddly stony and I saw she was getting disgusted with me) “-and farts are good, you need farts I know but I already got plenty of farts,” I hurried on weakly. “Enough,” she cut me off, “I am not interested to hear insults of Dr. Feuffer. These are matters to talk to Dr. Feuffer himself.” “But, see, you remind me of… of a silver weasel, which is sumpm I don’t have and never was…” “Weasel,” she said suspiciously, “please explain me what is weasel ?”

This time I thought I knew my way through the woods. “It’s an animal, their spines are very elastic, you notice that right away. They look long on account of their backs though none of em are all that big-and they always seem like girlgoyles to me probably cause they’re so graceful and agile, but they’re ferocious. Give her a chance, a weasel kills lots more than she could ever eat-like the wood wizardess used to say, A weasel is a catastrophe in a henhouse! ”-(this had gone all wrong; I could see I had better say sumpm to fix it)-“and-and she has a really nice coat-that turns silver in the winter.”

After a time Zuk said drily: “Is possibly true I am, what you say, catastrophe in henhouse.” “Don’t worry,” I said, sweating, “plenty of henhouses need a catastrophe.” “And who is, excuse me, wood wizardess?” “Course you wouldn’t know the wood wizardess-the greatest tracker of all time, Willis Marie Bundgus,” I cleared my throat, for somehow this name alone didn’t sound sufficient to her greatness, “of, er, Millinocket Falls, Maine.” Doctor Zuk acknowledged her fame-a slight bow with the chin-and then I saw to my amazement a faint twitch in the pond-green irises-could she be… jealous?