"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." Ludwig Wittgenstein

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Superman: Suicide or Murder?

After Lola left Jackie’s home office, Jackie realized she didn’t have another client until 3:00 PM, so she sauntered from her office into her kitchen, fixed herself a cup of mint tea, and wandered into her surprisingly dark, mid-day living room. Her mind, surprisingly blank—she often “went blank” after a therapy session with Lola--Jackie sipped her tea and stared out of her living room’s large picture window, where she expected to see nothing pictured, but the warm, lazy stillness of her quiet Melrose neighborhood. Instead, she was startled by the sight of two hulking LA cops standing like rooted oaks on her front lawn, Buck barely on his feet as he teetered in a state of beaten dishevelment, and a furious Lola, animatedly pleading with the two, stone-faced officers.

Although Jackie could see that her client and her boyfriend were both in the custody of the Police, she reflexively refrained from running out of her front door to confront the two cops. Instead, she took a deep, calming breath (just as she so often implored her clients to do in moments of distress), and told herself to simply watch, simply observe, the bizarre scene that was unfolding in her front yard. As she did, a peculiar thought popped into Jackie’s mind: Hadn’t George Reeves, the actor who, in the 1950s, played Superman on TV, committed suicide after his career ended? Or had he been murdered?