Saturday, October 13, 2012
Fat Angel
I’m getting fatter, Lola chided herself, as her busy, chattering, mind skittered from her
diatribe against Jackie, to an inner self-accusatory monologue about her own physical
appearance. No…no, I AM fat. (Lola despised the word “Fat” because it
sounded like, and reminded her of “Rat.”)
Then, as if a soundtrack were rising to support her free-associations, Lola
heard the words of a distant rock n' roll song: “Well, you’re built like a car, You got a hub-cap, diamond star halo.”
Even the music confirmed Lola’s
self-impression. I AM built like a car, Lola
cringed, as she lamented her self-perceived physical liabilities. But at least I have a halo.
Friday, May 11, 2012
The Décor Isn’t Working
As Lola
continued her accusatory diatribe—a colorful torrent of incrimination and
condemnation—Jackie’s eyes, which had remained artificially soft and attentive
despite the barbs of Lola’s initial verbal onslaught, momentarily
drifted from Lola’s face, to glance around her office.
Jackie became
aware, as if seeing these objects for the first time, of the warm decorative
touches she’d made to the room so that her clients might feel comfortable
enough to enter that calm confessional state that was thought to be
prerequisite to delving into their inner psyches; a state which made accessible
to “talk therapy” the various psychological wounds that had caused her clients
to place themselves in Jackie’s highly regarded care, in the first place: Warm
wood paneling; a tasteful and not inexpensive reproduction of a Willem de
Kooning painting; a New Yorker cover depicting a Cape Cod summer scene; a vase
of freshly cut flowers—which gave the room a comfortable, non-human living
presence; and some small statuary, including a piece that looked like an
earthen colored Mesoamerican fertility god and a smooth flowing Henry
Moore-like thing.
Lola must
have detected Jackie’s flight of inattention, because the minute Jackie’s eyes
returned to Lola’s anger-contorted face, Jackie heard Lola say. “Are you even
fucking listening to me?”
As Jackie
heard herself calmly respond “Lola, I’ve heard every word you’ve said. You
think I’m sleeping with Richard.” she simultaneously thought to herself, Hmmmmm….This
décor doesn’t seem to be working.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Lola Knows
“You and that
fucking Richard are sneaking behind my back.
You’re sleeping with Richard and pretending to be my ‘therapist,’ my
‘friend’. Some ‘therapist,’ you are,”
Lola contemptuously sneered, her lips curling like a rabid coyote. “And you
think you’re SO smart. You think I don’t know anything, that I’m just some
little blond bimbo. Well, I DO know, I
know EVERYTHING!
Friday, May 4, 2012
Therapeutic Calm
Lola had
hardly sat down before she shrieked, “I didn’t come here to talk about me.
I came here because you are
screwing my boyfriend. The only reason I
started therapy with you is because you're sleeping with Richard, and I wanted
to see for myself what kind of two-timing bitch you are.”
Jackie immediately
suppressed her feeling of shock and incomprehension. She struggled to suppress her immediate reflex to say,
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Instead, Jackie exuded a well-practiced professional calm, turned to her
fuming client, and said, “You seem angry Lola. Please tell me more about what
you’re feeling.”
Thursday, March 15, 2012
An Injury to One is an Injury to All?
Jackie dare not reveal to her client that she’d seen the bizarre
scene that had unfolded in her front yard: a client beating up a
therapist’s boyfriend. Tempted as she was, Jackie knew she couldn’t
directly ask Lola why she had assaulted Buck on her front lawn. She
couldn’t even ask Lola how she knew Buck. Jackie was bound by a
professional oath of confidentiality, an oath that imposed a kind of
“straightjacket” on Jackie’s curiosity.
As Lola entered Jackie’s office and assumed her customary spot in the analysand’s chair, all Jackie knew she could say to her bellicose client was, “So, tell me a bit about how you’ve been feeling, since the last time we met.”
As Lola entered Jackie’s office and assumed her customary spot in the analysand’s chair, all Jackie knew she could say to her bellicose client was, “So, tell me a bit about how you’ve been feeling, since the last time we met.”
Sunday, March 11, 2012
A Lot On Her Mind
Richard
drove Lola home in silence. He knew
something was wrong. She sat in the back
seat of his limousine, fondling her purse like it was a rosary. As she distractedly looked out the limo’s window,
her delicate fingers worried her handbag’s little leather straps into a knot. Richard thought it best that he not ask her
any more questions.
As he
pulled the lumbering black car up to the front of Lola’s apartment building, Richard silently wondered about why Lola hadn’t
renewed her gun permit? Maybe she just forgot that she owned a gun?
Lola
seemed to have an awful lot on her mind, these days.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
The Whole Truth
As Richard pulled his limo up to the front of the Santa Monica police station, Lola pantomimed a tiny wave, as she seemed simultaneously to float and to trudge down the station’s white steps. Opening the back passenger door, she slipped across the broad back seat, directly behind her chauffeur boyfriend and steeled herself for Richard’s unavoidable questions.
Richard turned down “The Killers,” whose noisy angst blared from the car’s radio, and asked “What are you doing here? Were you arrested, or something?”
Lola replied through the limousine’s half-lowered dividing glass, “They discovered that the permit to my handgun expired, and picked me up to ask a few silly questions.”
To avoid Richards puzzled gaze, Lola immediately turned her head to look down Olympic. It wasn’t a lie exactly, it just wasn’t as a court would say “the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Richard turned down “The Killers,” whose noisy angst blared from the car’s radio, and asked “What are you doing here? Were you arrested, or something?”
Lola replied through the limousine’s half-lowered dividing glass, “They discovered that the permit to my handgun expired, and picked me up to ask a few silly questions.”
To avoid Richards puzzled gaze, Lola immediately turned her head to look down Olympic. It wasn’t a lie exactly, it just wasn’t as a court would say “the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
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