Doctor Art --that's what Trish and the other women called him-- smiled at me when he opened the door, maybe at a joke from the television laugh track behind him. It was an odd sound to hear, out there on the porch. You'd think shrinks would do something more intellectual at night than watch reruns of “Golden Girls.”
He lost his smile and frowned when he focused on me, under his porch light. He kept one hand on the storm door, like an aluminum screen could keep me out of his house if I really wanted in. "Can I help you?" he asked.
"You know who I am, Doc?" I asked.
He stared for a while through the screen before admitting, "I don't think so."
I took a step closer. "I know you though. And we got things to talk about." A faint breeze of conditioned air whispered out of the house onto my face, cooling the sweat of a high August evening.
Doctor Art's eyes showed he was thinking about slamming the door. If he had, I might have left him alone. After weeks of running scenes in my mind again and again, like when Trish watching the same videos till she could recite dialogue faster than the actors, I was still scared to be there, looking at him.
Doctor Art decided to leave the door open. Maybe he thought I was a crazy person out of his past, a forgotten patient. He was used to dealing with crazies, knew how to make them do what he wanted.
"Talk about what?" He was almost singing, the way a woman croons to a baby.
I'd started for the Doc's house three other times, always stopping at Wally's Lounge on the way. Twice I got too drunk for the talk Doctor Art and I needed to have. The other time, the booze sent me off on a crying jag. Standing outside his big house though, I was just high enough to pull it off. High enough to get it started anyway.
"If you don't come out, I'll come in. We'll talk in your living room, where your wife can listen."
The Doc took a deep breath and glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was close enough to hear. "Wouldn't it be better if you came to my office?" He smiled at me again. "No charge."
I shook my head. "I'm not looking for therapy, Doc. Come out. Now." When he didn't move, I lifted my shirt and showed the butt of the pistol shoved in my belt.
It would've been smart to slam the door for sure after that, but Dr. Art only said, "Don't do anything foolish."
"Come outside, Doc." I let my shirt cover the gun again. "Talk to me."
There were footsteps on the hardwood floor behind him, sharp and quick, and a woman's voice called, "Arthur? What is it?"
"Nothing," he called back. "I'm going outside, for some fresh air. Be back in a little while." The screen swung open, and the Doc was close enough I smelled cologne, one of those sweet scents that's always drifting up from magazine ads.
"Reach back inside and turn the porch light off," I told him.
I couldn't imagine Trish taking her clothes off for the man standing in front of me. He was big, but it was all fat, most of it in his rear end. The face was interesting though. Doc was thirteen years older than me, but had the unlined face of a little boy, a spoiled child.
"Sit down," I said. Maybe what he did to Trish had to with his eyes. The Doc had strong eyes.
His gaze flicked from my face to the bulge in my shirt. After a moment he settled onto one of the steps. "The police patrol here quite a lot, you know."
"They should." I sat on the same step he did, and put the brown bag between us. "Burglars love neighborhoods like this one. Big expensive houses full of VCRs, color TVS, stereos, all kinds of toys." I took a gallon jug of cheap burgundy and a pair of tall glasses from the bag.
"I don't drink," the Doc said, eying the glasses nervously.
"Look at the bottle," I said. "See how the seals around the cap haven't been broken? I'm not trying to poison you. This is just wine, Doc." He didn't move until I put my hand on the pistol, just resting it there.
He shifted his fat butt an inch or so further from the bottle. "I haven't had a drink in..."
"Fifteen years," I finished for him. "I know. But our little talk would go better with wine, I think." I poured both glasses full and held one out to him. "Take it."
He held the glass against his body, in shadow where it wasn't so obvious. I took a big swallow. "I got a head start, Doc, but this stuff'll probably hit you pretty hard, after being away from it so long. We'll even out in the long run."
He lifted the glass, nostrils dilating at the strong smell, and tossed off two thirds of it with a grimace. "Happy now?" he asked, putting it down.
I tried to laugh, but the sound was nasty, even to me. "Happy men don't do things like this." I emptied my own glass. "Drink up," I said, refilling the Doc's glass, then mine.
For a long time we didn't say anything, just sat there drinking, the Doc lifting his glass every time I raised mine. By the time I poured the third round I had trouble keeping the neck of the bottle over the glass.
"Let's talk about my wife," I said, putting things right out front. "Let's talk about Trish Gaither."
The son of a bitch frowned, the name only empty sound to him. "Do I know..."
"You screwed her for seven months and don't remember her name?" If a neighbor had glanced out just then, and saw my face, the way I was looking at the Doc, they might have called the cops. But it was dark, and no one looked. "You billed her too, got my health insurance to pay for it and you don't even know her name?" I reached behind the cigarettes in my shirt pocket and showed him the picture.
He looked at it and nodded when he recognized her. "Patty."
"Trish hated being called Patty." I almost lost it again, but getting mad wasn't going to help.
The Doc put his professional face on again. "Relationships between a doctor and his patients are protected," he said, slurring the words, closer to the place I needed him to go. "I couldn't talk about Patty if I wanted to. Not even a lawyer could make me do that." He took a big slug from the cheap burgundy without any urging, and wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his mouth.
"What do you mean, Doc?" I asked. "You mean secrets in therapy, like that?"
He nodded.
"I don't care about therapy, Doc, and God knows I'm not a lawyer." I jolted down the last of what was in my glass, and left it empty. "I just want to know why, with all the women in the world you could have, you went after my wife."
"I don't know what you're talking about." The Doc tried to get up, but I put my hand on his shoulder and pressed down hard.
"You're lying, Doc," I said, keeping a two-good-old-boys- having-a-drink tone in my voice. "But I'm not surprised. I would too, in your position." I topped off his glass. "Where's your car keys?"
"Take the car," he mumbled, digging in his pockets. "Take it, it's okay."
These guys go to college, put a string of letters behind their names, and somehow they learn --or think they learn-- everybody else in the world is stupid. "I'm not taking your car, Doc."
"You're not?" He reached for his glass on the step, not trying to hide it from the neighbors any more.
I took the keys from his hand and stood up. "Let's go for a little ride, just you and me."
His eyes went to the pistol, and he shook his head. "I'm not going..."
"I won't shoot you Doc. Swear to God, I won't even take the gun out of my pants. I only brought it to make sure you take a ride with me."
Leaning over, I got a hand under his arm and pulled up. All that lard was hard to lift, but I got him on his feet. "We'll have a little talk, and I promise, thirty, forty minutes from now I'll put you back on the road, all by yourself. I'll stand there and watch you drive away. If you don't go with me. . ." The Doc was still looking at the gun. "That's why I brought the piece. To make sure you would go."
I took my hands off him. He was sober enough to stand by himself. Just barely. "Only a ride?" he whined. But when I nodded he lurched off toward the car.
"I'll drive," I called after him, and refilled our glasses before I followed. Carrying two tumblers and the gallon jug was tricky, and the Doc surprised me, leaning across the car to help with the door.
He had a year old Oldsmobile, the kind of big car that feels good to drive. Until I got used to how it handled, fine tuned the seat adjustments and the rear view mirrors --all of it done electrically, of course-- we didn't talk. "You're not asleep are you Doc?" I asked once I was comfortable.
"Not asleep," he echoed, but I could tell he would be if I didn't get his attention soon.
"I almost killed you, when I found out what you did to Trish." That got him. He sat up straighter. "Came real close to bringing this pistol inside your house, you know."
"You want some money?" the Doc blurted. "I can write a check. How much?"
I shook my head. "I don't want your money." At a red light I glanced over at him. "Drink some of that before it spills," I said, and he obediently raised his glass. "Don't you want to know how Trish is doing?"
"How?" he asked. "How's she doing?"
"Not too good, Doc." I gripped the steering wheel hard enough my palms hurt. "She's dead, and I figure you killed her. That's why we're taking this ride."
"I didn' kill 'er." Doctor Art was sloppy drunk, didn't sound scared any more. I wondered what Trish would say if she saw him, sipping sour Mad Dog like a baby going for milk.
"Same as killed her," I said. "Trish never learned to say ‘No,’ did she? Did you know I met her in drug rehab?"
"Shouldn' drink, after rehab," the Doc muttered.
"I know," I said. "And once we finish our little ride, I don't think I'll need to drink any more. I think I'll be a real straight arrow after tonight."
Doctor Art put a hand on my shoulder, but it wasn't a threatening gesture. "Day atta time," he said. "'At's the way to do it." He gave me an encouraging pat.
"Right." I shook off his hand.
I took the ramp onto the interstate, opened the Olds up and couldn't help smiling at the powerful acceleration. "The rehab people were the ones who referred Trish to your office. ‘Aftercare,’ they called it. You remember anything about her? How she grew up?"
The Doc shrugged.
"Trish was so beautiful. Nobody'd ever guess what a sad mess her life was." I passed the jug of wine to the Doc, whose glass had slipped to the carpeted floor. "You probably heard the stories about Trish's stepfather. And her stepbrothers." I glanced across the car seat. "You heard, Doc?"
He nodded.
"The rehab people said because of the abuse Trish never developed a will of her own. That's why they referred her to you, to help her learn to make decisions, to say yes or no. She stayed away from drugs, but she couldn't seem to make any other decisions."
Remembering was awful, but I'd promised myself I'd say what I'd been thinking for so long. "If we were going out, and I asked what movie she'd like to see, Trish wanted me to decide. In restaurants she always wanted me to tell her what she was going to eat."
I touched the switch for the electric window. The fresh air helped a little. "Trish didn't have a will of her own. She'd do what anybody wanted." I glanced over at the other side of the car. "She did what you wanted."
There was a raspy noise on the other side of the car, and when I glanced at the Doc, his cheeks were wet. The tears might have been fear, or guilt, maybe even feeling bad about what I was saying. Whatever they were, he looked like the wreck of a human being he was. I felt sorry for him, went so far as to lift my foot off the gas pedal. I was going to drop him off right there.
"She wanted it," he whimpered, and the words made it a certainty I'd go through with it. "She wanted it."
I mashed the accelerator again. "I don't buy that, Doc. It was months before Trish let me touch her without flinching, and she said the idea of another man putting his hands on her made her sick."
I'd believed her too. Along with the inability to make decisions, Trish had lost the ability to lie. If only I'd asked earlier about what was happening in those weekly "therapy sessions."
"I just can't buy the notion she wanted you to screw her," I said again.
"S'true," the creep murmured.
"Don't go to sleep on me, Doc," I said in a loud voice, and reached to shake him awake. "We're there." I pulled the Olds off onto an exit ramp and stopped. "See? The end of the ride. I'm going to leave you now."
"Where are we?" The Doc looked around, dazed and disoriented.
"On the interstate," I explained. "About fifteen miles out of town."
"You aren't going to. . ." He couldn't finish the sentence.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I said. "Remember what I promised? That after our ride I was going to watch you drive away? I won't break my promise Doc. Now get out of the car and come around here. You've got to drive yourself home."
He lurched around the front of the car, a lost and waddling fat man for whom I could almost --but not quite-- feel sorry. He got in the car and reached for the door, but I held it open.
"Couple more things I need to tell you, Doc." I lit a cigarette, drawing the smoke deep. "Trish killed herself. Did you know that? Right after you terminated therapy with her."
Doctor Art lifted his shoulders in a shrug.
"You kept her in your little group till the health insurance dried up, and then cut her loose. Right?"
He nodded, slowly.
"Somehow you convinced her what you were doing to her was going to help. You'd have made a hell of salesman, Doc. But you're a lousy shrink."
The cigarette made a small crimson arc in the air when I flipped it away. I had to finish with the Doc quickly, or I was going to wind up hitting him, and I didn't want to put my hands on that wreck.
"I'm sorry." He hung his head low enough it almost touched the steering wheel. "I'm real sorry."
"A day late and a dollar short, Doc. That's how you are with being sorry." I closed the door, and leaned in the open window. "Now listen to me. This is the last thing I have to say to you before you drive away. Trish left a note, telling all about what happened in your office. “
The Doc’s eyes got wide at the idea somebody had set down in writing what he did in his office. .
"Trish's brother Freddy --her real one, not the stepbrother-- grew up to be a king hell outlaw biker,” I told him. “Freddy read her note, and in about five minutes, he and some of his buddies are going to come down this road looking for you."
Wide-eyed and drunk, the Doc whimpered, "What'll I do?" He looked around. "Lemme have your gun."
`I shook my head. "You couldn't hit anything with it, Doc. What you want to do is get away from these guys. You need to drive away, as fast as you can."
He nodded. "Which way?"
"This is the interstate. You can't go but one way, and that's straight ahead." He nodded again, and I stepped away from the door. "Go," I urged. "Go like hell Doc. See if you can get away from those bikers."
The Oldsmobile's tires squealed as Doctor Art fed gas to eight cylinders. The ramp was a steep incline, but it didn't slow that big car at all. At the top, where the unfinished bridge ended, and the Olds sailed out over Clark's River, the brake lights didn't flash once.
The car dropped a hundred and seventeen feet --I've been working road construction since Trish died, and the other day I asked the senior engineer what the height was on the new bridge-- before making a hell of a splash.
I think I heard Doctor Art scream, right at the end.
I hope I did.
Copyright ©2005 Bob Sloan All Rights Reserved