Ed King (21 page)

Ed covered his eyes, because the world seemed easier to deal with when he couldn’t see it. “Simon,” he said. But nothing more.

“Hey,” Simon answered. “
Star Fire
, too. You said you didn’t take
Star Fire
.”

“Simon.”

“I’m taking
Lander
,
Phaser
,
Eighteen Wheeler
,
Star Fire
, and a couple of
your
games, too, to make things even.”

“Take them all.”

“
Edeleh
.”

Alice took Ed to see a Paul Stern, who was a GP and a friend of the Kings from temple. She stood over Ed talking while Stern looked in Ed’s ears, nose, eyes, and throat, checked his pulse and blood pressure, listened to his heart, and asked Ed questions—which Alice answered. Dr. Stern said, “I want Ed to drop his drawers for me, Alice, so just take a seat in my waiting room for now and we’ll get you back in a few minutes.”

“I’m his mother.”

“Alice.”

When she was gone, Dr. Stern said, conspiratorially, “Keep your pants on, Ed, and tell me what’s happening.”

Ed was sitting on the examination table—on its loud, flimsy paper—with his chin against his chest. His eyes were shut. His fingers were interlaced. All he lacked was a black eyeless hood to complete the picture of a prisoner meeting his executioner.

“Ed?”

Nothing.

“Do you need something for depression? Do I need to refer you to someone who can help you with a mental-health issue?”

Nothing.

“Oy,”
said Dr. Stern. “I feel terrible for you, Ed. I feel absolutely, one-hundred-percent terrible.”

Ed went on sitting with his eyes shut.

“Believe me,” Dr. Stern said. “I know how terrible it is.” He got out his prescription pad and added, “Let’s go with diazepam, two-milligram tabs. That should give you a little relief until we can get you into therapy.”

On the way to a pharmacy, Alice cried a little, and kept glancing at Ed, who kept his head down. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

He didn’t look up, but he did say, in his weak, hoarse voice, “Something isn’t right.”

“I love you, Eddie. Your father and I both love you very much—you know that, I hope. I hope you know that.”

“Something isn’t right,” he said again.

The therapist Dr. Stern wanted Ed to see was a Roger Fine, but Fine wasn’t available the next five days, which left Ed with 120 hours to endure before—he hoped—his condition would be ameliorated. In the meantime, on diazepam, it was as if he was further under water, but still suffering from the same life-or-death symptoms. Diazepam made him feel slugged in the face, but didn’t score a knockout. His misery remained, though he also believed that, with sufficient thought—with prodigious effort and by no other means—he could keep it from driving him completely under between now and his audience with the head doctor. The disadvantage of diazepam was that it made it more difficult to pursue this end; the advantage was that he slept more. As soon as Ed awoke, though, his madness started again, a huge white space of mental intensity, a silent grappling and ordeal. As static, stuporous, and numb as he looked, he was actually in the throes of a ferocious drama; he felt he was aloft on storm winds, or cast through a fissure in the earth. He wanted only to squeeze his head beneath his pillow and fight his battle alone, but he couldn’t, because his mother harassed him with snacks or meals, presented on trays, and with her loving, worried presence. Employing
proven tactics, Ed ate enough to keep her at bay, and kept his father at bay by telling him that he felt better, when in fact he felt the same: namely, that his condition was unendurable. And yet he endured it, except when he was etherized by his drug, and by clinging to his belief that, hour by hour, he was moving toward a halt to his miseries.

Finally, it was time to see the head doctor. Fine, who looked forty or forty-five, provided mental-health services from a home office fronted by a wind-punished bamboo grove. The books in his waiting room inclined Asiatically, as did the knickknacks in his lavatory. There was a fat jade Buddha by the pedestal sink, and a venerable incense-burner on the toilet tank. Fine asked Ed to leave his shoes at the office door, then told him to sit wherever he was comfortable—on the couch, in a chair, in a different chair, on the floor, or in what he called his meditation alcove, on a bench replete with pillows. Fine wore a beard, a sweater vest, and ragg-wool socks, and counseled with a teacup at hand. It was raining hard outside, and the rain was loud on his roof. Ed sat, and Fine said, “Tell me why you’re here.”

“I don’t know,” Ed said. “Dr. Stern referred me.”

“And why did he refer you?”

“Because he couldn’t handle it.”

“Couldn’t handle what?”

“Whatever’s wrong with me.”

“And what do you think’s wrong with you?”

“Depression,” said Ed.

Fine arched his thick, straggling eyebrows, then reached for his teacup. “Say more,” he said, “about depression.”

“More?”

“What’s it like? How does it feel? Anything you want to say about it to me. Go ahead. I’m here with you.”

“Like I’m under water,” said Ed.

“In the sense that you feel like you’re holding your breath?”

“No. Like everything’s watery. Like I can’t move, except slowly. Like there’s a film over everything. Like I’m on the moon or under water.”

“On the moon.”

“Or under water.”

“Are you eating?”

“No.”

“Are you sleeping?”

“As much as possible.”

“Why?”

“Because then it doesn’t hurt to be depressed.”

“Hurt?” said Fine. “So it’s not just the sensation of being under water? There’s also hurt. Which feels like what?”

“Like being crushed. Squeezed in a vise. Like it’s killing me.”

“Killing you,” said Fine.

“Like I’m dying.”

“Dying,” said Fine. “And what’s that like?”

Ed sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Like death.”

“Have you died before?”

“No.”

“So how do you know what it feels like?”

“I don’t.”

“So why did you say you feel like you’re dying?”

Ed sighed again. Was Roger Fine a prosecutor? Was this cross-examination? But before he could speak, Fine suddenly said, “What’s with the sighing? Once again? Who’s doing all the sighing, Ed?”

“What?”

“It’s almost like there’s three people in the room. Me, the you who says he’s depressed, and the you who’s sighing.”

“I don’t get that,” said Ed.

“So who’s doing the sighing?”

“I don’t get it,” said Ed. “What’s the question?”

Fine put down his teacup, wiped his meaty lips with the back of his wrist, groomed his beard, covered a burp, and, through all of this, nodded. Then he said, “Who’s in the room?”

“You and me.”

“And who are you?”

“I’m me.”

“And who is me?”

Ed wanted to sigh, but held back and answered, “I know I’m not supposed to say my name, but that’s the answer—me. I’m me. I don’t know. What do you mean? Tell me how I’m supposed to answer.”

“I can’t tell you anything. Or not very much. Maybe a little.” Fine used his thumb and forefinger to indicate one inch. “The rest, it’s not for me to say. Who are you? I don’t know, either. I don’t know that. I wish I did. I
wish it was that easy. You come in here, I tell you what’s wrong, I tell you why you’re depressed, and somehow, after that, you’re not depressed anymore? It isn’t like that. That’s not what we do here. I don’t have a crystal ball or magic tricks.”

“Then what
do
we do here?”

“We talk,” said Fine.

“About what?”

“About you.”

“What about me?”

“That’s for you to say. Anything you want. In here, anything goes. So tell me this—why are you depressed?”

Ed sighed, and Fine raised his eyebrows again. “I don’t know,” said Ed. But then, surrendering, he made something up. “A friend of mine died,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said Fine. “How and when?”

“Just a few weeks ago. In a car crash. In eastern Washington.”

“A good friend?”

“A really good friend.”

“Someone you’d known for a long time? From childhood?”

“Yeah,” said Ed. “One of my best friends.”

“So there it is,” said Fine, sitting back. “Your friend died, and now you’re depressed.”

“Right.”

“But maybe it’s not depression—maybe it’s mourning. Maybe it’s grief, which is a natural reaction. Maybe that’s what brought you here.”

“No,” said Ed. “That’s not it. Something’s … wrong. Something’s different. This isn’t like anything I’ve felt before. This is just sort of … different.”

“Are you saying you lost a friend before, someone as significant and as close as this friend, and that on that occasion you mourned and grieved in a way that didn’t feel like what you’re feeling now? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“No.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Couldn’t it be grief instead of depression?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, then,” said Fine. “Let’s talk about grief. Let’s talk about loss.
Because these things are a part of life. You’ve lost somebody, you’re grieving, naturally, but your life goes on, and the question is, how will it go on from this point? Now that your friend is gone?” Again, Fine showed one inch with his fingers, this time adding a wink and saying, “I think this is one of the few things I’m actually entitled to say. We’re talking about grief. Not depression, grief. We’re talking about how you feel about your friend, a person who was important to you. Why wouldn’t you grieve? Anybody would. And it doesn’t feel good, does it, grief. There’s a big hole in your life now—a place your friend used to fill. What’s going to go there? Or will it stay empty? Do you understand what I’m saying? About a hole? A loss? That’s what loss is—loss makes a hole. Grief is how you start to fill it in. I think you should just accept that grief. Let yourself grieve. Don’t fight it.”

“I don’t know,” said Ed. “Something isn’t right.”

“One thing we can do is prescribe,” said Fine. “Paul Stern’s got you on diazepam, but that’s not going to solve your problem. We could put you on something that would be ongoing and that would help you feel a lot, lot better, so you can get on with living your life.”

“No,” said Ed. “I’m not a pill person.”

“No one likes to be medicated,” said Fine. “But when you need medication, it’s good it’s there. Meds help many, many people, Ed. And I think the right one could probably help you while you’re getting over your grief.”

Ed sighed.

“You don’t have to decide now,” said Fine. “You can think about it, and we can talk it over later. And, of course, the decision is yours alone to make. You, not I, have to want it, Ed. I’m only here with you—only present.”

Later, in bed with a pillow over his head—and in between hating himself and thinking about death—Ed thought about whether he should take a mental-health drug. Alice discussed it on the phone with Roger Fine and, since the idea of a drug concerned her, too, decided that they should get a second opinion. After a swift and thorough vetting, she made an appointment with a therapist named Theresa Pierce who specialized in depressed adolescents.

Theresa Pierce met with clients in a low-ceilinged garret that smelled, to Ed, like old milk in a pile carpet. In its doorway, she put him in mind of Arthur’s Merlin—pallid, maybe even owlish, like someone who hibernated.
She wore Lycra slacks, running shoes, and a zip-up boiled-wool sweater. Her large and unfashionable glasses, with their wood-grain frames and graphic bifocal bifurcations, made her eyes seem three times larger than was human, and magnified, especially, her glinting, liquid pupils. Pierce kept dog-eared books floor-to-ceiling, many with creased spines, tattered edges, and “Used” stickers, and her chairs—one for doctor, one for patient, but both hard Windsors—were arranged for maximum distance despite the cramped quarters. There she sat, remotely, in her corner, not necessarily for or against Ed, dispassionately present, cryptic in aspect, and attentive behind her conspicuously huge glasses—everything arrayed to suggest, subliminally, that here was a woman of insight.

So as not to prejudice Theresa Pierce, Ed didn’t mention Roger Fine or the question of a mental-health drug. He told her that there was nothing wrong with his life and that he didn’t know why he was feeling what he was feeling—unhappy, uninterested in heretofore vitalizing pursuits, listless, withdrawn, preoccupied with bleak thoughts. Mired and catatonic. Under water, static, stuporous, and numb. Unable either to exercise or to eat. Mostly drawn to curling in the fetal position and covering his head so he could think, without distraction, perpetual dark thoughts. Pierce, in response, uttered not a word. Instead of speaking, she watched him unnervingly, recessed in her corner, a psychiatric cipher. She regarded Ed with such flagrant detachment, as he filled the empty space with words, that finally he said, “Don’t you talk?”

“Sometimes.”

“Isn’t this what they call ‘talk therapy’?”

“No.”

“What is it, then?”

“That’s hard to say.”

“What am I doing here?”

“So far, introducing yourself.”

He didn’t know how to respond to this and felt insulted by it, as if he’d said too much, or said the wrong things—but what choice had she given him? “If I don’t talk and you don’t talk,” said Ed, “then we’re just sitting here doing nothing in the same room together, instead of making progress.”

“Progress toward what?”

“Progress toward my goal of getting back to where I was before this depression started.”

Pierce now watched him with something like a gargoyle’s menace. Didn’t gargoyles, like Pierce, look stony, poised, attentive, unreadable, bent on overhearing you from the tops of buildings, and prepared, if necessary, to leap onto your head? “I wish you’d say something,” Ed said.

“Like what?”

“Like something helpful.”

Pierce reached under the frame of her glasses and pulled, gently, at the corner of her eye. Ed got a glimpse, from across the room, of the red, glistening surround in which her eyeball was set. In her dowdy sweater and running shoes, and with her Brillo Pad hair just slightly awry, she looked more like a mental patient than a doctor. “I have to tell you something now,” she said. “I feel I don’t have a choice but to tell you this directly. I have to tell you that I can’t work with you. We’re not a good match. I’m not the right person for you to see. It’s nobody’s fault. You didn’t do something wrong. But sometimes this happens when someone comes to see me. I wouldn’t want to waste your time and money when it doesn’t feel right.”