The Last House on Needless Street(22)

I choose a dented, metal fold-out. I hope this severe choice will show him that I am serious about my progress.

‘You’ve lost some more hair,’ the bug man says mildly.

‘I think my cat pulls it out at night.’

‘And your left arm looks badly bruised. What’s up with that?’

I should have worn long sleeves, I wasn’t thinking.

‘I was out on a date,’ I say. ‘She shut the car door on my arm by accident.’ I haven’t actually been on a date yet, but I feel like it’s more likely to happen if I say the words, like a spell that will force me to do it.

‘That’s unfortunate,’ he says. ‘Apart from that, did you feel the date went well?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I say. ‘I had a great time. You know, I’ve been watching this new TV show. It’s about a man who kills people, but only if they deserve it. Bad people, in other words.’

‘What do you think appeals to you about this show?’

‘It doesn’t appeal to me,’ I say. ‘I think it’s nonsense. You can’t tell what people are like from what they do. You can do a bad thing even though you’re not a bad person. Bad people could do good things accidentally. You can’t really know, is my point.’ I can see him drawing breath to ask me a question so I hurry on. ‘And there was this other TV show where a man killed lots of people, but then he hurt his head in an accident, and when he woke up he thought it was ten years earlier. He didn’t remember killing the people, or the new kinds of cellphone or his wife. He was a different person to the one who killed the women. So was it still his fault, even when it was out of his control?’

‘Do you feel that your actions are sometimes out of your control?’

Careful, I think.

‘And there’s this other show,’ I say, ‘about a talking dog. That seems much more realistic to me, in a way, than being able to tell good people from bad. My cat can’t actually speak – I admit that. But I always know what she wants. It’s just as good as talking.’

‘Your cat means a lot to you,’ the bug man says.

‘She’s my best friend,’ I say, which might be the first true thing I’ve said to him in the six months that I’ve been coming here. A silence falls, not uncomfortable. He writes on his yellow legal pad but it must be about groceries or something, because, really, I’m not giving him anything.

‘But I am worried about her.’ He glances up. ‘I think she’s …’ I hesitate. ‘I think my cat is, what would you say? Homosexual. Gay. I think my cat is attracted to female cats.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘There’s this other cat she watches, out the window. She watches her all the time. She loves her, I can just tell. My mother would be very upset if she knew I had a homosexual cat. She had very strong feelings about it.’ The scent of vinegar fills the air for a moment and I think I might throw up. I didn’t mean to say any of that.

‘Do you think your cat—?’

‘I can’t talk about that any more,’ I say.

‘Well—’

‘No,’ I say. ‘No, no, no, no, NO.’

‘All right,’ he says. ‘How is your daughter?’

I wince. I mentioned Lauren once in passing, by accident. It was a big mistake because he has never let it go since. ‘She’s been spending a lot of time at school,’ I say. ‘I haven’t seen her too much.’

‘You know, Ted, this session is for you. It’s private. You can say anything here. Some people feel it’s the only place they can really express themselves. In our daily lives can be difficult to say what we think or feel to those closest to us. That is a very isolating experience. It can be lonely, keeping secrets. That’s why it’s important to have somewhere safe, like this. You can say anything to me.’

‘Well,’ I say. ‘There are parts of my life I’d like to share with someone, one day. Not you, but someone.’

He raises his eyebrows.

‘I was watching monster trucks on TV last night, and I was thinking, Monster trucks are great. They’re big and loud and fun. It would be so great if I could meet someone who has a love of big trucks, one day.’

‘That’s a good goal.’ His eyes are glazing over. They look like two blue marbles.

For weeks I store up my most boring thoughts to tell the bug man. It’s hard work sometimes, thinking of enough things to fill an hour. But that last one just came to me spontaneously.

‘In my book,’ he says, ‘I talk about how dissociation can actually protect us …’

It’s safe to tune out now, so I do. The bug man likes to talk about his book. It’s not published or anything. I don’t think it’s even finished. He has been writing it since I’ve known him. We all have something that we care about more than anything else, I guess. For me it’s Lauren and Olivia. For the bug man it’s his never-ending book.

At the end of the hour he hands me a brown paper bag, just like a lunch bag a kid takes to school. I know there are four boxes of pills in there and it makes me feel a lot better.

What I’m doing with the bug man is pretty smart, I have to say. I got the idea some time ago, not long after Little Girl With Popsicle.