The Last House on Needless Street(63)

Ted





It’s bug-man day at last. I have to see it through. I have to do this for Lauren. But I should not have yelled at him last time. I saw the light come on in his eyes.

The walk is nice. Not too hot. I stroke the little pinecone in my pocket. I found it by the front steps. I love pinecones. They have very individual personalities.

I stop with my hand on the door handle. The bug man is talking in his office. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen or heard another patient, here!

‘Goddamn small minds,’ I hear the bug man say. ‘Small towns.’ It makes me feel weird. I knock so he knows I’m there. I really respect privacy. He stops muttering and says, ‘Come in!’

The bug man’s round eyes are calm behind his spectacles. There is no one else in the room.

‘I’m glad to see you, Ted,’ he says. ‘I thought you might not show up. There are more scratches on your hands and face, I see.’

‘It’s my cat,’ I say. ‘She’s going through a rough patch.’ (Nails on my face, her screams as I put her in the crate.)

‘So,’ he says. ‘How are things?’

‘I’m good,’ I say. ‘The pills are good. Only, I run low real fast. I was thinking maybe I could have a prescription I could refill, instead of getting them from you.’

‘We can talk about increasing the dosage. But I would rather you continue to get the pills from me. And you would have to pay to fill a prescription. You don’t want that, do you?’

‘I guess not,’ I say.

‘Have you been keeping your feelings diary?’ he asks.

‘Sure,’ I say politely. ‘All that is great. Your suggestions have been very helpful.’

‘Has the diary helped you to identify some triggers?’

‘Well,’ I say. ‘I am very worried about my cat.’

‘Your gay cat.’

‘Yes. She shakes her head all the time, and she claws at her ears like there’s something in them. Nothing seems to help her.’

‘So,’ the bug man says, ‘that makes you feel powerless?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I don’t want her to be in pain.’

‘Is there any action you can take? Could you take her to the veterinarian, for instance?’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘No. I don’t think they would understand her at the animal clinic. Not at all. She’s a very particular kind of cat.’

‘Well,’ he says. ‘You’ll never know if you don’t try, hmm?’

‘Actually,’ I say, ‘I have been wondering about something else.’

‘Yes?’ He looks expectant. I almost feel bad. He’s been waiting so long for me to give him something.

‘Do you remember the TV show I was telling you about – with the mother and daughter?’

He nods. His pen is still. His eyes are flat blue circles, fixed on me.

‘I am still watching it. The plot has been getting more complicated. The angry girl, you know, the one who keeps trying to kill her mother – well, it turns out she has another … nature, kind of?’

The bug man doesn’t stir. His eyes are fixed on me. ‘That can happen,’ he says slowly. ‘It’s rare … and it doesn’t work like it does in the movies.’

‘This movie wasn’t like those other movies,’ I say.

‘I thought you said it was a TV show.’

‘That’s what I meant, a TV show. So in this show, sometimes the daughter is a young girl – but at certain times she seems completely ... different.’

‘As if another personality takes over?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Like there are two people inside her.’ Two different species, actually, but I think I’ve told him enough.

The bug man says, ‘I think you’re talking about dissociative identity disorder, or DID.’

Dissociative identity disorder. It sounds like something that goes wrong with a TV or a stereo. It doesn’t sound like anything to do with Lauren.

The bug man is watching me closely, and I realise that I am murmuring to myself. Being weird. I fix him with a firm gaze. ‘That’s very interesting.’

‘It used to be known as multiple personality disorder,’ he says. ‘DID is a new term – but we still don’t really understand it. I deal with it extensively in my book. In fact, you might say the whole thesis—’

‘So what do we understand?’ I say, keeping him to the point. I know from experience that if I don’t he’ll just talk about his book for ever.

‘The girl in your TV show would probably have been subject to systematic abuse, physical or emotional,’ he says. ‘So her mind fragmented. It formed a new personality to deal with the trauma. It’s rather beautiful. An intelligent child’s elegant solution to suffering.’ He leans forward. His eyes are bright behind his glasses. ‘Is that what you saw, on the show? Abuse?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Maybe I missed that part while I was getting popcorn. Anyway the mother doesn’t know what to do about it. What should she do? In your professional opinion.’

‘There are two schools of thought on this,’ he says. ‘The first sets as its goal a state known as co-consciousness.’ He sees my look, and says, ‘A therapist would try to help the alternate personalities, or alters, to find a way to live harmoniously with one another.’