"So Mr. Phillips, back again are we?"
"I honestly don't even know why the hell I'm here this time."
"Well you know whenever you act up, you have to come to these little sessions of ours."
"What did I do? I can't even believe I'm being held accountable after what happened."
"Mr. Phillips, your wife is in the ICU at the Eden Medical Center."
"We were BOTH at the hospital; I was stabbed twice for Christ's sake!"
"Either way such a violent response is something that should be evaluated even though the court case hasn't been completely settled yet. I'm not accusing you of anything, this is just done to get a general understanding of your psychology for the court to evaluate." A loud scoff tainted with alcohol echoed throughout the sterile white office. Carl sat disgruntled in a chair too low to the ground for his spindly legs to make themselves comfortable. The therapist opened up a thick melanin folder onto the desk and began tapping a ball-point pen against the table.
"So, how would you initially describe the relationship with your wife before this particular episode?"
"Well how the hell do you think? She's pretty fucking cheap, you know. If she didn't mind buying wine more often then I wouldn't have to go out drinking." His sharp brown eyes turned away in a condescending sneer.
"According to some reports from your neighbors, there appeared to be a lot of yelling going on in your household this time."
"According to who?" Irritation could be heard crawling out of his throat. "If you're listening to the Andersons next door, I can tell you they're more fucked-up than we are. Whenever Margery left the house on Friday nights, Marty would literally have a van parked outside his house full of these strange guys in leather, and they would just play Rufus & Chaka Khan for three hours. That's not normal behavior for a sixty-three year-old man. Go evaluate him instead." A look of bewilderment briefly danced across a stern face before the therapist's eyes darted back onto the folder.
"Well to you, what prompted this fight?" the therapist asked.
"She's a bitch, that's what prompted it."
"How?"
"She gets her panties in a knot over the most arbitrary things. She's a god-damn dictator."
"Name a particular situation she overreacted to."
"Well I was out drinking one night..."
"I'm going to stop you right there." The only thing being heard in the room were the scritches of the pen against the document. The psychologist continued. "I believe this was one of your previous arrests. You drove home drunk and nearly put the car into the house."
"A lot of people drive drunk. My mother drove drunk constantly and nothing ever happened. Never got caught either."
"Mr. Phillips, it wasn't even your car."
"Well all right, I guess she kind of had a right to be a BIT upset."
"You were arrested on assault charges that night as well."
"I didn't even hit her that much."
"She had to be hospitalized for three cracked ribs." A coy smirk crossed Carl's face.
"Ah, it's amazing what you can do with a whisk when you have a little bit of ingenuity." A sigh escaped from the therapist's mouth alongside a bit of patience.
"This is the fifth time you've seen me, Mr. Phillips. Your alcoholism is becoming a more severe problem every time one of these incidents arise. You've been missing your AA meetings, so you don't seem intent on fixing this."
"Listen, these kinds of situations only arise in the first place because I'm not drinking at home." He put his feet up on the therapist's table as he began to stretch. "I remember the good ol' days where we'd actually stay at home drinking. It was perfectly fine back then."
"She seems extremely upset that you're out drinking that much."
"If she was still willing to drink with me at home, then maybe I wouldn't be out so much, would I? But no, she's not willing to do it so fuck her."
"Why do you think she's stopped drinking?" Carl shrugged his shoulders.
"Hell if I know. Probably those friends of hers." he muttered. He sat up and leaned towards the therapist. "She's a firebrand, but her friends, they're nice Christian folk."
"And?" The therapist waved for him to continue.
"They think that her doing something like that so often for recreation, it isn't morally just. In some cases they're right, but who the hell are they to judge?" his voice began to rise, but he quickly regained his composure. "We're married; she's allowed to indulge and enjoy herself. It's unfair to her and unfair to me." There was a tense silence that seemed to freeze the air in the room.
"I don't mind the fighting." he said, his normally-erratic voice now mildly solemn. "We're both pretty fucked-up people, so it's something to occasionally happen. And we're masochists, so go figure." The therapist winced. "But that was something to spend time together over. And if she doesn't want to, then I'll just go out and get my fix instead."
The therapist looked at the clock and noticed the time.
"Well, it appears our session is done for the day. I'll see you next week after the court case is settled, alright Mr. Phillips?" Carl nodded as he stood up.
"Now with that said and done, want to go out and get a beer? I need a drink after all that intense talking." He sounded completely unsympathetic.
"Mr. Phillips, you're really something else, aren't you?" The therapist's eyes rolled as she took off her glasses. A smirk crossed Carl's face. "Fine, my shift's up anyway. You're not saying a word, though. I'm not getting paid anymore to listen."
"Of course."
No comments:
Post a Comment