His hand stank of cabbage and bay rum.”
The gun hand wavered a bit. .. not enough.
Scratch, bump.
“Mummy was thrilled–she knew him from his magazine articles. A famous man willing to tame her wild child.” His free hand fluttered. “The cab came and she sent it off empty.”
The gun withdrew far enough for me to see its black snout, dark against his white knuckles.
Two hellholes on the same street. De Bosch exploiting Bancroft’s failures. An alumnus of both schools, coming back years later, a tramp… the clean-cut face in front of me bore no street scars. But sometimes the wounds that healed weren’t the important ones.
“Across the street I went. Mummy signed some papers and left me alone with Hitler. He smiled at me and said, Andrew, little Andrew. We have the same name, let’s be friends.” Me saying, Fuck you, old goat.” He smiled again and patted my head. Took me down a long dark hall, shoved me into a cell, and locked it. I cried all night. When they let me out for lunch, I snuck into the kitchen and found matches.”
J N Al A N :LL M A N A wistful look came into his eyes.
“How thorough was I tonight? Did I leave anything standing at Casa del Shrinko?”
I remained silent.
The gun poked me. “Did I?”
“Not much.”
“Good. It’s a shoddy world, thoroughness is so rare a quality. You personify shoddiness. You were as easy to get to as a sardine in a can. All of you were-tell me, why are psychotherapists such a passive, helpless bunch? Why are you all such absolute wimps– talking about life rather than doing anything?”
I didn’t answer.
He said, “You really are, you know. Such an unimpressive group.
Stripped of your jargon, you’re noth–if that dog of yours doesn’t shut up, I’m going to kill him–better yet, I’ll make you kill him. Make you eat him–we can grill him on that barbecue you’ve got out back. A nice little hot dog–that would be justice, wouldn’t it–making you confront your own cruelty? Give you a taste of empathy?”
“Why don’t we just let him go?” I said. “He’s not mine, just a stray I took in.”
“How kind of you.” Jab. My breastbone felt inflamed.
I said, “Why don’t we let my friend go, too? She hasn’t seen your faces.”
He smiled and settled back a bit.
“Shoddiness,” he said. “That’s the big problem. Phony science, false premises, false promises. You pretend to help people but you just mind-fuck them.”
He leaned forward. “How do you manage to live with yourself, knowing you’re a phony?”
Jab. “Answer me.”
“I’ve helped people.”
“How? With voodoo? With bad love?”
Trying to keep the whine out of my voice, I said, “I had nothing to do with de Bosch except for that symposium.”
“Except for? Except for! That’s like Eichmann saying he had nothing to do with Hitler except for getting those trains to the camps. That symposium was a public love fest, you asshole! You stood up there and canonized him! He tortured children and you canonized him!”
“I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, you and all the other good Germans.”
He spat at me again. The knuckles of his gun hand were tiny cauliflowers.
Sweat popped at his hairline.
“That’s it?” he said. “That’s your excuse–‘I didn’t know’?
Pathetic. Just like all the others. For a bunch of supposedly educated people, you can’t even plead for yourselves effectively. No class. Delmar had more class in his little finger than the lot of you put together, and he was retarded. Not that it stopped them from badloving him day in and day out.”
He shook his head and flung sweat. I saw his index finger move up and down the trigger. The painful, hungry look on his face made my bowels churn. But then it was gone and he was smiling again.
“Retarded,” he said, as if enjoying the word. “Fourteen, but he was more like a seven-year-old. I was twelve, but I ended up being his big brother. He was the only one in the place who’d talk to me–beware the dangerous pyromaniac-Hitler warned them all against having anything to do with me. I was completely shunned except by Delmar. He couldn’t think clearly, but he had a heart of gold. Hitler took him in for the publicity–poor little Negro retardo helped by the great white doctor.