Impermanence

If Ichabod Crane's legs had been sawed off at the kneecap by Tony Soprano, he'd look just like Dr. Horowitz. Wiry-haired, ungainly, scarecrow-fit to his khaki pants and runaway tie but extremely dapper footwear. (I spent a lot of time in his office looking down.) Pleasant air of affable distraction but a tracker, an empath – picked up on my accent right away: "You're not from around here, are you?"

"No, I'm from the East Coast just like you."

"Where?"

"New York City."

"Ah!" he nods. "I'm from Baltimore."

We bat colored balloons around while we discuss confidentiality. Everything Robin tells him in this room is a secret except if it involves hurting someone or hurting himself – then he's gonna tell me. Also sometimes he's going to meet with both of us to talk about stuff. Is that okay?

Robin nods without looking at him.

"Okay. Let me tell you a little bit about why I decided to become a psychologist. When I was your age exactly – you're eleven, right?"

Robin nods.

"When I was eleven, my sister got carted away to the booby hatch. Bam! And this was very hard on me because my sister was my very best friend in the world and we had all kind of secrets. So then for a couple of years nothing happened except that I was angry and unhappy and got into all sorts of trouble, and then finally I met a psychologist and he helped me so much that I decided I wanted to help people too."

Aha, career guidance! Possibly I could work this into the Nag Routine: if you keep flunking math, Robin, then you'll never grow up to be a psychologist like Dr. H!

I snuck a peek at Robin. He was looking down sullenly.

"Okay!" smiles Dr. H. "Let's play some checkers."

I didn't even know Robin could play checkers. I certainly can't. I mean, I suppose I could once – I went to summer camp when I was a kid after all. The pieces move diagonally? Who knew?

"You know, sometimes two heads are better than one," says Dr. H. gently. "If you want to consult with your mother –"

"No," hisses Robin.

From time to time though he'll sneak a glance at me over his shoulder with a little smirk whenever he's made some particularly good move. It is very silent and dim in Dr. H's office. They must spend a fortune in sound-proofing insulation.

Finally when they're down to three kings apiece, Dr. H says, "Let's finish the game later. We have another game to play – Twenty Questions. This one we'll do with just the two of us."

"When should I come back?" I ask.

"Oh, in about 15 minutes," says Dr. H. with a big, goofy smile.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is another one of those towns that seems to have been designed by space aliens. In front of each impeccably showcased antique store or gallery window, one imagines there's a trapdoor, jimmy-rigged to open to just the right combo of madras shorts and three-hundred-pound tourist. Presumably the tourist falls into a big pot of bubbling water where he's boiled like a lobster and then served on a bed of fresh arugula to the advance guard of the invasion.

The landscaping is beautiful though, and as I wandered along the streets peering at the beautifully trimmed white jasmine and the purple princess flowers and the strange fierce stalks of the astromeria, I felt a great sadness well up in me. A perfect day, this: the sun shining, a celestial beneficence; the shop windows filled with every beautiful, useless thing that Man in his infinite inventiveness could ever think of designing; strangers on the street filled with happy anticipation about the hours yet to unfold. And all I could think, of course, was: It won't last. Turn around and blink, you'll find yourself in a cancer ward with tubes down your nose and up your yingyang and the morphine dose still half an hour away.

Well. There's an obvious solution to that. Don't turn around and don't blink.

Except some of us can't help turning around.

It pissed me off to be so sad. You can't sell hot sauce when you're sad.

Back in the office, Robin and Dr. H. were just finishing up their game of Twenty Questions. "Should I come back?" I asked.

"No, no," smiled Dr. H. "I think it's okay if you hear the answer to the last question. Robin, is it okay?"

Robin hadn't been crying but his face showed a peaked expression that indicated unpleasant emotions had been experienced, possibly even processed. He nodded without looking up.

"My mom was angry a lot of the time because my dad wasn't very nice to her," Dr. H continued in a light, engaging voice. "I mean, he was nice to her in some ways but not very nice in other ways. And she kept hoping he'd be nice to her in those ways too but he wasn't. So that made her angry because it's easier to be angry then sad." He turned to me with a disarming smile. "He's an awfully good checkers player, by the way. Possibly the best eleven year old checker player I've ever played with. Should we show your mom how the game ended?"

Silently Robin picked up the pieces and put them on the board. Two white kings, his. One black king, Dr. H's. The black king trapped between the the two white kings.

"I only had two moves to make and both of them would destroy me," Dr. H. said, placing his hand upon his breast, comically tragic.