Coping Mechanisms
by Charles C. Cole
Dr. Karlson and I sat opposite one another in the psychiatrist’s small office, curtain drawn over the one window, knees nearly touching. He had pen and paper on the arm of his chair: tools of the trade, in case he had to capture a passing thought, which to his credit he rarely did.
I sat with my legs together, feet flat on the floor, hands upturned in my lap, the classic posture for being open and receptive.
I should add the doctor looked, for all intents and purposes, like a six-foot tall tuatara: green skin, roving eyes, a tail sticking out and around the back of his chair, teeny nose, clawed hands and feet.
At the time, I had a non-heroic, impractical superpower: I could visually shapeshift people into animals, especially the “regulars” in my biodome, if you get me. They looked fine to the rest of the world, but they played a unique role in mine. In fact, I sometimes “forgot” their human form.
You probably want to know, so let’s get it out of the way. The city bus driver was a kangaroo. My boss at the senior center where I worked was a cobra. My girlfriend was a fat red fox with fleas. My parents, ironically enough, looked exactly like my middle-aged human parents, and the faces of the crowds during my many city errands remained unchanged.
Karlson began: “Stephen, you canceled our last two visits, just a day or two in advance. Why have you come today? Why am I optimistic?”
“Old news: I hate my life. I donated a kidney, thinking I would feel special. Now, post-surgery, I just feel like there’s nothing more of that magnitude I can accomplish. And, since my gesture was outside of work, I’m afraid I’m going to get fired any day, mostly for taking two weeks off to recover. When that happens, then my tentative wife of these five years is going to ask for a divorce.”
“We’ve discussed this: giving a kidney was amazing, but the world goes on. Sadly, we are judged more by our last interactions in the corporate boardroom or in the crowded grocery store parking lot than by our last private, altruistic gesture.”
“I want credit, currency, room to make mistakes. I bought that, didn’t I? I want everyone to be nice to me for one month.”
“Stephen, we’ve tried redirecting your emotions and even converting them, but I think the answer is simpler: just turn them off.”
“Come again?” I asked.
“I’ve been dealing with broken and unhappy clients for over fifty years. Some overcome their ills and become productive members of society while others, tragically, succumb to them. You know how I avoid burnout? I’ll tell you: practicing intentional apathy. I don’t want you not to care; I want you to care only about things that matter, which not coincidentally are things you have control over.”
“Specifics, please.”
“Eating, breathing, sleeping, and how you see the world.” (Beat) “Yes, that, too, is an essential habit. Look at me. Am I still an iguana?”
“No, but close: a tuatara,” I explained.
“Why that, if I may ask?”
“For starters, it’s a compliment. It makes you more vivid in the book of my life, at least if it were illustrated. You’re not just one of a score of officious pencil-pushing clinicians; you’re the bright green lizard who can never get quite comfortable sitting straight up because of his long tail.”
“Try to see me as the bald, seventy-year old, concerned physician that I am. You lose every aspect of my compassion when you turn me into an animal.”
“So, you do care!”
“About you, yes. Not about my fight for parking, the crowded elevator, the expired milk in my fridge.”
“Ah.”
“At least see my nose. I’ve been told I have a strong Roman nose inherited from my late father. It’s a bit intimidating to the uninitiated. I’m proud of it, in part, because I can’t change it: it’s me.”
I held both hands over my eyes. I remembered the picture on his desk where he held up some large fish recently caught. He was human with a Roman nose. I lowered my hands. He was almost human: I kept the tail because it made me giggle inside. Keeping the tail made him “more” than human, a fair compromise, and kept my life and interactions colorful.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“An old man.”
“Anything else?”
“You lean forward in your chair like you want to hold your client’s hand. I always thought it was because your tail tilted you, but I think you want to be ready to catch us if we fall.”
He smiled. “Do I care about you?” he asked.
“You think you do,” I said.
“When you go home, where you usually see animals, I want you to see people. Try. I think people are just as interesting. You know why? Because we can see aspects of ourselves in them: our stubbornness, our vulnerability, our focus. We’re less alone in a world made of slightly different versions of us. You won’t be disappointed.”
I took the bus home. I closed my eyes and thought hard. The driver matched the face on the license taped to his dash. He looked tired and hungry but determined to finish his route. I felt sorry for him. Lucky for me, my job dealing with medical records didn’t require dodging pedestrians and impatient drivers. He was good at his job, I thought.
The driver still had kangaroo feet, though. They made me giggle inside. Maybe I could change the world slowly. That sounded like a fair compromise.
Copyright © 2024 by Charles C. Cole
