Chapter

2

Dr. Pressman, the chairperson for the group, slid the first tape into the deck. LED lights flashed a frenetic backward dance as the cassette rewound to the start. As the tape began, the fifteen experts listened intently. The recorded voice of Charles was quiet, innocent sounding.

“It’s hard. I’ve been sitting here two hours, staring at the wall, afraid to start this journal. After months of getting nowhere, Dr. Mathews thought it would be a good idea...a journal, that is. But I have trouble writing. I’m having trouble talking too. I’d better date this March 3^rd, 2005. He was rather insistent on keeping track of the dates.

It’s two hours and another five minutes now. Maybe this is the writer’s block I’ve heard about. So, anyway, I’m writing into this recorder because, well, maybe it will help. Maybe it is worthwhile to tell this story, the whole story, what I remember as I go along, wherever I’m going.

If this ever gets heard, I hope my voice doesn’t drive you nuts. I’m not a writer, although who knows. Guess we’ll both know by the time I finish.

I’ve been sitting here a long time now trying to put into words how it feels. I’m probably afraid to start. I’m assuming Dr. Mathews will want to hear this at some point, and he’ll probably share it with other doctors. That’s what he says happens sometimes with difficult problems. I’m a difficult problem, he says.

Mathews and whoever, maybe this will help. Mathews has convinced me that I’m not alone, that this inner confusion is not uncommon. That would mean some of you might understand it as if listening in front of a mirror, you know who you are. Some will hear, sort of from behind or in front of a two-way mirror. Don’t roll your eyes. I told you I’m new at this. Some of you will listen to this right in between. You’re right in between the layers of the two-way mirror. You’ll know who you are. You’ll be looking into yourself from two sides and the Godawful middle. You people will get it, really get it, and I’m not saying you’re crazy or anything, you’ll just understand it better. And it won’t always be comfortable.

Welcome to my world. It’s the middle look, the three-way mirror, and it’s scary. What I’m going to try and tell is how I remember it. This is how my life started, at 28, the day I was born into this life that began with only one memory...or dream. I don’t know.

Anyway, the memory always starts the same way with me going to bed on the couch in my office. This memory has another memory inside. What I mean is I seem to have an attitude that comes from somewhere, because in the memory I go to bed with what feels like a habitual bedtime attitude—“tomorrow’s got to be better.” This feels normal, of course. After what feels like years of saying the same thing, this is normal. That’s how I remember it.

I guess I’m just bored with my “tomorrow has got to be better.” The phrase seems alien to me. I don’t know why. I look in the mirror often, thinking about the one memory of who I’m supposed to be and I really don’t feel like that. I stand before the wall of an office staring at my framed Ph.D. clustered among pictures of my beautiful wife, my handsome son, my sprawling wooded estate, and the Advertising Awards, so many awards. This should all make tomorrow better than yesterday, right? It isn’t. It isn’t better because I’m not letting it be.

I remember how I told it to Dr. Mathews that very first day. In the memory, I had told him; I wake up in the morning, the next morning after sleeping in the office. I look out the window of my high-rise office into the vertical maze of glass and steel mixed with slums. Spotted here and there in the windows across the way, men and women (some dressed for maintenance work, others in business suits) gaze back at me. Still others peering from their slum windows look half-naked, wearing all they own. The “morning anxiety,” I think. Theirs, mine, the world’s. With less than a couple of hundred feet separating the buildings, I have to strain to see their features through the smog.  Maybe, I think, if I see them too clearly, I’ll know too much.

I walk the forty-three steps it takes to reach my executive bathroom. The timer has heated both the floor and the built-in shaving cream dispenser. I am prepared to begin another lousy day of being pampered like royalty. That’s another part of how I feel in this; I can only say it’s a very uncomfortable memory.

I splash on some cologne while the steamy bathroom is airing out, and as usual, the phone rings at precisely 7:25. Liz is punctual that way. She likes to make sure I am sleeping on the couch as usual and that I am preparing to meet the new day with the same aplomb and ambition that has kept her comfortable and bitchy for the ten years of our less than perfect marriage. At least, that’s what I think in this memory. I don’t know why. I just do.

“Good morning,” I say in what the memory tells me is my customary lifeless way.

I sense something different today. Today, she’s not combative. Oh yes. Today is different.

The new female voice I hear on the other end is a monotone, without personality, kind of like my own. “Charlie?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“Your house is burning, your wife is gone, your son has left and your dog is about to die.” Click.

That’s the memory.

I uttered the “house on fire” part every time I relived the memory. I repeated it to Dr. Mathews for five months. I was conscious of what I was saying. Some say that’s no good. With hypnosis, you’re supposed to be unaware of conscious and unconscious thoughts and verbiage at the same time while being “under,” but what can I say? This day is different. Today is the day Dr. Mathews has suggested I start keeping the journal, so here goes.

I’ll try to keep it going.

Amidst the ticking of his grandfather clock and the quiet surf outside his window, my eyelids told me the drapes had been opened. Then came the customary snap of his fingers. Snap, snap again, and there I was wide-eyed and refreshed, experiencing the usual catharsis after relating the memory.

“You feel like you’ve had a full night’s sleep, Charles,” Mathews whispered as he stroked his perfectly trimmed beard, his dependable way of greeting me after his hypnotic inducement. Actually, his technique did work, but a part of my ego, an ego I knew so little about, didn’t want him to have the satisfaction.

“You missed, Doc. Feel like I’ve been run over by a stampede.” Then I really let him have it. I don’t know why that day felt like the day to spit it out.

“That’s how I ‘imagined’ it happened, Doc. Is that what really happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s what I pay you for. I don’t even know my name, for sure. You tell me. You tell me the answer. You tell me my real name, or just give me a name that hasn’t got any memories. That’d be a helluva lot better than what I’ve got now. And don’t tell me again that you believe I’m whoever I think I am, because I don’t believe it.”

That’s how it was that March morning, just yesterday, actually. It was the fifth month of confusion, insecurity and expensive therapy sessions with Mathews. I was beginning to believe that nothing I could say, nothing I could retch out of my soul was going to help me, or help Mathews feel he had accomplished anything with me. Getting answers seemed even more remote. I hated to hand him his first defeat, but standing up, I said…

“Doc, if anything pops up I think you can help me with, I’ll give you a call. The fact of the matter is I’m pooped. You’re pooped. Why don’t we say we’ve had a mildly interesting few months and save me some money?”

Without any fanfare, he stated, “Because, Mr. Randall, that’s just not the facts. You want answers as much as I do and now that I’ve put up with your bullshit resistance for the first few months and you’ve forked over several thousand dollars, it’s time I changed gears; time you stopped thinking I’m some kind of threat you can play with until the next more interesting threat comes along to feed your insatiable appetite for drama.” He rose and shuffled toward the door, “Charles, you’re due back on Tuesday and I think you should start the journal we talked about. You’ve been putting it off for months. Just try it. I think it will help. Tuesday we’ll start again. Unless, of course, you really aren’t interested in knowing any more about that body and soul you walk around with.”

I got up from the well-worn couch. I took my time retying the hand painted necktie, which, according to the gift card I found in the box at the hotel, was from my supposed wife, Liz. I was suddenly alive again. Staring me straight in the eye was the hidden WALDO I’d neglected to see though I’d searched many times. Liz’s card had said, “ ...It contains a hidden WALDO you will never find. All My Love, L.” But, here I was for the first time seeing the little nerd. I felt good.  I hadn’t lost all my senses, though I wondered if I shouldn’t also know who MOMA was. Those were the subtly embroidered letters that crossed the end of the tie. Well, whoever MOMA was, she was about to get the respect an expensive tie deserves. I stared at my discovery in the mirror and muttered, “Well I’ll be. You’re right there, aren’t you?”

“I try to be,” said Mathews opening the door. “That’s my job. Tuesday?”

I had to smile. In spite of his ways, Mathews was likable, and maybe, just maybe, I should give up some of my resistance. “Yeah, Doc, sure thing.”