Shrink Rap

Where the hell are we? Looks a little like a doctor’s office, but only a little. Dr. Wise’s (Sorry, it’s his real name) wife has gone to great pains to make it look like an un-office. There’s a fountain in the corner, the doctor’s desk is blonde wood – dawn redwood – with curves, rough edges, and a remnant of bark.

Dr. Wise himself is a dapper forty-five-year-old, refined but not offensively so. Clipped brown hair, pencil-drawn moustache, trim, slim body.

He’s standing behind the desk, in front of a window, and across from him we see the back of the head of a slouched man with dark hair, mildly disheveled, who is saying: 

“Being with my friends is like being in an insane-asylum. They think they’re right the way Napoleons in a nut house think they’re Napoleon. There’s nothing to say about it that makes any sense to them. They know you’re wrong.”

Dr. Wise sighs and takes a seat at the desk. And now we see that the man sitting across from him is someone we know very well. It’s Wayne!

The good doctor looks, with mild friendly eyes, directly into Wayne’s wretched ones. “My friend,” he says, “welcome to the asylum.” He reaches across the crazily-grained desk to shake hands. “You are in it; I am in it; we’re all in it. You’re talking about politics. Of course I know; Doreen told me.”

Doreen? What is this, and what’s Wayne doing here, anyway? Let’s backtrack. He was watching television with Doreen. He shouldn’t have done it since he can’t stop shouting at the screen.

It was a man-in-the-street interview, with a woman.

Man: “What do you think of Obamacare?”

Woman, frowning: “I think it’s terrible.”

Man: “What do you think of the Affordable Health Care Act?”

Woman, bursting into a smile: “I think it’s wonderful. I can’t wait to get on it.”

Man: “Don’t you know that Obamacare and the Affordable Health Care Act are the same thing?”

Woman, shocked: “Oh, no! Oh, no! I hope this isn’t on television.”

They must have changed her mind somehow. It was. And Wayne watched it, and stood up, and yelled – at the screen, of course, but the only person who heard it was Doreen, “You moron! You’re what’s wrong with this country! Idiot! You shouldn’t be allowed to vote! And you’re what they’re making more of every day!”

He got no answer from the screen, which was now on to a car commercial. He turned to his lovely lady, and continuing, yelled, “She has no right to be so ignorant. She knows nothing. NOTHING! And she’s deciding how I’m going to live. Maybe whether I live or die. Maybe there aren’t death panels, but there sure as hell is death! Death because they think you’re too old, or your disease is too rare, or you die in your virtual waiting room because they’re six months behind, or…”

This is where he grabbed her. You shouldn’t have done that, Wayne. Not like that. And yelled, “Or they run out of money because they’re giving the store away! Everybody can’t have everything! It’s against the laws of nature!”

We didn’t see you shake her there, just a little, did we, Wayne? She says you did, and that’s what you’re doing in her shrink’s office. Her shrink. Now if she were your wife, that would be, to say the least, frowned upon. But in this country, your mistress is not recognized, legally or socially, and so anything goes. A perk of being not above, but alongside of, the law.

Doreen said that unless he came… well, you know… So he’s here, and the good doctor is saying, “Basically, the two sides don’t agree on the shape of the planet. To talk about politics, you need to have a common language, a framework you agree on. The Republicans and the Democrats have different world-views, and piled on top of that is a lot of disinformation, propaganda and downright tribalism. The Blue team versus the Red team.”

Wayne is attentive. His head is coming up, and his shoulders are finding the back of the chair. We are watching the urbane Dr. Wise do what he does best: explain, in a suave, soft, civilized voice, not at all like Wayne’s, that, “of course, there aren’t only two sides to most issues. But two makes more sense to us, it’s easier to wrap our heads around, and much easier to make ourselves feel we are right once we’ve picked one.”

Wayne likes this. It’s making him feel better. He’s wondering why he had such a bad opinion of shrinks. This one is saying, “No issue is too complex for our politicians, the news media, and the popular culture to turn into an either-or. Either we bomb Syria, or we are Assad’s collaborators. Either we have unrestricted burning of coal or we hate coal miners. Either we provide health insurance for the poor, or we want them to die faster. Either we reduce the tax burden of huge corporations and the mega-rich, or we’re anti-growth and anti-jobs.”

The doctor makes sense, and yes, explains so much. Here’s the clincher:

He comes around the desk, and sits precariously on one of the rounded burls on the edge, but he’s so ethereal, it bears his weight. He puts a light hand on Wayne’s shoulder. “The opposition is awful, isn’t it? They emphasize the wrong things, misunderstand everything, and draw implications that make absolutely no sense. So much so that we’re left with the impression not only that they are cynical, but that if they’re not insane, they’re criminally dangerous.”

Wayne has been relieved of a block in his head that he couldn’t get past, to understanding. This was it; this was the feeling he’d had, but didn’t have the confidence to interpret correctly. Everything was worse than he thought, but on the other hand, he wasn’t crazy.

The weather has turned cool, and everyone is snuggled up in bed with their little darlings. Well, yes, but not in this story. Nobody has any darlings yet – not quite. Least of all, Wayne.

Steve got in trouble this week. With Monroe – the doctor, not the doctrine. It was inevitable. Monroe and Mom must read the same books, or watch the same news. He didn’t have to go to college to hear, in the informal “current events” beginning of the class, Monroe repeat Obama’s claim that his health care product is good, that the price is good, and that nobody is madder than him about what he has previously likened to an iPhone glitch. He’d heard Obama say it. Of course, Obama would say it. But then he heard his mother say it. He raised his hand and channeled his father.

“The website’s bad for the same reason Obamacare is bad. Politics. Look who Obama picked to make it: A Canadian company – how American is that?” (Jesus, Steve, you don’t have to quote your Dad verbatim.) “A Canadian company that failed to produce a working gun registry in their own country, but Obama figures once they finish the health care project, they can start on that here. Maybe even before they finish, by collecting the right information.”

To which he received, “Nonsense. Obama’s just trying to provide health care for the poor. He’s in too much of a hurry to do good, that’s all. He was so busy negotiating the debt, he was blind-sided by the difficulties of putting up such a big site.”

You can’t keep a good man down. One sally was never enough for the dinner table, so why should it be enough in college. Steve countered with, “But how busy could he be negotiating the debt when he refused to negotiate?”

What he got back was, “The idea is to get the cheapest health care for the poorest people. Not to throw business to over-priced domestic corporations.”

Steve wasn’t through. “No, of course not. We have better places for our money. Like giving Mitch McConnell a 2 billion dollar earmark for selling out the Republicans and putting Obamacare back in business. For a dam in Kentucky, probably built by some of his buddies.”

Silence, then a quick look around the room by Monroe. 

“Thank you for your contribution.”

Steve sat down feeling unfulfilled, until he caught the eye of Brittany Brown, grader, and was flashed a smile and a nod.