THE FROG HANDLED MUG: Chapter Five

The economy is in such dire straits that I’ve had a few calls bartering for my services. This one woman offered to present a complete design plan for my apartment in exchange for six months of therapy at my rate of $150 an hour, once a week. I told her I didn’t need my space redesigned, that I liked it the way it was. Her offer was intriguing though. I asked what her problem was and she said it was over aggressiveness. I had to laugh since her offer seemed so spot-on at addressing a difficult situation. I wished her luck and told her I’d call if I grew weary of my surroundings. I doubted I would, as I don’t pay much attention to my surroundings. I wondered why I don’t and whether it’s OK not to care. Maybe I should reconsider. Nah!

Another caller said he’d exchange plumbing for a month’s worth of anger management therapy. I told him no thanks and he told me to go fuck myself and hung up before I could laugh. The numerous patients I see all seem to be in crisis. Minor emotional blow-ups are now the equivalent of Krakatua blowing its top in 1883. How did David Cawley know that my phone was ringing off the hook and that I’m feeling overwhelmed? That’s easy. He’s watching me just as I’m watching him. But, why now? What’s different now that after sixty-five years I’m experiencing this…craziness?


I love what I do and I think that designer does too. I’ll bet she’ll find some therapist to barter with. Now there’s an old idea that needs to be reinvented. It requires that everyone enjoy what they do. It would have to start early….Nah, who would ever love cleaning toilets. My mind lately has been all over the place. It’s like my mind has a mind of its own. Where is it all coming from? It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to believe that matter – I’m talking about my brain – could produce these ideas. Alexander Hastings’ TV analogy makes sense to me, but I sure wouldn’t share it with my esteemed colleagues. Dogma, you know. Step outside its rigid walls and you might as well be a leper.

I just finished with my last patient, a depressed woman of excessive weight, whose self esteem is in the crapper. She was seeing a psychiatrist whose primary method of treatment was anti-depressants. They at least allowed her to function, but did little for her psyche. It is that old thinking that the brain is the seat of consciousness and that everything is a chemical reaction. But what if, as Alexander suggested, the brain is a conduit and the chemical changes in the brain that we believe cause depression are secondary expressions. What if the brain, as a conduit, responds to a depressive state of mind by releasing the chemicals we see when we go looking for them. If that is the case then anti depressants by themselves can never fully cure someone of depression. I’m not a depressive person, but I lived with one in college and so have some second hand experiential knowledge.

My phone interrupted my musings, as often happens these days. I don’t recognize the number, but have an impulse to pick up. Oh, that’s another thing. Impulses. They are becoming more frequent and less easy to ignore, like this phone call.

“Hello, this is Dr. DeRosa,” I said.

“Thank you for picking up, Doctor. This is Eleanor Cawley. I’m praying you’ll be able to take on my ten year old son. I’m at a loss about what to do and he is so troubled.”

He’s troubled! If you only knew, lady. “What’s his name?” I asked.

“David Cawley,” she said. “He is so angry all the time and he has taken to hurting himself.”

I hear her stifling her tears. I do some quick math. He’d be forty years old when the David Cawley that is me would be born. Christ, what an opportunity to help shape the psyche of my own father, but then I think how there are some great fathers who have some pretty screwed up kids. There are also great kids that have screwed up fathers. Go figure.

“When can you bring him in?” I asked.

“I can be there by one o’clock,” she said.

“That’s perfect. I have an opening then and it will give me some time to catch a bite to eat. I assume you have my address.”

She said she does and we concluded the call. I reside in wacko world. It in no way resembles the world that had formed my heretofore rational mind. My assumptions…no…change that…my beliefs about consciousness and reality are being assaulted from all sides. You know that song, solid as a rock, rock, rock, rock, rock. Well, the rocks I thought were made of granite are turning out to be nothing more than sandstone. I need a beer.

I leave my office and cross the street to O’Toole’s Bar and Grill. The bartender is an Irishman, as you’d expect, and has been in the US for ten years. He has six kids. What’s with the size of Irish families? Maybe it’s the rhythm method that gets them go big. They’re mostly Catholic.

“Hey, my Italian friend,’ He yells from across the bar as he sees me walk in. “Can I pour you a good Irish beer?”

“Guinness, Timothy, and have the kitchen grill me up a cheeseburger and fries.”

I sit at the bar and wait for my Guinness. I wish they didn’t take so long to pour. “How’s the family, Timothy?” I asked. I always ask it of Timothy as he is so fond of regaling me with his family stories. Why are the Irish such good story tellers? Could there be a gene for that, too?

“Let me tell you, now,” he begins in his lovely Irish Brogue. “Little Mary came home with the best story the other day. Would you like to hear it?”

Mary is eighteen.

“The bartender at McGrath’s down the road a piece notices a new patron at his bar. The man’s an Irishman, of course, by the name of Thomas McClanahan. He orders three Guinness. Drinks them in order and leaves the bar. This goes on for months and months and the bartender and Thomas become close. The bartender, feeling it was none of his business eventually had his curiosity overcome him.

“Thomas,” he asked. “You’ve been coming in for months and months and always order three Guinness.”

“You’re wondering why, now, aren’t you, Patrick. Well, you see, I have two brothers and they’re back in Ireland and so I order a Guinness each for them and one for me self. We’re very close, don’t you know.”

“The winter passes and spring approaches. One day Thomas comes in and orders two Guinness instead of the usual three. Well, you can imagine that Patrick thinks the worst. As he set down the two Guinness he tells Thomas how sorry he is over the passing of one of his brothers.”

“Thomas realizes how Patrick might have come to that conclusion. No. No, Patrick. My brother’s are in the pink of health. It’s just that it’s Lent and I’ve given up drinking.”

Timothy and I both crack up. I think I needed the story more than I needed the Guinness, but drink it happily nevertheless. The Irish consider Guinness to be food and so by their standard I have two meals for lunch. It’s a good thing I run. I pay the bill and give Timothy my usual large tip. He is worth it. I’ve plagiarized his stories many times. I cross back to my office and await Eleanor Cawley and her son. I can hear my heart in my ears. It is faster than usual. The knock comes and I let them in.

Eleanor is a striking woman and obviously the one who passed on David Cawley’s Scandinavian genes. Her blonde hair is pulled back tight and tied off in a pony tail. She has on blue jeans and a T-shirt that do not come from Walmart. Odd that she’d wear a T-shirt in winter, but then her genes were probably better equipped to deal with the cold than mine. Little David Cawley hangs close to her. I could tell he doesn’t want to be here. He must look more like his father because he doesn’t look like her. Little David is short, stocky and has brown eyes.

“Do you know why you’re here, David?” I asked.

“My mom says I’m angry and need help.”

“Do you feel angry now?” I ask the question, but know the answer. He says nothing. I address Eleanor. “Would you mind if David and I had a chat alone?”

“Whatever you think is best Dr. DeRosa.”

I escort David into the inner sanctum and offer him a choice I have never offered anyone else before. “Would you like to sit behind my desk or on the sofa?”

“Neither,” he said. I didn’t expect that. “I want to stand and move around.”

I decide to sit on the sofa. “Do you know why you’re angry?”

“Yes.”

Talking to young kids is like removing a bullet with chop sticks. It’s difficult finding the bullet. Your hands aren’t used to holding the sticks, and when you do grab hold of the bullet the sticks slip.

“Would you like to share?” Shit…that sounds so, so…bullshitty.

“Promise not to tell my mom?” At this point David is at my window staring down at the street. I nod my agreement. He doesn’t see my nod as he is looking at the street. Maybe I thought he had eyes in the back of his head.

“She wants me to do stuff I don’t want to do.”

“We all have to do things we don’t want to do sometimes,” I said.

“Who said so? Is it in a book?”

This is going to be tougher than I thought. My psycho babble isn’t going to work and I sense that David is much smarter than he lets on. I feel like he is laying a trap for me.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve seen it written in books. As a matter of fact I’ve written it in my books.”

David moves away from the window and stands behind my desk. He reminds me of a lawyer stalking a courtroom. I better watch what I say lest he raises an objection. Stick to the facts Dr. DeRosa, just the facts.

“Where did you get it from?” David asked. “Is it in a law book somewhere that we have to do things we don’t want to do?”

“Can you give me an example of what your mother wants you to do that you don’t want to do?” I asked, thinking better of my line of cross-examination that became his line of cross-examination.

“She’s always on me about doing my homework. I hate doing homework.”

“But if you don’t do your homework you won’t do well in school. Isn’t doing well in school important?”

“Maybe, if they taught something that I was interested in.”

“There are many things you’re not interested in that you need to do well in our society. You need to be able to write and read and at least do simple math.”

“You sound like my mother. I feel like I’m being ganged up on. She could have asked one of her friends to do that instead of paying you to do it.”

The kid certainly isn’t intimidated by authority and his language skills are good enough to hold his own. “OK,” I said. “Let’s start over. What interests you?”

“Doing what I want to do?”

“And what do you want to do?”

“I don’t always know, do you?” he said.

“When you do know, what is it?”

“I like having fun, and I don’t like not having fun.”

“So fun is interesting. That’s a good start. And I agree with you, David. I have a much better time when I’m doing fun things.” I don’t dare get into the dreaded responsibility issue.

We go back and forth for most of the hour. I discover he likes to read, but only books that interest him. He doesn’t like the books the school makes him read. He likes riddles and figuring things out. He’s not competitive. He’s content with doing his best in things that he likes, but seemingly has no need to be the best. His best is best for him. The kid seems to know his mind. Maybe he can hold up against the tides of his parents desires for him and his culture’s imprint of its own expectations. I’m surprised he’s held out this long. By his age I was as imprinted as a gosling. You lead, I’ll follow.

Would I be seeing this kid if I didn’t have my dream? I usually refer kids to colleagues more proficient with the rug rats. I always thought of them as miniature vampires. The truth be known, they intimidate me as you probably just noticed. No, I would not have seen David. What does that mean? It means that my dream changed my behavior. But, that happens all the time, doesn’t it? A female patient of mine dreamt that the plane she was scheduled to fly out on the next evening crashed into Long Island Sound. It was so real to her that she didn’t take the flight. It turned out to be TWA flight 800 that went down in Long Island Sound in July of 1996. Her dream changed her future and that of her kids. So, I’m comfortable in doing what I’m doing. As I said before, dreams have meaning. Sometimes they’re symbolic. Sometimes they’re literal. Good thing for my patient she chose the latter.

I’m going to let this take me where ever it takes me. There’s something behind it and I’m not going to fight it. I suggest to Eleanor Cawley that she acquiesce to David’s proclivities as long as she is comfortable doing so. After all, she has her own guidelines regarding parental responsibilities. I don’t expect her to allow him to chug-a-lug a can of Drano, but maybe an occasional missed piece of homework would be palatable to her. We scheduled our next visit after the holidays. Christmas and Connecticut beckoned.