“If you have another attack, contact me as soon as you can. If nothing happens, come back in three months. My services will cost you ten dollars a visit—no charge for this one. I have a limited interest in your case, Jacob, and in the vacuum you have for a self. That is your case. Remember, keep moving all the time. Be engagé. Join things.”
I left, somewhat dazed, and took the bus back to Baltimore. There, out of it all, I had a chance to attempt to decide what I thought of the Doctor, the Remobilization Farm, the endless list of therapies, and my own position. One thing seemed fairly clear: the Doctor was operating either outside the law or on its very fringes. Sexual Therapy, to name only one thing, could scarcely be sanctioned by the American Medical Association. This doubtless was the reason for the farm’s frequent relocation. It was also apparent that he was a crank—though perhaps not an ineffective one—and one wondered whether he had any sort of license to practice medicine at all. Because—his rationalizations aside—I was so clearly different from his other patients, I could only assume that he had some sort of special interest in my case: perhaps he was a frustrated psychoanalyst. At worst he was some combination of quack and prophet—F ather Divine, Sister Kenny, and Bernarr MacFadden combined (all of them quite effective people), with elements of faith healer and armchair Freud thrown in—running a semi-legitimate rest home for senile eccentrics; and yet one couldn’t easily laugh off his forcefulness, and his insights frequently struck home. As a matter of fact, I was unable to make any judgment one way or the other about him or the farm or the therapies.
A most extraordinary Doctor. Although I kept telling myself that I was just going along with the joke, I actually did move from the Bradford down to East Chase Street; I took a job as an assembler on the line of the Chevrolet factory out on Broening Highway, where I operated an air wrench that bolted leaf springs on the left side of Chevrolet chassis, and I joined the U.A.W. I read Sartre but had difficulty deciding how to apply him to specific situations (How did existentialism help one decide whether to carry one’s lunch to work or buy it in the factory cafeteria? I had no head for philosophy). I played poker with my fellow assemblers, took walks from Chase Street down to the waterfront and back, and attended B movies. Temperamentally I was already pretty much of an atheist most of the time, and the proscription of women was a small burden, for I was not, as a rule, heavily sexed. I applied Sinistrality, Antecedence, and Alphabetical Priority religiously (though in some instances I found it hard to decide which of those devices best fitted the situation). And every quarter for the next two years I drove over to the Remobilization Farm for advice. It would be idle for me to speculate further on why I assented to this curious alliance, which more often than not is insulting to me—I presume that anyone interested in causes will have found plenty to pick from by now in this account.
I left myself sitting in the Progress and Advice Room, I believe, in September of 1953, waiting for the Doctor. My mood on this morning was an unusual one; as a rule I am almost “weatherless” the moment I enter the farmhouse, and I suppose that weatherlessness is the ideal condition for receiving advice, but on this morning, although I felt unemotional, I was not without weather. I felt dry, clear, and competent, for some reason or other—quite sharp and not a bit humble. In meteorological terms, my weather was sec Supérieur.
“How are you these days, Horner?” the Doctor asked affably as he entered the room.
“Just fine, Doctor,” I replied breezily. “How’s yourself?”
The Doctor took his seat, spread his knees, and regarded me critically, not answering my question.
“Have you begun teaching yet?”
“Nope. Start next week. Two sections of grammar and two of composition.”
“Ah.” He rolled his cigar around in his mouth. He was studying me, not what I said. “You shouldn’t be teaching composition.”
“Can’t have everything,” I said cheerfully, stretching my legs out under his chair and clasping my hands behind my head. “It was that or nothing, so I took it.” The Doctor observed the position of my legs and arms.
“Who is this confident fellow you’ve befriended?” he asked. “One of the other teachers? He’s terribly sure of himself!”
I blushed: it occurred to me that I was imitating Joe Morgan. “Why do you say I’m imitating somebody?”
“I didn’t,” the Doctor smiled. “I only asked who was the forceful fellow you’ve obviously met.”
“None of your business, sir.”
“Oh, my. Very good. It’s a pity you can’t take over that manner consistently—you’d never need my services again! But you’re not stable enough for that yet, Jacob. Besides, you couldn’t act like him when you’re in his company, could you? Anyway I’m pleased to see you assuming a role. You do it, evidently, in order to face up to me: a character like your friend’s would never allow itself to be insulted by some crank with his string of implausible therapies, eh?”
“That’s right, Doctor,” I said, but much of the fire had gone out of me under his analysis.
“This indicates to me that you’re ready for Mythotherapy, since you seem to be already practicing it without knowing it, and therapeutically, too. But it’s best you be aware of what you’re doing, so that you won’t break down through ignorance. Some time ago I told you to become an existentialist. Did you read Sartre?”
“Some things. Frankly I really didn’t get to be an existentialist.”
“No? Well, no matter now. Mythotherapy is based on two assumptions: that human existence precedes human essence, if either of the two terms really signifies anything; and that a man is free not only to choose his own essence but to change it at will. Those are both good existentialist premises, and whether they’re true or false is of no concern to us—they’re useful in your case.”
He went on to explain Mythotherapy.
“In life,” he said, “there are no essentially major or minor characters. To that extent, all fiction and biography, and most historiography, are a lie. Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story. Hamlet could be told from Polonius’s point of view and called The Tragedy of Polonius, Lord Chamberlain of Denmark. He didn’t think he was a minor character in anything, I daresay. Or suppose you’re an usher in a wedding. From the groom’s viewpoint he’s the major character; the others play supporting parts, even the bride. From your viewpoint, though, the wedding is a minor episode in the very interesting history of your life, and the bride and groom both are minor figures. What you’ve done is choose to play the part of a minor character: it can be pleasant for you to pretend to be less important than you know you are, as Odysseus does when he disguises as a swineherd. And every member of the congregation at the wedding sees himself as the major character, condescending to witness the spectacle. So in this sense fiction isn’t a lie at all, but a true representation of the distortion that everyone makes of life.
“Now, not only are we the heroes of our own life stories—we’re the ones who conceive the story, and give other people the essences of minor characters. But since no man’s life story as a rule is ever one story with a coherent plot, we’re always reconceiving just the sort of hero we are, and consequently just the sort of minor roles that other people are supposed to play. This is generally true. If any man displays almost the same character day in and day out, all day long, it’s either because he has no imagination, like an actor who can play only one role, or because he has an imagination so comprehensive that he sees each particular situation of his life as an episode in some grand over-all plot, and can so distort the situations that the same type of hero can deal with them all. But this is most unusual.
“This kind of role-assigning is myth-making, and when it’s done consciously or unconsciously for the purpose of aggrandizing or protecting your ego—and it’s probably done for this purpose all the time—it becomes Mythotherapy. Here’s the point: an immobility such as you experienced that time in Penn Station is possible only to a person who for some reason o
r other has ceased to participate in Mythotherapy. At that time on the bench you were neither a major nor a minor character: you were no character at all. It’s because this has happened once that it’s necessary for me to explain to you something that comes quite naturally to everyone else. It’s like teaching a paralytic how to walk again.
“Now many crises in people’s lives occur because the hero role that they’ve assumed for one situation or set of situations no longer applies to some new situation that comes up, or—the same thing in effect—because they haven’t the imagination to distort the new situation to fit their old role. This happens to parents, for instance, when their children grow older, and to lovers when one of them begins to dislike the other. If the new situation is too overpowering to ignore, and they can’t find a mask to meet it with, they may become schizophrenic—a last-resort mask—or simply shattered. All questions of integrity involve this consideration, because a man’s integrity consists in being faithful to the script he’s written for himself.
“I’ve said you’re too unstable to play any one part all the time—you’re also too unimaginative—so for you these crises had better be met by changing scripts as often as necessary. This should come naturally to you; the important thing for you is to realize what you’re doing so you won’t get caught without a script, or with the wrong script in a given situation. You did quite well, for example, for a beginner, to walk in here so confidently and almost arrogantly a while ago, and assign me the role of a quack. But you must be able to change masks at once if by some means or other I’m able to make the one you walked in with untenable. Perhaps—I’m just suggesting an offhand possibility—you could change to thinking of me as The Sagacious Old Mentor, a kind of Machiavellian Nestor, say, and yourself as The Ingenuous But Promising Young Protégé, a young Alexander, who someday will put all these teachings into practice and far outshine the master. Do you get the idea? Or—this is repugnant, but it could be used as a last resort—The Silently Indignant Young Man, who tolerates the ravings of a Senile Crank but who will leave this house unsullied by them. I call this repugnant because if you ever used it you’d cut yourself off from much that you haven’t learned yet.
“It’s extremely important that you learn to assume these masks wholeheartedly. Don’t think there’s anything behind them: there isn’t. Ego means I, and I means ego, and the ego by definition is a mask. Where there’s no ego—this is you on the bench—there’s no I. If you sometimes have the feeling that your mask is insincere—impossible word!—it’s only because one of your masks is incompatible with another. You mustn’t put on two at a time. There’s a source of conflict, and conflict between masks, like absence of masks, is a source of immobility. The more sharply you can dramatize your situation, and define your own role and everybody else’s role, the safer you’ll be. It doesn’t matter in Mythotherapy for paralytics whether your role is major or minor, as long as it’s clearly conceived, but in the nature of things it’ll normally always be major. Now say something.”
I could not.
“Say something!” the Doctor ordered. “Move! Take a role!”
I tried hard to think of one, but I could not.
“Damn you!” the Doctor cried. He kicked back his chair and leaped upon me, throwing me to the floor and pounding me roughly.
“Hey!” I hollered, entirely startled by his attack. “Cut it out! What the hell!” I struggled with him and, being both larger and stronger than he, soon had him off me. We stood facing each other warily, panting from the exertion.
“You watch that stuff!” I said belligerently. “I could make plenty of trouble for you if I wanted to, I’ll bet!”
“Anything wrong?” asked Mrs. Dockey, sticking her head into the room. I would not want to tangle with her.
“No, not now,” the Doctor smiled, brushing the knees of his white trousers. “A little Pugilistic Therapy for Jacob Horner. No trouble.” She closed the door.
“Now, shall we continue our talk?” he asked me, his eyes twinkling. “You were speaking in a manly way about making trouble.”
But I was no longer in a mood to go along with the whole ridiculous business. I’d had enough of the old lunatic for this quarter.
“Or perhaps you’ve had enough of The Old Crank for today, eh?”
“What would the sheriff in Wicomico think of this farm?” I grumbled uncomfortably. “Suppose the police were sent out to investigate Sexual Therapy?”
The Doctor was unruffled by my threats.
“Do you intend to send them?” he asked pleasantly.
“Do you think I wouldn’t?”
“I’ve no idea,” he said, still undisturbed.
“Do you dare me to?”
This question, for some reason or other, visibly upset him: he looked at me sharply.
“Indeed I do not,” he said at once. “I’m sure you’re quite able to do it. I’m sorry if my tactic for mobilizing you just then made you angry. I did it with all good intent. You were paralyzed again, you know.”
“Horseshit!” I sneered. “You and your paralysis!”
“You have had enough for today, Horner!” the Doctor said. He too was angry now. “Get out! I hope you get paralyzed driving sixty miles an hour on your way home!” He raised his voice. “Get out of here, you damned moron!”
His obviously genuine anger immediately removed mine, which after the first instant had of course been only a novel mask.
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” I said. “I won’t lose my temper again.”
We exchanged smiles.
“Why not?” he laughed. “It’s both therapeutic and pleasant to lose your temper in certain situations.” He relit his cigar, which had been dropped during our scuffle. “Two interesting things were demonstrated in the past few minutes, Jacob Horner. I can’t tell you about them until your next visit. Good-by, now. Don’t forget to pay Mrs. Dockey.”
Out he strode, cool as could be, and a few moments later out strode I: A Trifle Shaken, But Sure Of My Strength.
7
The Dance of Sex: If One Had No Other Reason for Choosing to Subscribe
THE DANCE OF SEX: IF ONE HAD NO OTHER REASON FOR CHOOSING TO SUBSCRIBE to Freud, what could be more charming than to believe that the whole vaudeville of the world, the entire dizzy circus of history, is but a fancy mating dance? That dictators burn Jews and businessmen vote Republican, that helmsmen steer ships and ladies play bridge, that girls study grammar and boys engineering all at behest of the Absolute Genital? When the synthesizing mood is upon one, what is more soothing than to assert that this one simple yen of humankind, poor little coitus, alone gives rise to cities and monasteries, paragraphs and poems, foot races and battle tactics, metaphysics and hydroponics, trade unions and universities? Who would not delight in telling some extragalactic tourist, “On our planet, sir, males and females copulate. Moreover, they enjoy copulating. But for various reasons they cannot do this whenever, wherever, and with whomever they choose. Hence all this running around that you observe. Hence the world?” A therapeutic notion!
My classes commenced on the seventh of September, a tall blue day as crisp as the white starched blouses of the coeds who filed into my classroom and nervously took their seats. Standing behind the lectern at eight o’clock sharp, suit fresh-pressed and chin scraped clean, I felt my nostrils flare like a stud’s at the nubby tight sex of them, flustered and pink-scrubbed, giggling and moist; my thighs flexed, and I yawned ferociously. The boys, too, lean and green, smooth-chinned and resilient, shivered and stretched at the mere nearness of young breasts and buttocks as hard as new pears. In a classroom on the first day of a new term the air’s electric with sex like ozone after a summer storm, and all sensed it, if all couldn’t name it: the rubby sweet friskies twitched in their seats and tugged their skirts down dimpled white knees; the springy fresh men flexed and slouched, passed quick hands over crew cuts; I folded arms and tightened hams, and leaning against the desk, let its edge press calmingly against my trouser fly
like a steadying hand. Early blue morning is an erotic time, the commencement of school terms an erotic season; little’s to be done but nod to Freud on such a day.
We looked one another over appraisingly. What I said, with professorial succinctness, was: “My name’s Jacob Horner; my office is in Room Twenty-seven, around the corner. There’s a list of my office hours on the door.” I assigned texts and described the course; that was all, and that was enough. My air of scholarly competence, theirs of studious attention (they wrote my name and office number as frowningly as if I’d pronounced the Key to the Mystery) were so clearly feigned, we were all so conscious of playing school, that to attempt a lesson would have been preposterous. Why, confronted with that battery of eager bosoms and delicious behinds, a man cupped his hands in spite of himself; the urge to drop the ceremonious game and leap those fine girls on the spot was simply terrific. The national consternation, if on some September morn every young college instructor in the land cried out what was on his mind—“To hell with this nonsense, men: let’s take ’em!”—a soothing speculation!
“That’s all for today. Buy the books and we’ll start right off next time with a spelling test, for diagnostic purposes.”
Indeed! One hundred spelling words dictated rapidly enough to keep their heads down, and I, perched high on my desk, could diagnose to my heart’s content every bump of femininity in the room (praised be American grade schools, where little girls learn to sit up front!). Then, perhaps, having ogled my fill, I could get on with the business of the course. For as a man must grow used to the furniture before he can settle down to read in his room, this plenitude of girlish appurtenances had first to be assimilated before anyone could concentrate attention on the sober prescriptions of English grammar.
Four times I repeated the ritual pronouncements—at eight and nine in the morning and at two and three in the afternoon. Between the two sessions I lounged in my office with a magnificent erection, wallowing in my position, and watched with proprietary eye the parade of young things passing my door. I had nothing at all to do but spin indolent daydreams of absolute authority—Nerotic, Caligular authority of the sort that summons up officefuls of undergraduate girls, hot and submissive—leering professorial dreams!