I could hear Dempsey’s squeaky, piping voice answering the greeting. Dempsey, who overtowered Arthur Raymond, looked at that moment like a child.
It was Arthur Raymond who was bold and aggressive. He didn’t seem the least bit awed by Dempsey’s presence. I almost expected him to give the champion a pat on the shoulder.
«He’s like a fine race horse,» said Arthur Raymond, his voice tense with emotion. «A most sensitive creature.» He was probably thinking of himself, of how he would appear to others should he suddenly become world’s champion. «An intelligent chap too. A man couldn’t fight in that colorful style unless he possessed a high degree of intelligence. He’s a fine fellow really. Just a big boy, you know. He actually blushed, do you know that?» On and on he went, rhapsodizing over his hero.
But it was about Earl Caddock that he said the most wonderful things. Earl Caddock, I think, was even closed to his ideal than Dempsey. «The man of a thousand holds,» that’s how Caddock was called. A god-like body, a little too frail, it would seem, for those protracted, gruelling bouts which the ordeal of wrestling demands. I remember vividly how he looked that night beside the burlier, heftier Strangler Lewis. Arthur Raymond was certain that Lewis would win—but his heart was with Earl Caddock. He screamed his lungs out, urging Caddock on. Afterwards, in a Jewish delicatessen over on the East Side, he rehearsed the bout in detail. He had an extraordinary memory when it concerned anything he was passionate about. I think I enjoyed the bout even more, in retrospect, seeing it through his eyes. In fact, he talked about it so marvelously that the next day I sat down and wrote a prose poem about two wrestlers. I brought it with me to the dentist’s the following day. He was a wrestling fan also. The dentist thought it was a chef-d’oeuvre. The result was that I never got my tooth filled. I was taken upstairs to meet the family—they were from Odessa—and before I knew what was happening, I had become engrossed in a game of chess which lasted until two in the morning. And then began a friendship which lasted until all my teeth had been treated—fourteen of fifteen months it dragged out. When the bill came I vanished. It was not until five or six years later, I guess, that we met again, and then under rather peculiar circumstances. But of that later….
Freud, Freud…. A lot of things might be laid at his door. There is Dr. Kronski now, some ten years after our semantic life at Riverside Drive. Big as porpoise, puffing like a walrus, emitting talk like a locomotive emits steam. An injury to the head has disregulated his entire system. He has become a glandular anomaly, a study in cross-purposes.
We had not seen each other for some years. We meet again in New York. Hectic confabulations. He learns that I have had more than a speaking acquaintance with psychoanalysis during my absence abroad. I mention certain figures in that world who are well known to him—from their writings. He’s amazed that I should know them, have been accepted by them—as a friend. He begins to wonder if he hadn’t made a mistake about his old friend Henry Miller. He wants to talk about it, talk and talk and talk. I refuse. That impresses him. He knows that talking is his weakness, his vice.
After a few meetings I realize that he is hatching an idea. He can’t just take it for granted that I know something about psycho-analysis— he wants proofs. «What are you doing now… in New York?» he asks. I answer that I am doing nothing, really. «Aren’t you writing?»
«No.» A long pause. Then it comes out. An experiment… a grand experiment. I’m the man to do it. He will explain.
The long and short of it is that he would like me to experiment with some of his patients—his ex-patients, I should say, because he has given up his practice. He’s certain I can do as good as the next fellow—maybe better. «I won’t tell them you’re a writer,» he says. «You were a writer, but during your stay in Europe you became an analyst. How’s that?»
I smiled. It didn’t seem bad at all, at first blush. As a matter of fact, I had long toyed with the very idea. I jumped at it. Settled then. To-morrow, at four o’clock, he would introduce me to one of his patients.
That’s how it began. Before very long I had about seven or eight patients. They seemed to be pleased with my efforts. They told Dr. Kronski so. He of course had expected it to turn out thus. He thought he might become an analyst himself. Why not? I had to confess I could see no reason against it. Any one with charm, intelligence and sensitivity might become an analyst. There were healers long before Mary Baker Eddy or Sigmund Freud were heard of. Common sense played its role too.
«To be an analyst, however,» I said, not intending it as a serious remark, «one should first be analyzed himself, you know that.»
«How about yow?» he said.
I pretended I had been analyzed. I told him Otto Rank had done the job.
«You never told me that,» he said, again visibly impressed. He had an unholy respect for Otto Rank.
«How long did it last?» he asked.
«About three months. Rank doesn’t believe in prolonged analyses, I suppose you know.»
«That’s true,» he said, growing very thoughtful.
A moment later he popped it. «What about analyzing me? No, seriously. I know it’s not considered a good risk when you know one another as intimately as we do, but just the same…»
«Yes,» I said slowly, feeling my way along, «per-haps we might even explode that stupid prejudice. After all, Freud had to analyze Rank, didn’t he?» (This was a lie, because Rank had never been analyzed, even by Father Freud.)
«To-morrow then, at ten o’clock!»
«Good,» I said, «and be on the dot. I’m going to charge you by the hour. Sixty minutes and no more. If you’re not on time it’s your loss…»
«You’re going to charge me?» he echoed, looking at me as if I had lost my mind.
«Of course I am! You know very well how important it is for the patient to pay for his analysis.»
«But I’m not a patient!» he yelled. «Jesus, I’m doing you a favor.»
«It’s up to you,» I said, affecting an air of sangfroid. If you can get some one else to do it for nothing, well and good. I’m going to charge you the regular fee, the fee you yourself suggested for your own patients.»
«Now listen,» he said, «you’re getting fantastic. After all, I was the one who launched you in this business, don’t forget that.»
«I must forget that,» I insisted. «This is not a matter of sentiment. In the first place I must remind you that you not only need analysis to become an analyst, you need it because you’re a neurotic. You couldn’t possibly become an analyst if you weren’t neurotic. Before you can heal others you have to heal yourself. And if you’re not a neurotic I’ll make you one before I’m through with you, how do you like that?»
He thought it was a huge joke. But the next morning he came, and he was prompt too. He looked as though he had stayed up all night to be there on time.
«The money,» I said, before he had even removed his coat.
He tried to laugh it off. He settled himself on the couch, as eager to have his bottle as any infant in swaddling clothes.
«You’ve got to give it to me now,» I insisted, «or I refuse to deal with you.» I enjoyed being firm with him—it was a new role for me also.
«But how do we know that we can go through it?» he said, trying to stall. «I’ll tell you… if I like the way you handle me I’ll pay you whatever you ask… within reason, of course. But don’t make a fuss about it now. Come on, let’s get down to brass tacks.»
«Nothing doing,» I said. «No tickee, no shirtee. If I’m no good you can bring suit against me, but if you want my help then you’ve got to pay—and pay in advance… By the way, you’re wasting time, you know. Every minute you sit there haggling about the money you’re wasting time that might have been spent more profitably. It’s now»—and here I consulted my watch—«it’s now twelve minutes after ten. As soon as you’re ready we’ll begin….»
He was sore as a pup about it but I had him in a corner and there was nothing to do but to shell out.
As he was dishing it out—I charged him ten dollars a session—he looked up, but this time with the air of one who has already confided himself to the doctor’s hands. «You mean to say that if I should come here one day without the money, if I should happen to forget or be short a few dollars, you wouldn’t take me on?»
«Precisely,» I said. «We understand one another perfectly. Shall we begin…. now?»
He fell back on the couch like a sheep ready for the axe. «Compose yourself,» I said soothingly, sitting behind him and out of his range of vision. «Just get quiet and relax. You’re going to tell me everything about yourself… from the very beginning. Don’t
