MY GOOD FRIEND BARRY
A young adult novel
By
Jeff Provine
Episode Four: The Doctor
I trudged back to my good friend Barry’s house in a stormy gloom that had hovered over me since our little squabble. Barry seemed to pay it no mind, and, since he brought up nothing about it, I ignored it as well. It is amazing how ignoring problems can be the best solution for the time being. Then again, I doubt that “best” fits so much as “easiest”, and in my experience “easiest” is hardly “best.”
When I arrived at Barry’s house, I slipped in the door and sneaked up to his room, where he was busily clicking through Internet sites at his cartoon-sticker-covered computer. He did not seem to notice me at all, instead concentrating on a bizarre mixture of sites ranging from online encyclopediae to a page that made the president dance to polka music. Without a greeting, I picked out a few books from his shelves and found a corner in which to read. He was in his world, and I was in mine. It was not often that we were so separated, though these days it was quickly growing to be horribly normal. Of course we would still talk and laugh during lunch or on the bus or whatever, but something on the Internet seemed to fascinate him and swallow up more and more of his time as the days marched onward.
All of these things were mulling around in my mind as I half-stared at an ancient Highlights for Kids magazine in the very familiar, white-walled waiting room of the office of Dr. Jonathon Jungman, child psychiatrist and candy-addict. I had long ago found all of the hidden objects in the complicated search picture, even the elusive spoon that had been disguised as part of the chipmunk mother’s ear. Now I had nothing better to do than to stare out at the waiting room and watch as the clock on the wall slowly ticked away the seconds. Yet again I was waiting for Barry to reappear whilst I was bored out of my mind and flipped through magazines to find the latest exploits of Goofus and Gallant. It was never Goofus’s fault that he was a bad person, by the way. It all stemmed from his lack of self-confidence and the holier-than-thou mocking Gallant gave him outside of the comic panels. One of these days, Goofus was just going to snap and beat Gallant with a golf club.
Such were the bizarre little analyses of life that floated through my mind as I sat and waited. The room seemed designed to slow time to a lingering pace, almost as if the doctor had created some kind of ultra-gravitational device to drag time itself to a crawl. It may have been more of an illusion coming from the ageless plastic plants, faux-leather and exceedingly uncomfortable waiting chairs, and atmosphere that reeked of cleaning supplies and mixed medications. The wood-rimmed analog clock that hung above the registration window was the worst facet of its timelessness, with a cavern of silence stretching out between each loud tick. I wondered just how many people went crazy in the waiting room and derived more business for the good doctor. With a nod, I could not help but admit that such a practice, however unethical, was indeed clever.
I set my Highlights aside and let out a quiet sigh of boredom. The many chairs around the edges of the room were mostly empty. There were only three real people in the waiting room: Barry’s mother, another mother, and a young redheaded girl that had a knack for starting fires. Judging from the several conversations I had overheard between the mother and the lady at the registration window, little Allison had successfully destroyed a great deal of the family’s furniture despite her parents locking away all of the matches and lighters in the house. No one had been able to determine how she had done it, and she refused to admit to doing it. Allison sat in her seat quietly, staring off into space with a childlike smile on her lips as she swung her legs to and fro on the seat. Her plaid dress matched the plaid bow in her hair. She was obviously crazy.
My examination of the girl was interrupted as Barry’s mother cleared her throat quietly and glanced up to check the scarcely moving clock. Frowning, she checked its time against that of her gold wristwatch, and then turned back to her paperback novel about hulking heroes and strong-willed damsels. She was always irritated when it came time to take Barry to the doctor, as if it embarrassed her greatly to have a son who dared be considered ill of mind. Her many socialite friends knew vaguely of Barry, though his mother never seemed to talk about him other than test scores and grades.
At last the oaken door leading to the deep bowels of the psychiatric office opened, and Barry and Dr. Jungman stepped out, each wielding a large sucker. I often wondered if Dr. Jungman had become a child psychiatrist simply for the candy, and, the more I learned about the man, the more I decided that it had to be true. Barry’s mother looked up with a glint in her eye that seemed to ask if her son were at last cured of his desire to have someone who actually listened to him instead of writing him off as just a weird kid.
I had met Dr. Jungman really only once. It was in middle school, and the doctor had asked Barry if I would speak with him. Barry had excitedly appeared at the door to the waiting room and half-dragged me back to the doctor’s expensively decorated office, complete with stereotypical leather reclining couch. We had spoken for a bit, my invisible words translated by Barry to the doctor, who seemed to say “hm” and “ah” quite a lot and jot many scribbles into his secretive notepad. The conversation had been rather patronizing, and I could not help but feel insulted by his pushing for me to admit that I was just a figment of Barry’s imagination. It was true, of course, but it was one of those things about which one ought not talk.
It was not that I did not like Dr. Jungman. Actually, I respected him quite a bit as a doctor of the mental sciences. Judging from the eventual calming of the ridiculously violent child that once had appointments before Barry, he was quite skilled in finding appropriate medications and sorting through deep emotional issues. He had cured every patient he had had except for Barry, who seemed an impossible enigma to the good doctor, despite his nearly fifteen years spent studying the crazy boy.
Our problems stemmed from the simple fact that we were at ends to one another. His goal was to eliminate me, and I really could not stand for that. Thus we were diametrically opposed, and we each seemed to do our best to deny the other. He would spend his sessions explaining to Barry how I did not exist and on and on, and after each session. I would discuss nihilistic definitions of existence with Barry and deride the doctor so much so that any “progress” in causing Barry to erase me from his mind would be nullified. If Barry had not been crazy already, our constant wrangling over his mind surely would have driven him to it.
And, besides, who could not like someone who had such a sweet tooth?
Now Barry left the doctor’s side, heading for the door and nodding slightly to me. We did not exchange any words, keeping my being in the room a secret, lest the doctor launch into a tirade about how I could not possibly really be in the room. Barry enjoyed seeing the doctor, since there was at last someone real who would listen to him, even if this someone were trying to read his words and tinker with his mental facilities. Whatever the case, he always seemed to have a gleeful smirk on his face whenever he left the office.
Just as we all turned to go, the doctor tapped Barry’s mother on the elbow. “Do you have a moment?”
“Oh. Yes,” she nodded, eyed Barry curiously, and then moved to follow the doctor back into the office. “As long as it’s only a minute.”
“Ah, it won’t be long, just time enough to sign some forms. I think we’re at last making some progress,” Dr. Jungman told Barry’s mother, smiling to himself and scanning his clipboard that held the top few pages of Barry’s exceedingly long file. She mumbled a short congratulations to him, and they disappeared as the oaken door closed behind them.
Barry and I exchanged glances, looked back at the closed door, and then silently headed out into the parking lot. As far as anyone else in the waiting room knew, Barry was going out alone to get some air. The little pyromaniac watched us go, then frowned as though she realized that she would have to talk to the doctor as soon as he reappeared. When we at last escaped the dim waiting room, I blinked against the bright natural light till at last my eyes grew used to it. Maybe Barry was right about building giant domes over cities to make impeccable living conditions.
“So what’d he do this time?” I asked, leaping into my normal routine of deprogramming the words the doctor had said during the session. I had done it for years, and by then I had almost gotten it down to a science.
Barry kicked a pebble out into the gray sea of concrete and untucked his t-shirt for maximum comfort. “Eh, same old, same old.”
“Hypnosis?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Barry chuckled. “Why do you always ask that? You know he doesn’t believe in it.”
“Yeah, but he might just be lying to get you to let your guard down,” I told him playfully. “Once he gets his chance, he’ll make you into a cyborg zombie ready for the mundane world of corporate America.”
“Cyborg?” Barry questioned.
I made a puzzled look, realizing that the doctor would have nothing to do with robotics. My eagerness to be silly and hold Barry’s attention got the best of me. With a shrug, I said, “Well, maybe not a cyborg, but certainly a zombie. You’ll just crunch numbers as a patent attorney for the rest of your life.”
“That would be most unfortunate,” Barry said, staring out into space and nodding slowly.
Our conversation lulled, giving way to the sounds of traffic in distant streets. Feeling that Barry was avoiding it, I went on, “So just the old question and answer thing?”
“Yeah,” Barry said. “We talked about the trivia bowl a lot.”
I suddenly froze as a rumble of thunderous terror quaked through my body. With a quick mental kick to myself, I realized that I should known that something like this would have happened. I did not know if I could combat the allied powers of trivia bowls and child psychiatry. “Really?”
“Yep. Dr. Jungman said he was on his school’s trivia team back when he was in high school and thought it was fun.” Barry kicked another rock. “I told him that it was going pretty well, and that I had been studying a lot for it.”
“That’s true enough,” I said with a nod. “It seems like every time I turn around, you’re kicking around on the Internet looking stuff up. Pretty soon you won’t have any time left for video games.”
Barry paused and gaped up at me. “Man, that would be sick!”
“You’ve got to keep your priorities right,” I said.
“Priorities,” Barry said, shaking his head. “I don’t know if I could choose between video games and trivia bowl, now that I’m finally getting into it.”
“You’re the brainiac, you’ll have to. The princess is in another castle, and you can’t rescue her if you’re busy at trivia meets.”
Barry rolled his eyes and made a disbelieving “psh” sound. “There’s time for both. Besides, trivia bowl is kind of like a video game with the buzzer controllers and timer and all.”
I rocked my head from side to side as I studied his logic. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“See? Now I can have top priorities of both at the same time,” Barry said, a silly grin forming. He should have been more careful with his zany expressions outside of a psychiatrist’s office.
“Lucky you,” I said with a bit of a sigh. Barry raised an eyebrow, and his grin faded.
“Why are you so hate-filled toward the trivia bowl?” Barry said, shaking his head at me. “It’s like you’d do everything in your power to destroy it if you could.”
He was right. I would have. “Well, it’s just I can’t play it. I’m feeling a bit like I’m being left out in the cold here.”
“Ah, understandable,” Barry said with a slow nod. “But come on, you know I’d never want to write you off everything. Once meets start, you definitely have to come and cheer me on.”
“Really?” I countered with a low, sarcastic voice.
“Dude, seriously,” Barry said firmly.
I must admit that hearing such a thing somewhat loosened the knot of fear and frustration that lingered in my mid-torso. Barry was a good person, surely, but there was too much on the line to trust him fully. No one likes the idea of losing a friend, and this uncomfortable situation was compounded by the fact that this friend held my whole existence.
I lowered slowly to the curb. “Hey, how about we get some work done on the Ninja Football League this afternoon?”
Barry winced, then frowned. “Sorry. I’m scheduled for a chat this afternoon in this science fiction website I found.”
My reaction was rather confusing. I was not quite in shock, perhaps too shocked by this sudden scheduling to feel the real influences of being surprised. Frustration and curiosity stumbled into one another, getting caught in the door of my mind like that old Three Stooges bit. Instead of saying anything, I simply stared at him with a flat expression and mumbled something completely incomprehensible.
Barry seemed to go on without noticing. “It’s pretty cool. It kind of spans every kind of science fiction universe, and just asks what is physically possible and why. Like reading the Science of Star Trek, only in multiple voices and with anything imaginable.”
After a moment of clapping my lips like a perplexed fish, I at last stamped out, “But you said that you’d never write me off.”
Barry shook his head innocently. “I’m not.”
“Yes, you are,” I snapped immaturely. “You’ve been putting the NFL off for weeks now, first doing stupid scholarship applications and studying for the trivia bowl. And now this ‘chat’ thing? You never even mentioned it before!”
Barry shrugged defensively. “I thought I had.”
I glowered at him. “No.”
“Oh,” Barry said, twisting his lips and showing much less distress than I would have liked. “I guess not. Anyway, I could tell you about it now.”
“Why bother?” I replied darkly.
“Hey,” Barry said. “You should be in the chat with me. You’re great at double-checking crazy ideas.”
“Really?” I asked, a spark of hope growing warily within me.
“Well, sure,” he nodded. “It’s not like you couldn’t be there, too, right?”
My spark of hope vanished into darkness. I scowled and thought, ‘Too? Too? What is this “too” garbage?’ For years it had been Barry and me against the world, and now, suddenly, there was “too.” “Too” did not fit into the way life ought to be. “Too” was stupid.
Before I could explode into a pseudo-philosophical rant that disguised my frustration of letting Barry live his own life, Barry’s mother appeared at the door leading into the psychiatric building. I went silent in her presence, something I was very much accustomed to doing to keep Barry from getting into trouble for talking to someone who did not exist. Barry looked up and blinked innocently.
“Come along, Barry,” she told him as she fished the keys to her minivan out of her imported purse.
“Can I drive?” Barry asked with hope in his eye.
“Oh, dear, you look too tired to drive,” she told him. “I’m sure the session with Dr. Jungman wore you out.”
“It did?” Barry asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief, and then shrugged passively. “Yeah, I guess so.”
I echoed his shrug and climbed into back, dodging around Barry after he opened the door. As they buckled into place, I found my Dickens book from where I had left it and opened to the bookmark. My eyes scanned the dense prose, but my thoughts were hardly on the story at hand. I had a bad feeling about this “chat” business.