Dr. Ewe stepped onto the tour bus and was met with a miasma of smoke, alcohol, and body odor. She stymied a cough as she squinted. On either side of the tour bus, bodies lay strewn in awkward manners. Perusing their faces as best she could, Dr. Ewe stepped cautiously toward the back of the bus, limiting the body parts she trampled. Arriving at a telling door, she rapped deferentially.
“Proceed,” a voice answered.
The doctor entered. The room was lit for ambience rather than productivity; though she was hardly one to judge another’s conception of ergonomics. She assumed the man she was looking for was the same one supine on an inordinate Murphy bed; thick, wild hair covering the side of his face; eyes fixed on the ceiling; more accurately, to a painting (on the ceiling) of a man obscured by the crepuscular nature of the room.
She harrumphed and said, “Mr. Filostrato, I am Dr. Ewe, here for our appointment.”
“Dr. Ewe, I presume—oh wait,” tittered Filostrato.
Dr. Ewe opened her briefcase and set out her apparatus.
“I never thought I’d need a shrink,” Filostrato offered, still feeling silly from his faux pas. “I suppose I always thought shrinks were for those who wanted to—”
“If you would, I prefer you address me as a psychiatrist or doctor.”
“And what would you call me these days? Client or pat—“
“Mr. Filostrato will suffice.” Dr. Ewe interrupted.
She was oddly formal for someone who wished to hear about his feelings, Filastrato thought.
“Is it okay if I move things around a bit to set up?”
Filostrato nodded. He watched her lazily and wondered—well, “wonder” might be too strong a word, but the thought crossed his mind—if she hoped to sterilize his room with her professionalism. He knew doctors preferred it that way, though he didn’t see how they’d get anywhere in anything resembling a traditional, stagnant, clinical office. He thought it more likely to get to the bottom of things on his tour bus. To his amusement—again, too strong a word—the doctor laid out only pencil and paper.
“Okay. Mr. Filostrato, how did that make you feel?”
Filostrato furrowed his brow and asked, “How did what make me feel? You moving around my space to make space for our appointment? It didn’t make me feel anything.”
“Is that something you deal with frequently?”
“People messing with my space or not feeling anything?”
The doctor merely nodded.
“Yes,” said Filostrato.
“How does that make you feel?”
“Frustrated at times, but I’m growing used to it.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Used to it.”
“What else has been troubling you?”
Filostrato exhaled as though he were attempting to clear the miasma outside the room: “I’ve cancelled my last few shows, and I feel like I let my fans down. They pay good money to see me, and a lot of them really look up to me. But I felt like I had to. Everything has been so overwhelming lately. The shows, the fans, the interviews, the tabloids, the expectations, the pressure. Nobody understands. They say “You’re Filostrato.” And that’s that. Two words and all of my emotions are dismissed. They say “You’re Filostrato” and it’s like “You’re crazy.” And I’m starting to wonder if I am. I mean, I’m thinking of pissing all of this away. I might be done with it. That probably makes me crazy… Does that make me crazy?”
“No, I don’t believe it does and neither does the DSM. Is there anything else that’s troubling you?”
“My mom says I don’t call enough.”
“Well, do you?”
“No.”
The doctor changed her expression only subtly. “Anything else?”
“My girlfriend and I broke up. It was pretty ugly, but it was for the best. She won’t talk to me. And everything would be fine; except, ever since I’ve gone sober, I’ve been having these vivid images, memories, pop into my head about her. They feel like dreams. I don’t feel like I remember these moments. What I mean is: I don’t have any emotional connection to them. I don’t feel like they’re my memories.” Realizing he probably sounded crazy, Filostrato asked, “Does that make me sound crazy?”
“No, I don’t believe it does.”
“What about the DSM?”
The corner of Dr. Ewe’s lips lifted softly. There was a long silence, save the scratch of pen to paper and the occasional sound of the bus’s brakes or a honk from an inconvenienced driver.
“Is there anything else troubling you?”
Filostrato thought long and hard. It wasn’t that he was searching for something else troubling, for there was a great deal that burdened him. Just that, he had heard a great deal about psychiatrists getting their patients hopped up on all sorts of drugs that drove them to suicide or stole their je ne sais quoi; and other incidences of psychiatrists getting their patients shipped off to crazy houses. And the thing that had been bothering him the most, most recently, was sure to prove to the doctor he was, indeed, crazy.
“Well,” he began, hesitating, then continued, “what’s bothered me most lately is this… umm… how do I say… these voices in my head.”
Trying to mask her interest, the doctor spoke, “Go on.”
Her pen levitated above her pad, occasionally tapping the paper, bouncing in unison with the bus (and the unconscious heads of those outside Filostrato’s room, or so she imagined).
“So, it started a few months ago and has only gotten more insistent. At first, I thought it was a figment of my imagination. Over time, I would start and check over my shoulder to see who was talking to me. The talking came on stronger and stronger, more and more, until there were full blown conversations happening in my head. Sometimes the dialogue was encouraging; however, usually it was very negative and made me feel uncertainty. Lately, I can’t get the negativity out of my head, and it’s sending me into a spiral. You’re not good enough. What’s the point? Just give it up…” Filostrato wrung his hands as he recounted his recent experience. “Am I losing it, Doc? Do you think I’m… I’m… crazy?”
Filostrato met Dr. Ewe’s gaze, and she held him there. “You said the voices started a few months ago?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been sober?”
“A few months.”
She gave a knowing nod and said, “No, Filostrato. I do not think you’re crazy. I believe you are a 20-something year old who just so happens to be the most renowned barista in the world. This fame has led you down a hedonistic, drug-addled path. The voices in your head aren’t any sort of delusion or psychosis. What you’re experiencing is inner speech or self-talk. Most people experience it, to varying degrees. I suspect you had an underdeveloped version of it as a youth, before the fame, that you don’t remember. Your experience and memory of inner speech have been hindered by your drug-use. Now that you’re sober, you’re talking to yourself again. You’re perfectly normal.”
Filostrato sank into a puddle of relief and wonder, as the bus coasted to a stop. Gratitude rushed over him. Soon, he wondered what else he missed in his stupor of fame and debauchery.
“Wow. It’s bizarre. I’ve thought I was going crazy this whole time, but I’m just normal.” He paused, then said, “It’s been a long time since anybody has called me normal. In fact, I don’t know if anybody has ever called me normal.” He finished with a sheepish expression, “What’s it like to be normal?”
Dr. Ewe was taken aback. Not by the question but by her impulse to answer the question. A spirit of rebellion against formalities possessed her as she spoke:
Today, when I woke up, I didn’t feel pretty enough, so I got up, took the sharpest blade in my house and cut myself—superficially—repeatedly. Even then, I didn’t count my suffering and sacrifice upon the altar of beauty as great enough, so I slew wire between my teeth as they bled. I spend most of my days laboring, adding more and more hours to my workday to separate myself from my colleagues—my friends and family as a byproduct. Of course, I suffer from loneliness. They say loneliness is as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day; and I do both. I am both. Uh-erm—I am one and do the other. The days are long and taxing. But at nights, I unwind and am eased to sleep by episodes of brutal rapes and murders. Schadenfreude, I think they call it. If I dwell on it, I might think myself a bad person. But, in the mornings, I stare at myself in the mirror and say how good of a person I am until I start to actually believe it, but I never fully do.
Dr. Ewe reclined, instinctively reaching for the pack of cigarettes she swore not to pack. Her gaze set upon the painting of the man on the ceiling. It was different than before. She squinted through the dim light, slowly realizing it was no painting but a mirror. Thinking she might have been nauseated by the vanity of such a fixture earlier in their rendezvous, she felt much different in this moment. She smiled, but on the inside.
Filostrato sat with a nearly unreadable expression, though a glimpse of intrigue snuck out.
“So what do you think about that?” she asked.
“I think it makes you perfect,” he said with a slight grin “for me.” She blushed before he clarified, “To be my psychiatrist, I mean.”
The two sat there for some time in silence. Both there and elsewhere.
“Do you think it’s good that I’m sober? That drugs are bad?”
“Depends if it’s serving you. If you’re happy with it.”
“Can I make you a drink?”
She guffawed but stopped abruptly. Composed, Dr. Ewe said, “Oh, sorry, I don’t fraternize with pat-” as the words left her mouth, a voice in her head intruded in reproach, This is Filostrato! What are you, crazy?! “-ricks.”
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