Читать книгу The Blind - A.F. Brady - Страница 17

My initial meeting with Richard is already happening today, and I have been fixing my desk and my hair and my face and my office for the past hour to prepare for it. I am afraid of him, and I haven’t had this feeling since I started on my first psych unit nearly fifteen years ago. I was barely twenty-two. I never feel like this anymore. I’ve sat across from lunatics and psychopaths, diplomats and dignitaries; it’s all the same to me now. I haven’t been scared like this in ages.

My office is configured the way it’s supposed to be, with the desk chair closer to the front door than the patient’s chair. This is done just in case the patient gets violent and the therapist needs to escape, but we say it’s done so the clinician can obtain emergency services more quickly should the patient need it. I’ve never had a patient get violent in my office; it usually happens out in common areas. I realize I have the scissors closer to the patient’s chair and I move them to the drawer. Sometimes I sit on my desk so I can gaze out the window and pretend I have a different life.

The door knock is so loud and jarring that my already frazzled nerves just explode and lodge themselves in my throat, making it hard to speak. I have to appear calm no matter how scared I am.

“Hi, Richard. Come on in, have a seat.” I remain standing, holding the door open for him. I’m waiting for him to sit, then I close the door and begin to get dizzy. He sits in my patient chair and places a large stack of newspapers at the corner of my desk. “I am going to be your counselor. I wanted to set up this initial meeting so we could get to know each other a little bit, and maybe get started on some of the clinical documentation we need to do.” I sit down as I say this.

Richard doesn’t say anything in response. Instead, he lifts the top paper from the pile and makes a show of opening it up and finding his intended section. He slips off his hat. It’s a brown herringbone newsboy cap. He places it gently on top of the newspapers. As he turns his neck, I notice two small, round scars under his collar.

I rustle the papers of his blank file and begin again. “Why don’t we start with the family history section? This way you can tell me about your family, and we don’t have to dive right into talking about you personally.”

He turns away from me, folds his paper in his lap and focuses his attention on the men climbing the scaffold across the street.

“Okay, no family history. What about goals for treatment? Would you be willing to talk about what you’d like to achieve while you’re here at Typhlos?”

He raises his eyebrows, releases a breath and adjusts his seat to get a better view of the construction workers.

“Okay, that’s a pretty obvious no. How about telling me a little bit about yourself, informally, and I will gather whatever information I need. How’s that?”

Richard glares disapprovingly. “You want me to sit here and tell you all about me? Like a job interview?”

“If that’s how you want to look at it, yes. A job interview would be great.”

“No.” Blunt. Decisive.

I’m barely making more progress than Gary did. It looks like I’m going to have to work on this guy a bit more than I’d anticipated. I feel exhausted just thinking about it.

I sigh an enormous, frustrated sigh, and I intentionally blow it in Richard’s direction. I hope it stinks of booze and vomit and coffee so he knows how much his resistance is pissing me off.