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THE SHOPDROPPER

“I’m a klepto-kleptomaniac, Doctor.”

Dr. Manly J. Departure, bursting with vitamins and energy after his year’s leave of absence, gazed with professional cordiality at the angular young man across the desk, who was kneading preposterously long fingers and scowling.

“Well, that’s not too serious, Mr. Flint,” Dr. Departure replied, permitting himself an affable chuckle. “There seems to be a lot of kleptomania going around this season. As for the stuttering…”

Mr. Flint did not smile.

“Not kleptomania, Doctor. Klepto-kleptomania.” The young man continued to massage his fingers as though smoothing out invisible wrinkles. “I steal only from other kleptomaniacs,” he said earnestly.

Dr. Departure’s chuckle dribbled away.

“If I understand you,” Dr. Departure began very slowly, “you have a pathological impulse to steal. But, instead of stealing from department stores, as does the normal klepto…rather, the usual kleptomaniac, you feel impelled to steal the things other kleptomaniacs have already stolen?”

“That’s right,” the man answered. “I sneak into their rooms when they’re out. They’re getting harder and harder to find, too. Of course, it’s all stuff I have no particular use for. Look!”

He reached down, hauled up a bulky paper sack and handed it across the desk.

Dr. Departure opened it and extracted, among other things, an egg beater, a plastic thimble, a pencil sharpener, a bottle of permanent wave lotion and an ocarina.

“I just…just can’t help myself, Doctor.” Flint flexed his long, lean fingers, frowned at them, then looked up once more at the doctor. “This urge I get…it’s irresistible. And getting worse all the time. You’ve got to help me.”

Dr. Departure laid the bag down and began running his finger over the small brass clock his wife had given him for Christmas; it always steadied him to focus his attention a moment or so on the little instrument ticking off the dollars like a taxi meter. Presently, he lifted his eyes and studied the man: thin, pallid face, a shaving cut over the Adam’s apple, conservative dresser. Nothing remarkable except his preoccupation with those very long fingers.

“Just a few routine questions first,” Dr. Departure said, picking up a pencil.

Flint, it turned out, was thirty-seven, graduated from high school, employed as an insurance clerk, unmarried. All very usual.

At the end of the hour, the doctor arose and smiled reassuringly.

“Shall we say Tuesday at ten?” he said, seeing Flint to the door.

* * * *

Shortly before ten the following Tuesday, as Dr. Departure stepped out of the elevator to keep his appointment with Flint, he bumped into his brother-in-law, Dr. Bert Schnappenhocker, a tall, assertive psychiatrist with aggressive front teeth and iron gray hair, who specialized in rich divorcees, and whose very presence in the office adjoining his own, caused Dr. Departure a kind of permanent, bristling hostility. If it weren’t for the fact he was Emily’s brother…

“Glad to see you back, Manly,” Schnappenhocker boomed in that loathsome, hearty voice. “How’d they treat you at the asylum?”

“It was a rest home,” Dr. Departure replied coldly, moving down the hall toward his own office.

“Well, if you begin to feel shaky again, feel free to drop in. Professional discount, of course.” He laughed raucously and pounded Departure on the shoulder. “By the way, did I tell you I’m speaking before the Institute of Psychiatry banquet next month? I hope you can make it.”

Quack! Dr. Departure thought angrily, closing the door against Schnappenhocker’s imbecilic and tuneless whistle outside. Then, shaking off his irritation, he called Flint in from the waiting room.

“Now!” he began brightly, after Flint seated himself and placed another bulky paper sack down beside the desk. “Now, about this…this kleptomania.” He refused to utter that ridiculous word, “klepto-kleptomania.” Since Flint’s first visit, he’d been unable to find anything in the literature to cover the problem but, at length, he reassured himself the thing wasn’t as weird as it first appeared; after all, kleptomania was kleptomania, no matter who it was you stole from—possibly this man’s case might be a little more complicated, that was all.

“I’d like you to start at the beginning, if you will, Mr. Flint, and tell me how this problem got started.”

Flint looked troubled and poked the trinket-filled bag with his foot.

“It’s the gloves,” he said. “Never had any trouble until I started wearing the gloves. Then I began having this urge to snatch things off department store counters. Didn’t take two weeks, though, until I couldn’t get any kicks out of that any more. Then I started on the kleptos…”

Dr. Departure smiled and felt the problem begin to unravel right then and there. So typical, this childish process of blaming inanimate objects for our own defects. Just last night, his little niece had accused her rag doll of shattering the vase.

“Where are these gloves?” he inquired kindly.

Flint lifted his hands above the desk.

“I have them on,” he said.

Dr. Departure blinked, leaned forward and gazed at the long, pink hands with the wrinkled knuckles, tapering fingers and well cared-for fingernails. They were as naked as billiard balls.

“I don’t see any gloves,” the doctor said in a moment.

“I know,” Flint replied evenly. “They’re invisible.”

Ah, the pieces are beginning to fall into place, Dr. Departure thought. A case of guilt projection, complicated by delusionary ideas. Ten to one there will be some flights of fantasy involving sorcery showing up soon.

“Where did you get these…these gloves?” he asked in a soft, persuasive voice.

“I bought them from a gypsy who bought them from a three-fingered Brazilian witch doctor named Bessie.”

“And where did the witch doctor get them?”

“She brewed them out of a stunted guayule bush that had been struck twice by lightning and injected three times with the blood of an insane virgin.”

“And what was the…the purpose of these gloves?”

“To make it easier for the witch doctor’s son to steal pigeon eggs.” Flint looked away with troubled eyes. “The gloves are defective, though. They’re too strong.”

This could go on forever, Dr. Departure thought sadly. If I ask him why he simply doesn’t take the gloves off, he’ll say he can’t get them off.

“The worst of it is, Doctor…I can’t get them off. See?” Flint raised one hand, plucked futilely at the pink skin with the thumb and forefinger of the other. Suddenly, he leaned across the desk confidentially. “There’s only one way that they’ll come off, Doctor.”

“And what’s that?”

“First, I have to find a witch doctor who ranks as high in his community as Bessie does in hers. That’s you.”

“Now, just a moment!” Dr. Departure protesting huffily.

From his pocket, Flint whipped a piece of paper and a small box of white powder, which he laid before the doctor.

“Then I have to get you to sprinkle this powder over the gloves while saying these words and making a gesture like this. After that, I can peel them right off.”

“Please!” Dr. Departure said firmly, holding up his hand. He’d had quite enough of invisible gloves—except, of course, in a symbolic sense.

“Let me tell you how to get those…those invisible gloves off.” He paused, polished his glasses, cleared his throat and glanced oratorically at the ceiling. “First, what do the gloves represent? Nothing more than…”

For a solid hour, Dr. Departure probed, prodded and pronounced. He spoke eloquently on phobias, on fantasies, on fixations, and the little brass clock jumped when he pounded the table for emphasis. Flint watched and listened intently, then, at last, when Dr. Departure paused to wipe his forehead and glance significantly at his watch, he leaned forward.

“That’s all very well, Doctor,” he said. “But are you, or are you not, going to cast this spell?”

These things take time, Dr. Departure told himself wearily. Time and patience…

“Because, if you’re not,” Flint continued, half-rising from the chair. “I’m going someplace else. There’s another man down the hall here. A Dr. Schnapp…Schnappen…”

Hastily, Dr. Departure motioned the man back into the chair. Every time he’d lost a patient to Dr. Schnappenhocker, his brother-in-law, through some fantastic freak of luck, had been able to clear up the problem in practically no time. The crowing that went on afterwards was unbearable. The man had even written up one case for the American Journal.

Dr. Departure looked distastefully at the box of powder and studied the words on the slip of paper. Well, if he had to demonstrate the impotence of spell-casting, he had to…that was all.

“If I cast this…this spell,” he finally said, trying to get a deeper meaning into the words, “will you promise to really try to remove these imaginary gloves…shed them like you would so much dead skin…skin you no longer need?”

“Yes! Yes!” Flint agreed eagerly.

“EEDO! QUEEDO! SKIZZO LIBIDO!” Dr. Departure intoned, sprinkling powder over Flint’s outstretched hands and making a certain gesture with his own. Then he sat back and smiled indulgently.

“Thanks!” Flint breathed gratefully. Then, with a zip-snick-snap!, he deftly peeled a transparent rubbery glove from each hand quite as if he were shedding so much dead skin, and tossed them both on the desk. In amazement, Dr. Departure gazed at this tiny mound of sheer, limp rubber that had collapsed his psychological house of cards with such a nasty little plop.

“This should cover the fee,” Flint was saying happily, placing four twenties on the blotter. “And thanks again.” He went out, slamming the door.

Dr. Departure closed his eyes a moment and listened to the tick of the brass clock. Of course, the man could be perpetrating an elaborate practical joke. It was even possible that the loud-mouthed charlatan, that hand-holder of rich nymphomaniacs, that psychoanalytical Peeping Tom, Dr. Schnappenhocker, had put him up to it. No, on second thought, it couldn’t have been a practical joke. No one, not even Bert Schnappenhocker himself, would be willing to pay $75 an hour for that meager pleasure.

He picked up one glove and examined it. It was inside out now—peeling it off had done that—but both sides seemed practically the same. Never had he touched anything so wonderfully soft and delicate, so light and completely transparent! He turned it over and over. It had no more body than a cobweb, yet it was as resilient as a rubber girdle. He put his fingers into it tentatively. Remarkable how snug and comfortable it was! He pulled it completely on. Why, you scarcely knew it was there! He picked up the other glove, pulled it on, too…

* * * *

The reason I can’t get these gloves off, Dr. Departure told himself the next day, staring at his fingers, is that rubber sticks so close to the skin I can’t get a good grip on it. If only I had longer fingernails…

The door opened suddenly and through it popped the beaming face of Dr. Schnappenhocker.

“Morning, Manly!” he boomed. “Just out drumming up a little business and, right off, I thought of you.” He laughed heartily.

“Don’t you ever knock?” Dr. Departure growled.

“No offense, Doctor. Thought I’d leave you a program for next month’s Institute banquet. Did I tell you I was the guest speaker?” He dropped a folder on the chair and disappeared.

Dr. Departure turned his attention back to the gloves. It was odd. He couldn’t get them off. Very odd. Not that this bothered him particularly…they were so snug and light, you scarcely knew you had them on. Tonight, he’d get Emily to peel them off. It was a bit disconcerting, though, not to be able to do it yourself.

Of course, he’d had no impulse toward kleptomania—absolutely none at all. He smiled to himself. As a matter of fact, if you permitted yourself such a wild thought, it was just the other way around. Last night, he’d left a book on the bus and, this morning, he’d misplaced his favorite pipe in the coffee shop. Odd. Very odd.

His eyes drifted to the two sacks of stolen articles Flint had left. Have to return those, he told himself—not good to have them lying around. He scooped up the bags and, pawing through them, discovered from price tags that most of them came from Snow Brothers’ Department Store. It was lunch time; he’d drop them off right now.

A pre-inventory sale was raging in Snow Brothers’; it’s aisles throbbed with a squirming horde of women shoppers, and Dr. Departure, hugging two paper sacks, burrowed his way determinedly toward the accommodation desk.

It was in Women’s Purses that the whim suddenly seized him. He fought it off. It returned, more powerfully, more insistently, and, in a moment, it swelled into a wild, unreasoning, clamoring urge that made his fingers tingle and his whole body quiver.

He found himself edging over to a counter, reaching into the sack he carried. His breathing came faster as he removed the first article his fingers touched—a windshield wiper. Furtively, he looked about. No one was watching. With a quick, darting motion, he sneaked the wiper between two leather bags on the counter. Then, glancing nervously about once more, he hurried away with a pounding heart, feeling an odd, tingling triumph.

* * * *

“Opposite of kleptomania…that’s what you have!” Mrs. Departure was accusing her husband in a loud, hysterical voice two weeks later at dinner time. She was a large, resolute woman with steely eyes and sensible shoes. At the moment, however, she was considerably unstrung. “You’re an un-kleptomaniac, and you’ve got to do something about it!”

“And I tell you, it’s these damn gloves!” the doctor shouted, pacing back and forth. His dinner lay cold and untouched. His hair was rumpled. His eyes glittered with strange lights. His hands had a strange plucking motion, one against the other.

“You shoplifter! I mean…you shopdropper!” Her long, usually solid jaw quivered with anguish. “Sneaking into department stores, leaving trinkets all over the place. My blue vase! The pruning shears! Almost the entire silverware set! Even your little brass clock! All gone!”

“It’s the gloves, I tell you!” Vainly, he tugged, plucked and snatched at his fingertips. “I put them on backwards. Inside out! Damn! If I could only get a grip on them!”

“And today, the public library called again,” she cried shrilly. “Not a day passes but what you sneak three or four of your own books onto their shelves!”

“Well, if you’d helped me get these things off that first night, liked I asked you to, maybe I wouldn’t be in this fix!”

“But this evening!” Mrs. Departure’s lips twitched, her voice shrilled ever higher, “on the bus…that was the last straw! I saw you with my own eyes! The way you sneaked that man’s wallet out of his pocket, stuffed it with four of your own dollar bills, then put it back! I tell you, Manly, you’ve got to see someone!”

“And I tell you, there’s nothing wrong with me! It’s the gloves! When Flint skinned them off, it turned them inside out. They’re on backwards! Can’t you get that through your head?” He jammed a cigarette in his mouth.

“Gloves! Gloves! Gloves! I tell you, for the hundredth time, you haven’t any gloves on!”

“Where is the cigarette lighter?” Dr. Departure growled, slapping his pockets. “I had it right in my vest this morning.”

“The question is,” she said, laughing a bit hysterically and throwing back the flaps of his coat, “where is your vest? Manly, I might as well tell you…I’ve already made an appointment for you.”

She dug in her purse and handed him a card.

“Schnappenhocker!” he screamed. “Bert was really very nice about it.”

“I will not go to that revolting brother of yours,” Dr. Departure shrieked, turning a shiny purple.

“Not even if he was the last doctor on earth! That pompous witch doctor! That…” Suddenly, in mid-sentence, he let out his breath and stared into space a moment, a pleased and reflective expression beginning to relax his face. Witch doctor? There was still a little powder left… Why hadn’t he thought of palming the gloves off on Bert before? That loudmouthed wit-snapper was always trying on other people’s garments for a laugh—ladies’ hats, little boys’ bow ties, Dr. Departure’s own rather conservative rain shoes. The man simply couldn’t resist a pair of rubber gloves!

“You will go,” his wife was saying in a low, vibrant voice.

“Most certainly, I will go!” Dr. Departure replied in an equally vibrant voice, the sweet smile of anticipation growing on his face.

Never were doctor and patient ever happier to see one another than the following day when Dr. Departure entered the softly shaded inner sanctum of Dr. Bert Schnappenhocker. Dr. Schnappenhocker beamed at his rival with the undisguised eagerness of an anatomy student about to dissect an especially interesting species of tailless amphibian, while Dr. Departure gazed back with the smirking innocence of one all set to administer an emotional hot-foot. For two full minutes, they wrung each other’s hand.

“Well!” Dr. Schnappenhocker finally said heartily, impatient to make the initial incision. “Emily tells me you have a little problem.”

“I hate to bother you with it, really,” Dr. Departure replied, trying to keep from grinning.

For almost an hour, Dr. Departure allowed his brother-in-law to worm the whole unlikely story out of him, then, finally, when he gave the instructions and pushed the little box of white powder across the desk, he watched Schnappenhocker shake his head with a coy gesture of hopelessness and settle back in his chair.

“Manly, old man,” Schnappenhocker said. “Another six months of absolute rest and quiet ought to do it for you. Maybe eight. You owe it to Emily, you know. And to yourself.” He reached for the telephone.

Dr. Departure was prepared for this. Wild lights shining from his eyes—or what he hoped were wild lights—he leaped from the chair, seized the copper letter opener and leaned across the desk, breathing hard.

“Are you going to cast that spell or aren’t you?” he shouted, digging the opener into the mahogany desk top.

Dr. Schnappenhocker blinked apprehensively.

“Sure, Manly! Sure!” he placated. “I’ll cast the spell, then I’ll make your reservation.” He picked up the box of powder and glanced nervously at the slip of paper.

“EEDO! QUEEDO! SKIZZO LIBIDO!”

With a zip-snick-snap!, Dr. Departure peeled off the glove from the left hand. Then, as he fumbled with the right hand, an agonizing decision suddenly leaped out at him; should he make a shoplifter out of his brother-in-law, or a shopdropper? Should he leave the gloves right side out or wrong side out? Each alternative offered such dazzling possibilities that, for a moment, Dr. Departure felt himself almost torn in two by the exquisite but mutually exclusive choices. Then, the answer came to him…what if he left one glove right side out and the other wrong side out…?

* * * *

“Why, Bert!” Mrs. Departure said, opening the door to her brother, Dr. Schnappenhocker’s, a week later. “Come on in!”

“I can’t,” Dr. Schnappenhocker replied, handing her a cardboard carton filled with assorted articles. “Just thought I’d drop these off. They’re a few more things Manly deposited in my office when he was…well, before I cured him.”

Mrs. Departure took the carton.

“I must say you’re a miracle man, Bert. Just one treatment, and now he’s as fit as a fiddle.”

“It was nothing,” Schnappenhocker said, backing down the steps nervously. There was a tenseness about his eyes and he kept jerking at the ends of his fingers.

Mrs. Departure closed the door and returned to the dining room, where her husband was wolfing down a tremendous dinner.

“That was Bert,” she explained. “With another carton of junk. You know, I’m worried about the man. He keeps bringing all this stuff over here, insisting it’s yours, but it all belongs to him! Here’s his fountain pen, his copper letter opener, even his appointment book! And what makes it even stranger,” she went on, shaking her head, “every time he deposits a load, he manages to sneak off with an armful of our stuff!”

She went to the window and peeked through the Venetian blinds. “Look at him out there! Unscrewing the nozzle of the hose! Why, the man’s turning into a human pack rat!”

“Probably been working too hard on that speech,” Dr. Departure said, beaming and helping himself to another pork chop. “Always knew Schnappenhocker would crack up someday.”