And there it is. The face of the man who will supposedly cure me of all my ills. The man who will bring sanity to the inane one. Perhaps the man who will explain why I keep referring to myself in the third person. His business card reads ‘Dr. Kerrigan’. I can’t bring myself to translate what the fuck that name is. I figure these shrinks are always rich, educated planks who bought their way into a joke of a profession. I mean, let’s face it, all they are paid to do is sit, listen, take notes, nod a little, and make you talk about yourself more. Quite obviously, by opening up yourself you’re looking at things suddenly in the third person, seeing yourself differently. I could try this technique with a fucking cat and he’d be just as qualified to sit and listen.
But I have to give this a shot.
It’s hot outside, I’m sweating like a motha. I can’t get this new kpop remix out of my damned head. It’s so irrelevant to my life that it’s not even funny, yet here it is whirring around my head, making my head bounce and my feet tap. ‘I got a boy’. I just imagine singing this out loud in the ring and seeing my opponents cover their backsides in confusion.
Kerrigan is sat watching me as I nod my head to this tune in my head. I glance at the clock; naturally a ornate hand carved dilemma of a clock, adorned with golden awnings, though it’s probably old gold. The sense of false impression comes flooding over me, and I can’t shake the impression this bearded fuck is just a hack. Shit, the clock. I realise I have been sat here for 15 minutes, probably with this song looping in my head. Yuri’s perfect body cavorting over and o-here I go again. Maybe Kerrigan will be able to cure this tangent fetish my brain has. But probably not.
Nero: Ok, I’m ready.
I sit forward and glance at him, our eyes locking momentarily, but he quickly buries his gaze underneath those glasses, and scribbles on his little notepad. For some reason he’s using a plain biro. Naturally that gets my old noggin whirring but I’m able to stay in the moment this time.
Dr. Kerrigan: It seems music is an integral part of your life.
This question throws me; I mean, I am able to surmise he saw my head bouncing like Ursula Areano in the backstage area – bawk bawk she a chicken head – but I find myself with no natural rebuttal. When people just state plain facts like this it does my head in. I just say yes, staring forward at him again, which of course makes him avert his gaze. I consider grilling him on his eye contact aversion, but I remind myself that I’m 16 minutes into a two hour session and it would probably be construed as an avoidance tactic. I have to keep an even footing with this guy. It’s like a competition in my head. I probably wont get any beneficial results here with this attitude, and I know it. Maybe I’m not trying. Maybe he will get to the bottom of why. Maybe this is a twisting spiral of nothings and the reality is so mundane that I can do nought but twist.
Still, I’m pleased he got one aspect of my character right, even if the rest of this evening is probably to be a smorgasbord of nonsense. I nod.
Dr. Kerrigan: Interesting. How long has music been a part of your life?
Nero: Probably since I first heard a song. Same as you.
Dr. Kerrigan: Ah, a penchant for the literal.
I want to rebut, but that song just started in my head again. Taeyeon’s vocals just confuse my brain.
Nero: Fucking marvellous.
I don't know where the words came from, but thankfully Kerrigan isn’t reaching for some hidden panic button, instead he’s looking at his notes. I wonder if he just wrote ‘fucking marvellous’ or not. His pad is concealed from my view. I try not to gaze too long lest he detect my curiosity and turn it into a complex.
Dr. Kerrigan: Seeing things literally can be a coping mechanism. It’s perfectly normal, don’t be scared.
Nero: Scared? Does this guy think he just jumped out of Mystery’s mirror with a machete?
FUCK. I said that out loud. I mask the mistake by acting as if nothing happened, but I can feel a small trickle of blood draining from my face; I cant help wondering whether it will cause discolouration and betray my angst.
Dr. Kerrigan: I wonder, why do you refer to me as ‘this guy’? Could it be that you are avoiding taking our meeting seriously as a form of coping with the possible ramifications of being opened up?
He’s got me bang to rights, but I’m not going to let him know that.
Nero: No, sorry I just wanted to see what your reaction would be if I acted like that. I mean you no real professional insult.
Dr. Kerrigan: Perhaps the question here is, who or what is Mystery’s mirror?
Nero: Geez, you’re asking the wrong guy there. I was just remembering some old promotional poster.
Dr. Kerrigan: No, I’m asking entirely the right guy.
He’s looking excited now, as if he’s a hound that just caught wind of a fox. He starts to talk louder, with his facial expressions bordering on insane at times. I question whether this guy is real, or just a bum from the street who let himself in the window. The window that’s wide open. I start to get distracted by this train of thought but he brings me back in with a fist to the table, which startles me. His face is beet-red now and even in saying that I hit a tangent. Beetroots are purple not red, so what is the deal with that phrase?
Dr. Kerrigan: Listen to me boy! I had my fill of you spaced out types. We are making waves here, help me bring those waves to the shore.
Nero: Where else are waves going to go? What are you, some opposing satellite?
I hover over my words, realising that ‘satellite’ is a key word this week. Of course, I meant the moon, not the loon, and why am I calling Satty a loon when I’m the one sat in a shrink’s chair. My mind is making me dizzy, so I concentrate on the enraged Kerrigan.
Dr. Kerrigan: Don’t josh with me young man, we can make progress. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF! Every time you have a doubt, SAY YES I CAN!
Nero: Well thanks, Sherman Klump.
Dr. Kerrigan: Your pop culture references are lost on me. Let’s return to the subject, or at least attempt to formulate a coherent one. For your reference, those were deliberately chosen flakes of pop psychology. Not words I'd utter with a serious look on my face.
Who is this guy, me in disguise?
Dr. Kerrigan: No, yours is a much more serious case. Now, I’ve been forwarded your notes, from employers and doctors, though strangely your doctors reports stop a couple of years ago...
I get the impression he wants me to open up and explain why, but I don't feel like obliging to unspoken questions. Maybe its inane of me to ignore him but its kind of funny leaving him hanging. He probably thinks I am slow, which enhances the humour further. Upper hand is mine.
Dr. Kerrigan: Anyway...let’s start with a simple task. Do you know any poetry?
Nero: Of course I do, I speak for a living.
Well, in that case, would you care to recite what you feel is a salient piece of poetry?
I wonder what he expects. Maybe that God-awful poem about peeling an onion, where all the layers represent some bs. Frankly I am so angered by remembering that program that I leave Kerrigan hanging for a while, as I shake my head. I settle on one of my own pieces.
Nero: Ok, this is off the top of my head. I wrote this a few months ago.
I steady myself as if I am reading a great speech. I imagine myself as Hitler on a high platform. I always do this, imagining yourself as a high leader with thousands stood before you cheering your every word is a great tool for self confidence. Of course, I am not going to tell Kerrigan that I am imagining myself as Hitler, that’s a whole can of worms I can’t be arsed with.
Nero: ‘If night be black, why does the day not shine white?
We may trivialise the inequities of assumption thusly.
What is perceived is nought but the notion of a man,
Laid down in aeons now dormant in time,
But whose echoes reverberate in hollow decadence,
Teasing the mind and spirit,
Chastising the merriment of dull care.
Enlightened is he who casts off dull care, but at a price
For he exists outside the realm of his peers and fellows.
If life’s truths lie within solitude,
Be prepared to face such eventuality within the perpetual.
If the hollow of truth is not what you seek,
Then I beseech you to turn back at once.
Chastise this text, spurn its author.
Darken these pages no more.
These rumblings of a mind discerned will guide you,
Not as a shepherd to his flock,
But as the shearer to the flanks,
Revealing the soft and tender beneath.
But do as you will with the discarded wool!’
Kerrigan sits there, his mind whirring away. His glasses drop from his nose and he replaces them periodically. It’s as though my poem has had some profound effect on him, though surely not. He raises his head and looks at me in the eyes; this time his gaze is not averted.
Dr. Kerrigan: Boy, you are your own cure. This poem encapsulates you as a person. The desire to live without the shackles of society. The complexes that this choice of lifestyle inevitably brings with it. You said It yourself, you exist outside the realm of your peers and fellows. But you are unable to cast off dull care.
Nero: How so?
Dr. Kerrigan: It’s written in your features. We will get to the bottom of this, Mr. Cyn. It’s clear that you trivialise life as a way of throwing off dull care, but in doing so fragments of what ails you remain. And over time, these ‘fragments’ build and build. In the same way burying anger causes repressed anger repercussions, your dismissed ‘irks’ if you will have formed a knot in your stomach.
Nero: Nice metaphor, but I don't think so.
Dr. Kerrigan: Nor do I. No, this would be the easy answer. But the truth is much worse, isn’t it? The fact is you cast off dull care as best you can, and get through every day trying to hide from the world one secret fact.
I wonder what he’ll say. I’m a hermaphrodite? I secretly watch American Football? I played with Barbie as a child? He pauses, examining my face. I’ve made no effort to conceal my intrigue this time, feeling whatever his response, it will be a vain attempt at pop psychology, whether he likes to admit it or not. He places his pad face down on the table, and slaps his biro on top.
Dr. Kerrigan: You don’t know who you are.
His answer stuns me, and I just stare at him. My mind is completely blank. Depersonalisation has overcome me.
Dr. Kerrigan: And that’s two hours, please vacate the room. My Russian client is next and doesn’t appreciate comedians.
I scan his client list and see ‘Wladimir Corwin’. What a weird name, I think to myself, glad to be snapped back into reality.
Dr. Kerrigan: And hey, Mr Cyn. Think about what I said. Who are you?
The guy is grinning like a Cheshire cat now, and laughs a bellowy laugh that basically bounces me out of the room with its sonic effect. What a weird two hours, and weird isn’t a word I’d use lightly. I leave the building, taking no notice of anything around me. As usual my body moves like an automaton, and I’m along for the ride. I muse over the fact this is similar to the now obsolete companion Mr Satellite brought around with him for months. Moving totally mechanically, but carrying the voice of its master.
I just realised from the moment he said ‘you don't know who you are’, through leaving, to the present moment, I never uttered a single word. I also realised he failed to even mention the name Nero.
I wonder to myself whether I am some fleshy automaton and I’m being puppeteer-ed from some other dimension, but then I remonstrate with myself that surely I am the one in charge. I test this by grabbing my crotch and squeezing it with every heartbeat as I walk. Passers by shake their heads at me and their shocked gazes amuse me greatly. There’s no arousal in this, just sheer entertainment. In particular an old gent, poor old gimmer, he’s pushing himself along on a zimmer frame, and he winks at me as I pass him. Strangely enough this encourages me. If an old cunt like that shares my amusement then to Hell with everyone else’s outrage.
I enter a café and retrieve my hand from my undercarriage. I’m musing in my head over what a semi skilled artisan of the trashed word such as Satty would make of my antics, when the waiter ushers me to a seat, oblivious to where my hand has just been. I make a point of shaking his hand and introducing myself – its only polite. On hearing my name is Nero, he spits on the table. It turns out this guy is a staunch Christian and sees the name Nero as ‘666’, the way it was written and intended in the bible. Nero was the persecutor of Christians, long before the Roman Colosseum came along and made lion food of them. I cant help laughing, because this is the first time a Christian has taken exception to my name publicly. He’s stood there chastising me, over and over. Anyone would think Pol Pot just came in and ordered Cambodian Stew.
He pushes my chest, and I grin. This is the time most people in my position would unload, put this poor man on his backside. But for me, simply harming him physically would be a waste of time. I hold a finger to his lips and tell him to wait. Strangely he complies, overcome with curiosity I guess. I grab my Kindle Fire and rustle up my copy of the Gnostic Gospels. I give it to him and he reads, on and on, nodding, then dropping to his knees. Either he’s realised his religion is based on selective choices of ancient fairytales, or he’s realised that Judas was the good guy and there is more than one deity above that chirpy Mexican Jesus. At any rate, he’s flat out. He passes my kindle back to me, and walks out of the café. I shrug and order a latte, I’m feeling peppy enough without a caffeine boost. I’m content now that Nero has reasserted himself, but I start to ask myself just why that brings me satisfaction.
I wonder whether I should grab my phone and get Norris down here, so I can cut a promo on ole Satty while I am in such a solid state of mind. But I decide against it. I prefer being direct, and this cafe is altogether too crowded. The tables are close together, and to my right a family are enjoying cream teas. It’d be a shame to spoil their good time with my inane bellowing. So I shrug and sup my latte. Maybe later. I glance at the time and it gives me a start. 1505. That prick Kerrigan only gave me an hour and charged for two!
We fade
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