Hope Idiotic | Part 17
Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.
DR. KHORASHI WAS DR. MILNER’S MALE DOPPELGANGER There were no dogs in his office, which was located in a medical building on Michigan Avenue, but it was still a little bit of a granola-new-age mash-up. There was a macramé plant holder hanging from the drop ceiling in his waiting room.
Lou liked Dr. Khorashi. He liked Dr. Milner, too but unlike Milner, this guy laughed at his jokes.
“So, you get dizzy. You’re stressed. A little depressed. Anxious, wound up? Short temper?” Dr. Khorashi inquired.
“All of the above,” said Lou. Lou gave him news-in-brief version of his misery.
“How’s your appetite?”
“Don’t have one.”
“You sleeping?”
“Hardly.”
“How about your sex drive?”
“Normal.”
“Taking any drugs? Abusing alcohol?”
“Allegra-D for my allergies. Lots of scotch for all the other shit.”
“Do you smoke?”
“I’ve been sneaking cigarettes, but I wouldn’t call myself a smoker. Well, I smoke a pipe. I mean I used to smoke a pipe. Girlfriend won’t let me smoke it in the apartment. Too much of a hassle to go outside and enjoy one.”
“A tobacco pipe.”
“Yeah. I like the smell of it. Smells like my grandparents’ house.”
“But you’re smoking cigarettes now.”
“Maybe a pack every month. Just when I’m tired of looking up grad schools and reading rejection letters from would-be employers. Something to do with my hands other than kill myself. You know, immediately, I mean.”
“Have you thought about killing yourself?”
Lou realized that his joke wasn’t a joke at all. Not in a shrink’s office. “No, no. I’m sorry. I was being funny. Really, I’ve never thought about it. I mean, not any more than anyone else has ever thought about it. Just like, when you hear about someone doing it, you wonder about what the last thing to go through their mind was. And not the bullet, like if the person shot himself or anything. No. I’m not suicidal.”
“I don’t think you are. It’s okay to think about it. It’s a part of death and the human condition. You’re being honest. That’s good.”
“I don’t think I could do it. I’d rather be around to see the naysayer’s faces when shit got better, you know?”
“I do. Lou, I’m going to prescribe you Remeron. It’s an anti-depressant that can be used to treat minor anxiety. It should help with your appetite and your sleep. You may experience increased dizziness. Let me know if it gets too bad. And always hang on to a railing.”
“Making jokes.”
“Let’s meet in two weeks and see how you’re feeling. It should take about a week to stabilize in your system, and I’d like you to have a week with it doing its job to see how you really react to it. Sound okay?”
It sounded fine. Dr. Khorashi wrote the script, and Lou filled it at the Walgreens on the ground floor of the building.
Medication and psychotherapy, he thought. I’m a fucking headcase.
✶
THREE WEEKS LATER, Lou was sleeping and eating better. The dizziness was the same, but generally everything else seemed easier. Still no job, but he had an easier time writing cover letters. Also, his morning scotch benders had stopped.
He looked forward to his therapy sessions. They made him feel like he had control over his life again. Matters were in his hands and those of trained medical professionals. Khorashi was on Mondays at 3:00 p.m., Milner’s appointments were still Wednesday nights with an additional 9:00 p.m. slot for Thursdays, too. He figured the more therapy the better. Nip that anxiety shit in the bud, get off those meds and get back to good.
“You don’t think you’re overdoing it?” Michelle asked one night as they were crawling into bed. “Three times a week? Two doctors? Medications? Are you crazy?”
“According to my doctors, no, I’m not.”
“So what’s wrong with you?”
“Acute anxiety and depression due to circumstantial conditions.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means that there’s a lot of shit going on that is impacting me negatively and I’m finding the best way to not let the stress of it add to the negativity.”
“You haven’t told anyone you’re seeing two shrinks, have you?”
“Chuck. Neil. My dad.”
“But none of our friends?”
“No. Why?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“Well, I’m glad you feel like you’re getting the help you need, but it’s sort of a sign of weakness.”
“I’m sorry? This was your idea.”
“I know. I’m just wondering why you either can’t handle things on your own or why you can’t come to me with what’s troubling you.”
“I am handling things on my own. This is how. I’m using the professionals. And I can’t go to you with this kind of stuff. It’s not in your wheelhouse.”
“You’re my boyfriend. We’re supposed to get married. Your life and emotions are absolutely in my wheelhouse.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to be in my position. You can’t begin to relate to it. I’ve tried explaining it to you, but you don’t get it. For me, my career, my conditions out here, it’s not like yours. And you can’t empathize.”
“Are you kidding me? When I moved out here, I had nothing. My parents were furious with me and told me that they wouldn’t pay for anything. Not even a pencil. I had student loans and no friends and was terrified. I’d wake up in the middle of the night hyperventilating from stress. That happened for the first two years of law school. Don’t tell me that I don’t know what it’s like to struggle.”
“Michelle, your parents were pissed at you for a weekend. You were essentially hired with a career all laid out for you after two years and making a six-figure salary. Big loans? Yeah, that’s why you’re making what you’re making now. And that’s why it’s called compensation. You were stressed during law school? Everyone is stressed during law school. That gave you a support group. You had contemporaries who were all going through the shit with you. You all had each other. A miserably, wealthy band of barristers. I moved here after leaving my own kind of promising career to give it a go with you and with this city.”
“I told you not to move here just for me.”
“I didn’t, but we both know that you were a leading factor in the decision, come on. But listen, my move set me back a few years. I’ve never been this unemployed or unemployable. I’ve never experienced a recession like this. And I’m the only person I know who is going through this. I’m almost thirty years old, and I’m nowhere near where I used to be or want to be in my career. My contemporaries are employed and wealthy, something you regularly remind me of all too often. It’s not the same thing. Not at all.
“Your career has a clear path. College, law school, job, partnership, riches, retirement. I don’t have that. I don’t get to just graduate from school, get a job as a junior copywriter on the Nike and McDonald’s and Pepsi accounts and in seven years be eligible to become a partner in the firm. There is no predetermined path for a creative to follow. There is no six-figure salary by the age of twenty-four. Even a junior copywriter at Leo Burnett doesn’t make much more than maybe forty grand. And that’s if he hasn’t been canned during this recession. Plus! Plus, I’m a man. A white man. I’m the last thing any company is going to want to hire when the freezes thaw out. We’re finally getting our comeuppance. You’re a woman. You’re safe. Have you read anything about the layoffs? It’s the men that are getting the boot. Yeah, maybe because they pay women less, but I’d rather make less than nothing.”
Michelle lay in the bed with her head on the pillow facing Lou. She yawned. “Okay,” she said. Then she turned over and fell asleep.
Lou’s Remerol kicked in, and he fell asleep, too.