Do the Demise (Part 1 of a STRICTLY Scheduled Serial) by Nicholas Gitomer

DO THE DEMISE

pt. 1 of 4

He was surrounded by products and decisions to make about those products. Sitting at his desk he stared at the computer screen. It was running an older version of the operating system that came standard on the machine he was operating when he purchased that machine, but he often thought about upgrading to the newer operating system that had been released since the purchase of his current personal computer. He could steal it from a friend–but that would be an illicit thrill, and professionals like himself were not supposed to engage in illicit thrills, for semi-patent reasons.

His patient walked in accompanied by his patient’s much older guardian. Marky had been an 11 year-old problem for his mother Elizabeth. For 11 years she had been stressed out by him, unable to concentrate on practicing her beloved harpsichord for which she was often more than adequately compensated for playing. Recently, though, none of the chamber groups had hired her, so she decided that it must have been Marky’s fault. His tantrums got the better of her, so she decided it was time to treat his more irritating personality elements with the help of Doctor Curlitsky, who was now sitting on the other end of a screen in his beige, recently remodeled office. The beige was almost pulsating in the absence of the artwork that had yet to be hanged back on the wall.

She had seen his practice advertised on the side of a bus. Since Elizabeth could not imagine a hack therapist able to afford the side of a city bus, she decided to have the licensed medical professional see Marky. It was the path of least resistance, as Elizabeth reasoned that if she just went by the doctors in the phone book, it would be too vast a field, too many people to call without any way of knowing whether they were total hacks or not.

Doctor Curlitsky got his start in therapy doing marriage counseling. Eventually he decided that it must have been better paying to be a general psychiatrist, having seen his peers from medical school driving better machinery on the interstitial highways between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. So he moved his office from the one side to the other of St. Mary’s Medical Plaza and made sure that each of his patients knew that now, even though they may have been used to him as a certain person in one way, that now they had to get used to him in another way altogether.

He and his old patients had to do this together because if they did it on their own, roles might become muddled. He was still their marriage counselor, but now he could prescribe valium, although he was unsure if he might need to.

He became successful–he would give his patients what they wanted, an open ear and an easy prescription–and amidst this success got to know little Marky. He knew exactly what to do to make him feel happy, wanted. His mother was not helpful for him. She was too busy agonizing over her harpsichord to parent her son, passively she had been parenting.

The good Doctor had an idea. It was similar to the typical ideas he had for children like Marky. He trimmed his nails over his desk. The clippings were in a scattered pile. He moved the clippings together with a playing card he held. The pile was together. The dead cells were scooted off the table and escorted to the trash. He felt his newly kempt hand and felt proud. Good doctors had neat fingertips, so now Elizabeth would be assured he was a good doctor.

Marky finished rambling on and Doctor Curlitsky wrote his prescription for Adderall, Ritalin, whatever Elizabeth wanted for Marky that day. Maybe she was just reading the brand name inscribed on his pen. He wasn’t sure, distracted by the neatness of his fingertips. Sometimes totally uninterested, occasionally happy, Marky took to the different prescriptions with glee, as he tried to learn their effects on friends so he could figure out how to react differently so he could make it seem he was totally unaffected.