Doctor - pt 1

I slammed the phone down in anger
That motherfucker
That worthless
Son of a bitch
Motherfucker

He'd gone and done it
After all that we'd talked about
All that he'd promised
It was a lie
A LIE

I could kill him
I swear
If he were in front of me right now
He'd be a dead man
I'd find something in this office and club him to death with it

My gaze fell on something heavy
Yes
That would do nicely

I picked it up and felt it's bronze weight
Looking down at it
Freud's face in metal
Set on a small marble base
Supposed to be an inspiration
I wonder what he would think If he knew
Knew that I'd use him to kill if I could

Then the bottom dropped out of my anger
My fingers felt weak
And Sigmund Freud tumbled to the floor
Denting the hardwood with a corner of his base

I collapsed to the floor next to him
Not crying
Not screaming
Just burning inside

This must be hell

I turned my head to see the picture on my wall
My ex-wife with my two children
In a cheesy Sears Portrait Studio setting
We'd had it done special
After the divorce my wife had cut me out of all the family portraits
And I'd noticed it

So I made them an appointment at Sears
And paid for it
That way she could have some nice photos to hang up
And I could have some too
Without me there
A constant reminder of what we used to be
Rather a simple reminder of that which I loved most

I'd never remarried
Though I'd dated a few times in the last ten years certainly
But the same things that had driven my wife from me
Kept me at arm's length from these new potential mates
The work
And the baggage I brought home from it

I was a perfectionist
In a field of inexact science
Psychiatry wasn't a career for the meek
And I'd been bold enough to go for it
To spend time on each patient
To try to figure out what made them tick
To try to figure out how to make them happy in their own skins

Isn't that what we all want?
To be happy?

I tried to be
I tried to be happy for my wife and her new freedom
I tried to be happy when I was told of all the things the kids were doing
Without me around
I tried to be happy for the one weekend a month I got to see them
I tried to be happy though my kids started treating me like stranger
I tried

When my ex met a decent guy
I tried to be happy
I did
I almost convinced myself too

Then he asked for a consult
I told him it wasn't entirely ethical
Seeing as I had some interests in the situation
But he insisted he didn't have the money to see anyone else

Oh, I guess this was going to be pro bono
I though to myself at the time
Little did I know

I took the case seriously
As seriously as I did any other
Spending an hour on his case for every hour we talked
Taking notes
Analyzing those notes
And working to understand what it all meant

He was an arsonist
He loved fire
He loved the power

In the years before he met my wife
He'd taken to adding some bonus thrill to the burning
Starting small by putting animals in locked cages inside the old buildings he'd set ablaze
Later
Graduating to burning homeless people where they slept
And working his way up to actively capturing young runaways

He had shame for what he'd done
And had tried suicide twice already

My ex-wife didn't know any of this

He'd been 'on the wagon' so to speak
Laying off arson for almost a year now
We'd been talking about how things made him feel
His motivations for doing it all
Dealing with his guilt

I should have called the police
I know that
I should have warned my family
I know that

But they were so happy
I wanted them happy
When they were happy
I was happy

Until tonight

There is that old saw
How anything can go wrong
And probably will

I'm going to add
That it will most likely happen all at once

I had been going over his case
Something had been bugging me
Like an itch in the back of my head
How he liked the power of the fire
The power over life and death
How he'd grown bored over the years with his steps of violence
Progressing to more horrible things
How he felt deep shame

He'd told me yesterday
That he wished he could make amends for what he'd done
But that he wanted to be pitied
To look the victim
Yet still have the power over the situation

I'd been puzzling over what to do with that admission
When it occurred to me
That he was liable to do something terrible again
Something with my family

Then the phone had rang

They were all dead
My ex-wife
My two children
My patient

The house had burned
Their remains had been found inside
Chained to steel posts in the basement
They were calling it murder
That someone had done this to them

But I knew better
HE had done it
HE had chained them up
And started the blaze
Then chained himself next to them

And he had it all
The power of the fire
The power over life and death
A penance for what he had done
By burning himself along with them
Pity of being a victim of it all

Nobody would suspect him

Except me

But where was this going to go?

From my prone position on the floor
I heard several cars come to a sudden stop out front
I saw flashing lights reflected on the ceiling
Red and blue
Red and blue

I sat up
Suddenly clear

They thought it was me!

No
NO

I got up quickly and went to my desk
Yanking open a drawer
Lying amid the jumble of desk crap
Was my handgun
Darkly looking at me
I grabbed it

Fuck no
There is no fucking way I'm going to deal with this
On top of everything else

Without another thought
I brought the revolver to my throat
Pointing upwards to my brain pan

I pulled the trigger