The Racket
Nov 29, 2022 22:31:40 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Nov 29, 2022 22:31:40 GMT -5
The Racket
by
Radrook
by
Radrook
Dr. Teller, a young Middle-Eastern Psychiatrist, who physically resembled the late actor and comedian Danny Thomas, had listened to his client Roy Johnson, an African American patient who was suffering nervous tension due to feeling deprived of his rights as a father and grandfather.
“So what seems to be the problem Mr. Johnson?” the doctor had asked, whereupon Johnson provided him with all the details he felt that the doctor required in order to give him his professional opinion. After having listened to Johnson and maintaining a profound silence for the better part of an hour, Dr. Teller finally responded:
“Nothing strange about that Mr. Johnson, some people take great satisfaction in depriving certain other people of things that they believe to be their rights. It’s just human nature.”
Roy Johnson was baffled by the response. But he was even more baffled by the intense silence that the doctor had maintained all during his personal disclosure. It had been Johnson’s third visit to see Doctor Teller, and the routine had always been the same. After the usual formalities of a greeting, and asking a few routine questions intended to convey concern, the doctor would calmly light up his pipe, produce the literature that he had brought along, and sit quietly smoking and reading as Johnson poured his heart out desperately hoping to receive some kernel of wisdom that would magically enable him to set life straight. Yet nothing.
True, the doctor had occasionally assured him that he had indeed been listening. But soon, it became quite clear that his modus operandi was to never offer any advice. Another patient, a female whom Johnson had conversed with in the reception room, had told him that she had wept during session in an effort at eliciting some helpful advice from the silent psychiatrist, and that the doc had only calmly provided her with the necessary tissue paper to dry her tears and nothing more. Then he had prescribed some medication, and rescheduled an appointment. All done in the same silence that he had maintained during the previous hour. She supposed it was merely his personal way surely based on some new therapy theory of which she was unaware.
Of course, at the end of each session, the doctor would collect a whopping pay-check for the tremendously complex and important job that he had supposedly done. Increasingly annoyed by this routine, Johnson, eventually began to wonder why he himself could not somehow get into that same easy, moneymaking scheme. After all, it would be far better than having to go about delivering mail on cold winter and sweltering hot summer days as he was doing for the past twenty five years, and earning far less money for it than Teller was easily earning from the comfort and safety of his office and without even breaking a sweat.
But his question was answered by the many degrees that were displayed on the doctor’s office wall assuring, Johnson, that it wasn’t a piece of cake and proving that this doctor, who seemed to do absolutely nothing during the full-hour sessions but read and smoke his pipe, had indeed paid his dues in order to have that privilege and that educationally, he Johnson, just didn’t qualify for that job of making money hand over fist for doing absolutely nothing. That was the harsh reality of life and life simply was not fair.
“Depriving things from people that are disliked is a very common way that humans use in order to either get even, or else to imagine that they are getting even with a disliked person, ” the doctor added that very-obvious fact while he dexterously flipping the pages of the pages of literature he was reading.
“But I don’t feel deprived, doctor. In fact, I feel that my daughter is doing me a great favor by treating me in this way since now I don’t need to deal with certain unpleasant things that I strongly disapprove of,” Johnson added very quickly and unlike before, this time he waited for a response.
“Really? Interesting!” doctor Teller responded, more in reference to the information on the page he was reading than to what Johnson had just revealed.
“Does that really constitute a deprivation doctor?”
Johnson was, trying to catch the doctor off guard in order to prove that he really wasn’t listening at all. He had tried it various times before. You know, suddenly asking a question to catch the doc off guard, but it had never worked. You see, doctor Teller, who had vast experience in evading being caught with his mind totally elsewhere, had always somehow cunningly weaseled his educated way out of the potential embarrassment by replying in generalities and then quickly changing the subject.
“Well, that depends on how the parent feels both about the daughter or son and about their children.” Dr. teller said quickly, after having suddenly realized that he was gradually being maneuvered into revealing that he really didn’t give a rat’s fat ass what Johnson was saying, thinking, or feeling.
“But didn’t I tell you just a while ago how I felt about this situation doc?” Johnson replied while squinting at doctor Teller suspiciously. He was no longer lying down on the couch as he had been during the past half-hour, but was taken sitting and leaning forward.
At that statement, doctor Teller blanched. You know, he looked like the proverbial deer caught in headlights. But in this case, the headlights were the truth being revealed. Unable to remember exactly what it was that Johnson had said, he started frantically looking at his watch as if he were being late for some urgent appointment or else that the session had exceeded the time limit. Then he began clearing his throat repeatedly. Seeing that all this didn’t jog his memory, he nervously excused himself saying he needed to go to the men’s room. Johnson waited patiently for a full hour for the doctor to return, but he never did. Instead, he had his secretary schedule another appointment and had her hand Johnson the bill for the session which amounted to 125 dollars. Then he went straight to his 250,000 dollar house in the New York suburbs to relax over a beer and some pretzels while watching TV.
“Damn!” Johnson said under his breath as he considered how much he was paying for all this.
“I really wish I could get into this racket!”