My latest therapist seems certain that he (and he alone) is going to figure me out. It’s precious.

Trevor is his name. Trevor Deukmejian. 

I call him Duke. I asked him if it was okay – that I gave him that nickname. I don’t wish to be disrespectful to my therapist, after all. Let’s just say that Duke didn’t demure. Not exactly. I did sense some reluctance though. And yeah, that apprehension stirred something in me.

Young guy. British mother. Armenian father. Very likely bullied on the playground as a child. 

I learned the origins of his parents from him during our first session. “So, tell me a bit about your childhood,” he’d said. “What were your parents like?”

Ech. Cliché. Is this what they teach all these guys in therapist school? I’d thought. 

I’d leaned back deeper into the cushion on the couch. It didn’t have much give. I daresay it may have even been resisting me. Fuck you, couch. “My parents?”

Trevor had nodded.

“What can I say?” I’d shrugged. “Normal, I suppose,” I’d said, attempting to smile while thinking distant, moronic, useless, occasionally cruel. I’d then glanced at the nameplate on his desk. It looked like a VERY recent graduation gift.

“Interesting name,” I’d said nodding toward the nameplate, at which point he revealed his roots. It was a rookie move. And one, it only somewhat saddens me to say, that I was later able to use against him. 

Meanwhile, that he was bullied on the playground was purely my dime-store analysis. But I’m always right about such things. Most things, really.

Today’s session is our eighth and I do have to hand it to Trevor. The playground wimp has not broken under my cleverness and fortitude. Usually by now, they do. Even the most experienced among them have; those with their lavishly furnished offices, fancy degrees, and parade of letters behind their names. Never, I must say, has there been a duller parade.

Trevor opens his office door and a squirrelly middle-aged woman exits. She glances up at me for a moment, then averts her gaze. Not quickly enough for me to ignore that her eyes are rimmed in red and her face puffy. I pretend I don’t see her and instead look at a framed piece of horrifically awful artwork in the waiting room. Her ruddy swollen face brings to mind those red rubberheads you squeeze for stress relief and their eyes pop out. I’m trying to resist my urge to laugh.

“Hey there, Duke,” I say to Trevor as the woman passes. 

Trevor watches the rubberhead lady leaving and I wonder if he’s reminded of the same thing but professionalism dictates that he must not show it.

“Please, come in,” he says. 

“That’s quite a piece of art,” I say as I enter his office, glancing over my shoulder at the rectangular mess in the waiting area. As Trevor shuts the door behind me, the couch cruelly beckons me. I walk over to the chair instead, subtly flipping the bird at the couch.  

“One of my patients made that,” he says. “Part of her art therapy.”

“Ooooooh, I gotcha,” I say. I’m thinking he must be required to hang this tripe on his wall as some sort of advertisement and is ashamed of how insultingly bad it is. “Clearly, no one has given her crayons, scissors, or glue sticks since she was in kindergarten,” I say, laughing. “Am I right?”

Trevor sits in his seat. “Tell me what’s happening,” he says.

“Oh,” I’m taken somewhat aback at the coolness of his demeanor. “I see we’re getting right to business today, Duke.”

“Well,” he says thoughtfully, “this is the eighth session of the fifteen that the court has appointed. And I’m not sure we’re getting anywhere.”

I lean forward in my chair and look him directly in the eyes. “How does that make you feel?”

He sighs. “I know what you’re doing,” he says, shaking his head. 

“Do you?” 

“I do.”

See. He thinks he’s figured me out.

“So then you know,” I begin, letting each word eke out like strangely deformed puppies from a very pregnant dog, “that I’m starting to feel the urge again.”

“Hmmmmmmm.” Try as he might, Trevor’s eyes cannot betray a subtle spark of interest. “I did not know that.”

“Oh, yeah,” I say, eyes widening.

“So when did that start?” He’s attempting to stay blasé but his greenness has not allowed him the tools to hone this skill yet.

I shrug. “A few days ago, I suppose,” I say.

“And have you acted on it?”

“I have,” I smile.

Trevor is starting to believe me. I see it in his face and he leans forward and takes a deep breath. He releases an exhale and squints his eyes at me. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I can,” I say. “I went to the aquarium.”

He takes another deep breath. “And what did you do there?”

“Have you ever heard of the parrotfish?”

“No.”

“I hadn’t either. But a friend of mine who’s spent a fair amount of time in a variety of southeast Asian countries said that the flesh of the beaked parrotfish tastes remarkably like lobster.”

“Okay,” he says with some trepidation.

“So I thought it only right that I test this hypothesis.”

Trevor is now letting evidence of concern seep through the steely demeanor he’s laboring so hard to master.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” I say.

“Okay,” he says, now holding his breath. I’m breaking him.

“No human, at least.”

“Well,” he says, nervousness in his voice, “that’s something.” Every time I notice him becoming more panicky, I find it makes me calmer. Until at last, there he is. The child on the playground wearing the wrong shoes, sporting the wrong haircut, trying so goddam hard to be funny and cool like the other boys and failing at every step.

“So I took a sledgehammer and smashed the tropical fish tank!” I say with great bluster and a hearty laugh. Then I become very calm. “It turns out that parrotfish does NOT taste like lobster.” 

Trevor sinks back into his chair. He’s been taken. And he looks as defeated and deflated as an escaped balloon flattened on the road by a truck. I’m the truck, in case you didn’t get the analogy. And just when he thought he was figuring me out. 

So precious, that Duke.

Because the thing is, there is no urge. There has never been an urge. Or a mild compulsion. Not even an inclination. Instead, I have only these ideas and notions that swirl haphazardly around me like naughty children. Or mosquitos. Neither of which can be annihilated. 

Even now, as I sit here with Trevor “Duke” Deukmejian, several new ideas detonate inside of me.