Fitting the questions to a T

“Dr. K” I rapped on the stall door lightly, hoping not to disturb somebody other than the good doctor occupying the third stall down.

Noticing the men’s restroom wasn’t exactly squeaky clean at the present moment, I dared not breathe too deep since a heavy funky aroma of piss and body odor lingered in the air. “Dr. K, are you in there?”

I tugged the graffitied stall door lightly to check whether it was locked, and it was, so I knocked again “Dr. K it’s Emma, I really need to chat.”

No sooner had the words escaped but a man walks into the restroom, looks at me strangely and continues his way to the urinals. I act as aloof as possible as I peep through the cracks in the stall “God damnit I see you in there, what the hell, are you sleeping?!?!” I pound on the poor door with my closed fist and hope that he hadn’t actually died in there. Meanwhile the strange man at the urinal is completing his business but watching me via the mirror above them.

I still don’t understand why they put mirrors above urinals, I had no idea men liked to look at themselves while they piss. Or for that matter each other.

Something stirred inside the stall “Emma my child, can’t you see a man is trying to take a piss in here? Had you been polite you would have let him finish before proceeding with your harassment.”

The man at the urinal zipped quickly and left.

The door lock opens, I enter the stall with the good Dr. who it appears hadn’t gone home to change yet, since he was dressed in his suit and tie still. “Wait, his harassment or yours… Because really he appeared to have no issue with me in here.”

“I spoke of my own harassment but I must declare that you in the men’s room visiting me in my stall will start rumors. People gossip all the time as you know.” Dr. K grinned slyly and motioned for me to lock the stall door behind me. “Now that you interrupted my nap you must give me a cigarette.”

“Dr. K, you don’t smoke.” I retorted, almost clutching the pack in my pocket.

“Ah true, but if you keep coming to my stall I may as well start now.” His eyebrow raised and he extended an open palm for receipt of visitation fee.

“Okay,” I lifted one from my pocket “but don’t you dare call me an enabler.”

“I shouldn’t, you already know that too well.”

I pursed my lips a bit, but was met with warm strange eyes “You need a light too I suppose?” He placed the Marlboro in his mouth, tilting his head to ignite the end as I offered him my flame. “Well I’m sorry, I suppose I figured you were awake… and is that what the fuck you do in here? You sleep? Dr. K you know I’ve never questioned your bizarre behavior but I swear nobody believes that there’s a grown man with a PHD that actually sits in a bathroom stall in a raunchy fetish speak easy.”

“Are you taking my inventory?” He exhaled into my face.

“I’m saying it’s bizarre” I blew it back at him. “If it’s masturbation doctor, we can address that. I don’t ever think we’ve discussed your masturbatory habits.”

Dr. K laughed a full joyous bought of laughter, so strongly his head drew back and his belly jiggled “Witness the lost address the found. It’s so impeccably appealing to me…. Please Emma, tell me why you came to my womb here in the bathroom.”

“I have to talk about my issue, and then I need to address a concern for a friend.”

“Ah,” He loosened the tie from his neck and unbuttoned his collar, ashing the cigarette on the floor “Alright, tell me which is first, yourself or your friend.”

“My friend first… I have this friend you see and she..”

Dr, K interrupted me softly as he drew again from the smoke “It says a lot about the character of a person that makes antecedent conversations in regards to others.”

“Thanks, anyway… So it’s like this with her, it seems she…” I started to discuss my friends conundrums, and then detailed the history of the relationship for him as well (or at least the best I knew from her side of the story). Dr. K sat there the whole time, looking back at me, staring through me, sometimes blankly… I hate it when fucking psychologists do that, anybody else hate that? “… and so now that’s about where she’s at, and I’m at and well, it’s fucked up don’t you think?”

“Mmm hmm.” By now he had well finished his smoke, extinguishing it between his legs to the toilet and began rubbing his chin. “That’s a very difficult situation, not many people choose to be withdrawn from interaction that way.”

“Yea she’s torn up about it and we thought that maybe you could give us a new angle to work with.”

“I wasn’t speaking of your friend, I was speaking of him.” Dr.K could see by the look on my face I had mis-understood his sympathy for the situation. “It’s clear the gentleman is confused and doesn’t know how to proceed with things. If that were clear in his mind, chances are he would have extended a clear answer in one direction or another.”

He then shifted on the toilet “Do you agree?” I nodded as I could see there was more to this analysis coming, and he continued “Many times it seems we are unsure of what we really want, and we dwell. But at the same time there is always pressure for closure. Closure, closure, closure… It’s disgusting really how we must not leave anything unattended or undone anymore yet it’s all repetitive. The answer must be gotten or we will never feel right with ourselves, and until the answer or object is found we must obsess over it, pick it apart, deliberate it. Why Emma dear, why do we do that?”

I looked at my feet “Closure doc, we do it for closure.”

“And why must you have closure, because of the unknown?”

I looked back up at him and answered honestly, as I always try to since the guy’s a fucking walking lie detector. “Because I think it’s weird that it’s just left to ‘hang’ like that, with nothing concrete.”

“Concrete is heavy and hard to break down.” He smiled warmly once again “You want water, much easier to get into.”

What the fuck that meant, I had no clue… But we were on a roll now with the therapy so I offered another smoke, to which he obliged. “Emma, you remember Balzac… I know you read him quite a bit.”

“I do, not lately but yeah… Balzac.” The men’s restroom door opens with a bang, and the sound of heavy footsteps enter the room. I twist and peek through the crack outward toward the urinals to see if it was some one I recognized, but it wasn’t.

“My child” The doctor whispered “I hope we will be talking about your voyeur issues next, it’s fascinating to me.”

“I was hoping it was Shawn or somebody” I whispered back “Can we stay on Balzac please?” Then I raised my voice, shaking my head ridiculously “And why are we whispering!?!?! Everybody knows I come in here all the time, I’m like a fucking permanent fixture in here these days.”

The guy at the urinal jumped at least three feet, causing him to piss on the floor as he turned to look over his shoulder at the woman’s voice broadcasting from stall #3.

Dr. K glared stern, yet friendly “Rumors my dear, rampant and engrossing.” We both listened as the man that wet himself proceeded to the sink for a quick wash before leaving. “You as a permanent fixture in the men’s room will increase business, I dare say that man will provide great word of mouth for this haunt.” He exhaled “But then I will have to find a new bathroom, perhaps the ladies room.”

“Balzac doctor, we were on Balzac” I jumpstarted the conversation to it’s appropriate path, hoping to get well, closure I suppose. We stared at each other silently for a moment as if the conversation would be redundant, but I could see that instead the doctor was only looking at me as if to say, remember the cardinal rule…. And sure enough, he did. And that is why Dr.K is doctor K.

Clenching his smoke and giving a sigh, the man quoted like a reference guide “And what did Balzac say? Hmmm Em?” He said;

“It is a peculiar feature of the human brain that even the highest degree of intellectual capacity and the most varied accumulation of experience are unable to overcome a man’s innate disabilities.”
The good doctor then dragged from his smoke, and continued rather matter of factly “However clear an insight one may have into one’s own temperamental defects, one has no power to eliminate them.”

He paused as if expecting me the light bulb to flicker before he finished “Diagnosis is not the same thing as cure, and we can see again and again how the wisest of men are unable to control their small follies which are the butt of other peoples ridicule.”

I heard what he said, and it made sense… but still “Doc are you calling this a flaw?”

“We all have them, some of us choose to evade situations by hiding in the stall of a fetish speak easy.” He winked, as he dropped the smoldering butt into the toilet bowl, “Others choose to do it a little less alien.”

I nodded, as another man entered the men’s room with a partner, one headed for the stall next to us, the other perched at the urinal, I again peeked through to see if it was any body familiar to me. “Alright doc, I guess that makes sense to me but how does she cope with it? Any formulated whimsical ideas as to that?”

“Does your friend feel smug about her reactions to the imperfect communication at hand?”

“I suppose, she never really said she was disappointed in her attempts to conjure some kind of reaction from him.”

The man in the stall next to us gave out a sigh and then boistered “Em is that you over there?”

I recognized the voice as a good friend “Yeah” I giggled “It’s just me and Dr.K…”

“You know” Dr.K interjected “I have never organized my library.”

My good friend in the stall next to us laughed, I assume because of my presence in the bathroom… Dr. K continued on “Reason being, if I organized my books I would be done with that project…”

I looked to the doctor completely confused at where he was going with this analogy “Yeah, okay and?”

“I find it better to leave things unabridged for fear I will not like the decision I made to alphabetize my books. Therefore I leave it as messy as possible without closure, that way I can be satisfied with my current situation and not commit to a ridiculous arrangement.”

“EM,” the voice next to us larked “I can’t take a shit with you two talking about organization.”

“Perhaps we should be discussing fiber then.” I replied back, the man at the urinal snickered “Come on, give me one good grunt and be done with it….”

“Fuck you” the voice replied. Dr. K looked at me with concern, stood, and leaned into me…

“Can we now approach your conundrum sweet lady?” He said softly “I am ready to hear about you now. Do you have questions? Need direction?”

“No doctor, I think you pretty much nailed everything I could have asked with your answer about my pal.” Smiling, I turned to unlock the stall door and walk out, Dr.K followed me as I left, but made his way to the urinal next to the man that had entered with my friend in the stall. I banged loudly on my friends stall door to be irritating “Okay fucker, you can take your shit now, we’re done!”

“Dammit you scared the shit outta me!” he erupted “Now I have to start all over!”

The doctor and the other man laughed at our antics as I made my way to the bathroom door, but as I flung the door open to leave, the good doctor had one last thing to say “Remember girl, when there is no left or right there is always the middle. There is no need for closure ever, you can always stop things and sit in the middle of the circle instead of spinning clockwise in your pursuit to find the answers. There is nothing wrong with the middle, it’s a fostered place to regroup and reassess.”

I nodded, thanked him, and freed myself from the men’s room.