Freaky Deaky

Chapter 3

Chris asked the St. Antoine Clinic doctor if he thought a psychiatric evaluation was really necessary. All he was doing was transferring to another section. He'd still be at 1300 Beaubien, up from the sixth to the seventh floor and down at the other end of the hall.

The St. Antoine Clinic doctor, a serious young guy with narrow shoulders and glasses, not much hair, was looking at the sheet Chris had filled out. He didn't seem to be listening. He said, "Tell me if anything I read is incorrect. You're Christopher Mankowski, no middle initial. Date of birth, October 7, 1949."

Chris told him so far it was correct.

The doctor cleared his throat. He cleared it a lot, faint little growls coming from deep in there. "You're presently a sergeant, bomb and explosives technician, assigned to the Crime Laboratory Section."

"I'm also a firearms examiner, you might want to put down. Or I was. Right now I'm not sure what I am."

"You like guns?"

"Do I like them? I know guns, I'm not a collector."

"How many do you own?"

"I carry a thirty-eight Special and I have a Glock my dad gave me I keep at work. I don't want to get burglarized and have some head running around with a seventeen-shot automatic."

"That's what a Glock is?"

"It's Austrian, nine millimeter. Very lightweight."

"Even with all those bullets in it?"

"That's correct."

There was a silence. Then the sound of a throat being cleared. "You've been with the Detroit Police since June 1975."

"That's correct," Chris said. "Another month will be twelve years."

The young doctor said, "You don't have to tell me when the information is correct. Only when it isn't correct." So when the doctor said, "You were in the military, honorably discharged, but you served less than a year," Chris didn't say anything. That was correct. He was stateside five months and the rest of the time with the Third Brigade, 25th Infantry, in Vietnam. Chris had a feeling the doctor didn't like to ask a question unless he already knew the answer. He was the type of person witnesses never remembered. The wedding ring didn't mean shit. He probably vacuumed and washed the dishes in his lab coat. It was like he wanted you to know he was a doctor, but wasn't that sure of it himself. Why did he wear a lab coat to sit at his desk asking questions? What did he think might get spilled on him?

Why was the chair, where Chris sat next to the desk, turned around instead of facing the doctor? So that they were both looking in the same direction, at framed diplomas on the otherwise bare wall. Two of them, from Wayne State. Chris would have to turn and look over his shoulder to see the doctor. But wouldn't see his face anyway, because of the afternoon glare on the windows and because the doctor almost always had his head down. Why was he hiding?

His voice said, "I gather, while in the army you suffered some type of disability?"

He gathered correctly, so Chris didn't say anything. There was a silence until the doctor cleared his throat a few times and said, "Is that correct?" Breaking his own rule. Chris told him yes, it was. Then had to wait some more.

"You attended the University of Michigan two years."

"I quit to go in the army."

"You enlisted?"

"That's right." There was no reason to tell the doctor he'd flunked out and would be drafted anyway.

"Why?"

"Why'd I enlist? I wanted to see what war was like."

There was a dead silence, not even the sound of the guy clearing his throat.

"When I came out I went back to school."

"And got your degree?"

"Well, actually I was about ten credits shy."

"So you're not a university graduate."

Jesus Christ. Chris waited again while the guy made corrections, got that record straight.

"You're single, have never been married."

That was correct, but required an explanation.

"You might want to know I almost got married a couple of times," Chris said. "What I mean to say is I'm not single by choice, I would've married either one. But once they start wringing their hands you know it's not gonna work. See, they were afraid, more than anything else."

There was a silence again, behind him and off his right shoulder, where the young doctor was making notes.

"Why were they afraid of you?"

"They weren't afraid of me. They were afraid, you know, something could happen to me, being a police officer. It's the same kind of situation I'm in right now, why I want to transfer. I've been going with a young lady--actually we're living together, in her apartment. It's right up the street, as a matter of fact, on East Lafayette. I can walk to 1300, or Phyllis drops me off if she goes in early. She's with Manufacturers Bank, in the Trust Department." Chris paused. What was he telling him all that for? But then felt he should explain why Phyllis drove him to work. "See, my car was stolen last month. Parked right across the street from 1300, if you can believe it. On Macomb. Eighty-four Mustang, they never found it."

The young doctor didn't seem to give a shit about his Mustang. Chris heard the pen tapping.

"Anyway Phyllis, we start out, was always a little nervous about what I do. The last couple months she's gotten more and more paranoid I'm gonna lose my hands. It's not what if I get blown up, it's just the idea of losing my hands that seems to worry her. How would I eat? How would I dress myself? I told her I'm not gonna lose my hands, I'm very careful in my work. But if I ever did, I told her she could help me out. See, at first I tried to kid about it, tell her different things she could do for me. Like when I go to the bathroom, things like that. But I realized it was the wrong way to handle it. She'd turn white. You could see her imagining different situations. But she brought it up so often I started looking at my hands. I'd be looking at them," Chris said, holding up his palms, looking at them now, "without even realizing I was doing it. I'd see things in my hands, lines, I never noticed before. I finally decided it wasn't worth it, talking about it all the time; I'd transfer to another section. Also, you have to understand, it isn't all that exciting. Most of the time you're just sitting around." Chris waited. Then glanced over his shoulder.

The doctor was busy making notes, shielding the pad with his left arm. "How long were you on the Bomb Squad?"

"Six years. I started out in radio cars, Twelfth Precinct. Sometimes I worked plainclothes. You know there's quite a gay community there, around Palmer Park, and when you have that, you have fairy hawks, muggers that specialize in gays. I'd dress up like a fruitcake and stroll through the park, you know, asking for it."

"That sounds like entrapment."

"It does, doesn't it. I transferred to Arson, I had some experience in that area from before. Three years I worked for an insurance company as a claims investigator. But I didn't care much for Arson. Walk around in water in burned-out buildings, your clothes smell all the time. I think that might've been the reason the second young lady walked out. I had to hang my clothes by an open window. So I transferred to the Bomb Squad."

"Why did you do that?"

"I just told you, to get out of Arson."

"I mean why did you choose the Bomb Squad?"

"I knew the guys there, I'd run into them."

"Was there another reason, a motivating factor?"

There might've been. Chris wasn't sure if it made sense or if he should bring it up.

"Something you wanted to prove to yourself?"

"Like what?"

"Say a test of your manhood."

"My manhood?" Chris looked over his shoulder at the doctor in the lab coat, head down, writing away. "Why would handling explosives be a test of your manhood? It can end your manhood in a hurry, blow your balls off."

He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it.

"That's why I suggest you might have approached it as a test, a challenge."

Chris said, "You don't stay on a job six years to prove something. You have to like it. There's risk, sure. You accept that going in and you handle it, or you get out." Chris waited. The young doctor was hiding back there writing again, drawing conclusions, making judgments about him. Chris said, "I don't know what attracted me. . . . There was something I've wondered about that happened in Vietnam, if it had anything to do with it. You know, like in my subconscious mind."

The voice said, "You were in Vietnam?"

"It doesn't seem to have a direct connection, though."

"What doesn't?"

"See, when I was over there I was assigned to a Recon-Intelligence platoon, working with mostly a bunch of ARVNs. You know what I mean? South Vietnamese, supposedly the good guys. One of my jobs was to interrogate prisoners they'd bring in and then recommend their disposition."

"Meaning how to dispose of them?"

"Meaning what to do with them. Let 'em go, send 'em back to Brigade . . . but that's not what I'm talking about. Well, it is and it isn't."

There was a silence. Chris tried to think of the right words, ways to begin. One sunny day I was sitting in the R and I hootch at Khiem Hanh. . . .

"The day I'm talking about, I was sent out to question a guy the ARVNs believed was working for the Vietcong. An informer with a sack over his head had fingered the guy and they pulled him out of his village. I got there, they have this old man standing barefoot on a grenade with the pin pulled, his toes curled around to hold the lever in place and his hands tied behind his back. I never saw anybody so scared in my life. They have him behind a mud wall that used to be part of a house, in case his foot slipped off and the grenade blew. I had to talk to the guy across the wall with my interpreter hunched down behind it; he refused to stand up. The rest of them, the ARVNs, they're off about thirty meters or so having a smoke. Anyway, I ask the old guy a few questions. He doesn't know anything about the VC, he's a farmer. He's crying, he's shaking he's so scared, trying to keep his foot on the grenade. He can't even name his own kids. I tell the ARVNs the guy's clean, come on put the pin back in and let him go. By the time I cut him loose I look up, the fucking ARVNs are walking off, going home. I go after 'em partway, I'm yelling, 'Where's the goddamn pin?' They don't know. They point, it's over there somewhere, on the ground. I yell some more. 'Well, help me find the goddamn thing. We can't leave the guy like that.' One of them says, 'Tell him to pick it up and throw it away.' They didn't care. They walk off laughing, think it's funny. Some of those guys, they even knew the old man. They knew he wasn't VC, but they didn't care. They walked away." Chris paused. Man, just thinking about it . . .

"I crawled around looking for the pin, finally gave up. The old man's crying--there was no way he could handle that grenade. The only thing I could think of, have him step off, I'd pick it up quick and throw it. But I couldn't tell him what I wanted to do, my fucking interpreter was gone. I did try, I went through the motions; but you could see he didn't understand. The poor guy couldn't think straight. The only thing I could do was walk up to him, push him aside and grab it. But I had to keep him calm. I walk up to him, I'm going, 'Don't worry, Papa. Nothing to get excited about.' I'm about as far as that door from him he can't do it anymore. He comes running at me, lunges and grabs hold, and in the five seconds we had I couldn't get the guy off me. I could not get him off. I tried to drag him out of there. . . ." Chris stared at the doctor's diploma hanging on the bare institutional wall.

"The grenade blew with the old man hanging onto me. It killed him and tore up both of my legs. I was in-country fifteen weeks and out of the army."

There was a long silence followed by faint sounds, the serious young doctor tapping his ballpoint pen on the desk, clearing his throat.

"As you approached the old man, Sergeant Mankowski, were you aware of being afraid?"

"Was I afraid? Of course I was afraid, I was scared to death."

"All right, but you also felt, I believe, a deep hostility toward the ARVN soldiers."

I have to get out of here, Chris thought.

"So that, in effect, it was your intense anger that enabled you to overcome your fear."

"That must've been it," Chris said, "my hostility."

"But now, in comparable high-risk situations, your fear is no longer dampened, let's say, by acute feelings of anger. It's out in the open and you have to deal with it. A fear which you equate, specifically, with the loss of your hands."

Chris turned in the chair, quick, and caught the sneak looking at him, saw his eyes there for a moment in round glasses.

"I'm not worried about my hands, Phyllis is."

The doctor had his head down again, checking his notes. "You said, quote, 'I started thinking about my hands. I'd be looking at them without even realizing I was doing it.' "

"Because of Phyllis."

"You're looking at them right now."

Chris put his hands in his lap, locked his fingers together and stared straight ahead at the asshole doctor's diploma. The thing to do was just answer yes or no, don't argue. Finish and get out.

There was a silence.

"I'm told a fatality occurred yesterday, a bomb exploded. What was the circumstance of the man's death?"

Chris said, "We believe the deceased attempted to outrun a substance that explodes at the rate of fifteen thousand feet per second and didn't make it."

There was another silence.

"You did everything you could?"

"I'll get you my Case Assigned report if you want to read it."

The silence this time was longer. Chris began to think maybe they were finished.

"Are you aware of other fears?"

"Like what?"

"Are you afraid of animals, insects?"

Chris hesitated, giving it some thought before saying, "I don't like spiders." That would be safe; nobody in the world liked spiders.

The doctor said, "Oh? That's interesting, a fear of spiders."

"I didn't say I was afraid of spiders, I said I didn't like them."

"Do you think you might be trying to minimize, substitute dislike for fear? I pose the question, Sergeant Mankowski, because a fear of spiders can indicate a dysfunction in the area of sexual identification. Or, more precisely, a fear of bisexuality."

Chris stood up. He turned his chair around and sat down again, facing the doctor.

"You trying to tell me if I don't like spiders it means I go both ways?"

The young doctor looked up. For the first time his gaze in the round glasses held.

"You seem to feel threatened."

"Look, they send me over here, it's supposed to be a routine exam. Has my job been getting to me? I feel any stress? No, I just want a transfer, on account of Phyllis. Now you're trying to tell me I have a problem."

"I haven't suggested you have a problem."

"Then what're you trying to do, with the spiders?"

The young doctor kept looking right at him now. "I'm suggesting the spider is a symbol--if you want a clinical explanation--that externalizes a more threatening impulse. One that quite possibly indicates a pregenital fear of bisexual genitalia, usually in the form of a phallic wicked mother."

Chris kept staring at the young doctor, who stared right back at him and said, "Does that answer your question?"

Chris said, "Yes, it does, thank you," and felt some relief; because all the guy was doing, he was playing doctor with him, showing off. Little asshole sitting there in his lab coat with all those words in his head to dump on the dumb cop, giving him that pregenital genitalia bullshit. There was no way to compete with the guy. The best thing to do was to nod, agree. So when the doctor asked him:

"What's your feeling about snakes?"

Chris said, "I like snakes, a lot. I've never had any trouble with snakes."

The doctor was still looking at him, hanging on, not wanting to let go. "You understand that your previous assignment could be psychosocially debilitating?"

Chris said, "Sure, I can understand that."

"Then there's the correlation between your fear of spiders and your desire to prove, through the handling of high explosives, your manhood. I believe you suggested the work could be emasculating. It can, quote, 'blow your balls off.' "

"That's an expression," Chris said. "You don't have to take it literally." He watched the sneaky doctor nod, thinking up something else.

"By the way, have you ever experienced impotence?"

Chris took his time. He didn't see a trap, so he said, "No, as a matter of fact, I haven't. Not once in my life."

"Really?"

"I've got witnesses."

"Well, it's not important."

Chris stared at the doctor's lowered head, the thin, carefully combed hair. "You don't believe me, do you?"

The doctor tapped his pen without looking up. "I suppose you could be one of the rare exceptions."

"To what?"

"Well, in a study made at the University of Munster--that's in West Germany," the doctor said, looking up--"tests showed that assertive, self-confident, macho-type males, if you will, were found almost invariably to have a low sperm count."

"That's interesting," Chris said. "We finished here?" He got up, not waiting for an answer, said, "I have to get back, clean out my desk . . ." and saw the guy's innocent young-doctor face raise with a pleasant expression.

"Yes, you're leaving Bombs and Explosives. What we haven't yet discussed is where you're going. How did you put it, 'Up to the seventh floor and down at the other end of the hall'?"

The doctor waited as Chris sat down again.

"You seem somewhat agitated."

"I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

"I'm supposed to meet Phyllis at Galligan's." Chris looked at his watch: it was four twenty. "At five."

The young doctor said, "We shouldn't be too much longer," and smiled. He did, he smiled for the first time, looked right at Chris and said, "What I'm curious about, and perhaps you can explain, why you've requested a transfer to Sex Crimes."