ready to tell the world, while on the other hand he suspected he may have already confided too much in this dickhead. “I think,” he said after some consideration, “I’m starting to outgrow myself.”
“Uh-hmm.” The psychologist nodded before letting his grin expand beyond the diameter of his freckled face, the melon slice becoming a canoe. “Looks to me like you’re shrinking.” And it was true that, since he was no longer tempted by the greasy diet that had sustained him since infancy, no longer particularly interested in food at all, Bernie’s physique had become almost angular. The psychologist leaned back in his chair, twining his fingers behind his head. “Y’know, Bernie, I get all kinds in here—kids that whittle their own arms to bloody stobs, kids that want to blow us all to hell, bad seeds with eyes like lizards and no conscience to speak of. I see girls who soak their tampons in liquid methedrine, boys who can’t keep their peckers in their pants, but I never had one yet that couldn’t keep his soul in his body. You know what I think, Bernie?” He seemed to be waiting for Bernie to venture a guess.
“You think I’m a wack job?”
“Did I say that?” gasped Mr. Murtha, capsizing the canoe. “I never said that.” Fluttering his eyelids. “But now that you mention it…”
Then he let the boy know, entre nous, that he viewed Bernie’s spontaneous fugue states as good practice for the Rapture, that maybe there was hope for at least some Jews in these final days. “However,” said the psychologist, “much as I’ve enjoyed our little sessions, let’s face it, we’re getting nowhere.” Raising himself to a posture of official rectitude, Mr. Murtha then declared that, in his capacity as protector of the emotional welfare of the students of Tishimingo High, it behooved him to notify Bernie’s parents of his disorder.
If in agreement about little else, Mr. and Mrs. Karp showed a solid front in their antipathy to the school psychologist. It was inexcusable that he had dragged them away from their busy schedules (Mrs. Karp had had to cancel an electrolysis treatment) to inform them of what they already knew, that their son was subject to daydreaming. But despite their obvious resistance, Mr. Murtha, in his ex cathedra mode, delivered his diagnosis with unfazed equanimity.
“It’s my opinion that your son,” shooting Bernie a sidelong grin that the boy expected to spread out of all proportion, though today the psychologist managed to keep it in check, “your son is suffering from a rare strain of what might be termed static epilepsy—that is, epilepsy minus the grand mal seizures but still a variety of what we call saint’s disease…”
Mr. Karp looked to his wife (who told him, “Don’t look at me”) to confirm that the man was speaking nonsense, wasn’t he? He had enough on his plate with his own affairs, which had lately come to include Rabbi ben Zephyr’s increasingly demanding commercial initiatives. Seldom deliberately rude, since you never knew who might be a potential client, Julius Karp thought that in this case he could make an exception.
“The kid’s what?” he protested, turning again to his wife who perfunctorily supplied him with Bernie’s age. “Sixteen? Who’s normal at sixteen? So he sometimes drifts away to cloud cuckoo land. This is so bad?” He appealed once more to Mrs. Karp, whose blasé nod seemed to imply that narcosis was a Karp family custom.
Mr. Murtha reminded them that, as a consequence of his condition, Bernie was also flunking out of school. It was the first his parents had heard of it.
“What’s the matter with you?” his father sharply asked his son.
Still marveling at the psychologist’s ability to control his quirks, Bernie was not altogether engaged in the dialogue. “I’m a dunce?” he offered reflexively.
His father seemed to accept this as an adequate explanation, though he was aware that his son’s academic performance, never impressive, had reached its nadir since the thawing of the formerly cryonic old man. But since Rabbi Eliezer’s burgeoning fiscal empire had become (beyond the appliance emporium) Mr. Karp’s chief concern, the tzaddik was now above reproach in his mind.
“It’s a phase,” insisted Mr. Karp. “He’ll grow out of it.”
“That’s what he says,” replied Mr. Murtha, who, turning to share the private joke with Bernie, could no longer suppress a crescent grin that threatened to eclipse his face.
Eager to escape, Mr. Karp conceded that some manner of professional attention was probably in order.