THE SHRINKS NEXT DOOR — BARBIE

I love a good nightmare. 

“Barbie” WRIGHT ground floor back, 10am Monday, Dr. Bryant

Jan the receptionist said Dr. Bryant will see you now Miss Wright.

Something about her walk reminds me of Barbie, the little feet always tippy-toes for high heels I used to say click! click! click! and I imagined her with painted-on Barbie eyes, a blonde do like Tippi Hedron I’d just seen in The Birds, a pink plastic van parked on the street maybe a door swinging open those latches were always shit.

I know where they’re going so I move the glass off that wall rush through the kitchen to the den where pictures of my parents and grandparents hang and it’s funny when I’m working in this room it’s as if I am eavesdropping on them, my parents and grandparents I mean, and not the shrink next door who as I mentioned is Dr. Emmett Bryant, a name requiring precise diction when said aloud.

There are chalk circles like bubbles on the wall indicating the most sensitive areas. I quickly choose my sweet spot, pull up the pouf and then like a jackknife put my pad of paper on my knee, take the pen from behind my ear, place the glass and lean in ready to catch every word.

It’s always the introductions at first they decide what to call each other where to put her purse where she should sit or if she should lie down like in the movies, like the Dr. Penfield, I smell burnt toast one or what was that one about Eve?

He doesn’t offer anything just gets right to it like he’s a surgeon.

It’s always trauma of course nobody’s going to sit there and get cut open for anything less. I mean sometimes they offer it right up, show him where to make the first incision, but other times it’s more insidious and requires exploratory surgery and that’s the kind I like.

Much of the trauma is the childhood kind which I enjoy.  

It takes a while for things to get going next door, for the blood to flow and tongue to loosen. It’s quiet for a few minutes so a bit of time to tell you what I’ve been thinking about since Barbie arrived with those clicks.

My mom made all the Barbie clothes for my sister and me. When I think back on it now she was the real thing. They were beautiful, those dresses, so intricate, real darts and everything, cinched waists, very shapely. She added lace to some, other embellishments too, and even sewed a pearl necklace on the long blush satin number. She knew we’d change the clothes all the time – our Barbies were busy bees! – so each snap had four bundles of stitches since we weren’t careful although not as reckless as she predicted.

Childhood trauma means different things to different people and is perhaps too common, too overused a term, a catch-all if you will because what some think is trauma is a walk in the park for others. I mean take Barbie for instance she said her father never paid attention to her blah blah blah. What I thought was more interesting was right away the shrink asked about her mother, you know, did she get attention from her mother which in my opinion doesn’t matter when she clearly felt she was neglected by her father. 

It’s like saying I’m thirsty and somebody saying take a bath.

It’s always the same after the first flutter there’s more silence I think it’s how trust develops.

I don’t know how she did it my busy mother you know with us and my brother and my dad out of town most of the time and she didn’t drive but marched us all to the grocery store and the laundry mat, etc. yet she found time to fiddle with elaborate dresses so small she could fit them on her hand which she did, placing the knuckles of her first two fingers where Barbie’s tits would go so she’d get the darts right and I’d die laughing inside.

Usually with women they are unable to love the right kind of men due to absent fathers blah blah blah. They cry about being ignored and the shrink’s no help he doesn’t say oh for chrisssssake don’t be such a baby.

It’s the cruel mothers I like – wait don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean the Sybil kind of cruel, but the others, the ones whose twisted behaviour is tinged with a certain kind of love although toxic producing daughters the shrink next door pokes and prods with question marks like scalpels. 

Eventually the spewing starts – it’s fascinating – I can’t write fast enough and shorthand doesn’t cover those phonics.