Kristen McHenry
Therapy With Savages
It’s Thursday, which means I see Cyclops for Deep Eye Stimulation. I have to take the 520 and parking is a pain, but it’s worth it. He always laughs when I call him Old One Eye, and he has this way of seeing into me. Today I’m late. I screech into the parking lot, run in, pee in his musty bathroom, and slap each of my cheeks before heading into his office. I want to look rosy and vivacious, although I know he’ll see right through that. Seeing through bullshit is his thing. I sink into the faded leather chair across from him. “I’ve had too much loss,” I tell him.
“Shh,” he says.
“You don’t understand. I can’t make sense of anything.”
He rolls his eye. “You’ve been saying that for years. Maybe you should give up on trying to create some sense of order from your suffering.”
I pout, but it doesn’t seem to make him feel bad.
“Open your eyes,” he says, and I do. His one eye bores into my two.
“I dreamt we were on a boat together, Danny and I, and there was a storm”, I start.
“Pay attention”, he chides. He continues to stare into me, and after a minute or two, I succumb, as always. His eye sears me. His one eye sees my pain with a clarity that two eyes rarely do. “What’s the point of love?” I want to ask, but I’m floating in the spell of his intense stare. I fall into a deep daze and can’t muster enough energy to ask any more questions. Everything goes blue and gold and soft, and then we’re done, and I write out a bad check and thank him. “How are you feeling?” he asks. “Great,” I say, and that’s true for about two hours, and then everything feels shitty again and I’m convinced I wasted my non-existent money.
Exhausted from the session with Cyclops, I go to bed early, but damned if Jason doesn’t peep into my bedroom window at 11:00 p.m. in his hockey mask, which, campy as it is, always terrifies me. I have him on retainer. He’s supposed to rear up once a month or so at random to build my immunity to the chaotic and unpredictable. Aversion therapy of a sort. I set the terms, so it shouldn’t annoy me when he fulfills his contract. But he always picks the most inconvenient times; when I’m tired or irritable or simply not up for a lesson in managing my reaction to change. I record the encounter for billing purposes, and wash an Ambien down with a shot of Jameson. Finally, sleep comes. I dream of being chased in a deep forest by a hooded man intent on my destruction. When he finally catches me and reveals himself, it’s Danny. I don’t bother Googling “What does it mean when your lover shows up in your dreams as your killer?”
On Fridays, I get off early from the Deli Mart and go to see The Yeti for my weekly massage therapy. He starts with the same boring question he always asks: Am I drinking enough water. He’s obsessed with hydration. I mumble something vague. He lays his big, padded paws on my aching shoulders and tells me to breath. “My life has been reduced to a series of fuzzy moments. It’s like someone blurred the lens of my life with Vaseline.” “You can’t breathe if you’re yapping,” he says gently. After a few minutes, I don’t feel like talking anymore. His paws transmit the feeling of snow and the warm, belching breath of a cave and turgid roots laid deep in mountainous earth. I can feel the vibration of the land in his touch, hear the thunder of hooves and the howls of his tribesmen as they hunt. His connection to the heartbeat of the ground thrums through me, thump, thump, thump. I fall asleep and dream of rivers.
King Kong was on NPR a few days ago, shilling for his new primal scream therapy practice. He said it’s making a comeback; they’ve retooled the method since the 70’s and it’s not a punchline anymore. I call for an appointment. There’s a waiting list, but the lady on the phone bumps another client and gives me a spot when I tell her I’m in the middle of a bad break-up with Danny. I was expecting a huge, luxurious, padded room full of potted palm trees and framed photos of the Indonesian islands, but King Kong’s office is a plain, beige-carpeted square box in a strip mall between a Quizmo’s and a Happy Nails. He apologizes and explains he can’t afford soundproofing yet. He has to hunch because the ceiling is too low for his height. The only furniture in the room is a beanbag chair and a chipped roll-top desk. He’s tacked up an inspirational poster: An aerial shot of a stone bridge and some wavy trees that says, “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments”.
He slouches in the beanbag chair, leaving me standing awkwardly in front of him. “I don’t want to hear about your childhood,” he grunts. “I prefer to get straight to the heart of the issue.” He leans back, opens his terrible mouth, and roars so loudly I collapse on the floor into the fetal position. The cheap windows rattle, and someone on the Quizmo’s side pounds on the wall and shouts, “Dude, really?” Kong ignores him. “Your turn,” he grunts. I peel myself from the floor, suddenly shy. “The thing is, um, I don’t have your level of rage”, I babble. “I mean, yeah, I’m upset about Danny, but it’s not like what you went through. Mostly I feel guilty, like, I shouldn’t be looking for more all the time, expecting one person to meet all of my needs. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that that I don’t—“
“Shut up,” he snarls. “Roar!” And because I’m terrified and I don’t have time to think, I do. I stand up and I roar, and I rage and pound my chest, and I scream and it’s magnificent. I don’t have his resonance, but I think if I worked on it long enough, I could. I leave feeling like a superhero. It lasts until I get home and find someone else’s car in my parking spot and an overdue notice from the cable company.
I don’t think I’m going to see Kong again until he gets his shit together and upgrades his office, but I read on Slate about this new thing called “Near Death Therapy” with anacondas in South America. What they do is wrap themselves around your neck so tightly and for so long that you almost asphyxiate, and, if all goes well, you travel to the other side of the veil and experience the hereafter before returning to the earth with a new perspective, maybe even healing powers. I use all of my frequent flyer miles to book a flight to Brazil, where an anaconda named Phineas runs a workshop from his territory on the Jacaré River. It’s a nightmare backpacking trip into the jungle to find him, and when I finally arrive, I’m too late for the ritual, and a smattering of smug travelers are lolling around a campfire drinking smelly tea. They look at me askance.
“Is Phineas still around?” I ask.
“He’s resting”, a chick with blonde dreadlocks says. “The ritual was like, really intense.”
I head down the river until I see his shimmering green and black skin peeking out over the shallows. “I’m sorry I’m late,” I tell him. “My flight was delayed and then I got lost, but I came all this--” Before I can finish my sentence, he’s enveloped my neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. I’m petrified. I truly can’t breathe, and this feels way more real than I wanted it to. At some point, I black out, but just before I do, I send out an energetic probe to the angels, begging for insight, for some presence on the other side to download all of the knowledge of the universe into my being. When I wake up, I’m on the dank, chilly riverbank. My neck is sore, my backpack is gone, and I’m alone. I don’t remember anything, I don’t feel any different, and Phineas has absconded with all of the cash in my fanny pack.
“You’re gullible,” my sister tells me. She picks me up the airport after I sort out my passport issues and make it back to the States. “Why?” I asked, sitting stiff and defensive in the passenger seat of her Wrangler. “Because I’m curious? Because I try things?” I don’t tell her I’m planning to visit Cthulhu next week for soul retrieval. She wouldn’t get it.
After Danny packs up and moves out, the Jinn gather in the apartment to arrange a grieving ritual for me. It’s nice of them, I guess. Most of the time, they’re a pain in the butt. They hide in shampoo bottles and coffee cups; anything remotely resembling a vase, and leak black smoke, and leave burn marks on all of our stuff. My stuff. But this afternoon when I get home, they’re all assembled in the living room around a cotton sheet they took from my bed. They hand me a hot, briny brew and form a circle. They hum a high-pitched song, then a huge, murky lake of brackish water appears in my living room. The Jinn work in unison, blowing hot flames of dust and ash and singing their terrible song, and the lake shrivels to nothing but a baked desert, a stark mosaic of cracked earth right there where the floor used to be. They just leave it there and vanish abruptly into their favorite hiding places. There goes my damage deposit. I think the ritual might have worked though, because I do feel a little less terrible.
Afterwards, I go outside onto the deck and watch the sky darken. I want to call Danny and beg him to come back, but I know I’m too proud for that. Anyway, I won’t have to, because tomorrow I’m seeing a Gorgon who promised she can cure me of remorse for eighty dollars cash. So there’s hope. There’s always hope.
It’s Thursday, which means I see Cyclops for Deep Eye Stimulation. I have to take the 520 and parking is a pain, but it’s worth it. He always laughs when I call him Old One Eye, and he has this way of seeing into me. Today I’m late. I screech into the parking lot, run in, pee in his musty bathroom, and slap each of my cheeks before heading into his office. I want to look rosy and vivacious, although I know he’ll see right through that. Seeing through bullshit is his thing. I sink into the faded leather chair across from him. “I’ve had too much loss,” I tell him.
“Shh,” he says.
“You don’t understand. I can’t make sense of anything.”
He rolls his eye. “You’ve been saying that for years. Maybe you should give up on trying to create some sense of order from your suffering.”
I pout, but it doesn’t seem to make him feel bad.
“Open your eyes,” he says, and I do. His one eye bores into my two.
“I dreamt we were on a boat together, Danny and I, and there was a storm”, I start.
“Pay attention”, he chides. He continues to stare into me, and after a minute or two, I succumb, as always. His eye sears me. His one eye sees my pain with a clarity that two eyes rarely do. “What’s the point of love?” I want to ask, but I’m floating in the spell of his intense stare. I fall into a deep daze and can’t muster enough energy to ask any more questions. Everything goes blue and gold and soft, and then we’re done, and I write out a bad check and thank him. “How are you feeling?” he asks. “Great,” I say, and that’s true for about two hours, and then everything feels shitty again and I’m convinced I wasted my non-existent money.
Exhausted from the session with Cyclops, I go to bed early, but damned if Jason doesn’t peep into my bedroom window at 11:00 p.m. in his hockey mask, which, campy as it is, always terrifies me. I have him on retainer. He’s supposed to rear up once a month or so at random to build my immunity to the chaotic and unpredictable. Aversion therapy of a sort. I set the terms, so it shouldn’t annoy me when he fulfills his contract. But he always picks the most inconvenient times; when I’m tired or irritable or simply not up for a lesson in managing my reaction to change. I record the encounter for billing purposes, and wash an Ambien down with a shot of Jameson. Finally, sleep comes. I dream of being chased in a deep forest by a hooded man intent on my destruction. When he finally catches me and reveals himself, it’s Danny. I don’t bother Googling “What does it mean when your lover shows up in your dreams as your killer?”
On Fridays, I get off early from the Deli Mart and go to see The Yeti for my weekly massage therapy. He starts with the same boring question he always asks: Am I drinking enough water. He’s obsessed with hydration. I mumble something vague. He lays his big, padded paws on my aching shoulders and tells me to breath. “My life has been reduced to a series of fuzzy moments. It’s like someone blurred the lens of my life with Vaseline.” “You can’t breathe if you’re yapping,” he says gently. After a few minutes, I don’t feel like talking anymore. His paws transmit the feeling of snow and the warm, belching breath of a cave and turgid roots laid deep in mountainous earth. I can feel the vibration of the land in his touch, hear the thunder of hooves and the howls of his tribesmen as they hunt. His connection to the heartbeat of the ground thrums through me, thump, thump, thump. I fall asleep and dream of rivers.
King Kong was on NPR a few days ago, shilling for his new primal scream therapy practice. He said it’s making a comeback; they’ve retooled the method since the 70’s and it’s not a punchline anymore. I call for an appointment. There’s a waiting list, but the lady on the phone bumps another client and gives me a spot when I tell her I’m in the middle of a bad break-up with Danny. I was expecting a huge, luxurious, padded room full of potted palm trees and framed photos of the Indonesian islands, but King Kong’s office is a plain, beige-carpeted square box in a strip mall between a Quizmo’s and a Happy Nails. He apologizes and explains he can’t afford soundproofing yet. He has to hunch because the ceiling is too low for his height. The only furniture in the room is a beanbag chair and a chipped roll-top desk. He’s tacked up an inspirational poster: An aerial shot of a stone bridge and some wavy trees that says, “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments”.
He slouches in the beanbag chair, leaving me standing awkwardly in front of him. “I don’t want to hear about your childhood,” he grunts. “I prefer to get straight to the heart of the issue.” He leans back, opens his terrible mouth, and roars so loudly I collapse on the floor into the fetal position. The cheap windows rattle, and someone on the Quizmo’s side pounds on the wall and shouts, “Dude, really?” Kong ignores him. “Your turn,” he grunts. I peel myself from the floor, suddenly shy. “The thing is, um, I don’t have your level of rage”, I babble. “I mean, yeah, I’m upset about Danny, but it’s not like what you went through. Mostly I feel guilty, like, I shouldn’t be looking for more all the time, expecting one person to meet all of my needs. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that that I don’t—“
“Shut up,” he snarls. “Roar!” And because I’m terrified and I don’t have time to think, I do. I stand up and I roar, and I rage and pound my chest, and I scream and it’s magnificent. I don’t have his resonance, but I think if I worked on it long enough, I could. I leave feeling like a superhero. It lasts until I get home and find someone else’s car in my parking spot and an overdue notice from the cable company.
I don’t think I’m going to see Kong again until he gets his shit together and upgrades his office, but I read on Slate about this new thing called “Near Death Therapy” with anacondas in South America. What they do is wrap themselves around your neck so tightly and for so long that you almost asphyxiate, and, if all goes well, you travel to the other side of the veil and experience the hereafter before returning to the earth with a new perspective, maybe even healing powers. I use all of my frequent flyer miles to book a flight to Brazil, where an anaconda named Phineas runs a workshop from his territory on the Jacaré River. It’s a nightmare backpacking trip into the jungle to find him, and when I finally arrive, I’m too late for the ritual, and a smattering of smug travelers are lolling around a campfire drinking smelly tea. They look at me askance.
“Is Phineas still around?” I ask.
“He’s resting”, a chick with blonde dreadlocks says. “The ritual was like, really intense.”
I head down the river until I see his shimmering green and black skin peeking out over the shallows. “I’m sorry I’m late,” I tell him. “My flight was delayed and then I got lost, but I came all this--” Before I can finish my sentence, he’s enveloped my neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. I’m petrified. I truly can’t breathe, and this feels way more real than I wanted it to. At some point, I black out, but just before I do, I send out an energetic probe to the angels, begging for insight, for some presence on the other side to download all of the knowledge of the universe into my being. When I wake up, I’m on the dank, chilly riverbank. My neck is sore, my backpack is gone, and I’m alone. I don’t remember anything, I don’t feel any different, and Phineas has absconded with all of the cash in my fanny pack.
“You’re gullible,” my sister tells me. She picks me up the airport after I sort out my passport issues and make it back to the States. “Why?” I asked, sitting stiff and defensive in the passenger seat of her Wrangler. “Because I’m curious? Because I try things?” I don’t tell her I’m planning to visit Cthulhu next week for soul retrieval. She wouldn’t get it.
After Danny packs up and moves out, the Jinn gather in the apartment to arrange a grieving ritual for me. It’s nice of them, I guess. Most of the time, they’re a pain in the butt. They hide in shampoo bottles and coffee cups; anything remotely resembling a vase, and leak black smoke, and leave burn marks on all of our stuff. My stuff. But this afternoon when I get home, they’re all assembled in the living room around a cotton sheet they took from my bed. They hand me a hot, briny brew and form a circle. They hum a high-pitched song, then a huge, murky lake of brackish water appears in my living room. The Jinn work in unison, blowing hot flames of dust and ash and singing their terrible song, and the lake shrivels to nothing but a baked desert, a stark mosaic of cracked earth right there where the floor used to be. They just leave it there and vanish abruptly into their favorite hiding places. There goes my damage deposit. I think the ritual might have worked though, because I do feel a little less terrible.
Afterwards, I go outside onto the deck and watch the sky darken. I want to call Danny and beg him to come back, but I know I’m too proud for that. Anyway, I won’t have to, because tomorrow I’m seeing a Gorgon who promised she can cure me of remorse for eighty dollars cash. So there’s hope. There’s always hope.
Kristen McHenry is a poet and fiction writer who lives and works in Seattle. Her work has been seen in publications including Busk, Tiferet, Big Pulp, Dark Matter, and the anthology, “Many Trails to the Summit”. Her chapbook “The Goatfish Alphabet” was runner-up in qarrtsiluni’s 2009 chapbook contest, and was published by Naissance Press in April of 2010. Her second chapbook, “Triplicity: Poems in Threes” was published by Indigo Ink Press in 2011, and a pairing of her short stories was published under the title of “Tender Vessels” in 2013 by Loyal Stone Press. She loves to sing, but only in the car with all of the windows rolled up.