Fictional Therapy

The three of us were sitting around a circular table in a bar not too far from where her dad lived with his other family. There was a single light bulb above the table, which felt dramatic or as if we were about to plan some kind of bank heist, but it was what it was: It was my first time to this town and the third time to this state. I was still surprised they agreed to meet up with me.

"Aren't you afraid she'll be mad at you for coming to talk with me?" her dad asked.

"She's kind of always mad at me right now, anyway."

He half-frowned half-smiled, considering this, and nodded.

I was sitting at a table with her father and her father's best friend who was named after an amphibian.

"I know you two don't know me. I don't know if she's mentioned me a ton, but she's told me about both of you, and I know you two looked out for her. I've heard the stories. I've seen the pictures. The haircuts. That's why I'm here. Frog, your stories have the most hilarity and wisdom in all of this." His eyebrows went up.  I couldn't help but to laugh. I smiled. "You shouldn't be surprised."

I knew she thought I wouldn't understand him or that maybe I'd judge who he was. How he was.  She hadn't realized yet that people like him are the people who felt most like home to me. We hadn't gotten to how much stretching and weirdness was involved in being closest to the parts of my family tree that represented the police state in a city that has one of the most racially tense histories in the North. There may be perspectives that don't match at all, politics in direct opposition to each other,  churches and bias and tradition and fraternal orders of police, but, if you can't hold onto each other enough to discourse and love, what's the point of anything?

I turned to her dad, "And your stories have been calm, and quiet and equally wise."

He glanced at the floor for a moment, then over at Frog.

Should I have addressed him as sir? No. That would be for when I was asking him for her hand. It seemed silly to say that now, in a bar, under a light bulb. The reverence I feel for the creators of the people I love always leaves me stumbling with hyper-formality. I have always been as traditional as I am sloppy, and such royalty is no joke. 

Her dad silently bit the inside corner of his mouth. He seemed reluctant to get involved.  Frog hit his elbow with his own, looked him directly in the eyes as if to say something, and then turned to me with a serious face.

"I know what you need to do.  She won't like it, but she'll listen to it eventually."  He leaned forward as if about to whisper.  Her dad hesitated but then leaned in, too.

I studied their faces for a moment in the light bulb's bare light. The color of their eyes. The lines on their faces. It was like looking at two characters from a book you've been reading just sitting there, breathing, in flesh and bone right in front of you.

I leaned in. We had work to do, but it was clear that Frog was going to have to steer this plan.




(image: Brice Marden (American, b. 1938), Untitled (#4), 1985. Oil and graphite on paper, 75.6 x 56.5 cm. via thunderstruck9 tumblr )