EFFECT AND CAUSE

The effect is obvious. I hope to make the cause more apparent. You have to dig. Way before blogs there were psychiatrists. The first one I went to by accident. I thought he was a GP. I had found him in the yellow pages under physicians and dialed him up. "That's right. My wife has this persistant sore throat and I'm getting worried. Uh huh. Wed. at 3 would be fine." That was it. That's all the info I offered or recieved. This was Bearsville, NY circa 1974. My first wife Luscious and i were living way back on a dirt road, heating by wood, without a TV- much like i live now. She worked as a seamstress in town and I'd just landed a job as a carpenter's helper for an old acid head building spec. houses across the mountain.
Life was good. We'd had some issues- like her screwing my best friend after a drunken poker game, but we'd worked things out. If it wasn't for her pesky sore throat everything would have been perfect young marital bliss.
The Dr. had an office in his home. I figured the examination room was in the back. He was a bald little guy with a weak handshake and and a grey sweater. He smiled and pointed to a couple of chairs. "Please.." he said and sat in his own chair. "Well..." he continued clasping his hands. "You mentioned something in the throat?" We both nodded. I was waiting for the flat little stick and flashlight but I saw neither. "Hmmmm..." he said and looked kind of "parental" at us. "How's everything at home?" I'm thinking it could be the smoke from the stove so I say "We heat by wood." "I see." he responds and makes a note on a yellow legal pad. Then I think of other stuff- "We have two dogs and a cat. You think it can be that?"
At the mention of our pets i see the guy jump a little. Maybe he's allergic or was bit. Who knows. So I change the subject. Luscious just sits there. She's tall, pale, and bone skinny. A new shag haircut frames her pretty face. She's wearing a pair of jeans ripped up the inseam and turned into a hippie skirt. Potato boots, high laced up the front, completes the ensemble. She looks good. She wants a cigarette sooooo bad. The Dr. seems to be writing a lot now. "We don't have insurance." Luscious mumbles. He waves her off, seemingly unconcerned. I start looking around the office for the usual Dr. stuff- stethoscopes, white coats...nothing. Then he drops the bomb. "What kind of sexual practices are you kids involved in?" He's now leaning forward and peering over the glasses.
"SHE HAS A SORE THROAT!" I say a little too loud. Luscious touches my arm and looks disapprovingly at me. "Our sex life is good." she says, her voice seeming to clear immediately. You have to understand this was around EST and Rolphing and any number of crack pot quackery Dr. practices. Luscious was completely on board for this appoach to get her smoking again.I wasn't so sure. "Aren't you at least going to look at her throat?" I ask the nosey doctor. "What's our sex life got to do with this?" "It can be what they call- psychosomatic." the Dr. says in a quite patronizing tone. Then a little light goes off in his Dr. skull. "You do know I'm a psychitartist?"
Then little lights went off all around. I'd called a Dr. I didn't ask what kind. Now that we were on the same page, out came the tongue depressors and he wrote a scrip for anti-biotics and we were on our way. Ushering us out the door, he was sweating and seemed quite embarassed over whatever had traveled through his fertile imagination. Luscious' voice was already better and she said her throat had stopped hurting. Some how the therapy had worked. It would be a few years before i started seeing a shrink for real but none have ever had the effect that that first one had. Wifey and I went home, got a hot fire ging in the woodstove, fed the cat, played with the dogs and afterward we both lit up our cigarettes.