In Dr. Nova’s office I’m having a hard time.
“What’s going on tonight, Jamie?” Dr. Nova asks. “You seem … agitated.”
“I have these images, man, no, these visions,” I’m telling him. “Visions of nuclear missiles blowing this place away.”
“What place, Jamie?”
“Melting the Valley, the whole Valley. All the chicks rotting away. The Gaileria just a memory. Everything gone.” Pause. “Evaporated.” Pause. “Is that a word?”
“Wow,” Dr. Nova says.
“Yeah, wow,” I say, staring out the window.
“What will happen to you?” he asks.
“Why? You think that would stop me?” I ask back.
“What do you think?”
“You think a f**king nuclear bomb is gonna end all this?” I’m saying. “No way, dude.”
“End all what?” Dr. Nova asks.
“We’ll survive that.”
“Who is we?”
“We have been here forever and we will probably be around forever too.” I check my nails.
“What will we be doing?” Dr. Nova asks, barely paying attention.
“Roaming.” I shrug. “Flying around. Looming over you like a f**king raven. Picture the biggest raven you’ve ever seen. Picture it looming.”
“How are your parents, Jamie?”
“I don’t know,” I say and then, my voice rising toward a scream, “But I live the cool life and if you do not refill my prescription of Darvocet—”
“What will you do, Jamie?”
I consider my options, then calmly explain.
“I’ll be waiting,” I tell him. “I’ll be waiting in your bedroom one night. Or under the table of your favorite restaurant, mutilating your wittle foot.”
“Is … this a threat?” Dr. Nova asks.
“Or when you take your daughter to McDonald’s,” I say, “I’ll be dressed as Ronald McDonald or the Grimace and I’ll eat her in the parking lot while you watch and quickly get f**ked up.”
“We’ve talked about this before, Jamie.”
“I’ll be waiting in the parking lot or in your daughter’s schoolyard or in a bathroom. I’ll be crouching in your bathroom. I’ll follow your daughter home from school and after I play f**ky with her I’ll be crouching in your bathroom.”
Dr. Nova just looks at me, bored, as if my behavior is explainable.
“I was in the hospital room when your father died of cancer,” I tell him.
“You’ve mentioned this before,” he says idly.
“He was rotting away, Dr. Nova,” I say. “I saw him. I saw your father rotting away. I told all my friends your father died of toxic shock. That he stuck a tampon up his ass and left it there too long. He died screaming, Dr. Nova.”
“Have you … killed anyone else recently, Jamie?” Dr. Nova asks, not too visibly shaken.
“In a movie,” I say. “In my mind.” I giggle.
Dr. Nova sighs, studies me, largely unassured. “What do you want?”
“I want to be in the backseat of your car, waiting, drooling—”
“I hear you, Jamie.” Dr. Nova sighs.
“I want my Darvocet refilled or else I’m gonna be waiting beneath that lovely black-bottom pool of yours one night while you’re out for a little midnight swim, Dr. Nova, and I’ll pull veins and tendons out of your well-muscled thigh.” I’m standing now, pacing.
“I’ll give you the Darvocet, Jamie,” Dr. Nova says. “But I want you here on a less irregular basis.”
“I’m totally psyched,” I say. “You’re as cool as they come.”
He fills out a prescription and then, while handing it to me, asks, “Why should I fear you?”
“Because I’m a tan burly motherfucker and my teeth are so sharp they make a straight razor seem like a butter knife.”
I pause. “Need a better reason?”
“Why do you threaten me?” he asks. “Why should I fear you?”
“Because I’m going to be that last image you ever see,” I tell him. “Count on it.”
I head toward the door, then turn back around.
“Where’s the place you feet safest?” I ask.
“In an empty movie theater,” Dr. Nova says.
“What’s your favorite movie?” I ask.
“Vacation, with Chevy Chase and Christie Brinkley.”