Man in a Hurry and Other Fantasy Stories. Alan Nelson
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and iron gray hair, who specialized in rich divorcees, and whose very presence in the office adjoining his own, caused Dr. Departure a kind of permanent, bristling hostility. If it weren’t for the fact he was Emily’s brother…
“Glad to see you back, Manly,” Schnappenhocker boomed in that loathsome, hearty voice. “How’d they treat you at the asylum?”
“It was a rest home,” Dr. Departure replied coldly, moving down the hall toward his own office.
“Well, if you begin to feel shaky again, feel free to drop in. Professional discount, of course.” He laughed raucously and pounded Departure on the shoulder. “By the way, did I tell you I’m speaking before the Institute of Psychiatry banquet next month? I hope you can make it.”
Quack! Dr. Departure thought angrily, closing the door against Schnappenhocker’s imbecilic and tuneless whistle outside. Then, shaking off his irritation, he called Flint in from the waiting room.
“Now!” he began brightly, after Flint seated himself and placed another bulky paper sack down beside the desk. “Now, about this…this kleptomania.” He refused to utter that ridiculous word, “klepto-kleptomania.” Since Flint’s first visit, he’d been unable to find anything in the literature to cover the problem but, at length, he reassured himself the thing wasn’t as weird as it first appeared; after all, kleptomania was kleptomania, no matter who it was you stole from—possibly this man’s case might be a little more complicated, that was all.
“I’d like you to start at the beginning, if you will, Mr. Flint, and tell me how this problem got started.”
Flint looked troubled and poked the trinket-filled bag with his foot.
“It’s the gloves,” he said. “Never had any trouble until I started wearing the gloves. Then I began having this urge to snatch things off department store counters. Didn’t take two weeks, though, until I couldn’t get any kicks out of that any more. Then I started on the kleptos…”
Dr. Departure smiled and felt the problem begin to unravel right then and there. So typical, this childish process of blaming inanimate objects for our own defects. Just last night, his little niece had accused her rag doll of shattering the vase.
“Where are these gloves?” he inquired kindly.
Flint lifted his hands above the desk.
“I have them on,” he said.
Dr. Departure blinked, leaned forward and gazed at the long, pink hands with the wrinkled knuckles, tapering fingers and well cared-for fingernails. They were as naked as billiard balls.
“I don’t see any gloves,” the doctor said in a moment.
“I know,” Flint replied evenly. “They’re invisible.”
Ah, the pieces are beginning to fall into place, Dr. Departure thought. A case of guilt projection, complicated by delusionary ideas. Ten to one there will be some flights of fantasy involving sorcery showing up soon.
“Where did you get these…these gloves?” he asked in a soft, persuasive voice.
“I bought them from a gypsy who bought them from a three-fingered Brazilian witch doctor named Bessie.”
“And where did the witch doctor get them?”
“She brewed them out of a stunted guayule bush that had been struck twice by lightning and injected three times with the blood of an insane virgin.”
“And what was the…the purpose of these gloves?”
“To make it easier for the witch doctor’s son to steal pigeon eggs.” Flint looked away with troubled eyes. “The gloves are defective, though. They’re too strong.”
This could go on forever, Dr. Departure thought sadly. If I ask him why he simply doesn’t take the gloves off, he’ll say he can’t get them off.
“The worst of it is, Doctor…I can’t get them off. See?” Flint raised one hand, plucked futilely at the pink skin with the thumb and forefinger of the other. Suddenly, he leaned across the desk confidentially. “There’s only one way that they’ll come off, Doctor.”
“And what’s that?”
“First, I have to find a witch doctor who ranks as high in his community as Bessie does in hers. That’s you.”
“Now, just a moment!” Dr. Departure protesting huffily.
From his pocket, Flint whipped a piece of paper and a small box of white powder, which he laid before the doctor.
“Then I have to get you to sprinkle this powder over the gloves while saying these words and making a gesture like this. After that, I can peel them right off.”
“Please!” Dr. Departure said firmly, holding up his hand. He’d had quite enough of invisible gloves—except, of course, in a symbolic sense.
“Let me tell you how to get those…those invisible gloves off.” He paused, polished his glasses, cleared his throat and glanced oratorically at the ceiling. “First, what do the gloves represent? Nothing more than…”
For a solid hour, Dr. Departure probed, prodded and pronounced. He spoke eloquently on phobias, on fantasies, on fixations, and the little brass clock jumped when he pounded the table for emphasis. Flint watched and listened intently, then, at last, when Dr. Departure paused to wipe his forehead and glance significantly at his watch, he leaned forward.
“That’s all very well, Doctor,” he said. “But are you, or are you not, going to cast this spell?”
These things take time, Dr. Departure told himself wearily. Time and patience…
“Because, if you’re not,” Flint continued, half-rising from the chair. “I’m going someplace else. There’s another man down the hall here. A Dr. Schnapp…Schnappen…”
Hastily, Dr. Departure motioned the man back into the chair. Every time he’d lost a patient to Dr. Schnappenhocker, his brother-in-law, through some fantastic freak of luck, had been able to clear up the problem in practically no time. The crowing that went on afterwards was unbearable. The man had even written up one case for the American Journal.
Dr. Departure looked distastefully at the box of powder and studied the words on the slip of paper. Well, if he had to demonstrate the impotence of spell-casting, he had to…that was all.
“If I cast this…this spell,” he finally said, trying to get a deeper meaning into the words, “will you promise to really try to remove these imaginary gloves…shed them like you would so much dead skin…skin you no longer need?”
“Yes! Yes!” Flint agreed eagerly.
“EEDO! QUEEDO! SKIZZO LIBIDO!” Dr. Departure intoned, sprinkling powder over Flint’s outstretched hands and making a certain gesture with his own. Then he sat back and smiled indulgently.
“Thanks!” Flint breathed gratefully. Then, with a zip-snick-snap!, he deftly peeled a transparent rubbery glove from each hand quite as if he were shedding so much dead skin, and tossed them both on the desk. In amazement, Dr. Departure gazed at this tiny mound of sheer, limp rubber that had collapsed his psychological house of cards with such a nasty little plop.
“This should cover the fee,” Flint was saying happily, placing four twenties on the blotter. “And thanks again.” He went out, slamming the door.
Dr. Departure closed his eyes a moment and listened to the tick of the brass clock. Of course, the man could be perpetrating an elaborate practical joke. It was even possible that the loud-mouthed charlatan, that hand-holder of rich nymphomaniacs, that psychoanalytical Peeping Tom, Dr. Schnappenhocker, had put him up to it. No, on second thought, it couldn’t have been a practical joke. No one, not even Bert Schnappenhocker himself, would be willing to pay $75 an hour for that meager pleasure.
He picked up one glove and examined it. It was inside out now—peeling it off had done