I have nothing of any interest to write, so I will leave you with one of my short stories. Hope you don't hate it. I hope this doesn't look like a plea for attention because although it is, I don't want it to look like one!
The Head Shrinker
By Laura Ferguson
“Molly, relax. You have to be here, so you might as well sit back, take a deep breath, and relax. I know you’re nervous. Almost everyone gets that way when they get to the couch,” He said.
“I-I-I can’t relax,” Molly said, her voice quivering.
“Listen, you might as well try, right? You have to be here, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.” Her voice was small.
“Unfortunately, Molly, that isn’t up to you. You do have to be here. So, you might as well relax.” He sat back in his leather chair looking at her. “So, tell me something about yourself. Over these past few days, you haven’t said a word.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Well, at least you are talking today. That’s more than you have done since you have been here.”
Silence.
“Molly, you see those over there?” He asked pointing to the wall behind him. “You don’t get those without being patient yet persistent. I trained at this job almost as many years as you have been alive, Molly. I have had some practice with being patient.”
Silence.
“Really, Molly, what’s the worst that can happen? I learn a little more about you? There has to be something you want to talk about,” He said.
“But, I don’t want to tell you anything.” Her voice was a bit louder, but still not at a normal decibel.
“Molly, do you really have any choice?”
“No.” Her voice was normal.
“Well, then tell me about Molly. Anything. Come on, there has to be something.”
Silence.
“Tell me about your childhood. Were you a shy kid? Popular? The Ugly Duckling?”
Silence.
“How about your family? Let’s start there. Tell me about them.”
Silence.
“Come on, Molly. Did you have a mom that got drunk and flirted with boys at your birthday parties? How about a brother who grabbed you on the occasion? I might have it all wrong. You might have a grandma that made sugar cookies and a grandpa who whittled you toy horses.”
Silence, but with a slight grin.
“Oh, I saw that grin, Molly. What was that about? Cookies? Your grandfather?”
Silence, but with a smile.
“It’s your grandfather isn’t it?” He said with enthusiasm.
“Maybe,” she said.
“You had a nice grandfather, huh?”
“He was my best friend,” she said so quietly that he almost could not make out what she said.
“Did you say he was your best friend?”
“Yes,” a little louder. “He was my best friend,” normal voice.
“That’s interesting. You don’t often hear about a girl and her grandfather being best friends.”
“Well, he was. He was my best friend in the world.” Her voice louder. “He was the greatest person I have ever known.”
“Well, tell me about him.”
She relaxed against the arm of the couch.
“He was the nicest man you would ever want to meet. We had a good time together.”
“Well, what made him such a nice man?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. He just was.” She tensed up again.
Silence.
“Molly, if we are going to get anywhere, if you are ever going to be done with all this, you are going to have to talk to me. And, what a better place to start than with your grandfather. I mean, you are going to have to talk eventually, you know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know. You keep telling me that.”
“Well, then,” he says.
“Fine. My grandfather was my best friend. We did everything together. I spent every summer, every holiday, weekends, and any other time I could with him. He was a nice man. He was fun. He loved me. We had a lot in common.”
“Tell me what made him so special. Lots of people spend time with their grandparents. That doesn’t make them their best friends.”
“Well, we were,” she said almost defiantly.
“Tell me something you did together when you spent your time together.”
Silence.
“Molly…”
“I guess I can tell you about our summers.”
“Yes, do. I would love to hear about it,” he said.
She sat for a minute.Then relaxed again laying against the arm of the couch. She sat for another minute deep in thought.
Silence.
A smile crossed Molly’s face.
“We used to fish together.”
Silence.
Silence.
“See, when I was little my parents got a divorce. My dad ran off with some woman he worked with. That’s okay and all. I’m not bitter about it. We had it out a while ago when I was 14. And we ended up better for it. But, that’s beside the point.
Anyway, when my dad left, my mom was determined to make it without too much help. She’s a pretty strong woman, so she wouldn’t let something like that get her down. She got a job to make ends meet and went back to school because as she always put it, ‘Molly, a woman who can’t support herself is a wasted woman.’
Luckily, she had a great dad who thought that a woman should be able to support herself and have an education, so he volunteered to watch me while she worked and went to school.”
“That sounds like a pretty good guy to me,” he said.
“Oh, he was!” she said turning her head towards him. “He was. Now, my mom is a real prissy girl. She always has on lipstick; she wears skirts and pantyhose all the time. And, I have a touch of that, but I always tended to be more of a Tomboy. I liked to play in the dirt. I fought with boys. I loved dolls and make-up and pink. But, I really liked snakes and bikes, too. I was a kinda tough little girl. So, even though she didn’t say it, I think that threw my mom for a loop.
The first day she dropped me off at my grandfather’s house, I was playing in the back yard, and he saw me wrestling with his dog in that backyard. Well, I don’t know if you know how hard it is to wrestle with a dog while you are wearing a dress, but it isn’t easy.
So, he calls me inside and hands me an old pair of overalls. They were my uncle’s from back when he was a kid. They were a bit big, and I didn’t have a shirt to wear under them. But, right then, I knew that my granddad and I would get along forever.
For the whole summer I wore those overalls, except for three days when my mom flat our refused to let me wear them. One those three days my granddad dressed in his Sunday suit that he never wore because he never did anything on Sunday. But other than that I was all overalls. And the next day, so was my granddad.
And we had the best times together. Every Thursday whether it was hot or raining or whatever, every Thursday my granddad packed us a picnic lunch, and we went fishing. And, I love fishing! He taught me how to cast. He taught me how to bait the line. He taught me the different lures, what jigs to use, when to use a spoon, when to use a spinner, how to tie knots.” She turned her head back and was facing the ceiling again.
“And after we were done fishing, we would take our catch, start a fire, clean it, cook it, and eat it with the potato salad or chips and a big jar of pickles he always packed. And if we didn’t catch anything, there was always some kind of sandwich to eat. Liverwurst. That was usually the type of sandwich.” She turned to face him again. “You know, I won’t eat a liverwurst sandwich now because I’m afraid I will think it’s disgusting. And, I don’t want to lose those sandwiches. I always want to love them.”
A tear ran down her face. She turned and faced the ceiling again.
“He seems like a good man.”
“Oh, he was. And that wasn’t even all of it. We would have these great talks. We talked about everything. I think without him, I would have been far more resentful of my dad then I was. He always told me that it was okay to be mad at him. He told me I had a right. But, he also told me that my dad was human. He made me understand that as a human, our feelings and emotions, especially when it came to love, can change. And there isn’t anything we can do about. Some people’s change a lot. Some people’s don’t change at all. And there is no reason to live miserably for your entire life because that just makes everyone involved miserable. So even though I was angry, I understood that people’s emotions can change.”
“He sure sounds like a smart man, Molly. I see why he was your best friend.”
“It was so much more than that. He taught me how to ride a bike. He taught me how to roller skate. He taught me how to start a fire. He taught me how to play Oh Susanna on the harmonica. He taught me how to slow dance which really came in handy at the eight grade banquet.” She turned to face him again. “The boy I liked asked me to dance. And let me tell you, was he a good dancer. Thank goodness I was, too. I think that dancing skills led to my first kiss later that night. And, I told my granddad all about it. He said he was really glad for me. But, then I got the talk. You know the one.” She turned and faced the ceiling again. “He didn’t even seem embarrassed about it. Sure he cracked a couple of jokes. He was just very upfront about things. And that made me not embarrassed about it.
He taught me a lot, my granddad did. I miss him so much.”
“He’s not around anymore?”
“No, he died just before I turned 18. It was a crazy week that week. And my poor granddad was right in the middle of the worst of it.
It was the week I graduated from high school. Granddad was there, my mom, dad, Uncle Jack, and his girlfriend. We all go out to eat after the ceremony. They let my boyfriend at the time and my friend Stephanie go along.
Another girl I went to school with was our waitress. She kept slipping us alcohol in our cokes. So, by the middle of dinner, we were just toasted.” She giggled. “I would have to say that we were a little past toasted. My granddad knew. He kept giving me this look with his mouth all twisted. It was like he was half laughing, half scolding me.
Now, had my mom gotten wind of this, she would have been up in arms! She would have. So when it was time to go, we were barely holding it together. Stephanie, my boyfriend, and I were supposed to go to another friend’s party after the restaurant. But, there was no way we could drive. So, my granddad pipes in, ‘I’ve never been to a high school party. And I aim to get to one before I die.’ So he walks us out to the car and drives us over to the party. And damn it, if he didn’t stay! He was a hit. He didn’t even give us that twisted smile look he’d been giving us at dinner. He just watched all of these teenagers getting drunk and dancing and having a good old time. He even danced with a couple of girls and one of the boys. You’ve never seen anything until you see your grandfather trying to teach your friends how to do the Twist to Ice Ice Baby.
He even made sure everyone got home okay. He took carloads of kids home. And, luckily, it wasn’t until the very last trip out that Sandy Cartwell vomited all over him. He wasn’t even mad. Just told her that it was a good thing she did it because she would feel much better than the rest of us in the morning.” She laughed. A tear ran down her cheek.
Silence.
“You’re thinking about him dying, aren’t you?” He asked.
“Yes. It was so weird that he said he wanted to go to a high school party before he died because the next night he had a heart attack. He made it to the hospital. He actually got to sort of tell us all goodbye. He knew he was going. I knew he was going. But, I still couldn’t grasp it. I sat by his side crying for about an hour when he kind of came to and told me that I was the best friend he ever had. Then he died.” Tears streamed down her face. “Just like that, he died. My best friend was gone.”
“Molly, that must have taken a lot out of you. I am sorry to hear that. I really am. He seemed like such a good person. I bet his influence made you the person you are today. I know from experience that you are a kind and helpful person.”
“Yeah, a lot of good it did me.”
Silence.
“So, I told you about myself,” Molly said. “Can I get out of here now?”
“Now, Molly, you’re a smart girl. You know that it isn’t that easy. You know you can’t. You’re here. You have to stay here,” he said.
“But, I told you about myself! I did what you asked. Please,” she started to cry. It started as tears and sniffles but quickly turned into guttural sobs.
“Molly, get yourself together! There is no reason to cry that way. What would your grandfather think?”
“Don’t ask me that. Don’t talk about my granddad. He’s mine to talk about. Not yours!”
“Calm down, Molly.”
“Can you at least take these off of me?” she asked as she lifted her restrained hands toward him. “I’m calm now. I won’t do anything, I promise. Just please take them off of me.”
“Now, Molly, you know I can’t do that,” he said standing from his chair and walking to her. He started running his hands through her hair.
“But, I won’t do anything. I won’t.”
“Molly, Molly, Molly. I have heard that before. I trusted that promise only once. Look over there. You see that first one,” he said pointing again to the wall behind his leather chair that held shelf after shelf of jars containing human heads. “She said she wouldn’t do anything. Hell, they all did. But, I trusted her. If you’re hands were free, I would let you feel the dent that is still in my skull from where she cracked me over the head with an ashtray. I won’t trust that promise again.”
“Please let me go. I won’t say anyth-“
“Enough, Molly.” He put a piece of duct tape over her mouth. Tears ran down her face. “It’s okay, Molly. Just think of your grandfather. Just think of your grandfather.”
He grabbed the crown of her hair, pulled her head back over the arm of the couch, and started to saw off her head.
