Demon Box

"Therapeutic Thumb harp," Joe answered. "Soothes the savage breast."

It was just as well with me, too. I had realized as much locked out on the balcony – that I'd been wishful dreaming. Only a pin-head fool would hope to find the wild and woolly Big Sur of bygone days in the Florida torpor. I stepped over Joe's legs to the closet where my gray suit hung.

The di

Joe and I were about three tables back, still picking at our lobster Newberg but already into our third bottle of Joha

But when Dudley got up and took the mike and launched into a grandiloquent introduction of the great man who was to speak to us, I wondered if anybody had told him about the change.

"A legend!" he proclaimed. "A star of Sigmund Freud's magnitude, of Wilhelm Reich's radiance, of Carl Jung's historic brilliance! A pillar of fire burning before most of us were born, yet still listed in the Who's Who of Psychology Today! Still considered a giant in the contemporary field – a giant!"

This didn't seem to describe the dreadlocked Dr. Toocter, not even the thumb harpist himself, now frowning perplexed up at the MC. Indeed, all seated at the main table were turned toward the master of ceremonies in wonder. It was nothing like my amazement, though. When our speaker rolled in from the curtain wings, I saw it was the hairless dwarf from the Sky Ride after all.

The tall blond nurse had changed from her nurse's uniform into a beige evening gown, but her patient was wearing the same dark glasses and rumpled shirt and slacks, as though he'd never left the chair. She wheeled him to the podium through an uncertain flurry of clapping, then helped him stand. When she was sure he had a good grip on the podium she wheeled the chair back off, leaving him swaying and nodding in the spotlight.

He was not merely hairless; he was partially faceless as well. The corner of his upper lip and much of the lower had been pared away, all the way down his chin, and the scar covered with flesh-colored makeup. This was why he had looked to me like some kind of long-lived Down's syndrome this afternoon. And without his hat the Florida sun had burned his head even brighter than it had mine. He was a blazing Day-Glo purple everywhere except the painted scar. This hand-sized swatch looked like the only island of natural flesh on a globe of synthetic skin, instead of the other way around. The clapping had been over for a long minute before he finally cleared his throat and spoke.

"Who's who," he murmured, shaking his head. "Das ist mir scheissegal. Who's who." Then the voice lifted a little. "That's what you really want to consider, yah? Who was, who is, who will be who, when next season's list is published?"

The accent was thicker and the speech halting. It would never be the fine instrument of old, but there was still a ring to it.

"How about we consider instead who is correct. Der Siggy Freud? All those interesting theories? like how anal retention becomes compulsive repetition and causes some sort of blockage what he called petrification? Und how this blockage could be dissolved with enough analysis, like enough castor oil? Please, mine colleagues, let us speak truthfully, doctor to doctor. We have all observed the application of these theories. Interesting though they may be, we all know that they are for all practical purposes useless in the psychiatric ward. Castor oil would be more effective, and Sigmund would have been more useful had he written romances for a living. The romantic ideal can be useful in the world of fiction; in world of medicine, never. Und we are all medical men, yah? We must be able to distinguish medicine from fiction. We must be able to know what is psychological results and what is psychological soap opera, never mind how the one is so discouraging while the other is so fascinating. You are all just as capable as I am of knowing who is really who and what was really what, so you all must have suspected what I am trying to tell you before now: that Sigmund Freud was a neurotic, romantic, coke-shooting quack!" When he said this he slapped the podium a sharp crack. The effect on the convention crowd would not have been greater if he'd said Albert Schweitzer was a Nazi, then fired a Luger at the ceiling. He swept his black-goggled gaze about the hall until the air subsided.

"Old daydreamer Carl Jung mit his sugar-glazed mandala? Willy Reich teaching orgasm by the numbers? All quacks. Yah, they were all very good writers, very interesting. But if you are a woodcutter, let us say, and you purchase a woodsaw – what does it matter how interesting the sawmaker writes about it? If it does not saw good it is not a good saw. As a woodcutter, you should be the first to detect the cheat: it won't cut straight! So take it back to that lying sawmaker, or paint a sunset on it, or throw it in the river – but don't pass the crooked wood on to your customers!" He paused to reach down and pick up Dr. Toocter's wadded napkin. He bowed his head to dab at the sweat that had begun to glisten on his neck and throat. He waited until his breathing calmed before he looked back up.

"Also, you are bad woodcutters for more reason than you invest in bad saws. You are afraid to go into the forest. You would rather invent a tree to fit your theory, and cut down the invention. You ca

She was already rolling out the blackboard. When it was secured behind the dais she took a stick of chalk from her jeweled handbag and handed it to her boss. He waited until she was out of sight through the curtains before he turned back to us.

"Okay, some concentration if you please." The hand began pushing the chalk around the slate rectangle. "I will explain you this only once."

It was the same a