LOYALTY AND SEDITION by tm
Part 63

Rating: PG

Summary: A new hairdo and therapy.

Spoilers: Nope.
 

I fall asleep on top of the bed while studying. I'm awakened what seems like hours later by a familiar voice.

"Whaddya think?" He doesn't sound thrilled.

I have to grope for my glasses in order to see. In my next life, I want perfect vision.

It takes me a moment to figure out what's happened here.

Then it dawns on me: he's got shorter hair.

It's not what one would consider short in most instances, but Langly probably feels butt-naked in this do. It's layered, cut above the shoulders, with bangs.

And it looks pretty damn good.

"You still look good enough to eat," I comment.

"Yeah, well, it's the best 'Randa and me could come up with."

I don't think she did too badly, if I do say so myself.

"Hey, it's not like you're bald or anything, babe." Although you're going that direction, and I'd like to tell him that what Miranda did made it a lot less obvious, but then I'd really piss him off, and right now, I don't need that.

Living with two people subject to hair trauma is a trial.

"Seriously, sweetheart. You look really good. I like it."

He frowns. "Yeah, well, I gotta get used to it."

"You will." It's not like it's THAT short, for Christ's sake. It's probably longer than the new honcho will like, but it is six inches shorter than it was-if the guy has half a reasonable bone in him, he'll shut up and leave him alone.

Of course, that's a mighty big if.

"Looks thicker." I run my hands through it-it's mildly sticky. "Did Miranda attack you with mousse?"

He sulks. "Yeah. I told her not to, but she did it, anyway."

"And you let her."

"Like what am I gonna do? She's holding the scissors."

And loving every moment of it, I think with some amusement. Miranda is probably downstairs giggling her ass off.

"Well, you look delicious, and I could attack you right here and now."

He's not generally loathe to turn down an invitation, so I'm a bit surprised when he shakes his head and says no.

"Not right now. I'm just not in the mood, y'know? Been a shitty last couple weeks. I'm tired. Everything sucks."

He's off and running on a major sulk.

And it's understandable that he's not quite in the spirit of the flesh at this point.

Sort of like Samson-cut his hair, he loses his strength.

Of course, if I say that to him, I'm probably going to generate a tantrum on his part, complete with stinging repartee directed towards me.

Sometimes his tendency to be cutting makes me cringe. I'd like to avoid anything that raises my rating on the cringe-o-meter right now, thank you very much.

"Well, sweetheart, it's late, and I'm going to bed. You coming?"

"Yeah. After I wash the mousse outta my hair. Christ!"

This would be amusing if it weren't so damn annoying.
 

MICHAEL:

Uh-oh. Dad's home. And from the sound of things, he's in a real piss-poor mood. I think I had something to do with that.

I'm in my room working on a paper on the laptop.

"MICHAEL!"

I'd like to have been wrong, just this once.

"What?"

"Get out here. Now!"

What, come out so I can get my ass kicked?

I don't think so.

"I'm busy! I got homework!"

Wrong tack-I hear him stomping down the hall. He doesn't even bother to knock, just busts on in.

"You are rude and impertinent and I'm sick of it!"

He's already working on some J&B. Oh boy.

"What the fuck did I do now?" I set the laptop down.

"You've always got to make some sort of snide comment about EVERYTHING!"

"Excuse me, but I had no idea what the fuck was going on there!"

He shakes his head. "That's your problem, Michael. You don't bother to ask. You just lunge forward without even thinking, or taking anyone's feelings into consideration!"

Meaning his. I think I hit him in a soft spot.

"I was hoping the presence of a young lady in your life would improve this aspect of your personality, but apparently, it hasn't worked to this point!"

"You fucking leave Kelly out of this!"

"Then I suggest you refrain from making comments about women, past or present, that have been in my life!"

"Little hard, Dad, when one of 'em's my mom!"

"And have you called her lately?"

"I've been kind of busy, in case you haven't noticed!"

"You could at least call your mother!"

"She can call me, too! Works both ways!" Though I'm kind of glad she doesn't.

"Michael, you want the respect due an adult, and you want all the privileges that go with one, but you certainly don't seem to be able to deal with the responsibilities sometimes!"

"Oh, that is rich, coming from you! Talking about responsibility! I mean-"

"I've tried to meet mine as best I could under the circumstances!" He's sounding real cold now.

"Yeah, well, didn't always work, did it?"

Gotcha.

"Michael...we've had this discussion."

"No, YOU'VE had this discussion! You tell me your side of it, and I listen, and you never hear what I have to say!"

"That is not true and you know it!"

"Oh, it's true all right! I mean, yeah, you take care of me and all, but you don't give a fuck what I think or what I need or-"

"You can stop right there, dear boy. I do care about you, and plenty! One of the reasons I've even contemplated working for someone else is the fact that I'm looking at educating my son, who is NOT going to be in junior college forever...what are you planning to do, Michael?"

"Haven't got a clue." I don't.

"Great. I'm supposed to finance your education, and you don't have a remote idea as to where you're going or what you're going to do!" He rolls his eyes, takes a swig of J&B.

"Excuse me, I didn't ASK you to finance my education!"

"Then how do you plan to pay for it?"

"Shit, I don't know! I haven't thought that far ahead!"

"Well, start thinking. Hard." He slams the door behind him.

Shit, what the hell got into him?
 

January 25, 2001

It's been kind of a tough week...my dad and me, we're barely speaking to each other.

He is just so fucking moody sometimes, I could choke him.

He did, however, tell me he's doing some consulting for Lu Russell...yep, the former Fibbie with the big tits.

Apparently he's working this morning, because he's up and drinking coffee. We don't say much to each other. I'm trying to get my ass out the door already.

"Are you planning to be in the office today?" He's not sounding too friendly about it.

"Yeah, but I'm gonna be late." Usually I go right after class, because I don't tutor on Fridays, but not today.

"Why?" He demands.

I could tell him none of your fucking business-and it really isn't-but I tell him anyway.

"I got a therapy appointment."

He drinks up some more coffee. I'm pulling out my keys and I'm about ready to bail, and finally he says one word.

"Good."

Thank you, Dad.

Have a nice day.
 

I really don't want to go to therapy. I'm only doing this for Kelly.

I've had my share of shrinks, and they all sucked.

I could tell her I changed my mind, but that would be real lame, and I promised her.

Usually on Friday, I can't wait for class to be over, but today...well, so far as I'm concerned, it can go on forever.
 

And driving to DC on Friday afternoon-well, it's not so horrible, most people are trying to get the fuck out of the city-but the drive back to Alexandria is gonna be murder.

It's cold and sleety and lousy today. The wet weather makes me cough-yeah, I've been over this a while, but I'm still coughing, especially when it's damp out.

Way it works is like this: I go in, talk to this person alone, and then Kelly meets up with me, and we talk to this person together, and then Kelly talks to this person alone. She's already met her twice, but I'm like new at this.

I hate DC. Finding a parking place is like the challenge of the century EVERY FUCKING TIME! And this place is in Georgetown, the worst of the worst. I hate Georgetown, it's so fucking yuppified. This is fern bar territory.

The address I got, I'm looking for like offices and stuff, but this is like a street with a bunch of townhouses on it. Looks like people live here more than work here. I hope I took it down right.

There's like no signs outside, but there's one on the door inside-it's one of those tasteful type signs that doesn't scream, just sort of whispers at you. And the door's open. I guess I'm here.

A lady with dark hair is there, and she's got a real quiet voice, sort of reminds me of Ally's voice, but lower pitch. Ally might be a middle-aged lady, but she's still got this little-girl voice. This person, she's got a woman's voice. Kind of soothing, really.

I give her my name, and I'm looking around-I don't know that I'd really like this to be public, folks. She says to wait a little bit, Brian'll be around in a few.

Brian? Didn't know they had guys here. Whatever.

I could just bail out now. I think that might be better. I don't think I EVER got anything out of my appointments in the past.

No. Told Kelly I would.

Fuck.

I've had therapists of both sexes. Neither one particularly impressive, I might add. The guys that go into this field, they seem to all be so weird. They're more like women than some women are, know what I mean?

So I'm waiting, which I don't do well, by the way, when this guy comes in looking like he just got off his Harley or something. Another dude here. At least this guy looks sort of real.

He looks at me. He's one fucking lot bigger than me.

"Would you be Michael Frohike?" Christ, even pronounced my last name right.

"Who wants to know?"

"I would. I'm Brian Simmons." Friendly, but not overly so.

"As in, I'm Brian and I'll be your therapist this afternoon?"

Dude actually laughs. "Something like that. C'mon in."

His office is real tiny, more like a closet, but lots of stuff on the walls, and the place is a MESS.

I like this about him. I mean, most of the offices I've been in, they're so fucking generic. It's like there're no people there.

"So like, how'd you get into this line of work?" I ask him. Best to check out the credentials of the person who plans to crawl into your head.

"Truthfully? Doing my psychiatric residency at Georgetown."

"So like you're an MD." I'm sort of surprised.

"I love seeing people's faces when I tell them that." He's grinning evilly.

"So how'd you get into doing THAT?"

He's laughing. God, all the other shrinks I had were SO fucking serious.

"Hey, usually, I get to ask the questions...but hell, I don't mind. Nope, I'm doing brain research...I'm more of a biochemical basis of behavior type of guy, but I got to do some clinical stuff as well...and working here, well, my advisor runs this place, and she says, you can do your touchy-feely parts here."

"Take it you don't like the touchy-feely parts too much."

"It's not that. It's just that I think it's a limited approach. But hey, works for some people."

"Ever get bored?"

He laughs more. "Not so much here...I mean, I was in regular clinic, I'd get all the, I'm miserable, tell me why. Here at least, everybody knows why they're miserable."

"So like do you only talk to guys, or do you talk to everyone?"

"Usually only to the guys, at least for a while. After a while, sometimes the women get comfortable enough, sometimes they don't."

"You met my girlfriend?"

"What's her name?"

"Kelly Martin."

Shakes his head. "No, I think Karyn's working with her, though. Seems to me the name is familiar. She new here?"

"Yeah."

"Probably Karyn told me...anyway, at least I don't have to ask you why you're here."

"Well, I came 'cause I told Kelly I would."

"That's why most of 'em come here. Let's face it, do you know any guys, other than the ones in the psych department at your school, who'd willingly go into therapy?"

"No."

"Yeah, well, I think I'd feel the same way. I mean, I have to go-it's the law that if you treat people, you have to get treated yourself-so basically, what I do is, I go out on the weekend with a friend of mine in the residency program, we shoot some pool, ride our bikes, we call that therapy."

"Does it work?"

"Most of the time. You sure you're not in training? You seem to be asking all the questions." I seem to keep him amused, anyway.

"Just like to know who I'm dealing with."

"Fair enough. Okay, let's get the clinical crap out of the way. You sleeping all right?"

"Yeah. Just not enough."

"Insomnia?"

"No, too much fucking work!"

He laughs more. "Got that. Same problem. Okay, any major weight losses or gains?"

"Lost 14 pounds, but I had pneumonia about a month ago. Lasted a long time."

"You drinking more than usual?"

"Unfortunately, I'm drinking less than usual."

"Any drug use?"

"I wish." He laughs hard on that one. "I really liked Demerol, they put it in my IV when I had pneumonia."

"And that was the last time you had it."

"It's not like I have a local supplier or anything."

He's thinking about making a comment, but I think he'll hold on to that one.

"How's Kelly towards you?"

"Usually real nice...but last weekend, it's like she just went off on me for no reason."

"Not unusual. Not pleasant, but at this point, not particularly unusual. What happened?"

"Oh, man...I really don't wanna talk about that...it was a great day, and then it turned out to be such a sucky night."

"And after that?"

"Well...we made up and everything."

"Is she unusually clingy right now? Or unusually distant?"

"Sometimes real distant. Not clingy. Not Kelly."

"So she's fairly independent."

"Yeah. She's gonna be a doc, you know."

"Really? A premed. She's got my sympathy. Okay, so she's more likely to be distant than clingy, at least at this point. That can change, too. How about you?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"Are you feeling more distant from people than usual, or more dependent? Or neither or both?"

"Not sure what you mean here."

"I'm asking if you've noticed any changes in the way you relate to other people lately."

"Shit, I'm not sure how I relate to them in the first place."

He ponders this one.

"Mostly I don't relate to them too good. I mean, I live with my dad. We fight a lot. I mean, he's okay and all, he's a good guy and he takes care of me and all, but he's kind of, you know, overbearing."

"In what way?"

"Like, he's the boss, I'm the kid, that's it. I'm not supposed to argue with him or sass back at him, I'm supposed to do what he says, and he doesn't have to listen to me unless he feels like it."

"Always been like this?"

"Wouldn't know. I only got back together with him like a little over a year ago. He was like gone for 17 years."

"Why was that?"

"My mom and dad, they're divorced, and it was like, my mom told me my dad didn't want to see us...but what really happened was that I think it's the one way my mom could get even with my dad for what he did to her-"

"What did he do to her?"

"Gee, cut to the chase, why don't you? Long story, my dad worked for AT&T, I'm from Jersey, you ought to be able to tell from the accent-"

"I could."

"And he found out...stuff...and he got sent to prison for a while. My mom couldn't take it. And she was real mad at him. She still is. So like he wasn't allowed to see us for all the time we were growing up."

"Who's we?"

"Me and Leslie, that's my sister. She's a bitch, but that's another story. Anyway, it's like, I didn't even know that I could've seen my dad when I was 18."

"How old are you now?"

"24. 25 in March."

"So your mom managed to lie to you for how many years?"

"17. And can you believe, my dad wants me to try and make things okay with her?"

"And?"

"And like, I've talked to her a couple times...but I really don't want to. It's like, I'll never ever trust her. Anyway, why the fuck are we talking about my mom?"

"You tell me. You brought it up."

I did?

END OF PART 63