Doctor, Doctor

DOCTOR: Do you know why you are here?

PATIENT: No.

DOCTOR: You do not have the slightest clue about what has been happening lately to you and your family or why you are here.

PATIENT: That is correct.

DOCTOR: Your sister has told me about the voices you have been hearing in your head for the past few months. Do you believe that there is something wrong with you mentally?

PATIENT: No, I do not believe that there is anything wrong with me- I do not hear any voices in my head at all. That is an outright lie. And you did not ever talk with my younger sister Sarah. How could you have spoken with Sarah? She has no phone.

DOCTOR: You do not have a younger sister named Sarah, you have an older sister named Ashley. I spoke with Ashley over the phone yesterday after you were sent here, and she told me about your reoccurring problems with the individuals living in your brain. The harsh men-

PATIENT: I do not have any problems! I want to talk with my sister Sarah! She will explain to you that this Ashley person is lying through her teeth! She will prove that woman wrong-

DOCTOR: Mr. Jones, please calm down now. There is no need to shout at me while I am just trying to figure out what is going on in your situation.

PATIENT: I do not have a situation! Who said that I have a situation? Did Ashley tell you that I have a situation and that I am crazy and that I hear voices in my head and that I am involved with a murder?

DOCTOR: I never said anything about murder.

PATIENT: YOU DIDN'T, BUT YOU WERE THINKING IT! I KNOW YOU WERE THINKING IT! ALL OF YOU MENTAL DOCTOR TYPES ARE THE SAME; ASSUMPTIONS AND LIES ARE ALL YOU LEARN ABOUT IN STUPID SCHOOL! THAT IS ALL YOU KNOWWWW!

DOCTOR: Mr. Jones! Do not shove your finger in my face! Please, relax. Sit back down now, please, and listen to me calmly. There is no need to shout at me-

PATIENT: Go to hell, Laskov.

DOCTOR: Thank you for sitting back down for me.

PATIENT: You're welcome, Billy.

DOCTOR: Pardon me?

PATIENT: You don't know Billy but Billy knows you, Laskov.

DOCTOR: Who is Billy?

PATIENT: My five year old son.

DOCTOR: I was told by your sister that you do not currently have any children.

PATIENT: I hide Billy because he has a deformity.

DOCTOR: A deformity of what kind?

PATIENT: It's a real nice day outside, isn't it? The clouds aren't out today.

DOCTOR: Yes, it is a fine day. Now, can you tell me what deformity your son Billy has?

PATIENT: Who are you talking about? I don't have a deformed son named Billy. I'm not even married- I can't stand women. Fat, couch potato sows who only get in the way of us men, that's what those monstrosities are. I would spit on all of them if I could, even the ones who are six feet under.

DOCTOR: Why do you feel this way?

PATIENT: About what?

DOCTOR: Women, Mr. Jones. Why do you think so negativity about women as an entirety?

PATIENT: Mmmmmm.... I don't really know. I just hate them, I guess. I always hated them, to be completely honest, but I can't come up with any reasons to put behind my feelings towards them.....I'm not sure.

DOCTOR: Did you grow up with your mother and your father, or just one parent?

PATIENT: I lived with noone.

DOCTOR: You did not live with your parents? Not even your sister?

PATIENT: I don't have a sister. It was always just me. I lived alone in a refrigerator box behind a scummy nightclub until I grew out of it, and then I lived in a dumpster behind a grocery store. When I was sixteen, I shot a man with his own gun in the middle of the street and then moved into his house. I killed his wife, too, after a while of living there. I think I was hanging around that crummy spot for 'round three, possibly two months, and then I hit the road to Chicago. Hitchhiked my ass all of the way down there in about a week with just my longies on, the pair that doesn't have a back flap on 'em.

DOCTOR: Why?

PATIENT: What are you asking that dumb old 'why' to now, doc?

DOCTOR: I am asking why to the part about you killing that poor man's wife.

PATIENT: She wouldn't do what I wanted her to do, if that makes sense. I was going to just rape her, but then I just changed my mind and drowned her in a filled bathtub while her in- laws weren't over. The water was pretty hot, too.... I was going to make love to the body when I finished, but my penis wouldn't go up for some odd reason. The damn thing just hung all limply-

DOCTOR: Do you regret what you did?

PATIENT: What, do YOU THINK I'M WEAK NOW OR SOMETHING? OF COURSE I DON'T FUCKING REGRET IT! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOUR LOGIC, DOC?

DOCTOR: Mr. Jones, please relax! I am not calling you weak or anything else to that effect! It is normal for someone to regret something, especially a crime of that caliber, but you appear to not exactly care about what you did. That concerns me very much.

PATIENT: Shit, doc, I do care about what I did, I just don't regret any of it. I wouldn't have mentioned it to you if I didn't care about killing some guy and his bitch when I was a little sixteen year old. God!

DOCTOR: Alright, I understand... Please calm down for me.....Let's change the subject so you don't get worked up again, shall we? I-

PATIENT: You're the one getting all worked up, Laskov.

DOCTOR: How old are you at this current moment, Mr. Jones?

PATIENT: Dontcha have that information already? Didn't you talk to that Ashley on the phone about me? Doesn't she know my goddamn age?

DOCTOR: We never discussed your age over the phone. Just your situation-

PATIENT: There is no situation! Would'ya let the whole 'situation' business go?

DOCTOR: Ok, I will stop calling it a 'situation'. What do you prefer me to, um, call it? I'm sure there is something else to refer your problems to-

PATIENT: Call 'it' nothing. Don't even go near the subject of situations.

DOCTOR: Not talking about what is going on with you is a hard task.

PATIENT: Meaning?

DOCTOR: Well, I am supposed to figure out your mental status and what you are sick with. If we fail to speak of your symptoms, I cannot help you, and things may get much worse.

PATIENT: Help me? YOU? HA! Yeah, riigggghhhtt! You're a fraud. A big, phony, no good, Russian fraud who deserves to go to the slammer for all of the times he put sane people in the coo coo ward just to make a dirty profit. I'm not gonna play along with your goddamn Communist tricks and let you dupe me into thinking I'm insane!

DOCTOR: Insane is a very loose term to use.

PATIENT: A Communist fraud, that's what you are. I bet you learned English by reading the back of soup cans.

DOCTOR: You think I learned English from the back of soup cans, eh?

PATIENT: As a matter of a fact, I most certainly do, because you're a big fraud.

DOCTOR: Those cans must have been quite detailed.....

PATIENT: Aw, quit it with the goddamn sarcasm, Nikita. How old are you, anyway?

DOCTOR: I'm thirty-one.

PATIENT: No kidding?

DOCTOR: None at all.

PATIENT: When did you get to the States? And don't you lie to me.

DOCTOR: When I was 19.

PATIENT: You came here smack dab in a year before WWI.

DOCTOR: Yes, that is right. But I naturally was unable to avoid it anyway. I served in the army for the last bit of the war and ended up with the rank of a Sergeant. I'm proud to have served for your country, Mr. Jones, even though you may think I am a Communist, which is the wrong thing to say about me. Although I despised the Czar, and Lenin's ideas were appealing to my family, I am not at all a Soviet. I actually am more of a Democrat than anything else. Now, how about you? How old are you?

PATIENT: Forty- six. Where in Russia are you from?

DOCTOR: Moscow.

PATIENT: That's Russia's main city, right?

DOCTOR: Yes, along with Leningrad. Where are you from?

PATIENT: I'm a Canadian, but I migrated to Oregon when I killed that guy and moved into his house. What's it like in Moscow?

DOCTOR: It's overwhelminly cold most of the time and people are starving. How tall are you?

PATIENT: Six foot nine. You?

DOCTOR: Five foot eight and three quarters. How much do you weigh?

PATIENT: Last time I was weighed, I was around one hundred and thirty pounds. You?

DOCTOR: Around the same as you. What is your birthday?

PATIENT: August seventh. You?

DOCTOR: September ninth-

PATIENT: I knew a guy a long time ago who had that same birthday. He died of Pneumonia when we were kids.... Daniel Habbers, I think his name was. Do you know anyone who died of Pneumonia, doc?

DOCTOR: Two of my eldest brothers died from Pneumonia six weeks apart from each other. Wha-

PATIENT: What were their names?

DOCTOR: Vasiliji and Boris.

PATIENT: Do you have any other brothers?

DOCTOR: My younger brother Vladimir died in the war, and all I have left now are my sisters- if they are all still alive.

PATIENT: How many sisters do you- or did you- have?

DOCTOR: I had or have eight of them. Now, wha-

PATIENT: Wow, that's a lot! What's your favorite song?

DOCTOR: I don't know any songs that are in English-

PATIENT: That's ok! Do you like classical music?

DOCTOR: Why, yes, I do. I adore Bach and Mozart and Beethoven very much. Now, how much sleep do you regularly get at night?

PATIENT: I can't keep track of that.

DOCTOR: Do you sleep too much, or too little?

PATIENT: Too much. I sometimes sleep until four in the afternoon, other times a little bit earlier. I'm rarely up at breakfast time.

DOCTOR: Alright... Now, how about your eating habits? Do you regularly eat three meals a day even with your sleep schedule?

PATIENT: No, of course not! Who in their right mind eats that much goddamn food in one fucking day and gets away with it? I get the point that we're in an economic boom, but, Jesus...

DOCTOR: Do you eat once a day?

PATIENT: I just eat dinner, yeah.

DOCTOR: How does this make your body feel?

PATIENT: I had no idea this was some kindda screwy physical examination too, doc.

DOCTOR: It's not, but eating and sleeping do effect your mental health in a major way.

PATIENT: How so?

DOCTOR: When you do not get enough rest or nutrition, your body starts to deteriorate all of the way around. Does that make sense to you? It's the only way I can-

PATIENT: ARE YOU CALLING ME STUPID?

DOCTOR: No! I am not calling you stupid at all!

PATIENT: You better not be, foreigner. So, if you're not calling me stupid, what the hell are you trying to pull on me?

DOCTOR: I'm trying to help you understand psychology in your own terms so confusion is absolutely avoided.

PATIENT: AKA: You think I'm an idiot.

DOCTOR: AKA?

PATIENT: Also Known As.

DOCTOR: Alright..... My Lord......Mr. Jones, what is your first name?

PATIENT: Henry.

DOCTOR: Middle?

PATIENT: Geoff. What's next, my anus size?

DOCTOR: No, we don't go as far as measuring your anus.

PATIENT: That's great to hear.

DOCTOR: Yes, it is.... Excuse me, I'm going to step out for a moment- just to speak with another doctor.