A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [68]
The Lecture ends and I get up and as I walk out of the Lecture Hall, I see Joanne standing to the side of the door. She motions for me to come to her and I do.
Hi, James. You remember me?
Yeah.
What’s my name?
Joanne.
She smiles.
You mind coming to my Office for a while?
All right.
We walk through the maze of Halls and we stop at a door. The door has a sign that reads Joanne P., 312. Joanne opens the door and we walk inside.
The walls are covered with pictures of baseball players, newspaper clippings related to the Chicago Cubs, pictures of Joanne riding horses and standing on mountaintops, a degree from Harvard, a degree from Northwestern, and two large taxidermied fish. There is a desk cluttered with papers, a bookshelf overflowing with books. There are two large comfortable-looking chairs along one wall, there is a worn couch along another wall. A stuffed duck sits in one of the corners.
You can sit on the couch or the chair. Wherever you please.
I sit on the chair. She walks around the desk and she sits down and she pushes an ashtray toward me.
I’m allowed to smoke in here?
I’m going to. You want some coffee?
Sure.
How do you take it?
Black.
She turns around and she reaches for a coffeepot and she pours two cups of coffee. I light a cigarette. She turns back around and she hands me one of the cups.
Thank you.
Be careful, it’s strong.
I like strong.
She laughs, lights a smoke.
You know why you’re here?
You wanna talk to me about something.
We have the results of the psych test you took last week. I want to go over them with you.
Okay.
Do you have any questions before we start?
No.
She reaches for a file, opens it.
The test you took is called the MMPI-2, which stands for the Second Edition of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. It’s an empirically based assessment of Adult Psychopathology used by Clinicians to assist with the diagnosis of mental disorders and the selection of appropriate treatment. It can also provide Clinicians or appropriate Interpretive Personnel with a general psychological assessment of any given individual.
She takes a drag of her smoke.
You with me?
Yeah.
She exhales.
It is used in Schools, Offices, Clinics, Hospitals, Courts, Prisons, in the Military, and by such esteemed organizations as the NSA, the FBI and the CIA. It is a standardized and widely used test and is generally considered the best universal diagnostic tool currently available.
She takes another drag.
Any questions?
Why Minnesota?
She exhales.
It was written and developed by a couple of Professors at the University of Minnesota. It’s also published by the University of Minnesota Press.
What’d it tell you?
You’re depressed. You have very low self-esteem. You’re confrontational and tend to be aggressive, you sometimes react to confrontation with violence. You engage in self-defeating behaviors, you have a low tolerance for frustration, you internalize stress and deal with it through a process of self-destruction. You’re irresponsible, resentful, manipulative, hostile and have a psychological predisposition to addiction.
I laugh.
It’s not funny, James.
Keep going.
This is not a joke.
It’s easier to laugh. Now keep going.
She looks down at the file.
You are also very, very angry. Incredibly angry.
She looks at me.
You are also very intelligent.
I take a sip of my coffee.
Sounds about right.
Does it?
Except for the intelligence part.
Why do you say that?
If I was very intelligent, I probably wouldn’t be so fucked up.
Addicts, as a group, generally score far above average on intelligence tests.
Why?
You tell me.
I guess maybe we’re smart enough to have figured out how shitty things are and we decide addiction is the only way to deal with it.
You acknowledge that you’re an Addict.
I laugh again.
Yeah.
I wasn’t sure you would.
I do.
Good, that’s the first step toward getting better.
If it’s one of the Twelve, then it’s the only one I’m taking.
You’re getting angry.
Yeah.
Why?
Right now I’m getting angry thinking about the impossibility of ever getting