• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 469 0

traceable to the fact that he identified her with his mother: “May I see you for a few minutes, Mom,” he said one day. And another: “What do you think of a person who is thirty-nine or forty years of age who looks like a particular G. M. who passed away, G. M. Eve, Potential Sir, at the same particular age. Is there such thing as differential twins through delayed timing?” On still another occasion, he said that he and Miss Anderson were together as one person and that he had to breathe and eat for her because she was invisible. One day he claimed that Miss Anderson had tortured him for over thirty years. Shortly thereafter, fearful of getting too close to her, he drew back by saying: “I have had enough experience with the lame-brain I used to live with. I don’t care to tangle with another one at that age. I cannot have no direct attachments.”

He sought to contain within strictly rigid bounds whatever positive feelings he had for Miss Anderson, and resisted all attempts to broaden the range of such experiences. Once he gave her a lecture about trying to push patients beyond the patients’ acceptance. Another time, he said he would like to see her after the meeting. She had another appointment, she told him, but she would be glad to see him later in the day. Would he like to meet her at three o’clock in the lobby of A building? Leon hesitated and then declined, saying he would see her instead the following day at the usual hour. But shortly after three o’clock, she observed him loitering in front of A building, and called to ask him if he would like to come inside to talk. He replied no, he would wait until tomorrow, and immediately sauntered away.

How did Leon cope with his emotional and sexual feelings toward Miss Anderson during these months? Could all the time, devotion, assurance, and reassurance she tried to give him countervail against the gigantic proportions of his anxiety and guilt over sexual expression, his stupendous fear of becoming dependent on her, his fear that she, like his mother, would overwhelm and stifle him, and against his gigantic doubts of his adequacy, indeed, his identity, as a man? On the one hand, in contrast to his typically detached, emotionless, coldly hostile take-it-or-leave-it relationship with others, he went to great lengths to maintain, solidify, and perpetuate his relationship with her. On the other hand, he could not let the relationship develop, but had to contain it within strict bounds, and he was therefore compelled to employ a whole gamut of defense mechanisms to alleviate his guilt and anxiety, and deny his dependency on her. These defensive maneuvers intermingled and alternated with his positive approaches in a series of predictable fluctuations. If a particular session with Miss Anderson was human and warm, we could reasonably expect that the next would be difficult, characterized by withdrawal or hostility, or muteness, or an excessive concern with squelches.

Moreover, as it turned out, we were wrong in believing that Leon’s routine of seeing Miss Anderson alone after the group meeting was firmly established. Never, in all the time we knew him, did Leon refuse to attend the daily meetings. But on many occasions, of durations from a day to two weeks, he refused to see Miss Anderson afterwards. And even at times when he had asked specifically to see her alone, he might refuse to look at her, “because of the thoughts which come to my mind.” At other times he would simply refuse to talk, or would reply curtly to all queries with: “If it says so on the cosmic parchment, then it’s true,” or “Dung is busy with his thoughts, G. M. Anderson,” or “If you don’t mind, I’d care to leave. I don’t have anything to say. Excuse me,” and then retreat quickly to the toilet. On occasion, in contrast to his refusal to take a light from anyone but Miss Anderson, he would ask for a light from anyone but her. One day, when she commented to him that he seemed so far away, he readily agreed: “I go into a realm where it is more peaceful.”

Leon tried first one technique, then another to cope with