TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: And all the heat escapes from head, hands and feet.

CLIENT: I’m having it chopped off.

THERAPIST: Just (chop sound).

CLIENT: Just slice – f

THERAPIST: Just gone, huh?

CLIENT: Slice and dice.

THERAPIST: Slice and dice, huh?

CLIENT: That’s it.

THERAPIST: Take away the pain, huh?

CLIENT: Then I’d just have to suffer pain.

THERAPIST: The phantom pain – that’s right. With phantom the phantom limb. That’s right.

CLIENT: I go see him on Monday anyways.

THERAPIST: The knee. The knee guy. Who is it?

CLIENT: Dr. Flint, yeah. The screw up, I guess. See what excuse he has.

THERAPIST: You’ve been with him for a while, right?

CLIENT: Yeah. I think I did it – what in 2006 and then I had it done again in 2007? And then I had the hardware removed – was it last year or the year before?

THERAPIST: I didn’t know that they’d removed the hardware.

CLIENT: Well I had the screws coming out my skin.

THERAPIST: That’s right. I do remember that, yeah.

CLIENT: So he had to take those out.

THERAPIST: Holy moly.

CLIENT: We’ll see what new kind of operation he’s done for (unclear).

THERAPIST: What’s the story with the hernia?

CLIENT: Oh well, that’s tomorrow.

THERAPIST: Tomorrow.

CLIENT: Yeah. According to Henry Winchester. It’s – as I say, it’s gone from here and it’s still here but it goes all the way to the side. So yeah.

THERAPIST: So it’s kind of wide and something.

CLIENT: Yeah, the pocket is wide.

THERAPIST: Oh. So this is going to be – you already said this is going to be a long surgery.

CLIENT: Yeah. So we have pain now that we can’t even lay down on this side of the bed.

THERAPIST: Is that right.

CLIENT: Oh yeah. So we’ll see what she says tomorrow. If no, I’ll be looking for another slicing doctor for that.

THERAPIST: Because you really wanted to get operated.

CLIENT: Yeah. I told him I was going to go on a reality show and see if they had one that just does surgery out of their garage or something.

THERAPIST: That’s a lot of surgery.

CLIENT: Yeah. I ought to be on the Discovery channel. Untold stories of the ER.

THERAPIST: So the surgery is scheduled for tomorrow?

CLIENT: No. I have to see the surgeon tomorrow. And then see what she says.

THERAPIST: Oh I see, a preoperative –

CLIENT: Yeah. We’re doing it soon because if not we have to go look for another doctor.

THERAPIST: Well you were about to do it before Christmas.

CLIENT: Yeah, I was ready then. But she wasn’t ready.

THERAPIST: She wasn’t ready?

CLIENT: No. She said where I’m a diabetic, my A1C has to come down. And did it come down? No. It went up. It was 7.1 and for some strange reason between December and now it went up to 8.1.

THERAPIST: Your blood sugar’s running higher?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: What’s the range they like you to be in?

CLIENT: A little under 7 or 7 exactly.

THERAPIST: So at 7.1 they were saying no and now it’s 8.1.

CLIENT: Yeah. So.

THERAPIST: Oh. Is that what you’re worried about, why she nixed it because of the 8.1?

CLIENT: Well, we’ll see. Dr. Elliott thinks that it should be taken out, period, because it will get longer and will attach to other muscles.

THERAPIST: Why would they be worried about the A1C? That’s interesting.

CLIENT: Who knows? Just give me an IV you know? So that’s all.

THERAPIST: Yeah, but now Winchester’s like she needs to get this done and it might be worth the risk.

CLIENT: So I know he was writing her a note yesterday. So I saw Elliott-boy yesterday and he says, did you write a letter? I says, yeah, it’s almost a book. That’s how long it was. He said, what was it about? I says it was about how the infamous doctor didn’t write out my prescriptions so that when I came up here there were no scripts and the doctor that was here for the day didn’t feel like writing it. And then if he wrote it it was going to have to wait until he had time to do it. You know, all he had to do was put it in the computer and it prints out. And he says, nope, you know how it is. Other doctors don’t want them to be on narcotics. So he says, yeah, I apologize and blah, blah, blah. I says, you’ve got to have some type of communication here. I says, you know, what goes on at the front desk doesn’t go to the nurse and then does it get to you? I says because nobody ever seems to call me back. So I was there yesterday. I booked my appointment for I think the 18th it was which would be exactly 28 days for my prescriptions. I says, I’m going to have to (unclear) because that’s the only way I can get my prescriptions. Don’t I get a fucking phone call today? This is the Falmouth Hospital, the clinic. I said, yes. We have to change your date for Dr. Winchester. Would you like to come in on the 25th? I said, no. I said because my prescriptions won’t be there and I’ll have been all run out.

THERAPIST: Oh you had the appointment just to see Winchester just for a visit?

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: And you wanted to do that at the same time you got the prescription.

CLIENT: Prescriptions. They want to know now why you’re coming in every month and can you go two months and I says, well maybe I could if you know how to do your prescription thing that you have that’s going to take care of everything. I says, do you have anything for the 11th? She says, no, he’s all booked up? She says, do you want us to get another doctor on the 18th? I said, no. Because they don’t want to write out scripts for – well I’m only here talking about getting an appointment for you. I says, well don’t bother.

THERAPIST: Well if you showed up on the 18th – are you sort of saying that if you show up on – when you show up for the visit then Winchester will write you a prescription then and there?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: How does it work otherwise?

CLIENT: There’s no prescriptions.

THERAPIST: But they’re supposed to have a prescription? How do they want to have it set up? Where you come in every 28 days?

CLIENT: He doesn’t even want to do that. He wants to – like say I went in – I saw him yesterday. He would want me to see him in March so that when I went in February I’d go up there just to pick up my scripts. But I’ve tried that. It’s not working. They’re not there.

THERAPIST: And so you don’t want to run into that again where you go there and then you’ve got to deal with all the –

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Sure. Sure.

CLIENT: So I explained that to them. I think it went in one ear and out the other.

THERAPIST: Do you think they’re getting blowback from the insurance company like you can’t see this patient every month?

CLIENT: I don’t know why. He should be able to. Because of my diabetes.

THERAPIST: What would the problem be coming every month? Even if it’s just for 20 minutes. How long do you usually see him for?

CLIENT: Well sometimes I’m in that room for an hour and a half.

THERAPIST: And how much actual time do you spend with him?

CLIENT: Probably about 20 to 30 minutes.

THERAPIST: Well, if you need it, it’s not a bad thing with all the stuff going on.

CLIENT: So I call up and I get – I want the patient advocate lady and of course she wasn’t in her office so I left a message but she didn’t get back in touch with me yet. But I got a phone call back from the same girl from Dr. Winchester’s office. Hi – would you be able to come in on the 11th? I says, well you told me there were no appointments on the 11th – he was all booked. Oh, he said to open up a slot for you. I said, okay. I’ll be in and then he can write them there. You just go to the drug store, give them to the pharmacist and he will hold onto them until the following week and fill them.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Does he – how did he sound about doing it every month – every 28 days?

CLIENT: Well he, you know, I explained to him that I wanted to see him every time because I’m tired of the fucking screw ups.

THERAPIST: What did he say?

CLIENT: Nothing.

THERAPIST: One way or the other.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You feel like you’ve had the experience one too many times of having to go all around town back and forth to get prescriptions filled and –

CLIENT: And then I said to him – evidently when the pharmacist called to get it renewed, someone renewed it for one tablet three times a day. I said, I have always taken two tablets twice a day. Can you call in a new prescription because I’m all out of the ones that you prescribed for one a day? He says, oh, alright I’ll call over. I call the drugstore – no they got no fax or nothing. I call and leave a message and the girl calls me back. She says well you know, you have 11 refills on that. It’s not going to do me any good because I take two, not one. Oh. Alright. So whether he did call it in I don’t know. I just don’t give a fuck anymore.

THERAPIST: The nurse is dropping the ball.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Well, you really have to really work in order to get things taken care of. There’s a lot of gaps.

CLIENT: It’s like pulling fucking teeth.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it must be incredibly frustrating to feel like you’ve got to do all this work to get the kind of care you need.

CLIENT: If you don’t want to be there to see the patients that you have, then just assign people to other doctors and quit doing it. You’re only there one fucking day a week. And then like I say, some weeks he’s not there at all. He’s teaching or you know. He does the students –

THERAPIST: Oh, the residents.

CLIENT: Yeah. And now they’re associated with Walter Reed Hospital.

THERAPIST: Falmouth is?

CLIENT: Amherst. Yeah. Amherst Health Alliance.

THERAPIST: Amherst Health Alliance is associated with WR? I didn’t know that.

CLIENT: Yeah. They just I think started it.

THERAPIST: Yeah, joining forces. They’d be doing something like partners with NGH and all those other hospitals. How about that.

CLIENT: Then I said to them, there’s a – in every patient room up in that clinic there’s a sign that says, if you’re a diabetic – please take off your socks and shoes. Because being a diabetic you could have cuts on the bottom or your skin is all cracked and all this stuff. I said, not for nothing, never have you asked me to take off my shoes and socks so that you can check my feet. Not ever. She says, well you go to the foot doctor. Oh, you haven’t seen the foot doctor in ages. I says, no, I see my own foot doctor because the other one upstairs thinks everything’s a big joke, you know. Oh, we’ll see you in a year. No. I get seen every three months. I’m a diabetic. I get free shoes once a year for being a diabetic. I just go to my own.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess what you’re getting at with them is they don’t – you don’t feel like he’s doing a thorough job.

CLIENT: Yeah, he’s not doing the necessary things that should be done. I says to his health aid – she says well let me make you an eye appointment. So she called up and she says – I don’t think I see them until May. She says you were seen in January. I says yeah, I was seen because I had an eye injury. Because generally they’d want to see you every year the same month that you were in. So I didn’t see her again until May for my eye exam. She says, alright. I says, I haven’t seen the woman doctor who does the PAP smear. I haven’t seen her in I don’t know how many years. I says you’re really not checking off all these things. I says, I’m supposed to see the podiatrist. I’m supposed to be seeing the optometrist. I’m supposed to be seeing another doctor. You don’t – she doesn’t question me. Louise – are you going to somebody else?

THERAPIST: Yeah, not following up on it.

CLIENT: Yeah. I said, big deal, my physical. I said all you do is listen to my lungs and that’s it and you send me to the lab for lab work. I give up. I give up. You just get so disgusted.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Because when this lady says she couldn’t get me in for another appointment –

THERAPIST: What did you think?

CLIENT: I was just all set to – it was like okay, lady you have just pushed my buttons. I took two more tranquilizers.

THERAPIST: What was getting – you must have been feeling a heck of a lot there.

CLIENT: Yeah. Shit, after I wrote a three page letter, I spoke to him yesterday and it’s like they’re not even, you know?

THERAPIST: Like it didn’t register.

CLIENT: Yeah. I made an appointment while I was there yesterday. Why did you make it knowing he wasn’t going to be there? Did he not tell you he wasn’t going to be there until you know, the end of the day and he said block my day out from the 22nd? Whatever day it was.

THERAPIST: Because they called you the next day to reschedule.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Well Louise it really seems like – I guess it kind of reminds me a bit of how you were feeling about Darla, at times like whoa, why am I being forgotten? Why am I being treated this way? Not kind of a feeling you’ve had about that, and Mark, too. This feeling of the world is kind of forgetting about me at times. It can really feel and really have happen and I think has been going on actually a lot of your life.

CLIENT: Yeah. Oh, my next door neighbor, Annie, she came over yesterday I think it was and she says, have you seen Mark? I says no. She says, oh, I see him walking the dog. She says but then one time I thought he might have got thrown out because Deborah was walking the dog. She said, but then again, she says, I saw him yesterday and he was walking the dog. I said, oh that’s nice. She said, why doesn’t he come over? What’s the reason? I says, I don’t know and you I don’t give a shit. He’s gone. That’s it.

THERAPIST: I’ve had enough of being neglected.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And treated this way.

CLIENT: Yeah. If I see him walking down the street do I ignore him? Turn around and go the other way? You know.

THERAPIST: Would you feel like seeing him? What would it be like to see him?

CLIENT: It would be like wanting to see my father.

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: Spit – I don’t spit.

THERAPIST: Spit. Disgust?

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. Disgusted with him.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: You know? Another one who thinks he’s the great womanizer. All women love him. You know? So I says, Annie if you want to invite him over to your house to see him, go ahead and do it. But I’m not the least bit interested. And my neighbor upstairs, Brenda. We’re not really – we’re not buddy buddies but we do talk and stuff like that. She knocked on my door last night and Deborah answered it and she gave Deborah a bottle of peach vodka for her mother. She said, here, give this to your mother. I don’t drink vodka. I mean it was a nice bottle, you know? I says, wow, Deborah, how long do you think it would take Mark to drink this? She said, oh, maybe two mouthfuls. I says, yeah, true. So she says, what we are going to do with it. I said, stick it under the counter. I says, I’ll have company sooner or later that will drink it. She says, yeah, like Brianne.

THERAPIST: From Maine.

CLIENT: Yeah. I said, yeah, that’s true, you know? I mean I bought two bottles of champagne New Year’s Eve. Do you know they’re still sitting in my refrigerator?

THERAPIST: Why did you buy them?

CLIENT: I figured for New Year’s Eve, you know, like friends could come by my house and have a drink. No one wanted any.

THERAPIST: Oh, is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah. You know, we had a pizza party that started at 5 or 6. It was all over in an hour.

THERAPIST: Where did they have it – like in a general room?

CLIENT: Yeah in the general room. So it was like – well, we had party hats and we had horns and things. But you know, it was like – it was only for the people that went to the Christmas party. There were only 26 people at the Christmas party.

THERAPIST: Why was it limited to the last group?

CLIENT: I don’t know. It’s just how she put it. She hung up things on the walls and said, you know, pizza being served only for those who bought tickets to the Christmas party. Oh, I know why. They idiot – our new director, another asshole, gave her money to spend for New Year’s Eve.

THERAPIST: But they wanted to limit it to people who had bought stuff for the Christmas.

CLIENT: So that was fair. I said, okay, fine.

THERAPIST: But it only lasted for an hour, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah, an hour, hour and a half. It was really exciting.

THERAPIST: Not one to remember, huh?

CLIENT: No. I mean I don’t know where some of these old ladies were putting it but they had like five slices of pizza they ate. I had two and that was it. I said, Jesus Christ, where the fuck is she putting it? Yeah, they’re bad. So I don’t know. We have this one couple who live on the first floor – Trevor and Pat. Well they have Meals on Wheels delivered every day. I mean you get a cardboard tray with something on it for supper. For lunch I think you might get a sandwich for supper or whatever. Well, she and her husband both get it. Do you know that lady could leave it there on Monday at 8 o’clock and it still is hanging on the doorknob at 10 o’clock that night? So it’s like they really need that food. And I think the two of them, all they do is smoke pot all day. They have a – they’re down at the short end of the wing where there’s only four apartments. And you go around that corner and you can just stand there and get high. It’s bad. And Kelly will go over to her friend’s house across the way from them and she’ll say, ‘why don’t you get stoned on that goddamned fucking crap?’ And she goes out in the hallway and she’s crazy. And I says, oh well, what can you do? And I remember they’re always getting takeout food delivered and he’s going out to the store and he’ll come back with Dunkin Donuts, the ice cream store, Whole Foods, you name it.

THERAPIST: What about that to you?

CLIENT: It’s like, you know, come on, let somebody else have it.

THERAPIST: The Meals on Wheels?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean like when I had the surgery and would deliver it right to me. I mean, after one week I just said, I don’t know. Don’t bother. I’ll get someone to come over and make me a sandwich.

THERAPIST: Why? Because the food was bad?

CLIENT: Oh my God, it was gross.

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah. The only other thing I kept out of it was the milk, the container of milk. Everything else went in the trash. I don’t even think a dog would eat it. That’s how gross it is. So yeah, I think they’re like taking it from somebody else. She knows all the ways in everything about everything. She’s just done about everything in her life. She’s been a nurse. She’s been a hairdresser. I haven’t been shit. You know? But I like to instigate, you know?

THERAPIST: Oh you do.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, yeah. The more I can instigate the better.

THERAPIST: With her.

CLIENT: With anyone. That gets, you know –

THERAPIST: That gets under your craw?

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. Like coffee hour was this morning. This one girl, Chelsea. I mean she thinks she’s living in a nursing home. She’s only 44 years old. She took a stroke. That’s why she’s there. But she comes down in her pajamas and no teeth in her mouth. I said, oh, did we have another sleepover and I wasn’t told about it? I said oh I would have worn my pajamas down, you know?

THERAPIST: Because what? What do you feel about her?

CLIENT: Well, I mean. She’s not living in a nursing home. You know? She lives in a building with a hundred people. You don’t walk around in your housecoat that you can see through and the button’s undone and you’ve got no bra on. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. And no teeth in your mouth. You know. What you do in your house is fine. But when you’re out in the hallway or associating with other people, please get dressed. You know? There’s a couple of them that do it.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and they’re – but they’re on disability or something like that?

CLIENT: And I mean it’s like – or Kelly will say, oh God no. Not again. Don’t you start. Because Kelly and I sit right next to each other. Hey, Kelly – psst, psst. Check it out. Oh, we’re bad. So we have this one lady, Helen, she thinks she’s the boss of the whole building. When Deborah was going through Walt Disney movie things when she came up with Ariel and the Bad Witch Ursula it looks just like Helen Gregory. So she’s going around – don’t it look like Helen? I’m like, Deborah – enough is enough. Just tell Kelly and me but don’t go all over the building showing it. Deborah’s going – can you print those up and hang them up all over the place and say, who does this look like? And I said, we could do a lot of things but you know, it’s unreal.

THERAPIST: How did you feel living there?

CLIENT: I hate it. Really. I mean, as I say – I’m bad. I’m glad that I’m on the backside, so this way here I can kind of see what’s going on on the front side. Who’s getting into the ambulance? Who’s coming out of the ambulance? Who’s doing this? They’re like vultures. So they – there’s that drunk going over to Louise’s apartment again. Jesus Christ. You know?

THERAPIST: Mark?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You don’t have much privacy.

CLIENT: You know, they see my cousin Mary pulling her car in and (unclear) Jesus Christ, what kind of drugs is she on?

THERAPIST: It’s very public. Everything is on display.

CLIENT: So as I say, I look out of my bath and what do I see? I see (unclear).

THERAPIST: Here?

CLIENT: No (unclear) because they drop me off here at two.

THERAPIST: At 2 o’clock? I thought they picked you up at – you said they were picking you up at 2:06.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So they’re picking you up early?

CLIENT: Well he was out there early so I went out early. He says, you’re out early. I says, well, you’re early. You know? Jesus Christ.

THERAPIST: You didn’t want him waiting, huh?

CLIENT: No. Yesterday. I saw – Dr. Winchester was my 9 o’clock appointment. They picked me up at 8 o’clock.

THERAPIST: They really get there – they make sure to get there super early. They don’t want to take any chances I guess.

CLIENT: You know, I mean, so you’ve got to sit there.

THERAPIST: You sit there in the waiting area.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don’t want to be waiting in an area where people are acting their brains out.

THERAPIST: How do you find it here waiting? What’s it like here?

CLIENT: Well, there was me and then there was a kid sitting in the other seat. He fell asleep and then he didn’t see anybody. He got up and left. I don’t know.

THERAPIST: He was a kid kid?

CLIENT: No. Is that the heat?

THERAPIST: No. That’s somebody rolling a cart. It’s a cart with a bag. Somebody’s carrying luggage on a cart.

CLIENT: Yeah, so I mean I just sit and – the only place I go is to Kelly’s and she comes to my place. Or sometimes I’ll go upstairs and see my girlfriend, Greta. She came down just at 1 o’clock. She cut my hair. She brought me down a big container of meatballs, sausages and stuffed pergolas. And what did Deborah make yesterday? Sausages and meatballs and stuffed peppers. And the day before that I had made beef stew. So you can’t see anything in the refrigerator right at the moment.

THERAPIST: What do you mean? It’s packed?

CLIENT: It’s packed. Yeah. Just enjoying being over there and not seeing a damn thing.

THERAPIST: What do you mean? You mean staying on your end?

CLIENT: Yeah. Because the only thing I can do is wave to the people on the trains that go by.

THERAPIST: But you have a little bit of privacy.

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: And you like it on that end. That’s nice.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it’s got to be quite different than what you had been used to in a lot of ways.

CLIENT: Yeah, like when I had my hair pink they used to call me “Pinkie”. When are you putting your hair back pink? And I says, I don’t know. I might do purple instead. No, we like it with the pink. And why is your hair brown? I says because it’s my natural color, that’s why.

THERAPIST: Well, it’s very different living in an apartment like that because it’s more than just an apartment building. People are very – it’s a social club. I mean other apartment buildings people can be very anonymous in these places but you know everybody.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, you get to know everybody in there.

THERAPIST: Whether you like it or not.

CLIENT: Yeah. Did you hear about Jeremy and Eunice? No, what? All right, fine. What’s been good lately though is they have a much bigger group at Bingo now for some strange reason. There’s a lot of husbands and wives that are going. And then men play cards I think three nights a week and a couple of the wives play too. We asked for a pool table and were told we couldn’t have one.

THERAPIST: Do you play cards?

CLIENT: Shoot pool.

THERAPIST: But do you play cards?

CLIENT: No. It’s only the same 12 people every week playing cards.

THERAPIST: Are there things that you like about the social life there?

CLIENT: No. I don’t even do Bingo anymore.

THERAPIST: So it’s mostly like Kelly and – anybody else?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: And Kelly’s sticking around there for the foreseeable future, right?

CLIENT: Oh yeah. She’s going away tomorrow.

THERAPIST: Where’s she going?

CLIENT: She’s going to her granddaughter’s. She just had a baby last Thursday, last Wednesday. Today’s Wednesday so she had to have the baby on Tuesday. So she’s going there for a couple of weeks.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah. Kelly – you’ve got to call me every day, Kelly. What am I going to do, Kelly? I’ll have to get into trouble by myself.

THERAPIST: She’s the person you spend the most time with besides Deborah, right?

CLIENT: And Deborah (unclear) spent.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I haven’t heard you talk much about her lately. What’s she been like and what’s she up to?

CLIENT: She’s up to nothing. You know, I had given her money at Christmas time and she had maybe $65 left over so that was supposed to be to buy boots because she wears all my boots. It went on pot. Oh no, I’ve got $30 left. I’m going to go to Radio Shack and get them. I’ve got the money.

THERAPIST: Radio Shack for boots?

CLIENT: No for wires for the cable in her Play Station 3 or something.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Yeah, so, you know, she just lies. She swears she’s got the money but she doesn’t have the money for that. I says why don’t you just come out and be truthful.

THERAPIST: Yeah, who are you fooling?

CLIENT: Yeah. I already smoked it. I mean, every night she’s gone out to the lady next door and they smoke.

THERAPIST: Maybe in some way it keeps her kind of thinking that she’s fooling herself. If I don’t say it out loud, if I don’t cop to it, maybe I’m not really doing all this stuff.

CLIENT: I says, but Deborah, why don’t you go out and rob something so you can go live in a nice little jail cell?

THERAPIST: This was not the plan was it?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: But she’s definitely – there’s been no kind of – at least what I’ve heard from you, there haven’t been those blowups that she was having, what, about two years ago? Is she still taking medication? Is that right? But her and – maybe it’s because her and Bennett have been off and that’s kind of kept her feeling more stable?

CLIENT: I know.

THERAPIST: Because for a while there it was really worrisome. She was really getting hot and bothered.

CLIENT: She still mentions him.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: There’s a commercial on TV and it’s something about a man wanting to eat something chocolate but he can’t really have it so they come up with one thing and they said – here Bennett, this is for you. And she goes – oh, Bennett. I listened to that for like 10 times. I’ll say, where you going? And she says, out with Bennett. I’ll say, what? She’d say, out with Bennett. I’d say, if you’re going out with Bennett, don’t bother to come home. She just does it to aggravate me.

THERAPIST: She’s just BS-ing?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: When was the last time she’s actually seen him?

CLIENT: Oh, a long time ago. No – sometime last year. She met him out in the park and he gave her a Play Station 3 game to play. You know, I – once I’m asleep, God only knows what goes on, you know? Because once I’m out I’m out for the count until the cat wakes me up.

THERAPIST: She never got on disability or anything like that.

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: Did she ever apply?

CLIENT: She said she did and they refused her.

THERAPIST: They usually don’t take you the first time.

CLIENT: I said, Deborah, Todd’s working on it six months and he’s legally got things that he can’t really work. I says, Deborah, you’ve got to do something, you know?

THERAPIST: She’s gotten this far. But she’s going to be in trouble when you’re not around anymore.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, oh yeah, you know. She said, oh, you’re going to be going in a nursing home soon. I says, well you know what that means? You’ve got no place to live.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that’s when they really don’t mess around that. Or even if you can get into those housing situations where it’s 65 and up and whatever – they’re really tight about that stuff. They don’t want any young people in there.

CLIENT: Yeah, but all the people in the building love Deborah.

THERAPIST: They do, huh?

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah. You told me. They like her. She sees them coming in with groceries and she’ll help them with the groceries. She’ll see if she can find the shopping cart for them to put the groceries in. Oh yeah. Good old Deborah. She’s part of the community.

CLIENT: But I can’t stand her. I really, yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you guys. She’s been living with you now for a couple years, right?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You only, how much time did you have apart?

CLIENT: Maybe a year. A year to two years.

THERAPIST: Right. Because she was over at Venice?

CLIENT: Yeah. Because the first year that I started dating Mark she wasn’t around for the whole first year.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I remember that.

CLIENT: So that was like having sex six, seven days a week to going to nothing.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it was kind of a relationship killer.

CLIENT: Yeah. You know? So that sucked.

THERAPIST: She’s not dating anybody?

CLIENT: Nope.

THERAPIST: And things are off with her and the woman upstairs?

CLIENT: Yeah. Oh yeah. She looks like hell. She doesn’t get dressed. She wears pajama bottoms, those men’s boxer things, men’s pajamas, T-shirts that have holes in them. She looks a mess. Her hair is all – you’d never know she combed it and 99% of the time she probably hasn’t combed it. She just looks like a slob. She’s a real couch potato.

THERAPIST: Full load couch potato.

CLIENT: And Kelly comes over and we’re having a cup of tea. She’s right there. I go over to Kelly’s, she shows up two minutes later. Is my mother here? Kelly goes – where the fuck do you think she is?

THERAPIST: She wants to be around you?

CLIENT: She wants to know what’s going on.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I say, do I follow you over to Annie’s house? No. I say well good. So don’t fucking follow me over to Kelly’s.

THERAPIST: Who knew you guys would be roommates, right?

CLIENT: Kelly says I’m growing yellow. I fucking hit her. I can’t fucking stand him. Jesus Christ, you drive me up the fucking wall. I says, well there’s a bench out back, but he’ll have to share it with Deborah. (Laughs) I says, maybe he can throw his air mattress bed on the ground out there and get a tent, but then the raccoons and the possums, and the skunks and the water rats – hey. We live in the jungle. We get the possums that are walking around, the skunks that are walking around, the raccoons that are fighting all night long looking for food. We’ve got a gopher. Oh I tell you. We had a big water rat the other night.

THERAPIST: Oh boy.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, and of course Deborah and Todd are right out there taking pictures. I would say she’d be right here and the rat was right there. I says, you’re lucky it didn’t jump on your leg and freaking bite you, you jerk. Oh yeah, they’re just wonderful.

THERAPIST: They’re with their moms or the long haul, aren’t they?

CLIENT: Oh yeah. I says you don’t even have a car that you can go and sleep in, Deborah. Can’t you go to a shelter, Deborah? Do something. I says, you’ve got to go back and start seeing the psychiatrist. See she won’t go now because I don’t have a car to drive her.

THERAPIST: Oh, I see. She’s not eligible for the things like the ride or – as of right now.

CLIENT: Because yeah, she’s not disabled. Even though she is – mentally she’s just you know. I can’t say mentally because she passed school with all As. Laziness? I don’t know.

THERAPIST: And she’s not going to do it. And she’s how old now?

CLIENT: 39. She’ll be 40 this year, right? I don’t know. She just thinks that I should be supporting her. I said, Deborah, now like Darla wanted her to come up March 15th. I still haven’t gotten her tickets for her over-the-holiday issue. I said, Deborah, I’d rather spend the money on getting something for the house. I want to buy a freezer. Why do we need a freezer for? Because, I says, you know, Deborah, to fill the freezer because I never know when I’m going to get out to the fucking store again. But she thinks because I bought two things of Mr. Clean – well she puts one back. I said, why did you do that? Well you only need one. Why do you have to buy two? I says because Deborah I don’t know when I’ll get up there again. Just like we could go without milk for a week, Deborah, because you’re too lazy to get up off your ass and walk to the end of the street to get milk. You can either go out to the street, Deborah, or you can go out the back way to go to (Unclear). I’m not spending that – I says, Deborah, it’s not your fucking money. It’s my money. Well, she’s kind of confused about that. I have to get the cat’s cat food and kitty litter. That costs me over $70 for wet cat food, dry cat food and kitty litter.

THERAPIST: For how long?

CLIENT: A month.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Now you’ve got three cats?

CLIENT: I’ve got three.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well, to Deborah, what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Including where you live.

CLIENT: I said to her, make sure you get stuff for a salad. All she bought was the bag of salad greens. No tomatoes, no cucumber, no nothing. I says, oh, okay. Well, you could have bought it. But I said, it was on your list, you know. At least let me know what I’m buying for myself. I had to buy her four things of coffee because she would use those (unclear) things – I bought four for her because sometimes she drinks five cups of coffee in a day. I bought three for myself and I bought two for when we have company because Deborah likes that dark Italian roast or anything – the darker it is and the stronger it is, she loves it. And, of course, I drink decaffeinated coffee. I mean she has gotten desperate enough to drink mine. She’s just such a good child.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well, she’s your roommate for life.

CLIENT: For fucking life. Maybe that’s why I’m looking forward to surgery. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: A little time away. A little privacy. Well so you definitely won’t have surgery before we meet most likely, is that right?

CLIENT: Probably not.

THERAPIST: Because they take their time scheduling you for it following the meeting.

END TRANSCRIPT