THE LUMP ON THE COUCH
Serwer, Arnold
The Lump on the Couch by ARNOLD SERWER All right, Doctor, you've got your notebook out and I'm lying down and ready to talk. Am I comfortable? Well, it's not too bad except there's a lumpy place...
...One of my friends calls it the "Vietnam shakes...
...I liked it better when you scribbled more, and said less...
...Psychosomatic, maybe...
...Long letting go her rockets...
...Just lie back and rest easy...
...What's happening...
...Can you identify any of our ships...
...Could that be Barry Goldwater, sir...
...Let me take a look...
...Comfortable...
...of A. Do you see the Nixon out there...
...You think we should tackle China now, Doctor...
...Anyway, the last few months I've been getting this feeling that a lot of unreal things are going on...
...That is the Chinese fleet out there, coming to attack the Royal Hawaiian hotel...
...Close your eyes and think of a long row of dominoes...
...When the dream returns to Dirksen and me at Wai-kiki, I am saying: "I think it's all right, sir...
...Well, Doctor, the dream goes like this: I am sitting on the beach at Wai-kiki with Senator Dirksen...
...Excuse me for interrupting, Senator," I say, "but what is that out there, a storm...
...The Nixon...
...And I see the U.S.S...
...There is a brief interruption for a Lucky Strike commercial showing people eating their hats...
...F'rinstance, did I really read that Senator Long said that if we've got to be licked by somebody, he'd rather it was big China than little North Vietnam...
...Yes, the battle is closer now, Senator...
...Dodd firing away like blazes...
...What happened to my deep-seated trouble...
...Defeatist syndrome," eh...
...And if I dreamed that we won...
...Thank God...
...And some fellow in a fighter plane is skywriting about 2,000 feet up...
...For five minutes, ten minutes, he sweeps the horizon with the glass, and I take advantage of the time and the dream to have two more martinis...
...Senator Dirksen calls for a telescope, and claps it to his eye...
...A line of ships slips out from behind Diamond Head and streaks toward the Chinese, and there is the sound of gunfire...
...I take the telescope from him and look for myself...
...This is another Pearl Harbor...
...I don't really know, Doctor...
...Seems to be going in circles, sir...
...Dirksen asks...
...I see at least 10,000 armored junks and some captured Hong Kong ferryboats...
...I can pick out the message now: w-h-y n-o-t v-i-c-t-o-r-y...
...Well, I warned all of you Ful-brightniks," Senator Dirksen says, "but you wouldn't listen...
...It's smooth as silk...
...Or wish fulfillment or something...
...Between the shoulder blades, I suppose...
...Would it throw any light on my condition if I dreamed that China won the battle of Hawaii...
...Another thing—lately I've been having some wide screen, technicolor dreams, and I know they don't all come from The New York Times...
...No, I don't want you to put me into a dream with Dean Rusk so I can warn him about China...
...Dirksen is right—a vast Chinese armada is coming toward us...
...No, sir, I don't want you to put me to sleep...
...I wish you would go back to scribbling, Doctor...
...Yes, I see her now...
...exclaims Senator Dirksen...
...Look for yourself—the couch is smooth as smooth can be...
...As I watch, suddenly I see some puffs of smoke...
...He is re-enacting his filibuster against repeal of 14-b, along with a few scenes from King Lear and the Old Testament, while I sip a martini and gaze out at Diamond Head and the blue, blue sea...
...Okay, I'll get up, Doctor, and let you lie down if you really insist on talking to him yourself...
...You know, you're right, Doctor—there's no lump on the couch...
...Look wise and say as little as possible—let the patient do the talking...
...Whaddeya mean, "lump on the couch...
...Scribble this down, Doctor: I'm losing my ability to tell the difference between the real and unreal...
...Scribble, scribble, scribble...
...It's humiliating to lick North Vietnam, it's so little...
...Yes, I know that's more patriotic...
...Finally he lowers the telescope, his face stern and strong...
...I never get to finish the dream...
...One of them keeps coming back, about one night a week...
...Well, it's not too bad except there's a lumpy place that digs into me between the shoulder blades a little...
...China is our deep-seated trouble...
...Like you say, Doctor, better for us to defeat some big power like China than some little country like North Vietnam...
...He warned me about China, the other night while I was snoozing after dinner...
...There goes the U.S.S...
...Now I'm going to put you to sleep, Doctor, and you can talk to Dean Rusk, or even the President...
...Maybe I imagine I feel a lump because I want a lump to be there to hurt me...
...Okay, don't answer if you don't want to...
...Now I see our ships cutting across the bows of the Chinese...
...All you analysts are the same...
...We've engaged them, sir...
...I see...
...Those inscrutable orientals have done it again...
...Tell you about it...
...Then there's another commercial, and I wake up yawning...
...Who wins the naval battle...
...Whaddeya mean, "What lump...
...Gradually I become aware that the line where the sea meets the horizon is thickening, and getting blacker and blacker...
...They've come just in time to save us, and the U.S...
...Oh, more deep-seated than that...
...It's all in your mind, Doctor...
...Events seem so strange to me that I don't always know for sure whether I read or heard about them, or made them up in my own head...
...It sounds wild but somehow I get this idea I read it in The New York Times...
...Now I see the Stennis in a cloud of smoke and flame, and the Russell coming up fast, and...
...One domino falls, and then another, and another, and another...
Vol. 30 • April 1966 • No. 4
