The Real Deal

Micro-fiction

He tried to be a better man by enrolling at the local university. Even tried, he told me, to brainwash his self. Who thinks they can do that? Better yet, who can do it and not go crazy?

See, he learned about all these fancy techniques from Europe That’s what he said, “from Europe.” Fancy ideas for fancy people, I reckon. Those ideas he repeated to his self over and over. Anything that conflicted with his new ideas became like a mental obstacle to be expunged from the mind. Expunged- that was one of his words. He taught me what it means.

The old negative ways of thinking? Those needed to go. You can’t work with people and have a cloud hanging over you all the time. So, he set to erasing everything inside he could to become this “better man” that didn’t really exist.

In time, he was smiling at everyone he come across he knew or didn’t, looking kind of fanatical, if you know what I mean. Like a cracked egg. Yeah, just really looking like he drank the kool-aid he made for his self from the ideas tweedy, fancy people gave to him to become a “professional.”

A therapist.

If you had known him, you’d laugh at hearing this. The man had the patience of a toddler and on a good day he was like a lethargic teenager. But a therapist he wanted to be. And for this guy, what he wanted took the lion share of his attention.

Outsiders thought he sucked, but they didn’t really know the man. He was afflicted. That’s how he came to be one of these students at the university. He was afflicted and they told him that being afflicted was often advantageous in the profession because it made the therapists more empathetic. He had had good enough grades from his school days to enroll. Yeah, I heard about this term-empathy. One a those words people use to feel good or better about they self. Kind of a wasted concept, I told him, if it only gets people thinking about relatability and caring instead of acting on those feelings. He nodded but said no more. Everyone talks. But, okay, so having some mental quirks is good for the gander. I can see that, even if it seems a little…unreliable.

Anyway, this was a turning point for him and his family this new way of looking at the world he was brainwashing his self with. They didn’t really know it was even happening because it was all internal, until you notice he started reacting less and smiling more.

It looked positive at first. That smile…what a creepy smile. That smile was nothing more than evidence of mounting chaos. But you would have to know the guy for a while to see it for what it was. A blackness filling him up. That’s what I saw. That smile was a cover for the darkness that could not be tamed.

I didn’t say anything. Hell. Clearly, I have some thinking to do about my own lack of common sense. Lucky, I didn’t get any of his rage. Before he was around, thought I had my head on straight. Think it’s still on pretty good, but could use some tighten’.

He was building up a wall of insanity, you understand? They call it “cognitive-behavioral therapy.” You have to engage with your thoughts to make them more productive. You have to catch yourself in the negativity and change your thought to something else. It sounds like nothing but a waste of time. Time that could be spent doing something. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe these people can’t get on from one thought to the next. You know, like mental quicksand. That’s how he told me they explained it to him at the university.

I asked him how come they can’t just fix him if it’s easy to do? He said it’s kind of tricky like that. You know? Easier said than done.

That was one of Percy’s lines. Ever since I met him I was hearing him say how things is always easier to explain than to do. And you know what? Out of all the crap I heard from him, that right there made the most sense.

He would laugh at all this. Who wouldn’t? You either laugh or you cry. Percy wasn’t no crier. Maybe crying would’ve helped him be softer around the edges. Less prone to outrage.

Doubtful. Violence needs a home too. Percy let violence find a home in him.

He wasn’t gonna hurt nobody. I knew that. No one saw him doing what he did to his self. He wanted peace. That’s all. The real deal.