“So the other one held on to her apple, the chick with the red dress I also saw just earlier. Redd I’ll call her.”
“Redd, huh,” he said back while I was on my back. Couch. Psychiatrist. Clyde.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” They’d talked about a woman named Redd before. Hooker. Backseat. On his back again, getting a b. Just saying what he said.
“What do you think the dropped apple means?” he guides. “Redd holding onto her red one, but the other: butterfingers.”
“Butterfingers, yeah. Just the word *I* was thinking.” They become more in sync with each other as the session goes on. 2:54. This one’s almost over. Not untypical. Now the finish stretch.
“Let’s talk about your book then, Frank Lynn, to close. We have, let’s see (he checks his watch but he doesn’t have an arm, oh well — new one).
“What happened to your *arm*, dawg?” said Frank Lynn, noticing it for the first time since it wasn’t his writing one. Hidden by a writing pad until this new hand gesture revealed it.
“Oh.” He looks down. “Couldn’t bother to screw it on this morning. Just woke up and said, ‘screw it’ to all that… aand we’re down to 5 minutes. Can’t extend because Tom is afterwards. Tom is also a full-timer, in that he completely fills his time with me with words, pages… novels again. Each session is a novel. 4 minutes now; better speak now.”
“Speak speak speak,” says Frank Lynn, getting pretty fed up with the turn. They were soo close! He decides to just start counting down the time. “357… 356… 355.”
“Frank Lynn… please,” mildly scolds the psychiatrist, taking several pills in the gap for his pain. Perhaps the arm, perhaps the army. That shot went directly into the rear instead of the front. Back to front. But he survived to die another day.
“345… 344,” he continued.
“339?” Clyde said after 5 more, pills deep in the gullet now, about to enter the stomach. Then, just like that, they were back on the planet, walking through the tall grass, green and not any other color. Like it could be — out there. Just as it flipped all the cards were over. Tom already had one shoe in the door.
