Being Checked Out

This is a first time I am seeing Maurice, a tall, thin, 22 year old African-American man. He looks uneasily around the room, settles himself in the chair across from me, still holding his phone and keys in his hands.

“How can I help you?” I ask.

“Dr. Hudson said I should come. He’s my English professor at the University. Says I have more potential than I show.”

“And do you agree with him?”

“About my potential, yeah, I do.” Pause. “But if you can help me, I don’t know.”

“Because…?”

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but you’re white. And you’re a lady.”

“You’re right. I am both white and a lady. And that makes you feel I couldn’t help you, couldn’t understand you?”

He nods.

“Well, we’d only know that as we got to know each other and, hopefully, learned to trust and respect each other.”

Silence.

Maurice sighs, shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I can just do that, just start talking and hope that I can trust you.”

“Do you trust Dr. Hudson, since he’s the person who referred you to me?”

“I trust him as a teacher. I’m not telling him all kinds of shit about myself.”

“That’s true.”

Silence.

“You’re not trying to talk me into trusting you,” he says.

“I think that’s pretty hard to do. But I was about to ask what you thought might help you trust me enough to tell me about yourself.”

“I know shrinks don’t usually do this, but what if I ask the questions, ask you about yourself?”

“Well, I guess that would depend what the questions were. If you asked me to tell you about every person I ever dated and what our sex life was like, I’d probably want to know how that was relevant to your concerns about trusting me.”  

He laughs. “No, I wasn’t going to ask you that.” Pause. “Although now that you mention it, I did think of something kind of like that. Did you ever date a black man?”

I hesitate. “The answer happens to be yes, but I don’t think if the answer was no, that would mean you couldn’t trust me.”

“No. But, it’s a piece of information.” Pause. “Did you ever have a black friend?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever live in the ghetto?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been inside a prison?”

“Yes.”

He looks surprised. “How come?”

“I worked as a group therapist in a men’s prison when I was in graduate school. I did my doctoral dissertation in that prison. I also worked in a forensic center and at a women’s prison.”  

Maurice nods his head. He places his phone and keys on the small table next to him.

I take those gestures as a sign I can take on my more traditional therapeutic role. “So I assume you or someone close to you has been in prison.”

“Yeah. Like all my brothers. I did a little time in juvie, but no hard time.”

“And you feel how about having been the only one of your brothers to avoid prison?”

“Bad. Lucky. Glad. Guilty. Like shit. Fortunate.”

“Lots of mixed feelings.”

“Yeah.”

“So can you tell me more about you?”

Silence.

“I can, but I wouldn’t want you to think that means I totally trust you.”

“Maurice, trust takes a long time to build. There’s no question, no hundred questions that you could ask me that would assure you that you can trust me. And besides, trust is a complicated word. What does trust mean to you?”

“First thing I thought, ‘That you’re not going to stab me in the back.’ And I guess I mean that both literally and figuratively.”

“I get it that young black men have to first be concerned for their lives. And after that, I guess you’re saying that you’re afraid I’ll somehow lure you in and then turn on you, betray you.”

Maurice nods. “I want to write. I think I have something to say. But I’m ignorant. I don’t know enough. I need to get my degree. So many of my people – both my family and black people in general – have sacrificed so much so that I can have this opportunity. I don’t want to let them down. I can’t let them down. But I can’t get out of my own way,” Maurice says with clenched teeth.

“Any idea why that is?”

Silence.

“I wish you were black. And I wish you were a man.”

“Well, I’m not,” I say shaking my head. “And it’s not like I have any black, male colleagues I can refer you to. So I guess you’ll have to decide if I’m good enough.”

“I like you, Doc. I guess that’s as good a place as any to start.”   

Meeting the Family

“Well, I started World War III,” Patrick says sighing deeply, as he settles into the chair across from me. “I knew Vi wouldn’t go down easily with my parents, but I didn’t think it would be that bad. My mother literally gasped and my father’s rage permeated the entire dinner. He didn’t say a word to her the whole time, but he had a lot to say to me afterwards. I guess I shouldn’t have just sprung her on them, but she surprised me by coming down for the weekend and I was supposed to go to my parents for dinner so, I guess I just decided to bring her along.”

“Wait, Patrick. You mean you hadn’t told your parents that Vi is African American? And then you just showed up with her for dinner?”

“Yeah. You know, she teaches law at Columbia University in New York, I’m down here in Florida, I knew my parents, particularly my father is very prejudiced, so I guess I kind of avoided the whole thing until I couldn’t anymore. Vi wasn’t very happy with me either. Obviously the dinner was awkward for her.”

Internally I find myself yelling at Patrick, ‘Awkward? That’s an understatement! She must have been consumed by anger she had to swallow. How could you have allowed this to happen? To everyone.”

Wondering if I’m feeling not only my anger, but Patrick’s as well, I ask, “Who are you feeling angry at Patrick?”

“Angry? Well, I’m angry at my parents, particularly my father. He really let me have it. He guessed no nice white woman would want me since I was such a loser; had to go looking in the gutter for some black chick.”

“And you felt and said what?”

“I hung up on him.”

“And felt?”

“Angry. Disgusted. Vi is this incredibly accomplished, smart, beautiful woman. I’m honored that she’d want me. And all he can see is her black skin. Except I don’t know if she still wants me. She’s pretty angry with me too. She didn’t know I hadn’t told my parents she was African American. She kept saying we’re not children, we’re in our 30s, what gives them the right to think they can decide our lives.”

“And can they? Can they decide your lives?”

Patrick hesitates before saying, “No, not exactly.”

“What do you mean, not exactly?”

“Well, I couldn’t figure out the long distant part of Vi and my relationship anyway. I mean, it would hard for me to start all over again as a financial planner in New York and to say that there are no law schools down here equivalent to Columbia would be putting it mildly.”

“You’re confusing me Patrick. Are you thinking of breaking up with Vi? Were you thinking of breaking up before the dinner with your parents? Is your parent’s reaction influencing your decision about breaking up?”

“I don’t know. I love Vi, but I can’t figure out the logistics. I couldn’t figure out the logistics before the dinner and I can’t figure it out now.”

“Have you talked to Vi about your concerns? I know you hadn’t talked with me about it.”

“No.”

“Did you set Vi up, Patrick?” Realizing my anger is seeping through, I try to temper my question. “I mean, did a part of you think taking Vi to dinner with your parents would precipitate World War III, as you said, and might lead to her breaking up with you?”

“I hadn’t thought of that at the time, but now that you mention it … I mean, she’s such a perfect woman for me, I can’t see how I could break up with her. Except she lives in New York and I don’t see how that’s workable.”

Now I feel more sad for Patrick than angry. “You know, Patrick, it’s difficult for you to take charge of your life, to decide what you want for you and make it happen. You don’t talk with Vi about your concern about living in two different cities and whether that can be worked out. I suspect you haven’t even looked at the possibility of becoming a financial planner in New York. You don’t confront your father about your feelings about what he said to you.”

“I guess I always take the coward’s way out. I run.”

Now that I am no longer angry with Patrick, I realize that I had been reacting to him much as his father did. “I wonder, Patrick, if you’ve heard your father call you a loser your whole life and if you’ve come to identify yourself as a loser, despite your obvious success and accomplishments. You feel you can’t do it, whatever it is, and so you don’t, you opt out.”

“I think that’s true. But it’s a hard pattern to break.”

“Yes, it’s a hard pattern to break, but we’ll work on it.”