The Hero Business

Therapy

"What do you really want?" She asks me this question like I should know, like anyone should know. It's a fucking joke. I can't believe I'm actually paying for this bullshit.

"I wanna be rich and never work," I answer. "And to have a huge dick."

She nods and writes this down. At least, she writes something down. I don't know what she's writing on the pad, I haven't got x-ray vision for fuck sake. I know a girl who does and she says it's more trouble than it's worth. Who wants to look at skeletons all day? Depressing.

"I think that's just a deflection, Harry," the shrink says. She smiles her sad smile. I always feel like I'm letting her down. She's kind of hot in a school-teachery way. She wears heavy black framed glasses and suits in subdued greys or browns. I think she's got a pretty nic body from what I can see. She's be pretty if she didn't pull her hair back so tight like it's the only thing holding her face on. "I think you know exactly what you want. You talk a lot about your family and childhood, neither of which was particularly joyful."

"It was shitty."

"That doesn't mean you don't yearn for it," the shrink says. "We've talked about the deficit you feel in your emotional life. You didn't get much affection or love as a child and now, as an adult, you crave love."

"Are you offering, doc?"

She just smiles her cool smile. "Why do you think you decided to become a good guy, Harry?"

"I woke up one day clinging to the ceiling."

"No. Not a super powered human. Why did you chose to align with the good side."

"The money isn't bad."

"You were doing this before the Bounty Act," she flipped open her notebook and scanned a page. "You started to come and see me eleven months ago. You said you'd been fighting crime for two years. That's at least a year before the Bounty Act was passed. You were doing it for free."

"So?" I'd forgotten I told her that.

"Why did you start?"

"Why did I start? I don't really know. I was watching the news and it was full of assholes looting stores, battling the cops. I just thought it isn't..."

"Right?"

"No. It isn't fair. It's not a fair fight. It didn't seem right that the worst kind of people had all the power over the weakest."

"So you related to the weak ones."

"I guess."

"Can I suggest something to you?" She leans in. I hate when she leans in. "I think you relate to the weaker people of society because you were once one of them. Your father's physical abuse..."

I don't like talking about this. "My father wasn't abusive."

"He beat you, Harry," the shrink presses. She can sense I'm uncomfortable."He beat you with his belt. He burned you with cigarettes. He beat your mother in front of you."
"Well, the fucker is dead now."
"Not to you," she says and leans back in her chair. I hate that even worse because it means she thinks she's got me. "You go out every day and try to destroy him."
"Wow," I say. "You really nailed it, doc. I'm cured. Thanks."
"I must have touched a nerve. You're first line of defense is always sarcasm."
We sit in silence for a moment. At last, she says, "When's the last time you went home?"
"This morning."
"No. I mean home. To Petersburg."
"Not since... I became what I am."
"Maybe it's time you went back."
This is not what I want to talk about. "I don't ever want to go back there. There's nothing there."
She sighs. "Harry, you came to me. You are clinically depressed but you refuse to take any medication. You want help but sneer when I offer advice. I think you're wasting your money and my time. If you wish to continue in therapy, you're going to help me. I'm not here just to listen to you bitch and moan. I'm also not here to take shit from you."
She must really be pissed. She never uses bad language.
"Okay," I say. "What is your expert opinion, Doctor?"
She looks at me over her heavy-rimmed glasses. "You have to go home and face your past. By ignoring it, you let it loom over your adult life, cast a shadow over all the goodness that you have chosen to do. And you do do good, Harry. You discount all of your achievements as worthless but give enormous weight and validity to your failures. Your father told you you were worthless and you believed him. He was wrong about you, Harry."
My phone interrupts the silence. Buzz. Buzz. I look at the screen.
"I gotta go to work."