Dominance
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"Okay, hun, see you in fifteen," his mother told him over the phone. Her voice was slightly teary, as expected.

"Bye Mom." He placed the phone back on its cradle, and then sighed deeply. She was always getting emotional, even during cheesy chick-flicks. So of course she would be crying in the half hour before her only son's first therapist appointment.

He had tried to tell her about a thousand times that going to see a therapist was about as common as nerds playing "Magic" as they ate lunch at school, but her eyes still sparkled every time the topic was discussed. Oh well, he thought. I suppose that's just one more thing to add to the list of things to tell the therapist about.

Rummaging through his drawers, he discovered that the majority of his clothes were scattered on the floor, already worn. Shrugging, he picked up some baggy jeans, shook them out, then pulled them on. Why get all dolled up and act false when he's supposed to be himself? Then he selected a t-shirt with his favorite band on it and let it fall over him. It was about six sizes too big, just the way he liked it. He glanced outside to see if he would need a jacket.

The sky looked blue, but upon closer inspection, he found that it was really just grayish clouds, pretending to be blue so that they wouldn't be hated too much. The boy scowled. This kind of weather was the worst. Rain clouds are supposed to be the enemy. They ruin picnics, prevent small children from having kickball games, and cause thousands of car crashes. And now, here, they are trying to act sorry about all that by making poor observers think it's a nice day, and then get stuck in the rain. With a quick shake of his head, he grabbed his flannel and a pair of socks and dashed down the stairs.

He had half a mind to check what was on TV, but his cat was laying on the remote. The cat was ancient, older than him, probably close to seventeen years old. She was sweet as anything now, but when she was younger, she used to scratch and bite anyone that got near her. Age seemed to have that effect on most animals. They just kind of lose all purpose and say, "To hell with it." Then they just go on living, eat, sleep, walk around, sleep, eat, sleep, eat, walk around, sleep. Funny, humans do that, too, but at any given point in their life.

"Move it, Chunky," he told the cat. She just looked at him, blinking her old green eyes in a way that said, quite clearly, "Make me." So he smirked and picked Chunky up. She let out a little mew of discontent, but as soon as he put her down on the other side of the couch, she lay down and went back to sleep.

Grabbing the tacky, glow-in-the-dark remote, he plopped down on the couch and turned on the boob tube. The roadrunner was busy indirectly blowing up Wile E. Coyote on the Cartoon Network. On MTV2, some wanna-be punk girl was wreaking havoc on the poor, unsuspecting mall security guards. Cinemax was playing some over-exaggerated teen movie, and on Fox, Bill Cosby had his hands full with his newest family problem. The boy suddenly understood why television never interested him. It was just as well, he needed to get some food in his stomach before his mother showed up, or he would never hear the end of it.

Looking around the noticeably empty refrigerator, he saw a bug crawling slowly across the ceiling. He straightened up, closed the fridge, and watched it with mild interest. It had about a thousand legs; all squished closely to one another at the body of the insect was only about an inch long. It had really long antenna, and these were feeling out the path in front it. About a minute passed without notice by either species, but then the boy figured that he ought to kill the innocent thing. Why, though? It never did anything to him, at least not on purpose. Was it because it was gross? No, that couldn't be it; the thing didn�t particularly disgust him. In fact, he was kind of fascinated. He squinted at it. If it moved forward about six more inches, it would be right above him. He again considered killing it. Was it because it was different from him? Did he feel a need to be dominant over it? If so, it was merely a different form of racism which drove him to squash the thing like the bug it was. He raised an eyebrow. Survival of the fittest, he told himself. It was a need to feel like he was more important than it. How foolish, to need to drop to a level so low that he had to kill a defenseless bug to merely prove his own need in this world.

It was like in that book, "Animal Farm." "All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others." God, how he hated that book. Not because of the book itself, but because it forced him to face the very thing he was looking at now. A chance to prove his dominance over something so small. He closed his eyes, sighed, and left the kitchen, leaving the insect intact on the ceiling.

Crackers would have to serve as his dinner. He grabbed a pack from the box in the laundry room and went to put his socks on. Once that was finished, he ripped open the plastic packaging on his meal and popped a cracker in his mouth. Then he went scouring the house for his shoes. It wasn't that he was particularly disorganized; it was just that it was toward the end of summer and he hadn't really been outside in about two weeks. His pale skin was evidence of this.

The elusive sneakers were found in the closet, having been thrown there haphazardly in one of his mother's cleaning fits. Then, shoes in their correct place on the boy's feet, he moved to stand by the window. Apparently, as he had been watching the bug, the clouds had gathered enough moisture to empty them on the world below. Rain fell at a reasonable pace, puddles having already formed on the sides of the street, flowing smoothly into the gutters. He saw his mother's car turn the corner, and left the window to put on his flannel. He went to turn off the kitchen light then, and noticed that the insect had left its spot on the ceiling. It was now nowhere to be found. With a shrug, he flicked off the lights and went out on the driveway to meet his mother.

A click as the locks opened, then a louder one as he opened the door. He slid into the seat and pulled the door shut, and without a word, his mother put the car in reverse and pulled out of the driveway. It was quite clear that they were going to be late.

****

The couches in the waiting room smelled familiar. Why couldn�t he place that scent? The aroma wafted up through his nose, making him want to sneeze. It wasn�t pleasant, that was for sure. He sank further down into the cushions of the chair. It was only his mother and him in the waiting room. With one swoop, he took in his surroundings. There was a number of flimsy chairs across from him, but an end table before that. Lazily, he propped his feet up on the table, knocking over a �Teen� magazine by mistake. There was a girl wearing a skimpy summer dress on the cover, the background was bright pink. It was dated for two months ago. He made an aggravated noise in the back of his throat, completely without his body�s consent. This startled him. Why did he do that? But one quick glance around the room answered his question.

There was a corner for small children in the room, toys scattered on the ground and foam puzzle pieces thrown wrongly together by some baby who was now no where to be seen. A bookshelf was tucked tastefully in the same corner, and from his viewpoint, he could only read two titles, both of which involved Sesame Street. The magazines on the table were all girly ones, with names like �Elle� and �Vogue� and �Seventeen.� He saw at least three different subheads that had to do with taking a quiz to see if �Your guy is the perfect one for you.� What kind of flaky people read that stuff? But as soon as the thought rebounded off one ear and to the other, his mother reached out and picked one up. A sigh escaped his lips. Now he knew for sure why he was aggravated: This office complete skipped over his age and sex.

Sure, it provided entertainment for little kids, and he was sure any teen girl would be satisfied to read up on the latest trends, but from what he could tell, the office seemed to ignore the existence of teenage boys. There wasn�t even a �Newsweek� or a �USA Today� or something.

There was, however, a picture of a cat that was looking into a mirror. But the reflection in the mirror was that of a lion. The lion was looking fierce, mouth eternally open in a loud, silent roar. Under the picture was a line that said, �What you see yourself as is the only thing that matters.� That, of course, got the boy thinking. Was it really the only thing that matters? So he could go up to a teacher and say, �I may be a kid, but I see myself as a lion,� and still be respected? Or maybe he wouldn�t be, but magically it would turn out that nobody�s opinion mattered, and all his problems would be carried away in some kind of heavenly rapture. He really had to try and keep the corner of his mouth from lifting in a smirk. Yeah, right, his inner self laughed. Needless to say, it was the perfect item to be hanging on the wall of a psychologist�s office.

Suddenly, something clicked in his mind. He remembered where he had smelt this odor before. It was a rubber glove type smell, kind of like you would smell in a hospital of at a dentist. He scrunched his nose up. �It smells bad,� he told his mother.

�Yeah,� she said in reply, completely absorbed in her chick magazine. He sighed. Well, he got points for effort, right?

The therapist was later than they were, and finally he stepped out of the office and called the boy in. �Finally,� he muttered, just loud enough for both adults to hear.

****

Later, as he reflected on his appointment, he really only remembered one thing about his one-hour session with the doctor. He had been stretched out on the couch, hands behind his head, eyes seeming to pierce into the hole-filled plaster tiles of the ceiling. It was towards the end, so the boy was pretty lose with the therapist. He said, half-jokingly, �So what�s the diagnosis, Doc?�

The older man furrowed his brow thoughtfully, seeming to disappear into his own thoughts. Just like me, mused the boy to himself. Yeah, he liked this guy all right. �I think,� the therapist said finally, �That you are a bit cynical for your age.�

The boy, not really expecting the older man to answer, was quite shocked. He turned his head to look at him. The man in question simply went on, �You over-think things. And you expose the ridiculousness of everything you see. Do you know what I mean? Can you understand yourself doing that?�

A nod, slow but sure, came from the patient. Then he decided to voice his thoughts: �You say that like it�s a bad thing.�

This time, the doctor shook his head in a negative way. �No, no, don�t misunderstand, it�s a wonderful thing, really. The only bad thing about it is that you will intimidate people. Because you see things that they don�t, they are just going to assume you are a freak who can�t accept things for the way they are. But it�s a great think, I promise you.�

The boy snorted. �I haven�t gotten anything good out of it.�

�Just wait a while. You will.�

The session ended about five minutes later, and the boy went home, his mind swirling with questions and answers, more questions and some confusion, like a circle with some squares and triangles thrown in. His brain felt messy. As if someone, the therapist perhaps, had wrenched everything up with a crowbar and then expected him to put it all back into place, only to get it wrenched up again next week. He was so confused, he hardly heard his mother ask him what he wanted for dinner. �Huh?� he droned, voice thick with emotion.

�I asked if you wanted to stop off and eat somewhere,� she repeated.

�Uh, yeah, okay. Sure.�

�Where to?� No reply. �Honey?�

�Eh?�

�Where would you like to eat?� she asked softly.

�I don�t care,� he responded. And he didn�t.

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Jessie Balick, August 23, 2002