I’m back at Courage by mid-afternoon and try to listen to Dr. Rain preach of life without foil, gesticulating like some coked-up televangelist from the eighties, which I know isn’t fair. I tell Dr. Rain that the incessant focus with my habits irritates me like a rash.

“Too bad, Rufus…”

“Not interested, Rain.”

“Why’s that?” 

“I don’t think it’s ever coming off,” I shout. “I’ll croak with Reynolds Wrap attached, so please piss off.”

            “Horseshit,” Rain says. “See yourself, Rufus McHenry, bonding with your idealized shrink, the one who truly gets you. He understands every vice, tawdry dream, homicidal and self-harming urge. We’ll call him, I don’t know, Dr. Pell.”

“I feel stupid doing all this,” I say. “It feels demeaning and silly and sad.”

“Try it once for me, Rufus,” Rain says. “Let Dr. Pell penetrate your scalp like your best shampoo. Let him work his psychic magic inside your synapses. Watch him produce an emotive bouquet of peonies for me and you from the unforgiving soil of the aluminum foil.”

Dr. Rain stayed on my case doggedly but over the months, fragments of a Dr. Pell-like soul began to take shape. What felt like harassment eventually morphed into something approaching grace and trust. Despite Kiwi’s prodding, and my Pavlovic rolling of eyes, the seasons shifted until one misty day in May I saw a figure that looked a lot like me. He was sitting in a quiet, cool room flipping through old Time magazines with someone who could only be the good doctor.