The Regression | Frank Duffy
Lenny complimented himself on his composure as he stood in the waiting lounge of the private airport, watching the TV crew collecting their equipment. The director was bantering with a woman in an orange flight suit, asking her about the quality of free drinks on the brief journey they were about to take.
“I’m it,”she said, “unless you want me to pass the controls to somebody else?”
“I’d risk it,” cracked the director.
Linda, his wife, looked at Lenny, and shrugged helplessly, as if she were the one going up and not the other way round.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said.
One of the film crew, a plump woman with a huge bolt skewering her right nostril, burst into hysterical laughter as the director mimed what looked like a man without a parachute. Matthew only hoped it had nothing to do with him
“Who’d have thought after three weeks,” said Linda, “no more holidays sat at home wondering what I’m up to.”
He hadn’t minded her going away, understanding that his mental paralysis shouldn’t prevent his wife from going off on holiday with her friends. The director broke away from entertaining the crew, a grin on his face that’d been there since arriving at the airfield.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked, slapping Lenny’s shoulder, grinning some more.
“Not bad,surprisingly.”
This was partly true, even if extracted rather than offered.
“After Blakely’s magic I’m sure you’ll be racking up the air-miles.”
“Any word when he’ll be arriving?” asked Linda. She glanced at her watch, annoyed.
“Actually, he’s already here. He’s with one of our make-up assistants."
Lenny had hoped Alan J Blakely would have cancelled, or at least phoned to say he’d got stuck in traffic. He was an optimist for last minute reprieves.
“Okay, we’re about to start recording, so if we could have you first, Linda.”
“What do you need me for?” she asked, pulling at her blouse as if already exposed to the glare of the camera.
The director ditched the grin for something more consoling.
“Just a few words about Lenny’s problem, about your holidays, you know, without hubby standing around breathing down your neck.”
“He’s not that type,” said Linda, either not understanding the director’s sense of humor, or simply not wanting to. His wife was powerfully obstinate when she wanted to be.
This time it hadn’t been Linda’s idea, though Lenny felt she must share some of the responsibility for letting her father convince him. Nobody had to tell Lenny he’d become something of an embarrassment for the family. The barely suppressed awkwardness which arose every time somebody happened to mention holidays, was as excruciating for him as it appeared to be for his father-in-law.
“Well, if you must. But I don’t want any of your people making me up. This isn’t entertainment, this is about my husband.”
The director guided Linda across to the cameraman and the large soundproofed window as a small plane taxied down the runway.
*
The plane was white with a single red stripe along its fuselage. It was tiny, barely able to accommodate the five of them. Lenny sat next to the hypnotist, frozen into place by the ever present eye of the camera. He looked out the window at the marshland round the airfield. If they crashed on take-off, it was possible they would also sink. He was doing his best not to look frightened, but his heart was beating so fast he thought he might pass out.
“Remember what I showed you,” said Blakely, “deep, deep breaths.”
The sound engineer was in the seat across the narrow aisle, trying to angle the boom between the low ceiling and their heads. The cameraman sat in front of Blakely, and the director was in the seat next to him. The pilot, within arm’s length, was busily checking her instrument panel.
Lenny couldn’t quite understand how something as small and fragile as the plane, especially once it was up in the great vastness of the sky, could carry them all.
Sweat trickled down his forehead.
“Stage fright,” said the director, “it happens to us all.
Linda was watching from the window of the departure lounge. She can’t help you now, he thought helplessly, imaging himself clambering over Blakely to pound at the window, screaming at his wife to come and get him. Blakely had said she might prove too big a distraction, that a successful hypnotic state was one without any distractions. Lenny thought any distraction at this point was better than having to think about being up there above the weightless clouds.
The hypnotist’s coiffed hair slid into the view as he leaned over to reassure Lenny.
“Again, Lenny, again, breathe deeply, come on now, big breaths.”
Linda claimed the hypnotist had come highly recommended, but it’d been Blakely’s idea to contact ITL Media. Lenny recalled watching five minutes of a TV show last year in which a hypnotist on TV had done something similar. He’d turned it off before anything substantial had occurred, feeling nauseous just thinking about the idea. Was Blakely angling for a show of his own? Possibly. The hypnotist had all the trademarks of somebody priming themselves for a much larger audience, his flamboyance, his immaculate dress sense.
“You’re in shot,” said the director, gesturing Blakely back to his seat.
“And?”
“I mean you’re blocking poor Lenny.”
Linda’s grandmother called him ‘poor Lenny’, as if were a homeless dog found wandering the streets looking for its owner. He suspected that in private, and away from the ears of his daughter, Linda’s father called him a lot worse things.
Blakely leant back, adjusting the pastel colored tie he was wearing as if the director had instructed him to do so.
“It’s horrible I know,” he said, flattening the knot of his tie, “but it’s a soothing color.”
The boom appeared above Lenny’s head, scraping the ceiling. He felt trapped by all this attention.
“Do you remember everything I told you, Lenny?” The hypnotist’s face had taken on a concerned look, the lines around his eyes hardening. Already he was playing to the camera, and of course, hopefully, the potential viewers.
The hypnosis, as opposed to the pre-hypnosis preparations, would involve a single concentrated pocket light, Blakely’s instructions, and an induced semblance of sleep.
What was there to forget?
“Okay,”said Lenny, thinking that Blakely should put him under soon if they were to contain his growing panic. There was a low growl from the plane, reverberating along the entire fuselage. Lenny instinctively gripped the hand-rests. “Jesus, I don’t think I can do this.”
“Listen to me, Lenny,” said Blakely, his voice going up an octave as he realized he may be about to lose his subject, and more importantly, the program. Without the film ITP had nothing to go to the networks with. The hypnotist reached into his blazer and uncapped the pocket light.”I want you to concentrate on me and the light only.”
Lenny managed to turn his head to look at Blakely, feeling the vibrations of the plane increasing as his heart pounded messages to his brain that it was time to get up and get off this damned plane before it was too late.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Blakely offered a beatific expression, his lips rouged for the camera. He reminded Lenny of a clown, one who’d ensnared him with his beguiling showmanship.
“That’s not a problem, Lenny. Par for the course.”
The hypnotist leaned over him, flashing the pen light in Lenny’s eyes as the plane shuddered ominously. They were moving again.
“Okay, start rolling,” said the director.
Lenny stared into the tiny glare of the pocket light, praying for the hypnosis to work as quickly as well as effectively.
“Now, Lenny, I’m going to count down from ten.”
*
Lenny wasn’t listening to the man in the high-backed chair, he was pretending.
“...issues which might have led to this incident...”
Lenny considered grabbing the letter opener from the desk in front of him.
“...sessions such as this...”
He wondered how loudly the man would scream if he were to plunge the letter opener into both eyes. Would it replace the Farrow’s boy’s broken arm on his list of things to do before leaving comprehensive school?
“...you’ve been expelled from two previous schools for similar attacks...”
The doctor’s mouth fluttered, his eyes taking on a peculiar brightness.
“Lenny?”
Would he be able to fully describe the terrifying drop through the trapdoor, of the torrent of hot piss streaming down his legs as the rope tightened faster than he could breathe, and then the sickening crack as his neck separated from his vertebrae?
I’m not me, I’m somebody else.
The doctor roused from his usual apathy of repeating himself, had reached for his notepad. His eagerness was all too apparent.
*
“Turn him on his side...carefully...let me get this in...” said a new voice.
Lenny felt something slide into his arm, and couldn’t remember where he was. He managed to open one eye, but recognized nothing.
“She’s gone,” said another voice.
Lenny let his eye roam about its socket as if independent of him. A strip of metal arced against a billowing cloud, grey, on the verge of raining. High above he could see the distant shape of a plane travelling through the clouds.
“Okay, lift on three,” said the first voice.
Lenny felt a thunderbolt of pain pass through him. He screamed. He was flying, up above the ground. The wreckage below resembled a car.
“That’s good, he’s awake.”
“Lenny?”
He recognized that voice.
“You’re going to be alright, son, I promise, you’ll be fine.”
It was his grandfather.
“Keep talking to him,” said one of the new voices, though he couldn’t tell which.
Lenny remembered the man in the office had frightened his parents. They’d been arguing in the car, and he told them about the man from the book whose life was strangely familiar, that sometimes he dreamt about him.
The white van hadn’t appeared out of nowhere, they had.
“Where’s mum and dad?” he asked, seeing his grandfather in a raincoat, a policewoman holding his arm as if to prevent him sprinting off.
“Later, son, we’ll see them later.”
*
Lenny marveled at the world, or lack of one. He couldn’t quite get his head round the fact, even though they’d been at this altitude for ten minutes or more.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, “I really can’t.”
Linda will be so proud of me, he thought. No more long distance telephone calls, or postcards from holiday resorts, and especially none of the smirking and gossiping among his wife’s family. He was already making a mental list of places he planned on visiting.
“Shouldn’t you be filming this?” he asked the cameraman, who was sitting in his seat, staring at him.
He felt incredibly relaxed, unconcerned by the absence of anything tangible outside the plane. Quite frankly it astounded him. In the seat in front of him he could see the back of the director’s head, lolling against the window. He playfully nudged Blakely, who responded by toppling sideways into the aisle.
Lenny screamed.
He clambered out of his seat, crawling over the hypnotist’s body. His arms ached, but it was his hands which hurt the most. He held them up before his eyes, the blood on them already drying. The pilot was screeching into her head-microphone.
She plunged the controls, the plane’s sudden change in direction toppling him backwards, sending him down the aisle. He landed at the back of the plane, tangled up with the sound engineer, the bolt from her nose protruding from the hole where left eye had been.
That charlatan wouldn’t know the difference between a deep hypnotic state, and regression if his life had depended on it. Which it had...
Who was that?
He crawled back to his seat, to a distant memory, wondering how deep down the hypnotist had gone.
“I’m it,”she said, “unless you want me to pass the controls to somebody else?”
“I’d risk it,” cracked the director.
Linda, his wife, looked at Lenny, and shrugged helplessly, as if she were the one going up and not the other way round.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said.
One of the film crew, a plump woman with a huge bolt skewering her right nostril, burst into hysterical laughter as the director mimed what looked like a man without a parachute. Matthew only hoped it had nothing to do with him
“Who’d have thought after three weeks,” said Linda, “no more holidays sat at home wondering what I’m up to.”
He hadn’t minded her going away, understanding that his mental paralysis shouldn’t prevent his wife from going off on holiday with her friends. The director broke away from entertaining the crew, a grin on his face that’d been there since arriving at the airfield.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked, slapping Lenny’s shoulder, grinning some more.
“Not bad,surprisingly.”
This was partly true, even if extracted rather than offered.
“After Blakely’s magic I’m sure you’ll be racking up the air-miles.”
“Any word when he’ll be arriving?” asked Linda. She glanced at her watch, annoyed.
“Actually, he’s already here. He’s with one of our make-up assistants."
Lenny had hoped Alan J Blakely would have cancelled, or at least phoned to say he’d got stuck in traffic. He was an optimist for last minute reprieves.
“Okay, we’re about to start recording, so if we could have you first, Linda.”
“What do you need me for?” she asked, pulling at her blouse as if already exposed to the glare of the camera.
The director ditched the grin for something more consoling.
“Just a few words about Lenny’s problem, about your holidays, you know, without hubby standing around breathing down your neck.”
“He’s not that type,” said Linda, either not understanding the director’s sense of humor, or simply not wanting to. His wife was powerfully obstinate when she wanted to be.
This time it hadn’t been Linda’s idea, though Lenny felt she must share some of the responsibility for letting her father convince him. Nobody had to tell Lenny he’d become something of an embarrassment for the family. The barely suppressed awkwardness which arose every time somebody happened to mention holidays, was as excruciating for him as it appeared to be for his father-in-law.
“Well, if you must. But I don’t want any of your people making me up. This isn’t entertainment, this is about my husband.”
The director guided Linda across to the cameraman and the large soundproofed window as a small plane taxied down the runway.
*
The plane was white with a single red stripe along its fuselage. It was tiny, barely able to accommodate the five of them. Lenny sat next to the hypnotist, frozen into place by the ever present eye of the camera. He looked out the window at the marshland round the airfield. If they crashed on take-off, it was possible they would also sink. He was doing his best not to look frightened, but his heart was beating so fast he thought he might pass out.
“Remember what I showed you,” said Blakely, “deep, deep breaths.”
The sound engineer was in the seat across the narrow aisle, trying to angle the boom between the low ceiling and their heads. The cameraman sat in front of Blakely, and the director was in the seat next to him. The pilot, within arm’s length, was busily checking her instrument panel.
Lenny couldn’t quite understand how something as small and fragile as the plane, especially once it was up in the great vastness of the sky, could carry them all.
Sweat trickled down his forehead.
“Stage fright,” said the director, “it happens to us all.
Linda was watching from the window of the departure lounge. She can’t help you now, he thought helplessly, imaging himself clambering over Blakely to pound at the window, screaming at his wife to come and get him. Blakely had said she might prove too big a distraction, that a successful hypnotic state was one without any distractions. Lenny thought any distraction at this point was better than having to think about being up there above the weightless clouds.
The hypnotist’s coiffed hair slid into the view as he leaned over to reassure Lenny.
“Again, Lenny, again, breathe deeply, come on now, big breaths.”
Linda claimed the hypnotist had come highly recommended, but it’d been Blakely’s idea to contact ITL Media. Lenny recalled watching five minutes of a TV show last year in which a hypnotist on TV had done something similar. He’d turned it off before anything substantial had occurred, feeling nauseous just thinking about the idea. Was Blakely angling for a show of his own? Possibly. The hypnotist had all the trademarks of somebody priming themselves for a much larger audience, his flamboyance, his immaculate dress sense.
“You’re in shot,” said the director, gesturing Blakely back to his seat.
“And?”
“I mean you’re blocking poor Lenny.”
Linda’s grandmother called him ‘poor Lenny’, as if were a homeless dog found wandering the streets looking for its owner. He suspected that in private, and away from the ears of his daughter, Linda’s father called him a lot worse things.
Blakely leant back, adjusting the pastel colored tie he was wearing as if the director had instructed him to do so.
“It’s horrible I know,” he said, flattening the knot of his tie, “but it’s a soothing color.”
The boom appeared above Lenny’s head, scraping the ceiling. He felt trapped by all this attention.
“Do you remember everything I told you, Lenny?” The hypnotist’s face had taken on a concerned look, the lines around his eyes hardening. Already he was playing to the camera, and of course, hopefully, the potential viewers.
The hypnosis, as opposed to the pre-hypnosis preparations, would involve a single concentrated pocket light, Blakely’s instructions, and an induced semblance of sleep.
What was there to forget?
“Okay,”said Lenny, thinking that Blakely should put him under soon if they were to contain his growing panic. There was a low growl from the plane, reverberating along the entire fuselage. Lenny instinctively gripped the hand-rests. “Jesus, I don’t think I can do this.”
“Listen to me, Lenny,” said Blakely, his voice going up an octave as he realized he may be about to lose his subject, and more importantly, the program. Without the film ITP had nothing to go to the networks with. The hypnotist reached into his blazer and uncapped the pocket light.”I want you to concentrate on me and the light only.”
Lenny managed to turn his head to look at Blakely, feeling the vibrations of the plane increasing as his heart pounded messages to his brain that it was time to get up and get off this damned plane before it was too late.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Blakely offered a beatific expression, his lips rouged for the camera. He reminded Lenny of a clown, one who’d ensnared him with his beguiling showmanship.
“That’s not a problem, Lenny. Par for the course.”
The hypnotist leaned over him, flashing the pen light in Lenny’s eyes as the plane shuddered ominously. They were moving again.
“Okay, start rolling,” said the director.
Lenny stared into the tiny glare of the pocket light, praying for the hypnosis to work as quickly as well as effectively.
“Now, Lenny, I’m going to count down from ten.”
*
Lenny wasn’t listening to the man in the high-backed chair, he was pretending.
“...issues which might have led to this incident...”
Lenny considered grabbing the letter opener from the desk in front of him.
“...sessions such as this...”
He wondered how loudly the man would scream if he were to plunge the letter opener into both eyes. Would it replace the Farrow’s boy’s broken arm on his list of things to do before leaving comprehensive school?
“...you’ve been expelled from two previous schools for similar attacks...”
The doctor’s mouth fluttered, his eyes taking on a peculiar brightness.
“Lenny?”
Would he be able to fully describe the terrifying drop through the trapdoor, of the torrent of hot piss streaming down his legs as the rope tightened faster than he could breathe, and then the sickening crack as his neck separated from his vertebrae?
I’m not me, I’m somebody else.
The doctor roused from his usual apathy of repeating himself, had reached for his notepad. His eagerness was all too apparent.
*
“Turn him on his side...carefully...let me get this in...” said a new voice.
Lenny felt something slide into his arm, and couldn’t remember where he was. He managed to open one eye, but recognized nothing.
“She’s gone,” said another voice.
Lenny let his eye roam about its socket as if independent of him. A strip of metal arced against a billowing cloud, grey, on the verge of raining. High above he could see the distant shape of a plane travelling through the clouds.
“Okay, lift on three,” said the first voice.
Lenny felt a thunderbolt of pain pass through him. He screamed. He was flying, up above the ground. The wreckage below resembled a car.
“That’s good, he’s awake.”
“Lenny?”
He recognized that voice.
“You’re going to be alright, son, I promise, you’ll be fine.”
It was his grandfather.
“Keep talking to him,” said one of the new voices, though he couldn’t tell which.
Lenny remembered the man in the office had frightened his parents. They’d been arguing in the car, and he told them about the man from the book whose life was strangely familiar, that sometimes he dreamt about him.
The white van hadn’t appeared out of nowhere, they had.
“Where’s mum and dad?” he asked, seeing his grandfather in a raincoat, a policewoman holding his arm as if to prevent him sprinting off.
“Later, son, we’ll see them later.”
*
Lenny marveled at the world, or lack of one. He couldn’t quite get his head round the fact, even though they’d been at this altitude for ten minutes or more.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, “I really can’t.”
Linda will be so proud of me, he thought. No more long distance telephone calls, or postcards from holiday resorts, and especially none of the smirking and gossiping among his wife’s family. He was already making a mental list of places he planned on visiting.
“Shouldn’t you be filming this?” he asked the cameraman, who was sitting in his seat, staring at him.
He felt incredibly relaxed, unconcerned by the absence of anything tangible outside the plane. Quite frankly it astounded him. In the seat in front of him he could see the back of the director’s head, lolling against the window. He playfully nudged Blakely, who responded by toppling sideways into the aisle.
Lenny screamed.
He clambered out of his seat, crawling over the hypnotist’s body. His arms ached, but it was his hands which hurt the most. He held them up before his eyes, the blood on them already drying. The pilot was screeching into her head-microphone.
She plunged the controls, the plane’s sudden change in direction toppling him backwards, sending him down the aisle. He landed at the back of the plane, tangled up with the sound engineer, the bolt from her nose protruding from the hole where left eye had been.
That charlatan wouldn’t know the difference between a deep hypnotic state, and regression if his life had depended on it. Which it had...
Who was that?
He crawled back to his seat, to a distant memory, wondering how deep down the hypnotist had gone.