The details of his demise were greatly exaggerated.

The day had begun like many others in a long line of days where Dr. Rapport had successfully gotten to the bottom of neurotic behavior and similarly situated hang-ups.  Be on notice that it was a Wednesday. It may be pertinent to the story but for the life of me, I cannot fathom how, the day of the week could in any way, shape or form, be significant except that it was the day that the major crossword puzzle was in the morning paper. At any rate on this Wednesday morning, the weather was wondrously bright and beautiful. Consequently, Dr. Rapport was in a buoyant mood when he strolled into his office, a rather homey place, where comfort superceded style.

 

On this particular morning, patient after patient made a break-through or two, while wallowing in rapport with their doctor.  Some were forthright enough to open old wounds, the first step in the cleansing of the soul that was so necessary for complete psychic healing. One or two even achieved epiphanies, which may not have come directly from God but were nonetheless revelations worthy of note. Dr. Rapport’s fourth patient, proved an exception.

 

George Varney, a member of Mensa, was as emotionally bereft as he was intellectually gifted.  There was something dreadfully wrong with the lad’s emotional makeup.  For starters, he told the weirdest stories.  They were invariably woeful tales spiced with dire events filled with enough gore to make a guy puke.  At times, Varney had seemed divorced from reality.  When the doctor had mentioned Mensa, Varney had somehow conjured up the idea that Mensa was a tropical fruit akin to the pineapple, which only grew on a remote island in the South Pacific on which resided the last known cannibals in the world. 

So fierce were they that no one had ventured onto the island for almost a century.  A person who confuses Mensa, an association of those with superior quotients of intelligence, with a tropical fruit found only on a cannibal isle, is divorced from reality, it is safe to say.

 

Near the end of the session, in which Varney noticed an unfinished crossword puzzle on the doctor’s desk and asked in the mildest of tones, if he had ever come across a case in psychiatric literature about a schizoid like himself, who had an obsession with crossword puzzles. This sparked a discussion between the patient and his ever-patient doctor.

 

“Yes Doctor,” said Varney. “I do believe that his obsession led to murder. Although murder in the first degree or even malice aforethought was never proven to the satisfaction of the court, it is highly likely that the person in question was guilty notwithstanding the fact that the prosecutor was unable to make the charge stick.”

 

“Very interesting,” said Doctor Rapport idly wondering how a crossword puzzle could possibly lead to murder.

 

“Apparently, the murderer was safely in his cell at a facility for the criminally insane when the murder was carried out.”

 

“You seem to be up on the case,” said the doctor who was not unreasonably concerned with the insinuations uttered by his schizophrenic handful. It went with the territority. Some crazy people were given to seething rants that were best ignored.  Others were more subtle but nonetheless equally intent on malice aforethought.

 

As it turned out that day, his last patient phoned to say that he would be about ten minutes late. The good doctor didn’t mind as he was suffering from crossword puzzle deprivation. He managed to finish the puzzle in about three minutes, which still gave him a few minutes to check his work including the time it took for him to hunt up another pen when his first ballpoint ran out of ink. While he was checking over the clues that had now come so effortlessly to him, he couldn’t fail to notice that three of the answers, written in red ink, from the second pen, were: get, away and murder.

 

Was it just a coincidence that his blue pen had run out at just that particular time?  He rather thought so. However, it was a bit uncanny to say the least.  Perhaps I need psychiatric help myself, Dr. Rapport mumbled to no one in particular, a habit he had gotten into whenever he was alone in his office.  As soon as his last patient of the day, a rather plain Jane type, was heard, he would be able to get onto investigating the ramifications of the statements that the schizophrenic had made. 

Miss Plain Jane, who thought she was the most beautiful woman who had ever lived, was complaining about how misunderstood she was.  The hour dragged on.  Dr. Rapport figured that he must have fallen asleep five times.  Fortunately, he had conditioned himself not to snore, a feat he had accomplished through a psychological technique called operant conditioning.

 

At last the hour was over and the Doctor said, “You’re making remarkable progress.”  That was a bald lie.  The doctor had not heard a single word the women had uttered.  He was waiting impatiently for the chance to review the file of George Varney. He ushered Miss Plain Jane out the door and then got down to work.    

 

What Doctor Rapport found when he examined George Varney’s file in detail was that Varney had gone through psychoanalysts like a hot knife through butter. Dr. Graham had referred him to Dr. Brantly, who had referred him to Dr. Sauchy, who had claimed that Varney was incurable.  Dr. Sauchy had referred him to Dr. Rapport and that is where it will end the good doctor thought.  His days of being under the care of a qualified psychoanalyst are definitely numbered.  He is obviously incurable.  Yes sir, his days are definitely numbered. 

 

The good doctor continued to pore over numerous items in the patient’s case file.  In his teen years, the patient had been somewhat unruly, impudent to his teachers, lazy, a time waster, and a general pain; but then again, was there ever a teenager born who did not at one time or the other manifest all of the above faults?  Of course in addition, Varney had confused Mensa with a tropical fruit, but then again no one is perfect. What was it about Varney that was so scary?   Dr. Rapport did not like to brag but he had never had a case stump him before.  If it takes my dying breath, I will get to the bottom of this, he vowed.  That is when he found it.  He had no sooner mumbled the word dying when the most frightening data popped into view.

 

George Varney had been sent to a local institution for the criminally insane.  He had been declared sane by a doctor who later was sued for malpractice and eventually lost his license.  This doctor, it seems, is now living in luxury in Rio de Janeiro due to a payoff for declaring that Varney was sane. Somehow Varney was returned to institutional care where the doctor had attempted to help him. 

 

During the afternoon session with Varney, the patient was so meek that the good doctor let his guard down.  That was a fatal mistake.  The patient had not been explicit in his comments but then again any psychiatrist worth his salt should be able to read between the lines.  By the end of the session, the doctor had become optimistic about the chances of this most difficult patient. Varney said his good-byes that day in a congenial fashion and had even shared a chocolate bar with the doctor, who had a sweet tooth and who considered himself a chocolate connoisseur.

 

The doctor sighed and began the Crossword of the Day from the National Post.  It was more difficult than usual.  He could only do six of the clues.  Before taking a break for lunch, he was about to read his six answers, when the phone rang.  It was the local deli.  They were all out of pastrami. Would corned beef do?  Just this once?

 

After lunch, which was delivered by a new delivery boy, who said that the bill had been taken care of, the doctor went back to the file.  Before he became mentally unbalanced, George Varney had been one of the world’s foremost toxicologists.  He was recognized as an expert and was often called into court as an expert witness in any case where poisons were involved.

 

Dr. Rapport had time to do only three of the clues before he succumbed to whatever disagreeable substance he had ingested.  Five down demanded another word for poison.  The doctor put down toxic. Three down asked for a chocolate substitute. The good doctor put down carob.  For one across the answer was malice-aforethought.

 

Fortunately for Dr. Rapport, the paramedic who was called to his office by his secretary, Miss Floosie, who wore a 38 DDD bra, which has nothing whatever to do with the story, was a bit of a crossword character himself.  He pumped the doctor’s stomach out right then and there on the plush carpet, a rare Turkish rug said to have been two hundred years old and in almost mint condition before the stomach acids not to mention enough poison to choke a horse, put an indelible stain on it. 

 

The doctor made a full recovery and hasn’t eaten either pastrami or corned beef since.  George Varney, whom it was said, got away with murder a second time.  He now runs a hot dog stand on one of the busiest street corners in the city.  In his spare time, he enjoys doing what he does best.

             

Why was Dr. Rapport so successful at achieving rapport with his patients?  His success was envied by all the other psychiatrists and psychotherapists who practiced in the Mental Health Building, which possessed a rather decrepit exterior.  There was some sixth sense or some other quality that set the good doctor apart from the general run of the mill psychiatrists who had to be satisfied with driving last year’s Mercedes, however gauche.

As for the matter of George Varney, shortly after the poisoning incident, all his files mysteriously vanished. incident.  Unfortunately, for the two homicide detectives who had been assigned the case when doctors attributed Rapport’s deteriorating condition to an administered poison rather than to botulism, which is most often found in food, the good doctor suffered from what is known as source amnesia. Rapport had no memory of the poisoning event.  In police parlance, Varney walked when he should have been sent up the river.

 

Doctor Rapport continued to treat Varney, who had least gotten over his confusion as to the true meaning of Mensa.  He was a bit baffled when informed that he was indeed a member of Mensa.  When Varney looked in the mirror, he did see that he bore a certain resemblance to a pineapple. What really worried him though was the feeling that he still had a certain affinity for cannibalism.

 

The reason that Rapport continued his rapport with Varney was not to gather evidence against the poor blighter but to satisfy himself as to the true events of the period in which he had no recollection whatsoever. The second session since the event was a truly outstanding one.  Varney was co-operative in the extreme.  The patient opened up and revealed several telling incidents of his childhood, which provided the doctor with useful ammunition to add to his arsenal. 

 

As soon as Varney left, Dr. Rapport went for a stroll through his rather spacious bank of offices merely to admire the original art that hung on the walls and the rare tapestry that adorned the receptionist’s foyer.  Having nourished the aesthetic side of his soul he turned his back on his eclectic collection of elegant and not so elegant works and returned to his office to complete his latest case study.  The Case of the Patient who thought it was perfectly normal to be a pineapple sort of fruit on a cannibal isle at a time when cannibalism had become politically incorrect was of course a study in itself thought Dr. Rapport wondering who was crazy.

 

Even after they led him away, he was still far from certain.

the end