<<< Back Table of Contents Next >>> 14 Imaginary Friend For Timmins, the mental hospital had its advantages. He was allowed to paint, and it was a relief to be away from his hometown. The patients were all medicated, but they were more interesting to talk to than the people back home. They'd glimpsed the horror and tried to hang onto it, rather than smothering it in overstuffed chairs, wide-screen TVs, and fatty foods. Normal people tried to ignore what made them uneasy: the millions of victims, the impending collapse. That was real mental illness. After Anton had left home, reality had come crashing down on Timmins. He'd suddenly realized that the connectedness of all things, which for him was the source of all beauty in the world, didn't exist for most people. They saw only separate objects. Maybe that was why they talked about love and death so mechanically. "Making love" was a physical act. Someone who died was "no longer with us." To Timmins, such a life was unimaginably bleak. On their side, they saw him as a crazy man or a freak. They would never join him where he was, and he could never go there. The gap was unbridgeable. This painful realization had brought about his madness. But wasn't this an inevitable part of coming of age? Growing up meant coming to terms with the human condition and its limits. As Anton liked to say, "Everyone in this room is guilty." Yet Anton had left him alone for so long that he'd been forced to evolve on his own. If Anton had been around, maybe he would have helped Timmins to handle his situation more gracefully. Becky had tried, but she hadn't known what she was doing. She'd tried to comfort him when he needed prodding. In the end he'd lost patience and come here, to the mental hospital. At the hospital, his art was treated as a form of therapy, rather than a disease in itself. Of course it was neither. It was a communication from a mysterious source that would scar him if he failed to transmit its signal to the canvas. He couldn't expect the hospital staff to understand this, but their attitude was a marked improvement over what he'd known. In his hometown, his paintings had been attacked by ignorant hands more than once. In comparison, the mental hospital felt like an island of enlightenment. It hadn't always been that way. On his arrival he'd been sullen, uncooperative, refusing medication and even food. He'd told his keepers, "Don't stare at me like I was a curiosity or a conversation piece. I'm not here out of any sympathy for you freaks." At his first therapy session, he'd done his best to make his agenda clear. "Let's not talk about these little problems. Why do we talk about these problems, when the world we live in doesn't exist?" "What leads you to say the world we live in doesn't exist?" his therapist said. "It's not hard to figure out. Just read between the lines." "Lines? What lines?" "That's the problem, isn't it? You can't read the book if you can't see the lines. And you can't read between the lines if you can't find the lines on the page." "So what are these 'lines' you're talking about, in the world we live in that doesn't exist?" "Ordinary objects. You, me, the lamp, the tree. The story we think we're involved in, that we mistake for real." "And between the lines?" Timmins grinned. "Between the lines is another story." His therapist's name was Dan Boggert, but he liked his patients to call him Dr. Dan. He wore a beard and styled himself a progressive. He belonged to a school of psychiatry that used marketing techniques such as focus groups and demographic profiling to interact with patients. It occurred to Timmins that Dr. Dan needed his approval a little too much. Did it matter if Timmins thought he was cool? Would he relate to Timmins better by playing BioWar, or listening to Underbelly? His knowledge of teen culture was better than Timmins' own, but it didn't extend to Anton and the Psychic Rangers. "They're on the radio all the time," Timmins told him. "They're what all the cool people are listening to." He saw Dr. Dan wince at being left out. "Their singer is Anton Dupree, my best friend from childhood. Are you sure you've never heard of him?" He knew that Dr. Dan would never believe he had a famous friend. Dr. Dan freely admitted his ignorance, because he was sure that the Psychic Rangers were a product of Timmins' imagination. Of course it was uncool not to know about something cool, but it was even more uncool to pretend to know about something that didn't exist. He invited Timmins to tell him more about Anton, scribbling on a notepad as Timmins described his friend's stamina, his discipline, his magnetism, his razor wit. For his part, Timmins noticed that it wasn't as painful to talk about Anton as it once had been. He took this as a sign that Anton was on his way back to him, however long it might take. Dr. Dan saw the young rock star as the perfect window into Timmins' psyche. Anton's adventures were Timmins' repressed fantasies. The traumas that had caused Timmins to retreat from the world would appear in the story in distorted form. By decoding the story, he would gain insight into Timmins' strange behavior as a child, the withdrawal he'd experienced after his family's death, and the final breakdown that had brought him here. Timmins knew what was happening, and he was happy to oblige. By convincing Dr. Dan that Anton was his imaginary friend, he could protect Anton and himself from unwanted prying, without having to hold anything back. Truth would be his camouflage. As long as Dr. Dan saw the story as a subconscious invention, he would be led to the wrong conclusions. Meanwhile, Timmins would get credit for cooperating, for making progress. It was obvious to Dr. Dan that Timmins had invented Anton as a way of compensating for being as a social misfit. It was why geeks played fantasy role games, or girls with braces pasted teen idols into their lockers. He even had proof that the tale was a fantasy. How did Timmins know the color of Cynthia's hair, or the name of Vince's girlfriend? If he could describe things he'd never seen, that meant he'd invented them. The possibility that he got his information telepathically never entered Dr. Dan's mind. Dr. Dan got in the habit of starting each session with a cheery, "So how's the young rock star?" He used the ups and downs of Anton's career to take Timmins' psychic pulse. Soon he was supplying Timmins with canvas and paints, and encouraging him to paint scenes from Anton's life. At first Timmins refused, for the same reason he always had. He wanted Anton's future to be blank, so Anton could fill it in on his own. Then he realized he could paint events that had already happened. His only problem was telling past from future. Most people knew the difference, but he was still learning. He would have to be careful. Painting Anton was a welcome change from the canvasses he'd made just before his breakdown, portraits of high school classmates at their moment of death. There were a couple of suicides, a bizarre household accident, a cop killed in the line of duty. One classmate would die in an exploding airplane. The expanding gases, trajectories of metal, and evaporating flesh had been a technical challenge. Most would end up in hospital beds looking lost. He'd even painted his own death in a sheet of flame, part of the final cataclysm that would end the world. He felt no panic about this, because by then he would be an old man, nothing more than a dry leaf. He painted Anton in vibrant colors, in a style that was almost cartoonlike. In a scene from their childhood, their bicycles leaned against a tree next to an old quarry filled with water. Anton was in the midst of a backflip as he dived in, naked. In other paintings Anton was visiting Trashtown for the first time, performing at Club Omaha as women wrestled over his head, kissing the Colonel's ring in a tent under the stars, passing a bottle with Sabrina in the cab of a white-paneled truck. Whenever Reinhold appeared, he was an indistinct blur, a shadow without features. Dr. Dan asked about the details in each scene, and Timmins said things like, "The drummer ate a bad sandwich. That's why he looks green." Dr. Dan wrote in his notebook, "Drummer—bad sandwich. Is patient trying to 'digest' a subconscious trauma? Cultural references—cowboy boots, nose ring. Check brands of clothing." "What sorts of fashions are those guys wearing?" he said aloud. "You'll have to check the labels." "I can't. You didn't paint them." "Do you really want to know what's on the labels? They buy most of their clothes at thrift stores. This one says 'Dwimbell Feats, Clothier.' This one says 'JC Penney.' This one doesn't have a label. I guess it's been removed." In time, Dr. Dan learned to see the paintings on their own merits. The colors were lurid and sinister, the lighting strangely harsh, the textures impossibly detailed. The subject matter was ultrabohemian. He wondered if he had a new Van Gogh on his hands. If so, he didn't want to be the rigid man of science who, confronted with genius, sees only deformity. "Have you thought about an audience for these?" he said. "You might find a market for them on the East Coast." "I did sell a painting once. I traded it for bread and oranges." Dr. Dan chuckled, unsure what to make of this. "I give them away. I leave them around." "You mean you abandon them?" Timmins shrugged. "Even these? They're quite good." "These?" He laughed. "These are for Anton." Dr. Dan didn't like it when Timmins spoke about Anton as a real person. By encouraging him to paint Anton, he'd hoped that over time, Timmins would come to see Anton as an alter ego, a cartoon superhero onto whom he projected the traits he most admired. Yet every so often there was a relapse, and he spoke of Anton as if he really existed. "He's coming soon, you know," Timmins said. His sense of Anton's return was getting stronger every day. He knew it would be awkward when his imaginary friend showed up in the flesh. Perhaps Dr. Dan would get angry, feeling he'd been tricked. Yet he welcomed this. The affair was growing tiresome. It was time to get everything out in the open. "He hasn't called," Dr. Dan said. "He will." "I don't know, you say he's quite the rebel. Maybe he'll just storm in here and bust you out." "I don't want to leave," Timmins told him. "You don't?" This was a touchy subject. "You'll be eighteen in a couple of months. After that, we can only keep you here if you want to stay. If you want to leave, I'll have to let you go. I'm not sure it would be good for you, but you can function in society. You're not a danger to yourself or others. That's what I'm supposed to determine, legally speaking." Compared to what Timmins was used to, this was a ringing endorsement. "But where would I go? There's nothing out there for me." He'd never thought about how he would make it in the world without anyone to look after him. He knew about laundromats, bus transfers, and bank machines, but details like this slipped his mind in a crunch. The more he had to keep track of, the more sure he was to miss something. The thought made him panicky. He thought about renting a storefront in Des Moines and putting his canvasses in the window. He could live there and see who dropped in. But how would he support himself? Trading paintings for food was nothing to count on, and he couldn't see his grandmother paying for such an experiment. The only alternative seemed to be moving back in with her, but the stuffy atmosphere around there had driven him crazy in the first place. "Who controls the money once I turn eighteen?" he asked Dr. Dan. "You should take that up with your grandmother, or check the trust papers yourself. But my impression is that she keeps control until you're twenty-one." Timmins felt a twinge of injured pride. Once again, he would have to put off the day when he could make his own decisions. Perhaps that was just as well. When he imagined himself in a storefront with no kitchen and no shower, sleeping on the floor and eating beans from a can, the romance of independent living began to wear off. He didn't like feeling dirty and disoriented. He wanted alternatives to the situation he was in, but he didn't have the energy to go looking for them just yet. "I guess I'll stay here a while longer," he decided. "Is that what my grandmother wants me to do?" "She thinks you should join the Army." Timmins let out a loud laugh. "Those people are killers! They'll shoot me before I get out of boot camp. Besides, they don't take crazy people in the military." "No one's crazy around here. You know that's not a word we use. But you're right, you're not the military type. I talked her out of it, but she still thinks you need some looking after. She thinks you should be eased into the world gradually, and I'm inclined to agree. Besides, we need to get to the bottom of the Anton material." Dr. Dan's latest theory made Kliff the pivot point of Timmins' psychic drama, with Anton as the soul in transition and Reinhold as the goal of that transition, a state of total mastery. Now he had to figure out what to do with Sabrina Lee, a shapeshifting female who had made her way into the story a while back. In another year or two, there would be enough material for him to publish a case study. He hoped it would make his reputation as a groundbreaking new theory of schizophrenia. He would be invited on TV shows to deconstruct the personalities of famous people, and expose the shivering creature inside the glamorous shell. The Boggert Theory would become a household name like Michael Jackson or Nintendo. Like the others, it would be enshrined in the Boggert Index of Cultural Indicators, the scale he used to monitor the social adjustment level of his patients. By a miracle of circular logic, awareness of the Boggert Theory would become a requirement of sanity itself. The flattering voices of TV announcers droned in his ear. "The first psychiatrist so famous, he's in our subconscious. You're crazy if you haven't heard of him—Dr. Dan Boggert!" Both of them had an interest in Timmins staying where he was for a while longer. Timmins knew he was still developing and would need time. Meanwhile, he wanted to be left alone to paint. Dr. Dan wanted to uncover the rest of the Anton story so he could complete his theory of the case. Once Timmins was able to confront his trauma head on, his fantasies of Anton would dry up. At that point, Dr. Dan would use product placement techniques and Timmins' demographic profile to help him establish brand loyalties, a niche market identity, and a sense of belonging to the consumer culture. Timmins' recovery would prove the relationship between marketing and mental health. As Timmins had predicted, Anton called a few weeks later. Dr. Dan didn't know what to think. Had Timmins arranged some kind of prank? The young man claiming to be Anton announced that he would be passing through town in about a week. He had a free day for seeing Timmins, and he wanted to spend as much time as possible with his friend. He seemed to think he had an automatic right to this. Dr. Dan told him that as Timmins' therapist, he had the authority to approve or reject visits. "I'll allow it if it's in the best interests of the patient. If it upsets him or disrupts his recovery, it won't happen." Becky Simms had come to visit several times, and that had gone well. On the other hand, Timmins avoided his grandmother as much as possible. "Of course he'll see me!" Anton said. "Are you saying you might refuse?" Dr. Dan used a soothing tone. "I'll talk to the patient, decide what's best, and have an answer for you when you arrive. I'm not inclined to block his wishes. He's shown good judgment in managing his recovery so far." Then he remembered he was speaking to someone who claimed to be a character in Timmins' imagination, and his voice became stern. "To be honest, Mr. Dupree, this is a complication I wasn't expecting. Timmins has been projecting his innermost fantasies onto an imaginary friend he calls 'Anton.' I'm not sure he's ready to meet a different Anton, one who might not live up to his expectations." Anton didn't know what to think. "Are you kidding me? We grew up together. I'm the most familiar thing in the world to him." When Timmins got the news that Anton was coming, the excitement in his eyes was genuine. What worried Dr. Dan was the possibility that the prankster wasn't a friend, but someone who was taking advantage of Timmins for malicious reasons. If so, that person knew Timmins well enough to be aware of his fantasy life, and now he was attempting to impersonate Anton. It would be interesting to see what Timmins would do when he met the fake Anton. What would it take to convince him that the man was an impostor? His mannerisms, his taste in clothes? Or would he accept him as real no matter what? "What if this guy isn't the right one?" Dr. Dan prodded. "What if it isn't your Anton?" Timmins rolled his eyes. "Doctor, you're completely nuts." When Anton showed up looking exactly like the young man in the paintings, Dr. Dan wondered if he'd gone mad as Timmins had said. Anton wore a colorful Hawaiian shirt over a white athletic shirt. His hair fell almost to his shoulders, and when it swung over his eyes he tossed it away. He had on a necklace that Dr. Dan recognized from several of the paintings, a collection of totems or charms. According to Timmins, Anton had made it himself, starting when he was at Trashtown. The objects represented important transitions in his life. Dr. Dan had found it useful for decoding the symbolic meaning of Anton's adventures. Now it turned out to be a real necklace on a real person. Dr. Dan's mind was already at work, trying to salvage his theory. Clearly Anton existed, but the rest of the story had to be imaginary, especially Anton's adventures as a rock star. No doubt Timmins had fantasies of leaving home that he'd displaced onto Anton after his family's death. The question was why he'd chosen Anton as his surrogate. It was imperative that Dr. Dan understand this. They went into his office for a talk. "Do you know Timmins well? He calls himself Timmins, I suppose you know that." "That's his name. I gave him that name." "You named him Timmins?" Dr. Dan made a note in a folder. "You've known him for a long time, then?" "Since we were babies." The thought made him giggle. "So you knew him at the time of the accident to his family?" "Why all the questions?" Anton was suddenly angry. "Who put him here? How long has he been here?" "Hold on, Mr. Dupree. This is a humanitarian institution, as you can see. Timmins is happy here. When he turns eighteen he'll be free to leave, but he's decided to stay." Anton considered this. "Do you let him paint?" "Of course. That's why we need to talk." He kneaded his hands together uncomfortably. "You see, every painting he makes is of you, or the way he imagines you. He seems to think you're some kind of rock star. To be honest, I asked him to paint you. To paint his fantasies, rather, and they were all about you." He was still wringing his hands. "It might be a little alarming to see yourself in all those situations I find highly imaginative, myself. I've been trying to decide on the right approach. Is it better for you to go along with him, and say you recognize yourself in some of those scenes, or—" Anton laughed. Somehow this man was under the delusion that his whole career was Timmins' invention. "Don't worry, I know how to handle it. He's done this to me before." "Well, okay then!" Dr. Dan laughed too, nervously. "You know each other. You grew up together, and he wants to see you. So I'll take you to him, but I thought I should warn you that he has a lot of theories about where you've been, and what you've been doing, that may not correspond to reality. So just do what you think is best. Play along or try to correct him, whatever's best." He rearranged his hands, folding them on the desk in front of him. "On a professional level, though, I feel I should ask you. Has he always had these fantasies about you? Did he have them when you were growing up? Did he think you were a rock star then?" "When we were growing up, he thought I was a kid he rode bicycles with. Later on, he thought I was an athlete, or a model student. But he never thought I was a rock star. That must have come later. We haven't seen each other in a couple of years, you know." Dr. Dan's looked glum. His theory wasn't working out as he'd hoped. Apparently, the rock star motif hadn't developed until several years after the accident. If only he could get Anton to open up further, some clue might emerge. "Your friend has been through a lot since you last saw him," he began. "I know." "When he first came here, he was so withdrawn he could hardly speak. He'd almost forgotten how to take care of himself." "I remember." "If these things aren't treated, they get worse over time. The loss of his family caused Timmins to have a psychotic break. Studies show that a survivor of a hostage crisis, or a terrorist bombing, often feels enormous guilt at being spared when others have lost their lives. In your friend's case, this went untreated for several years." "He was working through it, but people thought his paintings were scary and weird." "Painting isn't a treatment, at least not in itself. By the time his grandmother brought him here, he was impossible to look after. His state of mind worried her, because she thought he'd lost the will to live." "He was choking to death in that house!" "Agreed. It made his condition worse. But since he got here, he's made an excellent recovery. I asked him if he wanted to paint as a form of therapy, and he jumped at the chance. It turns out that his work is quite good. Except for its fixation on you, of course. I'm not an art critic, but I think he could make something of himself." "So you're a fan?" Knowing this relaxed Anton a bit. "It may cross the boundaries of professional ethics to say this, but yes I'm a fan. Timmins is a very good painter. It's refreshing to have a patient like him, because some of the ones I've worked with over the years...." He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. "You do what you can for them, but they aren't coming back. Timmins hasn't had it easy—" He looked at Anton sharply. "He never expected it to be easy." "But he's a quiet fighter. There's something about him that won't give up." Anton looked down. "You mean a lot to him," Dr. Dan found himself saying. "You give him strength." Anton's mind was full of memories of everything he and Timmins had done together. He cleared his throat. "I think you should take me to him now." Dr. Dan stood and opened the door of his office. Between two wings of the building was a courtyard, with paths and a fountain. Timmins stood at the fountain, listening for voices in the water. As soon as Anton appeared in the doorway, he looked up and their eyes met. Anton felt a hand on his back, and heard Dr. Dan's retreating footsteps. He stepped into the garden with its pebbles, sparrows, and sun. Timmins hadn't moved. He watched Anton without blinking. Anton too remained still, for how long he couldn't say. They sat together on a bench under an old oak. "You know the Virgin of Guadalupe?" Timmins said. "Sure, I know it." "I made a painting of her." "In the traditional style?" Timmins made a wry grimace. "Sort of." "Can I see it?" "I'll bring it out here. This is where I painted it." "Why didn't you just leave it here?" "I wanted to see it in my room." Timmins went to get the painting, and returned a few minutes later. He set the painting against the tree, and they looked at it together. "I think you should use more yellow," Anton said. "I didn't use much yellow, it's true." "It would be nice to see it with more yellow, that's all." "I could put more yellow in it, but it wouldn't be the same painting. If you want a painting with more yellow, why don't you make it yourself?" "You know I can't do everything." They exchanged a long look. "Do you want to see what I'm doing in the chapel?" Timmins said after a while. He pointed to a small, one-room structure at the end of the garden, overgrown by trees. The hospital had originally been an old folks' home, and the chapel had been used for funerals. Since then, it had fallen into disrepair. Timmins had so many paintings that they no longer fit in his room, so Dr. Dan had offered him the chapel as a private gallery. They walked there together, leaving the Virgin in the yard. "The Virgin isn't typical for me," Timmins explained as they walked. "I painted her because I knew you were coming, and I wanted to try something new. I knew you'd want the yellow, but I left it out anyway." He held the door open for Anton to go first. Anton's head spun at the sight of a hundred canvasses, all featuring him. Dr. Dan had been right. It was disorienting to see himself in every possible situation. The paintings occupied all the available wall space, and more were propped against the altar and the central columns. Their colors were saturated and rich, and they had one thing in common. The scenes were familiar to him, because he'd been there. He exhaled sharply. "I didn't know you were this good." "You didn't?" "I guess I did, but—" He shook his head to clear it. "They're so real." "Maybe you could help me with something, since you're here. I've tried to avoid painting things that will happen in the future, but I need to know. Could you tell me which of these events you remember, and which ones haven't happened yet?" They fell to studying the paintings in detail. "Those are my boots, the ones I threw out last year. I drew that design on them when I got bored during my first tour. And those are the books I had on my desk last winter. The White Goddess, Miracle of the Rose. And here I am working in Deb's Diner. There's Kliff in the window! Very clever. He's about to walk in." He turned to Timmins. "Is it harder to see the future than the past?" "Not really. It's like going down to come up again." He gave Timmins a blank look. "And this one?" It was a closeup of his face. His eyes were half closed, teeth bared in a grimace of pleasure. "Oh, that! You were having sex." "You pervert." "I wasn't watching. I just liked the expression, so I painted it." "Can you choose any angle you want, and freeze it for as long as you want?" "Not as long as I want. Sometimes I have to go to the toilet." Next to the erotic grimace was a somber gray painting, out of keeping with the bold colors of the others. Anton was sitting on the edge of a metal cot. His posture was tense and expectant, and in some way defeated. On the wall above him was a patch of sun from an unseen window, crossed by the shadows of bars. "I don't remember this," he said. "You mean it hasn't happened yet?" He shook his head. "Oh! It's nothing, really. You'll block most of it out anyway, once it's over." "It can't be too pleasant, if I'm going to block it out." "It'll only last for a few days." "Is it far in the future?" Timmins thought for a moment. "Not too far." "Avoidable?" Timmins shook his head. "That's why I try not to paint the future. People say, 'I can change that,' but the future is like quicksand. The more you struggle, the more you get sucked in. It's usually better not to know." "Now I do know." "Sorry, it was an innocent mistake. Besides, if it has to happen, what does it matter if it's happened already, or if it's still to come?" They went outside again. Despite the discomfort it caused him, Anton was glad that Timmins was painting him. It closed the circuit between them, and helped Timmins regain his self-confidence. He was no longer struggling in the dark, he was participating in Anton's adventures. He was the dreamer and Anton was the dream, the way it was meant to be. Still, Anton was glad to get out of the chapel. Being in a hall of mirrors made him uneasy. When Timmins suggested he take some of the paintings back to Portland, he had to laugh. "I lived through that already. I don't need reminders!" Timmins had expected this, and Anton's next thought was no surprise either. "Why don't you come to Portland? I could set you up with an exhibition, and help launch your career." Timmins shuffled his feet. "You know I can't go anywhere because I'm crazy." "That's what I don't get. You're crazy with other people, but not with me." "Portland isn't right for me. Iowa is where I belong." "So what will you do? Stay here at the hospital?" "I guess I'm stuck with that for now." "Nonsense. I'll pull a few strings and you can walk out of here today." He would lean on Timmins' trust fund advisor, or offer a bribe to Dr. Dan. If all else failed, he would take Timmins away in the middle of the night. "I'm happy here," Timmins assured him. "I just don't want to stay here forever." "So what's the obstacle?" "I need a place of my own. The trouble is, I can't afford it. My grandmother controls all the money until I'm twenty-one." Anton grinned. "Have you forgotten I'm rich? I'll buy you a house wherever you want. You'll have your independence, and I'll come to visit whenever I'm around." Timmins knew Anton wouldn't be back for a long time. Still, he was relieved that Anton had finally caught up with his plan. "I've already found a place. I showed it to you once in a dream, remember? A white house by the river." "Oh, right! You were standing in a field." Timmins beamed. "So it's a real house? I wasn't sure if it was real, or some kind of symbol." "It's real, and it's a symbol. We rode our bikes there a few times when we were kids." "Is it for sale?" "It will be in a few months. The lady who lives there has to die first." They agreed that when the time came, Anton would send Becky the money and ask her to handle the transaction. She would help Timmins to move in, and check on him from time to time after that. Anton apologized for not doing this himself. "You know I'm really busy now. My life's gotten complicated." He kicked the dirt at his feet. "To be honest, what I get from my success is pretty meaningless. People come up to me at parties, and they want to be my friend. They want some kind of relationship. But how can I be friends with people who aren't my friends?" Timmins was relieved to hear this. Compared with all the colorful people Anton knew, his greatest fear was that one day he would become transparent, and Anton would stop seeing him at all. All he had to offer in response was the trust they'd built together when they were kids. It gladdened him to know that Anton still wanted this. He invited Anton to his room to show him one last painting. It was a self portrait in front of the white farmhouse they'd just talked about. He stood barefoot amid clumps of freshly turned soil, wearing overalls and a John Deere cap. Recognizing the scene, Anton grinned. "You knew why I was coming here today, even if I didn't." They went back to the garden, which was almost dark. The painting of the Virgin was still there, propped under the tree. "You should take this," Timmins said. "I painted it for you as a gift. You can add the yellow later if you want." "You know I won't do that. I like it the way it is." He put the painting under his arm and walked away, watching himself through Timmins' eyes. He found Dr. Dan waiting near the entrance. They walked to the front steps and exchanged a few words. He thanked Dr. Dan for his efforts, and explained that he would be buying Timmins a house in the near future. "I think you know Becky Simms? She'll handle the arrangements. Please help her with whatever she needs." They shook hands and he walked to his car. As he was propping the Virgin on the back seat, he remembered that he had a few copies of Extreme Liberties with him. He took one and signed it for Dr. Dan with a flourish. There was a crunch of gravel in the driveway, and soon he was racing toward the horizon at precarious speed. As his taillights flickered and vanished, Dr. Dan flipped through the booklet that came with the CD. Most of the images were from Anton's latest session with Périne. Some of the scenes might have been oral or anal penetration, but he wasn't sure because they were so artfully done. They might just as well have been flowers, or gumdrops and cookies. He didn't know what to make of this. In the space of a few hours, Anton had gone from being the private fantasy of one of his patients, to the rebel hero of a generation. He felt blindsided, out of touch. If Anton was as big a star as he seemed, he would be obliged to add him to the Boggert Index. He shuddered to think of it. <<< Back Table of Contents Next >>>