***The Professional- With The Film Noir Stop Me Before I Kill In Mind

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

You know every profession has its share of outliers, rogues, cranks, guys and gals who frankly got into their particular endeavor under something like false pretenses, or went over the edge while manically performing their work. The profession under the microscope right now is psychiatry, you know shrinks, head-bangers, guys and gals who look deep inside your brain, and maybe your soul and try to figure out how you can cope with the world once you have an idea about what ails you. People like Freud, Jung, Melanie Klein, big brain people. Fair enough and on most days and in most cases that credo works just fine. Except with, well, let’s call him Doctor Faustus and leave it at that. Now this Doctor Faustus had a big reputation, plenty of clout, lots of people clamoring to get in his door, get on his couch. But here is the twist the good Doctor, a man in his fifties, was nothing but a Mama’s boy, never married, and has dear old mom puttering around catering to his every need. Make of that what you will all you neo-Freudians, semi-Freudians, post-Freudians, Freudian debunkers, proto-Freudians and maybe on an off day Jungians. Make of that what you will until he saw her. 

You know that there had to be a dame, an “until he saw her” type dame in the picture and when she came into the picture he kind of flip out, went kind of crazy like some addled teenager. Now this young woman, Diane, was maybe twenty-five, a little young for the good doctor in the inter-generational sexual conflicts, blonde, of course, a nice shape but frankly just average for looks, a tumble or seven beneath the sheets and then move on, no regrets from what I saw of her. And a little air-headed if you asked me. But the doctor went overboard and saw some Greek goddess, some eternal truth shining in her eyes, or something

The problem was that she was not only young but married, very married, to a race car driver, Carl, who just so happened to have recently had a few problems, a few head problems after an accident on the race circuit. Diane was trying to get him to recuperate in sunny Italy, along the water’s edge. That is where the trio met while respectively on vacation and on honeymoon.      

That news discussed one night over dinner about Carl and his condition was probably where Doc hatched his plan, his very subtle plan to under-mind Carl’s mental health and drag him, one way or the other, out of the picture. He had to win Diane to his plan first, win her to the idea that Carl’s mental condition was critical, and that was easy once he started intersecting his professional mumbo-jumbo with Carl’s frankly erratic actions. His fits of senseless jabber and then remorse which put Diane on edge more than somewhat. With Carl and Diana doing their dance of the macabre over Carl’s behavior setting things up for the fall was a piece of cake for a pro like Doc.

Of course macho Carl, big deal race car driver with nerves of steel Carl, while worried about his condition, claimed he did not need a shrink, no way. No way until he tried to strangle Diane one night with her own necklace while in a fit. Then he meekly submitted to Doc’s therapeutic plans. Little did Carl know through that Doc had planted the seeds of Carl’s nightmarish scene through Diane with a little sleight of hand talk. Again, a piece of cake, almost like taking candy from a baby.        

Where things started to unravel though was when Doc began to do some very extreme stuff with his program for Carl. Like endlessly filling him with dope, high-grade dope, but dope nevertheless while in his office supposedly to get him to probe some deep dark secret hatred for Diane since she had constantly unmanned him of late with her incessant talk of his troubled mind. All along with Doc scripting the lines, leading Carl to see things his way. A real work of art, once Doc got going, once he put all his energy into it.  Of course when, as planned, those probing drugs proved fruitless it was on to the next level of hell. An ether binge which was meant to calm Carl enough to think back to some episode that turned him over the edge.  Naturally such a high-powered therapy was supposed to be used sparingly but Doc plied the stuff daily for weeks so that Carl was a shell of his former self.  And just as naturally Carl needed to go to the next level with a total coma-like in hospital drug program. Then Doc could  just throw away the key and make his big moves on Diane unhindered.  

That last treatment was way over the edge. Carl, no fool, even if he was a race car driver, hipped to the program pretty soon, broke out one night and went after Doc. When he arrived at Doc’s place he found Diane there trying to fend Doc’s unwanted advances off. When Doc saw Carl he knew the jig was up and pulled a gun out. They fought for it and Doc took a tumble down one of those legendary Italian hills. Mama’s boy had bit the dust. But here is where Doc really messed up, really was clueless in the dame game. Diane, for whatever reason, loved her man and no old geezer big time shrink was going to interfere with that. Like I say though there are always a few rotten apples in every profession… Enough said.