Subject: Goren, R.O
Male, 48, b. NYC.
ref: NYPD, MCS
Assessment - (personal notes only) professional supervision
Notes refer Sess. #
Part of an annotated transcript derived from tape recordings of our xx session together.
- What do you do when you're bored, Detective?
- I don't normally get bored.
- You don't?
- No, not really.
- How come?
- My dad used to say that if you were bored, it was your own damned fault. I'm normally smart enough to be able to find something to do with myself.
- So ... what would you do, if you thought you might be in danger of not having anything interesting to do?
- You mean, like, being on suspension from my job?
- Well, yes. OK then. What have you been doing?
- Reading, mainly. It's what I do most of, when I'm not really doing anything else.
- You like to read?
- I like to read.
- What do you like to read?
- I'll read pretty much anything. Absolutely anything.
- Do you have, like, a favourite author as such?
- Nope.
- Or, a genre? A style of writing that you prefer?
- No, can't say as I do.
- Why are you so indiscriminate?
- I'm not. No, see - just because I don't make a distinction between the authors I read, doesn't mean I'm indiscriminate.
- Do you just read books?
- No ..
- What else? Magazines?
- Yeah, periodicals. But I mean, I'll read anything. Cereal packets, comic books, bus timetables, take-out menus, the small print on the back my credit union statement. I'll read the lettering on the outside rim of a coin, or a money-off tag on a pair of shoes in Target. I'll read the ingredients on the side of a tube of toothpaste.
- ... Why?
- Someone, somewhere, has gone to the trouble of writing all that stuff down. I figure it's the least I can do to take the trouble to read it.
- What happens then, if you're reading something you don't like, or you don't understand it, do you still keep reading it?
- Yes. Definitely.
- Why?
- Same reason, I guess. Plus I know that if I put the book down, I'll never understand what was in it, or be able to figure out why it was annoying me. If I keep reading, there's always a chance that I'll begin to understand.
- What else do you like to do, 'sides reading? Do you ever have TIME for anything else?
- Oh, yeah. I eat and I sleep sometimes, too. I like eating out. Italian.
- Your mother was Italian.
- Yeah, but it's more to do with my being a New Yorker than it is to do with her being Italian. She was a lousy cook. Well, no - that's not fair, I guess. I don't mean lousy. Exactly. She was just, you know. Distracted. A lot of the time. Thinking about other things. I used to say I learned how to cook in self-defence. But I'd rather eat out.
- How is your love life?
- How comes Doctors always ask that question?
- Maybe because we believe your answer is pertinent?
- Maybe I think your question is impertinent.
He laughs. And the question is thrown away, just like that. He does this an awful lot.
- I even read the Holy Koran once, to impress a woman. A Moslem woman. Obviously. In Germany.
- You did? All of it?
- All of it.
- And what did you learn from it?
- I learned that religious philosophy is not necessarily the way to a woman's heart. But that a really good, home-cooked lasagne does a much better job of it.
I imagine a much younger version of my client - what, twenty? Twenty five years ago? At the Stem Kasern in Seckenheim, Germany (so it says here, on his notes), and I suspect it wasn't just his culinary skills that impressed.