"I was bullied a great deal as a child." He paused, trying to decide how to best put it. "The other children didn't quite understand me, and that made them hate me. To make matters worse, I was naturally rather… reserved."
"I see." The look on Molly's face was familiar and unusual at the same time. She had that same half-concerned, half-curious look that he saw on the faces of most therapists. The unusual part was that he was, for once, certain that it was genuine. He normally looked upon that sort of expression as a mask, screening it out entirely after a few seconds. This time, he couldn't help but take it seriously and wonder at the emotions in question. Shaking himself from his reverie, he realized that she was still patiently waiting for him to continue.
"They called me Ichabod. It really shouldn't have bothered me. Inferior minds, you know…" He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "But it did. A great deal. I was always very self-conscious about-about everything, really. I passed my time by reading, and as you know, books tend to give one an exaggerated idea of what is to be expected. I wanted to do everything perfectly. If I got 91% on a test, I wouldn't rest until I'd gotten 100% on another in the same subject. I did charity work, but more because it was what a good person would do than because I wanted to do it."
"Do you think that other people perform charitable actions for similar reasons?"
He paused to consider the question. "I suppose so. If our psychological experiments have proven anything, it's that the average person won't lift a finger unless someone expects him to. There are exceptions, I suppose, but they're much more unusual than most are willing to admit.
In any case, I did everything, but wasn't really invested in any of it. I even tried out for sports, by the way. I'd just read the Iliad, you see, so I was interested in the concept of honoring the gods through physical prowess, by fighting their battles."
She waited for four minutes before asking the obvious question. "What happened?"
"I became an ardent sportsman and am now playing in the Yankees! What do you think?" He pinched his forehead. "I-I'm sorry. That was rude. They didn't let me on the team, and there were snide remarks among the students for weeks following the tryout. Apparently the way I run is… abnormal. I actually didn't run in front of people- unless I absolutely had to- for a while after that.
After that, I spent more and more time at the library. Books were comforting, I suppose. I found that there existed plenty of nonstandard heroic archetypes. They were never very important to general narratives, but they were the more realistic for it. I particularly liked the idea of the man dedicated to science, indifferent to politics or the opinions of others in his dedication to his art. It was an ideal with which I could identify. Hence, it wasn't particularly shocking that I went to medical school."
"What made you decide on psychiatry?"
He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I don't know. I suppose that I didn't really understand people, least of all myself. That's why many go to college, correct? To 'find themselves.'" He paused to see if she enjoyed his stab at humor. Her face was expressionless. He sighed and continued. "I didn't have much of a social life, you see, so I had to discover who I was by other means. A science dedicated to human thought was thus very attractive." He shrugged. "I couldn't tell you more than that."
She leaned over and turned off her tape recorder. "Alright. I think that that's enough for today. Perhaps we could talk about how you became interested in fear the next time I visit?"
"That sounds acceptable."
She smiled and stowed the recorder. "Well, we have an hour or so left before visiting hours end." Her grin was distinctly provocative. "So… what would you say if I told you that African leaders in the 600's inspired the Aztecs?"
"I'd tell you that you were out of your mind." He straightened in his chair and began to enumerate his points.
