"Let's hear your poems now, OK?"
"Fine. The first one is called 'A Poem Concerning Something Emotional, as Instructed By Dr. Hopper, Who is Going Bald.'"
"… All … right."
Gold cleared his throat and sat up straight on the bench, holding the single sheaf of paper out in front of him. "Yesterday, I had therapy," he recited.
Archie nodded. Gold put the paper down. It blew away in the wind, off to get snagged in the bushes that lined the park.
Archie's nod slowed.
"Is … is that all?" he faltered.
"I couldn't think of anything that rhymed with therapy," Gold shrugged. Archie suddenly felt like he was talking to an extremely unruly and passive-aggressive middle schooler.
"It doesn't have to rhyme," he informed Gold gently.
"I know."
Well, that put a damper on Archie's spirits. He bit back a sigh and reached for the briefcase next to him, assuming without much anger that Gold hadn't even attempted the second poem. Oh, well. On to the next bit.
"Mr. Gold," he began, "have you ever heard of Rorschach inkblots?"
"Have you ever seen a movie with a psychologist in it?" Gold countered.
Silence.
"Yes," Gold said. "I've heard of them."
"Great," said Archie brightly. "Then you know how this bit goes. Please answer honestly and fully – every detail."
He held up the first inkblot. For a moment, Gold looked ready to protest, but something in Archie's face must have told him it wasn't worth it. He examined the inkblot.
A minute ticked by.
"What do you see?" Archie asked. Gold hesitated a little, cut his losses, and answered truthfully.
"I see a three-legged man holding a tea kettle."
Falling in love, he thought, but didn't add aloud. Archie's eyebrows rose.
"A tea kettle," the doctor mused. "That's interesting. Do you like tea, Mr. Gold?"
Gold took a look at the misshapen tea kettle and the hearts around the three-legged man's head. He meant to say no, but that wasn't quite what came out.
"It's decent," he said. Archie nodded.
"What about people with three legs? I know Freud would say that's a sign of sexuality –"
Gold choked.
"—but I don't generally agree with Freud. He had problems." Archie smiled at him encouragingly. When Gold didn't respond, the doctor talked for him. "You know, some people might call you three-legged, Mr. Gold. What with your cane and all."
Gold shrugged a little jerkily. "I think what most people would call a three-legged person is 'freak,' Dr. Hopper. Perhaps 'monster,' if the people calling names were very young."
Nodding quietly, Archie switched to the next inkblot.
"What about this one?"
Gold narrowed his eyes at it. After a very long moment, he said, "A bell. I see a bell … and a milk bottle."
Archie turned the placard around and blinked at it.
"Um … where?" he asked. Very clearly, Mr. Gold pointed to the white spaces, not the ink.
"That's … that's very good," said Archie, sounding legitimately impressed. "It's a sign of a very strong mind, Mr. Gold, when you look at the white spaces as well as the dark ones."
"They're very small," said Gold neutrally.
"What are?"
"The white spaces."
Archie nodded. "What about this one?"
Gold studied it.
"It's a man … growing out of another man's chest. And the latter man is screaming in agony."
Startled, Archie looked at the inkblot. He looked at the list of 'normal' responses.
'Man growing out of screaming man's chest' was not one of them.
Butterflies were, though.
"What's it mean?" asked Gold with a slight, sardonic smile. Archie hesitated, not sure Gold wanted to hear the answer.
"Well," he said slowly, "basically, it could be one of two things."
Gold nodded.
"You're either psychopathic … or you're gay."
There was a long pause. Archie was scribbling furiously in his notes, refusing to meet Gold's eyes.
"I … I'm not gay," Gold said. Archie nodded.
"I'll write down that you said that." He set the notes aside and picked up another inkblot, holding it out for Gold to see. "What about this one?"
Gold glared at him for a while, then stared at the picture, eyes roaming all over the paper. Finally, he let out a disbelieving sort of chuckle.
"It's a Kalashnikov!" he exclaimed. "It's the same bloody surplus gun they gave to my pla—"
Abruptly, he cut himself off. Archie waited, leaning in eagerly, but Gold was swiftly closing off. His eyes were shuttered; his mouth was tight and his expression grim, foreboding.
Placebo? Placenta? Plantation? Pla, pla –
Platoon?
"Let's do something else," Gold suggested, a thin note of a threat lacing through his words. Archie couldn't agree more, though for different reasons than Gold. He put the inkblots aside eagerly.
"Let's do word association, then," he said, trying to seem casual, like he'd planned for word association to be next anyway. "I say a word, and you say the word that first pops into your mind. Don't worry; you don't have to respond immediately."
He pulled out a tape recorder and switched it on. Gold eyed it distastefully.
"Death," Archie started. There was a slight pause.
"Denim."
Archie started to imagine all the reasons one might associate 'denim' with 'death' before deciding to leave it and just go on. "War."
"Pill."
"Soldier."
"Indians."
Archie faltered. Indians? Unless Gold was a veteran of … of the French-Indian War, there didn't seem to be much of a connection with the Kalashnikov comment.
"Kalashnikov," Archie said.
"Food."
Archie was pretty sure one didn't hunt with sub-machine guns.
"Trauma."
"Ink."
Was that a jibe about the inkblots? Gold found it traumatizing to share his thoughts?
Archie decided to try a different route.
"Mother."
"Court."
Archie blinked. "Your mother was … queenly? Or – or was she a lawyer? Was there a custody battle? Was she maybe a judge?"
Gold shrugged.
"OK…. Um, father."
"Fax."
"Family."
"Jur—"
Gold stuttered to a stop, looking pale and panicked at his own faltering.
"Network," he said quickly. Archie pounced on it.
"That's not what you were about to say."
Gold scowled, clearly angry at himself. He looked at his hands and bit his lip.
"Jury," he said eventually. Archie raised his eyebrows, and Gold was quick to add, "But I was only looking for the most random response. It doesn't have any meaning."
"Most random response?" Archie repeated. He looked at the tape recorder, thinking of the words stored up in there. "Is that – is that what you've been doing this whole time? How on earth can you come up with random responses in rapid-fire word association?"
Gold gave him an innocent look and refused to answer. Archie puffed out his cheeks in a very ineffectual glare.
"Home," he said stubbornly.
"Laser."
"Oh, stop that! Answer honestly!"
"Headline."
Archie slammed his thumb down on the tape recorder's Stop button. He shoved the little machine as well as all his papers back into the briefcase.
"Tonight's homework," he said shortly, catching the roll of Gold's eyes but choosing not to comment. "When we resume sessions on Monday, Mr. Gold, we are going to start off with something different. We are going to play a game of Show and Tell."
"A game of what?"
Archie smiled. "You are going to go home," he said, "and find something you own which holds great sentimental value for you."
"Oh, joy," Gold snarked. "I'll bring in my paycheck from the day I first breached one hundred thousand in stocks."
"It can be something like a wedding ring," Archie went on. "It can be a blue ribbon from a spelling bee you won when you were a kid."
"Oh, shucks," said Gold. "You mean I can't bring in the blue ribbons I won in all those childhood races, or the marathon I won last year?"
There was a long pause. Archie wasn't sure which one of them should apologize, so he just continued.
"You're going to bring it in on Monday," he said, "and tell me why you value that object. It can even be a picture. OK?"
Gold nodded. Satisfied, Archie stood and turned to leave.
"But, Doctor!" Gold raised his voice. "How am I supposed to fit my first car into your office? I don't think you're equipped for a Rolls Royce – maybe next to the couch."
Archie grit his teeth and kept walking.
"I'll just bring in the Mercedes, then," Gold called. He watched Archie walk away, straight-backed and stern. When the psychiatrist was gone, a look of anger took over Gold's face. He glowered down at his hands, white-knuckled and clasped tightly in his lap.
The mighty Rumplestiltskin. He could plan the most elaborate, foolproof, and intricate of plans, but give him some inkblots and shout some words at him, and he might as well be David chuffing Nolan for all of his finesse.
Gold swept a hand through his hair, took a steadying breath, and started off for home.
Cu Chulainn: *holds up inkblot* What do you see? I need it. For things.
1945: Um, okay. *glances at inkblot for two seconds* I see a three-legged man with a tea kettle falling in love.
Cu Chulainn: With the tea kettle?
1945: No.
Cu Chulainn: ... I will use this anyway.
Mr. Gold's answers to the word association test come from a creative word generator XD Most of the time, the answers fit too well and I had to look for something even more random. Figures.