Open to possibilities
However unlikely
Nothing quite convincing
As a moment of peace

Never, never for me
Always overkill.

"Overkill" - Jump, Little Children

Things are improving. Privileges next week. Please come. Aching.

I sat in the corner of Dr. Buckley's couch and watched her watch me, her pen tapping lightly on the legal pad on her lap. My eyes were red, the product of a five a.m. wake-and-bake. In her position, I'd have noticed the marijuana high instantly. Shrinks were always poorly trained in comparison to cops. Of course, this was a fallacy of insufficient sample. Surely there were better trained shrinks than she. Certainly, most cops were morons. Again, the insufficient sample. Logic itself was illogical.

She smiled at me when I looked up from the carpet that surrounded her shoes. Engaging her seemed a necessity. I returned with a half-hearted smile and took a deep breath. The session would have to be tied up with Miguel. "I haven't been honest with you," I admitted. My eyes itched. I scratched.

Neither angry nor surprised, not even particularly disappointed, by my admission, she replied. "You seem upset. Are the two things connected?"

I gave an apprehensive nod. She must have taken my red eyes for sad eyes. If I wallowed in thoughts of Miguel, I could zone out and avoid talking about him. A mistake, certainly. I longed to talk about him. I needed to know the answers. "They are. I told you...that I wasn't involved with anyone. I am. He's a drug dealer. He's...too young." I shook my head. "We can't make it work. There's no chance," I finished regretfully.

She tapped her pen a few more times. "Did something happen that suddenly led you to this realization?" she asked, probing for an explanation.

I rubbed my forehead. "He won't visit." I looked up. "Or so I assume. I might be jumping to conclusions."

"How were things going before you signed yourself in here?" A reasonable question, but not definitive of anything.

"We weren't seeing much of each other. My decision. Everything that was going on...I was no good for anyone."

"And has he been in touch while you've been here? Has he visited?" she asked, making a few notes on her pad.

"He won't visit," I repeated, frustrated. Take a breath, I reminded myself. "We write letters."

She looked at me steadily for a moment. "And how does he seem in his letters?" she finally asked.

Miguel's letters were two, three sentences long. Hardly letters. Notes. I might've responded with a paragraph, on average. "They're direct. But so are mine. Nothing to interpret."

"Can you think of a reason why you're so upset about this relationship today? Or at least didn't appear to be..." Head to the side, she waited eagerly to snatch up whatever tidbit of information she could pry out of me.

I shook my head. "I wasn't. Not any more so than usual." The brain wandered to various interruptions when I visited, knocks on the door and telephone calls. My silence was an imperative. Miguel's loyalty to his business associates was as dubious as my own. For the same life-or-death reasons, Miguel and I needed always to be vigilant. "Being together could get us both killed. Gangbangers. Cops. Neither of us is very well liked."

"And yet ... you continue to see each other? Sounds pretty serious. You risk not just your career but your life every time you see this guy -- and vice versa...." Her gaze was unwavering, pen stilled, body motionless, time suspended until I chose to either answer or evade.

I nodded. "It is. Serious, I mean." Doubtlessly, Miguel had already entertained all of the possibilities that were flooding my mind at the time. It was risking life. "He's so young...." I started, trailing. "He's wasting his time with me. And if something goes wrong...that's a huge waste."

"Are you discounting the value of your own life?" she asked, concerned.

A shrug betrayed my uncertainty. "My life is the sum of a series of resolved cases. I chose that over Miguel. I should've quit my job ages ago."

"Why do you think you should have quit your job?" she asked, making a note on her pad.

I looked away from her. "If I'd quit my job, I wouldn't be here. That job is all I have. That shouldn't be the case."

"I'm not sure I understand. Why don't you tell me why you think you're here exactly and then let's trace that chain of reasoning backwards." Her expectant stare, pen poised, put me on the spot.

I couldn't avoid rolling my eyes. "I'm here because I was pushed over the edge. I'm here because I'm obsessed with doing my job well. I could've taught. I should've taught. Who knows what kind of life I'd have had with Miguel then?" I shook my head, frustrated with myself. I was entertaining a theoretical. It was typical, but inapplicable to the situation with Miguel. It was unlikely I'd have even known him in an alternative reality. "Maybe that was better," I went on. "I don't want to trace anything. I want to have my life in New York, quit my job, have Miguel. Quitting means leaving New York, regardless. What else is he going to do for a living?" I stopped and closed my eyes, preferring to lose myself. I smiled. "He's romantic," I said, apropos of nothing. "So am I. Not common knowledge." The least you can do is bring it full circle, I thought. "That's why I obsess over this. Correct? It's a nice proposition." I continued to smile.

She gave me a bemused smile. "So his name is Miguel. And he's young. How young?"

"Thirty-three. Met him when he was eighteen. Got involved with him when he was twenty-two."I marveled at the fact that now two people knew about him.

"Eleven years? That's a long time," she said before adding some notes to her pad. "Has Miguel ever expressed any interest in getting out of the drug business?" she asked, looking up like some intrepid girl reporter out to get the story.

"We don't discuss it," I admitted. "It's easier that way."

She looked surprised. "Why? Because he likes what he does so much he wouldn't consider doing anything else -- even if you made other options available to him?"

An absurd simplification. "Because I have a target painted on my back in New York. And you don't just quit being a drug dealer. It isn't...Burger King." It certainly was an unreasonable expectation that she would know the ins and outs of the criminal population of New York. "It's amazing he's been informing as long as he has and no one's figured it out. He's useful to cops. Better than an undercover. Drug dealers are criminals, doc. So are cops."

"You have a target painted on your back in New York? What does that mean exactly?" She looked puzzled and alarmed by my simple statement of the facts.

Paranoid and delusional. That was what was coming next and that did not equal an early discharge. She was always frustrating, asking questions that got us nowhere in a feeble attempt to get me to sound crazier than I was. "Do you even listen to me?" I couldn't help but ask. "My last assignment was an undercover operation meant to kill me. They didn't want me back and they don't want me back. But I'm going back. I'm sure you hear this a lot, but I'm not crazy. So why...why would I go back? That's crazy. Right?"

"So you don't plan to return to the NYPD?"

I shrugged. "Six months without pay for risking my life to solve a crime. For being principled. For doing my job. They employ murderers...rapists. Really nasty guys." I looked up at her. "I'm not like them. And they don't want me."

"If you're not returning to the NYPD, then doesn't that change things regarding Miguel? You could both change jobs, you could both relocate to some other city. You could have a normal life together, couldn't you?"

I held out my hands in resignation. "What's normal?" I chuckled. "Nothing about us is normal." I could make him disappear. I was smart enough. "He wouldn't just leave his family."

"People leave their families all the time to go to college, to marry, to take a new job, to live somewhere they find more attractive. Unless Miguel loves the idea of being a drug dealer, starting over somewhere fresh with you ought to be an attractive possibility." She rarely attempted to challenge my conclusions so directly. Her tone was reasonable, informative, helpful. There was nothing combative in her tone at all.

It was almost enough to make me optimistic.

"Why haven't you asked me any questions about why I didn't tell you about him? How I could omit something as significant as an eleven year affair? "

She chuckled. "Nice try." With a head shake she went back to her previous subject. "Let's see. You both have a reason to want to leave NY and start fresh somewhere else. You've been involved for 11 years so there's a serious level of interest and commitment there. You're both romantic kind of guys. I see promising possibilities where all I hear from you is nay-saying. What is it you're afraid of?"

If I were reductive, I'd have already had an answer to the question. Instead, I had to disassemble the predicate. We were great together. We were engaging in reckless, dangerous behavior. Neither of us wanted another...until I met Greg. Greg was a certain impossibility. Greg...was a short lived infatuation. As merely hours progressed, I found myself more concerned with Miguel, with getting out, with solving Greg's problem and proving my worth. I could have Miguel if we left the city. But then what would I do? "I don't know how to do anything except what I do now. I'm afraid I'll be useless." I shrugged. "Better dead than useless."

"The private sector would snap you up if you were willing to leave the Major Case Unit, which, despite what you said a few moments ago, I don't think you're at all prepared to do. You're confused about what you want. Today you're focusing on Miguel. Do you still want Miguel? Can you still have Miguel? It seems like you're uncertain of both these questions. You're churning everything around those questions, endlessly ruminating about the impossibility of continuing to work for the NYPD and the equal impossibility of walking away." She paused as if to let her words sink in. She seemed prepared to pause indefinitely. I found myself shifting uncomfortably in the silence.

I cleared my throat. "O.K., so I'm uncertain," I replied, glancing all over the room. I looked back at her. "So am I paying you to help me figure it out or what?"

She smiled. "Let's focus on Miguel then and what it is you really want. Leaving aside all the difficulties that arise from a cop falling in love with a drug dealer, how well does the relationship work emotionally? How does he treat you? How do you feel when you two are alone together?"

"It's great," I answered. I pursed my lips. "We're both homebodies. We enjoy a lot of the same things. He's not what you expect of a drug dealer." I looked at her. "The truth is, they're all smarter and more interesting than they look."

She gave a distracted smile and stuck with her point. "Is there any quality you'd be looking for in a long-term relationship that you'd say is lacking in Miguel? How does he measure up to your image of an ideal partner?"

I took a breath. "I can't think of anything that's lacking. But I don't have such an image."

"It's possible that nothing's lacking but a different line of work then? And yet you're not sure what you want.... Is there something -- or someone -- you haven't mentioned that makes you second-guess your relationship and question whether Miguel is who you really want?"

It was embarrassing to think of the delusional, impulsive, obsessive way I'd initially responded to Greg. And yet I supposed it was part of my illness. "There was someone," I admitted apprehensively. "But now I understand that situation better. Unfortunately, the understanding only served to remind me that I need to be on the job to feel like I'm useful."

"You seem much more confused about whether you need or want to return to the NYPD than about whether you want to hold onto your relationship with Miguel. You say that you feel you've been made a target within your department and your life is in danger. Tell me why in that case you still feel you need or want to go back to your old job." She was jotting down notes as we talked, glancing up and down from her pad to my face. She expected a rational, well-reasoned, thorough response, not the paranoid ravings of a madman. I purposely slowed down and chose my words carefully.

"Good cops are married to the job. I'm a good cop." I stared past her head for a few seconds, considering the facts. "O.K., I'm a terrible cop. But I'm a skilled cop and I give of my time. For all I know, things work well with Miguel because we can't be together all the time. Meanwhile, all I have that makes an impact on the world is what I do for a living. It's my life's work. And if the result of that is death...." I wondered if it were even possible that she understood where I was coming from. If she could detect the level of obsession I was describing. "I love my job. Without it, I don't know who I am."

"And yet early in this conversation you told me it's your job that put you here. You said you should have quit your job years ago. Surely there are other ways you can share your knowledge and make a positive impact on the world without returning to the NYPD." She stared at her pad and tapped her pen before looking up at me with an expression of concern. "As you describe your thought process, I hear you ruminating on a series of interlocking ideas, circling endlessly in a way that can only lead to depression, delusions or worse if you don't break out of this cycle." She put down her pad and leaned forward earnestly. "I need you to work with me here. I'd like to help you follow your own train of thought as you consider these questions individually and fully. Together, I'd like to see us thoroughly assess your full range of options and embrace some choices that can keep you healthy and functional. I'd like to see you pursue some of these thoughts more completely so you can recognize those that are impractical or self-destructive. You need to make room for some new thoughts and plans and assessments. The question of alternative career choices -- in or outside of New York City -- seems pretty fundamental."

I nodded. "Do you think the world outside the NYPD is concerned with getting the right criminals? Or is the illusion of justice as important to the average Joe as it is to the establishment?" An honest question. No point bouncing that one off of Greg. I needed an answer from someone who could make any of my principles worthwhile, prove they were applicable somewhere.

She looked searchingly at my face. "I think there are many people who are seeking justice that they can't find through the authorities and someone of your intelligence and experience could help them find it. People who are wrongly accused and convicted of crimes, for example. People who may have been victimized -- or have had a family member victimized -- but can't get the authorities to pay attention. There are cases where law enforcement knows they need special expertise and seeks outside help. There are profilers with the FBI. There are other cities who may have police departments that function differently than New York's and where you might make a successful and less frustrating career." She paused. "I'm sure there are teaching possibilities as well, as you mentioned yourself."

"Yeah," I agreed half-heartedly. Something about the conversation was still bothering me. "I don't understand...why you aren't at all interested in that I kept all of this from you?"

She cocked her head to the side. "When you didn't talk about relationships I was left to assume you either had none or didn't care to discuss them. I was betting that you weren't ready to discuss that aspect of your life. It happens. If you want to tell me why you held back, of course I'm interested to hear the reasons. But I'm more interested in the fact that you chose to discuss it today. There must be a reason for that choice, too." she suggested with an encouraging smile.

I frowned. "I expected to get a letter from him today. He usually writes to me. I don't understand...."

Her eyes were full of sympathy. "Given his line of work, are you worried something may have happened to him?"

For a second, I thought my heart stopped.

It was exactly the reason I was so worked up. It was the reason I always panicked when I didn't hear from him. When he didn't answer his phone. I actually smiled while I considered what'd it'd be like to call him from home, to call his home...to stop talking code from pre-pay phone to pre-pay phone. I exhaled. "Yeah. That's it, isn't it?"

"Would you like to try calling him right now?" She asked kindly.

Not even a possibility. "No. Better safe than sorry."

"Did you want to tell me why you didn't talk about Miguel before today?" she asked as though it were the ultimate indulgence to return to my earlier point.

"I thought you'd tell me he was the problem," I answered honestly, directly. "But I know it's an improbable proposition. Sign I'm getting better, I guess."

"Improbable proposition?" She looked confused.

"He never could've had anything to do with me being in here. He wasn't the source of my hallucinations. In fact, they got worse when I sent him away. He's nothing but good for me. I guess I thought you'd jump to a conclusion. Drug dealer equals bad. Now that I'm getting better, I want to figure out how to keep him. And I trust you more than I did anyone six weeks ago." She was right. I had to leave my job.

She beamed at me. "You sounded very sure of what you wanted there. He's nothing but good for you and you want to keep him. If figuring out how to keep him involves leaving a job that may be responsible for your breakdown and if keeping him involves helping him find another line of work, then it sounds like you're pursuing a very positive plan. Is that going to be the basis for our work going forward? Or are you still confused about what you want in those areas?" Pen poised to record our decisions for the day, she looked for my assent.

I shook my head. "I'm not confused. I don't think I ever was. I just wanted a confirmation." I looked at her for a second and cleared my throat. "When do I get my grounds privileges?"

"If things continue as they have been, probably next week."

Longer than was necessary, but at least it was happening soon.

I left ten minutes later, nothing much else said, but the appropriate amount of time spent pretending to say things. I wanted to leave her office and call Miguel, but the trail left behind might lead to serious problems for him. I wondered when our intermediary was next scheduled to work. Whatever the situation, I'd only handed him the note the day before. There were endless possible explanations.

I went back to the room and laid down, thankful for the silence.