Page 42 - The Gluckman Occasional Number Eight

for repressed desires for punishment, has found a new form. No
cruel women in black underwear to make the patient grovel
beneath the lash of a whip or the impress of a spike heel. That
works nicely for powerful executives with an Oedipus complex
and a domineering mother, men who crave demeaning treatment
from an all-powerful female. But some smart operator in this
business and cultural capital of the country realized that another
basic human function, thwarted in childhood by familial
authority, needs to have its primal scene re-enacted as well. Food
and its consumption, as controlled totally by Father and Mother
in tandem, must be as often twisted into neurosis as anything to
do with sex.
As this is the Times food section and not the American Journal
of Psychiatry, you’ll really be wondering if I managed to consume
the plat du jour. Well, someone at the other end of the table beat
me to it in a hurry—how he managed to chew and swallow that
stuff is a mystery. The mistress of the inedibles carried off the
man’s plate, crowing “Look at him, you ingrates! He knows there
are starving children in Asia. He’s going to get dessert!”
And back she came with a bowl of still-bubbling glutinous red
glop. One whiff and I knew it was stewed rhubarb, not in my top
ten thousand things to eat. But another off-key olfactory note
struck me: the naturally-astringent vegetable had been heavily
dosed with blackstrap molasses. I would never be able to get it
down. The diner/patient before whom it was set took one
spoonful and choked.
“I won’t eat it! I won’t!” he cried in a plaintive baritone.
The devilish duo was on either side of him in a flash. “Oh, yes,
you will, my lad!” growled the man. “What’s the matter? Don’t
you like it? I worked all afternoon to make this especially for
you!” sneered the woman.
“No, no, I won’t!” And he fell off his chair into a tantrum,
kicking and pounding the floor. “You can’t make me!”
The giant grabbed his arm and roughly pulled the sobbing man
to his feet. “Go to your room and don’t come back until you’re
ready to finish your dinner.”
So that was the purpose of the private rooms. For some of
these people this could be a very long evening. It was still early,
and hours from my deadline, but I could not imagine going on