Page 138 - A Little Life: A Novel

“Nothing,” he said. He could tell Willem, of course, who would listen
and say “Hmm” in his Willem-ish way, but he knew he would agree with
Andy.

A week after their fight, he came home to Lispenard Street—it was a
Sunday, and he had been walking through west Chelsea—and Andy was
waiting on the steps before their front door.
He was surprised to see him. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Andy had replied. They stood there. “I wasn’t sure if you’d take my
call.”
“Of course I would’ve.”

“Listen,” Andy said. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. I’m sorry, Andy.”
“But I really do think you should see someone.”
“I know you do.”
And somehow they managed to leave it at that: a fragile and mutually
unsatisfying cease-fire, with the question of the therapist the vast gray

demilitarized zone between them. The compromise (though how this had
been agreed upon as such was unclear to him now) was that at the end of
every visit, he had to show Andy his arms, and Andy would examine them
for new cuts. Whenever he found one, he would log it in his chart. He was
never sure what might provoke another outburst from Andy: sometimes
there were many new cuts, and Andy would merely groan and write them
down, and sometimes there were only a few new cuts and Andy would get

agitated anyway. “You’ve fucking ruined your arms, you know that, right?”
he would ask him. But he would say nothing, and let Andy’s lecture wash
over him. Part of him understood that by not letting Andy do his job—
which was, after all, to heal him—he was being disrespectful, and was to
some degree making Andy into a joke in his own office. Andy’s tallies—
sometimes he wanted to ask Andy if he would get a prize once he reached a

certain number, but he knew it would make him angry—were a way for him
to at least pretend he could manage the situation, even if he couldn’t: it was
the accrual of data as a small compensation for actual treatment.
And then, two years later, another wound had opened on his left leg,
which had always been the more troublesome one, and his cuttings were set
aside for the more urgent matter of his leg. He had first developed one of
these wounds less than a year after the injury, and it had healed quickly.

“But it won’t be the last,” the Philadelphia surgeon had said. “With an