Stories: All-New Tales

Of course, despite all my experience in this field, it’s not impossible to make bum diagnoses. But my concerns were confirmed a moment later when she took a phone call. She was speaking softly at first, though with an edge in her voice, the tone and language suggesting the caller was a family member, probably a child. My heart fell at the thought that she’d have children of her own. I wasn’t surprised when after only a few minutes her voice rose angrily. Sure enough, she was losing control. “You did what?…I told you not to, under any circumstances…Were you just not listening to me? Or were you being stupid again?…All right, I’ll be home after the conference…I’ll talk to you about it then.”

If she could have slammed the phone down instead of pushing the disconnect button, I’m sure she would have done it.

A sigh. A sip of her coffee drink. Then back to angrily jotting notes in the margins of the lesson plan.

I lowered my head, staring at my own notes. My taste for the latte was gone completely. I tried to consider how to proceed. I’m good at helping people and I enjoy it (there’s a reason for that, of course, and one that goes back to my own childhood, no mystery there). I knew I could help her. But it wasn’t as easy as that. Often people don’t know they need help and even if they do they resist seeking it. Normally I wouldn’t worry too much about a passing encounter like this; I’d give a person some time to figure out on their own that they needed to get some counseling.

But this was serious. The more I observed, the more clear the symptoms. The stiffness of posture, the utter lack of humor or enjoyment in what she was doing with her lesson plan, lack of pleasure in the drink, the anger, the twitchy obsessive way she wrote.

And the eyes. That’s what speaks the most, to me at least.

The eyes…

So I decided to give it a try. I stood to get a refill of latte and, walking back to my table, I dropped a napkin onto hers. I apologized and collected it. Then laughed, looking at her handiwork.

“My girlfriend’s a teacher,” I said. “She absolutely hates lesson plans. She’s never quite sure what to do with them.”

She didn’t want to be bothered, but even people in her state acknowledge some social conventions. She looked up, the troubled eyes a deep brown. “They can be a chore. Our school board insists.”

Clumsy, but at least it broke the ice and we had a bit of a conversation.

“I’m Martin Kobel.”

“Annabelle Young.”

“Where do you teach?”

It was in Wetherby, a good-size town in central North Carolina about an hour from Raleigh. She was here for an education conference.

“Pam, my girlfriend, teaches grade school. You?”

“Middle school.”

The most volatile years, I reflected.

“That’s the age she’s thinking of moving over to. She’s tired of six-year-olds…You put a lot into that,” I said, nodding at the plan.

“I try.”

I hesitated a moment. “Listen, kind of fortuitous I ran into you. If I gave you our phone number and you’ve got a few minutes—I mean, if it’s no imposition—would you think about giving Pam a call? She could really use some advice. Five minutes or so. Give her some thoughts on middle school.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve only been a teacher for three years.”

“Just think about it. You seem like you know what you’re doing.” I took out a business card.

Martin J. Kobel, MS, MSW

Behavioral Therapy

Specialties: Anger Management and Addiction

I wrote “Pam Robbins” on the top along with the home phone number.

“I’ll see what I can do.” She slipped the card in her pocket and turned back to her coffee and the lesson plan.

I knew I’d gone as far as I could. Anything more would have seemed inappropriate and pushed her away.

After fifteen minutes, she glanced at her watch. Apparently whatever conference she was attending was about to resume. She gave a chill smile my way. “Nice talking to you.”

“The same,” I said.

Annabelle gathered the lesson plan and notes and stuffed them back into her gym bag. As she rose, a teenage boy eased past and jostled her inadvertently with his bulky backpack. I saw her eyes ripple with that look I know so well. “Jesus,” she whispered to him. “Learn some manners.”

“Hey, lady, I’m sorry—”

She waved a dismissing hand at the poor kid. Annabelle walked to the counter to add more milk to her coffee. She wiped her mouth and tossed out the napkin. Without a look back at me or anyone she pointed her cold visage toward the door and pushed outside.

I gave it thirty seconds then also stopped at the milk station. Glancing into the hole for trash, I spotted, as I’d half expected, my card, sitting next to her crumpled napkin. I’d have to take a different approach. I certainly wasn’t going to give up on her. The stakes for her own well-being and of those close to her were too high.

But it would require some finesse. I’ve found that you can’t just bluntly tell potential patients that their problems are the result not of a troubled childhood or a bad relationship, but simply because an invisible entity had latched onto their psyches like a virus and was exerting its influence.

In a different era, or in a different locale, someone might have said that the teacher was possessed by a demonic spirit or the like. Now we’re much more scientific about it, but it’s still wise to ease into the subject slowly.

ANNABELLE YOUNG HAD COME under the influence of a neme.

The term was first coined by a doctor in Washington, D.C. James Pheder was a well-known biologist and researcher. He came up with the word by combining “negative” and “meme,” the latter describing a cultural phenomenon that spreads and replicates in societies.

I think a reference to meme—“m” version—is a bit misleading, since it suggests something rather more abstract than what a neme really is. In my lengthy book on the subject, published a few years ago, I define a neme as “a discrete body of intangible energy that evokes extreme emotional responses in humans, resulting in behavior that is most often detrimental to the host or to the society in which he or she lives.”

But “neme” is a convenient shorthand and every therapist or researcher familiar with the concept uses it.

The word is also beneficial in that it neutrally describes a scientific, proven construct and avoids the historical terms that have muddied the truth for thousands of years. Words like ghosts, spirits, Rudolf Otto’s numinous presences, revenants, Buddhism’s hungry ghosts, rural countrysides’ white ladies, Japanese yurei, demons. Dozens of others.