We shook hands the first time we met.
How strange, now that I look back upon it.
"Good afternoon, doctor," he said, coming up from his seat in the parlor and rising to his full, towering height.
I shook his hand, firm and strong, and there was seemingly nothing untoward, at this point, about Mr. Benjamin Craddock.
Or his hands.
Our first meeting was conducted just as his hideous malady had struck and only days before his death.
Are you sure you won't join me in a scotch or brandy before we go on?
No? I believe I will, however.
We went together into my office, closed the door.
"Please," I said, "Have a seat on the couch or a chair, whichever you prefer."
"I prefer to be comfortable," he said, avoiding the couch as if it were a ravenous beast and sitting, top coat and all, straight-backed in the nearby chair.
"Your coat?"
He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. "I think I'll keep it for now. Maybe later, when you understand."
I thought little of it at that point. Though having been involved with psychiatry for only a very short time, I've learned to note, but pay little heed to, the specific obsessions or neuroses of my patients at this early stage.
As I moved to my desk to get the wax cylinder for the recording machine--I record each of my sessions, have I told you? Marvelous machine. You really should look into one, keep up with the times and all that--I took the opportunity to observe Mr. Craddock.
He looked about 45 years old, with a head of blonde hair and a weathered face, tanned and lined. He was tall, as I noted before, well over six feet, with broad shoulders and a massive, almost immobile neck.
Mr. Craddock exhibited no interest in either his surroundings or what I was doing--unusual in that most first-time patients are very interested in both, signs of their discomfort.
Taking the now clichéd seat at the head of the couch, opposite Craddock's own--I opened my noteBook and placed the cylinder into the machine, which occupied a small table between us.
"You do understand that I record all of my sessions...?"
At this, he leapt up, his dark coat flapping around him like wings. "God damn you, sir, no I do not! I'll not be made a spectacle of between you and your infernal machine! You'll not share my woes with your doctor friends!"
"Really," I said, attempting to calm him. "If you had so little opinion of me and my services, Mr. Craddock, why did you come here? The recordings are as private as my files. No one other than myself has access to them. I can assure you, on my word as a gentleman, sir, complete confidentiality."
He stared at me for a moment, face flushed, hands wringing at his sides. "Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have come for your services, doctor," he said, the last word dripping venom. "So, don't let my presence here serve as proof of your sterling reputation. But I suppose the machine is acceptable ... for now."
)
