Alzheimer’s biologists. Why would an advertising firm be interested in Alzheimer’s research?
I said, “That’s very generous of you.”
“And would you like to know why we are willing to make such a generous donation?”
The waitress returned with my iced tea. She leaned over the table to set it down, her left shoulder close to my nose. I caught a whiff of some kind of laboratory chocolate body wash. It sparked something deep in my unconscious. A rush of excitement. Expectation. I took another deep breath, barely looking at the waitress. She took Walters’ drink order and vanished again.
I gathered my wits. “It’s not my place to ask,” I said. “By its very nature, a donation has no strings attached to it. It’s a gift with no implied return. That’s what ‘donation’ means. Donations with implied returns are called ‘payments.’ If you want to pay the hospital for something, you took the wrong guy out to lunch.”
Walters laughed out twin guffaws. His voice was deep. His smile seemed sincere. His eyes, hidden behind the smoky dark glasses, gave no hints. He wagged his finger in my general direction, though the actual point of his finger was directed over my left shoulder. “You’re not new at this game. I appreciate that.”
Perhaps this was meant as a compliment, but it struck me as condescending. I shrugged it off.
“How did you come to work at the mental hospital?” he asked.
I decided it was best not to tell Walters anything that wasn’t readily obvious. I left out all the bits about my wife finding work down here, pressuring me to leave Fresno and find a better-paying job, my job search which landed me at the psych hospital, my wife balking about the move, Nietzsche’s health being at the point where we were afraid to move him, my wife’s job falling through, and so on. The whole tangled mess was none of his business. As my personal drama continued to unfold in my mind, it seemed unreal. I avoided talking and even thinking about it as much as I could. I said to Walters, “Psych hospitals like this one are becoming a thing of the past. I’d like to help turn that trend around.”
“Tell me about it. A place like yours saved my mother’s life.”
“Really?”
“It’s true. I know electroshock therapy gets a bad rap, especially around people who don’t know anything about it. But when I was a child, my mother was haunted. I don’t know what it was, but I know she wasn’t able to let it go. Something had a hold on her and made her life miserable. She went away to a facility for several months. She underwent a series of electroshock treatments, and when she came back home, whatever had haunted her was gone. Or at least held at bay. Either way, her transformation was amazing. I owe a great deal to these hospitals.”
“When was this?”
“A long time ago. I was just a kid.”
“So when are we talking about? Late ’60s? Early ’70s?”
“Try early ’60s.” Walters reached out to the table in front of him. He grabbed his silverware and unwrapped it from its paper napkin cocoon. He set the fork and spoon to the left of where his plate would sit, and his knife to the right. He set the napkin on his lap. “It’s still in use, though. Electroshock therapy.”
“Oh, I know,” I said, though I wasn’t at all certain he was telling the truth.
“And a damn good thing it is. You can’t let public opinion drive your science.”
“That’s true.” Apparently, I was agreeing with anything this guy said.
The waitress returned in her subtle cloud of laboratory chocolate. The unconscious jolt hit me again. Walters said to her, “Can you tell me what the woman at the table behind me is having? It smells wonderful.”
The waitress glanced over at the table to her right. I took a good look at her face, the Jayne Mansfield white hair, the black bangs, her thin, pale neck stretching from the collar of her uniform shirt. Conscious memory overtook my déjà vu. I knew who this woman was. I’d seen her white skirt flutter in the Santa Ana winds that blew through the laundromat. No wonder these jolts shot through my brain. She said to Walters, “The jambalaya?”
“The Me Oh My-a Jumbo-laya?” Walters said. “I’d like that.”
I wondered for a second how Walters knew the actual name that the menu gave for that dish. The menus were not in Braille. The woman behind us had ordered before Walters arrived.
The waitress turned to me. “And what can I get for you?”
“A burger and any side that’s not fried and doesn’t have mayonnaise on it.”
“Fruit cup?”
“That’s okay with me,” I said.
“You don’t want the Cheese Please Burger?” Walters said, seemingly trying to up-sell me, though it was understood that he’d be paying the bill.
“Cheese and a hamburger is an unholy union,” I said, although I’m not Jewish and don’t have dietary restrictions designating the separation of dairy from meat. I just don’t like cheeseburgers.
The waitress smiled and fluttered off, her barbed wire tattoo buried under a frilly white sock.
I said to Walters, “I imagine you must know a lot about psychology, what with the business you’re in.”
Walters shook his head. “Not much,” he said. “I know about operant conditioning. It’s one of the basic principles of advertising. I know quite a bit about behavioral psychology. Ever since John Watson defected to Madison Avenue in the ’20s, behavioralists have overrun the industry. I know that there’s something psychological about restaurants like this applying musical names to their food that makes it sound better than it will likely taste. But that’s not much psychology.”
“Still, you’re interested?”
“More on a personal level than a professional one. Advertising today isn’t quite as psychological. It has more to do with demographics. Watch this.” The waitress clomped by in her saddle shoes. Perhaps hearing the clomps, he waved her over. She paused at our table. He said, “Excuse me, Miss. Would you mind telling me your zip code?”
The waitress glanced around the nearby tables. Everything seemed in order. She didn’t seem to be in a particular hurry. She said, “93003.”
“Midtown?” he said.
She nodded.
He likely didn’t need affirmation and couldn’t see the nod, regardless. He said, “Tell me how many of these things are correct. You like cashmere sweaters, but only purchase them when they’re on sale. You’re registered at Sephora and when they send you a birthday coupon, you redeem it and buy expensive bottles of shampoo and body wash. You’re not interested in tires and tend to buy whatever is on sale at the local Firestone. You don’t eat much fast food but you can’t resist the occasional Crispy Chicken Caesar Wrap at Wendy’s. You dye your hair and occasionally like to mix in fun colors. You really like the looks of those new Mini Coopers and you’re considering purchasing one. You own two pairs of Uggs. Both are factory seconds purchased at an outlet. You rarely purchase books. You only purchase music online, and you do that one song at a time. You have never voted in a special election. You don’t use public transportation. You have a bicycle, but the tires are flat and you don’t have a bike pump. You own the complete box set of Sex & the City and think the main character made a huge mistake when she broke up with the furniture maker. Am I close?”
“Wow,” the waitress said. “That’s pretty good.” She looked at me and raised her eyebrows, then went back to work.
“Demographics, not psychology,” Walters said.
Bizarre was more like it. Everything he said was a spot-on description of my wife, with the exception of the Wendy’s wrap. My wife never ate at Wendy’s though she did work at their corporate offices in Fresno. I wondered