AUDIO SESSION #5

07 - 23 - 11

JULY 23RD 2011

4:01 PM

INTERVIEWER:(quietly) This is audio session number five, patient name Ryan Kaminari, patient number twelve-ten, with Doctor Harold Lay. Patient’s current age is twenty-three. (pause) Good afternoon again, Ryan.

SUBJECT: Good afternoon again, doctor.

INTERVIEWER: How are you tonight? Are you feeling alright? Does anything hurt?

SUBJECT: I have a lot of headaches. I told you that last time and nobody brought me anything for it. I know what a Tylenol looks like, you know.

INTERVIEWER: I’m sorry about that. I’ll have some acetominophen sent over once I leave... One pill.

SUBJECT: Three. I have a tolerance.

INTERVIEWER: You know I can’t do that, Ryan.

SUBJECT: (impatiently) Then there’s no point, it won’t fix my headache! Just don’t send it.

INTERVIEWER: Whatever you want, Ryan. (pause) Now... You know why I’m here. Let’s get down to business.

SUBJECT: Fine.

INTERVIEWER: I want to talk more about when you were a young teenager... Early high school, middle school if you can recall.

SUBJECT: (abruptly) Are you writing a book on me?

INTERVIEWER: Excuse me?

SUBJECT: There’s no way most of what you’ve been asking me so far can have any bearing on my mental health.

INTERVIEWER: You may not think so, Ryan, but to me it has quite a lot of bearing. I’m going to ask you some questions now, just like the last four sessions.

SUBJECT: Shoot.

INTERVIEWER: Are you a virgin, Ryan?

SUBJECT: No.

INTERVIEWER: When did you lose your virginity? At what age?

SUBJECT: Thirteen, maybe fourteen, but I’m pretty sure it was thirteen.

INTERVIEWER: Thirteen’s a bit early, don’t you think?

SUBJECT: (angrily) I thought you weren’t here to judge me, asshole!

INTERVIEWER: Nobody’s judging you; I’m just stating my opinion. Now, your first time… Was it with a boy, or a girl?

SUBJECT: I think this is totally irrelevant.

INTERVIEWER: Please answer the question, Ryan. It’s important.

SUBJECT: (sigh) A guy.

INTERVIEWER: How old was he?

SUBJECT: Basically my age, just some months older.

INTERVIEWER: Were you very close to him?

SUBJECT: He was my best friend.

INTERVIEWER: Have you had sex with girls, Ryan?

SUBJECT: Once.

INTERVIEWER: And how many men have you had sex with?

SUBJECT: Two. You’re writing a book on me.

INTERVIEWER: Please don’t try to change the subject, Ryan. Would you call yourself homosexual?

SUBJECT: Absolutely fucking not. I’ve told you before.

INTERVIEWER: There is no need-- (pause) Tell me more about the girl. When did this happen, and what made you choose not to have sex again?

SUBJECT: Um, I think I was sixteen. She was really nice to me, you know, which was funny to me. I took her back upstate and we went at it, but afterwards she teased me about my dick size and told me I fucked like a fag. I just, you know... I thought she was really nice up to that point. But it got me so mad... I grabbed her and tried to strangle her, but I’ve never been so good at strangling and she was screaming a lot and wiggling... I had to crush her head with a hammer.

INTERVIEWER: That was a very extreme way to deal with the situation. Most men would have asked her to leave, or at the very worst slapped her.

SUBJECT: I just couldn’t handle it, especially the crack on my junk... I’m mostly Asian, so I guess you could say I’m not that developed. I just never really liked women. I don’t like a lot of people but I like women less.

INTERVIEWER: Had either of the men you’ve had sex with ever made similar comments?

SUBJECT: Yeah...

INTERVIEWER: Did you kill them as well?

SUBJECT: No. It was only the first one who said it, and I knew he was just teasing me, to be a regular guy.

INTERVIEWER: How did you know the girl wasn’t “just teasing” you, Ryan?

SUBJECT: Maybe she was. I said, though, that I like women less, I have less patience with them. They want to be wishy-washy about everything, they... I don’t like them.

INTERVIEWER: Were you in a relationship with this first man?

SUBJECT: I don’t like to put it that way.

INTERVIEWER: But were you?

SUBJECT: I said I don’t want to call it that.

INTERVIEWER: How would you term it, then?

SUBJECT: We were friends. That’s it.

INTERVIEWER: That’s not what the media said, Ryan.

SUBJECT: Well, the media can suck my little Asian dick. Can I just reiterate here that I cannot possibly see what this has to do with my schizophrenia? And while we’re on the subject, I mean, why am I still here? Why aren’t I rotting in jail? I don’t display half the fucking symptoms I did when I was still in school! I don’t hallucinate, and I swear to you and whatever God you pray to that my thoughts are as clear as day. And I’m certainly fucking talkative now, aren’t I, doctor?

INTERVIEWER: (calmly) That is not the issue at hand, Ryan.

SUBJECT: Would you stop calling me that! My name is Rairi! I’m Rairi Kaminari and you just fucked it up in all your stupid paperwork that I never even see!

INTERVIEWER: You’re being hysterical. Your birth papers say Ryan, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Please sit back down.

SUBJECT: It’s a motherfucking spelling error! Either you fucking call me by my name or I’ll tear your throat out!

INTERVIEWER: (coolly) Do you really want this session to be over? Do you really want to sit in here alone for the next countless hours? I’m your only social life now, Ryan. No visitors, and all other living beings in this building are prohibited to speak to you except to tell you to lift your arm for an injection, no matter how much you smart-mouth them; remember that, Ryan. Now tell me again you want to tear my throat out. (long pause; no reply from SUBJECT) I think, Ryan, this will be my last session with you. Session number six will see you with a new doctor.

SUBJECT: What? Why?

INTERVIEWER: I reacted unprofessionally to your threats. I apologize... (sigh) Let’s finish this session, at least.

SUBJECT: Alright.

INTERVIEWER: Do you enjoy sex, Ryan?

SUBJECT: As much as any guy, I guess.

INTERVIEWER: Are you being honest?

SUBJECT: No. I think it’s degrading and humiliating. I can get caught up in the physicality of it like anybody else with a working nervous system but if I think about it I feel disgusting, like I want to skin myself. And to be even more honest, I don’t even enjoy it that much when it’s happening. I feel like a lot of it is just a formality.

INTERVIEWER: Perhaps you were just with inexperienced partners.

SUBJECT: (snort) That was not the case, believe you me.

INTERVIEWER: Do you or have you ever masturbated?

SUBJECT: No. It’s a waste of time and a hobby of the lonely and the ugly.

INTERVIEWER: You’ve never been lonely? Is that what you’re saying?

SUBJECT: No... I’m not saying I’m neither of those. I’m well-aware of how I look and I’m certainly fucking lonely, but it’s just so...base. Humans are supposed to be deeper than that; when a man is in love, he’s supposed to fawn over the object of his affections. When a monkey’s in love, he jacks off in a tree and then goes and jumps the bitch.

INTERVIEWER: Have you ever been in love?

SUBJECT: Probably, but I hate that idea nearly as much as I hate the idea of sex.

INTERVIEWER: Could you elaborate for me?

SUBJECT: What do you mean?

INTERVIEWER: Why do you hate the idea of being in love? You just stated that you refrain from masturbation because humanity is supposed to be capable of more, and you mentioned being in love.

SUBJECT: Love is nothing. Technically, ‘no different from eating large quantities of chocolate.’ (pause) Al Pacino.

INTERVIEWER: I’m glad to see you enjoy pop culture with the rest of us, Ryan, but you’re not really answering my question.

SUBJECT: It leaves a person vulnerable. Love is for women’s dimestore romance novels, where all the sex can be described in the same sentence of, ‘Fabio lowered Antoinette to the king-sized, rose-petal-strewn bed, and in the window the moon watched them both.’ Some contrived shit like that. Being in love means I’m just like every other asshole in the world, and besides that it just gives that specific person an opening to stab me in the back, and it’ll be my own goddamn fault because I gave them that chance. (snort) This is such a meaningless conversation. You and I both know I’ll never be seen in public again.

INTERVIEWER: On the contrary, I think this is a very valid, very intelligent conversation. If it weren’t for your criminal past, you could write books, Ryan. I think you’re very poetic, in an urban sense.

SUBJECT: You mean in a low-brow sense. (snort)

INTERVIEWER: Of course not. Please don’t cheapen the compliment. I find your views on love very interesting, though. (pause) This is the part you know well, now.

SUBJECT: Just get it over with.

INTERVIEWER: Have you been taking your medication?

SUBJECT: What else am I going to answer? Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Has anyone else been in this room with you besides me?

SUBJECT: Is this the hallucination question? I told you, I stopped hallucinating. I can tell the difference between reality and hallucinations.

INTERVIEWER: Answer the question.

SUBJECT: No. I have lucid dreams, if that answers your question better. Sometimes, it’s hard to separate...

INTERVIEWER: Have you had any feelings of depression since our last session?

SUBJECT: A lot of the time.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have any physical pains?

SUBJECT: None...

INTERVIEWER: Any complaints at all?

SUBJECT: Tell the cook I need a little more oomph in the chicken marsala. (laughs bitterly)

INTERVIEWER: It’s been a good ride, Ryan. I hope you are as cooperative with your next doctor as you have been with me, if not more.

SUBJECT: Rairi...

INTERVIEWER: Right. Rairi, I apologize. (sounds of chair scraping)

SUBJECT: Please... Don’t forget. Three acetominophen at least... And some codeine... For my head. Tell them to send it.

INTERVIEWER: Don’t worry, I won’t forget.

SUBJECT: I’m sorry for yelling at you... You don’t have to go. If you’re going to switch patients then it’s okay for you to talk to me for a little bit longer. You can turn off that fucking recorder.

INTERVIEWER: Goodbye, Rairi. Please be kind to your next doctor.

SUBJECT: Wait, you asshole—!

END AUDIO SESSION #5

07 - 23 - 11

JULY 23RD 2011

4:23 PM