The Thanatos Syndrome

physician. Wish I had her back.
    Inside, just time enough to call Lucy Lipscomb. Nothing doing. I leave a message at the hospital that I’ll see her around noon after I see more patients.
    Here is Enrique.
    C ASE H ISTORY # 1
    Enrique Busch is an old, chronically enraged ex-Salvadoran. Although he was not a member of one of the fourteen families who owned that unfortunate little country, he married into one and had the good fortune to get out with most of his money and his family and remove to Feliciana, where he bought up thousands of acres of cutover pineland, which he converted to Kentucky bluegrass country with horse farms, handsome barns, hunter-jumper courses, and even a polo field.
    His presenting complaint two years ago: insomnia. His real complaint: rage. Every night he lay stiff with rage. He spent the day abusing people. I have never seen such an angry man. There is nothing like an angry Hispanic. It was killing him, this rage, with hypertension, sleeplessness, pills, and booze. He hated Communists, Salvadoran liberals, Salvadoran moderates, Salvadoran Indians, nuns, priests, fundamentalists, Cubans, Mexicans (!), blacks. He hated Americans, even though he had gone to Texas A&M, chosen this country, and done well here. Why did he hate the U.S.? Because we were suckers, weren’t tough enough, were appeasing Communists, and sooner or later would find ourselves face to face with Soviet troops across the Rio Grande. And so on.
    I couldn’t do much for him beyond helping him recognize his anger and to suggest less booze and barbiturates, and outlets for his energy less destructive than death squads. Take up a sport. Beat up something besides people. Beat up a golf ball. Shoot something besides people. He took my suggestion. The upshot: Too old for polo, he took up hunting and golf, joined the ROBs (Retired Old Bastards), a genial group of senior golfers at the country club. The golf, eighteen holes a day, tournaments at other clubs, helped. He competed ferociously and successfully, his blood pressure went down, he slept better, but in the end he blew it and either withdrew or got kicked out. Why? Because he never caught on to the trick of Louisiana civility, the knack of banter and horsing around, easing up, joshing and joking—in a word, the American social contract, in virtue of which ideology is mitigated by manners and humor if not friendship. He could not help himself. On the links he could hack up the fairway, hook and slice and curse with the best of them, but afterward in the clubhouse he could not suppress his Central American rage. One doesn’t do this. His fellow ROBs didn’t like Communists or liberals or blacks any more than he did. But one doesn’t launch tirades over bourbon in the locker room. One vents dislikes by jokes. But Enrique could never see the connection between anger and jokes (unlike Freud and the ROBs). He never caught on to the subtle but inviolable American freemasonry of civility. And so he got kicked out.
    So here he is two years later. And how is he? Why, he’s as easygoing and fun-loving as Lee Trevino. Not only is he back in the ROBs, he’s just won the Sunbelt Seniors at Point Clear. Blood pressure: 120/80.
    He even tells me a joke, not a very good joke. Here is the joke:
    There was this old Southern planter who had bad heart trouble. So his doctor tells him, Colonel, you got to have a heart transplant. He says, Okay, Doc, go right ahead. But what the planter doesn’t know is that the only heart the doctor can find is the heart of a young black who’s been killed in a razor fight. So when the old planter wakes up, the doctor comes in and tells him, Colonel, I got bad news and good news. The bad news is that I had to give you a nigger’s heart. Good God, says the old planter, that’s terrible; maybe you better tell me the good news. So the doctor says, the good news is your deek is ten centimeters long.
    â€œYou get it, Doc?” says Enrique, laughing.
    â€œYes, I get it, Enrique,” I say. “But it should be ten inches, I think, not ten centimeters.”
    â€œYou right, Doc! Ten inches!” says Enrique, slapping his leg, laughing all the harder, not caring that he’s screwed up the joke.
    So what has happened to Enrique? I don’t know.
    Why is he here?
    He needs something. And in fact I can help him. It’s about his daughter Carmela, a nice girl, a thoroughly American, Southern U.S. girl. It