ACT SEVEN
Honest, Doc
PETE: Doctor, doctor, the world is so full of suspicious people. Why
can’t people just accept me at face value? Why does everybody
question everything I say?
PSYCHOLOGIST: When you ask people why they don’t trust you, what do they say, Pete?
PETE: Really nasty things like, “You’ve lied to me for
years, why should I trust you now?” It’s depressing.
It makes me want to go back to gambling.
PSYCHOLOGIST: If you gambled would people trust you?
PETE: No one trusts a gambler, but I did quit gambling. So, when does the trust come back?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Do you deserve to be trusted? Do you have a right to be trusted? Are you entitled to be trusted?
PETE: It would be nice.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, there’s no law that makes anyone have to trust you. Are you a trusting person?
PETE: Sure, when people earn my trust.
PSYCHOLOGIST:How do they do that?
PETE: They do it by always telling the truth about everything, of course.
PSYCHOLOGIST:Do you trust me, your psychologist?
PETE: What, you think I’m crazy?
PSYCHOLOGIST:That could be. Do you ever lie?
PETE: Of course I’ve lied. I’m a gambler, or I was until you started to mess with my mind.
PSYCHOLOGIST:So, when you stopped gambling you stopped lying?
PETE: Well, everyone tells a little white lie once in a while. It’s only human.
PSYCHOLOGIST: What’s the difference?
PETE: There are things people don’t need to know, things that could hurt them if you always told the truth.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Who made you judge of all that?
PETE: So, white lies are just ego trips, is that what you’re saying?
PSYCHOLOGIST:And here I thought you decided you were powerless, or does
the Gamblers Anonymous First Step apply only to gambling. It certainly
sounds like you want to stay in control when you decide what others
need to know, when you withhold or edit or manipulate the truth.
PETE: What if my boss asks me what I think of his idea, or my wife asks
me if I like her new hairdo? If I always tell the truth, I’m out
of a job and living single.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, let’s add fear as a reason to tell what you
call white lies. We have fear and ego, and we could add greed,
insecurity and anger to the list. So, it sounds like lying is more
about protecting your psychology than about protecting or helping
others. All those qualities—ego, fear, greed, insecurity and
anger—don’t make for a very spiritual person, and certainly
not a happy person.
PETE: You don’t live in the real world, Doc.
PSYCHOLOGIST:Sometimes I do. Let me play you, and you play your boss. Ask me something you wouldn’t care to answer.
PETE: Hmmm…. O.K., I think we should give the receptionist a big raise; she sure is pretty.
PSYCHOLOGIST:Now, if I were you, I could rush in here and just agree
even if I thought she was ugly and that her work was terrible. Or, I
could tell a different lie and say that I don’t know her work
well enough to judge. What else?
PETE:Well, the truth is, it’s not my job to decide on raises and
I really have to have confidence that my boss will do the right thing,
and if he does not there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.
PSYCHOLOGIST:Fine, good thinking. It’s not my job to decide on
raises and I have confidence you will make the right decision, Boss.
Nobody gets hurt, or at least I didn’t hurt anyone by tellingl
the simple truth. So, now I’m your wife, and how do you like my
new hairdo?
PETE: Err, umm . . . As long as you’re pleased with it, that’s all that’s important?
PSYCHOLOGIST:I love it when clients catch on fast. See, telling the
truth even in small stuff is pretty easy once you refuse to judge
everything and let others be responsible.
PETE: But, I want people to trust me now. How do I do that?
PSYCHOLOGIST:You don’t, of course. That’s up to them, and
people often change slowly. Look at that cabinet over there. It has a
drawer on the left and a drawer on the right. Tell me what you think is
in the drawer on the left. Later on I plan to blindfold you and have
you reach into the drawer with your bare hand. For now you get twenty
questions before we blindfold you.
PETE: Is there anything in there that could hurt me?
PSYCHOLOGIST:No, not if you’re careful. Just a few small things I don’t want to bother you with.
PETE: Is there anything in there that’s alive?
PSYCHOLOGIST:Well, just a few scientific examples of small creatures. They’re actually rather cute and interesting.
PETE: Do they bite?
PSYCHOLOGIST:They’ve never bitten anyone.
PETE: So, they’re your pets?
PSYCHOLOGIST:Yes, I use them in psychological tests like you’re going through now.
PETE:Well, I trust you, Doc. Let’s get on with it.
PSYCHOLOGIST:Fine, here’s a blindfold, but first for the sake of
my liability insurance, please sign this consent form. You don’t
really have to bother reading it, just take my word that you’ll
be safe.
PETE: Doc, you idiot! This says there’s a large, hungry
black rat in there . . . and a coral snake . . . and a box of black
widow spiders.
PSYCHOLOGIST:I told you not to bother reading the form. I didn’t
want to worry you. Just sign it, please, and stop holding us up.
PETE: If you ever open that stupid drawer, I’m out of here.
PSYCHOLOGIST:Well, then, let’s do the other drawer. I only keep
pencils and note cards there. Just let me put on this blindfold and you
can reach in there and grab a pencil.
PETE: I don’t trust you. You lied to me about the first drawer.
PSYCHOLOGIST:No, I just didn’t tell you stuff I thought you didn’t need to know; just a few little white lies.
PETE:Those critters could have killed me!
PSYCHOLOGIST:So, Pete, what’s in your big, back box of dark,
hidden truth? What did you tell your wife when she asked where your
son’s college money was kept?
PETE:I told her I was taking care of it, that it was ‘invested’ and that she shouldn’t worry.
PSYCHOLOGIST: And what did you tell her about the secrete loans you
took, about the advances from work you never mentioned to her, about
the money her Dad lent you to save the house, about the markers you
have out at the casinos . . .
PETE:I stopped gambling, why does she have to know all that? I
don’t tell her everything because it would be too much for her to
handle. I don’t want to worry her.
PSYCHOLOGIST:There you go again, lying and hiding the truth out of fear
and ego. You tell me, Pete. Why doesn’t your wife or anybody else
trust you?
PETE:I guess my ‘confessions’ always seem phony because they always know there’s more there than I tell them?
PSYCHOLOGIST:So, there’s no quick way to get back the trust of
other people, but one way may take less time than another. Which way is
that?
PETE: If I told everybody everything they need to know they’d hate me.
PSYCHOLOGIST:So, they all love you as it is?
PETE: I didn’t say that.
PSYCHOLOGIST:So, what have you got to lose?
PETE: I could lose everyone if I tell the complete truth, but I could end up losing everyone if I didn’t?
PSYCHOLOGIST:What’s the best way—the only way—to earn back the trust of others?
(Close curtain. A clown leads a child dressed as a dog in doing dog tricks.)