ACT NINE
Re-doing History
JAMES: Hi, Doc.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Hello, James. What brings you in today? I thought we
closed your case when you got six months of gambling abstinence.
JAMES: That credit counseling service keeps reminding me of my bills,
and they’re saying they’re going to drop me if I
don’t cooperate. And my Gamblers Anonymous group keeps telling me
I need some kind of pressure group thing to get all my debts out in the
open. My wife Jane’s behind the conspiracy, I think. She’s
obsessed with money.
PSYCHOLOGIST: So, you’re the innocent victim of a systematic
conspiracy? Many spouses of gamblers become compulsive spenders, James.
That’s because when they get some money in the house they know
they have to run out and spend it before the gambler lays hands on it.
Have you taken that ‘searching and fearless’ moral and
financial inventory that’s part of the G.A. Fourth Step?
JAMES: I’m not immoral, and I’ve turned the money over to
my Jane to handle. Why should I worry about the bills now? That
inventory stuff is good for some degenerates, but I don’t think I
need it.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Speaking of money, James, I was wondering if you could
lend me a couple hundred dollars. My office rent is due and . . .
JAMES: If I had it I’d sure lend it to you, Doc. But I only carry
money for gas and lunch these days, but maybe I could figure something
out and borrow here and there.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Well then, if you can’t lend me any money, maybe
you could pay your bill for the six sessions you still owe on.
JAMES: Now you sound like the rest of those nagging creditors. Get in
line with the rest of them, Doc. Sally will get you paid when
she’s ready.
PSYCHOLOGIST: And you’re not involved, then? I smell some
inconsistency here. You’d lend me money at the drop of a hat, but
you don’t feel any obligation to pay your debts yourself. How is
all that moral?
JAMES: What’s money got to do with morality?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Wow! You’ll have to go home and write me an essay
on that one. Money can be a measure of immaturity, depending on how you
handle it. It seems that you use money to buy friendship, not as a
practical tool. Money is only a bookkeeping system. Like it or not, how
we manage money is a mirror for our morals and ethics. Have you even
bothered to write a list of all the people and companies you owe money
to?
JAMES: No, no. That’s Jane’s job now.
PSYCHOLOGIST: You think you’re being responsible when you turn
your responsibilities over to someone else. That sounds immoral to me.
Beyond that, how do you learn anything if you let someone else do the
dirty work and face the creditors for you?
JAMES: If I get too much pressure, I’d get depressed and have to go back to gambling.
PSYCHOLOGIST: You could learn how to handle depression.
JAMES: With what? Sex? Booze? Alcohol?
PSYCHOLOGIST: With your head, fool.
JAMES: Has anyone ever told you that you have a one-track mind?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Everybody. If you met all your responsibilities and satisfied them, how would you feel?
JAMES: Fantastic, of course.
PSYCHOLOGIST: So, what the best cure for your depression?
JAMES: But, those bills make me so angry. The Internal Revenue service
wants money for back taxes, and I don’t think the government
deserves anything.
PSYCHOLOGIST: What about the department stores, the loan company and
the discount store where you bamboozled refunds in order to gamble?
JAMES: Those are just big, impersonal companies, not real human beings. Paying them back would be very low on my list.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Then there’s your grandmother, as I recall, to whom
you own money for the stocks you made her sell to get you out of a
scrape. She’s not big and impersonal is she?
She’s family, for gosh sake. Blood’s thicker than water, you know.
What the hell does that mean, James?
JAMES: When there’s money in the family, everybody in the family has some claim on it, don’t they?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Did Sally have a claim on your salary when you were gambling?
JAMES: I earned it; it was mine.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Who earned your grandmother’s money?
JAMES: She inherited it.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Any you don’t think she earned the inheritance?
Let’s summarize here. You don’t want to pay the government
a legal debt because you hate government. You don’t want to pay
legal debts to large, impersonal companies. You don’t want to pay
a small business guy like me, either. Family doesn’t count as
real people and you don’t want to pay them. What about your
friends? I think you owe money to some people at work.
JAMES: Those damn fools knew I was a gambler. If they get stiffed the deserve it.
PSYCHOLOGIST: So, in your own mind, you’re debt-free?
JAMES: Now you’re catching on, Doc. You can see why I’m frustrated with Sally, can’t you?
PSYCHOLOGIST: What I see is that your abstinence so far is some kind of miracle.
JAMES: But, you just said I didn’t have to pay anyone back.
PSYCHOLOGIST: You hear well but you have a listening problem. What
I’m saying is that you are a black-hearted liar, a conniving
scoundrel, a false twister of words, a duplicitous scumbag, a phony law
unto himself, a traitor to family, a crook, and a con man.
JAMES: Nobody’s perfect, Doc. No wonder people don’t want
to pay you. What kind of shrink are you, anyway? You hurt my feelings.
PSYCHOLOGIST: I’m just an honest, up front kind of guy without
tricks or gimmicks, James. Money is money, friend. A debt is a debt.
You don’t get to pick and choose whom you will pay. You just pay
what you owe.
JAMES: Well, if I could do that right now I would, just to get rid of the nuisance.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Debt can be your best teacher, kiddo. I want you to make
a complete—I repeat, a complete—list of everyone to whom
you owe money, and I want to see it next week here in this office.
JAMES: So, what do I do then? Go to each one every payday with a few dollars and say, “I’m sorry?”
PSYCHOLOGIST: Now you’re getting it! Yes; no fair mailing out
checks. Have Jane make up an envelop with the payment for each of your
creditors every payday. Then, you go in person and you say you’re
sorry. You make the payback stretch out as long as possible. That
should give you several good years of practice in humility and leave
you enough to live on. Make friends with the clerk at the local I.R.S.
office. Get to know the people in the credit departments of those big
companies. Look into the eyes of your friends and family and say that
you’re sorry. These are people, James, real people, not big
impersonal organizations. They all depend on getting their money back.
JAMES: I suppose you expect me to add interest to my payments. You’re a nut.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Humor me, James. I can be dangerous if you provoke me. I
could tell the I.R.S. your current address. I could turn your bill over
to Guido, my collector. Of course you add in an interest payment if the
company hasn’t already done that.
JAMES: What if someone says they don’t want it back; I’m off that hook, right?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Of course not. You simply make amends by taking that
money to a local charity or donating it to Gamblers Anonymous.
JAMES: Well, a few people never want to see me again. They might spit in my eye and curse me out.
PSYCHOLOGIST: They might. It’s their right. And it’s your
duty to stop making judgments and allow others to have whatever
feelings seem proper to them. So, you just say thanks and give their
money to charity or to G.A.
JAMES: Can’t Jane make the payments?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Certainly not. She gets to manage the household budget,
but you are the one who needs the practice paying the people you
wronged in the past.
JAMES: There must be an easier, softer way.
PSYCHOLOGIST: This is the easiest, softest way, and you know
that’s true. Everything else you’ve tried is pointing you
back to gambling. If you want to know what a difficult, unpleasant path
is like just keep going as you are.
(Close curtain. A man in a green eye shade comes out, sets up a chair, and hands money to a number of people who drift by.)