Grimoire Diabolique

With a piece of cardboard, he was scraping up a pile of vomit in the bus shelter; in fact, he was scraping it up rather meticulously.

The vomit looked like chunky pink oatmeal.

Then he flapped the granular puke into a plastic Zip-Loc bag. He craned his long neck, caught Barrows staring at him.

A snarl like an animal, then the man away, carrying his plastic bag full of bum vomit with him.

««—»»

“That’s when I knew it,” Barrows admitted to Dr. Untermann. “When I saw that guy—that bum—scraping up the vomit off the sidewalk and carrying it away…” He closed his eyes, rubbed his temples. “That’s when I knew—”

“That you weren’t the only one with a severe and incomprehensible problem,” Marsha Untermann finished for him. “Hmm. Collecting vomit.”

“Yes. Collecting it, putting it in a bag.” Barrows looked up at the comely psychiatrist. “I don’t even want to think what he does with it later.”

“He probably eats it,” Dr. Untermann bluntly offered. “It’s a form of dritiphily.”

Barrows’ lower lip hung down in bewilderment. “A form of—”

“Dritiphily, or dritiphilia. It’s part of the clinical scope of what we now think of as an OCD—an obsessive-compulsive disorder.” Her manicured index finger raised. “But it’s very rare, to the extent that it’s scarcely acknowledged anymore.” Her finely lined eyes blinked once, then twice. “I’m not quite sure why.”

But Barrows still sat in confusion, facing this elegant, refined woman behind the broad cherrywood desk. What did she say? he thought. “Drit—”

“Dritiphily,” her lightly colored lips reiterated.

“There’s a name for it? There’s a…diagnosis?”

“Yes, er—there was. It disappeared from the diagnostic indexes in the late-sixties. For thirty years there was a listing in the DSM. That’s the shrink’s battle book, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. But Dritiphily, as a diagnosis, vanished once the later editions were released. Instead, it’s been sub-categorized into some of the newer disorders.”

Barrows felt rocked. “You mean there’s actually…a name…for my…problem?”

“Yes,” she quickly replied. “And you’re rather lucky in that my main office is located in Seattle. Besides myself, there are only two other psychiatrists on the west coast who deal in such afflictions. One’s in L.A., the other in San Diego.”

Barrows paused to look at her—this gracile and unique specialist who had agreed to see him at a rate of $450 per hour. The fee, to Barrows, was pocket change to a typical man. He’d pay anything—anything—for help.

Dr. Marsha Untermann was probably over fifty, sharply attired, graceful in manner, her face calm yet her myrtle-green eyes intense. The straight, shining dark gray hair—cut just above the shoulders—gave her an exotic cast, not an aged one; she was high-bosomed, strikingly attractive. Barrows thought of a Lauren Hutton or a Jacqueline Bissett. He’d found her simply by searching the Department of Mental Hygiene’s website; Dr. Untermann’s office address and number had been the only listing under the CRITICAL OUT-PATIENT/ABNORMAL PSYCHIATRY heading.

To Barrows, “abnormal” was putting it mildly.

“So it was this derelict, this vagabond, that impelled you to contact me,” she said more than asked.

“That’s right.” Barrows still felt tightly uncomfortable by all he’d confessed to. Nevertheless, something about her allayed him, like confessing to a nameless priest behind a screen. And he remembered what she’d told him earlier: I’ve heard much worse. Comforting words to Barrows but still…

How much worse? he wondered. It proved a terrifying question.

“I suspect, by your appearance, that you’re a man of means?”

“I’m rich,” Barrows said with no enthusiasm. “I’m an investment banker.”

“Then you might appreciate this quite a bit. This derelict you saw, this precursor, this piece of human flotsam you saw whisking up vomit from the bus stop…you and he are essentially the same.”

Barrows calculated this.

“You’re rich, he’s homeless and poor. You have the best of everything, he has nothing. Yin meets Yang, the capitalist meets the victim of capitalism. The man plugged in meets the man cast out. The two of you couldn’t be more different from a societal standpoint.” Her lips pursed momentarily. Then she added, “But sickness, Mr. Barrows, is relative.”

Barrows found the point of little use—his selfishness, perhaps. His obliviousness in wealth. “I don’t want to sound callus,” he said, “but I didn’t make this appointment to have you make me feel guilty about being rich.”

“You shouldn’t feel guilty,” she replied. “You should feel accomplished. You should feel proud. You’ve done what most can’t do.”

Barrows found no use in this either, and he was not a man to beat around the proverbial bush. His voice roughened. “I usually make a million dollars a year but I have to eat phlegm off the street. That sounds crazy, but I’m not crazy. I need help. You’re the expert. Don’t patronize me. Help me.”