The Boiling of the Bones

9. Dr. Weintraub

Dr. Karl Weintraub's office was located downtown in a slick, shiny newish skyrise near the hospital. My appointment was during school hours so at least I got to miss Math and Health. Siri directed me to the adjacent parking garage and I entered the lobby from the street.

The entire front façade of the modern building was comprised of a shiny glass curtain wall with an atrium full of board-formed concrete planters with potted fiscus trees and other indoor plants. A receptionist informed me where to find Dr. Weintraub. A bank of elevators situated around the corner lay sandwiched in an imposing twenty-foot-tall vestibule of thick granite slabs.

Butterflies danced in my stomach as I stepped into the elevator and punched the button for the seventeenth floor. The elevator rose quickly and I felt an increase of G forces from the momentum. I thought I was going to be sick.

With a ding, the door opened and I stepped into a small hallway. The stone walls and solid mahogany doors with ornate lettering lent a profound, slightly intimidating, professional aesthetic. A fancy luminescent glow emanated from a slit of light pockets along the edge of the ceiling.

I took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped inside. I half expected to be immediately grabbed and held down by several burly orderlies dressed all in white and immediately injected with a sedative, then forced into a strait jacket. Until you're eighteen, your parents can legally subject you to all kinds of messed up stuff and my dad certainly entertained such conceptions. The waiting room was small, but comfortable. I checked in with the older, female receptionist.

"Dr. Weintraub will be with you shortly."

Two minutes later the doctor arrived. He approached with a friendly smile. He was probably in his sixties with graying hair, including a large beard and mustache. He resembled Robin Williams with kind, gentle eyes. He led me down a short hallway to his office. It was small, but comfortable. There was a sofa along one wall and a desk with a dark stained bookcase filled with scholarly books opposite. The color scheme was done in rich warm tones. A large window overlooked the Genesee River and the downtown skyline. We were up high enough I even saw the faint silhouette of Lake Ontario in the distance.

"Where should I sit?"

"Anywhere you like."

I sat on the sofa closest to the window.

He sat behind the desk in a Herman Miller Aeron Chair. He didn't waste any time getting right to the point.

"Your father tells me you're struggling in school and you don't want to go to college?"

"Yep."

"Do you like your father?"

"Not particularly, no."

"Is he controlling and overbearing?"

"You have no idea."

"Tell me about him."

We talked for an hour, it was refreshing and even a little surprising how he listened to me. He actually listened to how I felt and what I wanted. He validated my feelings and took my side, not my father's. It didn't go anything close to how I'd expected. He got right to the heart of why I felt conflicted and offered possible solutions. Sometimes in school, I felt crippling anxiety.

One time I studied my heart out for a Physics exam; I knew the material—I was ready. But when I sat down and the teacher placed the exam on my desk, my mind blanked. Everything was gone. I couldn't think. I literally couldn't remember anything I'd studied. I just starred at the paper and the sense of panic that gripped me and completely enveloped me was incapacitating. I was sweating profusely. I felt nauseous, and dizzy—like I was about to fall out of my chair. I sat dazed, frozen. Time passed in a flash and next thing I knew; the class was over, and I turned in a blank exam with nothing written on it.