Emergency! Locker Room Therapy Session!
In the middle of a game, Dr. Andrew Beck, sports psychologist, helps recovering drug addict pitcher, John Palmer, cope with anxiety and hallucinations triggered by his father's recent death.
This is the 3rd installment of free previews from my novel Headcase: Shock & Denial (Book 1). Free subscribers get the first 7 chapters for free, and Paid subscribers get the full ebook and access to The 2nd book in the Headcase Series, titled The Inevitable, which will be serialized.
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Read by P.J. Ochlan
Chapter 2
Andrew left the owner’s box and rode down in the VIP elevator with the security guard. As a boy, he loved opening day. The Tides’ baseball season meant that spring had arrived after a long, cold Connecticut winter, even if the temperatures were still in the 50s. Every year he would burst with anticipation and pe that this was the year his team would go all the way! The Tides usually missed the playoffs, crushing his boyhood dream of a championship season, but anything was possible for those two weeks in April.
Andrew loved early April not only because it was the start of baseball season, but it also coincided with the Masters golf tournament. Andrew didn’t care about the tournament, but like clockwork, his father would head down to Augusta, Georgia, to prepare to play in golf’s most prestigious event. And while Ted Beck focused on his golf game, the frozen tightness Andrew carried around in his young body would, like Greenwich, begin to thaw. He didn’t go near his golf clubs while his father was gone. Sometimes Ted would call to check in on his family and future golf champion. When he asked about Andrew’s practice, his mom, Helena would give Andrew a wink and cover for him.
For those two weeks, Andrew would be up all hours of the night, studying the stats of every Tides player. He would shine a flashlight under his bed covers so he didn’t wake up his older brother, Brandon. Andrew loved to impress his friends with his predictions of the starting lineup. When challenged by the other wealthy Greenwich boys at North Street School playground, Andrew would bet his lunch money that he could get the batting order right on opening day and predict who the starting pitcher would be. He seldom went hungry.
Andrew emerged from the elevator into the cool, damp concrete corridor. He passed an army of food vendors decorated in Tides colors, sending reinforcements to relieve the exhausted troops on the front lines of the stadium food concession stands. A group of smartly dressed young men and women passed him without a glance, their official Tides staff lanyards swinging uncontrollably in the wind. Golf carts whirred by carrying official looking people, and other carts rolled past loaded with toilet paper, towels, and cleaning supplies.
Between the wind and the roar of the crowd reverberating against the high concrete ceilings above him, it sounded like the jet planes that frequently flew over Empire Stadium on their way to LaGuardia and JFK. Normally those were the sounds that reminded Andrew of his success. He had made it to “The Show”. But he couldn’t take the time to revel in the years of effort, struggle, and the mercurial nature of professional sports. His only thought was what the hell had gotten into John Palmer?
For most psychologists, when their patients had a bad day, millions of people did not see it on live TV. Additionally, after a bad day, those patients didn’t have to fight off an entire crew of reporters dissecting a few seconds of their work that missed the mark while wearing nothing but a towel.
Andrew was part of an elite group of about a hundred therapists retained by professional sports teams to treat their athletes. But there was another side to sports psychology. The side that justified why pro teams paid him big bucks to shrink the heads of their stars either after a major fuck-up or when their personal lives interfered with their performance. The “front office” thought themselves woke and compassionate for hiring a psychologist to help athletes deal with their performance issues. But most of the suits didn’t care about their athlete’s mental health as long as their stars’ heads got fixed. Fixed so they could get back on the field, get back to their winning ways, and sell more tickets and merchandise.
It felt antithetical to his work how quickly a team could turn on him, lose patience, or even outright ignore his treatment plan, putting the player in a situation they were not ready for just because there was a big game coming up. It was disgusting, but it was part of the deal. The stakes were big and the money even bigger. He loved the work and the challenge, but he also loved the box seats, flying private, the requests for speaking engagements, and the money that came with being in such an elite club.
Outside the Tides’ locker room stood Larry, a retired cop from the 112th precinct in Queens who now provided security for the team. It was like Andrew was seeing a favorite uncle, the one who always had a smile, handshake, and love for their favorite baseball team no matter how crappy of a season they had.
Andrew knew how to fit in with the finance guys and deal makers, many of whom had grown up, like him, around the country clubs of Greenwich and Westchester, attending Ivy League Schools. But he hated the pretense, the one-upmanship, and the yacht-sized egos. When Andrew was around men like Larry, he admired them for their no bullshit attitudes and how they could find joy in simple pleasures like arguing who was the better slugger, Hank Aaron or Barry Bonds.
“Copy,” Larry said into his walkie-talkie. “Yeah, I see him now. Over.” He grinned. “Hey, Dr. Beck.”
Andrew clasped Larry’s hand with his in a warm and familiar greeting. “Hey, Larry, how we doing tonight? You keeping those goddamned reporters out of the locker room?”
As Larry shrugged his big, rounded shoulders, his yellow windbreaker made the distinctive sound of cheap nylon fabric rubbing together. Combined with Larry’s Queens accent, it was a workingman’s symphony. “Ah, you know, Dr. Beck, nobody gets past me.”
Andrew chuckled as Larry added, “The Warriors got to JP pretty good. Is he okay?”
Andrew winked. “Yeah, he just needs a little pep talk. He’ll be good as new.”
Andrew opened the locker room door, and Larry, in a not-so-discreet whisper, asked, “Hey, Doc, he’s not… you know?”
Andrew shook his head. “No, no, no, we kicked that habit over the winter. He’s clean. He’s a good kid. I’ll straighten him out, don’t you worry, Larry.”
Andrew reached for a fist bump, Larry’s meaty hand hit his, and they gave each other a nod.
The Tides locker room was spacious, with forty open stalls along two of the walls with gray Aeron chairs lined in front of them. The players’ street clothes hung neatly and there were shelves for their shoes and various other footgear. About halfway down the row, John was pacing back and forth, his cleats scraping the carpet. “Stupid! Stupid! Served that one up on a fucking platter!”
John threw his baseball glove at a locker across the room. In an odd coincidence, it landed in the locker of Wilson, the catcher. It hit with a loud thump and knocked Wilson’s street shoes to the ground.
Andrew spoke up. “Hey, John. How we doing, buddy?”
John turned, startled. “Dr. Beck? Oh, man. What, did they, uh, send you down to talk to me or something?”
Andrew smiled and stretched his arms out as if greeting a congregation of Sunday worshippers. “Are you kidding me? I haven’t missed an opening day in thirty years! This is gonna be our year! The Tides are going to win a championship!”
John scowled. “The Tides haven’t won a championship since before I was born.”
“You know, when I was a kid, I used to predict who the starting pitcher was going to be. How amazing is it that this year… I told the Tides who the starting pitcher was gonna be?”
Andrew tapped John lightly on the shoulder a few times and gave him a big smile. Andrew could see the tension building.
John popped his left fist against his right hand as if putting a ball into his glove. A nervous gesture. “That fucking highlight-reel homer is going to be all over fucking Real Sports News tomorrow.”
“John, whether it hits the upper deck or just barely clears the left field wall, they still get the same number of runs. Here, take a seat.” Andrew pulled up two chairs, and John flopped down with one arm propped on the armrest to hold up his heavy head while his other tapped his leg. “What happened? Talk to me.”
John’s legs started bobbing up and down as the nervousness in his hands shifted downward. “I was rocking, Doc. I was mowing those fucking guys down. My fastball was working, and my cutter was dancing like a fucking Wiffle ball. You saw, right?”
“Yeah, you were amazing.” Andrew paused. “Then right after the first wild pitch, you dropped the ball for the balk. What happened?”
John stopped bobbing his knees and broke eye contact. His voice got quieter. “I saw him.”
“Saw who, John?”
John’s voice cracked a bit. “He was there, right behind home plate. With his score pad and notes, critiquing my grip, my wind up, every damn pitch.”
“JP, who was behind home plate?”
There was a brief silence. John’s eyes began to glisten, shiny as polished glass. John’s hands went limp over his now still legs. He barely choked out, “My dad.”
“John, your father’s been dead for two months.”
The nervousness returned to John’s legs with a vengeance. His knees bobbed, and he covered his head with both arms as if protecting himself from something falling from the sky. From the hiding place, his muffled voice said, “I know, I know, but I saw him!” John released his head and looked up. His expression oscillated between sadness and anger. “And then he gave me that look.”
“What look?”
John paused and glanced up at the ceiling as he sniffed. “That look when I’ve disappointed him.”
John was triggered. Intense negative emotions such as stress or grief could make people vulnerable to hallucinations—especially a recovering drug addict. The brain had difficulty controlling the memories and images that surfaced. How individuals reacted to their hallucinations also impacted how they felt about them. Andrew needed to know more.
“But you just pitched three innings of no-hit shutout ball. What’s there to be disappointed about? Right?”
John stood, wiping his eyes with the dark blue sleeve that stuck out under his gray-and-blue pinstripe Tides jersey. He started pacing again. “I know, I know, but after that pitch got away from me, I don’t know how to say it—but there he was. I saw him as clear as I see you, Doc! Am I fucking crazy?”
Andrew stood up and put both his hands on John’s shoulders. “No, JP, you’re not crazy. You’re a professional baseball pitcher who has gone through a lot. You have anxiety. Who wouldn’t in your position, and with everything you’ve been through? The mind can create illusions when under stress.”
Andrew felt John’s shoulders relax as the pitcher looked down at his dirty cleats. He made an instinctual motion, digging his right foot into the carpet like he was on the pitcher’s mound in front of the rubber. “Maybe I can get a little pick-me-up, and I’ll be fine.”
Andrew took his hands off John’s shoulders and folded his arms. “You think that will help?”
John gave Andrew a well-practiced grin, the one he often used during his therapy sessions when he was trying to charm and deflect his way out of doing “the work.”
“It always has in the past.”
Andrew looked down. “I don’t know, John.” Andrew used his best poker face to hide his surprise. He needed to explore where John was taking this.
John stepped closer to Andrew. “Just this once. I promise. Then never again.” After a pause, he added, “I mean, Skipper gave me the ball on opening day, for Christ’s sake! They believe in me again! I gotta win! No matter what, right?”
Andrew looked up at John and nodded. “That’s true; we need this win to keep the Tides happy. So both of us can keep our jobs.” Andrew bluffed his way through a shared chuckle.
John pumped his fist a few times up and down, “Let’s start the year with a victory, Doc! It will set up our entire season!”
“Yeah, good point. But, uh, John?” While patting his hands over his jacket and pants pockets, Andrew said, “I don’t have any pills on me.”
John took off his baseball cap, tussled his wavy brown hair, and said, “Well… um, I…”
“You have some uppers? Where?” Andrew asked.
John pointed over his shoulder. “In my locker. Behind my deodorant.”
Andrew walked towards John’s locker and pointed to where John threw his glove earlier. “Why don’t you go get your glove out of Wilson’s locker. I think you’ll be needing it. I’ll get your greenies.”
John hustled over to Wilson’s locker, retrieved his glove, and pinched it under his right armpit. “Thanks, Doc. I won’t tell anyone, just this once. I promise.”
“Sure thing, JP.” Andrew reached into John’s locker, his hands shaking and his stomach tight. He searched the top shelf, knocking over the deodorant. Just like John said, the pills were there.
“Got ‘em,” Andrew said as he huffed out a sigh of relief.
He shook the small translucent orange pill bottle, and they both heard the familiar maracas sound of small pills rattling in their container.
John walked towards Andrew and rubbed his hands together with a clap as if his prayers had been answered. “Great! All right! Let’s get this party started!”
John extended his hand, expecting a few green pills to land in it, but Andrew ghosted him and headed into the bathroom where the heels of his dress shoes echoed on the tile of the empty room.
John’s voice cracked like a boy whose friends had just ditched him. “Hey Doc, where you going?”
Andrew opened a stall door and lifted the toilet seat with his foot. The clack of the seat reverberated in the stall. He pressed down and turned to open the child safety cap—or in this case, knucklehead pitcher safety cap. He slowly turned the bottle over the toilet and tapped it with his index finger until the pills were dropping out one at a time. The plunking sound of each pill hitting the toilet water helped calm him while he thought about the difficult situation that John had just put them both in.
“Doc, Doc! What are you doing?!” John yelled out in horror from the empty locker room.
Andrew turned the entire bottle upside down, emptying its contents as the plunks turned into a splash. The splash echoed in his mind and then there was clarity. John was young, just a 23-year-old kid. Craig Palmer controlled everything in John’s life, including his drug use. John was a man-child.
Andrew flushed the toilet with his foot. He rushed back into the locker room and got close enough to John to verify that his pupils were dilated. Then he pointed at him without touching him. It was as if Andrew was a manager arguing with an umpire over a bad call.
“What am I doing? What are you doing with these pills? Do you know that I’m supposed to report this to management?”
John looked confused. “Wait, but you’re my doctor? What about all that patient confidentiality shit?”
“The Tides pay me. I’m treating you, but I work for them!”
John’s blank face and open mouth made Andrew change tack. “John, I don’t want to report this to Rothstein. We worked too goddamned hard to get us to this point. We aren’t going to let a little thing like one tough inning ruin our work, right?” He paused, seeing the fear in John’s eyes. “You’re so much stronger than this!”
John covered his face in his baseball glove and choked up. “But I can’t…I can’t see his face anymore.”
Andrew moved John’s arm so the glove wasn’t covering his face and asked, “Look at me. When did you first see him?”
John’s face was flushed. He sighed several times and blinked his watery eyes. His voice was unsteady. “After that first wild pitch. It was a cutter. It didn’t drop like it was supposed to. It just took off. It went straight over Wilson. Shit, I almost took off the ump’s head.”
Andrew positioned himself so they made eye contact. “Then you saw him?”
Andrew saw John’s pupils get large. “I got so scared I dropped the fucking ball! I was seeing a fucking ghost, man!”
John put both his hands on the top of his head, but one hand still had his glove on it. He was also wearing his baseball cap, so with the way his triangular mitt sat on his cap, it looked like a platypus just joined the conversation. Andrew resisted the urge to smile and focused on John’s face as he hard-swallowed and choked out, “Dad was shaking his head at me and writing notes. Then, every pitch after that, I saw him.” John took a deep breath and sniffed. “And then Wilson called for another cutter against Martinez. But I was afraid I’d throw that fucker into the bleachers or something. So, I shook him off and threw a fastball, and then Martinez took me upstairs.”
Andrew gave John a moment to steady himself. “Okay, JP, you lost your confidence and control of the ball. You are still dealing with repressed feelings about your father. You do one thing wrong, and your dad’s critical nature shows up. It was just one curve ball that got away. It happened to Nolan Ryan all the time.”
John jerked his head, his lip curled as he shifted on his back foot. “Nolan Ryan? Man, you’re old.”
The comment didn’t bother Andrew as much as the deflection. It was John’s favorite tactic when the work got hard. Andrew shifted to a firmer tone, closed the distance between them, and stood upright. “Please focus, JP. You’re seeing your dad because you’re disappointed in yourself. His memory and imagery get triggered by the guilt and shame felt when you found him dead in his La-Z-Boy not even sixty days ago. Add in that the last time you saw each other, you blamed him for giving you drugs and told him you never wanted to see him again.” Andrew took a breath and lowered his tone. “There’s still a lot of work we need to do to process that.”
John’s breath shuddered. Andrew moved closer and put his hand on John’s shoulder and, in a quieter voice said, “Your dad’s heart attack—it wasn’t your fault.”
As a single tear fell slowly down John’s cheek, he broke eye contact and nodded. “I know, I know.”
Andrew kept a steady, comforting hand on John’s shoulder and repeated himself. “John, listen to me. It wasn’t your fault.”
John sniffed, tapped the tear with his glove, and let out an enormous sigh.
From the top of the short ramp that connected the dugout to the locker room, the pitching coach ducked his head in and shouted, “Hey, JP, you better get up here. There’re two outs!”
John turned his head to acknowledge the coach’s bark, but before he responded, Andrew grabbed John’s shoulders with both hands, locked eyes, and set out the game plan. “Okay, we only have a few minutes, so listen up. When you are up on the mound, it’s only you and Wilson playing catch. Block out the crowd, block out the bench, block out the fucking batter. Play catch. Just like the visualization exercises we practiced, remember?”
John sniffed as he said, “Yeah, I remember.”
Andrew followed up with a firm command. “Recite your affirmation.”
John broke away from Andrew. “Now?”
Andrew crossed his arms. “Yeah, now.”
“Aw, come on, Doc. It’s goofy.”
Andrew uncrossed his arms and tapped his index finger on the face of his Rolex watch several times to make a point. “Tick-fucking-tock.”
“Aw man, I’m getting the dreaded Doc Beck stare.”
Andrew had a stare he used when he needed to show he was not budging.
“Do the work, JP.”
John took a deep breath, exhaled and looked over Andrew’s head, said in a monotone voice, “I am strong. I stand tall on my mound. I throw with all my might, power, and skill. I am unbeatable.”
Andrew shook his head. “Again. Louder.”
The second attempt had more enthusiasm, but not to the level of intensity Andrew wanted, so he got within six inches of John’s face and increased the firmness of his tone and volume. “Look me in the eye! Say it!”
John embraced the moment as he pounded his left hand into the palm of his mitt, “I am strong! I stand tall on my mound! I throw with all my might, power and skill! I am un-fucking beatable! Yeah!!”
Andrew stayed with him, held back his self-satisfied grin and pointed with an extended right arm towards the dugout and the field, “Good! Now go beat those fucking Warriors! This is our house!”
Andrew gave John a supportive “at-a-boy” slap on the back as he headed towards the dugout.
John dug his left fist deeper into the mitt on his right hand. “Fucking-a-right!”
John touched the brim of his baseball cap and pulled it up and down in a time-honored baseball gesture of appreciation. He smiled and nodded. “Thanks, Doc.”
The coach yelled down again, barking like a drill sergeant. “Palmer, let’s go!! The inning’s over. Get your fucking ass out here! Now!!”
John replied in a sing-song way like kids do when answering their parent’s call to dinner. “I’m coming, coach!”
But as John was jogging up the slight incline, he stopped, turned and said, “Hey Doc?”
“Yeah, JP?” Andrew was smiling with his hands on his hips, bursting with pride at the turnaround and progress he made with John in a matter of minutes.
John pointed at Andrew with his mitt hand and bobbed the mitt with the flow of his words, “You know, you’re just like your dad, full of positivity and encouragement. You and Ted must have had some killer moments, huh?”
Andrew’s smile dropped. He swallowed hard. The pride he felt just a moment ago had vanished, replaced with a Mike Tyson gut-punch. Andrew forced a grin and replied, “Yeah, we did. Now get out there!”
John pointed his left index finger at Andrew along with his outstretched glove hand, made a two-armed acknowledgment, “You got it, Doc. Thank you, Doc! Thank you!”
The pitching coach shouted, “Last fucking time, Palmer! If you don’t get up here in two seconds, you’ll be running the stadium steps all fucking day tomorrow.”
John picked up the pace and ran up the incline shouting, “I’m coming, Coach, I’m coming!”
Andrew could hear the organs playing as the Tides took the field, and the fans roared. He stood alone in the locker room. The rush from his work with John turned into a pit of acid in his stomach.
John had asked Andrew a few times about his favorite pro golfer and Master’s champion, Ted Beck. John idolized Ted’s gutsiness. John didn’t know, though, how as a boy, Andrew used to watch fan-favorite Ted interacting with his admirers, giving encouragement and free advice to grown men who gushed in his presence. Then that affable, lovable guy came home and ran the Beck household like a power-mad overlord, with an iron fist and a sharp tongue. Ted was a two-faced tyrant.
The hypocrisy of keeping his father’s legacy unblemished took away Andrew’s proud moment of getting John’s confidence back. It was just one more time that Ted Beck had to be the center of attention, even when he wasn’t in the fucking room.
Andrew wanted to scream. He pulled at his wavy blonde hair and crouched as if he was dodging a flying object. He mumbled to himself, “Fuck. Fuck, fucking, fuck! Yeah, killer moments.”
Andrew stood up, took a deep breath, and tried to push down the rage that was building within him. He knew there was only one way to get this feeling out of his system. But it would have to wait. He had to get back upstairs to the owner’s box and face Rothstein. Andrew pushed a ball of repressed anger and resentment deep into his gut. He rose from his crouch, fixed his jacket and headed out of the Tides’ locker room.
Larry thrust his chin in the air and asked, “Everything all good in there, Dr. Beck?” He pointed with his thumb to inside the locker room.
“Good as new, Larry.” Andrew forced out a smile.
“Way to go, Doc.”
“I’m not the one who has to face Martinez again.”
“Yeah, but you gotta swim with them sharks upstairs.”
Andrew nodded in acknowledgment. He heard Larry’s vinyl windbreaker rub as he waved. Andrew waved back as he walked to the VIP elevator.
He tried to put together what he would tell Rothstein about John, but the sound of his father laughing at him, happy with stealing his thunder, bounced around in his head. When he got in the elevator, he told the attendant he was heading back to the owner’s box. As the elevator rose, he heard the crack of a bat and the fans cheer. The sound made him smile, and he thought about the last time he made that sound. The smile on his face quickly left as the full memory played out in his head.
Chapter 3, the final sneak preview chapter, is coming on 06/28/2024!
Paid Subscribers get the full ebook of Headcase: Shock & Denial and much more!
Chris, just a quick note that I really enjoy the world you've built in Headcase (Empire stadium, the Tides, etc.). It feels like a quintessential New York story...makes me miss being around such an amazing city. Keep posting these chapters!
Hello Mike! Thank you so much for your enthusiastic support! Building the world of Headcase was a blast, I talk about it a bit in the Authormentory videos, you can check them out on my Substack home page. Yes, NYC is definitely and active character in the Headcase series! So much to work with! There is only one more free chapter to go. But as a free subscriber you can download the first seven chapters. There was a button in the sign-up email, if you cannot find it, message me and I'll send you the link. Just a FYI: paid subscribers will get the full ebook of Shock & Denial, plus the serialized version of the 2nd book in the series called The Inevitable, which will come out later this summer!