don't tell me!
-- that's all the time we have. sorry.  . next time.
i don't want to hear any more today.
mr. follett, do you trust me or don't you?
without trust, there's no point to any of this. you might as well not come.
good, then go.
my patient had to leave early.
does the phrase "nosy" have any meaning to you, lily?
it was henry follett.
what do you want to know?
fine, vincent.  how's yourself?
oh, i don't know.
lily, i don't think even you could know that --
oh, so that's him? the panda man.
you like me. how come?
what do you mean, "in no time"?
weekly or monthly?
why do you think you tell me, nessa?
it's a big part of the show.
it's called pro bono.
it's my bit for the community.
where was this?
you been spying on me in the supermarket, nessa?
that's not quite what i said --
how are you?
no kidding.  panda. where'd that come from?
nah.  scotch.
you want me.  to be.  your friend.
but that's not what's really going on.  . what's really going on is.  you have some problems and you want some therapy, but you feel it could be very bad for panda modem stock if word got out that you were having head problems.
can i ask you a personal question?
have you thought about getting a wife?
is that the question?
i understand.
don't tell me, 'cause i'm not going to tell you what i've got.
i'm impressed. i couldn't make three million dollars if i lived three lifetimes.
lionel, since this is our first session together, maybe --
-- you can sit up and look at me if you'd like -- -- maybe it would be helpful if you told me a little about what brought you here.
-- go on!
sure i can, lionel.
see that sign -- we retain the right to refuse service to anyone. i'm not going to charge you for this session, but i don't want to see you back here.
come out this way. there's no shame in getting a little therapy.  is there, althea?
and it's the hubble telescope, not the himball telescope.
jeez.  what an asshole.
me more than most.
i'm not sure. but i think they're worried about you.
how did they threaten you?
good kids.
hmm?
really? you think so?
how ya doin', ainge? evenin', lily.
mr. cook.
uh-huh.
what's that?
syndrome.  chronic fatigue syndrome.
no.  a little. there's a lot of debate about it.
why's that?
sure. why don't you bring her up to my office at 3 tomorrow afternoon.
generally that doesn't work out so well. it sends the wrong message to people who need to make a change.
hello, lionel.
you're right, as usual. see you.
skip, you must have lots of people you can throw a ball with.
skip, you're the head of the whole deal here. are they busier than you?
so, would you say we're out here.  let me think how to put this.  is your problem really that you're.  lonely?
hell yes, i like it. what's better than this? most guys would kill just to have someone do this with them whenever they like.
lily and i talk a bit. you know lily, runs the coffee shop?
she's probably ten years older than you.
lives downstairs from me. she's got a great dog named for danny ainge.
well, there's lily.
amazing.
what kind of person do you have to be to do this?
this --
yeah.
pretty good, too. lots of detail. nothing hard core. old-fashioned ones, from back when people cared about atmosphere and character.
problem is, his fantasy life's a lot better than his real one. nothing can live up to it. his wife got sick of it and left him. took his kids with her.
of course, it's not that simple. there's something powerful going on there. we've got a lot of work to do. it's hit to the warning track!
in these fantasies, henry follett is played by a handsome guy with biceps. can you imagine that? where your self-esteem has to be? man, i'd just like to move the guy to the point where he gets to appear in his own fantasies.
feel free to lie down. most people do.
what can you tell me about this?
when did you start to feel this way?
what?
no.
back when this started, was there anything unusual happening in your life? a change of job, of living situation.  a loss of some kind?
hmm.
hmm, as in -- that's interesting. sometimes, with enough clues, it's possible to figure these things out.
i don't know what's real and what isn't. that's never been my strong suit. but if you're tired all the time and you've had to give up the life you were having and come back home when you didn't want to.  that's worth trying to fix. maybe i can help you do that.
we.  we would try several things. but i need to see you a lot.
i'll come to you. we'll try a little walking.
we'll take it slow. you'll never feel you can't handle it.
we'll work it out.
no one ever thought so. you must bring it out.
maybe you'll catch it.
you must be katie. people call me doc.
doc. nice to meet you.
nope.
i've had my moments.
i thought it was -- nobody ever said, "i should have spent more time at the office."
what do you do?
we've been talking about her, mostly.
you've done well.
a little.
tastes good.
what do you think's wrong with her?
she seems very unhappy.
sure.
don't need it.
you're good.
that would explain it.
i'm trying.
is she a friend of yours?
it's a pretty piece of land.
horror show. what'd you do tonight?
and?
why do you watch?
we'll turn back anytime you want.
yes. it's nice to meet you, mrs. cook.
ph.d., psychologist.
that's right, the fake kind.
people usually have to get to know me before they hate me.
maybe.  but you're the one whose ass is dragging.
is she against you getting help?
something's bothering her.
please.  forgive me.
negative thinking makes everything more difficult. if you're going to have enough strength to do this, we have to talk only about positive things. all right?
okay then.  are you positive your mother's a bitch? just kidding.
i've offended you!
really? what would it take?
sorry.  i'm done.
i want you to tell me all your symptoms.
be specific.
sore throat?
low grade fever?
painful lymph glands? forget fulness.  irritability.  depression?
yeah, most people have that. it's confusing here.
life.
did you get headaches before this? but you get more now? or more severe?
so the headaches may not even be a part of this?
i can give myself a headache instantly.
all i have to do is have two conflicting thoughts at the same time.  like i'll think -- 'taking these walks is going to help sofie get better.' but then i'll also think -- 'mumford, you just enjoy taking these walks and you're kidding yourself about the benefits.'
there.  i've given myself a real whopper.
sometimes, yeah.  pulling in two different directions at once. it makes tiny little tears in our fabric.
mr. follett.
henry!
stop now.
not for this. not me, you're not.
it doesn't matter how i feel about it. it's how you feel about it that matters.
you didn't come to me because you have a rich imagination.
you came because it's taking over. you're in its grip.
where's your wife, henry?
where's your wife, henry?
i didn't hear you.
what?!
now we're back on track.
what's that?
hey, skip.
that's all right. what's on your mind?
yep.
sometimes it's best to keep a few things just for ourselves.
it's just a thought.
you're concerned that maybe i can't be trusted with a secret.
that is correct, skip. i'm going to have to take a long look at that.
-- skip. knowing what you do about me --
you are panda, monarch of modems.
okay.  let's say that, for now.
jerking off?
slash what?
a doll?
how's it coming?
and that's your secret? you meant -- like a trade secret?
sounds like kind of a good idea.
definitely.
skip, that's not much of a secret.
oh, it's okay. it's just not something to be ashamed of. maybe you don't want people knowing -- and believe me, it's safe with me -- but on the scale of dirty little secrets, i'd give it, say.  a two.
you want to know a secret? i'll tell you a secret. since it's just between us and all.
the secret, skip, is this -- i am not now, nor have i ever been.  a psychologist.
we'd better get going. just follow my light. and, skip, watch your step.
just you.
doesn't matter. you can call me doc.
i can tell you anything else.
did you know that every species of mammal has found some way to drug, inebriate, or anestnetize itself? even if it's just banging its head against a rock. seems to be some natural urge.  to get away for a while. i've had it for as long as i can remember. the first place i wanted out of was home.
i thought i had the best parents in bald knob, west virginia.  till i was seven years old and got a look at some others. they weren't bad folks.
but they were real unhappy about being who they were.
it made no sense that school came easy for me.  i didn't do much work, and there was a proud tradition in my family of being really dumb. my friends didn't like it much. it made them distrust me.
on the other hand, it made some of my classmates like me better.  i don't know what it was in me, maybe some genes from my mom, maybe some discomfort with myself, but early on i was drawn to any substance that made me numb.
when i got a scholarship to go out of state to college, i was the first one in my extended family who'd gone beyond high school. at graduation, my folks looked like a normal, happy couple, which i guess they were about 10% of the time.  out in public.
my roommate was from a planet i had never heard of called scarsdale, where everything was the opposite of west virginia.
all the other kids, in fact, seemed to know things i didn't. they were friendly enough, but in four years, i never got over feeling that i had sneaked in.  and was about to be exposed as the hillbilly and imposter i actually was.
the thing that always made those feelings go away was.  fun. fun was drugs, fun was sex, fun was aggressively doing nothing. the only problem i had with degenerate, self- destructive behavior was.  i couldn't get enough of it.
all that fun eventually had an impact on the work i was doing. i figured, what the hell, it was only college, after all. i'd straighten up when i went out in the real world.
i didn't want to jump into my career right out of college. and since i had no career, that turned out to be not much of a problem.
i had a series of challenging jobs over the next few years.
pizza delivery, pipe fitting, pest control.  lots of jobs that started with the letter "p". for some reason, i kept losing these jobs. the only mind-altering substance i never had a problem with was alcohol. i never got drunk. i didn't like the feeling. but really, when you're as fucked up as i was.  big deal.
eventually, doing all these different jobs, i noticed something. for some reason, probably because i was too stoned to talk, everywhere i went --
-- people would talk to me, tell me everything.  their stories, their problems, their innermost thoughts. sometimes they'd pretend they needed advice, but mostly people just wanted someone to listen.
anyway, one day i was spraying for termites when i had a vision --
-- it was time to put my college degree to work and get a job with a desk.
i took the civil service exam and found myself working at the internal revenue service, district 14, central administrative office. i started off as a general records clerk.
i guess the standards weren't too high there, because my superiors got excited and pushed me to take the advancement tests.
one guy in particular thought i should be a revenue officer. there was more money to be made as your classification went up. which had a lot of appeal to me.
since, even though i was certain i could stop anytime i wanted, i had developed a real affection for cocaine. it was my favorite hobby i had ever had.
but i sure didn't want to be a revenue officer, where you were face to face abusing -- and getting abused -- all day long.
and being a collection agent was definitely not in my genetic make- up.
but there was one job that looked like it might be fun -- investigator.
everybody has a story, skip.
what it felt like was.  a series of separate, unconnected lives -- hillbilly kid, wrecked college boy, garbage man, civil service guy.  . et cetera.  et cetera. every time i'd leave a life, it felt good. whatever problems i was having were suddenly gone. i had no friends and i didn't talk to my family. the only constant, stabilizing force in my life was.  drugs.
it wasn't the best situation.
didn't need one. we didn't even need a warrant for most of the shit we did. man, the irs.  we could go in your bank account, your credit cards.  hell, we used to go into doctors' files and get all the juicy details. nobody wants to argue with the irs.
i got teamed with one of the top guys, a fanatic named gregory. he always got his man, whether they deserved it or not. he was a "closer" and everybody admired that.
he'd make the case and the collection guys would come in and clean up. our specialty was.  sleazy skulking.
we were a good team. i was a dope addict and gregory was insane.
of course, him being insane didn't make it all right that i fell in love with his wife.
"get to know your therapist."
but look at me now.
things got a lot worse.
the way the district managers got ahead and won their bonuses was by generating maximum payments. that meant the revenue officers had to use all their "collection tools" -- seizures, liens, levies -- even if a more reasonable compromise could have been worked out. the best way to reduce resistance from the taxpayers was to build a convincing case -- whether there'd actually been a violation or not.
that's where we came in. our dm was a particular sonuvabitch, and he knew just how to get gregory crazy.
so several things were working on gregory when we started building a case against a furniture maker named edmond worrell.
and his family.
gregory was acting more and more irrational. we started doing things that were over the line even for the irs. when i look back on it now, i'm sure gregory must have known about candy and me. on our team, i had become.
the responsible one.
sometimes when a case didn't work out right, gregory and this revenue officer named mclure would put the squeeze on the subject's accountant.
there aren't many accountants who don't have something to worry about with the service.
the parties met repeatedly over a period of months. the irs offered to settle for a sizable but, they said, fair amount. worrell said he'd done nothing wrong and threatened to fight it all the way to washington. he seemed pretty strong. i was secretly pulling for him. mclure and the district manager stepped up the pressure.
what none of us down at the service knew was that edmond worrell had a story too.  worrell's was that he'd been fighting chronic depression for thirty years. under the heat of the investigation, he fell off his medication. one tuesday morning, he went down to the factory early, wrote his family a letter, then used the 9mm automatic they kept there to kill himself.  the dm dropped the case that day and started proceedings to get rid of gregory.
gregory went home drunk, beat up candy and went out to drink some more. candy told me she didn't want to see me again. she hated us both and she was leaving us both.  it made perfect sense to me. i felt the same way.
in fact, i was jealous of candy. i wanted to leave too, just like her.  get as far away from --
-- me.  as possible.
harder than i thought. took me three tries. but i was highly motivated -- figured there was no point in leaving me and taking that along. after two bomb-outs, i found a place in the desert.
the joint wasn't fancy -- it was run by an order of monks -- but it worked. when i got out of there, i was just about broke.
which seemed perfect for starting something new. be back.
that'd be lily.
who'd you go with? that's not good.
you know how easy it is. a kid can manage it if he wants a fake i.d. you can do practically the whole deal at your local kinko's. the only variable is how much pride you take in the product.
all new people start with that.
with desktop publishing, you don't have to deal with printers, supply houses, or pesky government agencies. eventually you do have to get your hands on a typewriter. ever seen one of those, skip?
what about it?
oh. you got it backwards. i already had the name when i started looking for somewhere to settle. when i saw this town on a map, i thought maybe it was a sign. see.
mickey mumford was in miss rice's kindergarten class with me. he was killed with his parents in a wreck on their way back from a steelers game. he was only six years old, which is a real plus, so there's a birth certificate if anyone checks -- but not much else. they died in pennsylvania, so there's no death certificate in west virginia.  that's also good.
everything flows from that, and what doesn't.  can be easily purchased.
of course, my irs training made it easier. once you've done that, there's not much data you can't access and use any way you want.
in a free society, you are who you say you are. people should remember that before they go around knocking this country. skip, all this beer's got me sleepy.
no.  no training.
english lit.
i understand what it's like to want to leave a problem behind. that's all most people are looking to do. mainly, i listen.
see you thursday.  regular time.
you're doing great.
it doesn't matter. go on.
yes.
oh, there's something wrong with you, all right. especially after hearing that dream of yours, about the roto-rooter.
disgusting.
it's pretty obvious to a trained professional.
is that when you split up?
brady peck's. fourteen years old. lives next door.
in the capitol for boy's nation. five days. why?
you like it?
then you can expect me at 5:30 tomorrow morning.
therapy? hell no, i just don't want to do it alone.
what is it, nessa?
what do you want me to see?
if you don't want to have a session today, it's okay.
what happened today?
was it something that happened at school?
true. should we stop them?
uh-huh.
do you think that's what he wants?
what's the deal?
where am i supposed to eat?
hey, skip!
lily, i want you to meet skip. skip, lily.
so rich?
dr. delbanco. it's nice to see you again.
of course.  i've heard great things about you.
forgive me, please. what a gracious thought. we must do that.
why don't i call you when i've got my calendar in front of me?
right now?
are we?
my mentor was an amazing teacher named benton mandlebaum. died quite tragically in the collapse of a gazebo.
it's possible. i don't know about that.
lots of institutions. my graduate advisor believed we should experience as many environments as possible -- prisons, clinics, half-way houses. for a while i was chief therapist in a shopping mall. had a little spot next to the yogurt place.
dorothy fowler. fantastic woman. she passed last year in a train wreck. damned amtrak.
oh, yeah, very tough. but i guess that's good.  to keep out the quacks.
wallace franklin.  from greensburg.
i don't even know why hang-gliding is considered a legitimate sport.
my approach?
i don't have one really. most of the time i'm faking it. see, i think there's not much that can be done about most problems.  they're too complicated, too deep-rooted by the time i hear about them. the most i can do, usually, is look and listen real closely, try to catch some glimpse of the secret life everybody's got. if i can get a sense of that, well then, maybe.  just maybe, i can help them out a little.
i understand. i just want to know what the argument was about.
uh-huh. what are they?
one hundred books?
what happened?
you must have been concerned.
doubtful. what did he say?
take your time.
you can go out there if you like.
henry.
i'm honored.
you're completely reliable.
skip, i've got a problem and i need some advice.
skip, you're a visionary. that can be a burden.
there are a lot of lonely people in the world. somebody's gonna figure this out someday.
really?
what'd i do?
lily.  . skip, that's great! you and lily.
wow.
skip, you know that it's improper -- completely unethical -- for a licensed psychologist to carry on a romantic relationship with one of his patients?
yes, yes it does.
what?
no, skip, it's not you. but i like you a lot.
yep.
hello, mr. cook. i was wondering if sofie was around?
no. it's sort of spur of the moment.
well, actually, i can't really.  do you think i could see sofie?
a friend?
there's something i think we need to talk about.
well.  yes, i guess i should tell you. i don't think i'm going to be able to treat sofie anymore.
what do you mean?
no, i really don't.
why don't you tell me?
i'd better go.
well.  you see, the problem is --
wow. you're something.
problem? i guess there is no problem.  uh, this friend of sofie's, where'd he take her?
oh, roxy! excellent. roxy.
it's a thought i had.
let me just say something here.  i have no idea if this is going to help.
you remember when i asked you about pornography --
-- and you told me that. still, there's some kind of imagery that's haunting you and, i think, getting in your way --
but you did come to me.
my guess is these images were burned into your brain when you were young. maybe if we could nail down the exact fantasies that are haunting you -- maybe you could get past them.  anyway, i thought we could try an experiment.
you know what? i think this was a dumb idea.
i just heard myself talking and i realize i'm completely unqualified to be doing this. let's forget the whole thing.
there's absolutely no reason to think this is going to have any impact on you. i'm embarrassed to have --
my pleasure.
that's what i like.
either one.
i thought i had something to tell you. but it turned out i didn't.
that's one way to put it.
i thought only action movies had villains like that.
yeah?
that's.  good?
i don't know if --
of course.
sofie.  that makes me very happy.
what'd he say?
what did he want you to do?
no again?
really?
he agreed?
martin.
how are you?
i didn't see you there. can i help you?
do you want to come in?
mr. gilroy --
what brought this on?
how do you mean?
what kind of doubts?
i see.
what's that?
dr. sheeler is leaving mumford? i'm sorry to hear that.
i'm very happy for you, henry.
i feel like we're making real progress here.
of course.
is something wrong, sofie?
you're upset.
is it something you've heard about me?
why don't you tell me what's on your mind?
um-huh.
i'm glad.
i don't follow you.
okay.
i think so.
what was that?
transference.
hello.
yes.
hey, ainge.
lily.
he told you.
you would have met in some shower eventually.
thanks, lily, i don't need anything.
okay.
that's it? that's what you're giving me?
what it might take is.  doing time.
i'll tell her tonight.
good evening, mrs. cook.
could i see sofie, please?
what do you think i'm after, mrs. cook?
well, i gotta say, mrs. cook, you're right about that.
i guess you saw the show?
sofie.
you probably got the idea.
you're not the only one.
not me.  all my other my patients. i smelled tar and feathers on the way over here.
but.
i know it! please believe me, i know that.
but, there is one.  mitigating factor i want you to consider before you write me off.
will you think about it?
i love you. more than i've ever loved anyone or anything in my life.
i want to spend the rest of my life with you.  but i'm not sure you feel the same way.
anything.  just ask.
i do.
yes, your honor.
yes.
i'm sorry, your honor.
i'm sorry you're frustrated.
no, sir. i was empathizing. sorry.
thanks for your help, lionel.
will you wait for me?
will you be here?
i'm fine.
no, not really.
not any more.
go ahead.