Getting to Yes: A Hair-raising Halloween Tale

They rode the subway to the final station. Aside from an old alcoholic drinking beer and talking to his large, mournful German shepherd mix, trying to cheer him up, they had been the only ones on the train for the last three stops. They climbed the exit stairs, buffeted by strong wind that made them both lift their hands to their faces protectively, as dust and old candy wrappers swirled in the air. But they didn’t move towards one another for shelter. They braved it on their own, like mortal enemies in the desert who are reliant on each other to find the next oasis before they can duel. That’s what she was thinking. He was thinking, Why did I agree to this? I could be sitting at home, right now, reading, sipping a beer. Why do I always give in to her? Never again. After this, never again.

She peered down at her iPhone for the address. “I think it’s down that street,” she said doubtfully. They were surrounded by eighties high-rise residences, on the far outskirts of West Berlin, the poorer outskirts, not the wealthy rich suburbs, filled with lakes, trees, and beaming toddlers. Here the streets were empty, aside from a few teenage boys on a distant corner, lighting small things on fire, and laughing too loudly.

“Let’s just get this over with,” he said, and started off without her, crossing the crosswalk just as the light had turned red. She hated it when he did that. She let a river of traffic flow between them, and breathed a long sigh out, as though she were in yoga, in a deeply uncomfortable pose. Why did she do yoga anyways, she wondered, when it just hurt all the time? It struck her suddenly that it was no coincidence that most of the class’s members were female. Why are women always so hot for punishment? she wondered. Breathe through the burn, my ass. The light was green. She hurried across the street. Of course he hadn’t waited on the other side, and she had to run to catch up.

“Well?” he said, and she said, “It’s that one. Number 55.”

“Can’t be,” he said. “That’s an apartment building.”

“See for yourself,” she said, and showed him the email from the therapist.

He shrugged and they crossed the street towards the building, unconsciously falling into step.

“Hacker,” she said, as they stood before the list of residents, and he rang the bell. Immediately, almost before he had lifted his finger from the bell, the door buzzed. They both jumped. The buzz was an unholy sound, a sound that signaled an emergency: a fire, an earthquake. It was a sound that urged evacuation, not entry. But he pushed the door and they stepped into the lobby. The air was stale and smelled of old garbage and bad cooking. They hurried to the elevator.

“Sixth floor,” she told him.

In the elevator, as she texted a friend (WISH ME LUCK! ) he looked at their reflections, and felt a flash of pride. They were a good-looking couple. Not in the sense of having model looks, either one of them, but there was something about their pairing that inspired confidence and optimism, made older couples on the street beam at them, and squeeze each other’s arms. Her straight brown hair, which always shone, even though she never bothered with it, only sometimes brushed it. His lanky figure, his red hair, neatly trimmed beard. They had met in Berlin, five years earlier. She was British, he was American. They were in love. Right? The elevator shuddered, lurched, and stopped. The doors opened onto the tenth floor. It was pitch black, lit only by the light from the elevator.

“Is there a hall light?” he asked. She fumbled and felt for a switch. She clicked on and off. “It’s broken.”

“Jesus. Can you use your phone as a flashlight?”

She shone her phone’s dim light into the dark hall and walked hesitantly down the hallway. He stayed inside the elevator, resisting the urge to press the ground floor button and get the hell out, even if it meant a week of silence from her.

“I found it,” she said, and her voice bore that note of girlish triumph that he adored in her: she could get so thrilled over the smallest stuff, whereas he often only relished something in retrospect. She rang the doorbell, and, just as with the door downstairs, she had barely lifted her finger before the door swung open and a portly man in a witch’s hat and a moth eaten black dress opened the door.

“My first trick or treaters!” He bellowed at them. Chase was surprised to hear his accent was American. He sounded Southern.

“Um, no,” Lindsey replied, “Sorry, there’s been a mixup.”

Cobwebs hung from the door, and Chase could hear a Haunted House soundtrack coming from the apartment, which sounded exactly like the one he’d heard as a kid in stores at the mall as Halloween approached.

“Who are you looking for?” the man asked.

“Dr. Hacker,” Lindsey said. “We must have the wrong building.”

“You can say that again,” Chase said, under his breath.

“But that’s me!” the man said, beaming. “Louis Hacker! Are you here for an appointment? Oh Lord, I hope I didn’t mix up the times.”

He disappeared, leaving them standing awkwardly at the door, unsure of whether to enter.

“Come on in,” he shouted, from somewhere in the apartment. “I’m just checking my calendar.” They nervously bustled inside, and halted next to a messy coat rack.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” he said, shaking his head, reemerging. “I’m afraid your appointment is tomorrow. November 1. 6pm.”

“But isn’t today—“ Lindsey started.

“The 31^st,” Chase and Dr. Hacker said together, which caused Dr. Hacker to emit a loud guffaw, like a dog coughing.

“We came out here on the wrong day?” fumed Chase, glaring at Lindsey. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Dr. Hacker looked at them anxiously. Lindsey kept her gaze down on the carpet, fighting back tears. Don’t be an idiot, she told herself. Don’t cry. You can find another therapist, who isn’t a quack or a witch in drag. Chase was already walking back to the front door.

“Wait a second,” said Dr. Hacker. “You’ve come all this way. Why don’t we just do it right now instead?”

“That’s okay,” Chase said quickly. “I think we’re good. And besides, you look like you’ve got plans.”

“Not at all,” Dr. Hacker insisted. “I always try to get the kids in this building to celebrate Halloween, but nobody’s into it. They’d rather watch TV.”

“Might help if you fixed the light in the hallway,” Chase said sarcastically. “Might calm the mothers down.”

“Oh rats, is it out again?” Dr. Hacker asked. “How annoying. I’ll have to speak with Rainer about that, first thing. Look. Why don’t you two come back to my office, here.” He led them through a cluttered hallway, to a room with a couch facing a chair. “You two take a seat on the couch,” he suggested lightly. “And I’ll be right back.” Reluctantly and inexplicably, they followed his orders.

They heard him thump down the hall and switch off the Haunted House music.

“Let’s get out of here, Chase said. “Where the hell did you find this guy?”

“Berlin Scholars list-serv,” she said. “I just wrote that I was looking for an English-speaking couples therapist.”

“Perfect,” Chase said. “And I suppose this guy got tons of recommendations.”

“Actually, it was he who wrote me back,” said Lindsey.

“I’m sure it was,” said Chase. “Now let’s get going, before he murders us.”

“Everything okay?” Dr. Hacker said, interrupting their whispering. He was suddenly back in the room, looking startlingly normal, in an Oxford shirt, a blue cardigan, and chinos.

“Well,” he said, at their silence, “of course everything’s not okay, or you wouldn’t be here! Now, can I get you a glass of water? Or some candy? I’ve got a whole bowl of mini Snickers bars out there that will go to waste, and I’ll end up eathing them all tomorrow by myself, I just know it.”

Chase and Lindsey shook their heads.

“Then let’s get started.” He shut the door. Instinctively, Chase and Lindsey reached for each other’s hands, forgetting the pact they’d made to hate each other. “Why don’t you fill me in on why you’re here?”

Lindsey gave a deep sigh, the kind that Chase hated, a martyr’s sigh that seemed to summarize all of his failings. He let go of her hand, and crossed his arms. “Things have been tough for a while,” Lindsey began.

“What do you mean by tough?” Hacker asked. “Tough like unbearable, or tough like mildly irritating?”

“Unbearable,” Chase said, as Lindsey said, “Mildly irritating.”

“Mildly irritating, you say,” said Hacker, and stood from his chair. He began pacing. “Unbearable. Well that won’t do. No, that won’t do at all.”

He came closer to them. “Irritating, hmmm?” he murmured, leaning into Lindsey’s face. Lindsey drew back. His teeth were horrible, and his breath smelled sickeningly sweet, of Snickers. “What is it, specifically, about the relationship that you find so mildly irritating?” He asked.

At Lindsey’s silence, he abruptly turned to Chase. “Unbearable, you said. How so?”

“She doesn’t accept me for who I am,” Chase complained. “She wants me to ‘get a real job, earn decent money.’ I’m an artist and a DJ, for Christ’s sakes. That’s why I came to Berlin. To paint and play music, not to work in some crappy office.”

Meanwhile, Hacker had seated himself again, and was nodding earnestly at Chase. Chase felt encouraged, liberated. He continued. “She feels threatened because I stay out until 8 or 10 in the morning most weekend nights. But that’s what DJs do. It’s not because I have a problem,” he said, mimicking Lindsey’s voice.

“Of course not,” said Hacker. “Of course you don’t.”

Chase felt better than he had in a year. This Hacker guy’s not bad, he thought, sitting up straighter.

Lindsey was slumped in the sofa, like she did in the kitchen when they were having an ugly fight. But this time Chase wasn’t about to let her passive aggressive bullshit get to him, and he felt Hacker cheering him on.

“Now Lindsey,” Hacker continued, in a soothing tone. “Why don’t you give us your side of it?”

“He doesn’t even want me to go to his DJ sets anymore,” Lindsey wailed. Somehow, she had begun crying. She hadn’t mean to, really, but she also had the feeling that both Hacker and Chase had abandoned her. She felt more alone than she’d ever felt, more alone than her first week in Berlin, getting lost in Charlottenburg, more alone than the first time Chase had told her he didn’t want her to come along, just as she’d finished putting makeup on.

“That sounds terrible, Lindsey,” Hacker said, as she finished, and his voice was as soft as her pet rabbit had been as a child. “Did you let him know that that hurt you?”

“Yes,” Lindsey said, her voice ravaged. She turned to Chase. “You knew. You knew, and you still went.”

“I need to concentrate,” said Chase, appealing to Hacker. “I can’t concentrate when she’s there.”

“It’s not like I was standing in the booth,” Lindsey snapped back. “It’s not like I’m begging you to play Rihanna.”

“Yeah right,” Chase said.

“Just that once,” Lindsey said. “And everyone started dancing. Nobody was dancing before.”

“It was three times at least,” insisted Chase.

“Enough!” Hacker roared. “Enough!”

He was standing on his chair. When had he gotten up there? Again, Lindsey and Chase instinctively reached for each other’s hands.

“I’m an artist,” Hacker said in a whining voice. “I’m a DJ.” He raised his voice an octave higher. “He doesn’t love me enough. He needs to get a better job. Enough!”

Then his voice got dangerously low. “You two have no idea,” he said. “No idea was unbearable is. What irritating is.” He hopped down from the chair, in a surprisingly graceful motion, and began pacing again. “Your troubles are petty and disgusting. Absurd! You want to know what unbearable really looks like? You want to know what’s truly irritating?”

Chase had his arm around Lindsey. She didn’t shrug him off, like she usually did when she was mad. The question from Hacker had apparently been rhetorical, as he cleared his throat and answered himself:

“Well try this on for size. Let’s say that you’re a decent US soldier stationed on an army base in West Germany. One day you fall for one of the cafeteria gals, a blond named Anna. She gives you extra potatoes, you give her extra big smiles, one day you ask her out on a date, to the film screenings they have on the base. It’s Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and you both love it, so you watch it again together the next day. The two of you fall in love, get married, your tour’s over, you’re all up and ready to move back to Michigan, raise kids, go to their Little League games, but Anna’s got something different in mind. Her dream has always been Berlin, she tells you. Who needs Berlin, you say back. The Wall there is a big bummer, plus it’s filled with hippie West German babies who are scared of military service. But you love your Frau. So you agree. Two years, you say. You show up. You hate it, just like you knew you would. Whole place smells like coal. Winters worse than Michigan. One day you come back home. Place smells even worse than usual. Gets worse as you go up the stairs, closer you get to your apartment. Then you see the whole hallway is covered in black smoke, like some kid took a black crayon to the walls and colored them in like a coloring book. You open the door. Two neighbors are standing there apologetically. We tried to save her, they tell you. We were able to contain the fire in the living room. But Anna was already gone by the time we got up here. Sure enough, there’s Anna in the kitchen, burnt to a crisp. She always was a sloppy cook, loved to use tons of grease, was real loose about lighting the pilot flame. You always told her, Anna, you’re going to catch on fire, cooking like that, you’re going to go up like a match. And that’s just what happened.”

Neither Chase nor Lindsey said a word. By now they were practically one being, they had wrapped their arms so tightly around each other.

Hacker was glowering over them now, holding court with the condescending, scolding tone of a school principal. “Now that, my young lovers, is mildly irritating. Seeing your wife look like a marshmallow someone left in the fire too long. Come to think of it, I would even say that’s unbearable.” Then, with a practiced motion, he went to a small closet door, and swung it open. Lindsey and Chase only caught a glimpse of what was in the closet: some kind of shrine, some sort of urn. Hacker was on his knees, wailing “Anna!” And that was their cue to run. Lindsey threw open the door. On his way out, Chase glanced back.

Hacker met his eye.

“Next Tuesday at this time?” Hacker inquired, his voice professionally cordial again.

“Like hell!” Chase yelled, and sprinted after Lindsey, his love.

They held each other in the dark hallway, shivering. Lindsey pushed the elevator button again and again.

In a few minutes, the door opened. Inside the elevator, eight kids were crammed in, the boys all dressed as soccer players, the girls as Miley Cyrus. One mother was shepherding them, a stout woman with dyed purple cropped hair, a black sweatshirt that read: Too Young to Die, Too Old to Rock’n’Roll.

The kids marched straight to Hacker’s door. The mother tried the hall light, and muttered, “Goddamn Rainer. Never fixes a goddamn thing.”

“Your neighbor is sick,” Lindsey shouted at the woman. “Keep your kids away from him!”

“Did you have therapy just now?” the woman asked. “We see a lot of you all trooping up here. Foreigners. He must be good. I don’t know. It’s not my thing. Arti and I been married thirty years. He yells at me, I yell at him, then we kiss and make up. You look like nice enough kids. I’m sure you’ll be fine.” A crack of light shone as the door opened.

“Trick or treat!” the kids screamed, delighted, in heavily accented English. Chase and Lindsey caught just a glimpse of Hacker’s witch hat before they pressed the button to close the elevator doors.

Outside, the air was sweet with the scent of dead fall leaves and coal fires. Chase took Lindsey’s face in his hands and studied it under a streetlight. “You can come to my sets,” he said. “Just don’t act all jealous if girls start dancing close to me and my laptop. And no Rihanna.”

“I’m sick of paying for everything,” Lindsey said, ignoring Chase’s truce. “I want to quit my job and have a baby, not work through my thirties.”

Chase sighed. “I always knew couple’s therapy was a crock,” he said. “I’m just glad we got out of there alive. I love you, Linds.”

“Love you, too,” she said. “So what now?”

“I think Brian’s having a Halloween party at an old toothbrush factory, somewhere in Wedding,” Chase said. “Let’s go there. Figure all this other shit out tomorrow.”

“But no DJing tonight, Chase, okay?” said Lindsey.

“I already told them I would,” Chase said.

They were back at the light, which had just turned red. Chase ran across. Lindsey stood there and let a river of traffic flow between them. She waited for the green light, breathing in and out deeply. Then she ran down the steps, two at a time, to take the subway with Chase to Wedding.