570
Corso turned a pleading look
on an elderly couple sitting at
the adjoining table. "Hey look
-he's writing down I'm sick.
He wants to send me to a head–
shrinker. Tell him-tell him he's
the creep. I've got nothing to
hide...."
"Marked seemtomes of perse–
cu-shone," the doctor murmur–
ed under his breath, and wrote
it down.
Corso moaned pitiably. "He's
a creep--a creep. Listen to him.
He wrote down I'm perse–
cuted...." The old couple rose
in alarm and left the table.
"Look man, listen-I'll show
you who's the creep, all righU
I'll pull my pants down right
now-I'll show you I'm not hid–
ing. . . . Will you join me?"
The doctor stared probingly
at Corso's face. "Een-fantile
exhibee-shoneesm," he hummed,
and scribbled away.
Corso howled in genuine
anguish. "Hey!" he called to a
group of bystanders, in his shrill,
pubescent voice. "He says I'm
infantile-he's sending me to a
head-shrinker.... Why man,
I'm not infantile. Why are you
crucifying me?"
'''I am not crucifying you.
You are an unbalanced young
man with emotional difficulties.
I am merely trying to help--"
"You are. You're crucifying
me because you're scared.
Look, I'm not inhibited. You're
the one that's shut up inside
and dying inside. Behind that
doctor's face and doctor's suit
you're dying. Your soul is
dying...."
The Frenchman gazed at
him,
amused.
"... You're the one that's
evil," Corso shouted. "You kill
life with your scalpel and anti–
septic mind. You kill everything
that's living, and sensitive, and
you
try
to crucify me because
I can still feell" Corso's strident
voice had finally attracted
a
crowd of spectators.
A
French·
man in a trench coat sat down
beside the doctor.
"Young man," the doctor said
softly, "you are deluding your–
self."
"I'm not deluding myself.
Man, you're deluding yourself.
Your whole life is deluded. An
office on the
Champs
Elysees,
a new
Citroen
every winter and
summers in the Riviera. I'll bet
you lie on your back all day and
look up little girls' Bikinis."
The Frenchman in the trench
coat, convinced apparently that
his compatriot was getting the
worst of it in an argument with
an American hoodlum, whisper–
ed some words of encourage–
ment in his ear. The doctor
wheeled around and the two
began a heated discussion, with
many flourishes and gestures.
"You're evil, man," Corso
went on, playing it now for the
