Chapters:

Dan




Dan

The office was designed to be warm and inviting. Calming colours, soothing landscape paintings, and gentle lights. Shelves of academic books and framed diplomas covered the walls, all to assure anyone who walked in that they’d be well looked after. None of it helped.

Dan had been halfway certain before he’d arrived that coming was a mistake. The look on her face made it that much worse. “You are the last sort of person I’d ever expect to see in this office,” said Dr. Katherine Parker.

“That’s a hell of a thing for a therapist to say to a patient,” he answered, surprised at the hurt from his voice. He was tougher than that.

“Prospective patient,” she said. “I gave you the appointment because Dr. Markham, another patient, told me you needed help and, frankly, that you weren’t half as full of shit as your public persona made you seem.”

Dan couldn’t help but smile. “That’s Will looking out for me.”

“I’m surprised you wouldn’t try and turn things around yourself. That’s what you’re always telling people to do in your books. And seminars. And corporate retreats.”

It was true. Dan was a motivational speaker. He had been for years. Dan the Man McCann’s I Know I Can Program and its two sequels had sold three-quarters of a million print copies throughout the English speaking world, and nearly half that again in audiobook form. People often told him he was inspiring. He had believed it, until recently.

“My wife left me. She took my son with her.”

He watched her hostility drop a notch. It was unprofessional, if understandable in this case, for a woman in her position to feel enmity toward someone on her couch. She viewed him as a hack, a cheap trick leading people astray from her purer, more scientific methods. “I’m sorry,” she said, with some contrition. “What happened?”


It had been a typical quiet night in Riverdale, the pretty, tree-lined neighbourhood of Toronto where Dan and Madison had lived for seven years. They’d put Alex, their five-year-old, to bed, then Dan poured another drink from the bottle of Wild Turkey he kept in the kitchen drawer. The single malt visibly displayed in the dining room was for when company came, the Dirty Bird for his every day consumption. He sipped as he stared out the living room window at a few kids throwing a Frisbee around in the park across the street. He basked in the rays of the evening sun, sloshed the ice around in his glass, and reflected that life was pretty good. Famous last words.

Madison had seemed distant, he’d realized afterwards, for almost two months, since his last speaking tour through the eastern US. They had been arguing more and more about the little things. It had been too late to do anything about it by the time he clued in as to why.

“So I decided the next book is going to be about Alex,” he said as he flopped down across from her, in the living room.
Her brow furrowed. “What?”

“Yeah. I gotta write what I know. The first book was about helping people get the job they want. Wrote it before I met you, when I first started working for George. The second was about—”

“Finding the perfect life with the perfect partner,” she said. She’d heard that phrase a thousand times at his seminars, when she’d come to be seen by his clients—living proof that he’d followed his own prescription. Her voice was hollow as she said it.

He pretended not to notice. Instead, he raised his glass, toasting her. “Right. And then, settling down and building a happy home.”

She drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch, across the room, no longer pretending to read the book in her lap. He was oblivious to her anger, half in the bag.

“So now book four, how to raise a kid. I mean, Alex is pretty perfect, we’ve done an amazing job, he’s bright, he’s cute, put the three of us on the cover together and it’ll make us a—”

The book came sailing across the room, catching him square on the nose and knocking his drink from his hand. On its way to the floor the bourbon spilled straight down onto the crotch of his Dockers. The glass shattered on the hardwood, inches from the book.

He was too bewildered to react at first, just sitting there watching tears form in her eyes. After the longest minute of his life she stood. “How dare you!”

The best he could manage was, “What?”

“Eight years we’ve been married. I’ve done everything for you. Went to your stupid seminars, posed for your book covers, pretended we were this perfect couple so people would buy what you were selling. And it got us this.”

She waved her arms around her, gesturing at the interior of the expensive house in the nice neighbourhood that his success had helped buy them. Dan wished she’d been crazy, wild and hysterical. It would have made her seem unreasonable. It would have made her seem like the bad guy. Instead she was calm. Calm and angry and very sad.

He got up from the couch, still so confused as to where this was coming from but not wanting her to look down on him.“Maddy, babe—”

“Don’t you goddamn dare ’babe’ me. I gave up my career to be here and raise your son and be a goddamn stay-at-home spokesmom for Dan the Man.” She said the name with a hate that threw him back a step. “And I was okay with it. I figured it would be a few years until Alex was in school full time, then I could work and you’d go on to something else and it would all be fine.” She put her hands to her temples, balling her fists, her eyes closed. “I am such a fucking idiot.”

He raised his arm, index finger pointed, trying to seem authoritative, to think of something to say that would put it all right and restore the his, normal world of three minutes ago. Instead, his hand went limp and fell to his side. “I don’t understand."

“I know you don’t!” she practically spat at him. “You and George and Reid and those other pricks you work with. So busy wrapped up in your own bullshit telling people how to live their lives that you don’t realize how full of it you all are. Blind goddamn hypocrites, all of you.”

Then he started to get mad. “Those are my friends you’re talking about. They’re good guys and they have nothing to do with this.” The latter half of that statement was true, he reflected. The former, not so much.

“You’re half right,” she sighed. “This is about you, not them. They’re all dicks, but they stay wrapped up in their own little worlds and they write and work and don’t screw up their loved one’s lives.” He knew she was wrong about that, but saying so wouldn’t help, so he kept his mouth shut. “You have me and Alex. You brought us into this. You lie to everyone who reads you and listens to you and you lie to yourself.”

He was even more confused. “Maddy, hon, I know I take some liberties, and sure, the way I describe us is a little hyperbolic, but we’ve talked about that. It’s just to sell the damn books. It’s for us. I’m not perfect, and sure, I’m not here all the time, but I’m here when it matters.”

“That’s the problem Dan. You spend so much time away from home selling people on your perfect family and perfect life and telling them they can have the same thing.” Her arms were crossed, tears running freely down her cheeks. “But you aren’t here often enough to know, not really. When my mom died you were off on tour a week later. When Alex had to get his tonsils out he was scared to go in for the surgery, he kept asking for you, but you were away at some rented campsite up north teaching assholes at some investment firm the value of positive reinforcement and team building.” Her voice was strained, cracking.

Reason was beginning to cut through the bourbon fog in his brain. “Everything I do is to provide for the two of you. I’m not the man I pretend to be, I know it, but I’m not that far removed from it either. I love you both.”

“Do you,” she sobbed, “or do you love the perfect wife and son you want us to be, the ones you write about? I was fine with it when it was just me. I was! I could live with it. It didn’t bother me because I thought you saw our son for the beautiful boy he is, not some prop in the Dan McCann show.” Now she was getting hysterical. In eight years of marriage he’d never seen her this angry. “I won’t let you use him. I won’t let his selfish, idiot dad’s stupid job screw up the rest of his life!” she yelled.

He was at a loss for words. He’d always considered himself a smart guy. People paid good money to listen to him talk, after all. Would they do that for a stupid person? The irony didn’t escape him that it was Madison, his professed reason for speaking to these people who thought him smart, who now struck him dumb.

For a moment they stood there in silence as he gaped at her, unable to speak. Her arms were still crossed over her chest, her body turned away. Then she said the words he was dreading, “Get out.”

“Maddy, I—”

“Get out Dan. You can get your stuff some other time, when Alex is at school or at a friend’s or something. Anything. Just get out!”

And to his shame, he did. Dan the Man McCann, who always knew what everyone should do, who knew how to fix any personal problem with the power of self-knowledge, just walked out. He grabbed his wallet and his car keys and headed for the door, hardly able to believe that his life had taken such a complete one-eighty in the span of three minutes. The Madison he’d married was gone, and instead this woman, full of what had to be a long-suppressed resentment, stood silent in the centre of their living room, refusing to look at him.

As soon as he was out the door he made for his Jag. Old Brown Eyes, he called her. Vintage. His favourite toy. He scratched around the keyhole in the door, damaging the paint, but he was too distracted to notice.

When he tried to back out of the driveway, he turned too sharply and ran straight into a pole. He realized what he’d done to Old Brown Eyes. Inside the house he’d been too stunned to feel anger. Now, the damage to his car brought it all to the surface. He beat at the steering wheel with his forearms, wrists, and balled fists, swearing as he went.

“Fuck shit goddamn bitch cunt kick me out of my own fucking house and wreck my fucking car!”

And so on.

He wasn’t sure if this went on for a minute or an hour, but when he looked up Madison was there staring at him through the open doorway. She was holding Alex. The perfect little blond-haired boy-child he called son. Alex had obviously been woken by the commotion. He wouldn’t understand the situation; he’d only know that bad things were happening. Madison was still glaring at him as she closed the door. This seemed to Dan the final and most horrible injustice: that his son should suffer, uncomprehending, and should then have to wait to have his hurt tended to, because Madison was still pissed. All I wanted, he thought, was to write a book about how much I loved our kid. It got me kicked out.

He heaved a great sigh and slouched over the steering wheel. Picking himself up after a moment, he realized his nose was still dripping blood and that his crotch reeked of cheap bourbon.

Come to think of it, I’ve had a few drinks and driving, he looked in the rear view at his smashed bumper wrapped around the pole, probably isn’t the best idea. He got out of the car.

The sun was almost down, but the tranquil park-side scene had been shattered along with Old Brown Eyes’ rear window. Any neighbours or children in the park who hadn’t heard Madison yelling had surely seen a certain half-drunk and bleeding motivational speaker get into his car and fail spectacularly at driving off into the sunset. There were more than a dozen pairs of eyes on him. Friends and neighbours and kids who would be gossiping about him the second he was out of their sight and, no doubt, for some time afterwards.

He started walking north, towards the Danforth, the main street—he could get a cab there. Get a cab and go ... somewhere.


Dr. Katherine Parker sat with her head down all through his story, taking notes. There was nothing there that shocked her, but thankfully, to her mind, McCann was at least a little original. His breakup had dimensions she hadn’t seen before. And at the very least, he seemed honest. He could have omitted certain details to make himself look better. She was pleased he hadn’t.

It occurred to her that he wouldn’t be the worst patient she’d ever taken on. It even occurred to her that maybe his profession, which she so despised and had openly berated, had equipped him for this honesty in her presence. After all, they both dealt with people who claimed they wanted help, even threw money at the idea of getting help, but in the end resisted every effort at personal change and betterment. Maybe a rapport was possible.

“Doctor” said Dan. “Doctor?”

“Sorry” she said, snapping out of it. “I was miles away.”

“Just what every man wants to hear from his therapist.”

She smiled, and nodded a conciliatory nod. A point to McCann. “I was thinking about what you just told me, actually.” She straightened her suit jacket in her chair and leaned back. “So where did this somewhere end up being?”

“I grabbed a cab and headed for the Four Seasons in Yorkville.” Said Dan.

“Didn’t they turn that into condos three years ago?”

He shrugged. “Well I know that now. I’m staying with Will.”

She nodded. “And I take it from his referral that Dr. Markham is your family physician?”

“No, just a drinking buddy and a client. I cured him a few years back.”

“Of what, if I may ask?”

“He was a closeted and emotionally repressed homosexual. Now he’s out, flaming, and much happier.”

She frowned. “I’ll consider seeing you as a patient instead of a curiosity Mr. McCann, but you’ll have to stop taking credit for my work. It took months of therapy for Dr. Markham to work through his anxiety and frustrations about his sexuality.”

“No doubt. You did the real work, I just gave him a helpful shove in the right direction as a coup-de-grace. Sent him to Zippers on Church street with my buddy Ben when he was up from Miami for the weekend. George’s idea. My boss. Seems to think strip clubs cure everything. Not to discredit your efforts but I think he may have been right in this case.”

“And have you had any contact with your wife since this happened?”

“It’s been a week. I’ve tried. She keeps shutting me out. Not being able to see Alex is the worst part.” He paused in thought. “Not being able to work is a close second.”

“I don’t follow you.” Said Dr. Parker.

“She took everything from me. Everything I based my career on was a lie. I can’t help my clients get what they want when I’ve just lost everything I’ve ever worked for. George is going to kill me.”

“I see” said Dr. Parker. “Your wife, she mentioned this George as well as someone else, Reid. Another colleague?”

“Yeah. Reid Palowski. Goes by Reid Righteous.”

That got her attention. “The Positivity Guru down in Los Angeles? You two work together?”

“That’s him. And yeah, we do, sort of. George recruited both of us to the agency, but we tour and speak separately. We’re friends though. When he’s not in the hospital that is. Poor guy’s got more suicide attempts under his belt than anyone else in the self-help business. Trust me, that’s saying something.”

Katherine wasn’t sure how to process that, and decided to leave it be for now. “Are there any other motivational speakers working for this George?”

“Jeremiah St. James down in the Bible belt, and Ben Burst based in Miami.”

She shook her head. “An evangelist and a pick-up artist. I suppose George sets you up and sends you touring wherever he thinks you’ll bring in the most money?”

“Pretty much.”

“Tell me about George.”