Early the next morning Coverly reported to Grafley and Harmer, where he was given a common intelligence-quotient test. There were simple arithmetical problems, blocks to count and vocabulary tests, and he completed this without any difficulty although it took him the better part of the morning. He was told to come back at two. He ate a sandwich and wandered around the streets. The window of a shoe-repair place on the East Side was filled with plants and reminded him of Mrs. Pluzinski’s kitchen window. When he returned to Grafley and Harmer he was shown a dozen or so cards with drawings or blots on them—a few of them colored—and asked by a stranger what the pictures reminded him of. This seemed easy, for since he had lived all his life between the river and the sea the drawings reminded him of fish bones, kelp, conch shells and other simples of the flood. The doctor’s face was inexpressive and he couldn’t tell if he had been successful. The doctor’s reserve seemed so impenetrable that it irritated Coverly that two strangers should be closeted in an office to cultivate such an atmosphere of inhumanity. When he left he was told to report in the morning for two more examinations and an interview.
In the morning he found himself in stranger waters. Another gentleman—Coverly guessed they were all doctors—showed him a series of pictures or drawings. If they were like anything they were like the illustrations in a magazine although they were drawn crudely and with no verve or imagination. They presented a problem to Coverly, for when he glanced at the first few they seemed to remind him only of very morbid and unsavory things. He wondered at first if this was a furtive strain of morbidity in himself and if he would damage his chances at a job in the carpet works by speaking frankly. He wondered for only a second. Honesty was the best policy. All the pictures dealt with noisome frustrations and when he was finished he felt irritable and unhappy. In the afternoon he was asked to complete a series of sentences. They all presented a problem or sought an attitude and since Coverly was worried about money—he had nearly run through his twenty-five dollars—he completed most of the sentences with references to money. He would be interviewed by a psychologist on the next afternoon.
The thought of this interview made him a little nervous. A psychologist seemed as strange and formidable to him as a witch doctor. He felt that some baneful secret in his life might be exposed, but the worst he had ever done was masturbate and looking back over his life and knowing no one of his age who had not joined in on the sport he decided that this did not have the status of a secret. He decided to be as honest with the psychologist as possible. This decision comforted him a little and seemed to abate his nervousness. His appointment was for three o’clock and he was kept waiting in an outer room where many orchids bloomed in pots. He wondered if he was being observed through a peephole. Then the doctor opened a double or soundproof door and invited Coverly in. The doctor was a young man with nothing like the inexpressive manners of the others. He meant to be friendly, although this was a difficult feeling to achieve since Coverly had never seen him before and would never see him again and was only closeted with him because he wanted to work in the carpet factory. It was no climate for friendship. Coverly was given a very comfortable chair to sit in, but he cracked his knuckles nervously. “Now, suppose you tell me a little about yourself,” the doctor said. He was very gentle and had a pad and a pencil for taking notes.
“Well, my name is Coverly Wapshot,” Coverly said, “and I come from St. Botolphs. I guess you must know where that is. All the Wapshots live there. My great-grandfather was Benjamin Wapshot. My grandfather was Aaron. My mother’s family are Coverlys and …”
“Well I’m not as interested in your genealogy,” the doctor said, “as I am in your emotional make-up.” It was an interruption, but it was a very courteous and friendly one. “Do you know what is meant by anxiety? Do you have any feelings of anxiety? Is there anything in your family, in your background that would incline you to anxiety?”
“Yes sir,” Coverly said. “My father’s very anxious about fire. He’s awfully afraid of burning to death.”
“How do you know this?”
“Well, he’s got this rig up in his room,” Coverly said. “He’s got this suit of clothes—underwear and everything—hanging up beside his bed so in case of fire he can get dressed and out of the house in a minute. And he’s got buckets full of sand and water in all the hallways and the number of the fire department is painted on the wall by the telephone and on rainy days when he isn’t working—sometimes he doesn’t work on rainy days—he spends most of the day going around the house sniffing. He thinks he smells smoke and sometimes it seems to me that he spends nearly a whole day going from room to room sniffing.”
