Available on September 1, 2024
Written by Dorothy Dudley and Justin Johnson
Based on a True Story
The office was bigger than he imagined it would be, at least eighteen by fifteen. A big bookshelf took up one wall, full of encyclopedias, self-help books, and on the opposite wall was an electric fireplace. One corner had a water dispenser and another a fake plant. A brown leather sofa sat in the middle of the room. There were two doors, the one that he’d come through and one on the opposite side of the room that was labeled Exit. Justin had been to a lot of doctor’s offices, but none like this. The desk in front of the room was big and looked heavy, with office chairs on either side of it. On top of the desk was a silver nameplate that read Amber Monroe LMHC.
Justin Johnson was a middle-aged man, about 5’8”, 220 pounds. He’d never been a strong person and had a belly that made him look about four months pregnant. You could tell he was nervous and insecure about being there by the way he kept tapping his feet and cracking his knuckles. The sound was deafening in the empty room.
He was tired of hearing the constant tic, tic, tic of the Newton’s Cradle on top of the desk, so he reached over and silenced it. Then, after the annoying tic was gone, he could hear women’s voices coming through the door marked exit. He couldn’t make out most of the muttering at first, but as she grew closer he manage to hear, “OK, I’ll see you next week.” Then the exit door opened, and she walked in.
Dr. Monroe was two or three inches taller than Justin. She looked older, probably in her early fifties. Definitely looked like the picture Justin had in his mind of a therapist; older, glasses, hair pulled up in a bun. Then again, that described almost all of his teachers in elementary school, too.
“Hi, you must be Mr. Johnson.” she said.
He interrupted her before she said another word. “No, I’m just Justin.”
“Ok then, how are you today, just Justin?” She said with a smirk.
“I’m doing good, thank you, and yourself?”
Dr. Monroe smiled again and said, “I’m doing well. Thank you for asking. Not too many people ask me that.”
“I was taught that it’s common courtesy, that when someone asks you, you should also ask back.”
She sat down on the opposite side of the desk from him. There was a long silence while she looked over the file in front of her.
Justin now not liking the silence, finally spoke up, “I’m pretty sure that I don’t need to see a therapist, but I was talking to my older brother Jerry a while back, and I told him I might give it a try.”
“Ok, well, let’s just talk for a bit.” she said.
“Ok, what do you think we should talk about?” he asked.
“Why don’t you start by telling me about your childhood? I want to know about your family. Tell me, where’d you grow up?”
“My mom and dad, Harold and Dorothy Johnson had seven kids, all born at St. Peter’s hospital, here in Olympia. First, they had Brandy, then, almost two years later, Danna. Then a year later, Jerry was born. They waited five more years before having the rest of us. Pat, Me, Tim, then Joe. We’re all about two years apart. Mom always said she planned the gap between us perfectly so that when the older kids grew up, they could help her with us younger kids.”
“Seven kids, though. That’s a big family.” Dr. Monroe said with a surprised look on her face.
“Yeah, it’s nice to have a big family. We grew up in Yelm. It was a lot smaller back then. When I was still pretty young, probably three or four, we lived in a big house with horses and cows. One day when my dad was out milking the cow, I thought I was going to go pet the foal on the other side of the barn. I tried to walk behind the momma horse and, well, apparently she didn’t want me bothering her baby, because she kicked me. She got me right in the face.” He pointed at his eye. “It threw me across the barn. Cut around my eye in multiple places and bruised my face instantly. They took me to the hospital, and I got several stitches around my eye.”
“Do you remember how many?”
“No, I don’t, sorry. I’m thinking somewhere around thirty or forty. But I could be wrong.”
“Justin, you don’t have to apologize in here.”
“Ok, I’ll try not to.” He paused and chuckled. “After that, my dad taught me to say, ‘My name’s Justin Ward Johnson. I’m the meanest son of a bitch in town.”
Dr. Monroe chuckled at that.
“A few days later, I was back at the doctor’s and he asked me my name. So I told him, ‘My names Justin Ward Johnson and I’m the meanest son of a bitch in town.”
“Oh, no.” Dr. Monroe said out loud with a laugh.
“Not long after that we were at a wedding, and the pastor asked me, so I told him the same thing.”
After a brief pause, Justin kept going. “Mom wasn’t very happy about that at all. When we got home, she changed it to ‘the goodest, bestest boy in town.’ I followed her around for several weeks saying, I’m the goodest, bestest boy huh, mommy huh, you said so. I’m the goodest, bestest boy, huh?”
“I bet she regretted she ever taught you to say that.” Dr. Monroe commented, writing something down.
“Oh yeah, she did.” He paused, gathered his thoughts, and continued.
“I was probably in kindergarten, maybe first grade, when Mom and Dad divorced. We didn’t see Dad a whole lot after that. Not never, but it wasn’t all that often either. We ended up moving quite a bit, always in Yelm, trying to find a house that would work for us. We finally found one right in the middle of town. Brandy and Danna both moved out and started their families not too long after. Jerry got their room and the four of us younger kids shared.”
Dr. Monroe continued to write as he told his story, “I think I was in fourth grade when Mom introduced us to her new boyfriend, Dave. Dave was a cross-country truck driver, not home all that often, but he was always able to send money home to help with things. It wasn’t long before him and mom got married. We were all pretty happy about that.”
“Danna’s oldest son Jim, started calling him Poppy Dave. Soon all of us were calling him Poppy Dave, and later it changed to Pop and stuck.”
Dr. Monroe looked up and said, “Ah…Justin, it says that you were somewhat of a problem child. Want to talk about that?”
“Well, definitely not anything I’m proud of, but yes, I guess you could say that. I used to tease a lot of kids in school, stole stuff every once in a while. I caused quite a bit of trouble.” He hung his head a little as he said that, but then in a stronger voice said. “Now, to be fair, Mom and Pop always told me if I didn’t start behaving, they were going to send me to military school. I guess I took that as a promise instead of as a threat, because that’s exactly what I wanted to do. So I just got worse. The summer between fifth and sixth grade, I got arrested for the first, and actually the only time. Although, I was usually able to stay out of trouble during sports seasons. I think that’s probably why my parents let me play.”
Dr. Monroe looked up from her paperwork and asked, “What kind of sports were you in?”
“I did baseball for two seasons, football for five, wrestling for five, soccer for five and track for two. But really, once I started wrestling, the rest were just to keep me in shape for the next wrestling season. I used to love to run, not really a fast sprinter, but I could run long distances.”
“So wrestling was your favorite?” she asked.
“Really, wrestling was the only one I thought I was kinda good at. Plus, that’s where I met my best friend, Brandon. Brandon was a grade behind me but was a little bit older than me. We met at our little brother’s junior wrestling practice. Brandon and I practiced with the bigger kids on the team. One of the things I liked about wrestling was if I lost a match, it was because of me, not somebody else. All the other sports I played the losses could be blamed on someone else.” He paused and took a breath. “Before the match would start, there was a quiet time where I could tune everything out, all the voices and the distractions. During a match, I’d hear my opponent and the ref, that’s it. I didn’t need anything else and I thought I knew it all.
