STAND UP EIGHT

William was a Marine, and he book-learned his way into being a shrink after two tours in Iraq.

He was matter-of-fact about killing men, several men. He pointed to the Semper Fi ink on his right forearm often. But he also had traditional Japanese tattoos up his left, complete with twisting dragons, and a stunning bajinga. Written in white Kanji was the proverb. “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” When drunk at the bar he would often talk to Zack, an older Marine who had waded through three tours of Nam. They leaned into one another and shared secrets that the others in the bar were neither experienced nor tough enough to handle.

Now, though, William tried to help. He got government contracts for group work with troubled teenagers. He worked some over at the V.F.W. in a back room and let his patients drink beer so they wouldn’t consider themselves patients. Eventually he became an expert in suicide prevention, speaking at regional conferences to high school counselors, non-profit leaders, and graduate students. Without fail, he took a woman from these talks to a local watering hole to tell her to get out of the field. Now. It will haunt you, he said. For always, he said. No one wants to hear these things, he said.

No matter how good of a doctor William was, victories were few, funerals common. So William continued to sit at the bar and drink if only to remember that forgetting was too painful.