I first met Sandor Ferenczi at an IGA in Portobello, or there about. He was eating a fudgesicle, I, a rare meat sandwich soused in vinegar and cumin. He was reading an X-Men comic book, I, a copy of Swank. When I asked him, which I did, against my better judgment, ‘why he delivered his paper, On Forced Fantasies’, at the Sixth International Psycho-Analytic Congress in The Hague in 1920’, he answered, ‘do you like comic books?’ To which I replied, ‘no, but I surely like your hat, and indeed what a fine hat it is.’ Doctor Ferenczi smiled, his eyeglasses pinching the cone of his nose, and said, ‘the hat, yes, a most interesting topic, the hat that is a hat, but not a hat, the hatless hat.’ Then, against my better judgment, I asked, ‘is a hat a hat, or a representation of a phallus, a cock hat?’ To which he replied, his smile broadening, eyes frenzied and crossing in, ‘yes, a cock hat, a hat that is a hat, but not a hat, a phallus hat.’ I offered heir Doctor Ferenczi a bite of my sandwich, and he, a bite of his fudgesicle, and knowing no better, I snatched his hat from atop his head and ferenczied out the door, the poor be-speckled Doctor Ferenczi calling after me, ‘my hat, you have thieved me of my hat!’ Many years later, and ten thousand hours logged on the analytic couch, I came across Doctor Ferenczi again, this time standing under a lamppost waiting for a bus, his hat cinched round his chin with boxing twine. I approached him with caution, as I remembered thieving him of his hat many years before, in the produce aisle of the IGA in Portobello, or there about, and said, ‘Jell-O, dear Doctor Ferenczi?’ To which he replied, his fingers gibbeting the string round his chin, ‘yes, Jell-O, sometimes Jell-O is Jell-O, sometimes it is not.’ I offered to buy the fair Doctor a Paddy’s Stout and Lager, at a local alehouse I frequented infrequently, and restore his hat to him, as I had kept it hidden in a shoebox beneath my bed. He smiled, a toothsome smile, and said, ‘surely, and as for the hat, sometimes a hat is a hat, sometimes it isn’t.’ Then, against my better judgment, I asked, ‘why he delivered his paper, On Forced Fantasies’, at the Sixth International Psycho-Analytic Congress in The Hague in 1920?’ To which he answered, ‘do you like comic books?’ I smiled, a toothless smile, and stole his hat. As I ferenczied down the sidewalk, the fair Doctor’s hat cinched up under my arm, he called after me, saying, ‘sometimes a hat is a hat, sometimes it is a phallus, and sometimes, a hat is nothing more than a Freudian fantasy gone terribly wrong’. I first met Sandor Ferenczi…
