From Call It in the Air

Inorganic Psychology

By: Gregory Light - Aug 20, 2026

 

 

 

(Toronto 1972)

Joanna's voice sounded oddly familiar when she telephoned Joey the following weekend. Familiar as in "family." It had the same soothing quality as his grandmother's.

      ‘Did you get my card?’

      ‘Yes, thanks,’ he smiled. He was still cross with her. But relieved she had called.

      ‘Did you have a nice week?’ she asked.

      ‘Hmm, not really.’ She had forgotten their date? And she had arranged it herself—'Tuesday, then?'—just before they had tumbled off to sleep. He had quickly agreed, certain at least one of her eyes had been open when he'd replied: 'Lunch Tuesday. Mr. Submarine. Be there.' If she had not said ‘yes’, she had smiled affirmatively. And her note the next morning—We'll see each other again – right?? Was that not a confirmation?

      He had waited over an hour, Mr. Submarine staff hassling him for an order. 'This ain't a bus station, buddy,' the guy behind the counter finally shouted at him. 'What?! You mean the express to Windsor doesn't stop here?' Joey answered and hurried out.

      ‘A good week, then?' she asked again.

      'No,' he responded, more glumly than he intended.

      'I'm serious,' said Joanna.

      'So am I,' Joey said, the words echoing their first exchange in the cafeteria.

      'What do you mean by that?

      'What do I mean by that?' Joey's voice began to leap ahead of him. 'You want to know what I mean by that? I’ll tell you what I mean by that.’ At which point he wasn't sure what he meant. 'I have no idea what I mean by anything,' he finally confessed.

      Joanna laughed. ‘You're crazy.'

      Joey shuddered. God, she was infuriating! She hadn't even tried to apologize. 'Yeah, maybe you're right,' he sulked. 'Maybe I am crazy. '

      'I was joking.' Joanna's voice was soft. It sounded far away. He visualized the miles of phone line his voice was crawling along to reach her. It bothered him that he couldn't touch her. His words were not enough; he didn't trust the line with the nuance he was giving his words. Or would give them. If he ever made sense again. 'It doesn't matter,' Joanna added after a pause.

      'Doesn't matter?' Joey was unable to restrain his voice. 'What do you mean it doesn't matter? It matters. It matters to me. It matters-’ He took a breath. Repetition always had the same effect on him. It worked him into nonsensical indignation. He had spent a great deal of time trying to control it; ever since it first announced itself in a grade ten debate: “Should the United States be in Vietnam?” He had drawn to speak against the motion. He knew nothing much about the conflict but warmed up to it when Bill Harper took over for an ailing debater on the other side. It started well until Harper concluded smugly, ‘Look, in the end, it’s the United States of America against my opponent. Who is he? Nobody.” Joey suddenly erupted. ‘Nobody? Nobody? What kind of argument is that? Who is he to say who nobody is? Who nobodies are? I say to him that everyone is nobody. The world is full of nobodies. We are all nobody and nobody has the right to take that away from us.' This continued for a few minutes during which Joey believed he made his strongest points, until he said, 'to be nobody is to be right whether we know it or not.' At which point the class broke up into laughter. Joey was forced to sit down, shamed, and red, Harper's grin dancing across the floor and slapping him in the face.

      And then, again, two years ago during the 1970 political crisis in Quebec. Joey had just started at the University of Toronto that fall and wanted to take Higgin’s course "Violence: A Way to Cultural Identity". At that time the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) had neither kidnapped Richard Cross, senior United Kingdom trade commissioner in Montreal, nor kidnapped and murdered Pierre LaPorte, the Quebec Minister of Labour and Immigration, but there had been a sharp increase in the number of politically motivated armed robberies and bombings throughout the summer and early autumn. Joey's interest was intense. He looked forward to the first class. But the day before the lectures began, he received a note from the registrar's office saying he was ineligible. It was a 300-series course for which he did not have the approved prerequisites. The note recommended he register for a first-year history course and take the ‘course in question’ next year.

      Joey was furious. He convinced a few of Higgins’s less curious students to sign a petition to let him take the class and attached it to a fiery reply to the registrar, addressed "Dear Bureaucrat". In it, he explained that although his relationship with the FLQ was excellent, he had been unable to persuade them to postpone their campaign for a year to ensure the relevance of the ‘course in question’. You will appreciate, I am sure, he wrote, that the FLQ couldn't possibly wait until next year. Inflation being what it is, the price of air transport to Cuba (an FLQ demand) would be prohibitive. Not willing to wait for a reply, the next day Joey telephoned the registrar’s office which on hearing his name quickly put him through to ‘Mr. Bureaucrat’. After calmly listening to Joey’s request to take Higgins’ course, Mr. B simply said no.

      ‘You will have to wait.’

      ‘Wait!’ Joey could feel his defiant emotion locking in. ‘I can’t wait. None of us can wait. It is happening now. And now doesn’t wait for anyone-’ Certainly not for Mr. B. The phone went dead.

      Now, two years later, the same incredible emotional cascade was happening with Joanna. Without warning, his mind leashed itself to an idea or a phrase, his tongue calling them out while they were still in the air. Stung by injustice, however inconsequential (or imaginary), he would latch onto one burning word after another like a worn-out Bob Dylan album skipping and frothing with zealous relevance. It was mortifying. And he couldn’t do anything about it. He had tried. Ugh! The memory of his grisly attempt to secure expert help made him shiver.

 In his second year, thinking his affliction might be an obscure form of stutter or stammer, Joey had made an appointment to see a psychologist at the university stress clinic. In the waiting room, he suddenly worried that he had no evidence for his ailment. After all, the symptoms were not voluntary. Rather than look foolish, he tried repeating phrases in his head. When he finally saw the ‘doctor’, a psychology post-graduate, he responded to the initial question, "Name?" with, 'Joey, that is Joseph, but friends and family call me Joey, except for an uncle who?’ Recognizing that this sort of babbling was not the form his problem took, he changed in mid-sentence to: 'You may think I don't know that I am Joey, but I'm telling you my name is Joey. Who are you to say that it isn't?' He was relieved to feel himself getting annoyed. He stopped and looked at the student who was taken aback at the outburst. 'You, see? That's my problem,' Joey added.

      'Paranoia?'

      'What?'

      'You have an irrational fear no one will believe you are who you say you are.'

      Now Joey was angry. 'That's the most deranged diagnosis I've ever heard.'

      'Your anger reinforces my diagnosis. You're afraid I won't believe you are Joey, which, incidentally, is probably not your real name.'

      'Is that so?' This guy was beginning to rile him. 'I should know my own name, and I'm telling you it's Joey. Who are you to—’ he caught himself and stopped.

      The post-grad leaned back in his chair and beamed triumphantly. 'You, see? Even though this is not my field, the nature of your problem is evident.'

      Joey paused. It seemed tactically imperative to change the subject. Anything he said in his defence would just fortify this guy's demented perception. ‘OK, so, what is your field?'

      It worked. The student shot to life. He leaned forward, an innocent excitement bubbling in his eyes. 'It's relatively new,' he said. 'Still very experimental’.

      'Does it involve rats?' Joey inquired cynically.

      'No, it’s-’ he hesitated. ‘Actually, I'm working in the philosophy department. That's how theoretical it is.' Joey winced. A philosopher? 'Inorganic psychology,' added the student.

      'You mean like the psychology of a stone?' Joey assumed it was a joke.

      'A good example,' the student replied, warming up to his subject. 'The history of civilization is full of examples of stone exhibiting power over humanity, over our psyche. It is a power of the psyche itself and, as such, subject to psychological laws. This work is still tentative, but early research indicates that the shape, size, and the basic structure of the stone play vital roles in determining its psychological profile.

      ‘Are you telling me a stone can be schizophrenic?’ Joey asked.

      'We hesitate to use traditional terminology, it provokes the sceptics, but that's basically it. In the case of stone, Stonehenge for example, or idols, statues, and temples, formidable new theories are being proposed and tested. Most successfully in anthropology. Professor Rocheteau of the University of Nantes in France recently published a paper suggesting the origin of human consciousness lies in the interaction between early man and his inorganic idols. What we regard as prayer or worship. Marxist thinkers are studying the interaction between class and the non-living means of production. Stone hammers to computers. Until recently, the psychological properties of inorganic matter had been ignored, but now we can understand them, going so far, in a paper published last month, of talking about cures.'

      Joey felt nauseous. As he left the clinic, he wondered if he would have to keep his shoes together when he took them off so they didn't suffer the pain of separation? Or would he have to keep them apart to ensure petty differences (right, and left was clearly a hazard) didn't blow up into conflict? In the end, Joey deemed his shoes okay because they were primarily made of leather. Organic. The cow was long dead, and there had been no signs of mental disorder; at least it hadn't been one of the warnings on shoe care which the manufacturer’s tag had included. The last thing he remembered before dropping off to sleep that night was a disturbing concern for his polyester shirts.

      At six forty-five a.m. the next morning, Joey slowly trickled awake a voice cackling out his name in the vicinity of his bed. 'Mr. Edwards? Joseph Edwards?' Joey was about to look under his pillow when he realized he had the telephone receiver in his hand. He had answered the phone while still asleep. 'Mr. Edwards, I know you are there. I can hear you breathing.' The voice was reprimanding him.

      'Well, I effing hope so!' he blasted into the receiver. 'Why are you waking me up in the middle of the night?'

      'It's nearly seven-thirty,' the voice was less assured.

      'Well, it's still dark. What do you want?'

      'I'm telephoning from Doctor Clements' office.'

      'Doctor Clements? This is a joke, right? Wait! I know you. You're McDougal's girlfriend; at least that's what he probably told you. What's your name? He was bragging about you last night. Wendy, that's it. McDougal got you to wake me up because I told him to tell you the truth.’ Joey hung up and went back to sleep.

      At eight-thirty, the telephone rang again. This time Joey was dreaming about a statue with McDougal's face pleading with a plastic chair not to slash its wrists. He answered the phone on the third ring.

      'Hello. Mr. Edwards. I am calling from Doctor Clements' office again.' The voice was cautious. 'I apologize for having telephoned so early before, but the doctor begins work at six and -.'

      Joey sat up. ‘Okay, what’s so urgent?’

      'Nothing urgent. We are simply asking for a few volunteers?'

      'Volunteers? Forget it!’ Then it clicked. 'Wait! Is this about that philosophy guy I saw yesterday afternoon?'

      'I do see you met with Doctor Clements' post-graduate student.'

      Joey was livid. He'd told the student that as far as he was concerned, their meeting had never happened. 'Tell Clements to eat shit!' He slammed the telephone a second time.

      At ten-thirty, the telephone rang a third time. Joey answered it on the first ring. 'Eat shit, Clements!' he shouted and hung up. Then he caught himself. Why get so upset? Why? He made a mental note to try harder. If it wasn't Clements, the caller would assume a wrong number and call back. He waited. The telephone remained silent. But still, he had to try harder. Try much harder.

 The last call was one of those commonplace flukes that happen but typically go unnoticed. As if Joey had casually thrown a dozen heads in a row; no mean feat, but it had happened. Several times over the last 10 years. Joey couldn’t say how many. But several sounded right.

      The call had been an obscene call. Not that rare recently as many students in the men's residence had received them. They were all from the same person, the same low, hollow female voice describing sexual acts in ugly, coarse terms. Most of the recipients had been truly upset by the degenerate images this woman rattled off. A few reported having been physically sickened by the descriptions. McDougal, of course, got a kick out of it, whooping and yelping at every image, insisting the caller go to more depraved depths.

      She did not. But she remembered. Amina was a quiet, out-of-province student whose presence had barely registered on campus. Her financial circumstances meant she had to work in the college cafeteria to support her education. Most of her peers assumed she was ‘just staff’. The remark irritated Joey almost as much as it did those who were ‘just’ staff. That was humiliating enough for Amina, but every morning, two afternoons and four evenings a week, she had to weather the inevitable remarks many male students directed at her. Somehow, a ‘just staff’ female serving behind the counter signalled open season for passing sexual asides with the food. Even the supposedly innocent "You look better than the desert, Amina," became unbearable to her. McDougal's cruder remarks lashed across her every morning like whips.

      By the time Amina phoned Joey—the day before he had asked her for a piece of cake and Bradley, who was standing behind him in line said, ‘that's not all he wants a piece of’—the stories of these obscene calls were surfacing all over campus. There were rumours that the police had investigated but no one had made a formal complaint. Far from being emboldened by her growing, anonymous notoriety, Amina was appalled by her actions. She desperately wanted to stop but her rage, stung daily by the unceasing stream of innuendo in the cafeteria, was more powerful than her self-loathing or fear of discovery. When she heard Joey answer the telephone and shout "Eat shit, Clements!" her rage suddenly ceased. Replaced by dread. She had been found out. Her name was not Clements, but the sounds were similar enough and her alarm deep enough to hear, "Eat shit, Fleming!" Fleming was her last name.

      She stood still for several minutes, the shock of Joey's blast echoing in her head, the telephone receiver still tightly in her hand. Her mind hosted images of the outrage about to wash across the campus as her perversion became public news; of the horror that would descend on her family. She slumped onto the bed, shivering uncontrollably, her eyes glistening with shock, her teeth cracking against each other like fracturing ice cubes.

      Despite the shock, Amina had prepared for this outcome. She had expected it. In anticipation, she had written a lengthy account of the nature of her retribution. And why. She described the individual calls in detail (most of which she had recorded) and explained the language and images for each call. She pulled it out from the closet and put it on the bed. It was a long suicide note. She had already collected dozens of the strongest sleeping tablets she could buy. Now, she dug them out as well, putting them into a tray on the night table beside her bed. She filled two large tumblers with water and put them beside the pills. Before she sat on the bed, she slipped into her best outfit, pinned her hair back with two clips and veiled her face in foundation, eyeshadow, and lipstick. Had she not just then remembered a promise to work her friend Cathy's afternoon shift in the cafeteria, Amina would have died. Sometimes a dozen heads are followed by a tail. And you survive.

      'No-o!' she muttered, setting the first tablet back in the tray. If it had been her shift, she would have ignored it. But it was Cathy’s, and they hadn't told the supervisor of the switch. Lying dead at home, she would not be in a position to back Cathy when the supervisor confronted her. Still, she hesitated. How quickly had the news of her identity travelled? To the cafeteria? She decided to take a chance. She changed her clothes and was about to leave when she heard Joey's voice.

      'Hey, what's going on here?' This was followed by several bashed clicks as Joey strived to get a dial tone; followed by a series of loud yells of "Hang up the phone!" Amina reached over and picked up the receiver she'd forgotten to replace. At the other end of the line, Joey felt the click. Cold and unwelcome. It was no different from the quiet, deliberate click he would hear a year later when it wouldn't be Amina Fleming who hung up on him, but Joanna.

 ‘What do you mean it doesn't matter? It does matter. It matters to me. It matters–’ he cried, his voice refusing to allow Joanna a word. Then there was the click, pursued by a long, hollow tone. "No-o-o!" he interjected, but too late.

      Joey kicked himself. And kicked himself. And kicked himself.

      He had spent the whole week hoping Joanna would call him. He had even rehearsed how he would behave, cautioning himself about sounding too eager. Then she finally calls. And he quickly upsets her. Worse, he can't call her back and say he's sorry, confess his disability, insist it won't happen again. He didn't have her number. He'd given it away. 'You idiot! You fucking idiot!' he shouted, punching the wall. He knew she'd be waiting for him to call. And he was sure if he didn't, he could kiss their relationship goodbye.

      'Shit!' his frustration flew out of his mouth in a flurry of expletives and saliva. A large puddle of spit caught the corner of his lip and whipped around, slobbering across his cheek. 'Ahhh!' he bellowed, wiping it off on the back of his hand. He paced the room for a few minutes then sat down at his desk, working out his frustration by flipping his penny. A good rage would see hundreds thrown. Tonight, looked like eight or nine hundred. Maybe a thousand.

      Tail, tail, head, tail, head, head scattered across his desk.

      Shit! Shit! Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Fuck! wailed through his head.