E is for EASY MONEY

 “The creative writer does the same as the child at play; he creates a world of fantasy which he takes very seriously.”

- Sigmund Freud

The ghost of Mark Twain had flitted away to play poker with Oscar Wilde and Eudora Welty.  

All three cheated terribly, but they played for the conversation not the money.

After all, being ghosts, where would they spend it?

I wondered why Freud was so intent on this Free Association with me.

Jung thought Freud analyzed others to avoid his own problems.  

Jung once demanded of him: “Who has the neurosis?”

 Freud’s daughter, Anna, agreed, 

noting that the very act of being a psychotherapist is a defense from your own neuroses.
 
Now, fully white in both hair and beard, Freud sighed, 

"Finally, perhaps we can get some serious exploring done in your unconscious."

He adjusted his glasses more firmly on his nose.  

"We are at E.  What occurs to you immediately upon hearing that letter?"

"Easy Money," I smiled.

Freud fought a grimace.  "Even though he is not here, Twain is still contaminating the process."

"I mean it.  I thought of Easy Money."

"And why do you believe you thought of that phrase, Roland?" 

"By 1925, your fame had spread so widely that movie producer Samuel Goldwyn offered you, whom he called the 'greatest love specialist in the world,' 

$100,000 to write or consult on a film script about 'the great love stories of history.'"

I shook my head in wonder. 

"Yet, in spite of that eye-popping offer, you turned it down as you did a $25,000 offer the year before from the publisher of the Chicago Tribune 

to psychoanalyze the famed criminals Leopold and Loeb as they awaited their sensational murder trial"

I scratched my chin. "Why did you turn them both down?"

Freud smiled sadly.  "Because there is nothing easy to Easy Money, Roland."