The Hidden Back Room

by Jason A. Wyckoff

  ‘I know what you’re wondering: “Could it have been a vestigial twin?” Yes, I’ve already decided that that’s what I’m going to believe . . . someday. That’s what I’m going to tell myself every day until I believe it. Even if tonight I know it wasn’t. Even if tonight I know exactly what I saw.’

  She shuddered at each inescapable image, until her repeated little seizures withered to constant shivering. I tried ineffectively to keep her warm through that (appropriately) long night. I knew she would be a long time fighting away the sight she’d described—and whatever else she hadn’t mentioned. I would never be so crass as to ask if Tanoroar’s human parts were limited to face and forearms.

  GUT PUNCH

  ‘Antiphon! Antiphon! It sloughs history!’

  Her laugh is fey. She wobbles the royal wave; one imagines wine sloshing from a goblet. In any other setting, I would think she was drunk or high; I’ve certainly seen her that way often enough. But I’m told she has been under observation for five days now. My mother is in a robin’s egg gown, sitting on a cot in a locked room, talking to no one.

  I can’t watch her anymore. I never loved her, but this hurts—it hurts me (sans pathos) because however pitiful the circumstance, however strange the performance, the comportment is too familiar, re-opening every wound of my youth.

  Dr Duenger leads me back to his office and bids me sit. He dawdles as though composing his thoughts; it’s a performance to add weight.

  I don’t have the patience. ‘What did she take?’ I ask. ‘What could do that—cause permanent damage?’

  ‘Well, that’s just the thing, Mr Wince.’ He milks the pause to recoup the drama I deprived him of. ‘The toxicology report came back . . . negative.’

  I chuckle. ‘That’s impossible.’

  Spock cocks an eyebrow. ‘Ah, yes. Her history.’

  ‘Ah, yes, her history,’ I echo.

  ‘You didn’t know, then?’

  He has me on something; it annoys me and clearly delights him. ‘Know what?’

  ‘Your mother has been going to meetings since last February. She’s been clean for more than a year.’

  That’s unexpected, but I’m not invested enough to be impressed. ‘A backslide, then. No, wait.’ I hold up a hand. ‘I know—the toxicology report came back negative.’

  He shrugs. ‘We were hoping you could shed some light . . . but you say you’ve had no contact with her?’

  Out of the blue, she’d called twice in the last month. I hadn’t answered. ‘No contact,’ I say. ‘Not for a while now.’

  ‘A shame.’ He sighs almost wistfully.

  ‘A necessity. How did she end up here?’

  ‘Her sponsor hadn’t heard from her in a week. He went to check on her. He called us right away.’

  ‘She was . . . like that?’ I nod towards the hallway.

  ‘She appears to be in a state of arrested euphoria, as it were.’

  No bad deed goes unrewarded, it seems. ‘That’s your diagnosis?’

  ‘No, no. That’s an observation. The problem with her diagnosis is . . . well, you could throw a dart and hit one that fit, as long as you include the caveat that should disqualify it.’

  Ah, so that’s how it’s done.

  He goes on, ‘The euphoria is somewhat symptomatic of the manic period of bi-polar disorder, though she shows no signs of agitation, and is, in fact, quite compliant.’

  He smiles as though he’s just congratulated a parent on their child no longer eating paste.

  ‘Also, actual psychosis is rare with bi-polar disorder; her level of extreme dissociation is more indicative of schizophrenia, but that condition is often linked with an inability to feel joy. And while she is not withdrawn per se, she is non-communicative in such a way that we cannot establish any sort of self-valuation, which would be instructive. In the past, we might have identified “schizoaffective disorder”, a sort of broad-based diagnosis which has recently fallen out of favour, but might actually be germane in this instance.’

  He leans forward, interlaces his fingers, and props his chin on his thumbs. He stares at the wall behind me, as though having judged me an inadequate audience.

  ‘The problem is exacerbated when one considers that all of those conditions are developmental, with initial symptoms generally manifesting during early adulthood. It is unlikely one of these disorders would suddenly bloom at this stage of life without a secondary factor, possibly physiological in nature. Nevertheless, as the administration of anti-psychotics is appropriate for all the aforementioned diagnoses, we pursued that course. But she has remained unresponsive. Typically, we would expect some sort of behavioural response.’

  ‘You mean you gave her drugs that should have knocked her senseless, but didn’t.’

  His expression is smug in its flatness. ‘I would hardly put it like that. But, yes, her condition has remained resistant . . . one might almost say, “obdurate”. For example, she hasn’t slept since she’s been here.’

  I scowl, wondering what kind of quack factory Mommy Dearest has landed in. ‘You haven’t sedated her?’

  ‘In general, we avoid sedating patients with a history of substance abuse,’ Duenger drips, as though I should know better. ‘We strive to restore balance by putting our patients on their own two feet, not by giving them crutches. Nevertheless, in extraordinary cases like your mother’s, we will prescribe drugs called hypnotics, or soporifics. These have had no effect. Concerned for her well-being, and against my own better judgment, I even approved Seconal. This, too, proved unhelpful. Some impulse spurred me to run another tox screen, and those results were most curious of all, as there again appeared to be no trace of drugs in her blood—even after she’d been given a barbiturate! Now, I can’t account for that, but it did bring to mind another unlikely possibility. Tell me, when your mother was sober, did she ever have seizures, or was she . . . eh, fearful?’

  I wasn’t expecting a question about her not drinking, but the answer is easy enough. ‘No, she always felt good about it. Until she felt so good about being so damn good and responsible that she’d reward herself the only way she knew how.’

  Duenger tapped a pen on his desk pad. ‘Yes, well, it was a bit of a longshot. There’s a neurological phenomenon called “kindling” wherein the harmful effects of withdrawal become increasingly more severe from instance to instance; one possible outcome is the development of psychosis in the substance abuser.’

  ‘Wait—you’re saying that sobriety drove my mother insane?’

  He waves it away. ‘Again—it is unlikely, especially without precedent, which you say she has not demonstrated.’

  I have no reason to feel ashamed of how long I’ve been away, and of being ignorant of the possibility of my mother’s behaviour changing, but for some reason I don’t want to share that with the good doctor. He shrugs as though already aware of what I don’t choose to acknowledge. Naturally, I find it irksome.

  I say, ‘You mentioned a “secondary factor”.’

  ‘Yes. Of course we tested for several neurological diseases, electrolyte imbalances and mineral deficiencies and such, but we saw nothing unusual in her blood panels beyond an elevated white cell count—nothing particularly alarming, given her condition. She had several bed sores that needed tending.’

  ‘She was bedridden? I thought you said she wasn’t lethargic.’

  ‘Not under our observation.’ Duenger is almost glowing with suppressed joy. Who doesn’t love a good mystery, right? I bet if I search his hard drive, I’ll find the précis of a medical journal submission.

  ‘You mentioned testing for neurological disease—so I can assume you’ve run an MRI?’ I grumble.

  ‘Yesterday: nothing.’ He pauses again, almost daring me to raise another challenge. When I don’t, he says, ‘So we return to the original question: How could she be demonstrating what has all the hallmarks of a drug-induced psychosis despite ostensibly being clean and without anything showing up in our tests? I’ve begun to wonder if
perhaps she’s been affected by a contaminant of some sort, not something we would call a drug in the classic sense.’

  I have no idea what that means, but I don’t bite on it.

  He continues, ‘I suspect an environmental factor. I’d like to go with you to your mother’s house for a look around, if you don’t mind.’

  Light bulb. ‘That’s why you called me.’

  ‘Well, it was time,’ he says, and lets it drift between meanings—time for him to call the reluctant emergency contact, time at last for me to come home.

  I’m just plain mad at this point. I jump up and head for the door. ‘Take me back there. Let’s try this again. I want to go in.’

  There’s one last bit of theatre at the door to her cell. The orderly pauses, key at the lock. He’s a black guy whose size alone would’ve gotten him an athletic scholarship to warm the pine as a defensive lineman. He looks at Dr Duenger, who looks at me. ‘Open it, goddammit,’ I command.

  We three enter. My mother says, ‘These clotted mountains are naught but waterfalls a-borning!’ The laugh follows. Everything gets a laugh, I’m guessing.

  I step forward and crouch in her line of sight. ‘Hey, it’s me. It’s Devin. It’s your son.’ That doesn’t get a laugh. That gets nothing. ‘Mom,’ and the word is strange, ‘Mom, it’s your son.’

  She doesn’t see me. She’s watching a channel I can’t subscribe to. ‘Delight cannot be obtained by craving. For unjust rains fall upon even the most skilled of swallowers.’

  I don’t see the point in trying any further. ‘Forget it,’ I say, mostly to myself. I turn to go out. I’m in no mood to pick through her word salad for kernels of truth. She can catch her own bus back.

  ‘Devin,’ she says, and I freeze.

  I turn back. Now she sees me and it is infinitely worse than when I wasn’t there. Her eyes are singing, screaming; they’re loud eyes and the message they send is overwhelming. I can’t look at her. Her voice, the one saying all that crazy, faux-literary shit, that was her voice. But her talking to me, it’s wrong somehow; there’s an unrecognisable tone—caring? I don’t know whose voice it is that says, ‘Devin, let’s all be rotting children again.’

  And I’m gone.

  Doctor Duenger is eager to get into my mother’s house—my childhood home—right away. He pouts when I tell him I’ll call him in the morning to say when we can meet there. I was seven hours on the road straight to the laughing academy, and those few moments with mom sucked out whatever life I had left in me. For that reason, I opt for a motel. I could go ‘home’—I really don’t believe the doc’s whole ‘environmental factor’ thesis—but I don’t want to cross that threshold when I’m already beat down. Emotions? No, thank you. Gimme suspicious stains and AC you can’t turn down.

  This isn’t the town I remember. Some store fronts have changed, and those that haven’t are shabbier and seem smaller. I feel alienated from these streets in a way I couldn’t be if they were merely unfamiliar. Of course, I’m the only one gawking. Even in a small town, natives are accorded the right to be blasé about incremental change.

  I’m on edge, expecting a meeting, but I don’t see anyone I know. I have near-meaningless interaction with the motel clerk and the quick-stop cashier and that’s it. I feel my homecoming should be more portentous. But, perhaps because I have no inkling what sort of omen I might expect or what it could possibly signify, I am left unsatisfied. I can’t divine the feeling I’m supposed to have, and my hometown doesn’t care for me any more than it ever did. I feel like an excised mole someone is trying to push back on their skin. Deprived of definable gravitas, I wallow in void for half an hour before I finally do something smart and call Joseph.

  Joseph handles me with ease. He coaxes a few monosyllabic grunts from me as a courtesy, and then masterfully monopolises the conversation. He takes me through our neighbourhood with the minutiæ of his day; he leads me to our apartment with a question about sconces that requires no answer; he summons the corgis and kissy-faces with them into the receiver. And he knows exactly when to press forward.

  ‘Did you go to the house?’

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘I put it off until tomorrow.’

  ‘I think that’s smart. You’ve had enough to deal with for one day.’

  ‘That’s how I saw it. I don’t know if I even want to go there at all.’

  ‘Then don’t,’ he says.

  ‘No. I have to.’ I quote the doctor, ‘ “It’s time”.’ I almost feel guilty fishing for confidence in Joseph’s pond.

  ‘When you’re ready,’ Joseph says with a tone that tells me whatever decision I make will be the right one in his eyes. ‘Call me while you’re there, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, but I probably won’t. The doctor will be with me. Not content to poke around skulls, he’s taken to houses. This is a man for whom no cigar is just a cigar.’

  Joseph teases me, ‘You know what I love about you? So many angry teen queens grow up to be well-adjusted gays, but you—you have really stayed the course.’

  ‘To thine own self and all that shit,’ I reply.

  Like an idiot, I look around me and take in the anonymity of my surroundings. I squirm as that oppressive ‘limbo’ sensation thickens the air between stucco and low-pile. ‘I haven’t seen anybody I know,’ I say.

  ‘Well, it’s not like you can go back to your high school to find your old pals.’ This is a joke; he knows high school was miserable.

  ‘It’s true, there’s no one I want to see. But . . . the doctor says she’s been clean for more than a year. I guess I need confirmation . . . Maybe I want to hear what she’s like when she’s been clean for that long.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with you unless you want it to.’ He pauses. ‘Didn’t you used to go to church? You could try there.’

  ‘Jesus! Tomorrow’s Sunday.’

  ‘Yes, Jesus, tomorrow is Sunday. Maybe your mother kept going.’

  ‘Maybe she started going,’ I correct him. ‘I mean, we went, but only intermittently. We probably would’ve been part of the Christmas and Easter crowd if it wasn’t for her chasing absolution every time she flipped over the same old leaf. And me in tow.’ I sigh. ‘I mean, I guess it’s as good a place as any . . .’

  ‘I knew it!’ Joseph exclaims. ‘I knew you still had some of that old time religion in you.’

  I hate to think that might be true. ‘The only temple I worship is your body; yours, the only altar I kneel before.’

  I actually startle him to silence for a few seconds. Then he says, ‘Devin, darling, I can’t tell if you’re being sweet or being a total wanker.’

  I lay back on the bed. ‘Can’t a man be both?’

  I hear his cheek rub against the phone as he smiles. ‘Do you need me to tuck you in?’

  The gauntlet of the narthex: Uncertain smiles under flickers of almost-recognition or awkward flashes of actual recognition. Why did I come here? I can’t be the only one questioning my presence. It’s not His house, it’s theirs.

  Relax, I tell myself. It’s a moderate church, and you have a history here, such as it may be. No one is going to chase you out with a pitchfork. Be charitable, or at least join the charade. As always—endure.

  Besides, it can’t be said that you don’t clean up nice. Part of the other heritage.

  I sit through the service. The pastor is new to me. I could sketch him entirely with circles. He is genially red-faced in front of his languid congregation. I recall the prayers and hymns with ease, but I can’t invest in them. They are like reruns stripped of the canned laughter which ironically made them seem real, left as incomplete archival footage from that grand old show that once fooled me into believing I really was a part of a live studio audience that stretched over the world and persevered through the centuries.

  The homily instructs us to guard against pessimism.

  I review as many stained glass windows as I can look at without obviously ignoring the sermon. I still see some magic in the coloured gla
ss (depicting Bible stories and apostles—not saints; we don’t do saints). I am momentarily entranced by Abraham and Isaac. Post intercession, of course—haloed Abraham holds his son in one arm and stretches a grateful hand towards Heaven. There is something comforting in the simple forced perspective—in the very idea of a verdant slope directly behind, awaiting their descent. A hill which I see now has one small, discoloured blot, of what can only be described as stained stained glass, grey humus to the green grass. And I am nearly sick when I notice baby Isaac looks not to Heaven or to his father, but back at the altar.

  Afterwards, a few people, given time to confirm that I am who they think I am, approach to say hello, to ask how I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, where I’ve been. As surprised to see me as they are, they are confused why my mother isn’t with me. It’s confirmed for me she’s become a regular. A few people have heard she’s been ‘sick’, but no more than that, and I don’t elucidate. I tell them, ‘She’s resting’. I can see in their eyes they’re wondering if she’s plunged off the wagon; I’m surprised that the concern seems genuine (as opposed to, ‘Please let us know if we need to duck and cover’). I tell them I guess she might be back next week, and they seem relieved.

  Mrs Mason has conducted the youth choir since long before I mangled a tune. She says, ‘You’re such a good boy to help your mother. Tell Bea I’ll pray for her.’

  I say, ‘Thank you,’ and not, You’d better pray for a miracle, Mrs Mason, because if you saw what I saw, you’d know there’s no fucking way she’s coming back next week—or maybe ever. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been home. I guess . . . Mom’s been doing well?’