The Nuclear Age

by Tim O'Brien

  I almost laughed.

  I didn’t need air. I needed peace. I started to sit up, but then I felt a cool hand against my forehead. “God,” someone said, and right away I knew who it was. All those fake phone calls. “Man alive,” Sarah muttered, “just look at this, just look.”

  She unbuttoned my collar and began fanning me with a notebook.

  I closed my eyes. The situation, I realized, was not romantic, but still I felt a sparky kind of human contact. That thick voice of hers: “God,” she kept saying. A few seconds later, when I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was one of her kneecaps, smooth and shiny. I could’ve licked it, or kissed it, but instead I jerked my arms and pretended I’d gone into a deep coma.

  “Wow,” Sarah whispered.

  I ended up in the school nurse’s office.

  One thing led to another, thermometers and ice bags, and a half hour later I was ass-up on Doc Crenshaw’s examining table. “Don’t sweat it,” I told him, “I’m all right,” but Crenshaw didn’t listen.

  His eyes sparkled. “Well, well,” he said.

  I never saw a man enjoy his work so much.

  He was a quack, though. He didn’t cure me. A week later my insides were clogged up again and the headaches were worse than ever. I was even running a temperature. Crenshaw put me through every test in the book, but at the end, when the results were in, he just wagged his head and told my mother that it didn’t seem to be anything physical.

  “Not physical?” my mom said.

  “You know. The opposite.”

  “Opposite.”

  “You know.”

  My mother allowed herself a half-smile.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, well.”

  Calmly, I tried to explain the situation. A huge mistake, I said. A plumbing problem, nothing else.

  My mother stared.

  “William,” she said, “stop hiding it.”

  “What?”

  “Please, I wish you’d—”

  “Hiding what?” I said. “Go on, let’s hear it.”

  Her eyes seemed to frost over. She was a thin, delicate woman, with tiny wrists and ankles. She hesitated, toying with her wedding band. “William,” she said, “just listen to me.” And then she rattled off the facts. Apparently she’d been doing some detective work at school, because she knew about the telephone gimmick and the fake dates, how unpopular I was, no friends or prospects.

  When I denied it, my mother stiffened and crossed her legs.

  “No arguments,” she said. “There’s someone we want you to see. Someone to talk to.”

  “Talk how?” I said.

  “Just talk. A counselor up in Helena. A nice man, I think you’ll like him.”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “It might help.”

  “I don’t need help. I don’t need—”

  “William.”

  “No way.”

  “We’ll find a way,” my mother said, very thickly, very decisively. “It’s your future we’re talking about.”

  It was hopeless.

  I raised hell, of course, but two days later we made the drive to Helena. I didn’t say a word the whole way. Arms folded, I sat there in the backseat, staring out at the mountains and trees and telephone poles. Treachery, I thought. Who could you trust in this screwy world?

  “Piss,” I muttered.

  My mother turned: “What’s that?”

  “Bombs,” I said.

  We took two rooms in a Holiday Inn—one for me, one for my parents—and the next morning they drove me across town to a dingy office building a few blocks down from the state capitol. As we were riding up the elevator, my father stood behind me with his hands on my neck and shoulders, massaging them as if to warm me up for a big race. “Nothing to it,” he said brightly. “Just level with the man, don’t hold back. Whatever’s on your mind.”

  “Suicide,” I said.

  “That’s the spirit. Anything.”

  For ten minutes we sat around in a sterile little waiting room. My mother kept humming. Every few minutes she’d get up and go to the water fountain and then dab at her lips with a shredded-up Kleenex.

  “Well, now,” she’d say.

  It took forever, but eventually the shrink came out and shook everybody’s hand and led us down a tight corridor to his office.

  Adamson was his name—Charles C. Adamson, that’s what his diplomas said—but while he was pouring coffee he made a point about how we had to call him Chuck. “Chuck-Chuck,” he said, “like in woodchuck,” then he smiled to show off his big front teeth. I looked away. Bad omens, I thought. Bare tile floors, two old armchairs, a sofa, a gray metal desk, flaking paint on the walls and ceiling. The office had a sour, slightly brackish smell, like the men’s room in a Greyhound bus depot, and right away, even before I sat down, I could feel the beginnings of a headache.

  I stayed calm. There was some small talk, some nervous energy, but finally the shrink looked at his wristwatch and said it might be a good idea if he and I had a private chat. He blinked and gave me a tentative grin.

  “Alone?” my mother said.

  “I think so. For starters.”

  She took a deep breath. “Private,” she chirped.

  My dad winked at me, raised a thumb, then led my mother out to the waiting room.

  Instantly, my whole body seemed to tense up. It was an itchy, clammy feeling—I couldn’t get comfortable—but the odd thing was that Adamson seemed a little jittery himself. He hustled over to his desk, opened a manila folder, and began chewing the skin around his fingernails.

  “So then,” he said, “here we are.”

  He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a stick of Doublemint.

  “Gum?” he said.

  “No, thanks.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive,” I said. “I hate Doublemint.”

  Adamson nodded. “Right, who doesn’t?”

  He picked up a pencil and tapped it against the bridge of his nose. All nerves, I thought. He was a reasonably young man, maybe thirty-five or so, but he seemed old and weary-looking, especially the eyes. The saddest eyes I’d ever seen—very tiny, very timid, a moist copper color.

  “So,” he said.

  There was a short pause, then he asked me to begin by telling him a few things about myself, a general self-description.

  “Just the basics,” he said. “Nothing fancy.” He gazed out the window, studying the big golden dome on the state capitol building. “Hobbies. School. One small request, though. If it’s possible, try not to bore me. Short and sweet. Make it peppy.”

  “Well, sure.”

  The man shrugged and showed me his front teeth.

  “No offense,” he said, “but you wouldn’t believe the crap I have to tolerate in this job. Same old sob stories, day after day, and I have to—” He stopped and blinked at me. “Anyhow, do your best. Feel free to pull the lid off.”

  “Look,” I said, “we can take a break if you want.”

  “No. Just keep it halfway interesting.”

  I was cautious. Briefly, as vaguely as possible, I outlined the bare facts of my life. I told him I was in good shape. An average kid, I said. Nothing unusual. Very sane.

  Adamson folded his fingers around the pencil.

  “Fine,” he murmured, “but what about—” He paused, flicking his tongue out. “What about your parents, for example? You get along all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “No tension areas? Squabbles?”

  “Forget it,” I told him. “You met them. They’re terrific parents.”

  It was an obvious ploy, trying to pin the blame on my mom and dad, but I wouldn’t let him get away with it. “Best parents in the world,” I said flatly. “Nobody better. Period.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “The best,” I said.

  For some time we sparred back and forth like that, a polite little duel. I could tell it was wearing him down. He kept fidgeting
, rubbing those sad little eyes. It was time, I decided, to let him know where I stood.

  Very casually, I asked if he wanted my true feelings, and he said he did, so I leaned forward and told him that the whole counseling game was a waste of time. A racket, I said. It was for creeps and crybabies. I was strong; I knew how to deal with the world. A total charade, I told him—that was my honest belief.

  Adamson shrugged.

  “Charade?” he said. “How so?”

  “It just is. Worthless. That’s how I feel.” I stared him in the eyes. I meant every word of it. “Take an example. Edgar Allan Poe: a disturbed guy. All those weird visions running through his head, fruitcake stuff. But I’ll tell you something, he didn’t go crying to some stupid counselor. He used his nuttiness. He made something out of it—those disturbed poems of his, those disturbed stories. He had willpower, like me. And besides, maybe there’s nothing wrong with a little wackiness. Maybe it’s a plus. An asset. You ever think of that?”

  “Quite possible,” Adamson said.

  “Sure, it’s possible. It’s true. And there’s plenty to be disturbed about. Real stuff, I mean. Realities. They don’t shrink.”

  For a moment I wasn’t sure if he’d even heard me, but then he frowned and said, “Which realities are these?”

  “Just things,” I said.

  “Like?”

  “Like everything. Turds. Assholes. The whole corrupt pecking order.”

  And then I gave him a quick lecture on the ins and outs of high school. No personal secrets, I just listed all the crap I had to put up with: the popularity game, hayrides and dancing lessons and sadism and petty cruelty. I told him how brutal it could get. How sometimes you had to turn your back on it, just walk away, ignore the bastards.

  “The real world,” I said, “it comes pre-shrunk.”

  Adamson nodded. “I know the story. High school. Fucking torture.”

  He snapped his pencil in half.

  Outside, the sky had gone dark. There was thunder. No rain, just the feel of rain.

  Adamson got up and closed the window and stood with his back to me. He seemed hypnotized, not quite there, staring out at the dense clouds beyond the capitol dome.

  “High school,” he said bitterly. “I hated it. Torture, that’s the word. Snobs and bullies—those tough-guy letter jackets—who cares about letter jackets? Christ, when I think about it … Hate.”

  “Well,” I said.

  “Hate! Worst experience of my life.”

  His voice had a strange wound-up sound. He paused and touched the corner of his right eye.

  “A nightmare,” he said. “Start to finish. Just hate.”

  I looked out at the heavy sky. It could’ve been an act of some sort—I wasn’t naïve—but what threw me off was the man’s obvious passion. I couldn’t be sure. I waited a moment and then changed the subject, rambling on about neutral topics like pep rallies and homecoming, but the more I went on, the gloomier he got.

  “High school!” he suddenly yelled. “Should be laws against it. Hate, William. You know hate?”

  There was lightning now, and hard thunder, but Adamson didn’t seem to notice. He slouched forward, examined his fists, and then, in a low, soggy-sounding voice, nearly inaudible, he gave me the entire play-by-play description of his pitiful high school days. How he was low man on the totem pole. No friends, nobody to talk to. Eventually it got so bad, he said, that he began having fantasies about lacing the cafeteria food with arsenic, or rigging up dynamite and blowing the whole school sky-high. “No joke,” he said, “I would’ve done it. Dust and bones.”

  I moved my head thoughtfully.

  “Well, look,” I said, “maybe you shouldn’t dwell on it quite so much. You’re an adult now, just forget it.”

  “Sure,” he grunted. “Easy for you to say.”

  Pivoting, rolling his shoulders, Adamson stared at the far wall. I felt a strange jumble of emotions. Pity mixed up with contempt, sympathy with a kind of smug superiority.

  I liked him. I despised him.

  For a while neither of us said a word. The room was muggy and dark, and I could smell the rain coming. Finally, to fill up the time, I offered a few more horror stories. I described the cliques and teasing and practical jokes; I talked about terrorism and repression; I told him how inane it was and how hot-ass cheerleaders like Sarah Strouch wouldn’t give you the time of day. “Nobody cares about anything,” I said. “Just garbage. Turds and jocks.”

  “Jocks?” he said. He jotted something down on a note pad. “Jocks, they think they rule the world.”

  As it turned out, we spent the rest of that session comparing notes on how much we loathed the whole sports setup in this country. It was a coincidence, probably, but we’d experienced some of the same problems. Adamson talked about the trouble he’d had as a Little Leaguer—always dropping easy pop flies, booting ground balls—and so to make him feel better I admitted that I wasn’t the world’s greatest shortstop. “The thing is,” I told him, “you can’t let it get you down. That’s life, that’s how it works. No sense moping about it.”

  “I guess not,” he said. There was a boom of thunder, then the rain came. He slapped his hands together. “Baseball, though. I’d like to ban it forever. Make it a felony just to play the game. Almost wrecked my life.”

  And there it was again.

  That sullen, quavering voice. It was a relief when the session finally ended.

  Five minutes later, in the elevator, my mother asked how things had gone, whether we’d made any progress, and I gave her a noncommittal shrug. “Too early to tell,” I said. “The guy’s a real sickie.”

  Except for his unhappiness, it seemed that Adamson and I had quite a lot in common. We were both intelligent. Both loners, both somewhat cynical. We even shared a certain defensive attitude toward the world. Despite myself, I ended up half liking the man, which was a good thing, because we spent six days cooped up together. Six grueling sessions. Each morning, my parents would drive me across town and drop me off in front of Adamson’s office. “Go get ’em,” my dad would say, and my mother would reach out and brush down my hair.

  Always the same routine. As soon as I walked in, Adamson would take a look at his wristwatch and rub his eyes and gaze out at the shiny dome on the state capitol building. “So, then,” he’d say, “how’s my pal William?” Then he’d wag his head and start complaining. It was his favorite pastime. There were times when I wanted to bang him on the head, or shake him up somehow, but instead I tried finesse, using little incidents out of my own life as a way of putting things in perspective. When he mentioned insomnia, for instance, I recommended solitaire and hot baths. At another point, when he brought up the subject of nightmares, I told him about some of my own experiences in that area, the nuclear stuff, the sirens and pigeons and fires, the incredible reality of it all. I discussed the Cuban missile crisis and tried to get across that sense of quiet fear, nothing desperate, just a wired-up tightness.

  “It’s not mental,” I said. “Kennedy and Khrushchev—I didn’t make those guys up out of thin air. I just get worried sometimes.”

  For at least two full sessions we talked about how volatile and dangerous the world is, fragile as glass, no margin for error, and we agreed that the best strategy was to put a premium on avoiding unnecessary risks: stay alert, never take chances. I explained that my basic philosophy of life was to seal myself off from potentially threatening situations. Locked doors were essential. Solid walls and a solid roof—shelter.

  “You can quibble all you want,” I told him, “but it boils down to common sense. A matter of safety.”

  Adamson bobbed his head.

  “I’m with you,” he said. “Safety.”

  “That’s right. And the same thing goes for how you deal with people. That Chuck-the-Woodchuck stuff, you have to be careful about it. Don’t give away too much.”

  Adamson thought about it for a few seconds.

  “Makes sense,” he finally sai
d. Then he hesitated and made an indefinite, sweeping gesture with his arm. “But doesn’t it get a little lonely? A guy like you—you must have a million friends. You don’t shut them out?”

  “Well, no,” I said. “I use the phone a lot. Safer that way.”

  “Safer?”

  “Sure it is. No complications. Very clean.”

  Adamson’s eyes thickened. “Lucky guy,” he said. “Personally, I don’t even have friends. Nobody to call up.”

  “Nobody?”

  “Zero.”

  I crossed my legs and settled back. Once again, briefly, I wondered if he was putting me on. I wanted to trust him but I had to keep my bases covered.

  “No friends?” I said, and for the next hour or so we combed through the man’s balled-up social life, every sad detail.

  In the evenings, after supper, my mother and father and I would usually kill time by strolling around the city, checking out shop-windows, trying to put a happy face on things. Except in the most general terms, they never asked about my meetings with Chuck Adamson, but still I knew they were going through a rough period. Late at night I’d wake up and hear them talking in the adjoining room, soft hospital voices, hush-hush and serious. It was painful. I wanted to rap on the wall and tell them to stop worrying. “Take it easy,” I wanted to say, “I’ll make it.” But they wouldn’t have listened. When your parents think you’ve gone haywire, it’s impossible to talk them out of it. So I’d lie there listening to those wee-hour motel sounds. Pacing footsteps, doors opening, doors closing, a television set blaring out The Star-Spangled Banner. My mother crying. My dad consoling her. “Relax,” I wanted to say.

  I was feeling terrific. The headaches were gone, and I slept well, and on the fourth or fifth day, right before my morning consultation, I squeezed out one of the sweetest movements in the annals of toiletry. Later, in Adamson’s office, I couldn’t resist bragging. “Well,” I said, “it happened.”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  He took a couple of guesses, way off the mark, so finally I blurted out the news. It didn’t impress him. He turned away and shuffled through some papers.

  I stopped him cold.

  “Hey, listen,” I said, “I’m cured. You’re a doctor—say something.”