When Mr. Dog Bites

by Brian Conaghan

  It wasn’t all bad spending time in my puke room. I wrote a letter to Dad and sealed it with glue, extra-strong Scotch tape, and two staples. Just to be sure Mom wouldn’t sneak a peak. She had previously, and that counted for something around here.

  77 Blair Road

  ML5 1QE

  November 2

  Hi, big dude,

  How’s it hanging? That’s American movie language. Yes, you’ve probably guessed it: I have been watching trillions of Yank films. My favorites are Reservoir Dogs, Clerks, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, and Buffalo 66. Have you seen any of them? Actually, I’m not really sure if you and the boys get to watch films where you are based. It’s probably in case the airwaves are intercepted by the terrorists and they could quickly detect your whereabouts. Thinking about it, it’s not a good idea to put your lives at risk because of Reservoir Dogs or Clerks. If you want, I can write you a detailed synopsis of them. That’s what we’re doing in Mrs. Seed’s class, except the films she picks are sooooooooooooooooooooooooo Utterly Butterly mince. Titanic and The English Patient. OMG YUCK!!!!!!

  Things are probably A-okay here. Mom is still the same. We’ve been having lots of fights (not fisticuffs) recently. I think it’s maybe because I am going through that phase—you know, the one boys go through when all they can think about is nudie women and doing the things that moms don’t like? Well, I think I’m going through that period. It would be good to have you here so we could talk about all that stuff and you could give me some man-to-man advice. I suppose I could ask Tony. He’s Mom’s new pal. He’s a taxi driver, but he’s got a brain in his head. I’m not sure, but I think he reads books when he’s waiting long hours on a fare; in a way it’s good brain gym. He comes round sometimes to chat and have a cuppa, but it would be too weird to ask him for some man-to-man chat, ’cause Tony the taxi driver isn’t my main man. By that I mean he’s not my dad. I used to think he was a right whalloper, but he’s not a bad big chap. He’s a mega fan of Pink Floyd and the Kinks. Do you know them?

  I can’t take all the blame for the fights because I think that Mom is going through the mental change in her life. She is at that stage where women change their brain thoughts from one day to the next, and they don’t feel like they’re a woman any longer. It’s Billy Bonkers. Who would be a woman, eh? We have been doing exactly that topic in the “adult section” in our biology class, but to tell you the truth I’m not fully grasping it. It’s number 77 in the textbook, but I haven’t read it all yet. I’m more into English, drama, and PE.

  One of my buds from school stayed over for the night, and Mom went barmy army because this bud was a girl. Nothing happened, though. She slept in my bed and I crashed on the floor. She snored loads and kept me up most of the night. That’s a good one to use to take the pure p*** out of her in the future. My best bud, Amir, the one I told you about, has a new bird. She’s like him, if you know what I mean. Her name is Priya. She’s in the year below us at school. I keep calling him a pedo cradle-snatcher, which he hates. But even though she’s his new girl best bud, I will always be his real best bud ’cause I won’t ever say things like “I don’t want you to kiss me anymore, Amir” or “Amir, I don’t want you to hold my hand.” He met her at the school’s Halloween disco (that’s another story). I haven’t asked Amir yet if I will always be his best bud (I will). Girls come and go, but best buds are like brothers from another mother for life, no?

  I saw on the news that some of the troops are being sent home because our side has almost won the war and the people don’t really need their help any longer, and if they stayed, they’d become a nuisance in the eyes of the people, who would then start to hate and resent them. Is that where you are? Have you been given a date to return? I have asked Mom loads of times when you’ll be back, but she just says that you’ll “be home when you’re home.” I even asked Tony the taxi driver, but he said it was “out of his hands.” Tony the taxi driver used to park in your space, but after I gave him an old-fashioned tongue wagging he wouldn’t Dan Dare. I told you about it in my last letter, but there was a problem with the delivery of that one, which is ultraboring to go into now. I’ll bend your ear when you get home. I’m not really going to “bend” your ear—it’s just a saying.

  Now it’s November; March is just around the corner, so it would be the DBs (that means dog’s bollocks, by the by) if you could be here for that. It would be mega cool to have you here before Christmas, though. If not, maybe you could write me another letter and give it to one of your secret ninja spy mates to smuggle out for you. I wouldn’t tell a soul. No worries if you can’t. In fact, I can say the whole letter you wrote to me in my sleep because I’ve read it that much. Insanity or what?

  Right Ye Are.

  I have to get some serious shut-eye, as tomorrow is a BIG day . . . All will be revealed. All I will say is that I’m off to see a big brain doc.

  I will try to send another letter asap. Hang in there, dude!!!!

  Dylan Mint xxx

  On the way to the hospital my hands were Sweaty Betty soaking wetty and my legs were shaking like a puppy in a microwave. My mind was playing Good-News-Bad-News-Good-News-Bad-News tennis, which was driving me round the bend. To try to stop the tennis I thought about Michelle Malloy and added her name to my phone’s contacts list, giving her the “Rehab” song ringtone so I could identify her as soon as she phoned. That was my little joke to myself.

  “Just give me a buzz when you’re on your way out and I’ll pick you up,” Tony the taxi driver said to us when he pulled his maroon car up near the hospital’s entrance.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Mom said. What? A free lift! Of course we’ll take it. I hated getting on public buses. People laughing and staring. Glaring. Not caring how I felt.

  “I want to,” Tony the taxi driver said.

  Nice one, Tony the taxi driver, I said to myself.

  “Okay, I’ll give you a tinkle,” Mom said.

  I noticed not one but TWO Crazy with a capital C things. Firstly, Mom used the word “tinkle,” which means “piss” or “pee-pee” for little boys and girls. Or it can mean a wee boy’s wee willy. She could have said bags of words instead, like “buzz,” “bell,” or “ring.” These are called “synonyms.” Using “tinkle” was like Mom being a wee girl again. Crazy. Secondly, she touched Tony the taxi driver’s arm when she said “I’ll give you a tinkle.” He was doing what all taxi drivers do, leaning their arm out of their rolled-down window as if to say, “All right, love, where are you off to, then?” when Mom placed three fingertips on Tony the taxi driver’s BARE leaning arm. Crazy.

  “Right, let’s go, Dylan,” she said to me.

  “Go get ’em, kiddo,” Tony the taxi driver said to me.

  I waved at him as he drove off.

  I have to breathe through my mouth whenever I go into hospitals. The smell reminds me of those special rooms in Drumhill where students are taken to wipe their mouths or bumbums clean. I’ve never been there, nor has Amir.

  “Do you want a drink?” Mom asked as we passed the shop that sells flowers for dying people. I don’t want flowers on my deathbed. I want sexy nurses touching my willy.

  “I won’t be able to drink,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a hospital. I can’t drink in hospitals.”

  “What about a snack, then?” I love snacks; I’d definitely have had a snack if we were at home. One of Mom’s diet bars or some nuts.

  “No.”

  “Not hungry?”

  “I can’t eat in hospitals either.”

  “This is all news to me, Dylan,” Mom said. I looked at her and gave her a Jesus-no-one-understands-me look. Parents just don’t understand teenagers these days.

  “Their food would give you the dry boak.”

  “Well, you’d better hope they don’t keep you in or you’ll starve.” That made me panic, and the cartwheels spun around inside.

  “They’re not going to keep me in, are they?�
� I said. “Mom, they’re not, are they?”

  “Don’t panic, Dylan, of course they’re not going to keep you in. This is just a checkup.”

  Mom put her hand through my hair and softly rubbed my head. She does this when she knows the panic is coming, or when the shit will rattle the fan. The people who were buying flowers or magazines for the brain-dead tried not to stare at us, at me, but they did. See, I was doing this mix between groaning and growling that sounded a bit like a car trying to start itself on a cold winter’s morning. Dad’s car did this sometimes. Mom held me tight. That’s when I knew we were Mom and Son Buds again.

  “You’ll be okay, sweetheart, you’ll be okay.”

  “A-okay?”

  “A-okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “I love you, Mom,” I said, because teenagers don’t say that too much to their moms, yet moms are the only thing teen­agers need when the fear comes.

  “I love you too, Dylan.” Mom stroked my hair as though I had a horse’s mane.

  The doc who came in the room was NOT the doc from before. This was a different doc than the one who spoke gobbledygook the last time we were here—the doc who dropped the bombshell and made Mom’s eyes look like she’d been swimming in a pool full of salt. This new doc was younger, had funky hair all gelled and spiked, and didn’t wear a tie. A doc without a tie! That was Ice Cream Cool. With the other doc I had to be seen and not heard, but this doc made me feel like I could be seen and heard, and he smiled at me, but not in any way that made me think he wanted to do pervy things to me. This doc was a dude. This doc wanted me, and not Mom, to answer some of his questions. And, when you think about it, this made super-sensible sense, because all the stuff was happening to me, and it was in my napper and I was the only one who knew what the bloody hell’s fire was going on in there and no one else, not even Mom. Bless her cotton tights. She knew tons of stuff about me, but not the

  deep

  deep

  deep

  stuff.

  Not even the bold Amir knew that.

  “You must be Dylan,” the doc said. He put out his hand for me to shake.

  I shook it, but didn’t say “Hi” or “Hello” or “Yes, my name is Dylan.” The doc then shook Mom’s hand.

  “Morning,” he said to Mom.

  “Morning,” she said back.

  “How are you, Dylan?” the doc said.

  I looked at Mom.

  “Answer the doctor, Dylan,” Mom said.

  “Erm . . . I’m fine.” I was only like this because I still thought I had to be seen and not heard.

  “My name’s Doctor Cunningham. Colm Cunningham.”

  “My name’s Dylan. Dylan Mint.”

  The doc laughed, but I wasn’t making a joke. He told me his name, I told him my name—that’s what people do.

  “Is he always like this?” the doc said to Mom.

  “Always,” Mom said.

  “You can call me Doctor Cunningham, Doctor Colm, or just Colm if you’d prefer.”

  “I think I’ll call you Doc Colm, if that’s okay?”

  “Sure thing, Dylan.”

  I nodded my head.

  “Okay, let’s see. I’ve had a look at the case files.”

  “Am I going to have to stay in the hospital, Doc Colm?”

  He laughed again and looked at Mom, who shook her head.

  “No, Dylan, you’re not going to have to stay in the hospital. Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “Just because.”

  “No, this is just an initial meeting for us to discuss the course of action,” Doc Colm said.

  “Just listen, Dylan,” Mom said.

  “So, I’m simply going to ask you a few questions, Dylan. Is that okay?”

  “Sure. Shoot, Doc Colm.”

  “He’s some fellow, isn’t he?” Doc Colm said to Mom. She giggled.

  “You better believe it,” Mom said, giggling again. I think if I hadn’t been in the room, Doc Colm and Mom would have been doing flirting with each other. Thank God I was, though, in case it got out of hand and Doc Colm lost his job. Then where would I be?

  “Okay, Dylan, we’re going to talk about your Tourette’s now. Is that okay?” Doc Colm said.

  “A-okay,” I said.

  “Would you say that your Tourette’s is getting worse, better, or is just the same?” Doc Colm asked.

  “Just the same.”

  “Apart from vocal and facial tics, what other symptoms do you have?”

  I looked at Mom, who gave me the all-clear.

  “I swear sometimes and say strange things.”

  “By ‘strange things’ do you mean inappropriate things?”

  “Yes.”

  Doc Colm wrote down the things I said. “Offensive things?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do you get anxious a lot?”

  “Yes, but it depends on the situation.”

  “Do you sweat profusely?”

  “What does ‘profuse’ mean?”

  “Do you sweat a lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where on your body?” This was a strange question. Maybe I’d tell Miss Flynn this one.

  “My back.”

  “Anywhere else?”

  I didn’t want to tell Doc Colm that I sometimes sweat on my willy and ball-sack; that would have been too embarrassing, so I kept that one to myself.

  “My head and under my arms.” After saying this I ticced like a maddie for five seconds or so. Doc Colm paused to let me finish, and Mom put her hand on my thigh.

  “Relax, Dylan, it’s okay.”

  I was trying so much not to swear at Doc Colm that I was doing that profuse-sweating thing. I could feel it running down under the back of my boxers.

  “Okay. You’re doing well, Dylan.” Doc Colm then turned to Mom, which I thought was my cue to be seen and not heard. “Does Dylan demonstrate any signs of obsessive or compulsive behavior?”

  “Like OCD?” Mom said.

  “Exactly,” said Doc Colm.

  “He does, yes.”

  I watched them talking about me as if they were two tennis players thudding an invisible ball back and forth.

  “Can you elaborate for me, Mrs. Mint?”

  “Well, let’s see. He tucks his ears into his head, especially when they’re cold.”

  Doc Colm’s eyes squinted, which meant he didn’t know what Mom was talking about. She picked up on this, like, ESP woman style.

  “He just holds them into his head. I think it provides comfort or something.”

  They both looked at the dummy. Doc Colm scribbled more stuff.

  “Does it give you comfort when you tuck your ears in, Dylan?” the doc asked.

  “A little.”

  “Only a little?”

  “A lot.”

  “Good man.” Scribble. Scribble. “Anything else?” Doc Colm said to Mom.

  “Well, he can’t go to sleep unless his socks are at the bottom of his bed.”

  Confused Doc Look. “What do you mean?”

  “He takes his clothes off and puts everything into the dirty washing basket—everything, that is, except for his socks, which have to be placed at the bottom of the bed.”

  “I see,” Doc Colm said. He gave me a little look that said, Awwwwwww, poor wee soul. My tic control was all shot to shit. “Shot to shit”: American AND alliteration. “And this is every night, or just occasionally?”

  “No, it’s every night,” Mom said.

  I put my head to the floor dead embarrassed because I did all these stupid things. I didn’t want to do them. I really didn’t. Miss Flynn told me that I had to accept the fact that I did these things that other people simply didn’t do. So I accepted it. But what she didn’t know was that other people do things that spazzie people don’t. We don’t fight on the street and vomit all over the place (Michelle Malloy doesn’t count, as it was a one-off), we don’t steal from shops or mug people, we don’t blag from th
e social welfare, we don’t get teenage girls pregnant, we don’t drink as much as we pos­­sibly can, and we don’t wander the streets wearing cheap sports gear (sports gear should only be worn when playing sports). It’s not rocket engineering, duh! Teachers didn’t know everything about the word on the street.

  “And do you ever get depressed, Dylan?” Doc Colm asked me.

  Again I looked at Mom for her nod. “Sometimes.”

  “Do you just feel down sometimes? Do you ever just sit in your room and not want to see anyone?”

  “Both.” Scribble. Scribble.

  “Do you have any friends?”

  “Yes. I have Amir, who’s my best bud, and I have a new friend called Michelle Malloy.”

  “Is she your girlfriend?” Doc Colm asked with a wee smirk on his face as though he wanted us to have mega boy talk and have me tell him about all the brilliant bonking we had been doing. Bad luck, Doc Colm.

  “No. Mom doesn’t like her.”

  “Dylan!” Mom said. “That’s not true at all,” she said to the doc.

  “And you’re still taking all your medication?”

  “Yes.” I had to take all these mad tablets, about a gazillion of them every day. It was a major pain in the bahookie. I couldn’t even pronounce their names. Mom and the school nurse made sure I took them.

  “Well, I think we’re going to wean you off most of them, Dylan.”

  “What?” I said.

  “We’re going to reduce how much you take,” Doc Colm said.

  “Why?” Mom asked.

  “Mainly because they’re not functioning as a preventative agent for the type of Tourette’s Dylan has; they’re merely suppressing the symptoms. There’s a school of thought, which I subscribe to, that suggests a prescription of such magnitude does very little for the allowance of cognitive development, and thus a move toward prevention.”