When Mr. Dog Bites

by Brian Conaghan

  My head hurt with Doc Colm’s mental adult words.

  “So are you saying you can prevent Dylan’s Tourette’s by taking him off his drugs?” Mom said.

  Sorry, what? I was confused.

  “Not exactly. We just want to take a different tack, try a different approach.”

  “Which will stop his Tourette’s?” Mom asked.

  “Well, which will calm it down, at least, but you have to remember that Tourette’s, as it stands now, is incurable, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try other means and techniques in order to radically reduce its symptoms.”

  This was mind-blowing. The last doc said that I had until March. That doc’s chat with Mom had bamboozled my brain. Now Doc Colm was talking about prevention and reducing the swearing, Mr. Dog, the ticcing, the grunting, the groaning, and the shuffling.

  “And that can be done?” Mom said.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We wish to place Dylan on a new trajectory.”

  “Which is?” Mom said.

  “Well, we want to allow his brain to learn new habits.”

  Mom looked at both of us.

  “We believe that Dylan’s brain function has become so used to the tics, shouting, swearing, et cetera that it has learned the patterns and practices of these, and so produces them involuntarily. What we aim to achieve is for Dylan’s brain to reboot itself and learn a new pattern and practice.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Mom said.

  I was super excited to have my brain rebooted like a computer.

  “We’ve developed a new technique that we’re pioneering with a few patients. We think Dylan would be the perfect candidate—if permitted, that is.”

  Mom looked confused.

  “I have to tell you, Mrs. Mint, that the early results in the trials with other patients have been nothing short of astonishing.”

  The two of them looked at me. Did they need me to approve this, whatever it was?

  “What do you think, Dylan?” Mom said.

  “Erm . . . I’m not too sure I understand,” I said.

  “Let me explain,” Doc Colm said.

  My heart was pumping. Did Doc Colm not have any idea what was going to happen to me in March? Did he miss that page when reading my case notes?

  “We’re going to take a mold of your mouth and teeth,” Doc Colm said.

  “Why?” I said, and I could tell that Mom wanted to ask the same question. “My teeth are A-okay. I don’t need to go to the dentist.”

  “Of course not, Dylan. We believe that a lot can be understood from the teeth and mouth in controlling the tics and physical movements you make.”

  “So what will happen, exactly?” Mom asked.

  “We’ll make Dylan a custom mouthpiece that he’ll have to wear at all times except for at night.”

  “And this will help him?” Mom said.

  “We think so, yes,” Doc Colm said. “Let’s be clear, Mrs. Mint: this won’t magically cure Dylan’s Tourette’s, but we believe that it will dramatically reduce his symptoms, especially the tics.”

  “Well, that’s good, Dylan. Don’t you think?” Mom said to me.

  My head was about to explode with the confusion. The sweat was worse than ever. My bum was soaking. I just had to get it out.

  “LYING BASTARD DICK.”

  “Dylan!”

  “But the other doc said that I was going to die in March.” There. I said it. I blurted it out. No going back. This was my time. My hour.

  “What?” Mom said. But the look on her face was more like, What the fuck are you saying, Dylan, you fucking head case?

  Doc Colm smiled and chuckled as though he were thinking, Wow! This eejit is even madder than I thought. This clown will need more than a bloody mouthpiece to save him.

  “What are you saying, Dylan?” Mom said.

  “The other doc said that in March the Tourette’s would make me cack it.”

  “When was this, Dylan?” Mom asked.

  “The time we went to see about the scan,” I said.

  “That wasn’t your scan . . . I was with you, Dylan,” Mom said. “I was with him, doctor, and I can assure you that wasn’t what was said.”

  “It was. He said something about it being so incontrovertible, and you were crying. I didn’t know what that meant, so I looked it up in the school dictionary, and then it all made sense to me.”

  “No, it’s not what you think, Dylan,” Mom said.

  “He also said that you had to prepare me for what’s going to happen. But he gulped before he said the words ‘what’s going to happen.’”

  “You’ve got this all wrong, Dylan,” Mom said.

  “But you were crying,” I said.

  Mom didn’t say anything. I looked at Doc Colm.

  “The other doc said that life as I know it will come to an abrupt end. I remember, Doc Colm, I remember,” I said.

  Doc Colm leaned back in his chair. “Dylan, I can’t comment on these things—they’re for you and your mom to talk about—but I can assure you that Tourette’s is a non-degenerative condition, which means that it won’t progressively deteriorate over time, which means that it won’t get worse, which means it won’t kill you.”

  “Why was Mom crying, then?”

  “I think when my colleague spoke, you just picked up something incorrectly and got the wrong end of the stick.”

  “But why were you crying, Mom?” I asked.

  “You’ve got this so wrong, Dylan,” Mom said. She looked at Doc Colm for support, but I think the big man was wondering why Mom cried that day too. “And I can’t remember if I cried.”

  “You did, and you cried on the way home and you cried when we got home and you became a bear with a dead sore head in the days after, and I thought I’d done something mega wrong and was really scared because I was going to cack it in March and you didn’t care,” I said. “How could you not remember?” My head flew from side to side and back and forth. My eyes blinked, and I was doing what the docs call “physical grimacing.” No sign of Mr. Dog, though. We stared at Mom.

  “I cried because . . . I cried . . . I was crying because . . .”

  “Mrs. Mint, if this is a personal matter . . . ,” Doc Colm said, just before we got to the Juicy Lucy bit. Nice one, Doc Colm.

  “No, it’ll have to come out sooner or later,” Mom said.

  “Would you prefer if I left you two alone?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Mom said.

  And I could see her breathing in and out. The atmosphere was so thick that you would have needed a good sharp set of garden shears to cut through it. I was concentrating so much that all my tics and noises disappeared in one big whoosh. We waited and waited. Mom took one gigantic deep breath like the breath you take when you want to try to swim a full lap underwater (I’d never managed it. Amir said he had, but I wasn’t there to witness it, so it didn’t technically count). Mom came up for some air and then unloaded the big guns.

  “What’s happening in March is . . .”

  “Yes . . . ?”

  “What’s happening is that I’m going to have a baby, Dylan.”

  “A baby?”

  “Two, in fact.”

  “Two?”

  “Twins.”

  WELL, FUCK ME SIDEWAYS, as Doughnut sometimes said.

  “I’m pregnant, son. You’re going to have two wee brothers or sisters, or maybe one of each,” Mom said.

  I looked at Doc Colm, who looked at the wall behind Mom’s left shoulder. Mom looked at the ground, because she knew that I knew that she knew that I knew that Doc Colm didn’t know.

  FUCK ME UP, DOWN, AND SIDEWAYS. That’s what I say.

  “So I’m not going to cack it, then?” I asked Mom, just to be 125 percent sure.

  “No, you’re not. The doctor was saying all those things about the babies, not your Tourette’s, love,” Mom said. “That’s why I was there that day in the hospital. It was my scan we were discussing, not yours.”
/>   “And that’s why you were crying?”

  “Yes.”

  “So my life as I know it will not come to an abrupt end in March, then?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “So the reason you were crying was because you’re having a baby?”

  “Two.”

  “Two babies . . . Nick Nack Noo!”

  “Yes.”

  I looked at Doc Colm. “Women are strange,” I said. He laughed. “So why did I think I was dying, then?”

  “I think you just misinterpreted what the doctor said, Dylan, that’s all,” Doc Colm said.

  “So he was a baby doctor?”

  “Sort of,” Mom said.

  “But why did you take me with you that day, if it was just for lady talk?” I asked Mom.

  “I needed you with me for support, and to remind me that having a baby is a beautiful thing.”

  “Is that why you gave me 499 Soccer Facts to Amaze Your Mates!?”

  “I gave it to you because you wanted it.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  *

  When Doc Colm was putting this yucky plaster in my mouth he didn’t need to say “Open wide,” because my gob was as wide as a hippo’s yawn. I think they call it flabbergasted. I was also chuffed to bits that I wasn’t going to cack it.

  What a day!

  26

  Truth

  I’m not really into biology; all that stuff goes over my head. Section 6.6 in our biology course confused me. My face and neck went all rosy red when the teacher spoke about willies, women’s parts, eggs, and swimming sperm. Apparently you could even count the sperm cells swimming around. Some job that would be! The class was super silent when our biology teacher spoke about all that stuff. Amir was embarrassed even though you couldn’t see it in his face; he just made these mad best-bud eyes, and I knew what he was thinking.

  I may be rank rotten at biology, but I knew what was needed in order to make a baby. A man and a woman. I knew that moms needed dads to make babies. And I knew that my dad wasn’t in the country to make my mom’s two babies. It did go through my nut that he could have made a covert visit home, quickly made the babies, and then hightailed it back to the war zone. But the more I thought about that idea, the more it seemed major mind-boggling. There was no danger the army would let any of their men bolt home for that reason, especially someone as important as Dad. I did some detective work in my head—a bit like brain gym, though this one was more like brain-melt gym—and I came to the conclusion that Mom’s new babies were not Dad’s new babies, and Dad probably didn’t have the foggiest idea that Mom was going to have two babies. It was a wowee-zowee moment. As soon as it was crystal clear I stroked Green, rough as anything. I groaned, barked, swore, ticced, and shook. I cried my peepers out into my pillow, which became a wee bit salty soggy. I blubbed because I was going to have new wee brothers or sisters or both who didn’t belong to Dad. I felt heart sorry for Dad because I knew he would be

  rage

  rage

  raging

  that he wasn’t going to be the daddy, and his voice

  would really get

  loud

  loud

  louder

  and he could quite easily

  scud

  scud

  scud

  something or someone

  and it would be so terrible because he wouldn’t be able to do any of the fun dad stuff like nappy changing, babysitting, feeding, and reading bedtime stories. I also cried because if the babies didn’t come from Dad, it meant they only half belonged to me. I’d be like some of the insane people who go on The Jerry Springer Show. I didn’t know what to do: write to tell Dad the bombshell news or wait until Mom told him straight to his face? It was like when contestants have to make a word out of jumbled letters on Countdown. Problemo grande.

  Dylan Mint’s major dilemma.

  BUT I wasn’t going to cack it after all, and that made me cry happy tears. Doc Colm told me that I would have “a long, wonderful, and fruitful life.” Even though it was a huge PHEW off my shoulders, it meant that my Cool Things to Do Before I Cack It list was as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. It was a crying shame I didn’t get to have proper sex play with Michelle Malloy, but she did sleep (and puke) in my bed, so that was almost like the real thing. But I really did fight heaven and earth, tooth and nail, dungeons and dragons, to stop Amir getting called names about the color of his skin. I did stop people at school slagging him off all the time because he smelled like a big pot of curry. And I did help him find a new best bud. Yes, I did.

  Who?

  ME.

  The new long-wonderful-and-fruitful-life ME.

  His new best bud couldn’t be that girl he was dancing with all night at the Halloween disco, because girls just can’t be best buds with guys.

  Period.

  The biggie now was number three: Get Dad back from the war before . . . you-know-what . . . happens. But the you-know-what part had changed from before I cack it to before Mom pops it. That would have made Einstein’s head hurt.

  To stop the shaking and everything, I put my spanking new tongue blade that Doc Colm gave me in my mouth. It looked like a big file that ladies use on their long nails. It was easy. All I had to do was bite on it when the stress and tics came. Whenever I bit on the tongue blade my head stopped shaking from side to side, I stopped grunting, and generally felt less sweaty and stressed. It worked. It was a capital M Miracle. A Miracle of Miracles. Doc Colm told me to use the tongue blade until he had made me an actual proper mouth brace. I could only use the tongue blade at home, because I would look like I was straitjacket material if seen wandering the streets with a big ladies’ nail file in my gub, but with the mouth brace I could wear it all the time, and the bonkers thing was that nobody would be able to see it or have a clue I was a grunter, ticcer, swearer, or barker. Doc Colm was 85 percent confident that it would be a rip-roaring success. Doc Colm should have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, an Oscar, and a Great Scot Award rolled into one. He was just like Jesus, if you believe in all that stuff. I was thinking that maybe Doc Colm could do something for the bold Amir’s mental madness, and I should mention Amir’s problems to him the next time I saw him. I wondered if he could fix Michelle Malloy’s gammy legs and do something about her potty tongue. I couldn’t wait to have my mouth brace; it would be like having a new life.

  Me and Mom weren’t not speaking; it just seemed like the whole house was made of this gigantic eggshell, and we were afraid that if we spoke or shouted or ran up and down the stairs like a herd of goats, the eggshell would crack and all this yucky yolk would seep out and drown us. We did a lot of smiling and comfortable-silence stuff, and Mom sometimes asked how I was getting on with my new tongue blade.

  “How are you getting on with your new tongue blade?”

  “Fine.”

  “It seems to be working.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Suppose.”

  “It’s made a huge difference, don’t you think?”

  “Suppose.”

  “Well, I think it has.”

  “Good.”

  “Doctor Cunningham will be delighted when he sees you again.”

  “Suppose.”

  I wanted to say loads more to Mom and ask her all the questions that were rattling around in my napper, but I was a bit scared in case she told me things that I didn’t want to hear. When I was lying with my tongue blade in bed, I thought of ten questions I wanted to ask Mom:

  1. Who is your new babies’ daddy?

  2. Why isn’t it the same daddy as mine?

  3. When did you make the babies?

  4. Did you make the babies in this house or did you go to a special place?

  5. Are you sad because you’re having two new babies?

  6. Are you not far too old to have two new babies?

  7. What are you going to call the new babies?

  8
. Do you think Dad will go Billy Bonkers when he finds out that he is not the new babies’ daddy?

  9. Do you think Dad will fly off the handle and lash out again?

  10. Will you love the new babies more than you love me?

  Numbers one, two, eight, and nine were the questions that kept swingballing around in my brain night after night after night after night. For number seven I had two names in my head: if they’re boys they could be Mustafa and Samir, and if they’re girls they could be called Maleeha and Dhivya. These are the names of Amir’s cousins who still live in Pakistan, so they’d never know that we stole them, and I really like the idea of the alliteration with my last name, Mint. But that idea was blown out of the river, because the answer to question number one meant that they would have a different surname from me.

  I was going to tell Amir, ’cause that’s what you do when you have a weight on your shoulders—you blurt it out to your best bud. I nearly did as well.

  awright d boy?

  rap it, were u been amir ma man?

  hangin with priya, u?

  shit has hit the fan at home

  tell ur bud the crack?

  2 complicated

  shit that does sound bad

  its a face to face explanation

  I hear u bro, I hear u

  wots the deal with the burd?

  who priya?

  yes

  shes dead on

  r u in luv?

  shut it ya dick

  ur a dick

  UR a dick

  UR DICK van dyke

  who?

  Never mind . . . lol.

  need to go d boy

  rap it, c u soon

  4 sure

  wot u up 2 2day?

  I’m goin out with priya

  give her 1 for me

  shes not like that

  sorry . . . lol

  laters

  c u soon bud

  I was glad I didn’t blurt it out to Amir, as this was a family thing and not a best-bud thing. In fact, this was a bit of a rosy redneck.

  *

  After another day of trying not to crack the eggshells that were holding up the house and another night of tossing, twisting, turning, and kicking the bedclothes off me, I thought, Right, Dylan, you have a few questions you need answering, my old son. Get to it.