Kissing Doorknobs

by Terry Spencer Hesser

  To my husband, Dennis,

  for encouraging me to write the stories that I tell

  and for loving me despite not a few “quirks”

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1 - Cracks … Everywhere You Look

  Chapter 2 - Childhood

  Chapter 3 - Fifth Grade

  Chapter 4 - Counting

  Chapter 5 - Impure Thoughts

  Chapter 6 - Saving Souls

  Chapter 7 - Bullies, Greta and Friendship

  Chapter 8 - Stalking My Parents

  Chapter 9 - Scared of Being

  Chapter 10 - Bad to Worse

  Chapter 11 - Donna

  Chapter 12 - Fun

  Chapter 13 - Speechless

  Chapter 14 - Warrior Angels

  Chapter 15 - Kissing Doorknobs

  Chapter 16 - Chinese Food

  Chapter 17 - Facing Facts

  Chapter 18 - The Open Brain Door

  Chapter 19 - Behavior Therapy

  Chapter 20 - The Game Plan

  Chapter 21 - My Civil War

  Chapter 22 - Sam

  Chapter 23 - Living with It

  About the Author

  Afterword

  Copyright

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Susan Richman and the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago for their information and encouragement; my sister, Leslie, for her humor, love, and underreaction to my adolescent compulsions; Lawrence David for being any writer’s dream editor; and my daughter, Kira, for being Kira.

  Although this book is not an autobiography, I have experienced some of the obsessions and compulsions that I have written about and am grateful to see and share the humor in this kind of pain.

  1

  Cracks … Everywhere You Look

  Step on a crack, break your mother’s back! The first time I heard that stupid rhyme was when I was eleven years old and still in possession of my own thoughts.

  At first I thought the rhyme was stupid. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back! When I couldn’t get it out of my head, I thought it was annoying. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back! Finally I thought it was scary. But no matter what I thought about it, I couldn’t stop thinking it. Actually, it was more as if I couldn’t stop hearing it in my head over and over again.

  I heard it while I was brushing my teeth,

  Step on a crack, break your mother’s back! eating dinner,

  Step on a crack, break your mother’s back! doing my homework,

  Step on a crack, break your mother’s back! having a conversation,

  Step on a crack, break your mother’s back! and falling asleep.

  It was like listening to the sound track of a movie that I wasn’t watching. A weird time-release audio torment stuck on Replay in my brain. Even now, I’m fourteen years old and just thinking about it makes me tap it with my feet. Step on a crack break your mother’s back! Nine syllables. Uneven. I hate that.

  Until that crack stuff hit the Replay button in my brain, I thought my life was pretty much within the bounds of ordinary. At least, by my definition of ordinary. I was tall and blond, with the high cheekbones and flat face of a Slav. I also had dark smile-shaped circles under my green eyes. I had good grades, a younger sister named Greta, two parents, my own room, a lot of friends, and even more allergies and anxieties to keep me company. Actually, my mom always accused me of being a bit of a worrywart, but we all thought I was normal. Worried, but normal. Smart. Good. Funny. And busy.

  Between my schoolwork, shopping, sleepovers, talking with friends on the telephone and watching television, I had a lot to think about and a lot to do. So the last thing in the world I wanted was to think the same thought over and over and over again, especially a thought as uninteresting and a rhyme as stupid as Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.

  Not that it mattered what I wanted to do or think about. Because not long after I heard that moronic rhyme for the first time, I suddenly couldn’t take my eyes off the sidewalk long enough to cross streets safely. Unexplainably, and in a state of confused foreboding, I was examining every square of pavement between my house and my school. And I was counting the cracks. Lots of them. At approximately 60 paved squares a block, there were roughly 480 opportunities to break my poor, sweet, understanding, gentle, funny mother’s back. Actually, there were exactly 495 opportunities to break her back. And the idea of life without her, or of her lying in traction for the rest of her life, scared me so much that my upper lip would sweat whenever I thought of it—which I did with alarming frequency.

  I knew that all this was totally stupid. And I knew that anyone who saw me quietly counting cracks would know that something was seriously wrong with me. So I was confused. And embarrassed. But I couldn’t not think the thoughts. And I couldn’t not count the cracks. And, of course, I couldn’t tell anyone. Needless to say, I had to walk alone.

  To and from school; I held my head down and fixed my eyes a few feet below and ahead of me. Counting. Sweating. And, of course, worrying. About my mother’s spine. About my sanity. About being seen. And about being interrupted.

  “… thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five—”

  “Tara!” Uh-oh.

  “Thirty-six—”

  “Tara, wait up!”

  My heart was beating faster and faster. I hated when this happened. “Thirty-seven.” Aside from the obvious embarrassment, I totally resented anyone’s invading my space while I was counting.

  “What are you doing?” The voice was right behind me.

  “Forty-”—my mouth was so dry I could barely speak—“two.”

  “Tarrraaa!”

  I imploded. Hostility ricocheted through my organs and oozed out of my sweat glands. I became a carbonated fury shake. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists to keep from crying.

  “What’s wrong?” The voice at my side was a gentle one. It wasn’t mocking or mean. Slowly I opened my eyes, and tears poured down my cheeks. Emily was a girl in my class. She was in my math group. She had two brothers and a dog. She was staring at me as if I had just walked off a UFO.

  “Leave me alone!” I yelled at her.

  “Why?” she asked. “What’re you—”

  “Because!” I paused, wondering what to say. I was furious. And embarrassed.

  “Because isn’t an answer.”

  My thoughts were swimming, but I still wasn’t answering her. I was just staring at the sidewalk. I’d never be able to explain this. To her or to myself. And to get the counting right, I was going to have to go home and start all over and be late for school because of this interruption.

  “Why didn’t you wait—”

  “Because you’re rude!” I screamed. “Don’t you know that when you call a person and they don’t answer, you’re supposed to leave them alone? Don’t you know that?” My voice sounded far away. Mean. Serious. I didn’t recognize either the tone or the rhythm.

  “But Tara—”

  “And don’t … don’t ask me any more questions. Please! Please.”

  Gasping for air, I turned away from Emily. I felt as if I was in a dream or under water.

  Although I’d always liked the suburb of Chicago I grew up in, it was no place to have a private problem in public. Too many people knew each other. There wasn’t enough space to hide embarrassing things. Suddenly there wasn’t enough space for anything. Not even to breathe.

  Even the houses looked as if they were hiding things. Square brick facades with closed doors to hide secrets and curtained windows threatening to reveal them. I knew that we had crazy people in our town. In fact, ever
ybody knew exactly who most of the crazy people were. But the crazy people in our town were crazy inside their homes, behind those closed doors and drawn curtains. Not outside—like me—in front of God and everyone.

  “Tara?” Emily said again.

  “Shhh!” I hissed, overwhelmed by the vibrations of fear that my heart was sending into my ears.

  I ran away from Emily without any further explanation and kept running all the way home. On my front porch I caught my breath, wiped the tears from my eyes and started over, counting the cracks without interruption to get it right. “Onetwothreefour …”

  After that, to avoid public scenes and reduce the need to start over, I began to ignore people calling me as well as car horns and angry drivers shouting at me when I walked in front of their cars without noticing.

  “Hey, little girl! If you’re blind, get a dog!”

  When I passed someone I knew—“Tara! Tara Sullivan?”—I’d pretend I was looking for something I’d lost and wave them away. What else could I have done? Tell them that I had a tape stuck on Replay in my brain and I was counting cement cracks?

  Once, Mrs. Scott, a neighbor, actually grabbed my shoulders and made me stop counting to talk to her.

  “Tara, I’ve been calling you and calling you. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear me,” she said with more than a hint of exasperation in her voice.

  I smiled, although I could feel tears threatening to spill over. I hoped that if Mrs. Scott noticed, she would think they were from the cold air, and I shivered on purpose. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying not to look as upset as I felt. But my emotions were already bubbling deep inside. I was going to have to go all the way home to start over. I was going to be late for school again. And I was afraid that my anger might explode out of my ears, nose and mouth.

  “What a little space cadet!” Mrs. Scott laughed and hugged me to her chest. That was when I saw two boys from my class, Kevin and Richard. They were watching us and laughing at me.

  That broke me. One tear fell down my right cheek. Unbelievably and instantly, my left cheek felt cheated! I wondered if I could make one tear fall down my left cheek the next time I got upset to keep things balanced. I worried about the time delay between the two tears. Vexed and embarrassed at the idiocy of my thoughts, frustrated that I was going to be tear-unbalanced from now on, and angry that I was going to be late for school, I started to run away from Mrs. Scott and the dozen or so kids who had joined Kevin and Richard to watch me. I felt like roadkill that was still alive. A human car wreck. I wished with all my might that it was a bad dream and I’d wake up. No such luck. I was going to have to face Kevin and Richard again when I finally got to school. I was going to have to face Emily again, who I was sure would recognize a pattern when she heard about this incident from big-mouthed Kevin or Richard. Suddenly I hated all of them. Especially Mrs. Scott.

  “I gotta go. I’m late,” I hollered over my shoulder.

  Mrs. Scott was not an easy woman to shake. “Tarrraaa!”

  I was so frustrated that tears started pouring out of both eyes. “What?” I yelled.

  “School is that way!”

  She was smiling with her mouth but her eyes were hard. She probably thought I was insane. I knew she was going to call my mother and tell her what happened. I shuddered to think what she would say about me. I didn’t know what to say about me. I had no words to untangle the senseless mess of my thoughts and actions. I felt nauseated with shame. Kevin was laughing and pointing at me. Richard looked confused. I began to hate both of them, just for witnessing my humiliation.

  “I forgot something at home!” I screamed over my shoulder, and ran. Mrs. Scott hollered something but I didn’t turn around or stop until I was on my front steps. Breathless, crying, and doubled over from a cramp in my side, I took a few minutes to pull myself back together.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay … I’m cracked and worried and tired. I’m scared and I have eczema. I have no idea what’s happening to me but I’m okay.” Sometimes the sound of my own voice calmed me down. Then, panting, sad and frustrated, I began the task that lay before me and started off for school again, counting every crack along the way and wondering for the billionth time what was wrong with me.

  2

  Childhood

  It’s a warm, sunny summer day. My friends and I are happily playing outside my house. We’re chasing each other and laughing. We all feel safe and happy. Then, out of nowhere, a giant monster pops up from behind a white house a block away. It is huge and fearsome and blocks out most of the blue sky. It is so big that in one step it will not only be at my house, it will be on my house, possibly crushing us to death. My friends all scream and run. I can’t run. I can’t move!

  I woke up screaming. I always woke up screaming from that nightmare, which I’d had over and over again, at least once a month, for as far back as I could remember. Usually, by the time I opened my eyes, my mother was already by my side, gently stroking my hair with her dry white hands and chipped nail polish. “I hate dream monsters too,” she said sweetly. “But that’s all they are. Dream monsters.”

  Letting kindness get that near to pain is like giving a fire some oxygen. Each time it happened, I cried harder and harder and harder as my eczema secretly spread to my torso and made an appearance behind my knees. Eczema is a red, scaly rash that can crop up anywhere,anytime, and itch so badly that you want to scratch it off with a chain saw. My eczema, like my worries, seemed to come and go regardless of nightmares or the terrible kindnesses.

  To keep from tearing my skin off, I wore kneesocks on my arms day and night and refused to go to preschool. If I had put shoes on my hands and walked on all fours, I would have looked like a human spider with legs missing. Kids would have laughed. My mother let me stay home with her and my baby sister.

  “Shhh. It was only a dream,” my mother would say calmly while pulling the kneesocks past my elbows.

  “I know,” Td say, scratching my upper arms with a vengeance and sniffling like crazy. Then I’d say, “Tell me again.”

  “It was only a bad dream.”

  I’d look at my mother in a way that begged for more. “Three more times. Please!”

  She complied. “It was only a bad dream. It was only a bad dream. It was only a bad dream.” It didn’t count. I still felt anxious. She sounded too impatient.

  “Nicely,” I begged.

  Tired and beaten, she complied.

  “It’s only a bad dream. It’s only a bad dream. It’s only a bad dream.”

  I searched her face for reluctance or impatience. Anything other than total sincerity ruined it and I’d have to make her do it again. She seemed sincere. She smiled and kissed my forehead. I closed my eyes and waited for relief. It came. I exhaled and pointed to the closet door. Without a word, my mother got up and shut the door. She knew I had seen green monster eyes in there before. Eventually I’d fall asleep listening to the squeak of el trains returning to the end of the line and thinking about people going home late at night. But I’d sleep so lightly I’d wake up startled from the little explosions whenever the furnace turned on. Each time I awoke, I wanted to go and sleep with my mother, but my parents didn’t like it when I woke them up in the night for no reason. Instead, I’d get up and put cold washcloths on top of my bloody arms, go and look at my baby sister sleeping. And then I’d scratch my arms until morning.

  Until I hit kindergarten, my mother and I spent a lot of time together. My great-grandma’s cottage in Michigan was our favorite place to go before and after my sister was born. It was fun in all seasons, but summer was best.

  My mom and I made sand castles in a wooden box and fed the neighbor’s peacocks and peahens. While my sister slept, we played croquet on freshly cut grass and drank Dr Pepper out of bottles. We were always together. And we were happy. Looking at clouds. Rocking on the swings. Lying in the sun. We loved being busy doing nothing.

  After all that togetherness, it was hard to start school. I cried every day
I had to be separated from my mother. Each time she dropped me off I doubted I’d ever see her again. I doubted she would be safe until she picked me up. And I doubted the rest of our family could survive without her. Tears streaming down my face and fists clenched, I’d run to the classroom door and stamp my feet. I wanted to make sand castles with her. I wanted to drink Dr Pepper in the sunshine. I wanted to hold her hand. I didn’t want to be abandoned.

  Three girls in my class repeatedly hugged me when I cried. Kristin, Keesha and Anna would eventually become my best friends, but it took me a long time to care about anyone but my mother. My eczema responded to my longing and showed up red and scaly in every crease of my skin. I scratched. I cried. I had nightmares. Then I scratched and cried some more. Kindergarten was hell.

  After a few months, I got over my separation anxiety. But other things started to bother me. For instance, throughout first, second, third and fourth grades I lived in dread of fire drills and emergency evacuation practices, which my school took very seriously.

  Without warning, we were periodically blasted out of our rooms by a horrible noise and taught to either huddle in the halls with our arms over our heads as protection or to march single file out of the possibly burning building.

  Although the other kids performed the drills in a joyous, snickering, happy-to-be-interrupted-in-school way, I was inconsolable.

  Kristin, Keesha or Anna held my hand in an attempt to calm my fears.

  “Don’ be ascared, Tara,” said Kristin sweetly. “This can save our lifes.”

  “It’s not real!” said Anna.

  Keesha shook her head apprehensively.

  We were being trained for various disasters the adults believed might befall us, like a war, a fire, a hurricane or a hostage crisis. My worst fears and gloomiest thoughts were being substantiated. The worst could happen while I was at school, separated from my family. I’d be alone. Dying, suffering, suffocating … by myself.

  “Tara Sullivan! Don’t cry, honey,” said myriad kind-faced teachers who, I believed, thought of teaching as a mission, a calling or at least a room to go to where they could be the boss. “Come on, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”