Not As Crazy As I Seem

by George Harrar

  Me with a disorder—that's kind of funny. "What's my disorder called?"

  "I think I can say pretty conclusively that you have OCD—obsessive-compulsive disorder. The obsessions are the unwanted thoughts you have—about straightening things, for example. These obsessions cause you anxiety, which you lessen by performing certain ritual behaviors. That's the compulsion part."

  "So what does this Luvox do?"

  "Luvox acts as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor."

  That's shrink-talk, which I don't understand.

  "Serotonin is a nerve impulse transmitter. Luvox helps balance out the impulses your brain receives so that you can screen them to determine which are important and which aren't. Your screening ability is impaired right now. It's a fairly common problem, actually."

  "It is? I've never seen anybody with it."

  "Most people haven't seen it in you, either, Devon. About two or three percent of the adult population has some degree of the problem. There's some famous people in this group, too. Do you know of Dr. Johnson?"

  "No, we go to Dr. Metz in Cambridge."

  "I meant Dr. Samuel Johnson, the English writer who lived in the 1700s. Before he would go through a doorway he would twist once around and then jump over the threshold."

  "That's pretty dumb."

  "It didn't seem so to him. Lots of people have their little good-luck rituals, but they don't often rise to the level of compulsions. Do you ever watch baseball?"

  "Sometimes. My dad has it on a lot in the summer."

  "Watch the players when they step up to the plate. They'll spit a certain number of times, or tighten and retighten their batting gloves. They're convinced that doing these things will bring them good luck, and yet every one of them will make an out far more often than getting a hit."

  "So all of those guys have OCD?"

  "A bit of it, maybe. But it's when the obsessions spread to other areas and prevent a person from carrying on a normal life that we need to treat them."

  The obsessions have definitely spread all over my life. I need treatment. "When can I get some of this Luvox?"

  Dr. W. writes something on his pad. I hope it's a prescription. "I don't prescribe medicines until I'm sure there's no other way to deal with a condition, Devon, such as through therapy."

  "We've been doing therapy for two months, Doc, and no offense, but I've been getting worse."

  "This has been the diagnostic phase, Devon, and now that the nature of your problem is clearer, we can contemplate alternative therapies."

  "What kind of therapies?"

  "Behavior modification, for example."

  "How would you do that?"

  "Stimulus desensitization is one proven method. Patients are forced to confront the objects of their obsessions while being prevented from using their rituals to make them feel better. It's called exposure and response-prevention. We trigger a familiar symptom to show that nothing bad will happen."

  Clockwork Orange pops into my head. "You mean you'd force me to sit in your chair?"

  The doc laughs, so I guess I've said something stupid. "No, we wouldn't physically make you do anything. That's not how we work."

  "Then how would you get me to sit?"

  "Encouragement, Devon. You can get someone to do almost anything in the world, with enough encouragement."

  I don't understand expulsion. The law says a kid has to go to school, doesn't it? If one place kicks him out, some other place has to take him. When the kid is really bad they send him to reform schools, which I've seen in movies, but I don't know if they exist anymore. Since I'll be sixteen soon, maybe I won't have to go to school at all. But then what would I do all day—work? That doesn't sound very good.

  I'm trying to figure this out when Mom calls me downstairs. I figure dinner's ready, but when I get to the kitchen she says there's a can of clam chowder in the pantry if I want it. I've already been making lunch for myself every day, so I can do dinner, too. While I'm stirring up the chowder Dad comes in and refills his glass of Chivas. A few seconds later Mom comes in and opens a bottle of red wine. I don't see any dirty dishes in the sink. There's nothing cooking in the oven or microwave. I guess they're drinking dinner tonight.

  "Mom? I was wondering something."

  She sips her wine but doesn't ask what I'm wondering.

  "If I get expelled from The Academy, where will I go to school?"

  She leans against the counter like she'll fall over otherwise. "You'll go in the next town we move to."

  I can't believe I heard right. "The next town? What do you mean? We're moving again? We've only been here a few months. And they might not even expel me."

  "Whether they expel you or not, Devon, the word is already getting around that you're the one who put swastikas on the school. I don't think this town is going to accept you for doing that. And how many people do you think will want to do business with me or your father?"

  She's making it sound like I've ruined the whole family. That's crazy. "You mean people won't give you their business just because of me?"

  She nods.

  "But I didn't even do anything."

  Mom closes her eyes. "If you say you didn't do it one more time, I think I'm going to ram my head into the wall."

  I don't want her to do that, so I don't say anything at all.

  The clock on the table next to my bed clicks past midnight. I haven't left my room since taking my bowl to the kitchen after finishing my clam chowder. Dad was sitting in the living room at the time, reading. Mom was curled up in a ball on the floor, doing her back exercises. They didn't glance over when I passed through the hallway. On my way back I peeked in at them. They hadn't moved. They were barely breathing. They looked like wax people, an exhibit in some museum of strange parents. It spooked me to see them like that.

  I didn't hear them go to bed, but they must have, because they always come upstairs by eleven. Neither of them knocked on my door or called "Goodnight" to me. Maybe they wished I'd have a bad night.

  I'm tired of worrying about what they're thinking about me. I wish they'd disappear and leave me alone. I don't need parents who won't believe me. I could live by myself. I could work and rent a room somewhere and keep it just like I want. Nobody would be around to watch me eat and straighten my clothes. The beggar in Harvard Square with Little Sasha—I bet he doesn't worry about what anyone thinks of him.

  What if they did—disappear, I mean? It could happen. Dad sees people all the time who are flesh and blood one minute, then cold stiffs the next.

  I shouldn't have thought that. Think something bad and it could turn out real. Like with Granddad. Once, for a second—no, not even a second, just a little part of a fraction of a second—I wished he didn't live with us. The next day, he was gone. All I meant was that I was tired of running things up to his room all the time and having to be quiet in the house. I should have kept my hand on his heart to make sure he was alive. Why did I take it away?

  I can't sleep. What if Mom and Dad did disappear, like in one of those X-Files episodes? The house would still be here, I'd be here, but they'd be gone, just as if they'd never lived.

  I open my closet and check my shirts. Each one is buttoned from top to bottom. I reach up to the shelf and take down a pile of sweatshirts. I refold them and stack them and put them back.

  I sit on my bed again, and I'm facing the faces of the psychos on my wall. Why did I hang them up? Maybe I was warning myself—one false step and look how you'll end up. I flip around on my bed and look at my Escher print on the opposite wall. I imagine myself on the endless staircase, going up or down. Which would it be? That's the illusion. You could walk forever on Escher's steps and not know if you were going up or down. Perhaps you would be doing both at the same time. That'd be cool. Dad bought me the Escher print. There wasn't even any reason, like a birthday or Christmas. He gave it to me one day and said, "You can learn a lot by looking at illusions."

  I can't stand it anymore. I have to go to the
ir bedroom to check on them. I jump off my bed and go out in the hall. I walk toward their room on my toes so I won't make any noise. Their door is shut. Why is that? They never closed their door before. I press my mouth to the keyhole. "Mom? Dad?"

  No one answers. My hand tightens around the knob and turns it slowly. I push the door open a few inches, then wide enough to step through. In the light from the hallway I can see Dad's face sticking above the covers. I hold my breath. His face looks old and sagging, almost dead. I stare at the eyeballs to see if they're fluttering, which means he's alive and dreaming.

  "Devon!"

  The eyes burst open. It's like seeing a dead man wake up. I step back and bump into the dresser. Dad throws off his covers and jumps out of bed. I see his hand rising out of the darkness, coming at me like before.

  "Dad, it's me, Devon."

  "Get out of here!"

  This doesn't make sense. Why is he yelling if he knows it's me? "Dad, I just wanted..."

  "What? Wanted what?"

  I can't remember. Why am I here? Why is he so angry at me? "Cancel Cancel."

  "Oh my God." Mom wakes up yelling, too.

  "Mom, it's me."

  "Devon, I told you to leave this room."

  "Cancel Cancel."

  Dad balls his hands up into fists. "Stop saying that."

  I do as I'm told. I obey. I can always say the words to myself, inside my head.

  I run down the hall and into my room, slamming the door behind me. I throw myself on the bed and pull the pillows over my head. But then I toss the pillows off so I can hear. They should be coming down the hall any second to say they're sorry for overreacting. They should be realizing right this moment that I was just coming in to talk to them.

  Dad always figures the worst. Why couldn't he have just woken up and said, Yes, Devon, what is it? He wouldn't have even had to be very nice about it, not like Devon, aren't you feeling well? or Devon, did you have a nightmare? They used to ask me that a lot back in Amherst when I had nightmares every night. He could have even snapped at me, Devon, why are you bothering us this late! That would have been okay. But to wake up and shout at me and make a fist—what kind of father does that?

  I'll never get to sleep now. I stand up in the middle of my room. The psychos are staring at me from the wall. I see myself in the mirror over the bureau. It's as if my picture's hanging on the wall with them.

  No, they're really crazy. I'm just an amateur at it, a fifteen-year-old who happens to keep his things neat. Like my closet. I open the door again. The shirts hang there, each one an inch from the other. I fixed them like that, with two fingers of separation between them. What did this save me from? Nobody else has died in my life since Granddad, but the school may kick me out and my parents hate me and we might have to move again. That's a lot of bad stuff happening.

  I remember Tanya seeing my closet for the first time and going into her Twilight Zone voice. The shirts look strange to me now, too, like they were hung up by a robot, not a kid. Most of them I don't even wear anymore. I should get them out of my life, give them to Mom for Goodwill. Let someone else hang them up in his closet.

  I reach in and start unbuttoning my blue shirt, the one I wore to Granddad's funeral. It's way too small. I don't need it anymore.

  "What are you doing? You don't want to give me away, Devon. I was your favorite once."

  God, my shirt's talking to me. Maybe I am psycho.

  "You're not psycho, you just care about things. You empathize. Let me hang in your closet."

  No, stop talking to me.

  "Put me back, Devon, and I'll make everything okay with your parents."

  Shut up shut up.

  "Button me up again and put me back, then your problem at school will go away, too."

  You're just a shirt. You can't do anything.

  "I'm not..."

  I grab it by the collar and rip. The shirt tears open, and what's it going to do now—scream? I don't think so. I let the old shirt fall to the floor.

  I turn back to my closet and pull out the next one in line, the white button-down I used to wear to church, and rip it open along the seam. Then another shirt, short-sleeved. I dig my nails into it and tear.

  The pile of shirts on the floor keeps growing. The sleeves stick out in all directions, like broken arms. I feel my own arms—I'm finally getting some muscle. I'm outgrowing my shirts.

  I reach for one of the snow globes on my shelf. It's the one from Arizona, the desert idea of a snowman—just a black hat and carrot floating in water. Dad thought it was the best one he ever brought back to me. I turn around and hurl it at the wall, over the heads of the psychos. It bursts open, splattering the liquid all over their faces.

  That felt good. I never knew destruction could be this much fun. I grab two more globes and throw them harder. The water sprays across my room. I pick up a fourth globe—this is perfect, right? I destroy things in fours now! I lift my hand to fire the thing into the wall, and—

  "Devon, stop it!"

  There's Dad standing in my doorway. Now he comes, when he hears me breaking things. Mom runs up behind him. He holds her back.

  "This is what you want, right? I'm making a complete mess of my room."

  I flip the fourth globe over my shoulder and then scoop out a handful of the meditation stones from the basket. I toss them in the air and they crack into the floor like miniature explosions. I close my eyes and whip my hands out to the side. I don't care what they hit. I don't care what breaks or bends or falls apart.

  Dad's arms wrap around me and stop me from spinning. It feels strange being hugged. I can't remember the last time he held me like this. Why did he stop?

  "What are you doing, Devon?"

  There's that voice—always demanding to know, know, know. He's the father, why can't he tell me?

  I jerk myself away from him. "I'm being normal, see? I can break things like every other kid in the world, and I don't care what happens. Maybe I'll even die tonight just like..."

  "Just like?"

  Granddad. That's what I was going to say.

  "Like who, Devon?"

  "Him."

  "Him?"

  Why doesn't Dad know? "Granddad Granddad Granddad."

  "Granddad?"

  "Yes, I killed him."

  I can't believe the words I just said. I don't even know what I mean. I didn't shoot him or stab him or suffocate him.

  "What are you saying, Devon?"

  I sit down on the bed. Dad sits next to me. I can feel his leg against mine. "That last night, when I was reading to him, his eyes closed, and I couldn't tell if he was sleeping or what, so I felt his heart. I couldn't feel a beat, and then I started clicking my fingers. At the fourth click I felt his heart beating again. Four."

  "It was just a coincidence. It could have been any number."

  "I kept counting and clicking my fingers, and his heart kept beating. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was dead."

  "Of course he was dead, Devon. He had a massive heart attack. He was eighty-seven."

  Dad thinks he understands, but there's more I have to tell him. "I wished he'd be like that."

  Dad twists around to see my face. "Like what?"

  Why can't he ever know anything? Why do I always have to say it? I've never told anybody this, not Mom, not my shrinks, not even Tanya. What kind of horrible kid wishes his grandfather dead?

  "Like dead."

  Mom steps into the room. I had forgotten she was even there. "You wished Granddad dead, Devon?"

  "It was just for a second. The day before I wished he didn't live with us because it changed everything in the house, and the only way he'd leave was if he died. That last night, when I couldn't feel his heartbeat, I should have called you. You could have gotten a doctor. They could have saved him."

  Dad puts his arm around my shoulder, just like he did at Granddad's funeral when I was supposed to throw a rose on top of his casket. I couldn't do it. Dad took my hand then, and we threw th
e rose together.

  "Everybody has fleeting thoughts like that, Devon. You shouldn't feel ashamed."

  I pull away and rub my eyes. My face is wet from tears, and I didn't even know I was crying.

  Mom bends down in front of me. She lifts my chin with her fingers. "You weren't responsible, Devon. Granddad was very sick. His heart gave out. Nobody could have saved him." She leans forward and kisses me on the forehead. "Bad things happen sometimes. You can't stop them. You just learn to deal with them."

  I'm learning, I guess. At least I have a lot of bad things to practice on.

  Mom stands up. "Are you calmed down now?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you want us to help you clean up your room?"

  "No, that's okay, I'll do it."

  "Tomorrow we'll talk some more, Devon. Try to get some sleep now."

  After they leave I don't clean up anything. The mound of shirts on my floor looks comfortable, so I just lie down there. Outside a gust of wind blows over the house, and the tree branches scrape against my window. The only other sound is the clicking of my clock. I reach under my shirt and feel my heart. For the first time I can remember, it's running faster than one beat a second.

  CHAPTER 26

  What am I doing here?

  I'm staring up at a ceiling, and it seems very far away. I've never woken up on the floor before. I've never slept all night on a pile of clothes. My neck is stiff. My arms are cold. I should have pulled the blanket from my bed.

  "Devon, do you hear me? You have a phone call."

  Mom's voice is loud, right outside the door. I don't want her to see me like this. She'll think something's really wrong with me. "Just leave the phone in the hall ... please."

  I give her time to leave, then open my door a little, reach out and grab the phone. "Hello?"

  "Devon?"

  "Yeah."

  "It's me, Tanya."

  Tanya. The way she says it makes me think it means something beautiful in a foreign language.

  "That's good, you're home."