by Doug Draa
“Not under our observation.” Duenger is almost glowing with suppressed joy. Who doesn’t love a good mystery, right? I bet if I search his hard drive, I’ll find the précis of a medical journal submission.
“You mentioned testing for neurological disease—so I can assume you’ve run an MRI?” I grumble.
“Yesterday: nothing.” He pauses again, almost daring me to raise another challenge. When I don’t, he says, “So we return to the original question: How could she be demonstrating what has all the hallmarks of a drug-induced psychosis despite ostensibly being clean and without anything showing up in our tests? I’ve begun to wonder if perhaps she’s been affected by a contaminant of some sort, not something we would call a drug in the classic sense.”
I have no idea what that means, but I don’t bite on it.
He continues, “I suspect an environmental factor. I’d like to go with you to your mother’s house for a look around, if you don’t mind.”
Light bulb. “That’s why you called me.”
“Well, it was time,” he says, and lets it drift between meanings—time for him to call the reluctant emergency contact, time at last for me to come home.
I’m just plain mad at this point. I jump up and head for the door. “Take me back there. Let’s try this again. I want to go in.”
There’s one last bit of theatre at the door to her cell. The orderly pauses, key at the lock. He’s a black guy whose size alone would’ve gotten him an athletic scholarship to warm the pine as a defensive lineman. He looks at Dr. Duenger, who looks at me. “Open it, goddammit,” I command.
We three enter. My mother says, “These clotted mountains are naught but waterfalls a-borning!” The laugh follows. Everything gets a laugh, I’m guessing.
I step forward and crouch in her line of sight. “Hey, it’s me. It’s Devin. It’s your son.” That doesn’t get a laugh. That gets nothing. “Mom,” and the word is strange, “Mom, it’s your son.”
She doesn’t see me. She’s watching a channel I can’t subscribe to. “Delight cannot be obtained by craving. For unjust rains fall upon even the most skilled of swallowers.”
I don’t see the point in trying any further. “Forget it,” I say, mostly to myself. I turn to go out. I’m in no mood to pick through her word salad for kernels of truth. She can catch her own bus back.
“Devin,” she says, and I freeze.
I turn back. Now she sees me and it is infinitely worse than when I wasn’t there. Her eyes are singing, screaming; they’re loud eyes and the message they send is overwhelming. I can’t look at her. Her voice, the one saying all that crazy, faux-literary shit, that was her voice. But her talking to me, it’s wrong somehow; there’s an unrecognizable tone—caring? I don’t know whose voice it is that says, “Devin, let’s all be rotting children again.”
And I’m gone.
* * * *
Doctor Duenger is eager to get into my mother’s house—my childhood home—right away. He pouts when I tell him I’ll call him in the morning to say when we can meet there. I was seven hours on the road straight to the laughing academy, and those few moments with mom sucked out whatever life I had left in me. For that reason, I opt for a motel. I could go ‘home’—I really don’t believe the doc’s whole ‘environmental factor’ thesis—but I don’t want to cross that threshold when I’m already beat down. Emotions? No, thank you. Gimme suspicious stains and AC you can’t turn down.
This isn’t the town I remember. Some store fronts have changed, and those that haven’t are shabbier and seem smaller. I feel alienated from these streets in a way I couldn’t be if they were merely unfamiliar. Of course, I’m the only one gawking. Even in a small town, natives are accorded the right to be blasé about incremental change.
I’m on edge, expecting a meeting, but I don’t see anyone I know. I have near-meaningless interaction with the motel clerk and the quick-stop cashier and that’s it. I feel my homecoming should be more portentous. But, perhaps because I have no inkling what sort of omen I might expect or what it could possibly signify, I am left unsatisfied. I can’t divine the feeling I’m supposed to have, and my hometown doesn’t care for me any more than it ever did. I feel like an excised mole someone is trying to push back on their skin. Deprived of definable gravitas, I wallow in void for half an hour before I finally do something smart and call Joseph.
Joseph handles me with ease. He coaxes a few monosyllabic grunts from me as a courtesy, and then masterfully monopolizes the conversation. He takes me through our neighborhood with the minutiae of his day; he leads me to our apartment with a question about sconces that requires no answer; he summons the corgis and kissy-faces with them into the receiver. And he knows exactly when to press forward.
“Did you go to the house?”
“No,” I say, “I put it off until tomorrow.”
“I think that’s smart. You’ve had enough to deal with for one day.”
“That’s how I saw it. I don’t know if I even want to go there at all.”
“Then don’t,” he says.
“No. I have to.” I quote the doctor, “‘It’s time’.” I almost feel guilty fishing for confidence in Joseph’s pond.
“When you’re ready,” Joseph says with a tone that tells me whatever decision I make will be the right one in his eyes. “Call me while you’re there, if you like.”
“Thanks, but I probably won’t. The doctor will be with me. Not content to poke around skulls, he’s taken to houses. This is a man for whom no cigar is just a cigar.”
Joseph teases me, “You know what I love about you? So many angry teen queens grow up to be well-adjusted gays, but you—you have really stayed the course.”
“To thine own self and all that shit,” I reply.
Like an idiot, I look around me and take in the anonymity of my surroundings. I squirm as that oppressive ‘limbo’ sensation thickens the air between stucco and low-pile. “I haven’t seen anybody I know,” I say.
“Well, it’s not like you can go back to your high school to find your old pals.” This is a joke; he knows high school was miserable.
“It’s true, there’s no one I want to see. But…the doctor says she’s been clean for more than a year. I guess I need confirmation… Maybe I want to hear what she’s like when she’s been clean for that long.”
“It’s got nothing to do with you unless you want it to.” He pauses. “Didn’t you use to go to church? You could try there.”
“Jesus! Tomorrow’s Sunday.”
“Yes, Jesus, tomorrow is Sunday. Maybe your mother kept going.”
“Maybe she started going,” I correct him. “I mean, we went, but only intermittently. We probably would’ve been strictly C and E crowd if it wasn’t for her chasing absolution every time she flipped over the same old leaf. And me in tow.” I sigh. “I mean, I guess it’s as good a place as any…”
“I knew it!” Joseph exclaims. “I knew you still had some of that old time religion in you.”
I hate to think that might be true. “The only temple I worship is your body; yours, the only altar I kneel before.”
I actually startle him to silence for a few seconds. Then he says, “Devin, darling, I can’t tell if you’re being sweet or being a total wanker.”
I lay back on the bed. “Can’t a man be both?”
I hear his cheek rub against the phone as he smiles. “Do you need me to tuck you in?”
* * * *
The gauntlet of the narthex: Uncertain smiles under flickers of almost-recognition or awkward flashes of actual recognition. Why did I come here? I can’t be the only one questioning my presence. It’s not His house, it’s theirs.
Relax, I tell myself. It’s a moderate church, and you have a history here, such as it may be. No one is going to chase you out with a pitchfork. Be charitable, or at least join the charade. As always—endure.
Besides, it can’t be said that you don’t clean up nice. Part of the other heritage.
I sit through the service. The pastor is new to me. I could sketch him entirely with circles. He is genially red-faced in front of his languid congregation. I recall the prayers and hymns with ease, but I can’t invest in them. They are like reruns stripped of the canned laughter which ironically made them seem real, left as incomplete archival footage from that grand old show that once fooled me into believing I really was a part of a live studio audience that stretched over the world and persevered through the centuries.
The homily instructs us to guard against pessimism.
I review as many stained glass windows as I can look at without obviously ignoring the sermon. I still see some magic in the colored glass (depicting bible stories and apostles—not saints; we don’t do saints). I am momentarily entranced by Abraham and Isaac. Post intercession, of course—haloed Abraham holds his son in one arm and stretches a grateful hand towards heaven. There is something comforting in the simple forced perspective—in the very idea of a verdant slope directly behind, awaiting their descent. A hill which I see now has one small, discolored blot, of what can only be described as stained stained glass, grey humus to the green grass. And I am nearly sick when I notice baby Isaac looks not to heaven or to his father, but back at the altar.
Afterwards, a few people, given time to confirm that I am who they think I am, approach to say hello, to ask how I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, where I’ve been. As surprised to see me as they are, they are confused why my mother isn’t with me. It’s confirmed for me she’s become a regular. A few people have heard she’s been ‘sick’, but no more than that, and I don’t elucidate. I tell them, “She’s resting”. I can see in their eyes they’re wondering if she’s plunged off the wagon; I’m surprised that the concern seems genuine (as opposed to, “Please let us know if we need to duck and cover”). I tell them I guess she might be back next week, and they seem relieved.
Mrs. Mason has conducted the youth choir since long before I mangled a tune. She says, “You’re such a good boy to help your mother. Tell Bea I’ll pray for her.”
I say, “Thank you,” and not, You’d better pray for a miracle, Mrs. Mason, because if you saw what I saw, you’d know there’s no fucking way she’s coming back next week—or maybe ever. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been home. I guess…mom’s been doing well?”
“Oh, yes, she’s become a valued member of the congregation.” She pats me on my shoulder and smiles. “You should be proud.”
The encouragement means either she knows I’m not, or she doesn’t know enough and thinks I could be.
“Was she here last week?” I ask.
She cocks her head and considers the ceiling. “No, no, I don’t remember her being here. But she hasn’t lingered to chat the last few times I’ve seen her. She seemed anxious to be home. Honestly…well, maybe I shouldn’t say. But, I thought she might have a boyfriend. Which, really…it’s time, don’t you think?”
“Her happiness is all that matters,” I say, not, if you had any idea what manner of man she used to call ‘boyfriend’, you wouldn’t wish that for her, or, can’t we all stop saying, ‘it’s time’?
“So, how does it feel to be back home?” Mrs. Mason asks.
“I guess it’s time I found out,” I say, corralling the frown that accompanies the thought, no, I guess we can’t. “I stayed at the Comfort Palace last night. I…wasn’t ready.” I feel exposed; I don’t know why I confided that.
To my surprise, Mrs. Mason isn’t nonplussed, but responds equally frankly. “Your mother broke through,” she says, “sometime last year. Cast off her shackles, as it were. She never told me what it was that finally changed in her or in her life.”
I remembered how I quit smoking. “In my experience, the only real motivator for personal change is disgust.”
She smiles softly and chides me, “Perhaps that is what it takes to get to that moment of decision. But one hopes she turned to God in that moment, and it was He who lifted her up and transformed her. I can tell you this: She did mention to me once… You shouldn’t feel guilty.”
“I don’t.” Ah, at least that automatic defense has not been compromised.
“Of course. Good.” She nods, and then touches my arm again. “She said that one of the things that…held her back for so long was how she, she blamed herself…for you. For how she raised you!” she adds hurriedly. “For how she didn’t care for you correctly.” She sighs exasperatedly and removes her glasses to polish them on a silk scarf. “I’m sorry; I’m not saying this right.”
“No, I understand,” I assure her. “Recrimination is a cycle. I know it well.”
So mother cast off her guilt? Well, hallelujah and pass me a virgin daiquiri. How neat for her. How positively white.
I excuse myself, after promising Mrs. Mason once more that I understand perfectly what she meant. I definitely do not want her to stammer through explaining she didn’t mean to say mother blamed herself for my sexuality. I think we’re both uncomfortable enough already.
On my way to my car I call Duenger to tell him to meet me at the house in an hour if he still wants in.
Oh, yes, oh, yes.
I stop at a chain family joint and pick a spot at the ‘bar’. The smell of warm maple-flavored corn syrup suffuses the air. Who am I to deny its flirtation? French toast and coffee. There is lipstick on my coffee cup and I wonder glumly if it’s meant to be a comment or just the random spoil of inattentiveness. There’s no telling; the waitress would call her executioner ‘Honey’.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she says when she slips me the bill.
* * * *
Unlike every other structure in town, the house does not look smaller. Two stories and a cellar, side and back yards. It was always more than we two needed; it had been meant for a family, after all. I had a younger brother, Chuck. The inevitable divorce split my family in the middle. It was as though my parents went to Solomon and took him at his word. Either my dad thought two kids would be too hard on him, or maybe just too hard to win, because of course my mother fought him for custody out of spite. Maybe dad misinterpreted the mutual contempt my mother and I shared for closeness; I remember him as fairly clueless. Either way, I’m sure it was easier to ‘cut bait’ on the longer line. He and Chuck called twice during the year after they left. They died together seven years later with the rest of his new family from carbon monoxide poisoning. Sleep tight. Mother flared for a month; I couldn’t have left her for the funerals even if I’d wanted to.
I pull into the driveway behind an unmarked white van with diagonal grating spanning its back windows. I find them on the porch. Duenger paces anxiously. The lummox orderly, smoking a cigarette, shares the creaking porch swing with the shifting limpness that is my mother, who is dressed but otherwise the same as I’d left her. I assume she just said something hilarious. She doesn’t see me.
“What the hell is she doing here?” I yell.
“Ah! Mr. Wince. Let’s get right to it, shall we?”
“Did you hear me?” I challenge.
Duenger furrows his brow, confused—no, he didn’t hear me. Then it processes. “Oh, yes—I thought it best to bring your mother to the origination point of her…” he twirls a hand. It strikes me odd that a psychiatrist can’t conjure a euphemism for ‘mental collapse’. ‘Episode’, for God’s sake. “I thought it would be enlightening to see if anything set her off.”
Still hot, I say, “I don’t see how that would be therapeutic. Besides, you said you suspected an environmental factor.”
“Indeed, I did,” he says, “and ‘environment’ is what we call our physical and psychical surroundings.”
I’ve never heard that definition before.
He goes on, “So the…contaminant might be chemical or biological, or even allegorical.
Just as memory is tied to scent, or a sad picture makes us sad. You see?”
“No,” I answer. I most certainly do not.
“If we went inside, perhaps everything will reveal itself,” Duenger encourages.
Perhaps because I’m not getting the explanation I want from the doctor, I look at the orderly. He shrugs disinterestedly. That should be all I expect, but I stare at him anyway. He chuckles and flicks the spent butt into a barberry bush. “If you want my professional opinion as an orderly,” he says, “I think your moms is batshit loco.” He stands and pulls my mother to her feet effortlessly. He mocks me, “I do hope this helps you on your path to understanding and acceptance.”
The doc frets, “I really don’t see what the problem is.”
I frown, spin and lurch for the handle. “It’s unlocked,” I announce. I regard the doctor suspiciously. “You could’ve gone right in without me.”
“Legally, I couldn’t enter,” he assures me, as though the law prohibitively affects physics. “Besides, we need to go in there as a unit.”
I don’t understand the distinction. I’m too annoyed to care.
“Hey, I’m hourly,” laughs the orderly. “Long as I’m done by five, you can do what the hell you want.”
Why am I fighting the inevitable? I open the door. I regret it.
“Damn!” the orderly recoils with his free arm to his nose. “And I hose down folks that shit themselves!”
The scent is noxious, but it’s not shit. And the fumes don’t burn my soft palate like so many chemical smells do. It’s not sweet like rot, either, or reeking like fish, or rotten like phosphorous. I can’t classify it. It’s aggressively damp, somehow, and fetid, like the burning fur of a sick dog was dowsed with vinegar.
Duenger marches past me into the house. “Let’s see inside, then. Come on, everyone in!” He sees our dubious faces and scrunched noses. “It’s not so bad inside,” he assures us, “after the initial shock is processed. You’ll see.” But even mother has changed her tune—unpleasantly. She is groaning.
“You don’t think that is what drove her nuts?” I demand.