Kissing Doorknobs

S
tep 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, everybody 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.