Not As Crazy As I Seem (16 page)

"My mom doesn't trust me anymore. Dad doesn't know yet. He'll go crazy tonight when he hears they found the Rust-Oleum can with my fingerprints on it."

Ben draws his legs back so there's more room on the bed. "You can stay over here, if you want to get away from them."

"That's okay. It's not like they'll beat me or anything. They'll probably just ground me for longer."

"You're grounded now?"

"Yeah."

"Then how come you're here?"

He's got a point. I check my watch. I've been gone twenty minutes. Dad could come home any second. I have to run.

Ben leads me back downstairs. "Thanks—for not turning me in, I mean. You're a real friend." He opens the door and pats me on the back.

Wait a second. I came over for a reason. "Hey, Ben, I was wondering, like, whether you were maybe going to turn yourself in or anything?"

"Turn myself in?" He spits past me onto his porch. "My father would kill me."

"Yeah, my dad's really mad, too. I'm getting blamed for everything."

"I don't mean my dad would get mad—he'd really kill me. One time he jumped on me and almost smothered me. Another time he swung a baseball bat at my head and missed by like an inch. Then when—"

"I've really got to go, Ben. My dad will, well ... he won't like it if he catches me out."

"Yeah, sure, no problem. And don't worry. Everything's going to turn out fine for you."

I run all the way back, and when I turn the corner in front of our house, there's the van parked in the driveway. I duck behind it and run along the side of the house until I reach the door by the garage. I open it quietly and go in through the washer room. I open that door and flick on the light. Dad!

He's sitting on the sofa in the middle of the basement. He isn't reading or talking on the phone or writing or anything. He's just sitting there.

"I told you not to go out, Devon."

"I know, but I had to because..."

"Did the house burn down?"

"No, I went over to..."

"Then you weren't supposed to leave, were you?"

"No."

He gives me a little nod and almost seems to smile. I don't like this. Why isn't the old man jumping up and down and pounding the sofa? Why isn't he yelling and calling me irresponsible and untrustworthy and all those other words parents like to use?

"Your mother says your fingerprints were on the can of paint used to spray the walls."

"Yeah, I explained how that was."

"It's proof you did the graffiti, Devon. You'll be lucky if they don't expel you."

"Expel me? But I didn't do it."

"Do you have proof you didn't?"

My proof is Ben. I should turn him in, but what if his father really did kill him then? It would be because of me.

"I've never seen your mother this upset at you, Devon. She hates being lied to more than anything."

"I know."

"Then you have to understand, we're not going to get past this until you start telling the truth."

The truth? That's what I've been telling him. What he wants to hear are lies. This is crazy. I have to lie before they're going to believe me! Well, then, that's what I'll do.

"Okay, Dad, I did it. I went in the freaking school and sprayed 'Nazi' everywhere because..." Why would I do that? I can't even think of a good reason." ...because I like Nazis, that's it. I mean, how can you not admire Hitler? He had the whole world going there for a few years, didn't he?"

Dad raises his hand. I see it, but I don't know what it's going to do. I watch the hand flash through the air and slap my face.

"You have the gall to make fun of this disgusting behavior of yours?"

I step back from him. My cheek burns. I've never been hit before, never even been spanked, at least that I can remember. Now I know what Ben went through. Maybe they should have whacked me when I started doing weird things and ended it right at the beginning. Maybe it's their fault I'm obsessive. There has to be some reason.

The New Improved Devon Brown walks into his shrink's office as calm as anything. Nothing bothers him, and nothing's going to bother him. He might even sit down in the crummy, sweaty vinyl chair today.

On the other hand, why mess up a perfectly good afternoon by forcing myself to sit? Rome wasn't built in a day, right? Start off small and work up to the big things.

Besides, I can say what I have to say standing up. "So, Dr. W., I'm ready to change."

He takes off his glasses and squints at me, which makes me wonder if he can see better with them on or off. "I'm glad to hear that, Devon. What are you ready to change about yourself?"

He's pretending not to know. The Old Impatient Devon would think something sarcastic about the guy. The New Sunny Devon just plays along.

"I get kind of ... no, I get
really
obsessed about some stupid little things, like lining up my shoes under my bed, and doing things in fours and straightening crooked posters, and it's interfering with my life. So I'm ready to change. You just need to tell me how."

"I see. And what brings you to this revelation that your life would be improved if you weren't so compulsive about things?"

"I got in trouble at school, for one thing. You know about that. And my parents hate me."

"I'm sure they don't hate you, Devon."

I used the wrong word. Parents aren't supposed to ever hate their kids, although I bet plenty of them do. "All right, they're disappointed in me all the time."

"They may be disappointed that you've had some problems, but..."

Enough about them. I want to get to the point, which is me. I wait till he takes a little pause. "So, like, can you give me some pill that will change me?"

"A pill?"

"Yeah. Like kids who can't concentrate get Ritalin. I concentrate too much, right? So what do you have for that?"

"Devon, I don't think you should be looking to a drug as the answer."

"You mean there's nothing to help me?"

"There are medicines, certainly. Luvox, for example, is an antidepressant approved a few years ago for treating children with this disorder."

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."