Total Constant Order (6 page)

T
hayer led the way. The ground was littered with cigarette butts and beer cans stripped by the rain. It was like visiting another planet. Clouds hung in the sky so thick they might've rained milk. I could see the moon, a hangnail sliver, although it was still daylight. I used to think it was following me, until Dad explained that it was always there, even when we couldn't see it.

“Where are we going?” I asked. “I mean, we should be getting back.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me along. “Who said we were going anywhere?”

“Oh. Okay.”

We settled close to the edge of the canal. It wasn't far from school, but I'd never noticed it during my
rides to class. This is how Florida used to look: a marsh lined with tall grass and windswept mangroves, their roots folded like hands.

“The water is so clear,” Thayer said.

I turned and saw he was watching me.

When we reached the shore, I spotted a chain of pelicans on a rotten deck.

“Shh!” Thayer hissed. He held me back, his arm flung across my collarbone. “Be very quiet,” he said in a low voice. Thayer reached into his jacket and pulled out a small metal pipe.

Thayer said, “Being bored alone is sad. But two people being bored is okay. It's going to rain again. Those telephone wires are going to give us cancer. Want to smoke?”

I stood in the shade and tried to look bored. “No thanks.”

“You smoke trees?” he asked, and took a quick drag. Fumes spilled from his mouth.

“Yeah,” I lied.

“I steal from my mom. She keeps her weed in a coffee can.” He coughed so hard, it sounded like he was breathing through a straw.

“Doesn't it, like, mess with your asthma?”

“How do you know I have asthma?”

“Your inhaler.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But I usually use buckets, you know? Gravity bongs.”

He jerked the pipe at me. I shook my head.

“You straight-edge or something?”

Most edgers didn't even “use” caffeine. They drew
X
's on their hands and listened to hard-core bands like Black Flag. I almost wished I could relate to them, swear off aspirin, become a born-again vegetarian.

Out on the bay, a boater had run aground. He gunned his throttle and I thought about the manatees grazing in the shallow water.

“Weed should be legal,” said Thayer. “I mean, have you ever met a violent pothead?”

“Uh, no.”

“Smoking helps with my ADD. It keeps me from kicking the crap out of people who piss me off.”

I thought about that day at school when he had beamed the tennis ball so hard, it broke the
window. Then it made sense that Thayer was seeing a shrink. He had attention deficit disorder. ADD. Those three letters explained why he couldn't sit still in class.

The pipe crackled. Thayer said, “If everyone smoked weed, there would be more peace in this urban wasteland.”

I laughed. Then I said something I immediately regretted.

“Did you take, like, medication? I mean, for your ADD?”

“I've been eating Ritalin since I was ten.”

“Oh.”

“But it makes me want to puke.”

“I know,” I told him.

He stared. “You on anything?”

My skin tingled. I couldn't think of how to sidestep his question, so I told the truth.

“I'm taking Paxil.”

“Yeah?”

In the distance, the boater revved his engine. It's against the law to run a boat up on a flat, but that didn't stop them.

“Actually, I don't want to take it anymore.”

Thayer nodded. “I would eat Ritalin like candy before I'd mess with Paxil again.”

“You've tried it?”

“Sure. Paxil, Wellbutrin, BuSpar, Zoloft, Prozac,” he said, tapping his fingers. This was enough to make my own fingers itch. I buried them in my pockets.

“Geez. Why so many?” I said.

“Because they don't work,” he said. “At least, not for me.”

Did they work for anybody?

“How long you been on it?” he asked.

“A few weeks.”

“Even my mom's been on Paxil,” he said. “Didn't do her any good.”

Too many words. I couldn't concentrate. My own mother would be waiting in the school's empty parking lot, on a rampage if the nurse followed through with her phone call. I had to get out of there fast.

“Let's go back,” I said.

Thayer flicked ash into the canal. “Ever see a
manatee?” he said, staring down into the water. “They're like dinosaurs. They move so slow, the boats just plow them over. People act like manatees don't belong in this city, like they're outcasts or something. But they've been here a long time, doing their own thing, you know? You've got to give them props.”

“I've never seen one,” I said. “Have you?”

Thayer slipped the pipe into his pocket. He slunk ahead, in some other time zone.

When we got to school, the streetlights were burning holes in my eyes. Maybe I had inhaled too much of Thayer's secondhand smoke. It was late, but the sky was blank, pure static.

Thayer stopped in front of the parking lot. Mama's rustbucket, a 1980s Nissan Stanza, flashed its headlights at us. I had to sneak away.

“That's my mom,” I said. “I gotta go.”

Thayer ambled toward the street. I could still see him, the way sparklers left marks in midair.

Seconds after he left, it started to drizzle. When I was trapped in the car, Mama asked about the “boy.”

“I don't really know him,” I said.

The windshield wipers squeaked. Mama put on the turn signal, pulled into the left lane, and let an ambulance pass. I spotted those flashing lights and imagined Mama in the hospital, pale walls in a pale room. I started counting traffic lights. One, two, three.

“Are you okay?” she asked, rubbing my head. “Do you want to tell me what happened at school today?”

No, I didn't.

“You used to be a straight-A student.”

I watched the ambulance vanish into the rainstorm. Mama was driving too slow, white-knuckling the steering wheel.

Her tone dropped a notch. “Why are you behaving like this?”

“Like what?”

“Your voice is filled with anger all the time. You snap at me over nothing and then somehow it's my fault for feeling attacked,” she said.

Of course my voice was filled with anger. I was angry at my parents for taking me away from my
friends and then expecting me to behave like it was no big deal.

She pulled off at the exit. Although it never felt like autumn in Miami, cold-weather fashions crammed the store windows. Not that I could wear those fur “diva” coats or corduroy jackets. Not here.

Rain rolled off the dashboard, defying gravity. I picked at a hangnail.

“This isn't like you, Fin. I don't understand why you're acting out.”

She stroked my hair. I had to be good, she said, and square things away.

“Just try a little harder,” she said.

That was so much easier said than done.

W
hat would you like to talk about?” asked Dr. Calaban. She gestured toward the bookcase, crammed with her African violets.

I couldn't talk. It meant too much to her. I was holding back to maintain control over the situation, yet I never felt in control of anything.

“Okay,” she said. “I'll go first.”

She asked about my visit to the school nurse, but I didn't feel like spilling my guts. Now Dr. Calaban had other plans.

“I'd like to talk to your regular physician,” she said, pronouncing the word like my French teacher, “fah-zeesh-yon.” Dr. Calaban was a non-native like me. I wanted to ask if Haiti was dangerous, like they said on the news, all those murders
and kidnappings. That's what a friend would've asked. But we weren't friends.

“One doctor is bad enough,” I said.

She frowned. For a moment, I almost worried about hurting her feelings. “Let's get back to your routines.”

“Who doesn't have routines?”

She watched my fingers.

“I can't stop counting,” I admitted. “I even dream about numbers. Invisible armies of them.”

Dr. Calaban wrote in her notebook.

“Frances, are you familiar with OCD?”

Did she say ADD? No, that was Thayer's problem.

“I think you might have obsessive-compulsive disorder.” She peeled a Post-it note off her computer monitor, ripped a thin strip, and scribbled on it. I took the note and gawked at the words. The stickiness stayed on my fingers no matter how much I rubbed.

“Does that mean I'm losing my mind?” I asked.

Dr. Calaban folded her smooth brown hands.
“No, you're not losing your mind. OCD is also known as the doubting disease. This means that you often find yourself stuck on the same thoughts, spinning your wheels in circles.” She made a loopy gesture, the bone bracelet clattering.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I'd like to up your prescription. Paxil has been known to help those with OCD. Should we give it a try?”

The last thing I needed was more Paxil. The side effects had grown so bad, they even leaked into my dreams at night. It was getting harder to tell the difference between my nightmares and my world when I was awake. Every morning, I found moon-shaped fingernail marks in my palms. My jaw ached from clenching my teeth. The pain seemed to last all day, although I never remembered when it began.

“Will the medicine make me feel any different?” I asked.

“Different in what way?”

I didn't answer.

“Are you talking about side effects? Because
Paxil can sometimes cause headaches.”

I kept staring at her creepy skull bracelet.

“Frances, how is the Paxil making you feel?”

“Like crap,” I told her.

“Okay,” she said. “Can you give me more details?”

“There's no escape from it. Even my dreams are painful. I wake up with a stomachache, my head won't stop throbbing, everything tastes weird. I thought the meds were supposed to make me feel better, not worse.”

Dr. Calaban looked surprised. “If you don't share what's going on, I can't help you. That is, if you want my help. What do you think? Can we work together?”

I thought for a second. “Yes,” I said.

“Good. Then let's start by adjusting the dosage of your medication.”

I groaned. “So I have to keep taking it?”

“For now,” she said.

“How long is ‘now'?”

“There are some people who choose to remain on antidepressants. But that's your decision. I
would like you to continue taking it in conjunction with our sessions.”

Who cared what she wanted? I had my own plans. That's when I decided to quit taking Paxil altogether. Not that she needed to know.

Her bracelet rattled as she scribbled in the notepad.

“What are you writing?”

“Should I share it with you?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Your obsessions are a means of gaining control. You couldn't stop your parents' divorce. I want you to see that you can take control in a more constructive way.”

“How? Slitting my wrists?”

Her expression didn't change. “Are you being facetious?”

Dr. Calaban waited and didn't look away.

“Just kidding,” I said. “I'm doing better, really. I'm not counting the clock so much anymore.”

I stared at the potted violets. I wanted to slide my tongue across their whiskery leaves.

Dr. Calaban cleared her throat. “What do you
mean ‘counting the clock'?”

“That's why I can't sleep.”

“Frances,” she said. “Why can't you sleep?”

I shifted in the chair, squeezing its legs like I'd done during our first session.

“I count while I do things.”

“Like what?”

“Like brushing my teeth.”

“Can you tell me what it feels like?” she asked. “Counting?”

“I can't stop doing it. If I lose count or finish on an odd number, then I have to start all over again.”

Dr. Calaban locked her dark eyes on mine. I decided not to tell her the other part of my tooth-brushing obsession. I couldn't stop thinking about germs. A toothbrush is crawling with microscopic bugs. Amazing what you learn by watching the Discovery Channel.

“Do you know when you started counting?” she asked.

 

It was the last month of school before we left Vermont. I was lying in bed, unable to move.

When I think about my old room, I imagine it exactly the same, only dustier. There was a stuffed hound dog slumped by the door—its sole purpose, keeping my room open. Beside it was one of those cheesy lamps that glowed like a movie screen. (It depicted a forest fire, not the most comforting bedtime scene.)

A thought popped into my head. “I wish Dad would die.” So I said the words out loud. “I wish Dad would die.” The words just bubbled up. I tried to ignore them, but they kept rolling: “I wish Dad would die, I wish Dad would die.” I tried thinking, “I love Dad,” but it didn't help.

I glanced at the clock. If I could squash the words before the next minute rolled around, everything would be okay. I squeezed my arms against my chest and counted.

Eight minutes. Nine minutes. An uneven number. For some reason, it looked wrong, so I counted again. And again.

I couldn't go to class and concentrate on
A Tale of Two Cities
or the life cycle of a fruit fly or El Niño's effect on global weather patterns. I started
counting everything in the room. I counted the boys with unlaced sneakers and the girls with curly hair. I counted stains on the ceiling and fingerprints in the window.

It was never enough.