The Opposite of Music (15 page)

On the afternoon of February 25, I set Dad up to watch TV while Linda, Jodie, and I begin to gather all the dangerous objects in the house—medicines, sharp knives, sharp tools, razors and scissors, drain cleaners and other toxic chemicals, and rope or anything that could be used as rope—and hide them in a metal box that will go in the attic. We start in the utility room with the tools, then add my pocket knife and Grandpa Eddie's fishing knife, and then we move on to the bathroom cabinet. The pills Dr. Gupta prescribed in the fall were flushed long ago, but Jodie does the same with the white placebo sleeping pills. In the kitchen, we disagree about which utensils are dull enough to be kept downstairs for Mom to use in everyday cooking. Linda is standing by the utensil drawer with a carrot peeler and eight serrated table knives, I am testing the cheese slicer, and Jodie is holding the box and padlock. This is the way we look when Mom finds us and decides to go back to the doctor.

We file into the office, Mom first, then Dad, then me. Linda and Jodie are home with Jodie's mother. Most of the lights are out in the waiting room, and the receptionist has gone home. We've been squeezed in at the last minute, the last appointment of the day. The sky outside the large windows is dark. A set of headlights illuminates the snowy hedge briefly before swerving out of the lot.

Fritz closes the door behind us. Our folder is right there at his fingertips and he had obviously been reviewing it before we came in. He bites his bottom lip and looks around at each of us.

“How's everyone doing today?”

I evade Fritz's gaze and open my mouth to speak. No sound comes out. Then the room starts to blur and swim, and a repetitive sound, between breathing and speaking, comes from the back of my throat:
Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah.
I force my knuckles into my mouth.

“It's okay, Billy. All sounds are appropriate here. Now take a deep breath. Deep breath, in and out—
mmmmmph-pheeww
—nice and deep, from the abdomen. What's been happening since I last saw you? Anyone?”

“I think I'm about to lose my job,” Mom says.

“And why do you think that?”

“I'm not there enough.”

“That must be very difficult.”

“It is.”

“It's been a while, hasn't it?” Fritz continues. Fritz clasps his arms over his woolly shirt and tries to get Dad's attention. He does a funny thing with his eyes, making them gentler, yet more powerful, like a kindly hook that tugs the truth out of you.

“How are you feeling, Bill?”

“He doesn't talk much anymore,” I say helpfully, having dried my face with a Kleenex.

“Bill, are you having thoughts of harming yourself?”

Dad stares at his hands. I realize that he hasn't been shaving or trimming his beard. The different lengths of hair on his face make him appear rough, although he doesn't act that way.

Dad nods.

“How often?”

“Every day,” Dad rough-whispers.

“Have you made a plan for killing yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Bill!” Mom says. She reaches over and puts her hand on his arm.

“It's all right, Adele,” Fritz says. “Everything is going to be taken care of. Your husband is going to get the proper care now.” He writes something on a pad, then addresses us again. “I wish you had come in sooner,” he says. Then he softens his tone a bit. “I'm really glad, very glad, to see you today.” He says that in this hour he would like to speak with us individually, beginning with Dad.

Mom and I go out to the waiting room while Dad stays in with Fritz. We don't look at each other, but I sense Mom not wanting to let go of him, as if she could
shoosh
through the solid material of Fritz's door and be in there. She jumps up immediately when Fritz calls her name. Dad paces around the waiting room, and I find myself rubbing my hands too. Then I go last.

“Billy, tell me in your own words what's been going on at home.”

He waits while I say nothing.

“For instance, describe what yesterday was like.”

“Well, I came home from school…. And we watched a show about home remodeling on TV…. And I sat with Dad for a while. The voice inside Dad's head was telling him…to harm himself. To do away with himself.”

“And you spoke to the voice?”

“Yes, to the voice.”

“Not to your father?”

“No. They're two separate things, really. Two separate entities.”

“Does this voice speak through your father? Can you hear it out loud?”

“No, I figured it out by listening to him. It's in his thoughts. It's trying to take him over and control his thoughts. I can guess what he's thinking.”

“Like mind reading?”

“Yes.” I'm pleased at how surprised he is.

“You're very close to your father, aren't you?”

“Right now I am.”

“And you've worked very hard to take care of him during this time. Your mother has too.”

I nodded.

“But I have to be very clear and firm with you, Billy: You can't ever know for sure what someone else is thinking.”

“You can't?”

“No. You can get information from what they tell you, you can look at body language, you can develop hunches that you might later be able to confirm. But you can't actually ever read someone's mind.”

He keeps watching me, staring in that strange way, holding me in his gaze, and though what he's saying sounds like he's judging me, his eyes are saying he's seen everything before, everything. That noise starts again:
Ah. Ah.
And I think it's outside me, in the room itself, before I can feel that it's coming from me.

We just sit there for a few minutes, me struggling to control myself, then finding I don't have to, Fritz holding me with that gaze. After a while I stop looking all over the room and gaze back at him, like a staring contest but better. He says he will meet with my parents now to decide what's to be done.

“We're all here,” he says when my parents come back. He smiles at Dad, writes very quickly, then smiles at Dad longer. “We need to start doing something for you, Bill, right away.”

“Yes,” Mom says, “we realize that. We'd like to resume treatment immediately.”

“In terms of treatment options that remain, the time we've lost means we're now severely limited.”

“I think that at this point…” Mom takes a deep breath. “Knowing what we know now, I would be much more amenable to putting Bill back on meds.”

Dr. Fritz rests his elbows on Dad's file. Then he rubs the bridge of his nose. “What I mean to say, Adele, is that we don't have time to try another medication. We need something that acts more quickly. I have some calls in for you to look into electroconvulsive therapy.”

“Wait a minute,” Mom says. “Let's slow down here.”

“What is it, Adele?”

“Please don't tell me you're considering shock treatments,” Mom says. “Please don't tell me that.”

“This may be a difficult decision, Adele. Do you want Billy to be present during this discussion?”

“He can stay here for now.” This time Mom isn't saying she wants me here to take notes. I heard her telling Marty that she just doesn't want me to be alone.

“Well, let's not say ‘shock,' Adele. It's an ugly word, and it shocks the patients. This sort of treatment isn't really what you're picturing. It's much gentler than it was years ago.”

“Wait. Let's go back as if the last few weeks never happened, and start where we were before. We'll try another medication. Which one were you going to recommend next?” She feels on top of her head for her glasses, as if she's going to be given another prescription slip to read.

“Adele…”

Dr. Fritz seems a bit tired of Mom, as if he wouldn't mind never seeing her again. Has she become a medical obstacle? But he tries hard to hide it. “We're running out of time here, so we may need to continue this discussion over the phone. Adele, I'm always pleased when my patients and their families take an interest in their own care. I know you're all trying to be good consumers in trying to find what you think is best for Bill.

“But when we're dealing with a suicidal patient, time is extremely important. Your original psychiatrist, Dr. Gupta, doesn't generally supervise electroconvulsive therapy herself, so we will need you to meet with a different psychiatrist. I'll give you the name of someone with whom I occasionally cooperate. I've worked with him a few times over the years.” He opens a drawer at the left side of his desk, pulls out a business card, and hands it to Mom. Doing so gives him a chance to stand up. He remains on his feet and so, even though nothing has been resolved, we realize it's time to stand up too. A massive tiredness hits me. I wouldn't care if I wasted my life sleeping.

Fritz walks us to the door. “Make an appointment with him right away—for no later than the day after tomorrow. I'll phone him to let him know you're coming. It isn't a hundred percent sure that this will help, but if it does work, it could start to help very quickly. And this time you
must
follow the treatment plan. I'll check in with you. And him. And you again.”

Fritz chuckles. He sounds like the old Fritz. The Fritz who said, “Welcome!” to us and made us laugh by the door that day. That good day.

Little green house, half an inch square. I've kept it in a tissue, in the toe of a sock, in my sock drawer. It's hollow. It fits on the end of my pinkie like a cap. Ten houses could dance on the fingers of my hands like finger puppets in a hurricane, but I've only kept one. If I set it on my palm the two long lines in my skin swoop in to make a driveway.

A molded plastic house made in a factory somewhere. It's made of one piece, with the details pressed outward. The chimney is just a button. The front and back of the house are identical, with a door smack in the middle and a window on either side. The two other sides have no features, no windows or doors, just a sharp line that shows you where the roof ends. How simple. How nice. Someone made a plastic house. I cup the house in my two hands, cover it, and blow on it. My breath is warm and it warms the house.

Oh, God of houses and lots. Oh, great monopolizer. Protect this house. Whoever and wherever You are. Whatever You have the power to do. However You are able to know all our names and our streets' names. Whether You are watching from far away, like heaven, or from somewhere closer, like a low-flying helicopter. Don't turn Your back on us, okay?

People's luck is always changing. You made us that way. But You meant the bad times to be brief, didn't You? So why are our troubles hanging on?

Don't let our four walls collapse. Don't let our floor drop into the center of the earth. Don't let the air poison us. God of houses and lots, watch over this house.