Thumbsucker (32 page)

I chose Perry Lyman for my checkup because there was something that only he could do for me. He’d fallen into another slump, I’d heard. His farmhouse was window-high with uncut grass. He’d sold his helicopter and quit the Guard.

I drove alone to the new clinic he’d opened in a run-down strip mall. The sign on the door listed no other partners. The parking stripes in the lot were dull and cracked.

He greeted me in a shabby waiting room that lacked a receptionist’s desk. He had on a wrinkled short-sleeved
smock that revealed the sort of fatty muscle of a body-builder who’s quit the gym.

“The young man of God,” he said.

“Just drop it, Perry.”

The examining room was bare, no posters; only a clock that looked salvaged from a grade school, with rounded, childish numbers and a white face. He’d kept his old chair, but its leather was lined and brittle. I decided to wait until after the exam to tell Perry Lyman what I wanted from him.

“New York City,” he said.

“Got lucky.”

“Did you? I’d call it the ultimate double bind. Young, white, and unattached in Gotham, but a Mormon missionary. Ouch.”

I looked up at him, past the yellowed dental lamp. “Are you going to examine me or not? And what’s with the beard? What happened to G.I. Joe?”

Perry Lyman eyed me, flat and cold. Again and again, it had come down to the two of us, and now we were circling each other for the last time. Some strangers become more important to you than family, maybe because you’re not expected to love them. You can leave them whenever you want to. They can, too. Every moment together is a choice.

Perry Lyman turned on the water in the spit sink. On one of his knuckles I noticed the raised scar that dated back to my wisdom teeth extraction.

“I gave up fighting the facts,” he said. “I accepted myself, in all my human disorder. Before you bury yourself in this religion thing, I suggest you consider doing the same.”

“Admit I’m a mess?”

“A certain kind of mess. The King Kong of oral obsessives. Open wide.”

I sealed my lips. I refused to let him in.

“I have patients coming. Open up.”

“Your parking lot is filled with dust,” I said. “There hasn’t been a patient here for days.”

“Hope, my boy. I live in hope. Like you.”

Perry Lyman picked up a scraper from his tray and I opened my mouth as wide as it would go, straining my cheek muscles. He hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go back in there, and I didn’t blame him. My mouth was deep and dark.

He fumbled around a little, then lost his nerve. He set down the scraper, put aside the tray, and took a pack of cigarettes from his trousers. He shuffled out two of them, and lit them both. He offered me one and I took it; my last, I told myself. My last with someone else watching.

“Peace?” he said.

I needed one last service from him. “Peace.”

“I remember when you were on nitrous once and babbling. You’re quite the babbler,” Perry Lyman said. “Most patients chatter about their private lives. Spill dark secrets. But you were pure ambition. I was surprised;
I don’t think of you that way. I wouldn’t have guessed that underneath it all what you want most is to host your own TV show.”

I folded my hand on my chest. “I really said that? It’s something I used to toy with in my head.”

“New York’s the perfect place for you, in that case. Make the contacts. Knock on certain doors. Get the right haircut, take voice lessons. Might work.”

I looked at my watch. The morning was going by. Unless I paid for my airplane ticket by noon, I’d lose my economy fare.

“Let’s get down to it,” Perry Lyman said. “I know why you’re here today. It’s obvious.”

I squirmed.

“You want your thumb back.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Fear of authority. Failure. Strangers. Loneliness. Need that pacifier. Need that tit.”

I rose from the chair. “Forget it. Big mistake.”

“The mistake in your case was stopping,” Perry Lyman said. “This won’t even take an hour. Close your eyes.”

“But I’ll lose my cheap plane fare.”

“We can’t have everything.”

After delicate negotiations, Mike’s parents agreed to attend my going-away party. Their opening position had been no Mormons, since Grandma believed that the
church was a cult intent on taking over the government. For once, Mike stood firm against her and won approval for twenty LDS guests. Grandpa’s issue was the serving of alcohol. Mike crumbled on this one, and I wasn’t surprised. For months he and Audrey had been regulars at the clubhouse happy hour.

On the day of the party Audrey blew up balloons as Grandma supervised from a lawn chair, perusing the latest issue of
True Crime
through a pair of wraparound dark glasses. She’d gone downhill since I’d seen her last, and there was a plan afoot to move her into a Minneapolis elder-care facility. Her hearing was shot, distorting her speech, she’d developed a substantial bald spot, and though she still smoked as much as ever, she used supplemental oxygen at night. Grandpa was the same, though maybe a bit fatter and quieter. The Horizoneer had a For Sale sign on its windshield.

Picnic tables and pop-up canopies arrived from the rental shop on a flatbed truck. Mike and I unloaded them as Joel drove a mower, borrowed from the greenskeeper, in circles around the yard. We’d set up a badminton net and a croquet set, though I didn’t imagine the Mormon guests would use them.

The guests began arriving early, laden with cardboard barrels of mint chip ice cream, coolers full of decaffeinated cola, and not one but three tall, decorated cakes featuring plastic statuettes of the Empire State Building. I assumed that one woman had made all three
cakes, but I found out otherwise. On big occasions Mormons thought alike, it seemed.

I showered, then went to my bedroom to dress. I put on my grandparents’ going-away presents: a lightweight navy-blue suit and a black belt containing a hidden money pouch lined with several fifty-dollar bills. I was counting the cash when the door opened.

It was Opal. She spread her arms. We hugged. Stripped of her usual load of jewelry and wearing a clingy rayon dress that highlighted the buckles of her bra straps, she looked like a fresh-picked flower. And she smelled like one.

We chatted for a few minutes and then I said: “You don’t have to promise to wait for me. It’s fine. Two years is a long time. I understand.”

Opal smoothed her dress over her lips. “I have some news,” she said. “I’m following you. I got into college at NYU. Surprise!”

I sat down on my bed. Opal’s big news was not entirely welcome. She slid her cool hands around me and locked them tight between my shoulder blades. “You happy?”

“Sure.”

Mike appeared in the doorway, just in time. “You’d better come down. Your mother is in tears. My parents are locked in the camper, on strike. Also, that speech coach friend of yours hooked up a sound system. He’s playing disco tapes.”

“Be right there,” I said.

Mike backed away. “Let’s make this look good today. Big smiles. Strong handshakes. After that, you’re on your own. Out of sight, out of mind.” Mike left the bedroom.

“What did he mean by that?” Opal said.

“They don’t think I’ll last. They think I’ll quit my mission.”

“Not with me checking up on you, you won’t.”

I looked at the wall. I clenched my teeth. I was going to have to ditch this girl.

Special occasions designed to make memories—birthdays, graduations, holiday feasts—had always done the opposite for me. The slightest pressure to savor the moment blanked me out. That’s what happened at the party. Fuzzy blessings, anonymous kisses, and the faint taste of cake were all I could remember.

Except for Joel’s speech. It stuck with me, every word. He stood on a picnic table and waved a salad spoon to get the crowd’s attention.

“My brother has always been good at trying new things and now he’s trying this thing. Hope he likes it. Every time he turns over a new leaf, the one underneath it has problems, too. As for converting people to the church, I’m sure he’ll do fine, if he puts his mind to it. His mind jumps around a lot, though. Whose doesn’t, I guess. My only advice for him is: be less sarcastic. Notice people’s feelings better. Listen.

“To be honest, I’m pretty concerned to see him go. I don’t know how to put this. He’s used up a lot of excuses in his life and he doesn’t have many left. Does that make sense? Anyway, I propose a toast to him.”

Joel raised his paper cup. The crowd raised theirs. “Take good care of yourself out there, okay? Make sure to try new things. Be kind. We love you.”

Audrey moved close and put her arm around me. I could smell that she’d been drinking non-Mormon punch.

“I’m not sure I know what your brother meant,” she said, “but that was beautiful.” She squeezed me, hard.

I knew very well what he’d meant. I squeezed her back. The guests fell into a line to shake my hand.

After a stretch of rough air above Wisconsin the plane leveled off and cruised smoothly through the night. I fell asleep with one cheek against the window. Air from the vent nozzle gusted across my face. I woke up when a light flashed on: my seatmate’s reading light. I looked at her through half-closed, spying eyes. My age. Pretty. Slim. Red hair. Black boots. Something told me she wasn’t from Minnesota, that she lived in the East and had been here on a visit. On her lap was a copy of the
New York Times
, open to the arts section. The headline was about a play on evil French aristocrats.

I watched her read. I wondered if she’d seen my badge yet; in case she hadn’t I furtively undipped it and put it in the ashtray in the seat arm. She folded down
her dinner tray and accepted a foil-wrapped meal from the flight attendant.

I stretched and sat up. I wanted the girl to look at me.

“Did I wake you up?” she said. “I’m really sorry. I can move if this light is in your eyes. Here, it’ll just take a second. I’ll move over.”

It was only just then, when I started to ask her to stay (no, your light doesn’t bother me, I’d tell her, and by the way my name is Justin Cobb, I’m flying to New York to spread the gospel, although, to be honest, I’m thinking of going AWOL, which everyone is half expecting anyhow; and in fact when my mother said good-bye tonight she told me in a whisper that I was free now, that God could probably get along without me, so why not just go
live?
Lord knows you’ve earned it), that I noticed what was in my mouth.