Every Fifteen Minutes (7 page)

I haven't felt this good and bad in a long time, and lying here in the darkness, naked under the sheets, it feels like the cotton is burning into my skin, setting it tingling.

Everything is inferior to this feeling, the beginning of a plan. It's like the Friday night to the weekend that I've been waiting for.

I turn over and stuff the pillow under my neck, but still can't calm down. Even though the room is dark and I am still, the night feels somehow alive, my body suspended, floating, flying, my nerves electrified, my heart pumping, my blood racing, adrenaline racing through my system, setting all of my neurons firing.

Sizzle! Bam! Pop!

I'm a video game.

This is as excited as I get. Sociopaths have underactive amygdalas, the emotional center of the brain. You can go online and see for yourself, thermal MRIs of a sociopath's brain show where the amygdala is supposed to be hot red and orange, a sociopath's amygdala is dark, black, and cold, like permanent midnight.

Works for me.

Right now, my thoughts are running free, corkscrewing back in time, to the very beginning, to the very first time I felt this feeling.

I remember it.

I was seven years old, and my mother had a boyfriend over, and this one had a kid of his own, a fat-faced son named Jimmy. She put me in the backyard to play with him while they went inside the house and we knew what they were doing, even then I knew what she was doing, I heard the noises.

By the way, it's not my mother's fault I'm a sociopath.

And she can't take the credit either.

The fact is, I was born this way.

I've always known I was different, right from the beginning, and so did my mother, that's why she kept her distance. She was scared of me, I could see it in her eyes, and she could see it in mine, who I was, the truth.

I never felt like anybody else, I always knew I was better. Smarter. Special. But I knew how to imitate them, how to make them think I was like them, and I was pretty good even way back when, like that day when Porky Pig Jimmy came to visit and I gave myself my first test.

I left Porky to play in the backyard, went inside the house, and took his father's blue plastic Bic lighter from the end table. The noises came from the bedroom so I knew my mother was still busy, and I took the plastic lighter, set fire to a newspaper on the couch, and slipped the lighter in Porky Pig's Ninja Turtles backpack. Then I went out to the backyard, where Porky was writing his name in the dirt with a stick.

It only took five minutes for mom and her boyfriend to come running out, half-dressed, puffing and panting, scared that the house almost burned down. At first my mother thought she left a cigarette burning, but the boyfriend figured out that it was a set fire and accused us.

Of course I denied it, and so did Porky.

But then the boyfriend realized his lighter was missing and went looking, and lo and behold, where did it turn up but behind old Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and whoever the other one was, I forget.

What I remember is how fast the boyfriend grabbed Porky by the scruff of the neck and cracked him across the face, sending the kid flying backwards.

I covered my face.

So nobody could see me smile.

That's what I feel like right now.

Awesome.

 

Chapter Nine

The next morning, Eric opened the door to his waiting room to find Max Jakubowski sitting in one of the wooden chairs, hunched over his phone, scrolling the screen with his thumb. “Max? Good morning.”

“Oh, hi.” Max looked up, slipped his phone quickly into his back pocket, and jumped to his sneakers, as if he were coming to attention.

“Have trouble finding the office?”

“No, used GPS.”

“Good. Come on in.” Eric gestured Max through the open door to his office, and as the boy shuffled past, Eric thought he seemed more troubled than he'd been in the hospital. Max hung his head and had darkish circles under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept much. His forehead was knit under his bangs, and his mood seemed generally depressed.

“Thanks for seeing me, Dr. Parrish.” Max stopped in the center of the office, his eyes grateful, if guarded. Up close, Eric could see that his pale, smooth skin had no trace of beginning stubble.

“No problem. Please sit down.” Eric gestured him to the oversized forest-green chair across from his own.

“Thanks.” Max eased onto the chair, bending from the knees sharply, as stiff as a stick figure. He had on loose jeans, another black T-shirt, and worn Converse sneakers. “I didn't realize you were such a big deal at the hospital. I looked you up online.”

“That's me, a very big deal.” Eric smiled, trying to put him at ease.

“So this is what a psychiatrist's office looks like.” Max looked around, wheeling his scruffy head.

“Don't draw too many conclusions. It used to belong to an orthodontist.”

Max smiled uncomfortably, still looking around, and Eric took a moment to scan the pale green walls, which had four panels of double-hung windows on three sides. On the right was his modern desk of tiger maple, which he kept uncluttered, a green-gray Aeron ergonomic chair, and a low walnut bookcase stuffed with his textbooks, professional journals, and the DSM. Atop the bookcase was a Keurig coffeemaker, next to a few clean mugs and stethoscope and blood-pressure cuff he used to check vitals. Three oversized chairs of a matching green-patterned fabric faced each other in the center of the room. He hadn't had a chance to hang anything on the walls, but there wasn't much wall space anyway. He kept his diplomas in his office at the hospital.

“There's no couch.”

“That's for something called psychoanalysis.” Eric smiled again. It was a common misconception. “We can sit here and talk.”

“Oh.” Max gestured outside the window, where butterfly bushes shaded the room from direct sunlight, making shifting shadows. It was quiet outside, except for the chirping of some noisy blue jays and a rumble of a distant leaf blower. “I like the trees and all.”

“I like that, too.”

“Is that your family?” Max's gaze fell on the bookcase, with its photographs of Caitlin and Hannah.

“Yes.” Eric nodded, but didn't elaborate. He used self-disclosure judiciously, mostly because he didn't want to waste time. Not all psychiatrists kept personal photos in their offices, but since his private clients were never dangerous, he didn't worry about his family's safety.

“So, what do I call you? Dr. Parrish, like at the hospital?”

“Yes, Dr. Parrish is fine.” Eric lifted his computer tablet from the end table, then rested it in his lap. He always picked it up at the beginning of the session, so his clients wouldn't attribute any significance to when he reached for it, later.

“I have a note from my grandmother, to say I can come.”

“That's not necessary, you can consent to therapy on your own.”

“She thought it was like school, and it has the check.” Max reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of stationery, which he handed to Eric, who skimmed it—
Dr. Parrish, God bless you for taking care of my Max
—written in a shaky hand that summoned a lump to Eric's throat. A check was inside, and he set them both on the end table.

“Perfect, thanks. I'm glad you decided to come.” Eric typed
Max Jakubowski
and the date on the notepad. Later he'd print the notes and put them in a patient file, which he kept locked in his home office. He never recorded his sessions.

“My grandmother really wanted me to come. She likes you a lot.” Max clasped his hands together in his lap, his nervousness making him rigid.

“I like her too. How is she today?”

“Not great, to be honest. She was tired this morning. She usually tries to have some coffee around seven o'clock—she likes instant coffee, crystals or whatever—but not today. She got up but she went back to sleep without her coffee.” Max bit his lip. “It kinda worried me, like, I was thinking, it's so weird to know that, well, one day I'll go to wake her up and she won't wake up, and like, that can happen anytime.”

“That's very difficult.”

“Yeah, like, I don't know if it's better to know or not know. I can't really believe it's happening.”

Eric thought of Laurie's telling him that Mrs. Teichner had two weeks to live, but he didn't share that. “I'm sure. It's a very difficult thing to cope with.”

“I know, and I had to come see you, but not because she says so. She doesn't really know what's going on, with me. I keep it from her.” Max paused, blinking. “I guess I have to tell you, I want to, it's why I'm here, why I knew I would come, like, sooner or later. My symptoms are getting worse.”

“What symptoms?”

“I have OCD.”

“Tell me about your OCD.” Eric used Max's term, but wasn't taking it at face value. He would have to know Max better before he made a diagnosis, and he'd have to learn the boy's family history, to determine his biological vulnerabilities. Late adolescence and early adulthood was a dangerous time, especially for boys; it was around Max's age that “first breaks” usually occurred, in that bipolarity and schizophrenia reared their ugly heads.

“Dr. Parrish, I really need you to give me some meds. I've done the research, I know meds can help OCD. Isn't that right?”

“Yes, it is.” Eric encountered this all the time in practice; if a pill existed, patients wanted it. He wasn't anti-meds, but he wasn't about to order anything unless it was called for, especially with an adolescent.

“Luvox and Paxil are good for OCD, I read. Is that what I'll get?”

“Before we talk about meds, let's talk about your symptoms.” Eric usually prescribed an SSRI for OCD, like fluoxetine, which was FDA approved, or Celexa, Zoloft, and Luvox, but all of them came with black box warnings for adolescents, which meant they could result in suicidality.

“What about my symptoms?”

“Your OCD, as you say. How does it manifest itself?” Eric wanted to get Max talking, the goal in a first session. “Many people use the term OCD as slang. I need to know your symptoms.”

“I have a thing I have to do, like, every fifteen minutes. I have to tap my head and say something and right on time.” Max frowned. “I researched myself online. It's called rituals.”

“Right. Ritualistic behaviors.”

“Yes.” Max nodded, jittery. “Once at work, I slipped and said the ritual words out loud and my boss heard, which was terrible.”

Eric didn't interrupt, but typed a note,
work?

“Nobody knows, not even Gummy—I mean, my grandmother.” Max knit his hands, his expression showing the strain. “It's horrible, like, a secret I keep. I feel kind of crazy, and nobody knows, like, I have a double life.”

“I understand. Tell me when the rituals started.” Eric knew exactly how Max felt, though he wouldn't tell him that he'd had an anxiety disorder, yet. Eric used to question how he had the right to treat anybody when he'd had a mental disorder of his own, but every one of his colleagues had something, and people became psychiatrists for a reason. In truth, he believed his old anxiety disorder gave him insight he wouldn't otherwise have.

“A few years ago, maybe two years ago, it got worse. Really bad. I have to touch my head, my right temple, one time, right on time. Every fifteen minutes.”

“Around the clock, you mean?”

“Yes, if I'm awake, every fifteen minutes, I have to do this.” Max demonstrated, tapping his temple with a slim index finger. “I can't do it too late. I hide it at school or at work by pretending I'm moving my hair or touching a zit or something.”

“So you have to watch the clock.”

“Yes, constantly. I count down the minutes sometimes, to get to fifteen. It's always on my mind. It's all about the clock, twenty-four/seven.”

Eric could imagine how hellish it would be. “Do you count anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Ceiling tiles, sidewalk blocks, the number of times you chew, for example?”

“No.”

“Do you do things in numbers, like everything you have to do, you do three times?”

“No.” Max shook his head.

“Do you have to even up things, like make something symmetrical?”

“No.”

Eric took notes. “What certain words do you have to say when you tap?”

“I have to say red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple-brown-black, all at once, fast.” Max recited the colors together, in a rush. “I have to keep an eye on the clock and make sure I do it right on time. It drives me crazy.”

“I'm sure. Is there any significance to the colors?”

“I don't know.” Max paused. “But the picture in my head is watercolor paints I used to have when I was a kid, you know the kind everybody has, the lid flops open and there's wells for the paint, with a crappy brush that all the hair falls out of, like eyelashes.”

“I remember.” Eric did. Hannah had one, too.

“That just comes into my head and I have to say it.”

“Why every fifteen minutes, do you know?”

“No, just that fifteen is a good number. I love numbers. I like fifteen, as a number.” Max shrugged unhappily, his narrow shoulders going up and down in the T-shirt. “I hated turning sixteen because I had to leave fifteen.”

Eric made a note. “Did something good happen to you when you were fifteen?”

“No, not at all.”

“Did anything happen that could have precipitated these rituals?”

“No.” Max shook his head, nonplussed.

“Your grandmother's diagnosis was about two years ago, wasn't it? You told me so last night.”

Max blinked. “Yes, that's true.”

“So that was when you were fifteen.”

“Right. Does that make a difference?”

“Possibly.” Eric thought it seemed too easy. “Sometimes events like that can trigger or exacerbate OCD symptoms.”