by Teresa Toten
“Close enough,” said Adam. “Let’s go in.”
They formed a double line of three behind him.
“Wow!”
“Holy shit! OW! Sorry already!”
“Man, catch those windows!”
Their tight double line disintegrated about halfway up the nave as everyone fanned out taking in different wonders.
The church, praise the Lord, was empty. A miracle in itself, since there was usually a smattering of little old ladies in the pews doing the rosary or waiting for a glimpse of Father Rick.
“Wow, look at that, will ya!” Adam walked right into Snooki’s pointed finger. Everybody stopped. Everybody looked.
High above the marble altar and well in front of the hundred-year-old stained-glass window was a massive suspended bronze Christ nailed to a wooden cross.
“Christ!” said Iron Man.
“Exactly,” said Wonder Woman.
They were riveted. The scarred and protruding ribs, every perforated wound, the nails fixed through his hands and feet, the crown of thorns, and the excruciating, silent pain rose off the warm bronze to greet them.
“Come on, guys, this way. I was going to take Robyn to the candles. They’re on the far side of the sanctuary.” No one moved. He might as well have been speaking in Latin. “Guys? You can drop some coins into the slot, but it’s not a requirement. And you can light a candle for someone you loved and cared about who is no longer here.” They nodded but didn’t move, still hypnotized by the suspended Christ on the cross.
“Awesome,” said Green Lantern. “I swear he’s breathing.”
“I feel like I’m going to cry. Am I having a religious experience? Is this what that’s like?” asked Wonder Woman.
“Naw,” said Wolverine. “You just cry a lot.”
That broke the spell. They tore themselves away from the Christ to take in the sweeping Gothic arches, the marble and the majesty of all those stained-glass windows.
“Are we going to need a lighter?” asked Captain America. “I got a lighter for my doobies. I got a lighter. Do we need a lighter? In fact, I hate to break it to you, man, but there is a distinct aroma of doobieness in here.”
“That’s incense,” said Adam, and he was reminded that a thousand things could go wrong here. Actually, he was pretty much counting on it, but trying not to count on it.
“I’m just going to run back to the water thingy for a sec,” said Wonder Woman.
“No! I mean, no, you don’t need a lighter, and no, sorry, but you can’t go back and use the holy water to wash up.”
“I so was not—”
“Yeah, you so were,” said Snooki.
“Let’s just go over to those candles, okay?” Adam did a quick three-sixty—still safe: no priests, no nuns.
The stand of candles was under an incandescent statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The stand itself was about four feet by two feet—four votive candles deep and twenty-four long, for a total of ninety-six candles. This was unbearable, of course, so he immediately removed a votive and placed it under the stand. The superheroes said nothing. They assumed that he had just performed some Catholic ritual that was necessary before non-Catholics could start lighting stuff.
“It’s so, so pretty!” said Robyn somewhere behind him.
Adam nodded. He was lost in counting out the lit candles. Thirty-three. That was okay, and whatever the number was after they were through, he would come in and correct the outcome. Yes. And that calmed him: thirty-three flickering lights. Thirty-three was good.
Robyn was still gushing. “Proletarians don’t have this stuff, I’m sure of it. I’m definitely signing up.”
Adam turned in time to see Wolverine smile at her. Wolverine made a big show of reaching into his pocket and pulling out a ten. “I’ve got this covered for all of us, so long as Robyn goes first and has her pick.”
Adam felt like hurling.
“Thanks, Wolverine. That’s so sweet.”
Sweet my ass. Who does he think he is?
Each superhero lit at least one candle, Snooki lit seven, and they each executed the sign of the cross with varying degrees of success. Adam’s head buzzed as he tried to track the number of candles lit as well as where Wolverine was in relationship to Robyn at any given moment.
He had no early-warning system. The voice came out of nowhere and everywhere, all at once.
“Can I help you?”
Father Rick. Damn.
“Adam Ross, is that you? Adam, how great to see you!”
Led by Thor, the superheroes instantly and as one knelt on the granite floor and executed the world’s messiest signs of the cross.
“Well!” Father Rick stopped cold. “Well?” He looked to Adam and back to the seven kneeling superheroes. “What are you guys doing?”
“Batman said Catholics kneel when they see the Eucharist,” said Iron Man helpfully. Except for Adam they were all still kneeling.
Father Rick turned back to Adam, who threw up his hands because he honest to God didn’t know what else to do.
“How’s it going, Father?”
You could tell that the priest was sucking back a smile. He waited, seeming to gather himself. “Please get up, guys. I’m flattered, but I am not the Eucharist. I’m just a normal man who happens to be a priest.”
Yeah, right, thought Adam. He watched his crew rise, confused but eager for the next test.
“Adam?”
Okay, how to explain? “These are my …” Adam was so nervous he couldn’t remember anyone’s Christian name and he couldn’t very well introduce everyone by their superhero handles. “They’re my friends.” And in the saying, it was true. “So this is uh … um—”
“Hi, Father. I’m Robyn!” Robyn leapt up and curtsied. “Adam’s helping me to be a Catholic!”
“Is he, now?” said Father Rick, who to his credit did not look the least bit surprised.
“Yup, and I’m loving it so far—love, love, love!” she gushed. “The holy water was great, by the way, and I’m big into the rosary thing and the sign of the cross, of course. I’ve also got one of your pamphlets with, like, the top ten Catholic prayers on it. So I’m pretty much there, right?” Father Rick looked faintly alarmed. “Oh look, I know I’m going to have to take classes or go to Rome or something, but I’m getting ready to sign up for the whole deal.”
The priest nodded encouragingly at his potential new congregant.
“Real nice place you got here, Father.”
“Thank you, Mr.…?”
“Wolverine,” said Wolverine, extending his hand.
“Wolverine,” Father Rick repeated. “Mr. Wolverine. If I may, for just a moment …” He extended his arm towards Adam and led him away from the still semi-kneeling superheroes.
“I’m happy to see you branching out in your friendships, son.” He glanced back at the group. “Do you still see the Jewish boy? I liked him. When you were little, you two were joined at the hip.”
“Ben? Yeah, sure. Stones and me, we’re still tight. He’s just moved and he’s definitely not so little anymore. You wouldn’t recognize him. I’m, like you said, just branching out a bit.”
The priest smiled and frowned at the same time. It was a signature Father Rick expression.
“They’re my Group. Capital G, you know? We, uh, help each other. Weekly.”
“Oh, got it! Sure. That’s good, fine. Excellent.” The priest glanced back at them. “And how’s your mother doing?”
Okay, welcome to my landmine. He could not, would not betray his mom. But this was Father Rick! Adam was a pretty fair liar, maybe even a gifted one, but he would lie to nuns only when there was no other choice, to priests only in extreme emergencies and to Father Rick never. To lie to a priest, especially to the priest who you made your First Communion with and your Confirmation and who used to hear your confessions even as they started to go whack … well, that could land you some awesomely serious time in Purgatory.
Adam looked at his feet. �
�So yeah, Dad’s real good, Father, and … Look, we paid for the candles. Wolverine, the guy you talked to? Well, he stuck a tenner in the slot. You can check.”
“I see. I think.” Father Rick blew out of his lips in a way that made his cheeks flutter. It was one of his best tricks. It used to break Adam up at mass. “Well, I like your new friends, Adam. They’re … eager. My door will be open whenever any of you need it to be. You’re welcome here is all I’m trying to say. Whenever and always. Welcome back.” He nodded at Adam before heading back to the sacristy.
Adam felt lonelier as soon as the priest turned around. He missed this: the candles, Father Rick’s weirdo way of knowing stuff without being told.
Didn’t matter. Not important. He started for the candles.
“Okay, guys, have you had a chance to say a prayer for whoever? There’s an evening mass, so folks will start coming in soon.” Most of them seemed to be reluctant to leave.
“He was real sweet, your padre,” said Snooki. “I thought Catholic priests were … I don’t know, way scarier. Have you ever seen The Devil Inside or the far superior cult classic The Exorcist?”
“Uh, no on the movies and, yeah, he can be major decent.” They were almost at the doors by the time Adam’s body realized that they were near the doors. And there it was. No! That hardly ever happened. Not going out too? Not here, not with them. No! Adam stopped short.
Snooki caught it. Confused at first, she crooked her head this way and that. Her earrings swatted her shoulders. “Okay,” she said brightly. “So we’ll meet you outside, right?”
Before Adam could even nod, Wolverine, with a greasy flourish, opened the damn door for Robyn. “After you.” He smiled.
Robyn looked at her feet. “Thank you, Wolverine.”
Adam watched them file out. Shame and raw anger competed for dominance.
Thor was the last one out. “New pants, kid.” And with that the massive bronze doors shut, taking away most of the light.
“You bet, Thor,” he whispered. His eyes burned as he began what was now an unbearable exit ritual.
Even though nobody saw.
Adam moved backwards thirty-three precise paces, then forward thirty-one, then back twenty-nine … hating himself more with every single humiliating step.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Adam didn’t look at Chuck, couldn’t. Eye contact made him twitchy. He knew he was messing up. He hated knowing it. He didn’t mean to, didn’t want to, but there he was in the passive-aggressive hall of fame.
He kept his eyes trained on the bookshelf right behind the therapist. None of the titles, he realized with a mixture of interest and alarm, were learned volumes from the psychiatric field. They were works of fiction. And they appeared to be ordered but not in a pattern he could discern, certainly not alphabetically by either author or title. There was Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. It looked like he had everything by Don DeLillo, Richard Ford and William Makepeace Thackeray. Chuck had Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, Bel Canto by someone whose name was obscured, two copies of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, three books by Philip Roth and lots and lots of skinny poetry collections. And that was just the top shelf. Adam had never heard of any of them. There was no Dickens or Steinbeck or Melville or anybody that he was forced to read at school. And there was no non-fiction.
Chuck lowered his aviators and turned around to face his bookshelf. “Don’t worry, I get all I need professionally from the online sites the hospital subscribes to. Can we continue?”
Adam must have nodded, because they did.
They talked about how it went at church with Group, a bit about the door thing, about maybe trying out for track in the spring, about how amazing Robyn was and about how he hadn’t been able to get to any of the lessons in the OCD manual. “No, none, sorry.”
“Have you been keeping up with your breathing exercises?”
“Yes,” he lied, while eyeing Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird. Maybe he could borrow that one.
They did not talk about what a dick he was. Adam knew he was being a dick. But he didn’t know why and he didn’t care to find out. He still hadn’t touched the manual and he’d had it for months. He also knew he was supposed to ask Chuck about something but he couldn’t remember what. It was okay, didn’t matter. Forty-seven minutes in. He was squirming on the inside.
“You okay?” Chuck almost frowned. “You look a bit fidgety, my man.”
Maybe on the outside too.
“No, sir, I’m cool,” he lied. Again.
“Is there anything that’s ramped up the stress or anxiety, Adam? Your mom? Anything at all?”
The letters, the letters, the letters. Adam still hadn’t pieced together the one in his jeans pocket. That’s how much of a dick he was.
And she had received another one on Friday.
Carmella had taken a bottle of Chardonnay to her room that night. She had never done that before.
“No, sir,” Adam said. There were also books by Ian McEwan. He’d heard of Ian McEwan. Maybe. “No, there’s nothing.”
Chuck nodded and glanced at his watch. “Okay, so the List?”
“Uh, yeah.” Adam pulled a sheet out of his jacket pocket. “I didn’t have time to finish it, sorry.” That was because he had just started it in the waiting room. “Look, I’m … I’ll do better next month, I promise, sir.” Dick.
“I know you will, and don’t call me sir.” Chuck said it in such a way that they both believed it was possible. “Hey, you didn’t even do one last month, so this is a step up.” He unfolded the paper.
Not much of one, thought Adam.
“How about I read it out loud this time?”
Adam flinched.
“But we don’t have to discuss it. Fair?”
“I guess.” One, three, five, seven … At least he didn’t have to tap in order to count anymore.
Chuck cleared his throat.
November 17 THE LIST Adam Spencer Ross
Meds: Anafranil 25 mg 2 × per day
Ativan as needed 5–7 per week
Primary presenting compulsions: Counting, Clearing, Threshold issues
Chuck looked back up. “Are the meds okay, the levels? Should we raise the Anafranil? Maybe it’s time to switch over from Ativan to clonazepam?”
“No!” Adam was hit with a physical flashback of all the nightmare side effects, the roller-coaster nausea, the itching, the thick-tongued numbness he’d felt with all the drugs before they’d finally settled in on the Anafranil/Ativan combo. “It’s cool, really. I’m good.” He edged forward to the end of his chair, ready to leap. Five more minutes.
Chuck returned to the crumpled piece of paper.
1. I believe that Robyn is starting to see me different and that she’s the best thing that has happened to me since all this crap started.
2. I believe, no, I KNOW that I am 5 feet 7½ inches tall and I’m growing even as I write this. Almost three inches so far!! I believe that this is a superior example of the power of love.
3. I believe that maybe the threshold thing is ratcheting up a bit and maybe the counting too, but I’m getting way better at doing that in my head.
4. I believe I have to work on the I have to stop lying so much. It’s kind of making me sick.
5. I believe that my mom is
Chuck looked up again.
“I ran out of time.” Thirty-three, thirty-five … One, three, five…
“Do you want to—”
“No. I don’t, if it’s okay.” Adam had screwed up by mentioning the letter the last time. That was a mistake. He would have scribbled out number five but Chuck had opened the door to call him in, so he couldn’t fix it.
Chuck turned the paper over as if the rest of the List would magically appear on the other side. “Adam, when we get into exposure response and prevention therapy we’re going to need your mother’s support. She’ll have to come in and at least
—”
“Not gonna happen, Chuck. You know it and I know it. We’re on our own here. Hey, look: five-thirty! Time’s up. I know there’s some other wing nut out there that’s desperate to get in here.”
“Adam.”
“I’ll do better, sir.”
They both stood up.
“Look. I know.” He finally met Chuck’s eyes. “Okay?”
“Okay.” Chuck nodded. “See you Monday.”
“Yeah, you bet.” He made a beeline for the door. “That was awesome, thanks! See you at Group.”
He had to get out, couldn’t breathe. Seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-three…
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Dad?” What the hell?
Adam, Robyn and Wolverine were exiting the clinic’s ground floor together when Adam saw him.
“Dad?” he repeated. He would have bet his Warhammer collection on the fact that his father didn’t know he even went to a support group, let alone where it was. No, that was a lie. His old man paid the bills.
Mr. Sebastian Jeffrey Ross was leaning against his blood-red Jaguar, arms crossed, one leg in front of the other. He straightened as soon as he caught sight of Adam. “Son.”
“Everything okay? It’s not Mom, is it? Sweetie? Brenda?”
Mr. Ross threw his hands in the air. “Hold up! Everything’s good. Well, you know, mainly. Going to introduce me to your friends?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
“Hi, how ya doing!” He extended his hand towards Robyn. “I’m Adam’s father.”
Robyn blushed and shook his hand. “Robyn Plummer, sir.”
“This the girl Wendell’s been talking about?” he asked Adam.
Impale me on a rusty sword and feed my entrails to buzzards! “Dunno, maybe.” He was going to kill Sweetie, immediately and often.
“Hi, Mr. Ross,” said Wolverine. “I’m Peter Kolchak, Wolverine.”
Wow, his Christian name, thought Adam. Not even Father Rick had got that out of him. Adam’s dad nodded at Wolverine but kept smiling at Robyn. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, young lady. Is that a Chapel High blazer? Good school.”
