“The theory sounds plausible,” Mom says. “But the execution is so extreme.”
“It only seems that way, Adele. You find yourself getting used to it. Come on, bro, we’ll sit in front of it together and test it out. You don’t have to look right into it, you just glance at it from time to time. The instructions say you can read if you want to, or knit. Come on, buddy.”
“Dad knits?” Linda asks.
“It’s so big—,” Marty begins.
“I hadn’t noticed,” Mom says.
“It’s so big that I suggest you decide on a permanent spot for it,” Marty continues. “So it won’t be in the way.”
“Why don’t you put it against the north wall there,” I tell him, referring to the divider between the living room and the kitchen. “That way Dad can get light from this in the early morning, and then natural sunlight from the picture window in the afternoon.”
“Marty,” says Mom, “all kidding aside, I just have to question whether this is really safe.”
Marty drops into the loveseat opposite Mom. “I thought you’d all be pleased, Adele. This technique is medically approved. By the American Medical Association and the National Institutes of Mental Health.”
“And the electrical utilities, no doubt,” Mom says. “I’m sorry, Marty. I shouldn’t joke. I do appreciate that you’re only trying to help.”
At last I join the family in the living room. “Well, I think it makes a lot of sense,” I say, as if I just decided.
“Good boy,” Marty says, and winks at me.
The others have no idea that this was all my suggestion. I read about it, I researched it on the Internet before Christmas, and I got Marty to pay $729 for it. Soon, I know, Dad will be well, and the expense will have been worth it.
“It’s so bright, though, Billy,” Mom says. “Just look at it. I’d be afraid of it burning a hole in my retina or something. Marty, isn’t it dangerous to look directly into the sun?”
“Mom, this isn’t anything like the sun. The sun is—I don’t know—probably a million lux, probably. A lot more than this, anyway. And remember: It’s only for a few weeks.”
“Well,” Mom says, “I speak on behalf of my husband when I say that it’s very impressive, dangerous or not.” Mom all at once looks younger—but just a couple of months younger, like the way she looked when we started going to Fritz.
“Why don’t we try an experiment?” Marty suggests. “Everyone, make note of your mood right now. Then we’ll try it for ten minutes and see if anyone feels better.”
“Okay,” Linda says, “name your mood. Amused. Next?”
“I didn’t mean name your mood like name that tune, hon. I just meant make a mental note of it to yourself.”
Mom, Dad, and Marty line up on the couch facing the north wall, while Linda and I sit on the floor in front of them.
Actually, once I experience the light I almost think Mom has a point. Its intensity is hard to get used to, like it might burn away even the memory of color. But Dad seems calm. So we keep doing it.
TREATMENT REPORT: DAY 60
The books contain so many valuable suggestions that it’s hard to know what to choose. But after deliberating, I choose three areas: affirmations, occupational rehabilitation, and light therapy. Mom feels that diet and exercise are surefire winners. Linda wants to work on aromatherapy.
So Mom presents a plan for the three of us, the treatment team. Already, Linda has begun wafting Kleenexes saturated with lemon oil under Dad’s nose. Every time she does this, his eyebrows shoot up. The lemon oil has a piercingly clean smell, like furniture cleaner or dishwashing liquid. Mom has determined a nutritional baseline for Dad. Each day he will eat a bowl of hot bran cereal, an ounce of aged natural cheese, a slice of health bread with natural peanut butter, a serving of seafood, a cooked salad of kale and onions, a mound of navy beans sprinkled with brewer’s yeast, and twenty pomegranate seeds. The Curtises call these the Seven Brain Foods. Mom likes the idea of brain foods, because in addition to making Dad less happy and less confident, the depression has also made him less smart.
As for the remaining approaches, first thing in the morning Dad will be expected to switch on his light box and sit in front of it while Mom reads him the most uplifting highlights from the morning newspaper. When I take over after school, I’ll work with Dad for fifteen minutes on repeating powerful phrases: “I am well.” “I am happy.” “The universe is moving toward perfection.” Afterward, we’ll spend an hour or two on cards, board games, and educational television—as long as Dad can stay still. No junk TV, like reality shows or cop shows—only things that are soothing and that elevate the mind. After Mom gets home and we have dinner, Mom will lead him through a program of calisthenics demanding enough to tire him out but not so stimulating that they would wake him up at night. I’ll keep periodic records showing changes in sleep, appetite, concentration, and mood.
A MULTIPRONGED PLAN
“I call that a plan,” Linda says.
“Okay, but…”
“You have an objection?” Mom asks.
Although I hate to be a wellness wet blanket, I have to ask how, if we try so many different treatments at once, we will be able to tell which ones are working.
“What about the whole idea of the scientific method? Controls and variables. You maintain the same conditions for a set period of time and change just one factor.”
“You don’t have to tell me about the scientific method,” Mom says. She seems miffed that I haven’t swooned over her program.
“Well, what if one of these treatments works and the others don’t? How will we know to keep doing the right thing? Or what if one of them causes him to backslide, and they cancel each other out?”
“Well.” Mom places her glasses on top of her head. “I appreciate what you’re saying, Billy, but I think, given the fact that your father has already been ill for a couple of months, we should try everything we can in order to save time, even if that means employing many treatments at once and not developing the kind of complete data set you think would be so edifying.”
“I totally agree with Mom,” Linda adds. “You’re going off on a tangent as usual. Don’t you even care whether Dad gets back to normal?”
“Of course I do. Don’t you care about anything other than agreeing with Mom? Mom, say Dad suddenly starts to get better—”
“Then he gets better, right? And that’s what we want. End of story.”
TREATMENT REPORT: DAY 61
The treatment team has rolled out Dad’s complete new wellness program, and we are off to an excellent start. We started slow on the light box (phototherapy), with just twenty minutes, per orders of Mom, who is still skeptical. Then did twenty of each affirmation. Dad ate at least a bit of all his brain foods, plus two handfuls of nuts. When Mom came home he moved gamely through his calisthenics. Linda did two sessions of wafts.
TREATMENT REPORT: DAY 62
Today Dad had trouble focusing on Monopoly and staying in his chair. I had to explain his old strategy back to him, of buying every possible property even if it meant mortgaging something until he passed Go. Discouraging. But Linda came home with nachos and Dad wanted some, even though junk food is against the program. Mom said it was good that he had an appetite, so he ate a few pieces, but from now on when Linda and I are at home we will have to eat what Dad’s eating. We agree that calisthenics are helping him sleep. He is learning the affirmations well and could probably do them alone.
A NIGHT OUT: PART 1
On Thursday afternoon the phone rings. Linda is making bead jewelry in her room with her little friend Jodie. Dad is trying to nap on the couch, so after the first ring I answer the phone in my parents’ bedroom instead of the kitchen.
“You’d better sit down,” Gordon says.
“Why?”
“Are you sitting down?”
“Yes.” I sit on the edge of my parents’ bed.
“I have tickets to Buddy Guy tomorrow night. In B
oston.”
“What?”
“Buddy Guy. At Berklee College. My dad got the tickets as a surprise, and we were going to go together, but he has a business thing and he can’t go. It’s a miracle, Bilbo—Buddy Guy. My dad said we could take the train in by ourselves. The concert starts at eight fifteen. We pick you up at seven o’clock. He gave us money to go out to eat afterward—”
“Whoa. I just have to make sure I can go.”
“Whoa back. You would consider missing a Buddy Guy concert? It’s free. We have great seats. You don’t have to pay a cent.”
“I know. But sometimes I have to babysit,” I whisper.
“For your sister?”
“No, for, you know, my dad. I didn’t mean to say babysit. I meant to say watch, or just sit with. My mother works, and my sister is too young. You know, he’s sick. He doesn’t stay home by himself.”
“That’s right.” In the silence that follows looms the thing I haven’t been mentioning. Gordy is here again, in our living room, while Dad walks back and forth without talking to him. How could he understand this? I barely understand it myself.
“I’m sorry,” Gordy continues. “I shouldn’t put the pressure on. It’s just—”
“Just what?”
“Well, when my mom was really sick, my dad hired a nurse. Two nurses actually. Around the clock. He had to work a lot, that’s why. But I get it, I completely understand. So…”
Suddenly going to a concert by Buddy Guy, legendary Chicago bluesman, is what I want more than anything in the world. Sitting on a commuter train that’s nearly empty because everyone’s going in the opposite direction. We each have our own bench, so we talk to one another across the aisle. Gordy drums the metal part of the seat in front of him while we hum “Ninety-Nine and One Half” and “What Kind of Woman Is This?” We eat Chinese food or pizza in a restaurant where the customers are all city kids. Just us, in the city at night. No adults telling us what to do.
“How would we get home, anyway?”
“We take the train home, too. My dad’s going to pick us up at the station. We have it all worked out, Bilbo. The whole situation is ready, it’s just waiting for you to step into it. I could ask somebody else, but I thought you were the one who would really appreciate it. Anyway…”
“I think I can. I’ll ask. Assume that I’ll go, okay? Assume that I’m going, unless you hear otherwise. No, wait—I really have to think about this.”
“If you can’t go, I’ll see if Mitchell wants to. Or Andy. Are you a definite yes? Do you want to give me their phone numbers just in case? Or should I wait to hear back from you first?”
“No, I’m almost definitely a yes. Assume I’ll go.”
“That was confusing. But I completely understand.”
“I have to go,” I whisper. My voice got loud there for a minute when I pictured tomorrow night in Boston. It was almost like I was there, even.
When I hang up the phone and walk down the hall, Dad is waiting on the living-room couch.
“Is something wrong, Billy? Did someone get hurt?”
“No, no one is hurt.”
“From the tone of your voice, I thought something was wrong.”
“It’s okay, Dad. It was just Gordon.”
“Should we watch TV, then?”
“Yes. Let’s watch TV.”
A NIGHT OUT: PART 2
When Mom gets home from work, she brushes the snow off her coat and drops a pile of museum papers and American history journals on the coffee table.
“God, I hate dealing with the public. You wouldn’t believe how many of these local types think just because you’re a museum you want to hear about every generation of the family that ever touched a piece of leather. And the pictures. And the diaries. And the letters. And would we pay for the letters.”
“I thought you liked all that stuff, Mom.”
“I couldn’t get them to leave!”
I follow her around until she seems settled. I’ve decided to use the announcement method.
“I’m going out tomorrow night.”
“Where are you going?”
“Gordy has tickets for a concert.”
“Who’s playing?”
“Buddy Guy.”
“Ah, Buddy Guy! Bill?”
“Yes?” My father appears in the hall, already wearing pajamas.
“Billy’s going to a Buddy Guy concert.”
“Okay…. Enjoy yourself.”
“It’s not till tomorrow, Dad.”
Dad doesn’t seem too interested. Ordinarily, he would try to impersonate an old bluesman, the way John Belushi did.
“The tickets are free. We’re going to take the train into Boston and go out to eat afterward.”
“Sounds like a great time.” Mom opens the dishwasher and stacks some clean plates.
“Let me do that, Mom.”
I’ve never gone to Boston by myself, but it seems that, rather than our bad situation causing Mom to clamp down on me more than normal, it’s distracted her enough that she doesn’t question what I’m doing. This is an unexpected side benefit, a victory. I’m about to go into Boston at night, alone, with Gordy.
More and more, the concert sounds like a great opportunity. Right before Mom’s arrival, while watching TV with Dad, I imagined eating in some hole-in-the-wall near the auditorium and seeing a couple of Buddy Guy’s musicians come in for a drink or a late supper after the show. They’d be wearing sharp suits with the necktie undone and possibly carrying an instrument case. Although that might be ridiculous, now that I think of it—they must have roadies to carry the instruments. “Bravo!” Gordy and I might shout as they walked in the door. We’d jump to our feet for a standing ovation that would make the rest of the diners stare. You boys like the old music? one would ask, throwing a bill to the bartender and bringing his scotch to our table. Although Gordy would hold up most of our end, the musicians would be incredulous meeting two kids who could talk to them about their work. When it was time for our train to leave, the musicians would clasp us on the shoulder and we’d all agree to keep in touch. Best of luck, kids. Don’t ever change.
“Okay, they’re picking me up at seven.”
“That’s not going to work.”
“What?”
“I have to stay a little late tomorrow. A group of researchers are coming all the way from Pennsylvania to spend the day in our archives, and I have to keep the library open for them.”
“Can’t Pudge do it?”
“Pudge. Pudge has some kind of fund-raiser he has to go to. You know, like a dress-up thing. He’s not going to stay late at the Brooksbie.”
“What about Mrs. Arabian? She’s a volunteer. Won’t she do whatever you tell her to?”
“Billy, I don’t want to push it. I’ve already asked for enough special treatment. I just want to do the Pennsylvanian thing and make myself useful.”
“Could you even ask Mrs. Arabian?”
“Billy. Do you have any idea how many people in the entire United States have a job that allows them to work from two thirty to six? Me. Just me. I’m the only one.”
“So I have to stay home while you’re at work?”
“That’s what I expect. If I came home and found you gone, I’d be upset.”
“What about Linda?” I ask.
“What about her?”
“She can’t watch Dad?”
“Come on, Billy. You know she’s too young.”
“You won’t ask Mrs. Arabian?”
“Will you stop it, please? You’re getting on my nerves.”
“I’ll have to call Gordy, then. I’ll have to tell him I can’t go.”
Now Gordy will ride the train with Mitchell, or worse, Andy, who would make inappropriate comments, act immature, and call his parents every half hour to let them know he was okay. It would all be wasted on him.
“I have an idea,” Mom says. She’s poking the pot of navy beans that were soaked all day, to see whether they’re tender enou
gh. “How about getting Marty to cover for you?”
“Marty?”
“Why not? He could come over and sit with Dad between when you leave and when I get home.”
“That’s a great idea.”
“But I don’t want you going anywhere until Marty arrives. Got that?”
“Sure.”
“Hey. Got that?”
“Yep.”
A NIGHT OUT: PART 3
I call Marty from the bedroom so I won’t be in Mom’s way in the kitchen. His cell phone rings five times.
“Bro?”
“Marty, it’s Billy.”
“Who is it? Sorry, it’s noisy here.”
“It’s Billy, Marty.”
“Billy! Good to hear from you. Is everything okay at home?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I need to ask for your help. Could you come and sit with Dad for an hour tomorrow night?”
“Sure! I’d love to. No problem.”
“Thanks. Mom’s working late and I need to leave to go to a concert. Buddy Guy. In Boston.”
“That’s great, Billy, just great. Now, what time would you want me there?”
“By seven o’clock.”
“Seven o’clock. Just a minute. Hold on and I’ll be right back to you.”
Marty is part owner of a bar and restaurant in the next town. I hear him ask a question of someone else in the bar, probably his partner. The sounds of the business—clinking glasses, a cash register drawer, a cart full of dishes—unpause my mental movie about tomorrow night. The musicians are leaving. They clasp us on the shoulder, shake our hands. Best of luck, kids. Keep in touch. And if you ever need a favor…
“You’re in luck. I can be there by seven thirty,” Marty is saying.
The Opposite of Music Page 7
