The Shoe on the Roof

  “You have been a bit clammy lately. Good to see some of the colour has come back to your cheeks. That colour, unfortunately, is green, but still—it’s a start.”

  Bernie stared at the waters below. “The dark night of the soul is upon us,” he said, and when this elicited nothing more than a puzzled look from Thomas, he added, “Saint John of the Cross. No? And here I thought you knew everything.”

  “Everything? I don’t even know anything.” Thomas had been drinking.

  “Saint John of the Cross,” said Bernie. “Spanish mystic in the 1500s. Tormented by feelings of anguish. He was caught in an existential crisis, what we would call clinical depression today. ‘If by chance you see him I love the most, tell him I am sick, tell him that I suffer.’”

  “I always forget that you’re a former Catholic.”

  “Not former, lapsed. There’s no such thing as a former Catholic. It’s like herpes. The best you can hope for is remission.”

  This was in the early days of the heartbreak, before Thomas had discovered the truth about Amy’s brother, before he’d witnessed Sebastian’s tormented anguish firsthand, before he’d been forced to face his own dark night of the soul.

  “I saw your dad today,” Bernie said. “Down by the station.” He’d never felt comfortable around Thomas’s father. To Bernie, Dr. Rosanoff always seemed like a grand marshall waiting for a parade to muster behind him. “I didn’t talk to him. He seemed to be in a hurry.” Bernie had in fact ducked into a doorway to avoid him.

  But Thomas was no longer listening. He was looking down at the water, trying to imagine what it would feel like to step into nothingness.

  He would see Frances the following day, would phone Bernie the following morning. “Do you still have those tapes? Of Amy on the first day?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  TO SPEAK OF THE devil is to call him forth: a common bit of folklore, largely self-fulfilling. Make a mocking comment about a coworker, turn around and you’ll find him standing right there, aghast. Awkward, certainly. But unnerving? Not really. This is an example of confirmation bias: we don’t remember the many times we badmouthed someone and they didn’t appear, when we thought of an old friend and they didn’t show up, when we spoke of the devil and nothing happened.

  And yet—speak of the devil!—the magician had just mentioned Thomas’s father, and Thomas had just recalled that strange comment Bernie had made earlier, of spotting Dr. Rosanoff in the down-below streets of Boston (What would Dad be doing down there? Some sort of outreach program with the residents in Tent City?) when the buzzer in Thomas’s apartment rang. That’ll be the pizza.

  Thomas grabbed his wallet, cinched his robe closed, and opened the door, not to pizza but to his father glowering down at him. The deliveryman arrived soon after, leading to a clumsy “you hold this while I pay that” moment. (It didn’t help that Eli had roared, “Do I know you?!” at the poor sap delivering the pizza. He’d scrambled away as soon as he was paid.)

  The three Christs were now crowded around the kitchen counter, pulling apart pie-chart segments drooping with mozzarella, while Thomas and his father sat across from each other in Thomas’s open-concept Finnish-inflicted living space. The silence had weight. Thomas’s father was going through the transcripts and notes that Thomas had hastily assembled for him.

  “Um, it’s—it’s still a bit rough,” Thomas said, trying to decipher his father’s stony expression. “I mean, I haven’t had a chance to prepare a proper abstract or anything. . . .”

  Dr. Rosanoff looked up from the files. “Eli is my patient. Mine. Do you understand that?”

  “I do, and I know I shouldn’t have done what I did, but—he’s doing really well. He’s off his meds. I haven’t run a white-cell count yet or checked for any—”

  “Don’t bother. He’s fine.”

  “Are you sure? With quetiapine, there’s always the risk of—”

  “He was never on any medications. The code on his chart, here, in the bottom corner. He’s been getting placebos.”

  “He wasn’t on quetiapine?”

  “Did he look sedated?”

  At the kitchen counter, Eli was attacking a slice of pizza in the manner of a wolf ripping apart a woodland carcass.

  “But—why was he on placebos?”

  “I’ve been running tests for one of the pharmaceuticals. Third-generation antipsychotic medications, mainly. Risperidone derivatives. D-cycloserines. . . . A waste of time, if you ask me, but they needed someone to sign off on the MRIs and SPECT scans, to check for brain damage, diminished cognitive abilities. Eli is in the control group.”

  “So he’s not getting any treatment for his—”

  “He’s in the control group.”

  “But—”

  “I said, He’s in the control group.” Dr. Rosanoff levelled his gaze at Thomas. “Mr. Wasser was naked and covered in his own feces when they picked him up. He had bruises over his entire body, was crawling with lice. We washed him, fed him, gave him comfort and a roof over his head.”

  And restraints on his wrists. Thomas tried to speak, but the words got caught inside of him. He looked again at Eli and the other two as they ate and laughed and bickered over the pizza. They were blithely unaware of what was occurring.

  “The terrible truth is this,” said Dr. Rosanoff. “In today’s world, the prescription now drives the diagnosis—not the other way around. Pharmaceutical companies craft a pill and then go looking for a disorder it will cure. The SDM manual was meant to add scientific rigour to our field. Instead, it’s become a drug dealer’s cheat sheet. Want to know which pharmaceutical stock to invest in? Ask yourself which mental illness is currently in vogue. They come and go, you know. There are trends in mental illness, as there are in anything else. For a while it was low self-esteem; before that it was repressed memories magically revealed through hypnosis, even though there is absolutely no neurological mechanism in the human brain that can ‘hide’ traumatic memories. The easiest thing in the world is for a therapist to plant a false memory. Remember those incestuous Satanic cults? No? Well, that was before your time. But a lot of dads and daycare workers were sent to jail before psychologists realized, Oops! We might have been a little overzealous in our rush to diagnose. I remember one summer when every second celebrity was announcing—proudly—that they had ‘bipolar multiple-personality disorder,’ which doesn’t even exist. Another summer it was adult attention-deficit disorder. Lately, it’s been post-traumatic stress disorder. That used to refer specifically to people who have faced violent life-threatening situations, such as combat or horrific natural disasters. But not anymore. You witnessed a car accident? Your prof was mean to you? Congratulations! You’ve got PTSD! But don’t worry, we’ve got a pill for that. The latest fad? Trigger warnings. Listen, son, life is one big trigger warning. Trust me, in twenty years the hysteria about trigger warnings will be looked upon in the same way we now look upon past-life regressions and mood rings. You ever notice how whatever mental disorder is currently in fashion suddenly becomes endemic? Funny, that. You’d almost think it was the power of suggestion at work.”

  “I never looked at it that way, but—”

  “Thomas, the bare fact that mental illnesses are subject to trends should be a huge red flag. The SDM was supposed to reduce these sorts of culturally influenced aspects. It was supposed to add stringent scientific criteria. Instead, it’s been hijacked. We are treating the symptoms, not the cause, not the underlying character of our patients. How do you end up sleeping in a gutter, soaked in your own urine? I’ll tell you how: a series of bad decisions, each one inevitably aided and abetted by a society that holds up victimhood as the highest ideal. Pharmacology has replaced lobotomies, Thomas. Do the drugs work? Of course they do. So does a blow to the head.”

  Thus ended the Soliloquy of Thomas the Elder, patron saint of hard choices, practitioner of the Gordian blow, master commander of harsh succour.

  Thomas’s father opened Sebastian’s file
, flipped through the pages. “Look at this. It’s one antipsychotic medication after another. Luvox, Celexa, Lamictal, Effexor, Depakote, Haldol, Serzone, Zoloft, Remeron, Wellbutrin, Cytomel, Dexedrine, Parnate, Thorazine. The list goes on and on. He’s probably got more pharmaceuticals in his bloodstream than platelets, and what has it done for him? Nothing.” Dr. Rosanoff slid the file to one side, stared at his son. “What exactly are you trying to do here?”

  “Well, it’s—it’s basically a cognitive approach. We’re dealing with messianic psychoses, but more than that we’re dealing with wrong thoughts. The way they see themselves in the world.”

  “How do they rank on the Stanford-Binet Scale?”

  “Mental abilities? Fine. Intelligence is fine. Abstract, quantitative, verbal reasoning, short-term memory, it’s all fine.”

  “So you think their problem is cognitive? In the ideas they hold.”

  The three Christs were crowded around the kitchen counter, fighting over the last of the pizza. They were far enough away that they couldn’t hear, but Thomas dropped his voice anyway. “They claim the same identity. My goal is to confront them with this fact. It’s— It’s like how two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. I think this applies to identity as well.”

  “I see.”

  “What I want to do,” said Thomas, “is engage their practical intelligence, their common sense. I want to give them a clear choice—madness or reality—and then have them resolve this conflict in favour of reality.” It sounded less convincing the more he explained it. “I mean, we know people can be talked into madness, so I thought, maybe, you know . . .” His voice trailed off.

  The pause that followed was beyond pregnant. Dr. Rosanoff looked to the Christs in the kitchen, then turned his head, slowly, like a gun on a turret, back toward his son.

  “So, um, what do you think?” Thomas asked.

  “What do I think?” Dr. Rosanoff chose his words carefully, giving equal weight, equal importance to each one. “I think it’s brilliant.”

  “It is?” Thomas felt a wave of relief wash across him.

  “This is the stuff careers are made of, Tommy.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. Skinner had his mice. Harlow had his monkeys. We’ve got Messiahs. However, this experiment, as it’s set up now, too many variables. We’ll need more controls, stricter protocols, a location better suited for this sort of thing.” He stood up, beamed. “Thomas,” he said, “you’re going home.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  AMY IN THE PAST tense, languid under loosely thrown sheets. Amy, snorting with laughter. “The Boy in the Box! That was you? And I thought my childhood was messed up!”

  “I know, right? I was the only kid whose playmates had to sign a waiver.”

  “A waiver?”

  “More of a nondisclosure agreement. I only found out about it years later.” It had been at a conference in Chicago. A pair of psychiatrists whose daughter had played with Tommy as a child told him about it. “We didn’t mind. It was a thrill to be part of the experiment!” (And by experiment, they meant, of course, Thomas’s childhood.)

  Amy rolled over, placed her hands on either side of Thomas’s head, peered into his eyes as though checking for hidden messages. “You seem suspiciously well adjusted,” she said, “considering everything you went through.”

  “You seem almost disappointed,” he said. “And anyway, have you ever met anyone well adjusted who wasn’t suspiciously so? I had a happy childhood, if you ignored the mirrors.”

  She reached out, stroked his hair. “When I was a little girl, I had an imaginary playmate. Her name was Ellie and she lived in the cupboard.”

  “I never had imaginary playmates. I had mirrors.”

  “No friends?”

  “Oh, I had lots of friends. Transitory, mainly, but aren’t all friends transitory? I remember this one girl—I want to say Sally, but it must have been something else. Samantha, maybe?—the daughter of a Methodist minister. Her mother worked at the university, I think. She was my first kiss.”

  “Oh my!” Amy, scooching in closer, eyes shining. “Tell me more. Were there fireworks?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. Sally, or Sam, cornered me in the activity room—it was this Montessori-type area with various workstations—and she said to me, face flushed, ‘Wanna see something?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ And she began unbuttoning her shirt. Alas, before she could take it all the way off, the doors flew open and in roars my dad and her mom saying ‘Tommy! Julia!’—that was her name: Julia—‘Who wants lemonade? Let’s have some lemonade!’ I didn’t realize, of course, that every step of her would-be elementary school seduction was being monitored.” He laughed. “I can imagine the scene on the other side of the mirror, headphones being flung aside, clipboards scattering, papers flying as they raced for the door.”

  “So when did she kiss you?”

  “Ah, but you’re assuming she kissed me. Maybe I took the initiative. Maybe I swept her into my arms like a junior Fabio, planted a smooch on her with confidence and aplomb.”

  “Get real. She kissed you. Am I right?”

  Sigh. “Yes. You’re right. It was before her mom dragged her out of the room. Julia gave me a kiss, right on the lips. A goodbye kiss, as it turned out. She never came back.”

  “No wonder! The girl was clearly a vixen.”

  “I think the correct term is precocious.”

  Amy sat up. “Shall I put on a shirt and then slowly unbutton it for you?”

  “What? And despoil the memory of . . . of . . .”

  “Julia.”

  “You’d have me tarnish her legacy in such a tawdry fashion? I think not!”

  “I don’t even remember my first kiss,” Amy said, with a touch of regret. “Must have been at summer camp. There was a lot of kissing going on at those camps. I don’t remember the first one, though.”

  “It was with me, remember? That’s what you told me, anyway.”

  “Oh, right. Yes, of course. You were my first.”

  “Damn straight.”

  And they curled into each other’s arms, lost in their own pasts. He said, “I remember my artwork disappearing. Paintings and drawings. They would go away, then reappear the next day. I didn’t realize they were making copies. My drawings still show up in textbooks and childhood development seminars.”

  “I didn’t know you were an artist,” she said.

  “We’re all artists, Amy. It’s just that most of us grow out of it.” At which point she rabbit-punched him in the ribs. Oof!

  “Are you saying my artwork is a sign of stunted development?”

  “Well, if the shoe fits—” At which point she punched him again. What he wanted to say, what he should have said, was this: From the manner in which my paintings disappeared and reappeared, I always thought art was a form of magic, that it was outside the rules of our normal world. But he was afraid she would punch him again, especially for the use of the word “normal.” (She wouldn’t have. If he had said that, she would have kissed him, would have kissed him right on the mouth.)

  Unstated things: Amy never asked Thomas about his mom, and he never asked about hers. The agreement was tacit, but clear. (And what would they have discovered even if they had discussed it? Two different types of cancer, variations on a theme: one ovarian, the other breast, both terminally female. A magic act of its own: the vanishing mom.)

  She had more access to his past than he had to hers. Advantage: Amy. Thomas’s childhood, after all, was in the public domain. Dr. Rosanoff’s “Seven Stages of Development”—sensory motor, concrete operational, socially reflective, and so on—was still considered the template for childhood studies, though it was in fact the template of a childhood: Thomas’s. Everything from early-adolescent egocentrism, as marked by imaginary audiences and persecution fables, to semenarche: it was all there, his entire story told in that extended narrative form known as “the longitudinal study” (def: a scientific survey follow
ing the same subject over the span of many years). The Good Son was considered the gold standard of longitudinal studies. In Thomas’s case, the imaginary audience of his adolescent years wasn’t imaginary in the least. It dwelled on the other side of the glass, hiding behind his reflection. Had Amy ever read The Book of Thomas, she might have known this. But she never did, and he never asked her to. Advantage: squandered.

  Amy in the past tense, slipping further and further away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  KINGSLEY HALL WAS A sampler plate of architectural styles. Originally a staid Protestant manor with mansard roof and suitably dour windows, the original building had all but disappeared under a succession of cupolas, towers, and added wings. Ornate panels of stained glass were set above the windows and, although designed to be airy and bright, the Rosanoff home, silhouetted upon its hill, would always be more Bates Motel than Mansfield Park.

  Thomas had only vague memories of life before the manor: his mom and dad in a small apartment, his mother laughing as his father play-wrestled with him on the couch. “Gonna getch’a, gonna getch’a!” He knew his mother primarily through photographs, a series of freeze-frame moments, smiling at the camera as she fed him with his Winnie the Pooh spoon. He remembered his mother’s loud unabashed guffaw and the smell of something faint and fragrant—probably fabric softener, yet it lingered still. He remembered running down the hallway, squealing, as his mother counted down in the kitchen. “Ready or not . . .”

  Hide-and-seek in the cramped bedroom, scrambling under the hamper, changing his mind, hiding behind the drapes instead as his mother’s voice came closer and closer until . . . “Aha!”—with a sudden fling of the curtains, his mother disappeared into bright sunlight. He could remember everything about that moment except her face. That was supplied by photo albums. And then one morning, Thomas woke up in a bigger bed in a larger house.