The Shoe on the Roof

  “I thought I could help them.”

  “And that,” said Dr. Rosanoff, “is exactly what we’re doing. Don’t go wobbly on me, not now. We are men of science. We must remain steadfast in the face of irrational claims.” He drove the next statement home like an ice pick, stabbing at his son with each word. “We must not falter in our resolve.”

  Thomas turned away, couldn’t breathe. He rested his forehead, suddenly heavy, against the view: rooftops and river, cold to the touch.

  Dr. Rosanoff came over, stood beside Thomas at the window.

  “Psychiatry is the only branch of medicine that treats people against their will. This is a somber responsibility, a burden that no other field has. And what happened to us? We didn’t have the guts. We cut and ran. Like cowards. We emptied our hospitals, closed down our state mental institutions, turned our streets into open-air asylums. We have abandoned society’s most vulnerable people—and then congratulated ourselves for doing so. We have abandoned the very people who needed us most. And where are they now? Sleeping in garbage, foraging for food—like animals. We avert our gaze, toss a few coins, pat ourselves on the back for being so progressive when in fact all we have done is taken a giant step backwards. Tormented people, living in alleyways and under bridges, victimized and matted in filth? That’s the origin of trolls, Thomas. That crazed man with the long beard, living under a bridge—that figure of folklore is real. He’s a lost soul, homeless and caught in an echo chamber of his own thoughts, unloved and ignored. You can read the same descriptions in medieval literature. Of madmen harried by children and feral dogs. This is where our good intentions have taken us, right back to the Dark Ages. Read the Talmud. What is Eli, if not a shoteh? ‘One who goes out at night, who sleeps in a cemetery, who destroys all that is given him.’ We have turned our back on them, and why? Because we didn’t have the courage of our convictions.”

  “I’m not a psychiatrist,” said Thomas. He felt as though his chest had been hollowed out with a spoon. “I’m not even a doctor.”

  “Life is full of unpleasant truths, Tommy. Here’s one: madness is not a lifestyle. We aren’t helping anyone when we treat it that way. If I had a heart attack, was lying unconscious on the street, I would hope—would expect!—that someone would help me. I would receive emergency medical treatment, even if I was incapacitated. And, if I was lying in my own feces and tormented by voices, I would hope that someone would help me as well, whether I was capable of giving permission or not. We took an oath, Tommy. An oath to help.”

  “But—that’s just it. Are we helping?”

  “Tough love, Tommy. That’s what this is.”

  Thomas was staring at the front gates below, emptied now of Amy. “Did you know,” he asked, “that Connecticut is in the Bible?”

  “Connecticut?”

  “In the Bible. It’s true.” Thomas turned, looked at his father. “Did Mom ever take me to church?”

  “What?”

  “I said, Did my mother . . . ever take me . . . to church?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  THE GREY DAYS OF November had given way to sleet, and the sleet had given way to rain. The incessant drumming of fingers on rooftops, ice-pelted sidewalks, pockmarked puddles.

  Sister Frances stepped out of the doorway, throwing a small square of light on the wet pavement. She stood a moment under the awning, rolled her shoulders, cricked her neck. Long day. A pair of detectives had been interviewing her clients about the string of deaths in Tent City. Officially, these were still listed as overdoses, but it was clear that there was something else going on in the shadows. Frances fumbled with her self-collapsing umbrella—it opened limply, halfheartedly—and pulled her amorphous cloth bag closer (she’d long since given up on carrying a proper purse). She began her weary walk to the bus stop. She was tired, so tired, and didn’t see the figure that was waiting in a doorway. She walked right past, in fact, without noticing.

  “It makes no sense,” said the figure.

  She stopped. “Tommy?”

  “I was only a child when she died.” He stepped into the watery light of a streetlamp. “I was only, what? Three? Three and a half? I barely remember hide-and-seek. How the hell could I remember an entire musical arrangement? It makes no sense.” Then, with a sudden manic friendliness. “But enough about me! How was your day, Frances? Busy?”

  She nodded, slowly. “It was fairly typical. A dozen or so head-to-toe assessments. Trauma referrals and follow-ups. I spent half my time changing dressings and chasing supplies, the other half cleaning needle abscesses and sores gone septic, plus the usual STDs and lung infections.” She stepped closer, stared at him from under her umbrella. He looked haggard. “What’s going on, Tommy?”

  He tried to feign an “I know it’s silly, but” expression. “I’ve been . . . I’ve been hearing voices.”

  “Whose?”

  “Mine, of course. It’s self-generated, like any hallucination. It’s my left temporal lobe talking to itself, a minimally invasive form of auditory schizophrenia, probably stress-induced. Very mild. I’m managing it.”

  “And what are they saying to you, these voices?”

  “They—they don’t speak, they sing. It’s faint. Comes and goes. There’s music and some sort of choir. Sometimes I hear someone calling my name, softly.”

  “Your mother took you to church. She must have at some point, even if it was just to light a candle for you.”

  “But I was so young, Frances. The cerebellum, it isn’t developed enough in early childhood to retain memories like that. It’s impossible.”

  “And yet, there it is. Come, walk me.”

  He joined her under her paltry umbrella, accompanied her to the bus stop, waited with her in the shelter. The fingers on the roof had grown more persistent, more impatient. Rain beaded on the plastic sides, ran down in rivulets.

  “It’s silly,” he said, breath misting in the cold. “I mean, I know what it is. It’s a temporary dysthymic disorder. Easily treated with standard sedatives. It’s my brain releasing norepinephrine. A reactive auditory hallucination. But still, I thought— I thought maybe it was a memory of my mom.”

  “The young woman you told me about—Amy, was it? When you were with her, the voices stopped?”

  He nodded.

  “I think you need to talk to her.”

  “I can’t.”

  Thomas had been to the gallery to see Amy, had tried to explain that he’d only wanted to help her brother, but he was blocked at the door by Lars. Thomas had shouted past him, yelling for Amy to come out, to which Lars had said, simply, “If you don’t leave, I’m calling the police. We’ll get a restraining order against you if we have to.” We will get a restraining order. Not she, we.

  That rankled Thomas’s heart like a sword in a scabbard. Thomas very much wanted to throttle Lars, but of course could not, so Lars was allowed to continue to exist, unthrottled. Instead, groping for pithy and failing, Thomas had shouted in Lars’s face, “Go back to fuckin’ Sweden, you fuckin’ Swede,” spitting out his words, “and take your hundred-dollar haircut with you.”

  “Sweden?” Lars was puzzled by this. “I’m not from Sweden.” He had a bruised look in his eyes. “I’m from Minnesota.”

  Such a mundane answer. It had thrown Thomas off balance; he’d always operated on the premise that everyone’s life was built on secrets, and for him to discover that his archnemesis, the stealth Swede, was just some butter-head from Minnesota sent him reeling. One of the women at the gallery, hiding behind Lars, shouted back at Thomas, “The police are on their way!” Was she bluffing? She was. But Thomas couldn’t face being arrested and publicly shamed, so he fled, eyes stinging.

  Back at the bus shelter. Waiting with Frances, sidewalks under the streetlamps looking polished on this rain-laden night. “Do you remember the three Christs I told you about?”

  “I do.”

  “One of them is Amy’s brother.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “I
t’s just—I can’t get her out of my head. I can’t get the sadness to go away. And even if I could, I don’t know that I would want to. I’m not really sure I want to get over her.”

  “Thomas, you’re exhausted. You need rest.”

  “Can’t. It’s all under way now! Full steam. Rah rah.” He tried to laugh, felt it die in his chest.

  “Have you ever considered—” She stopped herself.

  “Considered what?”

  “That perhaps your father isn’t done with you. Maybe the experiment is still running.”

  And now the laughter did bubble up. “Oh, trust me, I know. That experiment never ended. It won’t, until my tombstone has been carved. ‘Here lies the Good Son, an hypothesis confirmed.’ ”

  “And Amy? She clearly doesn’t want her family to be any part of this. Thomas, you have to end it.”

  “I can’t. It’s not that simple.” What he wanted to say, what he wanted to cry out, was this: “I can’t, because it’s the only chance I have, the only shred of a chance: cure the brother and win back her love.” A ridiculous plan. He knew that. But it was all he had.

  “Thomas, in Psalms 34:18 . . .”

  “There you go again!” he snapped. “Always dragging God into it.” She began to say something, but he stopped her. “God is an evolutionary relic, you do realize that, right? A vestigial organ. Something we’ve outgrown. Like an appendix or wisdom teeth, but with a higher body count.”

  “Thomas, there will always be an unanswerable question at the core of everything; there will always be a shoe on the roof. This world of ours is murky and filled with wonders, and there are fibers of mystery clinging to everything. Better to live with this ambiguity than try to deny it, I say.”

  “And what does any of this have to do with Amy?”

  “Everything. Love, like God, is something we believe in but don’t understand.”

  “I don’t know why I bother talking to you,” said Thomas.

  “Likewise,” said Frances.

  They waited in silence for her bus to arrive. It was a long time coming.

  Later that night, back at Kingsley Hall while the rest of the world was sleeping, Thomas searched up the incident Frances had referred to. The story of the shoe on the roof. It was, he discovered, disquietingly true: not a fable nor a fairy tale nor an urban legend, but duly reported. Incidents like this, and there were many, had been dismissed out of hand by scientists—dismissed, but not disproven.

  It felt as though he had brushed up against something in the dark.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  IDENTITY THERAPY: SESSION TWO. Conducted at Kingsley Hall by DR. ROSANOFF with subjects ELI WASSER, SEBASTIAN LAMIELL & JOHN DOE. Thomas Rosanoff attending. John Doe has a copy of the SDM:III manual open in front of him. The two orderlies stand behind Dr. Rosanoff. A VHS player has been rolled into the room on a portable stand.

  DR. ROSANOFF: (taking his seat) Gentlemen, there’s something I would like to show you (referring to the VHS player). But first, I believe Mr. Doe has a question.

  JOHN DOE: Well, I’m not sure who this “Mr. Doe” is that you refer to, but as for me, yes, I do have a question. (referring to the SDM:III manual) I’ve been reading your book, and I hope you don’t think I’m rude, but the numbers—they don’t add up.

  DR. ROSANOFF: The numbers?

  JOHN DOE: When I tally the diagnostic labels, it doesn’t add up. (flipping through the pages) There’s an updated index after every entry giving the latest stats. For example, you have 22 million people suffering from “socially debilitating shyness.” You have 23 million with “sexual dysfunctional syndrome,” and 12 million—that’s what? 5 percent of everybody in America?—suffering from “generalized anxiety disorder.” I added it up, just the major ones, and it comes to roughly 800 million people in the U.S. suffering from some type of mental disorder. That’s almost three times the entire population.

  DR. ROSANOFF: Mr. Doe, you are neither a statistician nor an authority on psychiatry. We don’t have time for this. May we move on?

  JOHN DOE: Here, on page 168, Schizotypal Personality Disorder: “Patient displays unusual thought patterns and behaviours” . . . In other words, the patient is eccentric. Is being eccentric a mental disorder? And here, on page 219, Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder: “Patient displays chronic, severe, persistent irritability, with frequent outbursts.” In other words, the patient has a bad temper.

  DR. ROSANOFF: You’re trying to bait me.

  JOHN DOE: What about daydreaming? Is that a mental disorder as well? How about imagination? Is that an illness, too?

  DR. ROSANOFF: I’m not going to play along.

  JOHN DOE: I’m just curious, is all. Or is that a mental disorder as well? Curiosity.

  DR. ROSANOFF: You’re manipulating the meanings and you know it.

  JOHN DOE: Tell me, Doctor, somewhere in this dictionary of dreams, this book of woe, is there an entry for those who have a compulsive need to label others? A mental disorder for those obsessed with labelling mental disorders, and perhaps compiling compendiums about it, like a snake eating its own tail?

  DR. ROSANOFF: You do not want to get caught in a power struggle with me, Mr. Doe. Take that as a warning.

  Dr. Rosanoff opens a file.

  DR. ROSANOFF: Now then, Mr. Doe. We found traces of methadone in your bloodstream. Naloxone as well. Naloxone is used to reverse the effects of a heroin overdose. Why would we find that? Why would that be present in your bloodstream? Please tell me we aren’t dealing with some run-of-the-mill, substance-induced psychotic disorder. Tell me you aren’t just another street-corner junkie with delusions of grandeur. I mean, you are the Son of God, yes? (turning to Eli) Or would that be you?

  ELI: I am Christ the Redeemer! I sit at the right hand of God! I sit in righteous judgment!

  DR. ROSANOFF: But Mr. Doe here claims that he is God. As does Mr. Lamiell. They are making a fool of you, Eli.

  Sebastian, speaking softly.

  SEBASTIAN: Why can’t we all be?

  The others turn their attention to Sebastian.

  SEBASTIAN: Why can’t we all be God? All three of us.

  ELI: (elated) Yes! Why not? Let’s vote! ROLL CALL! Jesus? Do we have a Jesus?

  All three lift their hands.

  JOHN DOE: (smiles) It’s settled, then.

  DR. ROSANOFF: You can’t decide something like that by a show of hands.

  THOMAS: (to his father) Dr. Rosanoff, may I have a word with you?

  DR. ROSANOFF: Not now, Tommy.

  THOMAS: (growing frantic) It’s important. Can we—? It’s just (whispering furtively), what if he’s right?

  Dr. Rosanoff turns slowly, looks at Thomas.

  —END OF TRANSCRIPT—

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  “WHAT IF . . .” THIS WAS a question that has toppled empires, has overturned civilizations. “What if the world is not flat? What if man is not the centre of the universe? What if life is an ongoing process, not a divinely stamped creation?” And, as crucially: “What if there is more to us than mere molecules?” What if . . .

  Dr. Rosanoff yanked Thomas out of the room, was towering over him in the hallway. “Explain yourself,” he said.

  “What if Sebastian is right?”

  “Stop. Think before you say another word.”

  “I don’t mean— I don’t mean they’re physically the reincarnation of Christ. But I think I’ve figured out what the problem is. Why aren’t they confronting each other? Maybe it’s because they aren’t occupying the same space. They aren’t actually claiming the same identity. They’re claiming aspects of a larger identity. Think about it. The Trinity, the three aspects of God.” His words spilled out, fevered and unchecked, tripping over each other.

  “Tommy—”

  “No, hear me out, hear me out. Sitting around that table we have the manifestation of all three: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. With Eli, what do you have? God as an avenging angel. God as justice. And with Se
bastian, you have God as love. With the magician, you have mystery and magic. All three, right there in front of us.” He was speaking rapid-fire, ticking them off on his fingers. “We have Eli the Father, Sebastian the Son, and John Doe as the Holy Spirit. We have Justice, Love, and Magic. It’s all there, right in front of us, if we would only—”

  “Get a grip!” There was a flash of rage in Dr. Rosanoff’s eyes. “Stop spouting gibberish and listen to me. You are not going to get caught up in some sort of induced delusional disorder. I’ve seen it happen. You get too close and you start sharing their psychoses. Don’t ever forget that madness is contagious, Tommy. But that’s not going to happen here. Do you understand me?”

  Thomas nodded. The fever had passed.

  “We are going back to that table, and you are going to stay in control. We are not dealing with anything mystical here. We are dealing with a persecution disorder, a passive delusional personality, and a master manipulator. That is your Holy Trinity.”

  Dr. Rosanoff straightened himself, walked back down the hallway to the room without windows. Thomas, feeling dazed and barely tethered to this world, was about follow when he spun around, expecting to see someone behind him. But there was no one there, only the hallway and a voice asking that same sibilant question: “Thomassssss?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  DR. ROSANOFF ENTERED THE room with immense purpose, Thomas less so.

  “Gentlemen,” said Dr. Rosanoff as he wheeled the VHS player over. “I may not have a degree in theology, but I’m fairly sure that this . . .”

  He shoved a videocassette into the machine and hit PLAY. A low-resolution face filled the screen. It was a wino, blood running from his mouth and nose, moaning in pain to the jeers of spectators off-camera.

  “. . . is something Jesus would frown upon.”

  The title “HOBO WARS: IV” splashed itself across the screen, as a shakily handheld camcorder found Eli in the middle of the melee, younger, wilder, full of rage. The bleeding wino was thrown back to Eli by the crowd, and Eli hit him again, full force. Bone on face. Down he went. Then two knees onto the ribs. A howling mob, and Eli as an extension of it, knuckles battered, eyes filled with violent zeal.