Just After Sunset(65)

I ask him to give me some instances of his current mental wrongness, and he shrugs.

"The usual OCD shit. You've heard it all a hundred times before. It's the underlying cause I came here to deal with. What happened in August of last year. I thought maybe you could hypnotize me and make me forget it." He looks at me hopefully.

I tell him that, while nothing is impossible, hypnotism works better when it's employed as an aid to memory rather than as a block.

"Ah," he says. "I didn't know that. Shit." He looks up at the ceiling again. The muscles in the side of his face are working, and I think he has something more to say. "It could be dangerous, you know." He stops, but this is only a pause; the muscles along his jaw are still flexing and relaxing. "What's wrong with me could be very dangerous." Another pause. "To me." Another pause. "Possibly to others."

Every therapy session is a series of choices; branching roads with no signposts. Here I could ask him what it is-the dangerous thing-but I elect not to. Instead I ask him what sort of OCD shit he's talking about. Other than the one-up, one-down tying thing, which is a pretty damn good example. (I do not say this.)

"You know it all," he says, and gives me a sly look that makes me a bit uncomfortable. I don't show it; he isn't the first patient who has made me uncomfortable. Psychiatrists are spelunkers, really, and any spelunker will tell you that caves are full of bats and bugs. Not nice, but most are essentially harmless.

I ask him to humor me. And to remember that we are still just getting to know each other.

"Not going steady just yet, eh?"

No, I tell him, not quite yet.

"Well, we better be soon," he says, "because I'm at Condition Orange here, Dr. Bonsaint. Edging into Condition Red."

I ask him if he counts things.

"Of course I do," he says. "The number of clues in the New York Times crossword puzzles...and on Sundays I count twice, because those puzzles are bigger and double-checking seems in order. Necessary, in fact. My own footsteps. Number of telephone rings when I call someone. I eat at the Colonial Diner on most workdays, it's three blocks from the office, and on my way there I'll count black shoes. On my way back, I'll count brown ones. I tried red once, but that was ridiculous. Only women wear red shoes, and not many, at that. Not in the daytime. I only counted three pair, so I went back to the Colonial and started again, only the second time I counted brown shoes."

I ask him if he has to count a certain number of shoes in order to achieve satisfaction.

"Thirty's good," he says. "Fifteen pair. Most days, that's no problem."

And why is it necessary to reach a certain number?

He considers, then looks at me. "If I say 'you know,' will you just ask me to explain what it is you're supposed to know? I mean, you've dealt with OCD before and I've researched it-exhaustively-both in my own head and on the Internet, so can't we just cut to the chase?"

I say that most counters feel that reaching a certain total, known as "the goal number," is necessary to maintain order. To keep the world spinning on its axis, so to speak.

He nods, satisfied, and the floodgates break.

"One day, when I was counting my way back to the office, I passed a man with one leg cut off at the knee. He was on crutches, with a sock on his stump. If he'd been wearing a black shoe, it would have been no problem. Because I was on my way back, you see. But it was brown. That threw me off for the whole day, and that night I couldn't sleep at all. Because odd numbers are bad." He taps the side of his head. "At least up here they are. There's a rational part of my mind that knows it's all bullshit, but there's another part that knows it absolutely isn't, and that part rules. You'd think that when nothing bad happened-in fact something good happened that day, an IRS audit we were worried about was canceled for absolutely no reason-the spell would break, but it didn't. I'd counted thirty-seven brown shoes instead of thirty-eight, and when the world didn't end, that irrational part of my mind said it was because I not only got above thirty, I got well above thirty.

"When I load the dishwasher, I count plates. If there's an even number above ten in there, all is well. If not, I add the correct number of clean ones to make it right. Same with forks and spoons. There has to be at least twelve pieces in the little plastic caddy at the front of the dishwasher. Which, since I live alone now, usually means adding clean ones."

What about knives, I ask, and he shakes his head at once.

"Never knives. Not in the dishwasher."

When I ask why not, he says he doesn't know. Then, after a pause, he gives me a guilty sideways look. "I always wash the knives by hand, in the sink."

Knives in the silverware caddy would disturb the order of the world, I suggest.

"No!" he exclaims. "You understand, Dr. Bonsaint, but you don't understand completely."

Then you have to help me, I say.

"The order of the world is already disturbed. I disturbed it last summer, when I went to Ackerman's Field. Only I didn't understand. Not then."

But you do now? I ask.

"Yes. Not everything, but enough."

I ask him if he is trying to fix things or only trying to keep the situation from getting worse.

A look of unutterable relief fills his face, relaxing all the muscles there. Something that has been crying out for articulation has finally been spoken aloud. These are the moments I live for. It's not a cure, far from it, but for the time being N. has gotten some relief. I doubt if he expected it. Most patients do not.