Growing Up Next to the Mental Read online

  That was, like, eight years ago. Two-thirds of my life ago.

  But here I was, face to face with Flag Fag for the first time. The more I said it, the more I disliked it, all of a sudden.

  Was I a hypocrite for calling other people names while whining when it happened to me? Absolutely, if twelve is old enough to be a hypocrite.

  “Flag Fag. Is that it? That what ya call me?”

  He reverted for the first time to what must’ve been his real voice, as nondescript as it was.

  “Well?”

  “It wasn’t me. I didn’t make it up.”

  “But that is what you call me.”

  I had nothin’.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said forlornly.

  He reached forward and yanked the stick out of the snow, turning it counter-clockwise as he peeled the partially frozen flag free until it hung in sections like cardboard.

  “Had to leave it out last night,” he said, smacking it here and there with the back of his hand to knock off the thin layers of ice. “They wouldn’t let me take it in.”

  I was starting to relax with the conversation a little and decided to address the elephant in the field.

  “So, why do you do that all the time?” I asked, munching on the tiny jewels of ice attached to the ends of my mitts while hove off in the butt-shaped pocket I’d formed beneath me. “You know, around the field and everything with the flag?”

  A bolt of pain suddenly shot through the bottom of my mouth, causing a nerve to start pulsing through my jaw and up the right side of my face. I had been in denial about the existence of one, maybe two cavities somewhere in there but hoped they’d just go away if I did all my chewing—especially when it came to snow and ice—on the other side. A grand plan until I accidentally chomped down on the wrong tooth.

  There was no acknowledgement of my question or obvious discomfort.

  Then, suddenly:

  “The Mental Field, right? That’s what you call this?”

  “My mother says you shouldn’t answer a question with a question,” I tried to say through words garbled by a vigorous self-administered cheek massage to suppress the pain.

  “Do you do everything your mother says?”

  He had me there.

  He hoisted the same old hockey/flag stick over his shoulder and turned to march away.

  “Wait. You didn’t tell me why you . . .”

  “This place can make you do a lot of strange things,” he interrupted, anticipating the question, “on top of whatever you already had when you got here.”

  He motioned with a nod toward my house, where I could see my brother waving his arms and yelling.

  “C’mon! Mom wants ya!”

  “Wants ya to get the hell away from me,” said my new field buddy.

  “It’s not like that. Not with Mom, anyway.”

  “Everyone’s like that in some way, Aloysius. Or is it Wish?”

  There’s just something very eerie about a stranger calling you by your first name.

  It left me speechless.

  “C’mon,” he said. “You can’t be that shocked that I knows yer name. We’ve been neighbours for a while, ya know. Goin’ on eight years.”

  I was suddenly in the midst of an intense episode of déjà vu, bizarrely anticipating what was about to happen next, and after that, and after that.

  Eight years, I thought.

  “But that was when . . .”

  The shagger cut me off again.

  “Maybe next time,” he said. “You gotta go, and so do I.”

  I watched for a minute or so as he began marching back along the snowmobile track, thawing flag now fluttering a tad. I hadn’t even noticed the long green rubbers he was wearing till now, beige dress pants tucked inside like breeches on a Mountie.

  “Aloysius Michael Mooney!”

  The sound of my father’s voice jolted my limbs toward home before my brain had even asked them to, such was the power of his command.

  I was still trying to absorb the surreal encounter during the slog home. I’d finally had a run-in with one of the most infamous characters from the Mental and lived to tell the tale.

  Wasn’t so bad.

  After all the warnings of unspeakable horrors that would befall anyone who ventured too far down the field and, God forbid, into the grasp of a patient, I was just fine.

  If anything, there was a slight letdown and even a tinge of resentment toward those who had been perpetuating the maniacal myths about the Mental all these years.

  My first-hand experience flew in the face of all that.

  Emboldened, I likened myself to the early explorers who had the courage to continue sailing west toward the horizon in the face of universal belief that eventually you’d just fall off the edge of the flat world.

  Or to quote William Shatner/Gene Roddenberry: to boldly go where no man (or kid in our neighbourhood) had gone before.

  A little over the top, maybe, but I nonetheless crowned myself Christopher Columbus of the Mental Field, since I simply couldn’t picture myself as a Viking. I had tested and braved the open waters, befriended the native(s), and returned unscathed and unscalped.

  But just like any great explorer worth his salt, I wasn’t prepared to stop there. I had every intention of going further, now that I had an “in.”

  I never called him Flag Fag again, either. Not because I was scared of what he might do to me. But because I’d actually met and spoken with him and discovered that, as strange as it was to immediately comprehend, he was more than just a novelty item for mean teens to taunt and make fun of.

  He was a person who probably didn’t like being called names any more than me—just another living, breathing human, though not without some disturbing tendencies that had earned him the aforementioned nickname and, by all accounts, landed him right where he should be.

  9

  As tempting as it was to share exaggerated details of my tête-à-tête with Wassisname, I managed to keep it all to myself.

  Mostly because my face hurt too much to speak.

  “You just talkin’ to Flag Fag? What was he sayin’?”

  My brother spoke without lifting his chin from his crossed arms that rested atop the partially buried fence.

  Oh. Look who it is. My protective older brother who left me for dead in the Mental Field.

  That’s what I wished I’d said. (I’d only recently discovered the whole sarcasm thing but was really catching on.)

  Joking aside, it was a little unsettling that he’d just left me there like that at the mercy of one of the patients. I had no choice but to display my displeasure with a silent stare.

  “What?” he said incredulously. “I could see everything. He didn’t hurt ya.”

  I still hadn’t said a word as we arrived at the basement door.

  “You all right?” he asked. “You don’t look good. Kinda white in the face.”

  I was still hoping beyond hope that the pain would magically disappear so I didn’t have to tell anyone and thus dodge the devil of a dentist.

  Meanwhile, my silence was serving two purposes: keeping the ache to a minimum, and reminding my bro that I was still pissed that he’d abandoned me, not to mention nailing me in the back with a snowball.

  “C’mon, Wish. Who in their right mind is gonna murder someone in the middle of an open field in broad daylight?”

  I shot him a look of disbelief, causing him to replay the sentence in his head.

  He stopped and smiled as a light bulb finally illuminated.

  “Oh. Right. ‘In their right mind,’” he laughed.

  “Well, don’t tell Mom, okay?”

  The words were barely out of my mouth when an old ’40s-era army Jeep came down Cowan Avenue and
slid to a stop in front of our missing driveway.

  “Or Dad,” he quickly added. “Oh God, don’t tell Dad.”

  The funny-looking blue-grey four-by-four was our father’s de facto ride home on days like this, courtesy of Cap’n Mike, who was often shifted downtown to Central Station when they required another experienced, steady hand.

  At that moment the basement door opened and eldest brother stepped outside in haste with shovels for the three of us.

  I would’ve easily chosen that over the pain I was enduring. You just don’t appreciate how wonderful life is without a toothache until one strikes. And I had them far too often since I ate more junk food than was fit and would do anything to avoid brushing. And flossing? Wasn’t in my vocabulary. I’d also hold out telling anyone as long as I could, which just made everything worse.

  The aching, which usually subsided after ten minutes or so, was in both sides of my face now—unfamiliar and worrisome territory that required an immediate, experienced, and professional response.

  “Maaaahm!” I cried out as I moved past my brothers into the basement and mournfully up the two short flights of stairs.

  She greeted me at the landing.

  “What is it now?” she said skeptically.

  I didn’t mince the few words I could utter.

  “Muh face reeeeally hurts. Both sides.”

  Fully aware of my history with—and aversion to—dentists, she knew it must be real. And real bad.

  A couple of kids’ Aspirins weren’t gonna save me this time, but I’d give them a try if I had to. (They were so good. Had to be the best-tasting medicine of my childhood, as childhood medicines go. They were like orange Flintstones, only more sweet and sour.)

  “I told you what would happen if you didn’t brush. We’ll have to call Doctor Death first thing in the morning.”

  “Call who?!”

  “Doctor Kent. What did you think I said?”

  “I thought you said . . . oh, never mind.”

  I must’ve imagined she said it. Yikes.

  Or maybe I just misheard: Kent—Death. They were pretty close and meant the same thing, as far as I was concerned. The mere mention of his name caused me to tense up and the pain in my mouth to intensify.

  His office was the only thing I hated about the mall. Over-the-top friendly staff, the whizzing of high-power drills filing, chiselling, and cutting out holes in teeth, and that vile antiseptic clove oil scent. And I wasn’t even in the chair yet.

  I’d had a few teeth out there over the years, and the last visit was brutal. It hurt like hell as he clamped on with a pair of pliers that probably came from his tool box, yanking and tugging back and forth as if it were a bent nail lodged in a damp piece of two-by-four.

  Subtlety was not his strong point. Neither was dentistry, if you ask me.

  “Probably need a little more freezing for him next time, Karen,” he’d say every time.

  Ya think?

  Then Karen casually stepped in with a wipe to catch the mix of drool and blood leaking from the numb corners of my mouth.

  “You can spit now,” she instructed. “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Yes. Yes it was bad. Very bad, actually.

  That’s what I wished I’d said, if I coulda said anything.

  “He’s got several others that will need fillings or possibly extraction,” I overheard the receptionist tell my mother. “You may want to consider referral to the Janeway.”

  Mom must’ve forgotten about all that, I thought, when she mentioned calling Kent.

  “But I thought we were going to the Janeway this time,” I reminded her, shocked by my own suggestion.

  “Yes, but Doctor Kent has to call the hospital to arrange our appointment,” she explained, trying to stick a thermometer under my tongue.

  “Noooo,” I mumbled. “Under here.”

  I raised an arm to expose a pit.

  About thirty seconds passed.

  “Ninety-nine point five. You’ve got a fever, all right. You’ll have to take an adult Aspirin for now, and I’ll call first thing in the morning. Nothing’s open today.”

  “The Janeway, right?”

  “Yes, Aloysius. The Janeway.”

  Funnily enough, I had never been there for anything that I could remember. But if it meant no more trips to the mad scientist at the mall, I was gung-ho.

  Until we got there two days later, that is.

  In short, I put the place up.

  I recall the term “blue murder” used several times to describe my deafening screeches and impressive resistance for my size. No fewer than four orderlies dragged me kicking and screaming into a big room with very bright lights and a much bigger and more serious chair.

  Two more nurses were dispatched to hold my hands while yet another tried several times to press the gas mask over my thrashing face.

  A few faint echoes and blurry images later, and I was out.

  * * * * *

  “Lucky seven” were the first words I heard as I was coming around about three hours later on a gurney in a room with every cartoon character I’d ever known painted on the walls.

  Lucky? What was lucky about any of this, I wondered.

  “That’s how many we got today,” said the unnamed surgeon as he removed wads of blood-soaked gauze from my mouth to survey his handiwork. My tongue instinctively went for the holes, running along my gums and dipping down into divots where rotting teeth used to be.

  “Open reeeally wide for me now,” he said, replacing old gauze with new. “You’ll be fine. But you’ll be right back here if you don’t take care of what’s left in there.”

  That was enough for me. I never missed a day of brushing after that. Hard lesson learned.

  It was at least another hour before an older girl in a candy cane–coloured uniform entered pushing an empty wheelchair.

  “Hello there. I’m Julie. Wanna go for a little ride?” she asked, her silver braces shining back at me.

  Would I?! Where was this ray of sunshine three or so hours ago?

  Her question was clearly rhetorical, as she carefully helped me off the gurney and into the seat and footrests. She grabbed a clean, thick white blanket from a closet in the corner of the room and tucked it over and in around me.

  “Cozy?”

  All I could do was nod, since speaking or even forming a smile was almost impossible with my mouth stuffed.

  And off we went on an adventure through the maze of hallways and past other unfortunate souls preparing to go through what I had just survived.

  “I think I know where we might be able to get some ice cream,” said Julie the Heaven-sent candystriper. “That’s about all you’ll be able to have for a little while. What’s your favourite?”

  I mumbled something that resembled “Buried Treasure,” which she may or may not have understood.

  “Oh no,” she said, bringing my ride to a gradual stop. “I was hoping the gift shop would be open. Lots of cool stuff in there. Ice cream, too. Have to take a rain check, I guess.

  “How about we see who’s in the cafeteria?”

  I nodded again, since head and hand gestures were still my only real methods of communication.

  The telltale sounds of a cafeteria filled the air as we pushed through the big double doors: the clanging of metal utensils against plates and coffee mugs, low murmurs from a multitude of private chats, and the legs of chairs scraping the hard vinyl floor as people came and went.

  My meal selection was limited to apple or orange juice through a straw, while the menu board for everyone else announced: Hot Turkey Sandwish w/Frys and Grave. The errors made me cringe.

  But all was just fine as long as the lovely Julie was driving.

  In fact, everything was pretty
good now that it was all over. Sure, my mouth was a freak show, but it was nothing compared to the torment of before. I felt new and improved. A fresh start.

  “We’d better head back,” Julie said. “Your mom is probably waiting for us by now.”

  We were about to exit through the doors when I caught sight of him.

  At least I thought it was him, carefully guiding his plastic tray along the stainless steel track in the lunch line. Same height, hair, and posture, but lazier in a way. Thinner, too, or maybe that was just the long blue hospital gown he was wearing.

  “Wait.”

  I almost spit out all the crap in my mouth trying to say that single word.

  Brakes were applied, though.

  “What is it? Are you okay?”

  Under any other circumstance I would’ve milked Julie’s concern for all it was worth.

  But I was simply too wrapped up in my first glimpse of PB since the drama a few days earlier.

  I gave Julie a thumbs-up while I watched him manoeuvre his way to a table already occupied by a woman whom I immediately recognized as his mother.

  I kept my eyes locked on him as he sat down, on the off chance he might somehow sense my stare and look up—which, to my surprise, is exactly what he did.

  I gave an unsure half-wave and smile, which was barely reciprocated.

  “Friend of yours?” Julie asked.

  I still couldn’t say anything intelligible.

  But it was a good question.

  10

  I was in a spin as we made our way back to what Julie referred to as the “recovery room.”

  Appropriate enough, I thought, since I was still getting over the unexpected sighting in the cafeteria. God, he looked like shit. Understandable, I guess, after what he must have gone through. Or was still going through.

  I could see my mother waiting at the nurses’ station as we exited the elevator, my beige duffle coat hooked in her arm. She immediately flashed a sympathetic smile that made me feel pretty good, fast-walking toward me to deliver the perfect hug.

  I love you, too, Mom.

  That’s what I wished I’d said.