*
It felt good to be making food for my parents, being careful not to knock myself unconscious or grate any parts of my body off while getting the carrots ready[32]. I couldn’t remember the last time I had made a meal for someone, because for years I hadn’t trusted anyone to come farther into my house than the living room, not even Winslow. The doorbell rang just as I turned the stove burner on under the spaghetti sauce, and I experienced another new sensation. Not a burning sensation, as you might suggest (I know how you like to make jokes at my expense), but eagerness to open the door and welcome visitors into my home. I turned the burner down on low, said a silent thank you to Psylocybin for giving me my life back, and opened the door to greet my parents. Up until this point I haven’t described my parents, because there was no need to, and there’s still no need to; you know how I look, and both of my parents look more or less like me.
They came inside, and we sat down together in my living room. It was awkward at first, because it had been years since we had talked, and even longer since I had been properly sociable towards them. Still, even with that long distance of time between us, I soon felt at ease with them and the conversation flowed naturally regarding dinner and their drive over and the interior of my house. With the way they talked to me and looked at me, it was as if I had never caused them any trouble and never treated them badly. Because of that, I felt new shame, shame at how much my family had given me and how little I had given back; indeed, how I had just taken more, and more, and when I was at last getting old enough to give back I had fully given in to my overactive amygdala and had cut all connections to them, so they never got to enjoy the harvest of a pleasant adult child that should be their rightful reward after years of particularly heavy toil in the fields of parenthood. I looked away from my parents. Was I to experience a different type of shame every time I spoke with an old friend or family member? I felt that I deserved the shame, even though I had been told I didn’t by Penelope and others who understood my condition, but even so I didn’t know if I could stand the constant ups and downs of this shame and reconciliation within myself. I was lost in thought, but then my father spoke and brought me back.
“Oscar,” he said, “your mother and I have talked a lot about you, and we both feel the same way.” I looked meekly towards my father to give my attention to what he had to say. I would bear it, whatever it was. “I won’t say it hasn’t been hard. It has been hard, very hard. But we’ve spoken with your doctor at the Maple Ridge and we know it wasn’t your fault. I can tell that you don’t quite believe that. I’ve spoken to your nurse, Ms. Hope, and she tells me the same thing, that you’re getting better, that you took the big step of realizing you were sick and voluntarily taking the medication, but that even after what they’ve told you, you haven’t been fully willing to accept that it wasn’t truly you and you’re not responsible for the things you’ve done before you started taking your medication.”
Penelope and Dr. Boggs had both told me the same thing, several times: that it wasn’t my fault, that I was basically a new person now. It was so hard to believe, though, because it definitely felt like me doing all those things. It wasn’t just that I had done them, no; I would have been able to accept that and move past it. What really crouched behind my eyes and gnawed at my mind was that I had wanted to do those things. I stalked a man and killed him on his own property. I beat another man nearly to death in front of Maple Ridge. I hadn’t wanted to hurt them so badly, but I had wanted to hurt them. Dr. Boggs showed me pictures of the orderly I had attacked, and I was shocked that I had caused so much damage, even in denial that I had beaten him so severely, but I still didn’t regret it. After being on Psylocybin for several weeks, I did at last regret that it happened. I was sorry that I had killed a man, and sorry that I had sorely wounded another, but I still couldn’t get rid of the feeling that it was what I had wanted at the time and that if it happened all over again I would still want it because it was the right thing to do.
I couldn’t explain all of that to my parents, though. Even though they were understanding about my mental condition, I wasn’t sure if they knew about the violent things I had done, or what they would think if they knew I felt like I could still want to do the same things. Instead, I replied more simply. “It felt like me, dad. I can’t disassociate myself from the things I did. Even if I was under the influence of something else, it was still me that wouldn’t call mom back even when she left a crying voicemail; it was still me that broke into your house and rifled through everything in your office.”
“That was you?”
“It was. I assumed you knew it was me.” I felt a little sheepish at having revealed it was me since they didn’t already know.
“But——” my father began, but then my mother burst into the conversation with, “There were possum tracks!”
“That’s right,” he said. “There were possum prints all over the floor, all over my papers.”
“And there were possum teeth marks on the door jamb, Lindley,” she said, using my father’s first name. “The police said they had never seen anything like it.”
“That was me,” I said. “I was picking splinters out of my teeth for days.”
“My peanuts were gone,” my father said, mournfully. “That possum took my peanuts.”
“Dad, there was no possum. I took your peanuts.”
“The police said that a large trained possum with a taste for peanuts must have escaped from the circus or someone’s private collection and smelled the peanuts from outside. Do you remember that, Maria?” They were looking at each other, having this possum conversation and not paying attention to the pertinent facts I was adding. She nodded that she did remember, and continued the possum investigation tale from where he left off.
“They weren’t really clear on what happened after that,” she said, “but it seemed to me that the possum must have picked the lock with his teeth, read through all our important papers out of simple marsupial curiosity, and absconded with the peanuts.”
“Mom, dad, listen to me,” I said. “I was that possum.”
They both turned to me. My mother had a worried look.
“Oscar,” my father said, “you listen to me, son. You are not, and have never been, a possum. Maria, call the doctor so he can tell Oscar he was never a possum.”
“Oh Lord, mother,” I said, taking the phone away from her as she started to dial.
“Maybe it’s a side effect of his medication,” she said to my father. “When I was taking Ambien, it sometimes made my toes tingle as I was falling asleep.” Then, to me, “Do you feel any tingling, Oscar?”
“I’m not tingly. I know I’ve never been a possum. It was me that read your papers and took your peanuts, though.”
“Did the possum let you in?” my mother asked, thinking about believing me.
“There was never any possum.”
“But there were possum tracks, Oscar, so there was a possum,” my father said. “Have you seen the crime scene photos? Possum tracks all over the place. I have copies at home if you want me to bring them.”
“I need a drink. Does anyone else want anything?” I asked, as I headed for the kitchen.
“Look it up on Facebook, Oscar,” my mother called after me. “They’re in your father’s possum album.”
I came back with two glasses of cola on ice for myself and my mother, and a glass of water for my father because he doesn’t like strong drinks. I threw back a large draught of mine, grimacing as the carbonated liquid burned my throat and focused my mind. “I wasn’t a possum, but I was there,” I said.
“Did you see the possum?”
“There was no possum, mom,” I said. “I wore possum-print shoes. I carved out the soles of a pair of my shoes so that each shoe had two little possum feet on the bottom. After gnawing on the door to throw everyone off the trail, I let myself in the house using my spare key from when I was a teenager. I took small steps to simulate the walking pattern of a possu
m, and also pressed my shoes all over your papers after I read them. And then I took your peanuts. ”
“And at the bottom of the can…?” my dad ventured, still clinging to the hope of a possum villain.
“M&M’s,” I answered. “I ate them.”
My parents looked at each other. They burst into laughter. They threw their arms around each other. They hooted. They howled. I shifted in my seat, but they only slowed down a little.
“Aren’t you angry?” I asked.
“No, Oscar,” my father said, taking a break from his laughter to cough. “What’s to be angry about? It’s just…” and then he mimed opening a door and moving his hands in tiny steps as he looked around stealthily, which sent them both into delirium again.
I felt annoyed that they weren’t taking it seriously, but I soon found I couldn’t stay that way. It actually was pretty funny to think about. For years they had really believed that they were the first ever victims of a possum home invasion.
Their laughter eventually slackened and then slowed to a drip, and they both took off their glasses to wipe their eyes.
“We’re not angry,” my mother said. “It was years ago. I’ve felt sad and upset that you wouldn’t answer the door or return my calls for so long, but that was before we knew why. Now, we’re just glad to have you back.” My father nodded agreement, and they both smiled at me. I returned their smile with my own. It was good to be back. It was good to feel like I was actually their son again. Their love and acceptance had washed over me and swept away my shame.
Later, we sat in the kitchen eating dinner. Possums were still their favorite topic of conversation.
“I don’t know if the police would agree with our lack of anger,” my mother said, between meatballs. “They actually put quite a lot of work into finding that possum, and they linked several burglaries in the city to it. They worked up a good sketch of the possum; you would have liked it. He was a big, muscled fellow.” My father looked around the room as she spoke, and I felt pleased that he was taking note of the effort I had made to decorate the house; I had also put a picture of him and my mom on the kitchen wall. “One of the detectives had a theory that he was some new species of possum, mutated somehow, and they’d drawn him with thumbs. That’s how they figured he opened the door and carried the can of peanuts off. Honestly, we were a bit skeptical to start with, but then I remembered that hamster——”
“Nibbles,” my father offered.
“Right, Nibbles. I remembered that hamster you had when you were little and how he figured out how to let himself out of his cage, and he could do the little tricks and you almost had him juggling before he died. And possums have a larger brain and that prehensile tail——”
“And the bifurcated penis.” My father was staring at the wall, but he was still listening.
“Bifurcated penis?” She asked.
“Possums have a bifurcated penis. Two-pronged. Shaped like a ‘’Y.’”
“Yes, but I don’t think he’d have used that to break into a house, Lindley,” she said. “They also live about twice as long as a hamster, so we figured if you could teach your hamster all that in only about a year, then maybe someone could teach a possum how to be a burglar since they’d have more time and more to work with.”
“Oscar, what is that?” My father said, pointing at the wall with his fork. “I’ve been staring at it trying to figure out what it is since the entrée.”
We followed his pointing to the camera on the wall. “I wondered that too,” said my mother. “There’s also one in the living room. Is it some kind of wall sculpture?”
“Oh, those are just my cameras. There’s also one in my office.”
“Your cameras?” my mother asked.
“What do you need cameras for?” my father asked. “Nobody has cameras watching the inside of their house. They look very recent, too, Maria. There’s even sawdust still on the floor from the drilling.”
“Oh, they’re not mine,” I explained dismissively, realizing they thought I had put the cameras up to keep an eye on them that night. “The company I work for installed them here earlier today. It’s just to keep an eye on me and make sure I’m doing the work I’m supposed to, because I work from home.”
“That’s good to hear,” my mother said. “What’s your job?”
“I work at Global Partners & Associates,” I said, sitting up straight.
“Global Who & What?” my father asked. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“Most people haven’t,” I said. “They’re not a public-facing company. They’re all over, though, globally, and into a lot of things. Here’s my card.” I slid my card across the table. My father picked it up.
As they examined the card, I continued. “I’m just a junior associate right now, but there’s plenty of room for advancement. I think within a few years I could be a partner.”
“What kind of work do you do for them, as a junior associate?”
I considered making up something about imports and exports. Acquisitions, maybe. Hedge funds. I decided just to be honest.
“They haven’t actually told me yet exactly what I’ll be doing,” I said. “I was only hired this morning. They’ve given me a laptop, though, and installed the cameras, which shows they’re invested in me.”
“They haven’t told you?” my mother asked, while feeling the raised texture of my name on my card. “How do you know you can do it?”
“Well, the job ad was for a technical writer, and I had that technical writing class in college.”
My father: “You didn’t finish it, though.”
“Yes, but I feel pretty sure if I had finished it, I would’ve got good grades.”
“Do you really feel alright about these cameras, Oscar?”
“Of course I do, mom. It’s like a free security system, if you think about it. Not that I need one, or even want one. But if something happened, like if you choked on that meatball, they’d see it and an ambulance would be on the way. It does make you feel secure.”
“It makes me a little uncomfortable, though.” She frowned at the meatball. “Are they really watching right now? You’re not even working.”
“Well, I set my own hours since I work from home. So I figure they’re always watching, because the hours I set could be any time. I might wake up at 2 in the morning and decide to do some work; they need to be ready.”
“I don’t like it either,” my father said. “They’ll be watching you all the time. They’ll know when you leave the house, when you go to sleep. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume there isn’t one in the bathroom, but they’ll know when you’re in there anyway because you won’t be in the other rooms.”
“And you don’t know who’s watching either,” my mother added. “It could be anyone.”
“Be reasonable, mother. It couldn’t be anyone. It couldn’t be you, for example. It couldn’t be a blind person.”
“Now you’re being childish, just like when you were a child.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’ve been hired by a reputable, global company with high ethical standards, and I trust them to keep an eye on me.”
“They don’t trust you, though,” my father said, pointing to the camera.
“And why should they?” I asked. “I’ve only worked for them a few hours, and I have their expensive equipment here. The cameras alone must be worth thousands of dollars. What if you two tried to steal them?”
“So the cameras need to be here in case someone tries to steal the cameras? Wouldn’t they just be safer somewhere else?”
“That’s not the point,” I said. “I don’t feel worried, and they’re in my house.”
“It just doesn’t seem like you, Oscar.”
“That’s only because the me you’re used to is constantly paranoid; it’s not like me because I’m not the same as I have been for years. Now you guys are the paranoid ones. My medication has made me realize that I shouldn’t be concerned about these cameras any
more than I should be concerned about either of you. And I’m not concerned about you, in case you were wondering.”
My father put down his fork and put up his hands. “You win,” he said. Then, turning to my mother, “He’s right. Before, he’d have had a camera outside to see who was there and wouldn’t have let us in because he was suspicious we were government spies. At least this way we’re inside, we’re having a conversation with our son, and we’re enjoying a nice dinner that we didn’t have to cook. This is certainly a life I could get used to.”
“That’s true,” my mother said. “You’re right. All I’m saying though, Oscar, is that it’s ok to have a little caution, it doesn’t have to turn into paranoia.”
“I know, mom. I’m still cautious about some things. I sleep with my mouth closed so spiders don’t crawl in, for example, just like you taught me when I was little. I don’t cross the street without looking both ways. Psylocybin hasn’t made me a bumbling idiot ready to have my head smashed by the first power tool I come in contact with; it’s just made it so that I can live my life without being in a constant state of worry and fear. I’m able to sit here under the watchful eye of this camera and not feel bothered at all.”
I paused for a moment and then put my hands out to the side, palms upturned, to demonstrate that I could sit still in front of a camera without running for cover.
“If you think about it rationally, there’s nothing the camera can do to you. I have nothing to hide. It doesn’t actually matter if someone is watching me right now; I’m not doing anything wrong, so all they’re going to see is a man enjoying dinner with his parents.”
“And parents enjoying dinner with their son,” my mother added. “To a happy family,” she said, raising her glass.
“To a happy family,” my father said, raising his glass as well. “Don’t clink them, please. You know how I don’t like loud noises.”
That night, I laid in bed reflecting on the day gone by. My parents still didn’t understand how I truly felt, but that was ok. And it was ok that I didn’t feel like a different person from the one who had done all those paranoid – and sometimes violent – things. Even though I was different now, it was still me who had done them, but I realized I didn’t have to be bothered by that. My bedroom door was partly open, and I noticed that the living room camera could see me lying in bed. Because my mother would have wanted it, I got up and closed the door.