Taking Stock

Ten-year-old Martin loved sliding down the hardwood floors of the hallway in his wool socks for two reasons. One was the satisfying feel of smoothness beneath his feet. No, it was more than smoothness- texturelessness.  The second reason was the absence of sound the action made. The silence of the slide was not only music to his ears, but also helpful in keeping his late-night pilgrimages to other rooms in his house a secret from Mom and Dad. 

Earlier that evening, Martin had tried to keep the sock-slide sensation in the front of his mind instead of hearing his parents slurp their tomato bisque. He might have done it until he raised his eyes and noted the creamy red soup in his dad’s mustache and silently gagged. His mom, not much more proper than Mr. Soupy Stubble, had overshot some of her bisque onto the beige tablecloth. He studied the soup stain on the tablecloth and couldn’t stop the images of blood covering his mom’s dying body. 

“Eat your nuggets, Bud.” his dad's words floated over his mom’s dead body in his mind. His sentence started and ended with three-letter words, so Martin could focus on the words and not his bloody mom.

Martin picked up a chicken nugget, took a nibble and set it back down, forming a triangle with the other two.

“Do you want some toast?” his mom asked.

“Julie, don’t. He needs to eat what’s on his plate. You already gave him those disgusting nuggets instead of the dinner you cooked,” his dad replied before Martin could answer. They ruined the three-letter-word pattern, and with his head down, he heard his mom’s sigh and felt her get up from the table. He knew she was upset with his dad for his harsh words and upset with him for only eating nine foods, but he couldn’t help it. His dad endlessly tried to get Martin to try new foods, even just one bite!  It never worked. He wasn’t being picky; his throat would close, so any food trying to go down would make him gag. He didn’t mean to irritate his parents, but he physically couldn’t swallow most foods. 

Martin closed his eyes because he always closed his eyes when taking stock. Taking stock was the name his mom had given his behavior of doing a quick mind and body scan to sense his level of discomfort. He had no idea what the words meant, but he knew they referred to what he involuntarily did multiple times a day, and every time there was a change in the routine. Concluding this taking stock was a good enough one to stay at the table, he finished the nuggets by silently repeating the foods he liked and concentrating on the images in his head: chicken nuggets, fish sticks, apples (red delicious cut into slices), bananas, plain toast, plain pasta (preferably ziti), pancakes (no butter or syrup), cheese fishy crackers, and fruit snacks.

Long after his parents’ bedroom door clicked shut for the night, Martin stood in his bedroom doorway of the ranch-style home he had lived in with his parents his entire life. He listened for the familiar, and (please, no!) unfamiliar sounds coming from the kitchen. The corners of his mouth turned down as he only heard raindrops pelting the roof of his one-story house, masking all routine sounds. He tapped his right toes just past the threshold into the hallway three times, then, three more times. The series of three right-footed toe taps continued until it felt like the right time to stop. Some nights, Martin toe tapped three times, and other nights it could be seventy-two or one hundred fifty-six times.  As long as it was a multiple of three, he could stop when the number felt good. 

After tapping thirty-three times (a very good number!), Martin stepped fully into the hallway and turned an ear toward the kitchen to listen for the hum of the refrigerator and whoosh of the air conditioning vent. After shrugging and relaxing his shoulders twenty-seven times, Martin ran three steps and slid the rest of the way down the hall in his wool socks. He felt a surge of adrenaline and giddiness as his slight body slid silently in the darkness. However, he stopped in a bad spot and had to heel-toe-his way a few feet to a better spot. From the hall, he ran through the kitchen to the front door to unlock and lock it three times. Next, Martin squeezed his hands into fists and then flung them open “jazz-hand” style while tiptoeing back to the kitchen. He ran his pointer finger across the countertop while humming until he got to the fridge where he opened and shut it sixty times. He had no bad images in his head at the end of this night-round so was able to slide back to his room without starting over, yet.

  In his bedroom with the door closed was the only place where Martin felt safe and comfortable. White cotton sheets hung from his loft bed to the floor, creating a perpetual fort for hiding. He pulled back the corner of one sheet and flopped down on his collection of pillows and blankets. He nestled under his weighted blanket, and waited for the bees in his head to slow and stop buzzing as loudly in his brain. He tried to imagine the bees landing softly on beautiful flowers, so his thoughts wouldn’t go to images of his mom getting injured or dying. When that happened, Martin would have to go back to his bedroom doorway and start over with his toe tapping. 

He closed his eyes and sighed in relief as he noted this taking stock was a good one. The rain was an acceptable change of noise routine, even though the sound was uneven and not a constant or pattern sound. Some uneven sounds were okay, like rain, because Martin felt raindrops had a random pattern. When he explained this to his mom one day, she had said that was an ox’s moron, which didn’t seem like a nice name for it.

 The rain and wind were wreaking havoc outside his window, but he was able to count rapid patterns in the raindrops between the sounds of branches scraping his window until sleep provided a brief respite from his intrusive thoughts.

Shortly after sleep rescued him, Martin’s eyes popped open, and he immediately shut them again, which was unnecessary in the thick darkness of his fort. The feel of light pulsating through his body made his heartbeat escalate. This taking stock revealed his small body was tingling and sweating. The bees in his head had come unhinged, buzzing powerfully and vibrating in his brain. He tasted metal, like he did when he took his Prozac, and smelled a sweet, pungent odor. This was a very bad taking stock. He had never been alarmed enough to leave his bedroom at night without performing the rituals. On this night, he would have to settle for repeatedly counting by three up to thirty-three in his head as he slid down the hallway in his wool socks toward his parents’ bedroom. He felt in his bones he had to save his parents from their bloody deaths. 

By the time he reached his mom, she was sitting up in bed, startled by Martin’s incoherent counting and grunts. Julie was accustomed to her son’s special behaviors, but this was on a whole new level.

“Twelve, fifteen, eight…MOMMY GETUP GETUP, twenty-one.”

“What’s wrong, Honey?” his mom shouted.

“What’s going on?” his dad shouted louder.

Martin’s body was trembling, and he was having trouble breathing. He yelled in between shorts gasps, “The-huh- tree-plu-uh-lease-go now!”

His parents had witnessed their highly sensitive son feel things no one else felt many times before. They jumped up and followed Martin as he ran from the room. Martin continued running toward the front door, and his mom was about to protest going out in the storm when an intense white light illuminated the sky and then a jarring boom! Crack! Craaaaack! Then the deafening crash and shattering glass. Rain drenched the family as they stood in their front yard, looking at the massive oak tree lying in the ruins of what had been the parents’ bedroom.