Calvin (3 page)

Dad nodded.

Me: And making me take baths and go to bed at a reasonable hour and not letting me chew tobacco when I was six. I always thought it might push me over the edge. Oh, and don't forget you never built me that backyard ski lift. Ultimately everything is the parents' fault.

Dad: Everything.

He said it low and soft.

Me: But remember: just because your polls were low a lot doesn't mean you don't have big fans. Doesn't mean some people don't love you so much.

A man came in wearing civilian clothes—jeans and a golf shirt.

Man: Hello, Calvin. I'm Dr. Filburn.

Me: Doctor, huh? Where's your degree?

Doctor: I have my diploma framed on the wall in my office. Would you like to see it?

Me: I hear those can be faked.

Dr. Filburn smiled. He was tall and had great muscles and looked like the kind of guy all the women in the world would probably want to date. He asked my parents if he could talk to me alone.

They went out and then the doctor asked me about what happened at school. Soon I was spilling the beans about Hobbes and my projects and Spaceman Spiff. I opened up about all that personal stuff, and he comes back with, you probably suffer from maladaptive daydreaming and the auditory hallucinations indicate you may have a more serious illness.

I decided to be polite.

Me: I'll take your thoughts under consideration,
Doctor
, but you should know that I wanted to go into neuroscience. I know brains. I might even have some.

Doctor: I'm sure you do. Let's invite your parents back in.

He asked them questions about their parents and siblings, and if I did drugs, and if they had noticed this or that or the other, and then he said he suspected that I may have had a schizophrenic episode but it would take observation over a period of time to confirm his diagnosis.

Mom listened to the doctor and nodded and tried to look like he'd just said I had a bad case of hangnail, and Dad looked like he wanted to punch him.

I kind of drifted off while he explained all about the brain to my parents and told them that schizophrenia was a family of psychiatric disorders, how it can be confused with other disorders, how symptoms range from slightly to totally disabling. Every time he said the word
schizophrenia
it felt like needles in my eyes, but then there was Hobbes sitting just out of my sight, yawning and licking his chops.

Dr. Filburn stopped talking and all three of them looked at me.

Me: Am I still going to grow up?

Doctor: I'm pretty sure you aren't terminal.

Me: Okay. So can I go home now?

Doctor: I'd like to keep you for a few days—to run some tests, come up with a plan for therapy and medication that will help you manage your symptoms and get you back to school. It's important to start treatment in young people as soon as possible. We'll change the course of treatment if the provisional diagnosis is wrong.

I thought it was time to reveal my new brilliant idea.

Me: This could all be cleared up pretty easily without medication. I just need Bill Watterson to make one more comic strip. Only one more comic strip, or even just one panel, of Calvin at age seventeen, healthy and well, with no Hobbes in it.

Doctor (staring):

Mom (staring):

Dad (staring):

Me: I've thought about it a lot, and I figured out that Bill Watterson and I have some universal connection. He made me this way and he could unmake me this way.

The doctor looked at my parents.

Doctor: This is one of the common symptoms of schizophrenia: delusions of inflated worth, power, knowledge, identity, or a special relationship with a famous person.

Me: Okay. But listen. I was born on the day, the very day, Mr. Watterson published his last comic strip and wrote a letter to the public saying he was done. Isn't that right, Mom?

Mom: Well, but we didn't know—

Me: And then! My parents named me Calvin!

Doctor:

Mom: Yes, honey, but you know we named you Calvin because your dad had just finished his PhD thesis on Calvinism. We'd never even heard of
Calvin and Hobbes
.

Me: Okay, but tell the doctor what Gramps did.

Mom: Well, he brought you a stuffed tiger—

Me: And put it in my bassinet right there in the hospital and said he wasn't going to have a grandson of his named after a man like John Calvin and by putting the tiger in my bassinet and calling the tiger Hobbes he renamed me even though my name was still Calvin.

Dad: This is all true, but—

He meant real.

Doctor: You have an interesting family. That does not mean Bill Watterson controls your destiny or can help you in any way.

Dad: Seriously, Calvin. You think you were made by Bill Watterson? I mean, I was there when your mother and I made you, and you don't want to make me tell you about it.

Me: I'm just like Calvin. You can't argue with that.

Mom: You're not like him. You—

Me: Have you read the strip?

Mom: Yes. Once. Your grandfather made me.

Me: So how am I different?

Mom: You have five fingers.

Me: Four fingers were symbolic.

Mom: Of what?

Me: Of how hard it is to draw hands. I have blond hair like him. I still have my red wagon.

Dad: Everyone's wagon is red.

Me (to Dad): You wear glasses.

Dad: So does your mom, unlike Calvin's mom.

Me: Maybe she wore contacts. I build the best snowmen on the block. And my first-grade teacher's name? Miss Wood! How close can you get to Miss Wormwood? Huh? Huh?

Mom: I admit, it's unusual, all those coincidences, but that's just what they are: coincidences.

Me: Is everything weird and unexplainable that happens in the world a coincidence? Are you sure?

Mom: Yes. I'm sure.

Doctor: Calvin, Bill Watterson has no ability to help you, and he doesn't have any wish to. Unlike me and your parents. We're going to do everything we can to get you well.

I didn't argue anymore. I didn't want Mom to be even sadder than she already was, watching her son Spaceman Spiff crash and burn as he entered the atmosphere of Planet Schizophrenia.

Doctor: I think Calvin needs some sleep. We'll talk again in the morning.

Mom: Yes, sleep sounds good.

Dad: We'll see you tomorrow, okay, Calvin?

Me: Okay. G'night.

My parents and the doctor left the room together, and Mom started crying before she was out the door.

*   *   *

Midnight, and I was still thinking about you, Bill, and me, and Hobbes, and Susie my ex-friend or frenemy or whatever she was. She was part of it, too. Half the night I thought about how I could convince you to do just one more comic strip, one starring seventeen-year-old me, alone without Hobbes. Just me, but without this illness. That's when I came up with my plan to prove my ultimate fandom so you would draw me that strip. I knew it would make me better. You could make me better, and make Hobbes go away.

Once I had my plan I could fall asleep, even though Hobbes was snoring.

 

The next morning Dr. Filburn came ridiculously early.

Me: Sorry, but I don't display symptoms before breakfast.

I said that even though I could hear Hobbes taking a cat bath.

Doctor: Good to see you, Calvin. How was your night?

Me: Great. When can I get out of here?

Doctor: What's your rush? Aren't we treating you well?

Me: Can't you just, you know, open up my skull and adjust the dials a bit?

Doctor (smiles):

I decided to try reasoning with him.

Me: Grammar did it to me. Grammar and two big semester projects. I'm pretty sure if I could just eliminate grammar and homework from my life, I could just go home and be normal again.

Hobbes: Were you ever normal?

Me: This is all your fault, you flea-bitten, mangy furball—

Dr. Filburn studied me like I was a smear on a microscope slide.

Doctor: We're going to run some tests on Monday to see what's going on in that brain of yours.

Me: A tiger. A tiger is what's going on.

Doctor: I don't want you to worry. I'm sure we can help.

Me: Don't worry? I'm not worried. Why should I be worried? Just give me a choice between this and being boiled in oil and I'll go from there.

Doctor: Having a mental illness isn't a kind of death, Calvin. Not these days.

Me: Yes, it is. It's the death of normal. Maybe you haven't heard, but normal is what teenagers aspire to be above all else.

Doctor: Okay. So what's normal?

Me: Do you have a mental illness?

Doctor: No—

Me: That's normal. Normal is not sick. Normal is when you get to decide what's wrong with the other guy. Normal is blending in, like not having a psychotic episode in the middle of school, which makes you stand out.

Doctor: Calvin, do you know how many people in North America suffer from schizophrenia? I'll tell you. Over two million. You're not alone.

Me: Wow. If we were mutant zombie killers we could have taken over the world long ago.

Doctor: Many people with schizophrenia are very highly educated and make significant contributions to society. You want to go to college? Get a good job?

I didn't say it, but suddenly I wanted it way more than I'd ever wanted anything before. I just wanted to be normal, ordinary, boring, and have a normal, ordinary, boring life.

Doctor: You can do pretty much what you want. Most people improve greatly on medications and lead productive lives. Nobody dies of schizophrenia.

Me: Unless they kill themselves.

Doctor (nodding): The risk of suicide is much higher. You're not planning to hurt yourself, are you?

I thought about my plan, but I was sane enough to know better than to tell him about it.

Me: No, but I do have a man-eating tiger here who is just waiting for me to weaken up. Which gives this whole thing a certain time sensitivity.

Hobbes growled and the doctor cleared his throat.

Doctor: Calvin, you are a very creative young man, which actually fits with some theories about people who experience hallucinations. Artistic people and highly creative people have a lower than expected density of dopamine receptors in the thalamus, as do people with schizophrenia. What that means is, your filter doesn't work as well as so-called normal people's. You've got this high flow of uncensored information coming in. In some people, that barrage of information makes them a genius in their field. We just have to get those negative effects under control, and then you can go have a great life—be the next John Nash or Salvador Dalí. We understand nowadays that it's not like you're either psychotic or not. Everyone is on a continuum.

Me: As in the space-time continuum?

Doctor: People can't be divided into happy people and depressed people. There are gradients. Some people only have the rare sad day, and some experience crippling depression. Most are a mix of both. Same with psychosis. I get a song stuck in my head, and you have a tiger stuck in your head. We're not fundamentally different. You stay with us here a few days, and we'll get you on a treatment plan that will alleviate your symptoms. Okay?

Me: I read antipsychotic drugs have side effects, like they shrink your brain.

Doctor: Every drug has potential side effects, Calvin. Patients may experience constipation, bed-wetting, drooling … decreased libido. But this is extremely rare.

Me: That's extremely not comforting.

Hobbes was laughing.

Doctor: These medications are a great advancement in the treatment of certain psychoses.

Me: No meds. Hobbes isn't that bad.

Hobbes: Not bad? I'm brilliant!

Me (to Hobbes): They want to medicate me.

Hobbes: That's because they think I'm an auditory hallucination.

Me: You are.

Hobbes: I am not.

Me: Are so.

Hobbes: Am not.

Me: Are so are so are so …

I realized the doctor was leaving the room, and I was talking out loud to nobody.

And that's why they want to put people on medication.

*   *   *

After I had breakfast I walked around the floor, which Dr. Filburn said I was allowed to do as long as I behaved myself. The people I saw didn't seem sick, or at least any sicker than what I saw in high school every day. The nurses looked a bit suspicious, like undercover spies or something. They pretended not to look at me when I checked out the doors, but I knew they were keeping their eyes on me. All the doors had coded access keypads, and a notice to visitors said the code was changed every few days and to check with the nursing staff.

In the common area I saw a woman who lifted her mug slowly to her mouth, her hand shaking, pinkie finger extended, bringing it almost to her lips, then slowly, carefully, as if she were placing the last card on a house of cards, set it back down on the table. She looked sad, as if she couldn't understand why she couldn't drink her tea. Then she did it again. The fifth time, I walked away.

A guy about my age saw me and saluted.

Soldier guy: Sir!

His hand was stiff in a salute over his right eye.

Me: At ease, soldier.

His hand dropped to his side.

Soldier guy: Got ourselves captured, sir.

Me: We sure did.

Soldier guy: I don't know how we can get away from them.

I was standing there looking at him, judging him, thinking this was my new peer group, when Hobbes spoke up.

Hobbes: You could slip out behind some visitors.

Me (to soldier guy): I don't know how to get away either, corporal, but I'm working on it. I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Soldier guy: Yes, sir. I'll await your orders, sir.

Hobbes: Tell him to drop and give you twenty.

*   *   *

I found a computer in the public reading room. I went online and checked out a map and the weather forecast. I'd saved eight hundred dollars in my entire life, which would pay for about eight days of college. Instead I would do this really cool thing with it. Next I sent a letter to the editor of your local paper, Bill,
The Plain Dealer
in Cleveland, telling him about the amazing plan I'd come up with. As you may know, I also sent an e-mail to you in care of your publisher, Andrews McMeel Universal. I felt better once the plan was in motion.