SYNDROME

Samuel Levy

At six o’clock this morning, I slouched in bed against the wall of my walk-in, closet-sized dorm room and did what could be referred to as “social media time travel.” I had two classes back-to-back starting in less than two hours and needed sleep desperately, but something compelled me to the point where sleep had to wait: a memory. A cluster of them, really, all about this boy I used to know. Zach Bryer. He came to mind suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere as I lay flat in bed, my eyes open wide toward the invisible ceiling in the pitch-black dark—that’s when I do a big chunk of my reflecting, during that short, quiet period of inactivity after resolving to sleep but before the sleep comes.

I wanted to see what the years had turned Zach into. I wanted to remind myself of the way he looked, because time was beginning to bury the image. Resting my hot computer on my thighs, I sat up in the near-dark with the white burst of electricity radiating toward my face and typed his name into the Facebook search bar. After scrolling down past a list of about thirty other Zach Bryers and clicking “show more results” at least twice, I finally stopped the mouse on a profile picture I thought might be the one. It shocked me to find

there were so many other Zach Bryers out there in the world, and it vaguely depressed me, too—I wondered how many name-twins of mine, how many Marcy Roths, would come up before me if someone decided to look me up.

From what I remembered, Zach had no distinct features to go on: brown hair, brown eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Pretty standard. But the guy in the picture was a closer match than anyone so far. True, he was smiling, and the Zach of my past didn’t smile, especially not in pictures. But the more I saw of his photo album, the more traces I began to spot of the Zach I remembered. I could see his familiar overbite more clearly—probably why he grew the beard in the first place. There was that tall, skinny, upside-down triangle of a head, and the rimless, rectangular eyeglasses he had taken off for his current profile picture. I checked his friend count and found he had five friends total. Four out of the five were family: Doreen Bryer, Cal Bryer, Annette Bryer, Lindsay Bryer. If Zach had retained anything of his past self, I figured there probably weren’t many more friends to count in his life outside Facebook.

To explain how I knew him, I’ll have to explain a bit about my childhood first.

I had a friend problem growing up and the problem was that I didn’t have any. I’ve been a naturally nervous person since I could form thoughts, and kids don’t like to be around someone nervous because it makes them feel nervous, too. But I also had Tourette’s—a very conspicuous case of it—and that didn’t help. If my personality alone wasn’t enough to make a loner out of me, Tourette’s was. I might have had a hard time socially even if I had been born “normal,” but Tourette’s all but destroyed the possibility of friendship. For all of my early childhood, I went to school, came home, went to bed, and went to school again. Period. I never had any extracurricular activities or anything resembling a friendship. That was acceptable, if not ideal, until middle school. At that point you’re expected to have at

least one friend or else people start to get ideas about you, thinking there must be a reason. I was conscious enough by then to notice my own loneliness.

My parents found a therapy group specifically for kids who were “like me,” hoping the others in the group would be as desperate as I was and as a result wouldn’t mind my condition because, you know, beggars can’t be choosers. Besides, they had it too—they were sure to have more empathy and there was sure to be less of a stigma around the symptoms. We sat in a circle of chairs and shared our feelings with a mediator, who spoke in a soft, gentle, intentionally soothing voice. “It’s okay to be sad, you know,” she told us.

We were the spazziest looking group of kids you’ve ever seen. There were about fifteen kids altogether, and at any given moment at least a few of us were simultaneously in the middle of a tic fit. The mediator would tell the rest of us to ignore them (or the rest of them to ignore us) and continue on with the discussion. We’d have to speak and listen over the sound of yelping. Sometimes it got so bad for someone they had to leave the room just so the rest of us could hear each other. The mediator would escort them out to their parents and then come back to us.

Many parents sat outside in the waiting room together trying to schedule playdates for the younger children and “hang outs” for the older ones. My mother and father made chitchat and faux casual banter with the other parents in a sort of attempt at networking on my behalf. They got especially friendly with this one woman whose husband never showed up. Her name was Doreen Bryer and her son was Zach. I never talked to Zach in group, but, observing him from across the room, I always categorized him as weird. He blinked hard and jerked his neck suddenly on repeat—those were physical tics—but sometimes he made an obnoxious kissy fish face with his mouth while other people were talking about serious problems of theirs. That was not a tic. And he sat with his legs under his butt and he hooked his pinky finger inside of his cheek. I didn’t like him. But my parents liked his mother so they set the two of us up.

They drove me up to his house on a Saturday, forty minutes there and back. While we drove, I tugged at my hair in the backseat, watching the scenery get more and more pasto-

ral as we got farther into the country. “He’s gonna be so weird,” I said.

“You never even talked to him,” my mother answered. “How would you like other people to judge you for your Tourette’s?”

“I don’t think he seems weird because he has Tourette’s,” I said. “I just think he seems weird. And I guess you guys think just because we both have it that we’re the same or gonna be best friends or something.”

“All we’re saying is give him a chance, that’s all,” my father said as we bounced to a halt in front of a three-story house. “You need a friend, he needs a friend, you could be each other’s friend. Boom, problem solved for both of you. And we know it’s a long drive, but listen, if you like him then it’s well worth it. Mom’ll drive you up here whenever you want. But just promise you’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”

And I did. I doubted I would like him.

As soon as we parked, my anxiety, which had been laying somewhat dormant for the past forty minutes, culminated into something palpable. The inside of my stomach cranked up to a higher voltage. I’m not sure why I was so nervous—I certainly wasn’t eager to make a good impression for Zach. But the whole scenario seemed so forced, so artificial and orchestrated, so condescending that I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Besides, I had no experience with friendship and I didn’t understand the logistics of it. What was I supposed to do with this strange boy who I had never really met? Was it his duty as a host to find activities for us, or was it expected of me as a guest to bring with me some form of entertainment? Would we end up sitting far apart in his room in silence while my parents and his mother laughed in the living room downstairs?

Right as my father took off his seatbelt, I started cursing and apologizing in between. I could hardly get a word in edgewise. “Fuck fuckitty fuck fuck a motherfucking fuck in the fuck shit—I’m sorry guys—fuck that, fuck you, you little shit bitches—I’m really sorry, stop, stop stop it, Marcy—Fuck!” They waited silently in the back of the car until I got it all out of my system. They had trained themselves to let this kind of thing pass with patience.

“You think it’s over now?” my mother said. “We can sit here as long as you want, sweet-

ie. No pressure to go in right away.”

I nodded, breathing heavily out of my nose, keeping my mouth closed as tight as humanly possible, clenching my teeth, and straining my jaw. The way my parents looked at me had a gentle kindness to it, but also a strained attempt at understanding something that wasn’t within their realm of experience. They couldn’t relate to me, no matter how much they tried. I could see them resisting the urge to say, “Well, why don’t you just stop, Marcy? Just shut your mouth and don’t open it.” Like I haven’t thought of that before.

When I calmed myself down, we got out of the car and my mother rang the doorbell for me. I hid behind both of them. Between their bodies, I saw a silhouette getting larger and darker on the frosted glass door. When a woman about my mother’s age opened up, I used my mother’s body as a shield against the woman’s eyes. I didn’t want her to see me—I most of all didn’t want her to hear me, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

“She’s a little shy,” my mother said. I always resented it when she excused my behavior on my behalf. “She can be very quiet. Until she’s not, of course.”

The woman laughed. They were both laughing about me, if not at me, while I stood right there. They were laughing about their own children, whose unusual ailments they had learned to find the humor in. I saw the humor, too, but I didn’t find it funny enough to laugh.

“Hi,” I said, sliding through the gap between my mother and father.

Zach’s mom seemed thrilled and grateful to have me there. She was aggressively hospitable to me and trembled with nervous energy, so jittery to please my every desire it creeped me out after a while.

“It’s rare for Zach to have guests over, so you’re welcome here any time you like,” she said, all adult-giddy while escorting me on a tour through the house. “This is the bathroom. If you ever need it, no need to ask, just go. And right here is the kitchen. If you ever need a snack I can whip up anything you want, as long as we have it. I’ll even give you soda. Shh, don’t tell Mom and Dad.”

She put her finger to her lips and laughed. She always offered me unhealthy foods and

drinks I wasn’t allowed at home; I think it was her way of bribing me to return. I guess she thought if I ate food I liked when I was with Zach I’d be conditioned, Pavlov-style, to think I liked him.

Next, she led me up to Zach’s room, opening the door and letting me enter first. He was at his desk by a computer playing video games. He sat on a big, tall rolling chair that made his legs hang off of the ground and wore an oversized pair of headphones that covered both his ears completely. There was such a horrific intensity to the way he played, his eyes wide and bulging and aimed stubbornly at the screen. Even back then it made me sad. His video games meant so much to him—if he had the choice, I bet he would have spent his whole life locked in a windowless room and left alone to play them, eating from a tray shoved through a slot in the wall and doing his business into an all-purpose bucket near his bed. I always figured his games were all he had in the way of company, since other people weren’t really an option. He didn’t look at us when we came in.

“Zach,” his mom said. “Zach. Zachary. Hey Zach, you’ve got a friend here to see you.”

Nothing about him budged. He kept beating up his keypad with so much force I could hear the clicks from the doorway. He was biting his lower lip and bouncing up and down manically every few seconds.

“Zachary, be gentle. You’re going to break your keypad if you’re not careful.”

His mom walked up behind him and took the headphones off. He started yelling at her without taking his attention off of the game. I had never, and have never, seen anything like it. He kept playing his game as intensely as before while shouting, “HEY MOM! WHAT THE HELL? PUT THEM BACK ON! I’M IN THE MIDDLE OF A REALLY IMPORTANT PART RIGHT NOW! IF I LOSE I HAVE TO START OVER, YOU’RE GONNA MAKE ME MESS UP, PUT THEM BACK ON!”

At first, I thought she would obey, but instead she coiled up the headphone wire around the headband and said, “Listen—hey, listen for a second, okay? I’m serious right now—I want you to stop playing your game for a little while because that girl we told you about is here to see you. Look, she’s right there. Look.”

“What girl?” he said, still refusing to look my way. It was then I saw his first tic, a series of blinks so severe they made him crinkle his nose. “You never said anything about anything.”

“You don’t remember?” his mom said. “About a week ago we said a girl from group therapy wanted to meet you and that we were going to arrange something. And then last night at dinner we told you she’d be coming today. You really don’t remember?”

He blinked again and looked at me. “You didn’t tell me that.” “Yes, we did,” she said. “We can ask Daddy and he’ll confirm it.” “Well, you should’ve told me this morning! I’m not in the mood to see anyone.”

His mom turned to me. “I’m sorry about this, sweetie. He doesn’t mean it, he just gets a little—well, moody sometimes. Once you two get to know each other he’ll warm up, trust me.” Then she turned back to Zachary and started whispering something harsh in his ear, maybe a threat of taking away his games. She moved away from his ear and said, “Look, she came all this way to see you and she’s here now so regardless of whether or not you want to see her and regardless of whether or not you remember us telling you, we’re not gonna turn her away. So, you be a good host now and talk to her. I don’t want her sitting here while you play your little games because that’s rude, you understand? If you want you can give her a lesson on how to play and maybe you can play together.”

“We can’t play together,” he said. “It’s a one-player game, plus there’s only one computer, so…”

“Then play a two-player game or don’t play anything at all.”

She told me to make myself at home and I thought, I wish I was at home. Then she left the room and left me alone with him, this demon boy who clearly didn’t want me around and who I didn’t want to be around, either. He was my problem now. At first, he said nothing, and I had no intention of breaking the silence. I just stood there by the door while he sat at his desk and we both looked at the ground from opposite sides of the room.

Then he said, “You can sit on my bed if you want.” I sat on his bed, which had red-and-blue striped sheets and a pillow with a brown stain

on it. “Just give me a minute to log out of the game and shut off the computer,” he said. When he finished, I thought he might sit with me on the bed, but instead he swiveled around and rolled himself over to me on his chair, propelling himself forward by pushing his hand against the edge of his desk.

“So, you have Tourette’s?” he asked. I said yes. “I do, too.” “Yeah, I know that,” I said. “That’s why I’m here, I think.” “Do you want to watch me play video games?” he asked. “Not really.”

Zach was in eighth grade and three years above me, a piece of information I felt uncomfortable about. He was much less eager for a friend than his mom was for him to have a friend. I could tell he saw me as a chore, a younger cousin he had to babysit for free. He brought me to his room and showed off his collection of action figures as if they were trophies to brag about. His mom bought them for him, but for some reason he was proud of them. He’d hold one in each hand and pretend they were fighting by clashing them together and making immature explosion sound effects.

He acted immature compared to students I’d seen of his age, and I could tell he didn’t have much practice talking to people. On our first date—or playdate, or whatever it was— he asked me a series of random questions about myself. Every time I answered he would ignore what I said and move onto the next question. It was more of an interview or a quiz on my opinions than a dialogue. “I have a cat, are you allergic to cats? What’s your favorite color, besides blue because everyone says blue?”

He tried to “teach” me how to play the games downloaded on his computer, but that was just a ploy so he could play them. He wouldn’t let me take a turn at it because he was afraid I’d mess up his overall score, his “ranking.” But I could bear witness if I was quiet, he said, like he was granting me some sort of sacred privilege. He ended up getting so absorbed in his virtual battles that he forgot about me altogether. So, I sat on the edge of his

bed twiddling my thumbs while he clicked away at his desk, until my mom’s car pulled up and his poor little mother summoned me downstairs.

He bossed his mother around when she came in with snacks for us, which were laid out all fancy on separate plates, with each ingredient organized in perfect segregation. He’d call her “Mom” with oral italics and command her to get out of his room. As far as he was concerned, she had trespassed on private property, even though it was her house, even though she was doing us a favor, even though he ate the snacks afterwards anyway. She’d just laugh it off and do as ordered. And I pitied her the way I wouldn’t want to be pitied myself. She was a weak-willed shell of a person. If her son had any chance of growing up with any character at all, she was spoiling that chance by spoiling him, by feeding into his behavior.

I always apologized to her on his behalf when he got nasty; I felt guilty being associated with him. He was a classic brat, not someone who had the constitution for friendship, and I knew it. But I needed the company desperately and thought, Well, nobody’s perfect. So, despite the long drive—and, you know, him—I went to his house almost every Saturday as a fixed part of my weekly schedule for a few years, until his dad got transferred to Chicago for work and they moved out of state. I learned to bring books and teenage girl magazines to entertain myself, flipping through them and occasionally lying down to count the paint-freckles on his ceiling. We might as well have been alone, really—and I guess we were, if it’s possible to be alone while in the same room as someone else.

Our little formal appointments were usually silent unless one of us was having an outburst. I didn’t have the twitches, but he did—muscular tics and sporadic jerks of the neck that made him cramp up and gave him minor whiplash. He also had the cursing, though, so we switched off, back and forth, with that. In a way it was nice, I guess, because we both accepted it completely when the other had an outburst, and we wouldn’t ask about it or look surprised or confused or irritated. Our ears had been desensitized, and so had our brains. The sound of a screamed “FUCK” registered as nothing more than a fly buzzing or a clock ticking to me. Once, I had a particularly brutal one—one so bad I got a sore throat afterwards and needed cough drops from his mom’s medicine cabinet. He paused

his game, got up on the bed next to me and held my hand through it. He held it tight. And he pressed his other hand against my mouth, covering it, trying to keep it from opening to help me stop. To shut the bad words in, to prevent them from escaping. I didn’t feel scared because he wasn’t suffocating me. He was trying to suffocate the words.

That’s the only nice memory I have of him. Maybe there were more, but I don’t remember.

When he moved away I didn’t miss him so much as I missed having someone that qualified as a friend. At least with him I could pretend that I wasn’t alone. At least I had another human body near me. Even if he didn’t care about me, he didn’t care about my tics, either. Not only did he accept them, he barely noticed them most of the time. And that was freeing in its own sad little way. When he left he took that freedom with him, and everything went back to the way it was. We weren’t nearly close enough to write to each other, and I knew if I wrote to him he would never write back.

I idealized the relationship as much as I could. I stretched it as far as my brain allowed because when something bad is all you have, you try to delude yourself into believing it’s okay. Sometimes I even tried to convince myself he was my boyfriend, and before every visit a part of me nurtured the hope that this would be the time we fell in love. That this would be the time I broke down his barriers and he showed me his real self. After a while, I started to realize that the person I saw the first day I came over—that was his real self. There was nobody better behind it.

Neither of us could find the kind of friend who was capable of finding other friends—in other words, nobody who had options would have taken us. It was a friendship founded on mutual desperation. In retrospect, I bet he was as lonely as me under all that brattiness. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking; he had the sickness worse than I did, and it wasn’t any help that he looked weird and acted weirder. I learned early on you needed to make a real effort to be sweet if you wanted anyone to look past your tics.

If there was any hope for me, I always felt quite positive there was none for him. He was doomed, an adult loner in the making. The type the neighbors and the FBI keep a close

eye on. Eventually, one of those old men you see hunched over tuna fish salad with a fork in a food court, picking at a crevice in their teeth every so often to get at a stuck piece.

This morning, I investigated his whole Facebook profile top to bottom, starting with the “about” section. He’s a professional YouTube gamer now. That made me want to laugh— maybe I would have if I didn’t feel so gloomy. He tapes tutorials and walkthroughs of games, posts them on YouTube, posts the links on Facebook, and somehow, he gets paid for that. Advertising, I guess. I bet he records his voice-overs and cuts out parts where the tics act up—edit around those parts until he’s got a clean chunk of narration. No boss, no co-workers, no one to make his Tourette’s into an issue if it’s still there. He has something, no matter how shallow and depressing it might be to anyone else—he’s found a method of coping, and if it’s enough for him then it’s enough, period. He probably got hooked on them in the first place because they were the only way he could have any amount of fun while in a room alone, quarantined from the rest of the world. A video game can’t reject you; it doesn’t need you to be a certain way and it doesn’t get annoyed by your abrasive idiosyncrasies. I’m sure he’ll use them as a social substitute his whole life. And maybe that’s good, in a way. Unfortunately, I never got into video games.

The first few pictures I saw were selfies, which didn’t surprise me. Zach standing against a blank wall; Zach waving at the camera with a forest behind him; Zach waving at the camera with a beach behind him. He looked older, but not very different. The same disconnected eyes. Then, as I kept looking, I saw a recurring female figure appear next to him in many of his pictures. She had a lazy eye, thick, dry hair, and waxy skin. Before I could write her off as a relative I saw that in one of the pictures they were kissing each other, frozen in time. Good for you, Zach, I tried to think. But I couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t quite will myself to feel happy. He has someone—he, of all people, found someone, someone who could stand him—and I’m still very much alone. What is it about me, I thought, that I’m less of a catch than Zach Bryer?Am I really that bad? And then I felt shame and guilt at myself for having such a nasty thought, but that didn’t stop me from having it. Maybe he got over his Tourette’s. Yeah. That’s it. Maybe he’s cured. I shut my laptop and clenched

my teeth behind closed lips, laying back down to get a measly hour of rest before the day began. The last thought I had before falling asleep was, Good for him. Good for him.