93: “Are you comfortable, Anson?”
He smiled at me, but it wasn’t a real smile. This was the kind of smile one wears at a dinner party or a fundraiser or an award banquet, the kind that disappears the moment the smilee disappears behind a closed door away from prying eyes. I have never been to a dinner party or a fundraiser or an award banquet, but I’ve read about them. Mother once brought home a People magazine, and the pages were filled with these smiles, polite but empty.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“No, sir.”
“So polite,” Dr. Oglesby said, glancing down at his notes. “You’ve been here a week, and I feel we barely know each other.”
He wasn’t a very large man, maybe an inch or two taller than I. Although everyone called him “Dr.,” I had yet to see him wearing a white lab coat. Today he wore a gray and black argyle sweater and khaki pants. He was slightly overweight. The pudge around his belly bloomed out over the top of his pants as he crossed his legs. Not much. He probably exercised a few days each week, just a little bit—the weight wanted to come out, his body wanted to be fat, but he kept his potential for obesity in check. For now, anyway. I couldn’t help but wonder how he would look in another ten years. Would he change his mind about the lab coat? If I were a doctor, I would definitely wear a white lab coat.
His office was a large box.
The walls were painted an off-white and decorated with degrees and photographs of Dr. Oglesby fake-smiling beside other people fake-smiling. Unlike the other desks at Camden Treatment Center, his was made of wood, most likely something he brought in himself. Most here were made of the same gray metal.
We sat in the chairs in front of the desk, facing each other. Apparently during one of the degree programs posted on the wall, the good doctor was told it was better to face one’s patient on equal ground, so rather than sit in the plush leather chair behind the desk, he came out here with the common folk.
A large Oriental rug covered most of the tile floor, clearly a fake. I had never seen a real Oriental rug before, or a fake Oriental rug for that matter, but there was something about this one that screamed imitation. Maybe it was the mystery stain in the far corner, the one nearly hidden by a potted fern.
“One week,” he muttered, tapping at the clipboard in his lap. “Were you taking any medications, Anson? Prior to your stay here? Anything at all?”
He had asked me this question before, four times now. I gave him the same answer I did the other times.
“No.”
“Because you seem jittery, like someone going through the final stages of withdrawal. A few of the nurses have made note of this in your file. You’ve also been experiencing night sweats and tremors. These things are all signs of withdrawal.”
I said nothing.
“Was it chlorpromazine or maybe fluphenazine? Possibly haloperidol or loxapine?”
I remained silent.
“Haloperidol? You see, when I said that one, I noticed a slight tic beneath your left eye. That tells me you know that particular drug. What reason would a boy your age have for knowing a drug like that unless the medication was prescribed and you saw the name on the bottle every day?”
My face flushed. I drew in a deep, even breath.
“Haloperidol is not the type of medication you want to quit cold turkey. If a physician deems it appropriate to adjust or remove this medication from a patient’s treatment, that patient would be weaned off over a length of time. In some cases, another, less impactful medication might be added temporarily to a treatment regimen to lessen the more harmful effects of reduction.”
Dr. Joseph Oglesby wore glasses. The lenses weren’t especially thick, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he actually needed them. He seemed like the kind of man who would wear glasses simply to bolster his role as a doctor, to help play the part. He wore his glasses on a silver chain around his neck and put them on and took them off with a regular frequency, punctuation at the end of a sentence rather than a visual aid. Wearing them around his neck on a chain reminded me of a librarian. He was no librarian, though. I could see the dust on the books lining his shelves from where I sat.
“A sudden stoppage of haloperidol can lead to insomnia, restlessness, anxiety, agitation, depression, vertigo, seizures, even hallucinations. See how your foot is tapping on the floor? That fast patter? That is a definite indicator. Is there a reason you don’t want to take your medication, Anson? Is that why you’re lying to me?”
I stopped my foot. I didn’t realize I had been tapping my foot.
I would not tap my foot.
The doctor raised the tip of his pen to his lip, his eyes on me, then wrote something down in the file. “Because it has been a week, you are through the worst. I see no reason to pick it back up at this point. Should you feel the need to take it, you’ll tell me? We can revisit the use of medication together?”
I didn’t want to nod, but I did anyway.
The smile again, thin, only at the edge of his lips.