Fridays with Denny

October, 2000

The kid started following me around.  He was skinny, a teenager with a sweet face. 

“See that?” I said.  I pointed with the beam of the flashlight.  “That’s a termite tunnel.”  It looked like an ivy root snaking over the concrete footing.  Touching with a screwdriver, I broke a hole in the sculpted mud.  Immediately, grubby fat termites started tumbling out.

The kid squatted, studying.  Suddenly he tucked his head toward his shoulder, brought one arm up and swatted his hair as if he were being attacked by hornets.  Then he resumed studying the tunnel.

Tapping a band joist with the screwdriver, I found a soft spot and pried it open, exposing a nest of squirmy white bodies.

I hate termites.  Gut reaction.  They bring out a murderous kernel hidden deep in my personality.  I resisted the urge to smash the nest with my hammer while the kid studied.  He was fascinated.  His name was Denny.

“How’d you know they’d be right there?” Denny asked.

“I heard them.”  I showed Denny how you could hold your ear to a board and detect the tiny legs scuttling around inside. 

He held his ear to the joist and said, “It’s like Rice Krispies.  Snap, crackle, and pop!”  He was delighted.  His feelings were naked, like a puppy.   

He ran to fetch his dad and his stepmom.  “Listen,” he told them.  “It’s like Rice Krispies!”

I said, “Don’t get too attached to them, Denny.  You know I have to kill them, right?”

“Can I help?”

“Are you a carpenter?”

“I make models.”

“Like, model airplanes?”

“Airplanes are my dad.  I make tanks.”

“Out of wood?”

“Mostly plastic.”

Dad and stepmom were exchanging a look.  “Let’s talk,” the dad said, and he motioned for me to follow into the back yard, where we could be alone.

Denny, he told me, had Tourette Syndrome.

“You mean,” I asked, “he breaks out cussing?”  It was the only thing I knew about Tourette’s.

“No, only a small percentage of people do that.  Mostly he has tics.”

“What’s a tic?”

“Did you see him swatting his hair?  That’s one.  He’s never had a job because the tics can freak people out.  Working for you would be fantastic.  If you can handle it.”

I could use an extra pair of hands on the job, even unskilled.  I liked training teens.  I liked Denny.  Win win win. 

Denny lived with his mother in San Jose and only visited his dad in La Honda once a week.  We made an agreement that Denny would help me for half a day, every Friday.  Of course the repair would proceed slowly on that schedule, but everybody was happy with it.  We would begin next Friday.

For the following week I tried to learn as much as I could about Tourette Syndrome.  I was worried about the tics, which were like little spasms.  It was a safety issue.  If Denny was holding one end of a board, would he suddenly drop it?

It’s amazing how difficult it used to be to find information that is now at our fingertips.  I found some books in the library, and I tried that wild-and-wooly new thing called the Internet, where on a search for “spasm” my first ten hits were all porn.  Fortunately I found an online forum where I got some reassuring advice.  Denny, they said, wouldn’t “drop his end of the board.”  There are airline pilots and surgeons who have Tourette’s.  They can suppress it when they’re concentrating on a critical task.

There was also a belief that people with Tourette’s have an “intense” personality.  With Denny, how would you know?  He was a teenager.  Intensity is a given.

Some of what I learned was worrisome.  Tourette’s is often accompanied by obsessive-compulsive behavior.  Would Denny be willing to get dirty?  It’s a job requirement for a carpenter.

The next Friday, I found out.  Without hesitation Denny kneeled in the dirt to help me remove a rotten beam.  Also on the plus side, I gave him the chore of tightening up some bolts with a wrench, which he did okay.  And he got the hang of holding a spirit level against a post or beam and steadying it at level while I attached it.  So he was useful in an elementary way as long as I supplied the tool (he had none) and showed him exactly what to do and how to do it.

Though willing to kneel in the dirt, Denny wasn’t strong enough to hold the beam as I cut it, so it dropped painfully onto my knee.  He couldn’t hammer a 16 penny nail more than half way into a two-by-four of douglas fir.  Beyond half way, no matter how many times he tapped, the nail wouldn’t budge.  So I gave him the job of starting the nails; then I’d whack them home.

Wanting to start a conversation with a safe topic, I asked Denny about school.  He said he was taking psychology and art at the community college.

I asked, “You going somewhere with that?”

“Psych is for self-preservation.  Art, maybe I’d like it to go somewhere.”

His tics, I noticed, came more frequently when I was cutting.  If he was holding the board while I was sawing, he’d control himself until I’d finished the cut.  Then he’d have a hornet attack.  He’d tuck his head toward his shoulder, bring one arm up and swat his hair.  Sometimes both arms.

“What’s that like?” I asked him.

“Sorry,” he said. 

“I’m not complaining or criticizing.  I’m just curious.  That thing where you hit your head.  What does it feel like when you do that?”

Denny studied me for a long moment, looking defensive.  He said, “It’s like sneezing.”

“Like, your body tells you to do it, and you’ve just gotta do it, and then it’s over?”

“Like that.”  He relaxed.  He brushed some sawdust from his jeans, had a tic attack, then studied me again.  He said, “I get therapy but it isn’t something you fix.  You just have it.  I could take drugs but it feels like somebody put styrofoam in my head.  I won’t do it.  They can’t make me.”

In half a day we’d repaired the termite damage, torn out an old deck, and started a framework for the new deck.  The work was basic, easy-to-grasp, and soulfully satisfying.  Denny was happy.  Construction meets a deep need in guys.

So I thought it went well.

The next Friday I arrived before Denny.  Justine, the stepmother, told me Denny had had problems last week after I’d left.  He’d been suppressing his tics, which always resulted in a storm of tics later on.  He hadn’t slept well.  He was banging around the house during the night.  Screaming.  Crying.

I asked, “What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said.  “He’s just so anxious to please you.”

“I asked him about his tics.  Was that a bad idea?”

“No.  It’s definitely a sensitive topic, but it’s a part of life he has to learn to deal with.  Just be mellow, okay?”

Justine and I shared a long, friendly history.  She was a smart hippie, a lovely woman, an artist whose paintings could have been created by Frida Kahlo on drugs.  She’d had no use for men in her life except for hiring me as her on-call handyman.  Once, she’d commissioned me to build an elegant indoor sandbox.  What a fun job.  Then after years of living alone she’d suddenly, inexplicably fallen in love with Joshua, Denny’s father, a good-natured man who sold war toys.  Joshua moved in practically the moment he met her, bringing his own bed and hanging model military aircraft by strings from the ceiling to mingle with Justine’s psychedelic feminist paintings.  When I noticed the separate bedrooms, Justine told me, giggling, that she wouldn’t sleep with Joshua because he snored.

Joshua arrived in his van, bringing Denny, who was acting shy today.  A mist was starting to fall.  Rain was predicted. 

“You should work,” Justine said.  “I threw the tarot, and it looked pretty good.”

Joshua laughed.  “That’s great!”  Miming talking on a telephone, he said, “Hello, Al?  Hey man, sorry, I can’t come to work today — I drew the Fear card.” 

Justine glared at him.

I hesitated, studying the darkening clouds.

“You guys better get to work,” Joshua said to Denny and me.  “If she doesn’t get her way, she’ll be stomping and slamming doors all day.”

“Denny?” I asked.  “You want to get a little wet?”

“Fuck the wet,” Denny said.   

So we continued framing the deck outside while, from inside the house, I heard angry words.  Stomping.  Doors slamming.

“It wasn’t coprolalia,” Denny said.

“Copro-what?” I said.

“Uncontrollable cussing.  I just meant, ‘fuck.’”

“This is carpentry,” I said.  “You’re supposed to cuss.”

Denny smiled.  Then he ticked.

One thing I noticed was that Denny hated sawdust.  It made him tic.

Eventually Joshua came out and watched us work.

I don’t know if it was the wet, or so much sawdust, or the argument inside, or the effect of having his father watching, but Denny was having an endless string of tic attacks, and the more he had them, the more they seemed to stress him.  Then he made a bonehead mistake measuring and marking a four-by-four post — and I made the bonehead mistake of not checking his mark.  As a result, I cut the post six inches too short.

I didn’t blame Denny, but I was disgusted with myself for allowing it to happen.  Maybe I looked angry.  “We’ve gotta quit,” I said.  “It’s too wet.”

“Fuck this shit,” Denny said.  He rushed into the house. 

Joshua stayed with me while I gathered tools. 

“It’s hard on him,” Joshua said.  “His mother didn’t want him working with you.  She wants him on drugs.”  Rancor was coming into his voice.  “The irony is that she’s a nurse.  You’d think she’d know better.”   Hearing himself, Joshua softened the tone.  “We try to keep it private, but he knows we fight about him.  And then with me and Justine today…”  He shook his head.  “He’s gonna have a bad night.”

“I’m not helping,” I said.

“Yes, you are.  He’s trying so hard.  He was looking forward to this all week.  He worships you, man.”  Joshua squinted.  “Don’t you dare hurt him.”

Folks, don’t ever hire me as a psychotherapist.  I have no clue.

Over the weekend I called Justine and asked her what to do.  I told her I felt that I’d stumbled into the middle of a marital war, joining Denny in the crossfire.  Did the kid have a bad night?

“Terrible,” she said.  “The worst ever.”

“What should I do?”

“Don’t quit.  You’re his escape.”

“Uh, Justine, I’ve gotta tell you, the kid will never be a carpenter.”

“That’s not what you’re doing.  I don’t care if you build the world’s crappiest deck.  Don’t worry about it.  Just stay with him.  Please.”

The following Friday was warm and sunny.  In La Honda we have some of our best weather in October.  Denny and I set to work.   

We were repairing the four-by-four post that I’d cut too short.  I drew a diagram, explaining every step, and then marked the cut lines on the four-by-fours. 

“Hold it tight,” I said.  “I know you hate sawdust, but I’ve got to make a straight cut or it’ll look awful.”  Working alone I could have clamped the board myself, but I wanted Denny involved.

He never flinched, even when I shot a plume of sawdust at his arm.  Afterwards, though, he had a hornet attack.  A long one.We cut half laps at one end of each of the two boards, which I finished with a chisel.  Then we placed the two ends together, overlapping.  I guided Denny through drilling 3/8 inch holes and tapping the carriage bolts into place.  He tightened them with my socket wrench. 

The result wasn’t too ugly. 

“It’s called a splice joint,” I said.   

Denny looked serious.  “What’s it called when you just stick the two ends together?”

“A butt joint.  It’s weak.  This splice joint, what we made, is plenty strong.”

“Okay,” he said.  There were no tics for a while.

And then out of nowhere it came to me: a tide of memories like breaking waves.  Holy shit.  Should I tell him?  Why not?  I said, “You know what, Denny?  I just remembered this.  I had twitches as a kid.  I mean it was nothing like you, but I had facial stuff.  Around my eyes.  And the corner of my mouth.  Sometimes I wondered if I was cracking up.”

Denny furrowed his brow.  “What did you do about it?”

“Nothing.  I never told anybody.  Not even my mother — not that she was paying attention.  That was part of the problem — nobody was paying attention.”

“Never nobody noticed?”

“I was one of those invisible kids.  There were two thousand students in my school.  I was the kind of kid, nobody could remember I was in their class.  I’d cover the twitches with my hand.  Usually I could hold it off when I was with people.  Which was weird because when I was alone, I didn’t seem to have any control over it.  I just twitched, man.  Wow.  I’d completely forgotten.”

“So it just stopped?  You outgrew it?”

“I’m not comparing myself to you.  I don’t think I had any particular syndrome — other than the simple hell of puberty.  So anyway, yeah, I outgrew it.  That, and I met a girl.  Somebody who paid attention.  And I paid attention to her.”

Denny was probing:  “And you forgot you had twitches?”

“Yeah.”  I reflected a moment, wondering how it could happen.  And what else had I forgotten about my childhood?  Plenty, I hoped.  Because what I remembered wasn’t pretty.

To Denny I said, “I think maybe there’s a merciful memory gland in the brain.  It erases things.  Or at least it hides them, if you let it.  Anyway, it was forty years ago.  And I had it easy compared to you.  Except in one way, you’ve got an advantage I didn’t have — three parents who love you maybe a little too much.  Who pay attention.  I don’t envy your condition, but I do envy that.” 

“So you think I just need to get laid?”

“No!  I didn’t say that.  And let me repeat this one more time: I had it so much easier than you.”

Denny kicked at some dirt.  “That’s what I’m gonna do.  Outgrow this shit.  My long term plan.  And also get laid.  I’ll tell my parents you recommend it.”

“I never said —”

“Oh yeah.”  Denny tapped his head with his finger.  It wasn’t a tic this time.  “I forgot.  My memory gland at work.”

Okay, he could mock me.  Tease me.  A good sign.

We carried some two-by-sixes from my truck.  Then I asked Denny, “What do you think of Justine’s art?”

Denny frowned.  “Honestly?”  But he said no more.  Credit him with some common sense.

With the frame complete, it was an easy matter to lay the decking.  Normally I’d use screws, but in this case I drilled starter holes and gave Denny the job of nailing, which he accomplished, improving somewhat as he went along.  Instead of the 22 ounce framer, I gave him my 16 ounce finish hammer, which was less powerful but easier to guide.

“Looks good,” I said.

Denny stepped back, regarding the deck with a critical eye.  “I kind of suck,” he said.  “I know that.”

Denny’s father had come out of the house and was walking toward us.  Immediately Denny had a hornet attack.  Then he said, “Dad, we made a splice joint.”

“What’s that?” Joshua asked.

Denny pointed.  “You cut part away.  Then you overlap.”  He was staring coldly at his father.  “It’s better than a butt joint.  A splice is stronger.”

“That’s good to know,” Joshua said.

“A splice, Dad.  Not a butt.”

“I get it.”

Denny commenced a series of tics.  His father and I watched helplessly.  Eventually the hornets passed.  Denny helped me gather tools and load the truck.

I paid him, peeling off twenties into his hand.  “Thanks, Denny, for the help.”

“Yeah, um, thanks,” Denny said, and he walked away, a skinny kid staring at his toes.  The sky was a deep purple with the barest crescent of a new moon.

I watched Denny pass under the glowing porch lamp and go into the kitchen.  The screen door slammed.  He made no effort to soften it. 

The way life works out, soon Justine and Joshua moved up north.  I never saw Denny again.  My last view of him was through the kitchen window that Friday evening, swatting a suspended Fokker triplane out of the way like one more hornet, then bending to sniff a pot of steaming soup.  I had a feeling he’d be okay.