Forty Scrubs Read online



  FORTY SCRUBS

  by

  Joanna George

  *****

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Forty Scrubs

  Coptyright © 2011 by Joanna George

  *****

  FORTY SCRUBS

  Prologue

  ‘So what you’re saying is true then?’ I shouted, striding up the front path after Sam.

  No answer.

  ‘Sam! What the hell is going on?’

  She took her sunnies off, fumbled with the keys and struggled with the lock. I grabbed her arm but she resisted.

  ‘Talk to me, Sam! I have to know what’s going on.’

  She finally had the door unlocked and stood on the doorstep. When she turned around her eyes were filled with tears.

  ‘Wait until we get inside,’ she muttered, her lips firm.

  ‘Well, hurry up and get inside!’

  She strode into the kitchen and put the kettle on. ‘We’ll have a coffee and sit in the lounge,’ she said, her cheeks stained from tears.

  I was anxious.

  I couldn’t stop moving.

  I couldn’t sit down.

  I stood in the kitchen doorway waiting for her to finish. I felt like a wind-up toy. I needed to stop my feelings of anxiety before I snapped.

  ‘You are taking your time, Sam.’

  ‘I – I know, but the coffees are ready now. Come on, let’s go in’. She handed me a mug, we walked into the lounge and sat on separate couches.

  She breathed in deeply, sat forward, and looked up at the ceiling.

  ‘Well, it’s obvious you don’t know how to start, so I’ll start for you,’ I said. ‘Are you my mother or my sister? Or was that just something you said out of the blue?’

  Sam looked down at the floor.

  I asked the question again.

  ‘Okay fine,’ I shouted. ‘For God’s sakes, Sam, I’m not a kid anymore. I’m sixteen! Please tell me or do I have to assume that from now on I call you Mum instead of Sam?’ I felt so irascible I didn’t know how to control myself, control myself from going hysterical, control myself from going mad.

  I hated Sam.

  I hated myself.

  *****

  Chapter One

  When I was younger my vomit obsession was almost uncontrollable. I couldn’t have stood near anyone who as much as coughed because I was frightened they would throw up. I always made sure my hands were squeaky clean, and I mean squeaky clean, to the point they turned red and my skin looked like old ladies’ skin crawling with psoriasis. I scrubbed away at the nails and scraped them against the palms of my hands with soap and water.

  Forty times.

  There was no way I could have those ‘vomit’ germs infesting my skin or under my finger nails. I used only the hand dryers in public toilets, never the paper towels or those unpullable pull-down cotton dryers.

  ‘Why do you keep on drying your hands like that, turning the dryer on over and over again?’ Dougall, my best friend, asked one day when we were at school washing our hands before lunch.

  ‘Because I once read on a label that using dryers is the most hygienic way of drying your hands.’

  ‘Look at your hands though, Keish. They’re all red and sore. They look like they’re going to bleed,’ he said, pressing his fingers gently on my skin.

  ‘Dougall! I’ll have to wash them again now! Why did you touch them?’ Damn, he made me angry.

  My neuroticism (that’s what Dougall liked to call it) was thankfully diminishing over time. I still never sat on public toilet seats, but who did? I hovered above them like a bird, but I was the bird who always knew where its target was.

  I still had some ‘vomit’ issues though. Just hearing the word made me cringe. But I didn’t think about catching a bug, accidentally stepping in vomit, or waiting for a cougher to throw up like I did when I was younger.

  My obsession swayed over to something else. I had routines. And each routine had to be done a special number of times. When I showered I had to give myself forty scrubs everywhere. I could not live with thirty-nine scrubs. No, that would’ve been like standing on the edge of a cliff.

  Thirty-nine and I panicked.

  Forty-one and I panicked.

  I had to start the climb again.

  My routines took up a lot of time and were very exhausting, but I had to satisfy one crazy compulsion in my head – that if I didn’t, something bad or even terrible would happen to me. It was my own Morse Code. I always had to enter the correct number of scrubs to get satisfaction. That was how my mind worked, like the song by The Rolling Stones.

  ‘I can’t get no satisfaction, I can’t get no satisfaction,

  Cause I try and I try and I try and I try…’

  Oh I tried alright.

  A number of times.

  I thought my obsessions and worries were normal. I thought everyone had them, like everyone seemed to have an obsession with being cool. I knew I wasn’t cool and never could be. Unfortunately, God or the Higher Power had shoved me in the back row with plenty of obsessions when He or She was handing out the free rides to coolness.

  It wasn’t until Mum started taking me to psychiatrists that I realised I wasn’t normal. I remembered her coming into my room one night while I was checking my cupboard, behind the curtains and under my pillow. Then I heard her crying.

  ‘You scared me! Why are you crying, Mummy?’

  Shaking her head she ran over to me and cradled me in her arms. I had no idea why until she had sat me down next to her on my bed and explained my rituals weren’t normal.

  ‘I was only checking because of the ants that time. Remember when I had all those yucky ants under my pillow?’

  ‘Yes, I do, but why three times, Keisha?’

  ‘Because if I don’t check three times the ants might come back.’

  ‘I think we’d better go to a special doctor because you are worrying too much about little things that don’t matter.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like being sick and the ants. Other seven year olds don’t worry about those sorts of things.’

  What did other seven year olds worry about?

  Being cool?

  I certainly didn’t.

  At first Mum thought I had been sexually abused. I had no idea how she related the constant fear of vomiting and checking to sexual abuse, but that was my mother for you. Personally, I thought she had gone nuts.

  ‘Are you sure no-one has been fiddling with your private parts, Keisha?’ she asked me one day after picking me up from the sick bay at primary school. I felt ill after hearing my teacher say one of the kids was away sick with a stomach bug. ‘Perhaps that’s why you’re so scared about being sick all the time?’

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes. ‘Of course not, Mum.’

  So it was decided I had to see a psychiatrist, and it didn’t stop at one. My first shrink had thin wavy hair, a bald patch, and a little grey beard sprouting from his chin like old grass. He looked like that sensei, Mr Miyagi, out of Karate Kid, the guy with the slanted eyes. I used to look at Mr Miyagi and think his sight was way too limited to teach that Karate Kid anything at all, let alone all those high kicks and lethal chops.

  The shrink didn’t have karate students. He had cats.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind cats,’ he said and smiled as he sunk down into an old brown peeling armchair before crossing his legs.

  No, I didn’t mind cats but he had more than fifteen prowling his quarters and keeping guard. They skulked around purring and miaowing, and pulling all sorts of nasty faces to let me know I wasn’t welcome.

  I didn’t mind.

  I didn’t want to be welcome.

  ‘Look at all these cats, Dad
,’ I whispered, sitting down on the very edge of a tattered old couch. ‘They’re everywhere. Even on top of the TV. And it stinks in here.’

  ‘How does he expect his visitors to deal with how dirty this place is?’ I whispered again, looking at the clumps of cat hair clutching at the sticky carpet for dear life – scared someone might actually come along and vacuum them up.

  That was highly unlikely.

  Dad just shook his head and rested his hands on his lap.

  He was clearly embarrassed.

  When we left Mum said, ‘didn’t it stink of strong ammonia in there?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the cat pee,’ I replied quickly. ‘Dirty old man. And I bet he doesn’t wash his hands. He would be sure to have a bug.’

  ‘Keisha!’ Mum said, shaking her head.

  That was the one and only time we saw the sensei. Mum had taken me to other psychiatrists but none were that memorable. None made me cringe that much. None gave me so much to think about. She did enough research to write an encyclopedia on my problems and consulted the local doctor who referred me to yet another psychiatrist.

  Mr Robbins.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he muttered, peering over his glasses and running his eyes over me at the end of my first session. ‘I am going to prescribe an anti-depressant for you. It will help with the anxiety and calm you down a bit.’

  He smiled, took out his biro and wrote me the prescription.

  ‘This is called Zoloft.’ He handed the prescription to my mum. ‘I want Keisha to take one once a day in the mornings. And I’d like her to come and visit me for therapy.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor. How long will she have to come for?’

  He smiled.

  He did that often.

  It made his black wonky beard more physically bearable.

  ‘Oh, I think we’ll say indefinitely for now and see how things go.’

  Although I liked to think of him as Mr Smiley, Mum, Dad and my sisters called him by his real name. Mr Robbins was a name that became notorious in our household.

  ‘It’s funny,’ Dad said one night as he was flicking through a pile of medical bills, ‘I think we say that name more than we used to say Jordy when we tried getting him in of a night.’

  Jordy was the cat that died when I was eleven. He had been eleven too.

  Eleven.

  An unlucky number.

  After quite a few therapy sessions I remembered saying, ‘Mum, what do you think it means if I check under my pillow, in my wardrobe and behind the curtains only twice instead of three times? Do you think it means I’m getting better?’

  She smiled and shook her head. ‘I really don’t know, Keisha. You’ll have to ask Mr Robbins.’

  I also remembered saying, ‘I walked past a boy today who was coughing really badly. I think I might be getting better.’

  The response again was a smile and ‘you’ll have to ask Mr Robbins.’

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