Hurlophobia
By David Erlewine


My son ducks down in the car, so low I can barely see him in the rear-view mirror. 

"Your seat belt better be on."  A Prius cuts in front of me.

"It is."  Carl’s voice barely registers.  When I glance back, only his football helmet is showing.  

***

Three neighborhood kids stand outside the living room window, in the garden my ex-wife used to make me tend.  They grin, pretending to throw things at Carl. They’re in third, maybe fourth grade.  Carl, all 15 years of him, sprints upstairs, skull and helmet banging against each other.  

The boys scatter as I open the front door, freaked out by the alarm.  I slam the door and run over to the panel, disabling it before I am forced to explain that everything is fine.

I never thought I’d think fondly upon the days Carl was stricken by apiphobia (fear of bees) or iophobia (poison). But this latest phobia of flying rocks smashing into his face is proving far more troublesome than any of the others.

***

At dinner, meat sauce drips onto Carl’s narrow shoulders and chest. I tap his helmet.  "You’re spilling it all over yourself. Take it off." 

He glances at the window behind us, and then shakes his head.   

“Go to bed then.”

After he’s upstairs, I dump the dishes into the sink and lay down on the living room couch. I put on the “Soundscapes” channel. Harps relax me for a few minutes.

Later that night, I study an online list of phobias.  Since this newest one hit a few weeks ago, the closest I’ve been able to find is scotomophobia (blindness in visual field).  I also consider ommetaphobia (eyes) and optophobia (opening one’s eyes), but nothing else among the hoards sounds even close.  There doesn’t appear to be a clinical term for Carl’s terror that any second a rock is going to smash into his face. Perhaps little pills for general anxiety are better than institutionalization or electroshock, but the last pills he took made him so constipated that enemas barely helped. I can’t blame him for being iatrophobic (going to the doctor).

I scroll down the alphabetized list, stopping randomly at tonitrophobia (thunder), pogonophobia (beards), and bolshephobia (Bolsheviks).  At the top of the list, in red, is something I hadn't noticed before: "If you're looking for a phobia that's not on this list...Sorry, but I don't have it."

Is it possible to have an unlisted phobia? For whatever reason, that makes me curious whether out of the hundreds listed, I even have one. After a few minutes of scrolling unsuccessfully, I head back to bed. As I pass the back hall windows, I avoid glancing out at the wooded area beyond the back yard.  

***

My ex-wife answers the phone on the fourth ring.  I clear my throat.  "He’s wearing a helmet now."

"Charles? I have company.”

There is laughing in the background.

“He’s in bed right now, behind a locked door, wearing a helmet.”

“I’ll call you.”

***

At work, I get a call from my son’s school. Another student in Carl’s special needs class is in the nurse’s office, a girl who tried taking off his helmet.

***

Later, while I talk with the principal, Carl’s hands stay on top of his helmet.

On the ride home, he takes off his seatbelt and lies on the backseat floor.

“Get back in your seat.”

A minute later, I pull the car over, hoist him up by his shoulders, and strap him into his seat.

***

Scrolling through the list again, it seems my ex-wife suffered from decidophobia. Maybe things would have worked out for all three of us if she’d let me take him to therapy when we knew something was wrong. But she said, “You have to spell your name in cursive before a shrink will see you.” And she didn’t want us taking severe action when in fourth grade he hid in the crawlspace at 2:00 a.m. while I was screaming at the 911 operator about pedophiles. Even, last year, when different phobias began popping up almost weekly, she said he just needed time: soon he’d start acting like the other kids who played in front of our house.

But, maybe the term “decidophobia” never applied. Certainly, after Carl got switched into special classes, she had little trouble deciding to leave us, heading out to California to live with her brother and his wife.

I take another stroll down the list and come across one I’ve somehow missed: nyctohylophobia ( fear of dark wooded areas at night). I glance out the window at the darkened woods, trying not to picture what could be hiding.

***

I jiggle Carl’s door knob and bang on the door. He nods, extending his arm in a welcoming gesture.

Once inside, I inhale sharply. The room stinks. Black garbage bags are taped over the windows, including the one on the back wall.

I stand over his bed. That’s when I name it: hurlophobia (flying objects hitting the face). After I find another shrink, I’m going to e-mail the phobia list operator my suggested addition.

Behind the taped back window are the woods. In the dark all sorts of things are devouring one another and perhaps there is a wolf or bear or jaguar or tasmanian devil, eyeing the black garbage bag-covered window, wondering how to get at what’s behind it.

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