Oakwood Comic Book Program - Oakwood Healthcare System

Chris Houghton
Sweet Dreams
Robitussin
Michael Madigan
Coughs, snot and sneezes were only part of the perpetual background of noise, confusion
and anxiety in Baby Boom households that drove our parents to it. During my introduction
to two-wheelers and roller skates, when I came home with bruises, ragged scrapes and
oddly twisted joints; when friends fought or fell out with me, or when I had been exposed
to them as morally weak or vulnerable; when I was afraid or – later on – ashamed or
regretful; when my dog ran away or I lost an argument over which channel to watch; when
mercurochrome and bandages were unequal to the pain – actual, imagined or dramatized
– and the indignity and self pity that fed on it; when my bewailing and acting out reached
an arbitrary threshold, like a fever of over one hundred degrees – it was announced, like
a verdict, or strike three.
It was the last word when I was full of myself and of the pleasure of being myself,
especially at bedtime, or steadfast in blaming the monsters and cowboys in the woods
south of town for my failure to come straight home.
No matter what, the answer was Robitussin.
The mythology of Robitussin had to do with its power to lower the volume, peel any child
down from the ceiling and render him placid and compliant. Such was the experience
adults had with it. Mom would park me on a step-stool in the kitchen and retrieve the
Robitussin from behind a stack of glossy damask dinner napkins in the linen closet
where she believed, I suppose, only she knew it was hidden. Though its slipperiness
and intoxicating tickle weren’t the worst things I’d had in my mouth at that age, I still
winced and gagged convincingly. Warmth spread out from my ears, and my bearing grew
lopsided and tentative. I was Play-Doh in Mom’s hands.
Then, day or night, it was off to bed and, theoretically, a sleep as heavy and dreamless as
Juliet’s. For a dull child, perhaps, the medicine would have performed in that way. But I,
on Robitussin, left to myself in the dark, was a sideshow.
For me, the spell cast by Robitussin was not a restful trance but the kind employed by
stage hypnotists to amuse an audience. In its lightness my head did not unburden itself of
thought but filled and raced with vivid pandemonium: talking animals, sharp objects, deep
water, picnics, devils, clouds and mountains, bondage, flight, hidden passages, unknown
languages, school, exquisite dread, frantic embarrassment, violent happiness. I talked,
posed, gestured and panted, just below the shadow of my eyelids, rattling awake my
brother in the bunk below me. A night with Robitussin was rip-roaring for both of us.
While it lasted, there was nothing like it. Yes, the dull percussion and disoriented
queasiness were a steep price to pay the next morning; but as long as the linen closet
remained unlocked that memory persisted as little more than a cautionary tale.
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