The Curse of an Extraordinary Gentleman

HOWARD Hughes was obsessed with peas. The world’s richest man would line up his favourite green veg in order of size before he ate them. Ten cookies at a time, medium sized chocolate chips, not too near the edge. It took fifteen pieces of tissue paper for him to touch a doorknob and fifteen painful minutes to wash his hands after it.

Howard’s dead body was identified by his fingerprints because years in recluse made him unrecognisable, his death a result of the obsession that made him so successful in life.

This is a story of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), except this ain’t Hollywood and I’m no Katharine Hepburn. I’m in north Wales to meet a man who, like his American counterpart, is harming his livelihood with a bad habit.

Ben Williams is a comic book artist with an urge to wash his hands. Like the superheroes he sketches, he has an extraordinary ability, taught by a Nickelodeon master, which has earned him an apprenticeship with Disney. But just like a superhero, Ben has a crippling weakness that may ultimately be his downfall.

This is a tale of irony, a battle of good versus evil. Meet Comic Book Ben and the Curse of Carex.

“I bought comics in my teens that were collector’s items,” he says as I pull out a seat at his kitchen table. “You know, the ones you seal in a plastic bag and keep? They were so precious to me. It was a special mission to get them home in one piece.

“I must have looked a right dick on the bus. I’d pick a seat on my own and lay the comic flat on my knee so I didn’t bend it. If a page got ripped, I’d think about it all day. Or if it rained and got wet I’d go and buy another copy. I’d wash my hands before I read the comic because I hated it when I got greasy hand prints on them. I guess that’s how it all started.”

The 24-year-old is eager to talk about his OCD but a little less keen to make eye contact. In his trademark jeans and checked shirt with sleeves rolled up, he leans back in his chair and tells me about his daily hand washing routine.

“I go for a pee then open the bathroom door. Just a little bit. I run the water ‘til it’s scalding hot. Then it’s one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” With a frown that creases his forehead, he touches every digit on his hands as he relays this.

“After that, I use Carex soap. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I say the numbers out loud and if I miss one or stutter, I have to start again.” He sounds frustrated just telling me. “Then I rinse them and dry them with a clean towel. I don’t have to touch the bathroom door ‘cause it’s already open.

“If I don’t wash them in my special way, I think something bad will happen.” He says this so convincingly that my eyes widen and I nod my head in fearful agreement.

“I was washing my hands once and I kept fucking up on the numbers. My mum came in and screamed, ‘Ben, you’ve been washing your hands for 45 minutes!’ She dragged me out of the bathroom but all’s I kept thinking was wait ‘til she’s gone to work and you can go back and finish it.

“I’m just a joke to my friends. It’s like, ‘Where’s Ben?’ ‘Oh he’s washing his hands’ and they all fall about laughing. Or if my dad’s been digging in the garden, he’ll chase me around the house waving his hands in my face.”

It’s not just cleanliness that Ben struggles with.

“I turn off every plug socket in the house before I go to bed. This fire killed a guy’s wife and kids on ‘999’ once, and it was caused by a plug socket that wasn’t even turned on. I turn them all off then check again. And when mad cow disease was about and the beef was contaminated, I wouldn’t touch any meat of any kind just in case.

“The worst thing about it is that I know it’s wrong,” he says. “It’s an absolute pain in the arse. But I’m just compelled to do it, like I’m on some mission to save the world.” Cue further superhero resemblance.

Ben puts his obsessive behaviour down to being artistic.

“I think it’s an artistic tendency to be wired differently. All of my heroes have the same thing. Their hands are fucked up. It’s the perfectionist in me. Everything has to be precise. You have to push yourself just that little bit further.”

When does the strive for perfection become a life of obsession? I ask to see his hands. The first thing I notice is that they’re clean (obviously). The second thing I notice is that they are red-raw.

“I worry about it because I’m hurting my livelihood,” he says. “My hands are my thing. I can’t let it take over.”

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety-related condition that affects three in 100 people. Sufferers experience repetitive, intrusive and unwelcome thoughts which they find hard to ignore. These thoughts cause the person to perform repetitive compulsions in an attempt to neutralise the fear.

Common obsessions include contamination and germs, violent or sexual thoughts, the ordering or arrangement of objects and hoarding of possessions. The World Health Organisation ranks OCD as the tenth most disabling illness of any kind, in terms of lost earnings and diminished quality of life.

And us mere mortals aren’t alone in our suffering. Cameron Diaz admits to scrubbing her Hollywood home scrupulously every day. David Beckham would rather throw away a can of Coke than have an odd number of cans in the fridge. And Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Howard Hughes in The Aviator, avoids standing on cracks in the pavement at any cost.

Our interview almost over, I ask to see some of Ben’s artwork. He leads me to his bedroom and we pause outside while he opens the door with his elbow. It’s 4.30 in the afternoon and his curtains are drawn. But the double bed is neatly made, the room spotless.

While he shows me images on a computer screen, I nod and hum in appropriate places but scan his room stealthily for a speck of dirt or a stray pair of undies on the floor. A bookcase is crammed with books and DVDs, each placed in a certain way. On top of the bookcase, a perfect stack of comics in immaculate condition.

The walls are adorned with blue-tacked scraps of white paper, complete with pencil scribbles and sketches of outlandish characters. It reminds me of a shrine. Rows of sketchbooks and tins of coloured pencils are tidied away in a cupboard. Above his bed is a single poster of Spiderman. He spots me staring.

“I’ve never been to the doctor’s or anything about it,” Ben says. “Once I move out and get some responsibilities, I don’t think I’ll do it anymore. I’ll have a missus and babies; there’ll be more than just me to think about.”

For now, his baby is Brutal Comics, an online comic book he set up with two university pals. Not forgetting his Disney apprenticeship starting in July. Maybe Comic Book Ben lost the battle with Carex but will win the war on OCD. Maybe good will triumph over evil after all. Not bad for a lad who used to draw caricatures at Alton Towers.

The boy done good.

For more information on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, go to http://www.ocduk.org/