On a Beam of Light (12 page)

The entire faculty, except for those unable to make it owing to other commitments, usually shows up for the first “session” with a new resident of Four—not only to help his psychiatrist evaluate his condition and possible course of treatment, but also to assess the potential danger to the rest of the staff and patients.

The new inmate, wearing bright orange-plastic shackles, was brought in by two of the security guards and asked to sit at the end of the long table. Ordinarily I’m not surprised by the general appearance of a psychopathic patient because there is no mold into which such a person fits. A “path” can be young or old, hardened or timid. He can look like a derelict or the boy next door. But I winced when this cold-blooded killer was brought in. I had been informed, of course, that she was a female Caucasian, but it was hard to imagine, even with decades of experience, that such a beautiful woman could be guilty of committing the crimes alleged to her. Yet she had been tried, found not responsible by reason of insanity, and sent to MPI for killing seven young men in various parts of the city.

Serial killings, indeed most murders, are usually committed by men. Whether this has anything to do with the male (or female) psyche, or is merely a matter of opportunity, is not at all clear. Psychopathy itself is a difficult affliction to understand. As with many mental illnesses, there seems to be a genetic defect often leading to an un-derarousal of the autonomic nervous system. Persons harboring this defect, for example, exhibit little anxiety when confronted with a potentially dangerous situation. In fact, they seem to enjoy it.

In addition, psychopaths are often quite impulsive, acting mainly on feelings of the moment, seeking short-lived thrills without regard to the long-term consequences. They are usually sociopathic as well, caring little for the feelings of others and evincing little regard for what other people may think of them.

On the other hand, they are often superficially charming, making it very difficult for potential victims to spot danger in ordinary interactions with them. How does one recognize that “the nice boy (or girl) next door” can be as deadly as an anaconda?

But back to our patient. The woman, only twenty-three, was thought to have murdered seven young men, perhaps as many as nine, all from outlying towns, who had come to the big city for a good time on a Saturday night. All seven were found in deserted areas, unclad from the waist down, and penectomized. She was apprehended only when she picked up a police decoy, who barely escaped with his life, not to mention his genitalia.

But charming she was, and lovely as well. She smiled as she gazed into the eyes of every doctor in the room. Her answers to routine questions were frank, sometimes humorous, not the slightest bit antisocial. And I thought: Can we ever really know a person, even one who is perfectly sane? I knew that Ron was in for a very interesting experience. Nevertheless, I didn’t envy him in the slightest, even when she wet her lips and winked at me as if to say, “Let’s have some fun.”

When I got back to my office I perused the “poop sheet” on our newest patient, whom I will call Charlotte. One by one her victims had disappeared and were never heard from again. The reason it took the police so long to find her was that young men come to town every weekend to pick up girls, and even under the best of circumstances it is virtually impossible to find an unknown killer in a city full of people. Probably no one would even take notice of a young couple leaving the bar or restaurant where they met, perhaps arm in arm, smiling warmly, Mr. Fly eagerly accompanying Ms. Spider to her web.

Perhaps that’s why I have trouble sympathizing with spiders, even when they get trapped in a sink.

Before leaving for the day I sought out Cassandra. I found her sitting on the weathered bench under “Adonis in the Garden of Eden, ” her raven-black hair shining in the sun,

gazing at the cloudless sky from which she gets her inspiration, or so she claims. Knowing she ignores any attempt to interrupt her, I waited.

When she finally turned her attention away from the heavens I cautiously approached her. She seemed in a pleasant enough mood, and we chatted for a while about the hot weather. She predicted more of the same. I said, “That’s not what I wanted to ask you about. “

“Why not? Everyone else does. “

“Cassandra, I wonder if you could help me with something. “

“It won’t be the Mets. “

“No, not that. I need to know how long prot is going to be around. Can you tell me anything about when he’ll be leaving us?”

“If you’re planning a trip to K-PAX, don’t pack your bags yet. “

“You mean it will be a while before he goes?”

“When he’s finished what he came to do, he’ll leave. That will take some time. “

“May I ask you—did you get this information from prot himself?”

She looked annoyed, but admitted she had talked with him.

“Anything else you can tell me about your conversation with prot?”

With a hint of amusement now: “I asked if he would take me with him. “

“What did he say?”

“He told me I was one of those being considered. “

“Really? Do you know who else is on the list?”

She tapped her head with a forefinger. “He said you would ask me that. “

“Do you know the answer?”

“Yes. “

“Who are they?”

“Anyone who wants to go. “

But not everyone on the list will be selected, I thought dismally. A lot of them are going to be very disappointed. “All right. Thank you, Cassie. “

“Don’t you want to know who’s going to win the World Series?”

“Who?”

“The Braves. “

I almost blurted out, “You’re crazy!”

Whenever I experience a difficult patient making a first appearance in Ward Four, I always pay a visit to Ward One to try to recapture my optimism, and I did so the morning after meeting Charlotte. I encountered Rudolph in the exercise room practicing what appeared to be very novel ballet stances and moves. It reminded me of the contortionists who used to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. I asked him how he was doing. To my surprise he confessed that he had a long way to go. I wasn’t sure whether he meant his treatment program or his perfection of ballet technique, but I could see that he wouldn’t be with us much longer.

I found Michael in the quiet room behind a book of poetry. I asked him what he was reading.

“Oh, just some Keats and Shelley and Wordsworth and those guys. An anthology. I’ve missed out on so much of my life. When I was in high school I wanted to be an English teacher. “

“Still can be. “

“Maybe. Right now I just want to balance the ledger. “

“Have you looked into any EMS training programs?”

“I’ve already signed up for one. Starts October third. ” He glanced at me hopefully.

“I think you’ll make it. I’ll take a look at my schedule and see if we can work in a wrap-up session sometime soon. “

On the way back to my office I stopped briefly in Ward Two, where my balloon of optimism began to deflate with a pronounced hiss. Bert was crashing through the lounge lifting cushions, stomping on the carpet, peering behind drapes and chairs. How sad he seemed, focused on his impossible quest like some latter-day Don Quixote.

But was Bert’s case any more tragic than that of Jackie, who would always be a child? Or Russell, so focused on the Bible that he never learned how to live? Or Lou or Manuel or Dustin? Or, for that matter, some of our faculty and staff? Or millions of others who stumble about the world looking for what may not be there? Who set impossible goals for themselves and never attain them?

Milton, perhaps noticing my sudden melancholy, held forth with: “Man went to the doctor. Said he had chest pains and wanted an electrocardiogram. Doctor gave him one and told him there was nothing wrong with his heart. Came in every few months. Same result. Outlived three doctors. Finally, when he was ninety-two, there was a change in his EKG pattern. He looked the guy straight in the eye and said, ‘Ha! I told you so!’ “

Now in his fifties, Milton fully understands the sadness of life and tries vainly to cheer up everyone he sees. Unfortunately, he has never been able to alleviate his own suffering. He lost his entire family—father, mother, brothers, a sister, grandmother, several aunts and uncles and cousins, in the Holocaust. Only he escaped, protected from harm by a total stranger, a gentile who took the baby at the pleadings of his mother and pretended it was her own.

But is his story any sadder than that of Frankie, a woman unable to form human relationships of any kind? Not a sociopath like Charlotte, nor an autist like Jerry and the others, but someone who is indifferent toward affection, a patient who is pathologically unable to love or be loved— what could be sadder than that?

Villers was leaving the dining room as I was coming in. I waved at him as he passed by but he didn’t see me. He seemed distracted, deep in thought, conjuring up some new money-making scheme, I assumed.

Menninger joined me instead, and I asked him about his new patient. “She’s as cold as they come, ” he told me, “a female Hannibal Lecter. You should read her detailed history. “

“I think I’ll pass on that. “

But Ron was enjoying himself. He loves to play with fire. “When she was five, she killed a puppy. You know how she did it?”

“No. “

“She baked it in the oven. “

“Did she get any treatment?”

“Nope. Claimed she didn’t know the pup was in there. “

“And it went downhill from there. “

“Way down. “

I slowly chewed up the last of the crackers. “I’m not sure I want to hear the rest. “

“I’ll give you the low point. After several more practice runs with neighborhood pets, including a horse she stabbed to death, she killed the boy next door when she was sixteen. “

“How did she get by with it?”

“She didn’t. She spent some time in a reform school and then was transferred to a mental institution when she attacked one of the guards. You don’t want to know what she did to him. She managed to escape from that place and was never heard from again. “

“How old was she then?”

“Twenty. She was arrested a year later. “

“You mean she killed those seven or eight guys in one year?”

“And that’s not the worst of it. When she killed the neighbor kid?”

“Yes?”

“She left him lying in the backyard and went to a movie. After that, she slept like a baby, according to her parents. “

“I’d keep an eye on her if I were you. “

His eyes lit up. “Don’t worry. But she’s an amazing case, don’t you think? I’ve never met anyone like her. ” He seemed beside himself, eager for his first session with Charlotte.

“Just be careful. She’s no Sunday-school teacher. “

“Wouldn’t matter if she were. “

“Why not?”

“Some of the most violent people in the world are Sunday-school teachers. “

While waiting for Robert/prot to come in for his twenty-fourth session I jotted down on a yellow pad some of the missing pieces of the puzzle I hoped to obtain from Rob, paramount of which was the question of who had fathered Sarah’s child, and what, if anything, did this have to do with Rob’s mental problems? Why did he call his father his “protector”? What happened when he was five years old that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, remember? None of this was going to be easy for Rob to deal with, but I was pretty sure the seeds of his trauma had begun to germinate during that early period in his troubled life, as my perceptive wife had suggested.

There was another, quite unforeseen, difficulty as well. Based on the results of the Stanford test, it appeared that Robert was trying hard to resist being hypnotized. Was he beginning to have second thoughts about cooperating with me and getting to the bottom of the quagmire he had been treading most of his life? I decided to approach his childhood only indirectly for the time being.

From his history I knew approximately when Sarah must’ve become pregnant, so I had some idea of when she told him about it. I tried to imagine what he must have felt upon hearing this news, and I was still staring into empty space when someone tapped on the door.

“Hi, Dr. Brewer. “

“Hello, Rob. How are you feeling?”

He shrugged.

“Do you remember coming here from Ward Two?”

“No. “

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was being tested to see whether I could be hypnotized. “

“Well, you passed. “

His shoulders slumped.

“And you know that in this setting there’s no danger, nothing to worry about, right? Are you ready to try it?”

“I guess. “

“Okay, sit down and relax. Good. Now focus your attention on that little spot on the wall behind me. “

He pretended not to see it. After a moment, however, he complied.

“That’s it. Just relax. Good. Good. Now I’m going to count from one to five. You will begin to feel drowsy on one, your eyelids will become heavier and heavier as the numbers increase, and by the time I get to five you will be asleep, but you will be able to hear everything I say. Do you understand?”

“Yes. “

“Good. Now—let your arms drop…. ” Rob’s arms fell

heavily to his sides and his eyes closed tightly. He began to snore softly. Obviously he was faking it. “Okay, Rob, open your eyes. “

His eyes popped open. “Is it over already?”

“Rob, you’ll have to do better than that. Are you afraid of the procedure?”

“No, not exactly. “

“Good. Now let’s try again. Are you comfortable?”

“Yes. “

“All right. Now let yourself relax completely. Let all your muscles go limp and just relax. That’s it. Good. Now find the spot on the wall. Good. Just relax. One… you’re beginning to feel drowsy. Two… your eyelids are getting heavy…. ” Robert stared at the white dot. He was still resisting, apparently caught between fear and suspicion. On three his eyelids began to flutter, and he fought to keep them open. By the count of five they were closed and his chin had dropped onto his chest. “Rob? Can you hear me?”

“Yes. “

“Good. Now lift your head and open your eyes. “