What Lies Beyond the Stars

by Micael Goorjian

  “I think Freud might have gotten it backward,” Adam finally said. “What if we’re actually much worse off than we realize?” Adam turned to face Dr. Agopian, his eyes gleaming. “And at the same time, we have the potential to become far greater than we can possibly imagine.”

  It took only two weeks for Dr. Agopian to set a date with the hospital board to review Adam Sheppard’s application for release. He was particularly eager to share the details of Adam’s recovery with some of the doctors from S.F. General who had been critical of Dr. Agopian’s hands-off approach. Before Adam was brought into the room, Dr. Agopian summarized the case for his colleagues, starting with Adam’s history of questionable treatment under Dr. Mendelson’s care—the premature diagnosis and the barrage of medications.

  One of the senior doctors on the board recognized Mendelson’s name. “Oh, yes,” she said with a nod. “He’s got quite the reputation as a pill-pusher. But this is sounding more like borderline malpractice. ”

  “Yes,” Dr. Agopian replied with measured restraint. “Despite my recommendations, however, Adam has decided not to take legal action.”

  Dr. Agopian went on to explain how and why his own treatment of Adam was based on the premise that he essentially stop treating him. “Before introducing any new medication or therapy,” Dr. Agopian explained, “I felt it was best to allow Adam to be given the chance to heal on his own. To assist Adam in this process, I began by gradually reducing the dosage of his medication over a controlled period of time, eventually replacing them with placebos.”

  “So what medications is he currently taking?” asked a young Asian doctor from SF General who had been involved with Adam’s treatment before his transfer.

  “None,” Dr. Agopian replied.

  “Mr. Sheppard is no longer on any medication?” The young doctor’s tone was incredulous. He had seen Adam at his most violent, just before he sank into his catatonic state.

  “He takes a few aspirin in the morning to help with the pain in his muscles, but that’s it.”

  “So you’re saying you took him off all his meds and then left him alone in a room for nine months, and as a result, he has made a miraculous recovery?”

  “I also adjusted his diet. As I’m sure you’re already aware, there have been multiple studies connecting the gut to mood disorders and serotonin levels.”

  The young doctor started to challenge Dr. Agopian again when one of the more senior doctors interjected. “So if Adam Sheppard was misdiagnosed as bipolar, what would your diagnosis be, Dr. Agopian? What is his condition?”

  “He doesn’t have one,” Dr. Agopian said flatly. But then he shook his head. “No, let me correct that. Adam Sheppard suffered from not being what others wanted him to be. He suffered from being overtreated, which only caused bigger problems that required bigger solutions, causing even bigger problems. Stuck in that cycle, going round and round, his fate was inevitable. Eventually he crashed. Therefore, the only solution was to let him fully shut down. Then fully reboot.

  “It is my opinion that there is nothing medically wrong with Adam. He may not be what the world considers ‘normal,’ but he is not mentally ill, nor does he pose a danger to himself or others. But perhaps it’s time to let Adam speak for himself.”

  As Dr. Agopian expected, any lingering doubts evaporated the moment Adam Sheppard entered the room. When he spoke he commanded attention with his sincerity and discerning insight. Several times a question turned into a discussion during which the doctors talked to Adam about his condition with the same respect and consideration they would have given a colleague. For the most part, Dr. Agopian said nothing. He simply sat back and watched, seeming to take as much pleasure as if he were watching a beloved nephew ace his oral argument before a medical review board.

  Practical questions about where Adam would go when he left the Presidio House and what he would do felt trivial, but nevertheless the doctors had to ask.

  And Adam had a ready answer. He told the board members, “I’m going to go live my life, the one I was always meant to live.”

  Adam stood motionless, allowing the water to run over his body. It was an amazing feeling. Looking straight up into the showerhead, he opened his mouth. He didn’t drink the water, but simply let it fill his mouth until it spilled out. He thought about all those times he had taken a shower in the past, lost in his head, never really in the shower. He could still go there if he chose to, still let his mind wander out beyond the circumference of this overhead stream. He could let his thoughts take him away toward the worries of the past or the anxieties of the future, but why? Life was happening right here. And it was a life he now had very good reason to stay focused on.

  Adam was no longer alone inside himself. The boy from the merry-go-round was now there. His young voice was still weak, but Adam could hear it clearly now. Unlike the voice inside his head, this new voice resided deep within his solar plexus.

  Looking down at the hot- and cold-water faucets, Adam smiled. He now understood who had been covertly helping him escape his old mind loops. Adam reached out and turned off the hot water. After a few seconds, the icy shock hit him. Adam danced around the shower stall, howling like a proper madman before twisting the hot-water faucet back on.

  As the warm water eased back over his skin, Adam leaned against the shower tiles, gasping for air and laughing. A few moments later, he heard a whisper inside of him say, “Again, again!”

  With each passing day, Adam was beginning to understand that it would be his responsibility to help nurture this underdeveloped side of himself, the six-year-old boy in need of experiences in order to grow. And at the same time, he was also learning to trust that this six-year-old boy was there to guide and protect him in return.

  They threw Adam a going-away party in the solarium. Dr. Agopian brought his wife, who was eager to meet Adam after everything she’d heard about him. Of course Miss Ferguson was there too, wearing her favorite SpongeBob party hat. Since Adam’s healthcare directive had been taken over by the State, there was no requirement to inform anyone outside the hospital of his recovery or release. Adam asked the administration office to keep it that way. Blake had stopped calling a few months ago, but if he ever did call again, Dr. Agopian would handle it for Adam. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dorsey, but Adam Sheppard is still unreachable,” or something along those lines.

  There was one guest who made an appearance at the party who Adam wasn’t expecting to see. Adam first noticed him sitting alone by the window, facing away from everyone else. He was in his wheelchair, in pretty much the same position as the last time Adam had seen him.

  It was Michael. Not a reflection, but a flesh-and-blood human being.

  Carrying slices of cake on a tray, Miss Ferguson walked past Adam, over to the window, and offered one to Michael. He took three. Miss Ferguson walked away, and after a moment Michael glanced in Adam’s direction. Their eyes met.

  Michael looked a little different, Adam thought. A little older, a little less crazy, and a little more physically compromised. Perhaps a little more heavy-hearted as well. But as Adam moved closer, Michael gave him that same glorious smile, bright as sunshine, eyes full of wonder.

  “My brother, look at you. Look. At. You,” he said before taking a big bite of cake. “I knew you’d make it. Oh, yeah, I knew.”

  Adam pulled up a chair and sat down. Still feeling a sense of disbelief, he watched Michael eat; his movements were slow but steady, with none of the old tremors. Adam spotted a small paper cup, the kind they use to give out medication, on the food tray set across the arms of his wheelchair.

  “Don’t get too comfortable now,” Michael went on, his voice clearer than Adam remembered. “You already done enough sitting around. Time for you to get moving, brother.” Then leaning in with that conspiratorial look in his eye, he added, “They gonna be needin’ yo’ ass.”

  As usual, Adam wasn’t quite sure what to make of Michael’s words. “‘They’ who?”

  Michael shrugged and
went back to his cake. After another bite he added, “An old friend of mine used to say, ‘In times of change, a single conscious man can equal a million sleeping.’” Michael looked directly at Adam. And with all affectation suddenly gone, he said, “Time you started flying, brother. For both of us.”

  Reaching down beneath the seat cushion of his wheelchair, Michael pulled out a manila envelope. After fiddling with the worn brass latch, he opened it and slid out an old photograph. He handed it to Adam without a word.

  CHAPTER 34

  THE FIRST ORANGE PEEL

  Hank reached into his breast pocket for his Camel Lights. It was time for his lucky cigarette. Like many smokers, whenever Hank opened a new pack, he’d ritualistically pull out a cigarette, flip it around, and put it back in, tobacco end up. Like many smokers, Hank had no idea why he did this. He just knew it made the cigarette lucky if he smoked it last before opening a new pack. Although there were plenty of myths out there, mostly dealing with soldiers and war, this maneuver had actually originated for sanitary considerations (a flipped cigarette allowed one to offer someone a smoke with a relatively clean filter). The term “lucky” had most likely developed over time (perhaps if no one bummed from you for your whole pack, then “lucky you” got to smoke it yourself). Whatever the case, the virtuous origins of this sacred move were slowly forgotten and usurped by superstition, so that today, as far as Hank understood it, taking a lucky cigarette out of someone else’s pack was not only rude but also incredibly bad luck.

  Some dickwad once took my lucky cigarette, he thought. When the hell was that?

  Hank stepped out of the guard booth to stretch his legs. It was just after nine, and the morning fog had burnt off, leaving a high cloud cover and a gentle breeze. Leaning on the railing, he looked out on the boats. Nothing much doing today. All the local fishing boats were long gone, Don and Marty Barksdale were over on their busted-up ketch repairing the mainsail, and there were some seagulls fighting over something on the far shore.

  There was also a man Hank didn’t recognize standing alone at the far end of the last pier. He seemed to be examining one of the empty slips. Strange, Hank thought. The man was too far away to make out his face, but there was something familiar about him standing out there. That slip was where all that weird shit went down, two, three years ago, he recalled. Taking another long drag off his lucky cigarette, Hank headed down toward the docks to investigate.

  Adam had been in Mendocino for nearly a week. He had taken a room at the Sea Gull Inn, a quaint bed and breakfast. From his room he could walk a block, cross Main Street, and reach the entrance to a footpath between the gas station and the Presbyterian Church that led out to the bluff. He took this route to avoid walking down Main Street. For the most part he wanted to keep to himself as he adjusted to the outside world. He felt a bit like a newborn since leaving the Presidio House, hypersensitive to every nuance of the environment around him, as if all the nerve endings in his body had been scrubbed raw.

  The few hours he’d spent in San Francisco before getting out of town had proven almost too much to bear. The cars, the people, the sounds—it was like someone had turned the volume up full blast in the city. More disturbing than the sensory assault were the faces of people he passed on the streets. The groups of kids waiting at the bus stop, the bouncer outside a bar, the housewife pumping gasoline into her SUV, the young couple outside the café, the businessman in his fancy suit, the taxi driver, the four-year-old girl in her car seat. Almost every face . . . lost in the pale glow of a screen. Even those not looking at devices seemed half-asleep, off in their own private nowhere.

  Outside the city the noise was less pervasive, the faces less foggy. For several reasons Mendocino was the natural place for Adam to go. Wandering the headlands alone was just about as much stimulation as he could handle at first. He’d found a big bench made from driftwood where he went to sit those first few days and just take in the coastline south of town. After that he went a little farther down the bluff where familiar, precarious wooden stairs led down to the beach below. The next day he ventured a bit farther, past the giant blowhole.

  It was high tide when he first made it out to the cliffs. The waves smashing against the rocks were deafening but exhilarating. He climbed down to get as close as possible to the action. As sunset neared, Adam climbed back up to the high point on the cliffs to that same spot he had visited so many times in his mind’s eye. Standing now a few feet from the edge with the rocks solidly underfoot, he watched the horizon as day turned to dusk. Endless thoughts rambled through his mind, but they no longer consumed him as they had in the past. He could now simply allow them to scud by like clouds in the background, and only when a thought was worth focusing on did he move it forward into view.

  One thought Adam did allow to the fore while standing on the edge of the cliff was of her.

  We need to find her, the young boy’s voice whispered in Adam’s chest.

  It’s not that easy, the older, more pragmatic voice in his head reasoned. Even if she was really flesh and blood, how would I ever find her?

  Look for the orange peel, the boy whispered. Once we find the first one, we’ll be able to spot the next. That’s how the game works.

  The next day Adam headed up to Noyo Harbor, not really sure what he was looking for, but trusting that this would be a good place to start.

  “Hey there!”

  Adam looked up from the empty slip. Hank, the big security guard, was standing at the end of the pier, taking a final drag of his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and rubbing it out with his boot.

  “You’re that crazy fella, right?” Hank squinted at Adam. He took a few steps closer and then stopped. “Oh, wait. Shoot, I’m sorry. Got you confused with someone else. Beg your pardon, sir.”

  “No, no. I’m who you think I am,” Adam said plainly. “The crazy fella, that was me.”

  Hank continued to walk toward Adam, looking at him intently. “Oh, yeah. Okay, so I was right. You look different. I mean that in a good way.” Hank stopped at the opposite end of the slip and gave Adam a big, friendly smile.

  There was an awkward pause. Adam could sense that Hank wanted to ask him something. Since his recovery Adam had found it curiously simple to gauge people’s thoughts just by looking at them.

  “Your name is Hank, right?” Adam said to break the silence.

  “Right, right.” The look of concern was still there. “So . . . He told you, right?”

  Adam’s new mind reading skills failed at that point. “‘He’ who?”

  “Your buddy, that slick fella with the Beamer.”

  “You mean Blake?”

  “I guess. He never told you nothing? For me?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Boy, oh, boy.” Hank stroked his beard a few times and then pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes out from his jacket pocket. “I shoulda known I couldn’t trust that guy. Now that I think about it, he was the dickwad who bummed my lucky cigarette that day!” Hank took off the plastic wrap and slapped the pack of cigarettes against the heel of his left palm. “Never trust a dickwad who takes your lucky cigarette, that’s for sure.”

  “What was he supposed to tell me?”

  Hank pinched out two cigarettes. One went to his mouth, the other he dutifully flipped and stuck back in. “I’m truly sorry about what happened but”—Hank dug in his jeans and pulled out a lighter—“there just wasn’t nothing else I could do, you know?”

  “No, I don’t. What was Blake supposed to tell me?”

  Hank shook his head. “That day, with the Coast Guard and Homeland Security here, and the sheriff and all, I didn’t have the chance to tell you, or I would’ve. But it was all just so crazy.”

  “Hank,” Adam said a little louder. “Tell me what?”

  Hank lit his cigarette and took a long drag. “Your friend? The redhead?”

  “Beatrice?”

  “Is that her name?” Hank shrugged. “I always just called her R
ed.” Hank exhaled tendrils of smoke through his nose. “You see, the Coast Guard came in that morning just a few hours before you showed up. I warned her they were coming, and since she didn’t have no papers and with Homeland Security in charge of things now, well, she decided to move her boat.” Hank pointed up at the bend in the river. “Took it just around that bend.”

  Adam looked out at the river.

  “Red told me you were coming to meet her. Said when you showed up, I should tell you where she was, but then, like I said, with all them cops and Homeland Security agents and everything else, there was just no way I could do that.”

  Near the river bend there was a spot on the opposite bank and what looked like a footpath. Adam recalled how he had seen, or thought he’d seen, the figure of a woman standing there as he was driven away in the back of the patrol car.

  “That Blake fella told me he was your friend, said he’d give you my message once things calmed down. It was all I could think of to do, considering.” Hank took a long drag off his cigarette.

  Adam looked at Hank and gave a small nod. It was enough to allow the big guy to understand he wasn’t mad at him and to encourage him to continue.

  “After you left the Coast Guard stuck around for another hour, thumbs up their arses. When they finally took off, I was able to get up there to Red and tell her what happened. Boy, oh, boy.” Hank exhaled loudly, shaking his head. “She was not happy. Got this look in her eyes, and her voice, man, it was like she turned into some kinda evil cop or something. Scared the shit out of me.”

  A slight smile flashed across Adam’s face, but Hank was too busy telling his story to notice.

  “Then she got on that big-ass phone of hers, talked to someone for a while, don’t know who. But when she got off, she was cool again. She asked about getting a lift somewhere, but I felt so bad, I just let her borrow my truck. I thought maybe she was gonna go after you or something, but after a couple hours, she was back. Then she set sail, just barely got out before a big storm hit.”