by Gene Brewer
“Until it started to get bigger.”
“What did you think about that?”
“I was afraid. I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t know what to do.”
“What happened then?”
“He finally got up and left.”
“Just like that?”
“He said if I told anyone he would kill my kitten.”
“What else?”
“The outside of my pajamas was sticky and cold. I didn’t know why.”
“Where did he go?”
“He went back upstairs.”
“Did this ever happen again?”
“Almost every night. I used to lie there and pray that Uncle Dave wouldn’t come down.”
“Was it always the same?”
“No. Sometimes he put his mouth down there. Then—Then he—”
“I know this is difficult, Rob. But you must try to tell me the rest.”
“He wanted me to put my mouth on him! Oh, Daddy, help!”
“And did you do it?”
“No! I said, ‘No—I won’t do it!’”
“And he left you alone after that?”
“No. The next day he killed my kitten. He picked her up and wrung her neck.”
“While you watched?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“He said he was going to do that to me unless I did what he wanted.”
“Did he come back that night?”
“Yes.”
“And did you do it?”
“No. I don’t know. I... I... I don’t remember anymore.”
“What’s the next thing you remember?”
“He came back about every night but I don’t think he bothered me. I was always asleep.”
“You were able to fall asleep knowing your uncle was coming to molest you?”
“Not exactly. I never fell asleep until he came down and got into the sofa. So I don’t think he did much after that.”
“Where was your Aunt Catherine all those nights?”
“She stayed upstairs, mostly. She had a bad heart. But sometimes I thought I saw her sitting on the stairs. And I heard her once or twice.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. She just made funny noises. Like she couldn’t breathe.”
“And this went on until your father came home from the hospital?”
“Yes. They killed a dog, too.”
“What dog?”
“I don’t know. I think it was a stray. They killed it with a knife.”
“Why?”
“They said that would happen to me if I told. Uncle Dave would strangle me and Aunt Catherine would stab me with the knife.”
“Did you ever tell anyone?”
“Never.”
“All right, Rob. We’ll stop for a while.”
Obviously relieved, he sighed loudly.
“Thank you for telling me all this. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I think so.” He began stroking the cat again.
I let him rest for a minute. I should have sent him back to the wards at this point, but I knew prot could depart at any time despite everything. “Rob, I’d like to put you under hypnosis now. Would that be all right?”
His shoulders slumped even lower. “I thought we were finished for today.”
“Almost.”
He looked left and then right, as if trying to find a way out. “All right. If you think it will help....”
As before, he didn’t go into the trance immediately, as prot always did, but more cautiously, fighting all the way. When I was sure he was “asleep” I induced him to return to the past, but this time all the way back to his fifth birthday. He described the cake, remembered blowing out all the candles. But he wouldn’t tell me his wish or (he solemnly informed me) it wouldn’t come true. It was only a short time later that his father was injured in the slaughterhouse and ended up in the hospital, and little Robin (his boyhood name) had to go live with his Uncle Dave and Aunt Catherine for a few weeks. The prospect was not an unpleasant one for him. He seemed to like his mother’s older siblings, who had given him a kitten for his birthday. His sisters were taken to live with another aunt in Billings.
“All right, Robin, you’re at your aunt and uncle’s house and it’s time for bed. Where are you going to sleep?”
“Aunt Catherine made the sofa into a bed for me. I like it. It smells funny, but it’s soft and warm.”
“Good. Are you going to sleep now?”
“Yes.”
“Where is the kitten?”
“Uncle Dave put her in the kitchen.”
“All right. What’s happening now?”
“I’m just laying here, listening to the crickets. The kitten is meowing. Oh—someone’s here. It’s Uncle Dave. He’s trying to get in bed with me. He is pushing me over.”
“He’s coming to sleep with you?”
“I guess so. But it’s too crowded. He’s pushing me against the back of the sofa. He has his arm around me. He’s touching me! ‘No, Uncle Dave! I don’t want you to!’ He’s putting his hand in my pajamas. He’s feeling my thing. ‘Uncle Dave! Please don’t. I’ll tell!’ “
“What did he say to that?”
Five-year-old Robert started to cry. “He says if I do he’ll kill my kitten.”
“It’s all right, Robin. He’s finished now. He’s gone back upstairs. Just rest for a little while.”
He continued to sob until it tapered off to a whimper.
“All right, Robin, now it’s one week later, and you’re getting into the sofa. How are you feeling?”
“I’m very afraid. He’s going to come down. I know he’s going to come down. I can’t sleep. I’m so scared.”
“Where is your kitten?”
“Oh, he killed her. He killed her. I think he’s going to kill me, too.” He was shaking. “Oh, here he comes. ‘Please, Uncle Dave, please. Please God, don’t do it tonight!’ “
“He’s getting into the sofa?”
“No. He’s pulling my blanket off. I’m holding on to it but he’s too strong. Now he’s taking off his pajamas. I don’t want to look. I’m going to sleep now.” He closed his eyes tightly.
“Robin? Are you asleep? Robin?”
His eyes came open again. But the look of fear was gone, replaced by one of hatred. Bitter, intense hatred. All his muscles were tense. He said nothing.
“Rob?”
“No,” he replied, through clenched teeth.
“Who are you?”
His feet began to shuffle. “Harry.”
I was stunned. Not because another alter had made an appearance, but because I understood immediately what a fool I’d been, that there might be still others I didn’t yet know about, perhaps watching and listening to everything that transpired. “Harry, please—tell me what’s happening.”
The feet stopped shuffling. “He’s kneeling beside the sofa. His thing is in my face. He wants me to put it in my mouth.”
“Are you doing that?”
“I have to or he will kill Robin. But I will kill him, too. If he does anything to Robin I will kill him. I hate him! I hate his guts! I hate his rotten thing! I am going to bite it off if he hurts Robin. Then I will kill him. I will! I will! And her, too, that fat pig.” He looked as though he meant every word.
“All right, Harry. It’s all over now. Uncle Dave and Aunt Catherine have gone upstairs. You are all alone. You and Robin.”
Harry sat in his chair spitting violently, glowering, his eyes rising as the pair made their way slowly up the stairs.
“Harry? Listen carefully. You’re going to sleep now.” I waited until he calmed down, closed his eyes. A moment later I whispered, “All right, Robin. It’s morning now. Robin, wake up.”
“Huh?”
“Is that you, Robin?”
“Yes.”
“It’s time to get up.”
Dismally: “I don’t want to get up.” But at least the horrible
twitching had subsided.
“I understand. It’s okay. Just rest there for a while. We’re going to go forward in time now. You’re getting older. You’re six, now you’re seven, now ten. Now you’re fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, thirty-eight. Rob?”
“Yes?”
“How are you doing?”
“Not so hot.”
“All right, I’m going to wake you up now. I’m going to count backward from five. By the time I get to one you will be wide awake and feeling fine. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.” I snapped my fingers. “Hello, Rob—how do you feel?”
I needn’t have asked. He may have felt fine, but he looked sick and exhausted. “Can I go to my room now?”
“Of course. And Rob?”
“Yes?”
I got up, placed my hand on his shoulder, and escorted him to the door. He was still holding the cat. “I think the worst is over. Everything is going to be all right now.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes, I do. In one or two more sessions I think we’ll have everything sorted out. Then you can begin to get well.”
“That sounds too wonderful to be true.”
“It’s true. And when you get better, it will be perfectly all right for prot to leave. You won’t need him anymore.”
“I hope not. I don’t think he’s going to be around much longer anyway, no matter what happens.”
“Do you have any idea—”
“You’re browbeating again, coach. He doesn’t know, and neither do I.”
“Prot! Rob was just on his way back to Ward Two.”
He shrugged and reached for the door.
“Before you go, tell me: Are there any child molesters on K-PAX?”
“No, and no adult molesters, either.”
On Tuesday morning one of the world’s foremost psychiatrists arrived to spend the day at MPI meeting with faculty and staff, and to present a seminar on current research in his field. I had never met the man before, though I had read most of his books, including the immensely popular The Lighter Side of Mental Illness, heard him lecture at national and international conferences, and was looking forward to this rare opportunity.
He strode into the hospital wearing top hat and tails, his trademark dress. Now in his eighties, he looks twenty years younger, and keeps himself in shape by running seven miles every morning before breakfast, doing fifty push-ups at midday, and swimming an hour every afternoon before dinner. In between he gulps vitamins and minerals by the handful. He asked everyone he met where the swimming pool was. Unfortunately, the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute does not have such a facility.
I didn’t see him until later, in part because I skipped the morning coffee conference (our guest had grapefruit juice) in order to visit Russell, who was in the infirmary, apparently suffering from exhaustion. He seemed okay otherwise, and was still preaching the imminent demise of the world.
I spoke to Chak about Russ’s condition, but he was mystified about what was ailing him. “You are not to worry,” he assured me. “He is not in immediate danger.” He was thinking of transferring him to Columbia Presbyterian for further examination and testing.
“Do what you need to do,” I said. “I would hate to lose him.”
I poked my head into Russell’s room before leaving the clinic to wave a cheerful goodbye and found him weeping. I stepped in and asked him what the matter was. He said, “When I get to heaven I hope they have hamburgers on Saturday nights....“I think it was the first time I had ever heard him say anything that wasn’t a quote from the Bible.
My turn to speak privately with the great clinician, whose books occupy a prominent place on my office shelves, came at two o’clock. He bounded into my office fresh as a kid (thanks to the push-ups, perhaps), swallowed several vitamin pills, and immediately fell asleep sitting up in his chair. For a moment I thought he had died there, but on careful observation I could see his chest moving under his cravat. Not wanting to disturb him, I slipped out and let him have his forty winks. It was only later that I learned he had passed out in everyone’s office. Apparently he was saving his strength for the four-o’clock seminar.
When I returned to awaken and escort him to Beamish’s office he finished the sentence he had started when he dozed off and leaped out of the chair like a twenty-year-old. I had a difficult time keeping up with him as he winged his way down the corridor.
Having an hour or so free before the seminar, I decided to spend them on the grounds, where I found Lou huffing and puffing around the back forty. Not having seen him for a couple of weeks I was aghast at the amount of weight he had put on. His maternity slacks were stretched to their limit. His bright-yellow blouse was unbuttoned and it fell over his swollen belly like the petals of a giant sunflower. It appeared he was literally feeding his delusion.
He blew some hair from his eyes. “Had I known it was going to be like this I never would have become a mother,” he groaned. He seemed to be fingering something—a gossamer thread, I presumed.
I noticed Dustin plodding along the far wall. He always seemed to be most agitated late in the afternoon. I heard Lou say, “Why don’t you give Dustin a break and keep his parents away from him tonight?”
“They’re nice people, Lou. And they’re his only visitors.”
“They’re driving him nuts!”
Just then Milton wiggled along on his beat-up unicycle, juggling a few raisins and mumbling to himself, “And I told the maestro, ‘No, thank you! I want to hear the entire ramide or no ramide at all!’ “
Virginia Goldfarb came by from the other direction and reminded me of the upcoming seminar by our distinguished visitor. I accompanied her to the amphitheater.
When everyone was seated and Villers had introduced our guest in a very complimentary fashion, he bounded from his chair and took the podium. It looked to be a rewarding hour. Unfortunately, when the lights were dimmed for his slides, the great man fell asleep again, and he stood snoring softly at the front of the room like an old horse wearing a top hat. The projectionist, one of our bright young residents, gravely continued with the slide show, which was pretty much self-explanatory anyway. When it was over and the lights came up, our speaker awakened, concluded his talk, and asked for questions.
No one had any. Perhaps everyone else was thinking, as I was, about the functional capacities of the elderly gentlemen who populate the halls of Congress and the United States Supreme Court, sleeping at the switch, so to speak, while the trains roll by.
Refreshed by his nap, our distinguished colleague got in his hour of swimming at a local gym before taking another snooze, this time over dinner at one of Manhattan’s finest restaurants. (Villers, whose wife was still sick, had begged off and I was left to deal with the problem myself.) Somehow he managed to catch his menu on fire from the candle and, later, his head fell into his plate and mashed his “very young, tender sweet peas in unsalted butter sauce with a hush of marjoram and dill.” After helping him eat, I finally got our slumbering guest into a cab and off to the airport, his forehead still flecked with food. He strode briskly into the terminal, but whether he made it home or not is anybody’s guess.
As we pulled away I marveled at the accomplishments of our illustrious friend, much of which must have taken place while he was sound asleep. And I wondered whether he might not have a good deal more energy if he didn’t keep himself in such great shape.
Session Twenty-seven
Early Wednesday afternoon, before my next session with Robert, I had a quick lunch with Giselle just to touch base. She mentioned that an ophthalmologist she knew was extremely interested in proving or disproving prot’s ability to see UV light. I asked that she put him off for the moment. “Prot may be leaving soon, and there’s still a lot of work to do.”
“That’s exactly why he should see prot ASAP!”
I told her I would let her know when a good opportunity came up.
Unfortunately, she was unable to
tell me anything about prot I didn’t already know. In fact, she complained that he was spending less time with her than he had earlier, and she requested copies of the taped recordings of our last few sessions. I felt sorry for her—she had become like a daughter to me—but I refused to let her listen to the tapes.
“Why not?” she demanded. “It’s going into your book, isn’t it? Then the whole world will know everything he said in those sessions.”
“Not everything. Besides—what makes you so sure I’m going to write another book?”
“Because you want to retire. At least your wife wants you to.”
“A book isn’t going to do it.”
“It’ll help.”
“Maybe, but I still can’t tell you. You know about doctor-patient privilege. If I do the book I won’t identify any of the patients by their real names.”
Her cheek ballooned with half a sandwich. “So don’t tell me who’s on the tapes!”
“Why not ask prot to tell you about the sessions? He seems to have a pretty good memory.”
“I tried that.”
“What did he say?”
“He doesn’t want to violate your privacy.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think he knows all there is to know about you.”
“There isn’t that much to know,” I said, uncomfortably.
“He says we all have a lot of secrets we don’t want any other being to find out about.”
“Well, he’s probably right about that.”
“Yes, and everything else, too. In fact, it was prot’s idea that I listen to the tapes. He says I can help Robert more if I know what’s going on.”
The retirement bug buzzed in my ear. “I’ll think about it,” I told her.
Robert strode in for his twenty-seventh session with an uncharacteristic smile on his face. Not a prot-like smirk, but certainly a grin. For the first time he actually appeared eager to talk. He hadn’t even brought a cat with him.
“Rob, are you ready to tell me about Sally and Rebecca?”
The smile shrank but he said, “Yes, I think I am.”
“Good. We’ll stop if you begin to feel uncomfortable.”
He nodded.
“Rob, how can you be sure you’re not Rebecca’s father?”