We're getting closer to the end and closer to the truth. Check out how things are going for Parker in Part 7 of The Patient That Nearly Drove Me Out of Medicine by Jasper DeWitt.
As he finished his last words, Dr. A------ gripped the legs of his chair and stood up slowly and gingerly, as if every bone in his body might snap if he moved too fast. Despite his age, I could tell that he’d once cut an imposing figure. Even with his slight stoop, he looked to be at least 6’2’’, and probably would’ve been at least an inch taller if he’d stood straight. He grabbed one edge of the desk to steady himself, and held out the other to Dr. G-----, who reached down and picked up an ornate looking dark wood cane with a bronze head in the shape of a falcon. He took it from her and slowly made his way around the desk to me. As he did so, I saw that he was clutching a thick, dusty file, which surely must have been copied from the very files I’d seen.
He sat down on the desk and gave me another frigid look.
“Before I go on, you have to understand something,” he began, and his tone said very clearly that this whatever he was about to say was not negotiable. “If I am right about what is wrong with Joe, then we really are doing a service by keeping him here, not just to the outside world, but to Joe himself. If his parents were less endowed with financial and legal power, we would have done a lot more by now. However, because we cannot afford the kind of legal battle that my suspicions would bring, if reported, we are doing the only thing we can do and keeping him here. Got it?”
I nodded, this time with sincere deference. He gave a gruff smile in acknowledgment of the gesture. Then, with a grim flourish, he pulled Joe’s file open to the first page.
“When I first met Joe,” he said, stabbing the black and white photo of the predatory looking child, “he seemed like a normal boy with a case of night terrors, as you probably know. But, of course, I got him wrong. Disastrously wrong. When he came back, he was violent and incapable of speech. I was flummoxed. I had no idea what I’d done wrong. What was more, I had no idea why his tactics kept changing. You must’ve noticed. He went from making people feel like dirt to making the too scared to stay in the same room. Well, when I resigned my post as Chief of Medicine, I was still no closer to constructing an explanation than I was at the beginning. But retirement’s given me nothing but time to check his old case notes, and the more I looked, the more it slowly started to make sense.”
He turned a few pages and poked the file again with his finger. “The first brainwave came when I worked out why his delusions kept changing. They shift every time someone calls him a new nasty name. Take when we brought him in. He wouldn’t even speak. But then some idiot orderly called him a ‘bad boy’ and he suddenly started throwing taunts at people. You might not think that means all that much, but I’ve been to see the therapists who treated everyone who survived him during those first few years, and you know what they all told me? All of them, Rose included, said the same thing: he called them names that they used to get called growing up, mostly by bullies or nasty other kids. None of it was too specific, but he seemed to be able to know which playground taunts would work best for every single one of them. You see it now? Someone calls him a ‘bad boy,’ well, he throws taunts until he works out what the worst boy on earth would be for each of them, and acts like that.”
More pages were turned and he jabbed at a final passage. “Now look at this. After years berating people this way, he finally meets a violent patient who won’t take his crap. But what does that patient do? He beats him half to death and calls him a ‘fucking monster.’ Next thing you know, he’s acting like the monster that used to chase one of our orderlies in his dreams, and probably like the monsters that used to scare the crap out of his other roommates. That’s why the first kid’s heart stopped, why he started trying to rape a sexual assault victim, and why he could scare someone enough to get him to bend iron bars. Because if he’s going to be a monster, he’s going to be the worst monster that each of his victims can imagine. Instead of making them feel as terrible as they felt at their worst moments of feeling like shit, now he’s going to scare them as much as they’ve ever been scared in their lives.”
He lowered his spectacles and regarded me for a moment before continuing. “Now, surely a bright resident like you will have realized that this kind of behavior tells us that whatever else might be wrong with him, we can conclude from this that Joe is extremely suggestible. At bare minimum, this implies something very unpleasant about his upbringing, since children his age aren’t usually this willing to internalize negative feedback unless they’ve been conditioned to accept it by their parents. And in fact, we have strong evidence to support the idea that Joe was horribly abused in my first session with him. Rose, if you would?”
Dr. G----- pulled open another drawer and pulled out a cassette player and two tapes. I recognized them as being copies of the ones I had. She pushed one in, and hit “Play.” Dr. A’s voice flowed out of it. I’d listened to the session before, but in the context of what I’d just heard, the words took on a grim significance.
And now, seeing as I have no choice but to show you at least part of my old transcription, well, I’ve dug out the old laptop with it from storage and retrieved the file. So here is roughly what Dr. A------ played for me, with his voice denoted as “A” and Joe’s as “J.”
A: Could you tell me about the thing in your walls?
J: It’s gross.
A: Gross? How so?
J: Just gross. And scary.
A: What I mean is, can you describe it?
J: It’s big and hairy. It’s got fly eyes and two big, superstrong spider arms with really long fingers. Its body is a worm.
Dr. A------ paused the tape. I could tell he was now in full lecture mode.
“Now, flies’ eyes, along with being naturally alien looking, don’t blink,” he said. “And the main characteristics he attributes to the creatures’ arms are that they are big and strong, and presumably hairy, hence the reference to spiders. And its body is a worm. In other words, a phallus. So we have something phallic with big, strong, hairy arms and unblinking eyes. What could that be?”
He pushed “Play” again. The voices restarted.
A: That does sound scary. And how big is it?
J: Big! Bigger than daddy’s car!
The pause button clicked again.
“Now, even if the family owned multiple cars, we can safely assume that Joe probably rode in them with both parents. So why only call it ‘daddy’s car?’ And to use that particular reference point for its size? That’s quite a specific free-association, I’d say,” said Dr. A------. “Now, why would Joe free-associate to his father after talking about something phallic with hairy arms that held him down and stared at him? Curiouser and curiouser. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, let’s see how his parents react to this alleged intruder.”
The tape resumed.
A: I see. And have your parents ever seen it?
J: No. It goes back in the walls when they come.
A: Something that big can fit in your walls? They don’t break?
J: It melts. Like ice cream. It looks like it is the wall.
The tape paused again.
“So his parents don’t acknowledge this thing’s existence,” said Dr. A------. “Now, why might that be? If you’re following my train of thought, I would think the father’s reason for pretending there is no monster would be obvious. But the mother? Perhaps she simply refused to acknowledge what Joe’s father was doing, even with him standing right there by the bed. Joe couldn’t have processed that his mother was in denial, so the only logical conclusion would be that his father must’ve tricked his mother into thinking he was part of the wall. It would fit. Now let’s get to the real meat.”
The tape once more began playing.
A: I see. And it’s what made those marks on your arms?
J: Yes. I tried covering my face so I wouldn’t have to see it. It pulled my arms away and made me open my eyes with its fingers.
A: Why did it do that?
J: It likes when I feel bad. That’s why it doesn’t let me sleep.
A: What do you mean?
J: It eats bad thoughts.
Dr. A------ hit the “stop” button and the sound ceased. He stared at the cassette player with a kind of livid fascination.
“The answer was there all the time,” he said. “I just hadn’t paid enough attention. Joe was telling us that he was being sexually abused. He described the sensation of being held down and raped by his father in the context of a monster that fits all the attributes a grown man raping a small boy would have. He even gave us a clue that his father was actually a sadist by telling us that the monster ate bad thoughts, which would be how a sadist getting off on his own cruelty would look to a young child. What’s more, Joe’s initial passiveness, followed by his extreme suggestibility when called nasty names, are consistent with the behavior of an extremely abused child before and after a psychotic break.”
He sighed, and I could tell that at this point he was talking at least as much to himself as to me. “Of course, that leaves us with the puzzle of why Joe would mimic his father’s own sadism when we brought him back in. Well, that brings us to the last part of the tape.”
He pushed “Play” one final time. The spools began to move.
A: Joe, I think I know how to kill this mean thing in your walls.
J: You do?!
A: Yes. Can you remember if I tell you?
J: Yes!
A: Promise?
J: Promise!
A: Okay. Joe, if this thing lives off you having bad thoughts, I want you to have nothing but good thoughts when it comes.
J: How’m I supposed to do that? It’s scary!
A: I think it wants you to think it’s scary, Joe. But you know what? It’s not. It’s just your imagination. Do you know what an imagination is?
J: No?
A: It’s the part of you that comes up with ideas. And sometimes they’re good, and sometimes they’re scary. And ideas can seem dangerous. But Joe, even if your ideas seem scary, they’re still your ideas. And your imagination can’t scare you with them unless you let it.
J: So I can control it?
A: That’s right, Joe.
J: How do you know?
A: Well, Joe, can you keep a secret?
J: Sure!
A: Promise?
J: Promise!
A: Well, Joe, this hospital isn’t just a hospital. It’s a magic castle. And I’m a wizard.
J: Really?!
A: Yes. And my special power is to stop people being scared. Which is why people come here to not be scared anymore. And you know what, Joe? All of those people are only scared because of ideas. Because of parts of them that they can’t control.
J: Wow.
A: Yes. Now, I’ll bet you’re a big boy who doesn’t wet his bed anymore, aren’t you, Joe?
J: Duh! I learned how to go number one and number two ages ago!
A: Well, think of that big, scary monster like wetting the bed. It’s just a part of you that you allowed to get out of control.
J: That’s funny. The monster is my peepee.
A: Not exactly. But they’re both things you can control because they’re part of you, Joe. Now, does that monster seem so scary anymore?
J: No! And I’m going to tell it that it doesn’t scare me the next time I see it!
Dr. A------ stopped the tape, and I could tell that those last moments had drained him more than any other part of the conversation.
“This is why I’ll never let his case go,” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “Because I think, in my arrogance, I created the problems he has now. Because of what I told him, I think that between our first two sessions, Joe went from believing he was the target of a monster that lives on peoples’ psychosis to believing he was the monster. Think what that would do to a child who was the victim of sexual abuse. They’re already at higher risk for disassociation. What I told Joe…it might have simply pushed him into full-blown Disassociative Identity Disorder, because the thought that he was responsible for his own abuse would’ve been too much to bear.
“So, he created a second ‘monster’ personality to blame it on that mimics the sadism he experienced from his father. And because we didn’t see it, now…now that ‘monster’ personality is now so completely in control of his psyche that his mind and behavior have begun adapting to fulfill its imagined needs. Even just believing he was a monster this completely would be bad enough, as it would make him probably the most pure sadistic psychopath in the history of psychiatry. But this is worse. This particular monster truly believes that he needs to be constantly exposed to bad thoughts in order to survive, the same way you or I need food. As a result, his sense of empathy has evolved to be able to figure out how to trigger psychosis within seconds of meeting someone.
“And not only that, but because of his residual suggestibility, he can trigger different forms of misery on-command. His delusions are so strong, in other words, that they’ve tricked his mind into being able to do things no human mind should be able to do. Now, granted, it may be that all the people who say he triggered their bad memories and worst fears are just sharing the same delusion, or might just have forgotten revealing key details in his hearing. But even if that were true, one thing that is undeniable is that he’s developed an ability to induce suicide in people as a defense mechanism, much the same way his original personality ‘died’ to make room for the monstrous one. And it’s worked perfectly. Until now.”
He flipped the folder shut and looked at me again, his eyes boring into mine. “That,” he said softly, “is why we need you. You aren’t dead, and you experienced his tricks firsthand. You might be the only witness we have, aside from Rose, who treated him when he was far less advanced, and did it so long ago that we can’t be sure her account is still accurate. You’re the only person who can provide us a fully accurate debriefing on how he went about manipulating you.”
With that, he put one thin, but surprisingly strong hand under my chin and held my face in place as he spoke the next few words.
“So I’ll ask you one more time, Parker. Tell me, for Joe’s sake, if not for mine, what happened between him and you?”
It was obvious at that point that I had no reason to withhold anything anymore. So I told them. I told them about Joe’s seeming sanity, his extremely tidy explanation of his own confinement, and his re-appropriation of the story of Fiberwood Flower. They listened attentively to the whole story, and when I’d finished, Dr. A------ looked more like he felt his age than he had since I’d met him.
“So,” he said, “he didn’t rely on any details about your own life, then. He simply worked out that you were an empathetic person and played on that. What’s more, he blamed the mistreatment of his pet cat on his father, presumably because that’s the personality that was responsible, and was finally able to open up about his anger at his own abuse, even if indirectly. You actually might have solved his case, after all, Parker. Thank you. Rose, I think we’ve solved this particular puzzle. We obviously can’t tell Joe’s parents what we know, so just tell them that we’ve worked out that his case really is incurable, and he’ll have to stay here indefinitely for his own good. As for Parker, take him off the case.”
“No,” I said before she could react. Something felt desperately wrong to me about Dr. A------‘s explanation, and I wasn’t going to let it go just yet. The older man turned to me with an incredulous look.
“No?” he asked. “Parker, the case is solved. You just confirmed our hypothesis, and even if you hadn’t, believe me, it would take a psychiatrist with far more experience than you to even begin to make that poor young man healthy. Even if I were still practicing—“
“But you’re not,” I cut across him. “You retired. And I don’t think you got it right. Something doesn’t fit.”
“How dare y—“
“Relax, Thomas,” said Dr. G----- with an exasperated sigh. “Let’s hear him out. If Parker has another idea, I want to hear it. It can’t hurt to get a second opinion.”
Dr. A------ grumbled, but waved his hand at me irritatedly.
Now starting to feel nervous again, I cleared my throat and began speaking before the tension could stop me.
“Before I try to advance my theory, I want to ask a few more questions just to make sure I’ve got some of the details right,” I said.
“Oh, for the love of—,“ Dr. A------ began, but Dr. G----- put up her hand.
“Yes, Parker?”
“I want to start with the night terrors,” I said. “Did Joe ever mention them after he came back in?”
Dr. A------ looked on the point of replying shortly, but before he could, a thoughtful look flashed across his irritated face.
“Now you mention it, no,” he said. “Though by that point it might have been too late. Besides, he was sedated, and his father probably didn’t enjoy it without him experiencing the pain.”
“Maybe,” I said, turning to Dr. G-----. “But I’m not sure that explanation of his ‘monster’s’ origins is right. Dr. G-----, didn’t you say Joe was suffering from entomophobia, the fear of bugs?”
Dr. G----- nodded slowly, very clearly not understanding where I was going.
“Yes,” she said. “It was something his parents mentioned when they first brought him in.”
“And was he afraid of bugs when you treated him?” I asked.
“Not particularly,” she said. “We tried some exposure therapy, but he didn’t react much like an entomophobe.”
“Obviously the entomophobia was just a proxy for what he thought he was experiencing,” said Dr. A------. “Rose, really—“
“Dr. A------,” I cut him off, “can you play that description of the monster in Joe’s wall again?”
Dr. A------ gave me a long, tired look, but eventually he complied and started skipping through the tape until he hit the relevant passage.
It’s big and hairy. It’s got fly eyes and two big, superstrong spider arms with really long fingers. Its body is a worm.
He clicked the “Stop” button, his face still sour.
“That would upset an entomophobe more than anything, don’t you think?” I asked.
“Again, not surprising if the entomophobia was a result of what he thought was hurting him,” scoffed Dr. A------.
“True,” I said. “But there’s something else. Can you skip to the part where you tell him it’s his imagination?”
Sighing, Dr. A------ complied and wound the tape forward until he hit the relevant passage.
A: Well, think of that big, scary monster like wetting the bed. It’s just a part of you that you allowed to get out of control.
J: That’s funny. The monster is my peepee.
A: Not exactly. But they’re both things you can control because they’re part of you, Joe. Now, does that monster seem so scary anymore?
J: No! And I’m going to tell it that it doesn’t scare me the next time I see it!
The tape stopped. Dr. A------ was looking increasingly annoyed, and Dr. G----- still looked puzzled.
“Now, he doesn’t sound like a rape victim who’s just been told it’s his own fault at the end, does he?” I asked pointedly. “He sounds relieved. He sounds happy. That’s not what you expect from someone going through a disassociative episode. And if he was as suggestible as you say, why didn’t he start acting like he was the monster right then? Why still retain his old self?”
“His mind probably hadn’t fully processed it yet,” Dr. A------ murmured, barely paying attention.
“Or,” I said, “there was no disassociative episode. In fact, what if there was no parental abuse, or even no night terrors? What if Joe really was being tortured by something that knew how to play to his entomophobia, and knows how to play to everyone else’s fears just as skillfully? And what if, when he told it that it was part of him, it became the second personality that you think is due to abuse? What if he brought the monster in here with him when he came back?”
“Oh yes, and I’m sure his head turns on its axis and he spits pea soup,” scoffed Dr. A------, now starting to sound legitimately angry. “Stop talking like an overenthusiastic horror fan, son, and get a hold of yourself. You’re a scientist, for God’s sake.”
“Just hear me out,” I said as calmly as I could. “I wouldn’t have believed it myself before tonight, but the thing is…”
I found myself breathing in uneasily. “Look, I know you want to dismiss all that knowledge he has as some kind of fluke where people don’t remember what they told him, but I know that’s not true in my case. When Hank was dragging me away from his cell, he started laughing with exactly the same voice as something I still have nightmares about. And after the warning Dr. G----- gave me, I guarantee you, I never told him anything about my issues, or what frightened me. So how did he know the exact right tone to use?”
“You heard what you wanted to hear,” Dr. A------ snapped. “You expected a monster’s voice. Your mind reacted by pretending it was hearing the right one.”
“But that’s just it. I didn’t. I thought he was a sane, mistreated patient when Hank grabbed me, yet I still heard that voice. Just when I would least expect something supernatural, it happened anyway. And what if the others, like Dr. G-----, aren’t lying? What if they really did never tell him anything, and yet he still knew how to scare them?”
“He has a point, Thomas,” said Dr. G-----. “I’ll grant you that I don’t have the notes to prove it, but I have no idea how Joe would’ve found out about people calling me ‘Nosey Rosie.’ I can’t remember the topic ever coming up anywhere where he possibly could’ve overheard it. I don’t think I even remembered that nickname until I found it scrawled on the wall of his room.”
“He might’ve heard your name from someone and guessed it by luck, Rose!” Dr. A------ exploded. “Not many derogatory words rhyme with your name. It’s not hard for a child to work out!”
“You should know better than to dismiss symptoms as coincidence in order to save your theory, Thomas,” Dr. G----- said softly.
Dr. A------ still looked furious. “Alright,” he said, venomous sarcasm now pouring through his voice. “Suppose you’re both right, even though it breaks our entire commitment to science into little pieces. What treatment can you suggest for treating a case of possession by the bogeyman, then? Do we pump his stomach? Drill a hole in his skull to let the demon out? Enlighten me.”
“You said you’d ruled out other possibilities,” I said in a deliberately calm voice. “I don’t suppose you had someone perform an exorcism?”
“What sort of quack do you think I—“
“Oh, stop trying to pretend you’re the purest scientist in the room, Thomas,” Dr. G----- snapped. “Sure, you kept it off the books, but we both know you tried a couple of unconventional things with Joe.”
Dr. A------ didn’t answer her, but for the first time, he looked visibly uncomfortable.
“If you don’t tell him, Thomas, I will.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Rose, we ruled that nonsense out, and you know it,” Dr. A------ blurted. “Why encourage this overly imaginative, insubordinate pup you’ve hired with useless data?”
“So you did try an exorcism,” I said coolly. “What happened?”
“What happened was exactly what you’d expect from a troublemaker like Joe,” snarled Dr. A------. “The priest came in, started saying his rites, and it didn’t do a damn thing. All Joe did was fuck with him the entire time, saying he was an angel sent to earth from the right hand of Christ, and that the priest was betraying his own God. Exactly the sort of thing anyone would say to discombobulate a religious person.”
“And I’ll bet it really discombobulated that particular priest, didn’t it?” I pressed. “I’ll bet he couldn’t even finish the ritual, could he?”
“He…he left early, yes,” said Dr. A------. “What’s your point?”
“And did you try and record the process?”
“Of course not!” Dr. A------ sputtered. “Don’t want anyone knowing I entertained that kind of crankery!”
“Pity,” I said. “Because I’ll bet you anything that if you had recorded it, you wouldn’t have picked him up saying anything. Because the patient you have in there – Joe himself – he’s not the one doing this. Whatever came with him is what’s doing this, and it’s using him as a scapegoat.”
“You seriously think some bogeyman is living rent-free in our hospital?” Dr. A------ asked, disdainful laughter pouring out of his voice. “Rose, you might want to call Hank back with a straitjacket. I think our would-be savior here has gone insane himself.”
“There may be a way for me to see if I’m right,” I said quickly, now focusing all my attention on Dr. G-----. “I know it’s a strange hypothesis, but if you let me gather some enough data to test it and it turns out wrong, I’ll let you take me off the case right then.”
Dr. G----- tapped her fingers together and considered me for a few seconds. She looked intrigued in spite of herself. Finally, she waved her hand.
“Go on.”
I took a breath. “With your permission,” I said, “I’d like to have tomorrow off so I can go talk to the only people who can confirm or deny both of these hypotheses, even indirectly. I’d like to visit Joe’s family, and have a look at the room where this happened.”
“Oh yes, that will go wonderfully, sneered Dr. A------. “What are you planning to say? ‘Excuse me, Mr. M----, but did you get off on molesting your child and hearing his screams? Did the property happen to come with a warning that it might have a giant bug infestation?’”
“We both know there are subtler ways to look for clues that people are sadistic than that,” I said, knowing I had to avoid taking the bait at all costs. “And anyway, I’m only trying to see if my hypothesis has any sort of leg to stand on, and that won’t set off their alarm bells at all. They’ll feel completely comfortable, so if Joe’s parents are closet sadists, the clues should be fairly easy to spot. And if there’s any evidence that something supernatural lived in his walls, or that the house was haunted in any way, that should be easy to find, too.”
I stared squarely into Dr. A-----‘s eyes. “And you know what? Even if I don’t see any evidence that the parents are off, if there’s no evidence of anything supernatural there, either, then I’ll admit you were right and that my brain got caught up in antiscientific nonsense. Good enough?”
Once more, we looked at each other for a long moment, and by the time the gaze was broken, I could tell that he had made his peace with the idea, even if he couldn’t bring himself to respect me for entertaining it. Then, my eye caught movement, and I turned to see that Dr. G----- had pulled out a pen and scribbled down a note in her calendar. Feeling my eyes, she looked up at me.
“Hm? Oh, yes, in case it wasn’t obvious, you can have the day off. Whatever Thomas says, I want to know what you find. Don’t worry, I’ll tell your supervisory physician you’re doing some field research at my request,” she said. “Now what are you still doing here? Go home and get some sleep if you can. We need you alert tomorrow.”
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Otis Jiry