Blake turned and glared at Adiklein, expecting to see a sarcastic grin, but instead the man’s look conveyed absolute compassion. Blake took a deep breath. “Thank you.” He was tired and irritable, but the last thing he needed was to lose his cool with Adiklein. “It’s been tough, but I’ll be fine. I am fine.”
“Yes, of course you are.” The compassion in Adiklein’s voice had given way to something more patronizing.
Jaw clenched, Blake forced a smile. “We’ve been having a hell of a year already. The work I’m doing with MyStar is just the beginning—”
“Of course, Blake, of course.” Adiklein was looking out the windows now, toward the abstract shapes of a city shrouded in mist. “The Adam Code is quite the talk around here.” The poison dart landed squarely in Blake’s chest. Adiklein continued. “Yes, you absolutely deserve to relax and indulge for a time. You have nothing to worry about.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“Worry about?” Blake asked hesitantly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh mon Dieu, don’t be so sensitive.” Adiklein turned back to Blake with a light chuckle. “I only mean you’re to be congratulated. Your butterfly left you with quite a little gift, one that will keep you relevant, at least for the rest of this fiscal year. Of course, sooner or later you’ll need to get out your net and start hunting around for a new—”
“Adam is not a bug.” Blake couldn’t stop himself from blurting it out. He could feel his face flush with anger. He didn’t have the courage to look at Adiklein, but he maintained his defiant tone. “His name is Adam, okay, and he’s my best friend. And his little gift is providing this company with a series of profit gushers, not to mention that all-important commodity—attention. And it’s Adam—not me, not you. He’s the one who deserves . . . who actually . . .” Blake’s voice, which had begun so forcefully, trailed off.
There was a long silence as Blake looked down at the carpet, waiting for the wrath of Rene Adiklein to descend upon him. Instead he felt something far more shocking: a hand touching his shoulder, giving him a gentle pat. Looking up Blake saw Adiklein was now next to him, leaning on the desk. And for the first time since he’d met this extraordinary man, Adiklein appeared to Blake to finally be just that—a flesh-and-blood human being.
“Blake, my boy,” Adiklein said softly, a hint of a smile in his eyes. “Do you know why I am here? What I am trying to do here in the Tower? Why as a researcher I moved from psychology to marketing to technology? Do you know why I do all this? What drives me?”
Blake shook his head.
“Love,” Adiklein said.
“Love?”
Adiklein nodded. “I love people. I love the human race, Blake.” Adiklein emphasized his words by drawing them out. “But the human race is . . . fragile. Civilization is fragile, far more than you might imagine. And to keep us moving in the right direction requires constant vigilance and effort, just to keep us from destroying ourselves. And I’m not only talking about what goes on out there.” Adiklein gave a vague gesture toward the windows. “No, far more important is what goes on in here.” He lightly tapped Blake’s forehead.
“People need help knowing what to believe, what to care about, what is relevant, and what is not. More than anything, people need to know where to focus their attention. You see, Blake, to act as a shepherd of humanity, to help guide us all toward a more positive worldview, and to help purge us of our barbaric past—that is an act of love. Otherwise, what happens? We slip right back into the Dark Ages, with everyone running around with their own conflicting versions of reality.” Adiklein’s eyes glittered. “Warding off chaos—that is the salvation technology offers us. Unifying everyone with one vision, one inner narrative.”
“Inner narrative?” Blake’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion.
“The voice inside here”—Adiklein again tapped Blake’s forehead—“that chatters away, narrating the story of your life as it unfolds. Put this voice together with the next person’s voice and the next person’s, and before you know it, we are narrating the story of the world. Which you might think would sound like a cacophony of madness. However, as we humans share more and more of the same experiences, the same information; as our inner worlds begin to run on the same operating systems, and we begin to hear the same inner narrative; the closer and closer we come to a time when, as the Lennon song goes, ‘The world will live as one.’”
“But,” Blake sputtered, “if everyone is following along to the same inner narrative . . . who controls the narrative?”
There was silence, long enough for Blake to realize he was holding his breath.
“That would be me, of course,” Adiklein said with a wink.
Blake looked away from Adiklein, at his own ghostly reflection in the window.
“Sacrifices are required, my boy. Your friend Adam is a small price to pay for helping to keep the rest of us steady and on course.”
Blake felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t even look up when he heard Adiklein walking away.
When Blake finally did raise his head, he was surprised to see that Adiklein had not yet left the room. He was standing completely still, halfway between Blake’s desk and the doorway, with an odd expression on his face, a look that Blake could have sworn was . . . fear.
“What is this?” Adiklein’s voice was eerily restrained.
“What’s what?”
“This, here.”
Blake realized Adiklein was staring down at something on the floor in front of his desk. Leaning forward, Blake saw the large moving crates filled with stuff from Adam’s cubicle.
“That? Nothing. Just clutter from a cubicle that was cleared out today.”
“Whose cubicle?”
“It’s Adam’s stuff. It’s just his old junk.” Blake was about to ask what it was Adiklein was so concerned about, but Adiklein’s expression had changed again. Now he was smiling as if nothing had happened.
“Well, if it’s only junk, I suggest you throw it out.” And with that, Adiklein turned and left Blake’s office.
Blake had no intention of throwing out Adam’s stuff. He planned to hang on to it in case Adam got better, but Adiklein didn’t need to know that. Walking around the desk, Blake went to where Adiklein had been standing to see if he could determine what had spooked him so badly. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. There was one book that had fallen out of an overstuffed box, but there was nothing special about it. Just one of Adam’s philosophy books, it looked like. Its jacket was gone; it had a burgundy spine, and embossed on its cover was a little, gold sea horse.
CHAPTER 31
REFLECTIONS OF AN OLD FRIEND
Folding chair in one hand, laptop in the other, Dr. Agopian used an elbow to give a polite thump-thump on Adam’s open door. “Good afternoon, Mr. Sheppard.”
“Good afternoon, Dr. Agopian.”
It was Miss Ferguson responding; she was in the room, clearing Adam’s lunch tray. The doctor set down his things and went over to the chair by the window to have a look at his patient. He took Adam’s pulse and used a penlight to quickly peer into both of his eyes. “How’re we doing with the new meal plan, Adam?”
Adam did not respond.
“See for yourself,” Miss Ferguson said, showing Dr. Agopian the tray. All of its subdivisions were relatively empty, except for some broccoli in a corner.
“Sauerkraut’s a hit; that’s good.” Dr. Agopian gave the overcooked broccoli a poke with the back of his penlight. “Yeah, I wouldn’t touch that either. Miss Ferguson, would you mind talking to Carlos—”
“Already did. He said his hands are full tryin’ to whip up these special meals on top of everyone else’s food. Said if you want to come cook Adam’s broccoli yourself, he’d be more than happy to show ya where the pots are kept.”
Dr. Agopian looked back at Adam and gave an exasperated snort. “Can you believe that?”
Adam did not respond.
“Would you like me to close
the door, Doctor?” Miss Ferguson said as she pushed the food cart out. “Drama therapy starts in the solarium at four fifteen, and it tends to get a bit raucous out there.”
“Yes, thank you.” Before Miss Ferguson left, he quietly asked, “So there’s been no change this week? Nothing since the adjustment to his meds?”
“Sorry, Doctor.” Miss Ferguson had a sympathetic smile. “But trust me, you’ll be the first to know.” With that she shut the door.
Dr. Agopian set the folding chair next to Adam and then removed his glasses and placed them in his breast pocket.
“All right, Adam. I’m going to remind you that I’m here for you whenever you wish to speak. If you’re not ready, that’s perfectly fine. No pressure. But this is your hour—well, our hour, I guess—and I actually look forward to our sessions together. Some nice quiet time away from all the crazies out there.” Dr. Agopian watched Adam, hoping his humor might make it through.
Adam did not respond.
“Okay, well. I’m here when you’re ready.” Dr. Agopian took a deep breath and then became as quiet as Adam.
David Agopian had always wanted to be a doctor. Even as a child, he had been particularly concerned about those around him. If a classmate looked sick or got hurt on the playground, he’d be the first to escort him to the school nurse.
“You are very special boy, David-djan,” his grandfather would say in his thick Armenian accent. “You are old soul, older than me! You have gift. Very sense-sa-teeve eyes.” Then pulling David close to him, his grandfather would whisper the words he would never forget. “With your eyes, David-djan, you can heal world.”
When David was a teenager, after his grandfather had passed away, he first learned about the Armenian genocide from his parents. He was told how his then-eight-year-old grandfather had barely escaped a mass execution in his village in 1915, and about the unspeakable horrors he had witnessed, including the slaughter of his entire family. Hearing this, David was struck by how his grandfather had never expressed anger or even the slightest bitterness. Instead he spoke to David only about the importance of helping others.
David Agopian’s decision to go into psychiatry came when his older brother Raffi returned home from college between semesters and accidentally left behind a book titled The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. David read the book from cover to cover before going on to devour all of Oliver Sacks’s other books. The mysterious neurological cases he learned about fascinated David so much that by college he knew without a doubt which field of medicine he wanted to practice. Of course the reality of a career in mental health was quite different from what he had imagined. Working with violent and abusive patients, with psychotics, schizophrenics, and attempted suicides day in and day out, year after year, had taken its toll on David’s sensitive eyes.
And then Adam Sheppard showed up.
On the morning of Adam’s arrival, Dr. Agopian happened to catch a brief glimpse of the new patient in the hallway outside registration. With his slack face, tousled hair, and vacant eyes, Adam looked every bit the Oliver Sacks mystery case that Dr. Agopian had long ago imagined he would get to treat. And in many ways, the circumstances surrounding Adam’s case were ideal. He was nonviolent, there was no pressure from hovering family members to dictate the course of care, and no insurance companies pushing for a quick fix. With Adam, Dr. Agopian would have time to properly assess and treat his condition.
On the surface Adam’s semicatatonic state appeared to be caused by severe depression. “Bipolar 1 with psychotic features,” Dr. Mendelson had written on his admittance form. But Dr. Agopian wasn’t too sure about Dr. Mendelson’s diagnosis, or about Dr. Mendelson himself, for that matter. There was something about Adam that didn’t fit neatly into the bipolar spectrum. If anything, he seemed more like a trauma case—a raw wound that had been fussed with too much.
From the beginning Dr. Agopian decided to insulate Adam from other patients. He was given a private room, excused from group therapy, and—in response to a recommendation from S.F. General to continue with electroconvulsive therapy—Dr. Agopian decided to suspend it until he’d read through Adam’s voluminous records. Just getting the transcripts ended up taking several months and a barrage of reminder calls to Dr. Mendelson’s office. When the four large boxes finally did show up, they included stacks of dot-matrix computer printouts, which indicated just how old they were.
Wading through the records, a picture of Adam’s past treatment slowly began to take form. His stepmother first brought Adam to Dr. Mendelson at the age of seven back in 1978 to be treated for, as stated on Adam’s initial mental status exam, rapid speech, distracted attention, mood swings, inappropriate euphoria, delusions of grandeur, imaginary playmates, and emotional outbursts. Dr. Mendelson started Adam on what was a fairly new drug at the time, methylphenidate (later known as Ritalin). Back then it was given at radically higher doses, and for Adam there were immediate complications, including vomiting, headaches, and digestive issues, as well as tremors and nightly outbursts.
The transcripts showed that by age nine, Adam’s condition had begun to stabilize. Still, in 1984 Dr. Mendelson advanced his diagnosis from ADHD to Bipolar 1. During Adam’s teenage years and early adulthood, Mendelson had tried lithium, Depakote, Epitol, and many other well-marketed medications, and with each one came more side effects, complications, and health issues.
The records also showed periodic psychotic breaks of varying degrees. The episode recorded in December of 2008 was of particular interest to Dr. Agopian. Apparently Adam, in a delusional state, had returned to the town where he had been raised to search for an imaginary childhood friend named Beatrice. Though specifics of this event were difficult to follow in the notes, Dr. Agopian found it peculiar how extensive Adam’s hallucinations were—another indication Mendelson’s diagnosis was potentially off.
Out of curiosity Dr. Agopian did some online research into Dr. Mendelson’s background and found he had undertaken his medical studies at a place called Devonport University. The school had a reputation for turning out pill-pushers and had eventually lost its accreditation after a congressional investigation found it had financial ties to multiple drug companies.
Not that Dr. Agopian was opposed to the use of pharmaceuticals. On the contrary, he had personally seen lives saved with a prescription, patients who literally could not function without them. Medication was an undeniably powerful weapon against mental illness, but Dr. Agopian also believed that with any great weapon there is the potential for abuse, especially when big money is involved. Kickbacks for prescribing drugs to patients who really don’t need them was, in Dr. Agopian’s opinion, about as immoral a crime as false imprisonment. Society, on the other hand, seemed pretty willing to accept it as one of those innocuous evils not worth fighting against. But at what cost in the long run? Dr. Agopian wondered. More cases like Adam Sheppard?
Dr. Agopian glanced over to quickly check on Adam. Same position. Same fixed stare. Same living statue.
Sitting here quietly with Adam, Dr. Agopian often considered the numerous well-known people throughout history who had struggled with mental illness in times before medication was available. People like Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe, Winston Churchill, Virginia Woolf, Isaac Newton, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Plato, Beethoven, and Mozart. Would Poe have written “The Raven” if he had been on lithium? If a five-year-old Mozart had been put on Ritalin, would he have composed Andante in C Major? On the flip side of the equation, would Joseph Stalin still have murdered 20 million people had he been properly medicated? Considering both the good and the bad, one is forced to ask—to what extent should we be evening out society before it becomes flat?
This slippery question always reminded him of the filmnoir classic The Third Man, when Orson Welles makes his case to Joseph Cotton, saying, “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinc
i, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace . . . and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Had Adam Sheppard been turned into a cuckoo clock? Quite possibly, but at this point there was little Dr. Agopian could do but wait and see. For the foreseeable future, he would continue to spend an hour a week sitting here with Adam in the hopes of a clue that might shatter the barrier of silence that had molded itself around this broken man.
“With your eyes, David-djan, you can heal the world.”
It had been almost nine months now, and still Dr. Agopian was struggling to clearly see the right course of treatment for Adam. The best he had done was to develop a theory, a rather unconventional theory, but a theory that at least contained some hope. The idea arose during one of their silent therapy sessions, when Dr. Agopian noticed a small, white butterfly fluttering outside Adam’s window. With it came the thought, What if this was not a depressed state at all, but more like a cocoon of some sort?
As a psychiatrist Dr. Agopian had been trained to look into a patient’s inner world, but what if he wasn’t looking deeply enough? What if he had been considering only Adam’s psychological outer layers (which were definitely battered and bruised and in need of healing)? What if there was something else taking place on a deeper level, on what could only be described as a metaphysical level? Something closer to the fundamental biological processes, like birth and death.
What if I’m looking at a chrysalis?
A memory came back to Dr. Agopian of an experiment he had once performed in a biology class as an undergrad. He and his lab partners had cut open the chrysalis of a caterpillar in the process of becoming a butterfly, and what they found inside absolutely stunned him. Instead of a caterpillar sprouting wings out of its back as he had anticipated, the chrysalis was filled with yellowish goo. They had learned that in order for a caterpillar to become a butterfly, it first had to completely dissolve; its head, its legs, its antennae, its entire body had to melt down into cellular soup, and only then could it reconstitute itself as a butterfly.
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