On a Beam of Light by Gene Brewer

in her teary way. We edged toward her. Jerry was telling prot about his childhood, about certain things he liked to do, about his favorite foods, his love for architectural structures. Prot listened intently, nodding occasionally. After a while he squeezed Jerry’s hand one last time and let it go. At that instant, poor Jerry’s eyes wandered to the walls, to the furniture, anywhere but to the people in the room. Finally he got up and went back to working on his latest model, a space shuttle on its launch pad. In short, he reverted immediately to his usual state of being, the only existence he had known for the twenty-one years of his pathetic life. The whole episode had lasted only a few minutes.
    Betty, still teary-eyed, said, “He did it for three of the others, too. “
    Prot turned to me. “Gene, gene, gene, where the mischief ‘ave you been?”
    “How did you do that?”
    “I’ve told you before, doc. You just have to give them your undivided attention. The rest is easy. ” With that, he headed for the stairs, Kowalski trotting along behind.
    “And that’s only half of it, ” Betty said, blowing her nose.
    “What’s the other half?”
    “I think Michael is cured!”
    “Cured? Cmon, Betty, you know it doesn’t work that way. “
    “I know it doesn’t. But I think this time it did. “
    “What did prot say to him?”
    “Well, you know Michael has always held himself responsible for the death of anyone he has ever had any direct contact with?”
    “Yes. “
    “Prot found a way out for him. “
    “A way out? What way out?”
    “He suggested that Michael become an EMS technician. “
    “Huh? How would that solve his problem?”
    “Don’t you see? He can make up for any deaths he has caused by saving other people’s lives. He neutralizes his mistakes, so to speak, one at a time. It’s perfectly logical. At least it is to Michael. And prot. “
    “Is Mike in his room now? I’d like to see him for a minute. “
    “I sent him to the library with Ozzie in Security. He couldn’t wait to get hold of a manual on emergency medical procedures. You’ll see. He’s a totally different person!”
    A great many thoughts raced around my head as I stared out the window of the train to Connecticut. I was thrilled that prot had apparently been able to do something for Michael that I, in several months of therapy, had not. And his interaction with the autists was something I would never forget. (Before leaving my office I called Villers, Jerry’s staff physician, and told him as calmly as I could manage what had happened. His only comment was an unemotional “Zat is so?”)
    As I gazed at the houses and lawns flying by I wondered whether psychoanalysis had somehow gotten on the wrong track. Why couldn’t we see things as clearly as prot seemed to be able to? Was there some simple shortcut to a person’s psyche if we only knew how to find it? A way to peel back the layers of the soul and put our hands on its core, to massage it like a stopped heart and get it going again?
    I recalled Rob’s telling me about his nights in the backyard with his binoculars, his father’s arm around his shoulder, both of them gazing into the heavens, the dog sniffing around the fence. If I tried hard enough could I become a part of that scene, feel what he must have felt?
    I blamed my father for my loneliness as a child. As our town’s only doctor, he commanded a great deal of respect, and this aura seemed to transfer to me as well. The other boys treated me as if I were somehow different, and I had a hard time making friends even though I desperately wanted to be one of them. As a result I became somewhat introverted, a characteristic I retain to this day, unfortunately. If it hadn’t been for Karen living right next door I might have ended up a basket case.
    I frankly envied Rob his relationship with his father and with his dog. I, too, wanted a dog. My father wouldn’t hear of it. He didn’t like dogs. I think he may